Centuries before Turing’s question “Can machines think?”, philosophical postulation of machine intelligence included processing knowledge (Diderot: “If they find a parrot who could answer to everything, I would claim it to be an intelligent being without hesitation”) or holding mode of consciousness and the same reasoning faculties as humans (Descartes: “I think therefore I am”).
The term “Artificial Intelligence” (AI) was actually coined in 1956, by John McCarthy at the Dartmouth Conference, widely recognized as the first AI conference.
In the decades since, AI languished in the innovations race, but is now finally catching up. From facial recognition to chat bots to driverless cars, it is a key player in today’s digital world. But this journey to “make machines intelligent” is not without controversies. Examples are: Tesla Motors’ 2016 self-driving fatality and the recent Uber autonomous car which killed a pedestrian, or Google’s Project Maven to identify military targets from video footage. These incidents shifted the discussion in “AI Ethics” from a pure philosophical contemplation to one of indisputable relevance.
In Asia, the growing importance of “AI Ethics” can be seen from the survey results released by EmTech Asia (MIT Technology Review Asia’s AI agenda report) and at Accenture’s Ethical AI Media Roundtable…Click here to read full article.
