Artificial superintelligence may derail TN50
IN response to Datuk Wilfred Madius Tangau, the Minister of Science, Technology and Innovation, who suggests that “It is timely for Malaysians to start thinking and discussing what we desire to see in 2050,” I would like to express my own concern over the prospects of the muchdiscussed Transformasi Nasional 2050 (TN50).
Unless the process towards transforming the nation (under TN50) to the next 30 years is flexible enough to attune itself to fast-changing technological environment, it will be derailed and miss its target.
The planners of TN50, of course, have not been blind to the dangers. Emphasizing the need for agility in government as a key to TN50, Madius writes, among others, that “The dynamic business and engineering processes could accommodate last-minute changes and disruption in the production; the end-to-end transparency in the manufacturing process would optimise decision-making.”
In a speech last November, he said, “The government is now critically looking to expand the people’s awareness, skill set and knowledge in order for us to achieve the TN50.
“Our scientists have played an active role in the international community, and what we need more now is to expand our studies on the energy, climate change and medicine area.”
There has been a series of talks to expound on TN50 throughout the country, but most listeners, especially those who are not infosavvy - even among the educated Gen-Ys - dissemination may have had minimal impact especially in the matter of clearly visualizing the future in the 33-year period awaiting us.
The people Sabah, including the intellectual milieu, have very little awareness of developments brewing within the technological arena.
Even with availability of realtime information, most educated Sabahans have scant knowledge about the latest gadgets which are already in existence, such holographic videos, AI-enabled self-thinking robots, virtual reality, flying cars, petrol-free cars, cryptocurrencies, long-distant surgeries, 3-D printing, cloud data mining, and so forth.
And general knowledge is even less about the plethora of emerging technologies which will enable us to go for space tourism (with reusable aerospace vehicles and space elevators), autonomous flying machines, genetic engineering, brain uploading, augmented reality, hybrid wireless technologies, claytronics, four-dimensional printing, molecular assembler (universal replicator as prophesied by Arthur C. Clarke to emerge by 2040), bioplastic, conductive polymer, graphene, and so on.
We can posit with much fear that artificial superintelligence (ASI) will cause disarray in the TN50, even in the next 10 years, let alone in the next 34 years.
Prof. Tan Sri Dzulkifli Abdul Razak, Chairman of USIM’s Board of Directors, wrote in an article last April that, “Some may want to ask about the point of singularity hypothesising that the invention of artificial superintelligence will abruptly trigger runaway technological growth, resulting in unfathomable changes to human civilisation, if not humanity itself.”
The “point of singularity” Dzulkifli speaks of is the point in time when robots become selfsufficient and able to make their own decisions.
But the acute problems for Sabahans, and many in the third world countries, will start emerging long before such singularity. How will we control illegal border crossings when flying cars are in abundance?
In the true-story American Made movie, Tom Cruise’s character transported drug with small planes flown from South America.
On the next few years the use of robots to replace human workers will accelerate, causing havoc in the socioeconomic makeup of societies.
In 33 years the population of Sabah will exceed 10 million; how will the indigenous peoples of Sabah then compete with immigrants? How would we direct traffic when flying cars start criss-crossing among the skyscrapers of Kota Kinabalu, say in 2027?
Even now, the emergence of selfdriving cars raise questions of who to blame in cases of road accidents.
How will we govern Sabah when superintelligent computers can hack into government data bases?
If students by then can easily hack into the Education Ministry’s computers and see forthcoming test questions, what is the point of having examinations? These and a myriad of other questions can be asked - and there are no easy answers as yet.
Malaysian socioeconomic and technology management planners are so far behind what’s happening in the developed world that we face the danger of a remaining forever backward playing the catch-up game.
A New Straits Times article last October stated bluntly that, “Universities still grappling with creating entrepreneurs sound terribly anachronistic when the likes of Elon Musk is testing the latest generation of rockets into space, already leaving behind electric, driverless cars to take care of itself [sic]. If the mindset of those in charge [is] still revolving around the advances of the turn of the century, then TN50 will again be playing the catch-up game. Policymakers cannot think of information and communications technology as a frontier. Anyone still perceiving it as a challenge is caught in a time warp.” If most Malaysian leaders continue to lag behind the progressive visions of Madius, the country will remain as a catch-up player.
By the current trend, innovations and inventions will continue to come from the West, as well as the Pacific-rim dragons such as Japan, Taiwan, China and Korea. Malaysia cannot be a transformer when it itself remains in the process of being continually transformed by imported technologies.
On the creation of NanoMalaysia Bhd, the Prime Minister had stated that “Nanotechnology development would be given priority and be made one of the resources of the country’s new economic model. Thus, it is important for Malaysia to not be left behind in the field of nanotechnology and we have decided to give it importance...” But there had been little publicity on what nanotech innovation NanoMalaysia achieved since its inception.
The other serious problem is the matter of the rich-poor gap currently widening in the country. New technologies will benefit the rich and the leading industrialists in Malaysia while those in the lowest rung of society, if neglected, will recede further into the backrooms of the economic system.
A vital area to be affected by ASI and open-source centres and realtime data mining via the net will be our educational system, which by the way is already obsolete.
What is the government doing to reboot the system, in line with TN50, in anticipation of even more challenges soon? Apparently, none possibly because it is too frightening to contemplate. The areas to be covered in this matter are wide and multifarious.
Books and schoolbags will be things of the past, teachers’roles and school sizes will be diminished, management of students’ morals and morale will need to quadruple, and examinations will need to be reformatted.
Education will no longer be solely to qualify for jobs but for preparation for competitive leadership in the students’ chosen fields. Most jobs will disappear with the advancement of robotics and obsolescence of various professions. TN50 may need to reboot its vision and mission soon, or be derailed ignominiously by ASI.