Prof Tshilidzi Marwala: SA must have a stake in developing AI TECHNOLOGY
THE VICE-CHANCELLOR AND PRINCIPAL OF UJ IS AN AI PROFESSOR AND DEPUTISES FOR PRESIDENT CYRIL RAMAPHOSA ON THE SOUTH AFRICAN PRESIDENTIAL COMMISSION ON THE FOURTH INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION (4IR). THIS IS THE SECOND IN A SERIES OF EIGHT ARTICLES UNPACKING THE RECOMMENDATIONS
in AI warfare. The second is ensuring equity by eliminating AI bias. The third is to ensure that humans understand how AI technology works. The fourth is to ensure that AI machines are reliable. The fifth is that humans can control AI to avoid unintended harm. The Pentagon report came just as Elon Musk, in a fire chat conversation with General John Thompson, remarked that the F-35 fighter jet is becoming obsolete because AI drones will be more potent. AI is proving to be such powerful technology that it is revolutionising all aspects of our lives. Here in Johannesburg, we have studied how it is changing the field of
that her husband’s or one of her paternal ancestor’s last name was Tikhonov. Why is Tikhonov such an essential name in AI? AI models are ill-posed. To understand ill-posed models requires us to understand well- posed problems. Well-posed problems have a solution, which is unique, whereas ill-posed problems do not have a unique solution. A unique solution means there is only one solution rather than multiple but confusing solutions. To make AI models have unique solutions, one has to regularise the AI models using the Tikhonov regularisation approach. Andrey Tikhonov was the larger-than- life Russian mathematician and geophysicist who invented the regularisation approach that makes unworkable AI models workable. Even though Andrey Tikhonov is not Katerina’s husband and her last name is adapted from her great- grandfather, the choice of her to head the AI Institute, although a coincidence of surname, is significant. She is a rocket scientist with an impressive doctorate in analytical mechanics. Pope Francis, IBM and Microsoft have joined hands to develop ethics for AI. Pope Francis, with 1.3 billion Catholic followers, is realising that AI, with its significant effect on all aspects of society, might require “divine intervention”. In the Pentagon, the military wing of the United States government unveiled the five “ethical principles” for AI in warfare. We might differ on whether any form of war can be principled. The first principle the Pentagon proposed is the responsibility of human judgment
finance and economics. AI is fundamentally changing the
OF THE PRESIDENTIAL COMMISSION ON THE FOURTH INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION.
principles of self-interest, nudging people to act sometimes against their best interests. AI can understand interstate conflict and can make recommendations for peacekeeping. It is changing the medical field, and recently, researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology used AI to discover a new type of antibiotic. In China, the company Alibaba successfully developed an AI program that can diagnose Coronavirus with an accuracy of 96%. There are no aspects of our lives that will remain untouched by AI. The ubiquitous nature of AI requires us as South Africa to put into place mechanisms that will allow us to have a stake in this developing technology. Following from the State of the Nation Address debate, where the Presidential Commission on
In February, the daughter of the president of Russia, Vladimir Putin, Katerina Tikhonova, was appointed to head the Artificial Intelligence (AI) Institute located at Moscow State University. The university has produced 13 Nobel prizes, six Fields Medals and one Turing Award, so in matters of science, putting the AI Institute there is a big deal. In Russia, if a husband’s last name is, for instance, Komlev, the wife’s surname becomes Komleva. Thinking algorithmically, you add an “a” at the end of the husband’s or the father’s last name to get the wife’s or the daughter’s last name. Therefore, Katerina’s surname is Tikhonova, which means
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