“ There is nothing any more magical or morally questionable about AI that there was about the introduction of the Jacquard loom ”
— John Yardley , CEO , Threads Software
For now , the answer is ‘ no ’. As Prof Paul Clough , head of data science at Peak Indicators , points out , “ most AI is relatively shallow in its ability to capture and exhibit human intelligence ”.
John Yardley , CEO of Threads Software , takes a similar line . He says , “ There is nothing any more magical or morally questionable about AI that there was about the introduction of the Jacquard loom in 1804 . Both are / were intended to replace humans and save money . The only difference is that , according to Alan Turing ’ s original definition , for a machine ’ s behaviour to be classed as intelligent , it has to be able to fool another human .
“ Other than that , it is just another bit of software . If the humans that write that software want it to act like a human , they have the choice of emulating the human brain ( eg neural networks ) or emulating human behaviour . Programmers generally do not make moral judgements . They simply enjoy creating algorithms and let someone else decide how to commercialise them .”
Yet it is the method of employment that has stirred most controversy . Human input into machines learning algorithms carries with it human bias , leading to AI which entrenches often unseen or unconscious cultural leanings .
53 aimagazine . com