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China should take active role in robotics
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WHEN human wisdom is put to the test against artificial intelligence and found lacking, many interpret the situation in apocalyptic terms.
That’s what we’ve been seeing ever since AlphaGo, a Google-powered computer program, scored a series of victories over South Korean Go master Lee Sedol.
Many a media outlet ran stories under such sensational headlines as “Does the news (of Lee’s defeat) signal a coming era of robot dominance over man?” and “What if AlphaGo were used by evil forces against us?”
Amid the latest round of scare mongering, many professional Go players (mostly Chinese, who are perhaps upset that they were not invited to take on AlphaGo themselves) have been debating about where their South Korean counterpart went wrong.
Since I know next to nothing about Go, I’ll refrain from kibitzing about Lee’s tactics.
My real interest in the recent AlphaGo-Lee face-off lies in its parallels with the similarly astonishing 1996 and 1997 duels between chess master Garry Kasparov and DeepBlue, the chess-playing computer developed by IBM. The duels ended in a face-saving tie as Kasparov chalked up a win and a loss.
Back then, IT experts predicted that it would be at least another century before a computer could beat a human opponent at Go. But, as it turned out, a mere 19 years was enough.
I’m less dumbfounded though at Lee’s loss to AlphaGo. The reasons are straightforward: In the last two decades, the data-processing capacity of computers and other elements of AI have improved at a phenomenal speed, whereas human intelligence remains more or less the same.
Many are slow to come to terms with the long, long way AI has come between the Deepblue shock and the AlphaGo moment.
Skeptics of AI often reassure us by repeating the same old rhetoric: that no matter how amazingly “smart” they are, all computer programs are designed by people and thus perform tasks they are programmed to. Machines don’t “think” like people. Nor will they deviate from human commands.
Among those casting doubt though on these comforting words is AI guru Martin Ford. As a leading expert on robots, a Silicon Valley entrepreneur and the author of the 2015 book “Rise of the Robots,” Ford believes that over the next 10 to 20 years, automation in the form of robots, smart software and machine learning is going to invade all aspects of human life.
“It’s going to start impacting jobs at all skill levels. It’s not just going to be about low-wage people who don’t have lots of education. It’s really starting to impact also professional jobs,” he was quoted as saying in a March 2 interview with Knowledge@Wharton, a publication affiliated with Wharton School.
If Ford is to be believed, then in the future scenarios involving humans competing with robots, or perhaps rebelling against machine oppression, might not exist only in science fiction.
Boon to factory owners
Hyperbole aside, a healthy dose of worry and circumspection can’t hurt.
Proponents of robotics often say that unlike humans, machines make few mistakes, they don’t tire of monotonous work and they don’t slack off. Such attributes make them an ideal alternative to us fickle humans, who as a species can all too easily succumb to error, boredom and fatigue.
This may be a boon to factory owners in Chinese manufacturing hubs like Dongguan that suffer from periodic shortages of labor, and where there is a surging demand for affordable robots to replace unskilled, uncommitted and “unreliable” labor.
Policymakers, however, are left in a predicament. Like leading AI powerhouses such as the US, Japan and Germany, China is a big patron of its nascent robotic industry. But few countries will perhaps experience the consequences of their support of AI on as large a scale as China. After all, its migrants will likely be the first to bear the brunt of an AI onslaught. This is why neo-Luddites want to see the robot technology champions cut down to size. In today’s fast-changing environment, it makes no sense to either glorify or dismiss AI. Instead, a more relevant question that AlphaGo provoked is: why are these sophisticated robots made only in the West?
In a recent interview with Shanghai Daily, Cao Qixin, a professor and AI expert at Shanghai Jiao Tong University, explained that China can rival other countries in the number of robots produced every year, yet not in quality. Its domestic market for high-end robots is up for grabs by companies like Yaskawa, Fanuc and ABB.
China’s indigenous robots have yet to overcome core technical deficiencies in chips, sensors and decelerators. The breakthroughs are long in coming.
Showing me around what is supposedly a visionary unmanned factory floor consisting only of robots, Cao pointed to a modest-looking robot bought 10 years ago and lamented that such a machine is still beyond the capacity of Chinese companies.
I’m hopeful that one day, robots from China will be able to perform feats once thought impossible. Right now, instead of worrying about our possible enslavement by robots, it’s perhaps more inspiring to wait for China’s own AlphaGo moment.
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