How should a robot explore the Moon? A simple question shows the limits of current AI systems

• At the heart of their concern is the idea AI might become so powerful we lose control of it.
• Ultimately, AI systems should help humans make better, more accurate decisions.
• And they create incentives to collect huge amounts of data and may encourage a lax attitude to privacy, legal and ethical questions and risks.

Cause, effect and confidence

• Consequently, they are great at interpolating – that is, predicting or filling in the gaps between known values.
• It does not generate knowledge, nor the insights necessary for decision-makers operating in complex environments.
• As a result, they encourage organisations to assemble enormous repositories of data – or trawl through existing datasets collected for other purposes.

From big data to useful information

• Instead, they need useful information.
• The usefulness of the information depends on the question at hand, the decisions we face, and the value we attach to the consequences of those decisions.
• To paraphrase the US statistician and writer Nate Silver, the amount of truth is approximately constant irrespective of the volume of data we collect.

A robot on the Moon

• The degree of confidence is as important as the belief, because it is a measure of what the robot doesn’t know.
• The robot lands and faces a decision: which way should it go?
• The robot goes to its new location, records observations using its sensors, and updates its belief and associated confidence.

Mapping unknown landscapes

• Their jobs involve exploring and mapping unknown social or economic landscapes.
• Suppose we wish to develop policies to encourage all children to thrive at school and finish high school.
• We need a conceptual map of which actions, at what time, and under what conditions, will help to achieve these goals.

Learning as we go

• As new information comes to hand, new actions are chosen to maximise some pre-specified criteria.
• Where AI can be useful is in identifying what information is most valuable, via algorithms that quantify what we don’t know.
• Automated systems can also gather and store that information at a rate and in places where it may be difficult for humans.
• We do need to reform our laws and create new rules to guide the use of potentially dangerous AI systems.