Rule of the robot

Will the next Prime Minister of India be a robot? A Bharatiya Janata Party robot or a Congress robot, it is entirely likely that a few decades from now, the country’s most important political position may be occupied by a machine. When for so long the cult of personality and party affiliations has dominated government, many argue that artificial intelligence would serve India better than the current crop of bureaucrats and politicians. Their erratic behaviour and impulsive decision making may be best replaced by machines – machines that analyse relevant data thoroughly, weigh the odds, and then come up with the best solution.

Without our knowing it, ‘artificial intelligence’ has sprung up around us, performing tasks we humans are incapable of. Economists in the West are closely watching and anticipating the future outcomes of artificial intelligence on ordinary life. Will it cause large scale disruptive unemployment, or open up opportunities in new types of scientific exploration. A survey by Bank of America estimates that in the U.S., artificial intelligence could impact daily life 300 times more than the Industrial Revolution did. The biggest fear relates to what scientists call deep intelligence — a hitherto new phenomenon where computers can be self-programmed to perform emotional tasks. Its recent outcome in Japan is a domestic robot that absorbs home attitudes, smiles and bows when it greets the owner, even intervenes in household exchange.

If this evolving super intelligence will pose a threat to the static human brain only the future will tell, but in India, its prospect is harder to predict. Currently the most widely used avenue for computer data analysis — the most basic form of artificial intelligence — is to find endless statistical correlations in sport. The automated third umpire in a cricket match has the final say in an important decision that cannot be made by two umpires. Will it soon replace the two men standing in the field? A line judge in tennis is overruled by a multidimensional camera that works better than the human eye. Will there soon come a time when a Supreme Court decision will be overruled by a machine better equipped to make constitutional interpretations? Will the future replacement of the Reserve Bank head by an artificially intelligent governor allow currency devaluations to take place automatically, along with timely interest rate hikes?

In other areas, automation has already taken over. Recently in Singapore, we ordered a driverless cab service. The car arrived bang on time. As the door locks sprung open, the GPS display welcomed us in, and gave directions to the car to proceed. Speeding, slowing and braking when required, it deposited us directly opposite our address. The exact fare — and no tip — was deducted from the credit card. The whole trip went according to script: there was no unnecessary chatter with the driver, no need for directions. After a ‘Have a nice day’ from the GPS, we watched the driverless car speed away to its next customer.

Obviously, the point of developing ‘artificial intelligence’ in India would not be for millions of auto and taxi drivers to lose their jobs. Nor would it make sense as a replacement for ordinary intellect. But after my experience of India’s first ‘intelligent’ building outside Delhi, I was not so sure. Built of Italian marble and French glass, with Canadian technology and South Korean supervision, and six times more expensive than the buildings around, the structure used every technology possible to replace humans — electronic control entry, floor-activated elevators, and expensive micro-louvers to shade the glass. All without the expenditure of any human energy, the building representative proudly emphasised. I could hardly point to him all the human energy floating about outside, the thousands of underpaid labourers who had helped erect the building and were now desperate for work.

We seem so awestruck by technology, that its real purpose often gets overlooked. When robots become the hands of a doctor and help in delicate microsurgery, or scrape the soil off the Mars surface, they are addressing humanly impossible endeavours. In India, robots are already being used in medicine, the auto industry, and the military. The Indian Institute of Science is also using underwater robots in the Bay of Bengal to measure currents and salinity to arrive at rainfall predictions for the next monsoon.

But the real research into artificial intelligence is about the quest for miracles in untested arenas. To merely use artificial intelligence for what it was intended is to not exploit its full potential. With capabilities beyond the human brain, where it is truly needed is in solving India’s intractable social and political problems: in conflict resolution, in communal violence, and to give coherence to the changing urban order — areas where human intelligence has indeed been sorely lacking.-hindu.com