I Sing the Body Electric
University Club Speaker examines A. I. (Artificial Intelligence)
STORY AND PHOTO
BY STEPHEN VRATTOS
The 1962 episode of The
Twilight Zone, whence the
article’s title draws its inspiration,
postulated a near future
where technology has progressed to
the point of creating robots indistinguishable
from humans. In narrator
Rod Serling’s characteristic coda to
the episode—one of the few not to
end with a mention of the show’s
title—he leaves the following question
for his viewers to ponder: “…
But who’s to say at some distant
moment there might be an assembly
line, producing a gentle product in
the form of a grandmother whose
stock in trade is love?”
More than fifty years later,
despite mind-boggling leaps in
technology, “love” remains one
of the few remaining differences
between mankind and “Artificial
Intelligence,” the subject of a fascinating
University Club lecture given
by Judy Paris Thursday evening,
February 22. As noted by Club
President Shirley Wershba, during
her introduction, Paris, who moved
into North Shore Towers a couple
of years ago with her husband,
David, could have been an inaugural
member of the club’s fledgling
incarnation, the CUNY Club, had
she only made NST her home only
a few years earlier.
As a graduate of Hunter College,
Paris received her BA and Masters
in Nursing, serving her residency
and subsequently teaching the subject.
But she never lost her sense
of wonder and continues teaching
herself in any areas which captured
her curiosity. “I’m a perpetual learner,
like all of us in the room” Paris
confessed to the packed assemblage
of fellow collegians. “I kept seeing
and hearing things that I didn’t
know about.”
And one of those “things” was
Artificial Intelligence, more simply
referred to as “A.I.”
The concept of A.I. or robotics
is rooted in myths and legends.
Within the pages of Homer’s “The
Iliad,” the deformed god of metalwork,
Hephaestus, was said to
have created mechanical servants
for the gods, fire-breathing bronze
bulls and the giant bronze statue
Talus, bestowed to King Minos to
guard the island of Crete. Norse
mythology tells of a clay behemoth,
named Mistcalf, created to assist
the troll, Hrungnir, in a duel with
Thor. Then, there is the Jewish folk
tales of the Golem.
As for its application in the real
world, rudimentary use of A.I. can
be traced to mechanical calculating
machines of the 17th Century and
the following century saw a profusion
of mechanical toys. But it
wasn’t until the 19th Century, with
the advent of the first programmable
machines, that the word “Robot” is
first introduced in the 1920 science
fiction play, “R.U.R.” (“Rossumovi
Univerzální Roboti” or “Rossum’s
Universal Robots”), by Czech writer
Karel Čapek.
In 1936, famed mathematician
Alan Turing, recognized as the
man who broke the Nazis’ Enigma
Code during World War II, theorized
that a machine, by shuffling
symbols as simple as “0” and “1,”
could simulate any conceivable
act of mathematical deduction, in
other words “reason.” By 1950,
Turing had designed a method—
The Turing Test—to measure the
cognitive abilities of a machine,
its ability to “think,” a test still
used today. Shortly thereafter in
1956, MIT computer scientist
John McCarthy coined the term
“Artificial Intelligence.”
Astutely intermingled with photos
and videos, such tasty tidbits as
these, were sprinkled throughout
Paris’s presentation, enabling her
audience moments to savor, as well
as keeping the heady material from
becoming overwhelming. Did you
know data storage is doubling every
two years and is estimated to reach
44 zettabytes or 44 trillion gigabytes
by 2020? Or that research is underway
to develop a means of capturing
all the space junk—defunct satellites
and such—which are beginning
to clog the orbit of the Earth? Or
perhaps the current testing of a
purely robotic valet parking system
at Charles de Gaulle Airport has
escaped your attention? Paris’s citing
of these and many fascinating developments
in A.I. entertain the casual
observer and whet the appetites of
others to further learn on their own.
It would be foolhardy and
impossible for anyone to cover the
breadth of A.I. in a mere hour, but
Paris succeeds in giving a satisfying
overview of its history and the
questions surrounding the subject,
including the idea that technology
destroys job growth by replacing
humans with robots and other
forms of computerization. History
has shown and continues to belie
this belief, proving progress as a
promulgator of job growth, not its
antithesis. Cars may have signaled
the end of such equine-centric
positions as blacksmiths and carriage
makers, but it heralded the
world of auto mechanics, part
manufacturing, among many others.
Today’s advent of wind and
solar power supersedes the loss in
coal-related jobs by nearly 80%,
despite what some politicians may
say to the contrary.
As would be expected from
someone with a long career in
the health field, Paris notes the
incredible advances in medicine,
attributed to A.I. The “Watson”
computer system, which competed
and won on Jeopardy in 2011, has
led to an invaluable storage and
retrieval database for doctors and
hospitals, used to “mine” real-time
information from reports, journals,
news articles and countless other
sources, culling through billions of
pieces of data to provide possible
answers to even the most obtuse
medical queries almost instantly.
For a doctor or team of physicians
to attempt to emulate the same
research would take days, perhaps
weeks, never accessing the
breadth of data, Watson can provide
in seconds, time which could
mean the difference between life
and death. And this is merely one
facet of the leaps in medicine taking
place through A.I. technology from
genetics to radiology.
So what’s in store for the future…
the near future! According to
Paris, humankind is on the verge
of tremendous develops in A.I.
Surprisingly, the most brilliant
minds of today are uniformly negative
toward its full evolution. “I
think the development of full artificial
intelligence could spell the
end of the human race,” Stephen
Hawking said. It’s possible the
esteemed physicist’s reaction has
been subconsciously influenced by
the prevalent hostile portrayal of
robots throughout cinematic history,
from “The Day the Earth Stood Still”
to “Terminator.” After all, as Paris
noted, any tool has the potential to
be a boon or a bane, depending on
its usage. However, this “verge” of
which Paris spoke is estimated to
occur no sooner than 2050, by which
time it will be the next generation’s
problem to face. But then again,
with the rapid advancement in A.I.
medical technology, many of us just
may still be around.
Judy Paris talks A.I.
1939 World's Fair introduced the
world to Electro and Sparko
April 2018 ¢ NORTH SHORE TOWERS COURIER 39