Designing A.I.Week 1: IntroductionJanuary 25, 2017

David Youngdyoung@newschool.edu

https://courses.newschool.edu/courses/PSDS5330

- Introduction- This Semester- Homework

A little (of my) background…

1980s AI Boom Lisp Machines Expert Systems Boston’s Route 128AI Winter

But recently AI started having successes...

IBM’s Watson

Google DeepMind’s AlphaGo

Companies are restructuring around AI

No longer “The Uber of …”It’s “... with A.I.”

What changed?- Massive amounts of data- Cheap parallel processing- Machine learning / neural network techniques

A.I. is the collective term for technologies that include:Pattern recognitionNatural language processingImage recognitionHypothesis generation

Google’s frames this as:- Machine intelligence (thinking)- Natural language processing (listening)- Machine perception (seeing)

Statistics and Data AnalysisPattern RecognitionNeural Networks and Deep LearningLearning Clusters & Recommendation SystemsReinforcement Learning

Neural networks

Learning types:SupervisedUnsupervisedSemi-supervisedReinforcement

Deep Learning

Involving multiple layers of learning systems which are tasked with discovering increasingly abstract or “high-level” patterns. (This approach is often referred to as hierarchical feature learning.)

There are platforms available for use today...

And applications from the practical to the fantastical...

We’re at the start of a new era

Maybe even more radical?

Bank of America Merrill Lynch predicted that by 2025 the “annual creative disruption impact” from AI could amount to $14 trillion-33 trillion, including a $9 trillion reduction in employment costs thanks to AI-enabled automation of knowledge work; cost reductions of $8 trillion in manufacturing and health care; and $2 trillion in efficiency gains from the deployment of self-driving cars and drones.

The McKinsey Global Institute, a think-tank, says AI is contributing to a transformation of society “happening ten times faster and at 300 times the scale, or roughly 3,000 times the impact” of the Industrial Revolution.

A 2013 study at Oxford University found that 47% of jobs in America were at high risk of being “substituted by computer capital” soon

There’s a lot of hype.But things are moving fast.We need to engage now.

But with speed come problems… - Bias in learning data- Questionable learning techniques

Ethical / Privacy issues

Where do these problems come from? - Monoculture- Lack of diversity- Tech barriers

“We can bemoan or welcome the digital revolution, the coming of self-driving cars, social change or the mass movement of peoples, but we can’t stop any of it. What we can do is try to make these changes work for the betterment of our lives and our planet.”

“I am personally not worried about an AI apocalypse, as I consider that a completely made-up fear. I am concerned about the lack of diversity in the AI research community and in computer science more generally.”

Jeff Dean, Google Brain Project Lead

“What’s important is to find the people who want to use AI for good—communities and leaders—and figure out how to help them use it.”

“This year, Artificial Intelligence will become more than just a computer science problem. Everybody needs to understand how A.I. behaves.”

“I think we can do a lot better in making AI easier to understand for social scientists and other non-computer science folks.”

Joi Ito, MIT Media Lab

“For AI to be successful, its not just engineers and computers scientists talking to each other, it involves policy design, art, psychology, philosophy. There is something amazing about imaging that confluence of conversations.”

Genevieve Bell, IntelSpeaking at #AINow

There is progress…But we need more voices.

“Technical mastery should not be a requirement for participating in building our collective future.”

Outsiders have engaged before...

Embrace the newness and strangeness of it all.

Cultural imagination can inspire technology’s roadmap

We need to find new languages, metaphors, and intuitions.

We need new ways for non-technical stakeholders to engage.

This might be the only way we will be able to understand the technology.

- Introduction- This Semester- Homework

This is not about artificial general intelligences (AGI). And it is not about future fictions.

We're engaging with current and near-term A.I.

Focusing on Machine Learning

This is a workshop / studio.We're embracing our outsider perspectives.There are no answers (yet).

TechnologySurvey the current landscape of A.I. technologies and the surrounding questions of social bias.

SolutionsExplore how A.I. could be applied in service to the aspirations of an underserved, alternative, or creative community.

BridgingDevelop new strategies, methods and languages to facilitate the intuition and understanding of A.I. by non-technical stakeholders.

Our approach:

Technology (& Language Mapping)

“This year’s competition will focus on three underserved groups in New York City: Youth (13-18), Seniors (65+), and Immigrants.”

www.bigapps.nyc & www.civichalllabs.org

Solutions: Communities

Bridging

Start with human-centered design.But is it out of date? The human may no longer be the center.

What process should we use?

4D?Can be very slowNo chance to iterate

Agile?Hard to develop a visionCan be too rigid

Build Measure Learn?(Lean Startup)

This term…Two Sprints

Research

SynthesisIdeation

Design

“Learn"

Iterate

Technology SolutionsBridging

Learning

Language Needs & opportunities

Bridging & Methods Concept

Prototype & test

Technology SolutionsBridging

Learning

Language Needs & opportunities

Bridging & Methods Concept

Prototype & test

After mid-term, we examine and reflect. Second phase projects can focus on solution refinement, methodological tools for bridging, or technical roadmaps.

Groups

Pairs

Teams

This is a studio. Making is important.Prototyping not programming.

Embrace our collective diversity, perspectives, methods, and languages.

To learn from and inspire one another……..

Tools & Resources- Slack- Graph Commons- Google Drive- Medium https://medium.com/designing-ai-spring2017

www.designing.ai

#designingai

Designing A.I.