AI for Good Archives

AIT Podcast – Episode 1: Faith, AI and the Climate Crisis

Who doesn’t like to listen to podcasts? Listeners are growing by the day in the major platforms (Spotify, Google, Apple Play). But is there QUALITY content?

AI Theology presents to you a new podcast. Elias Kruger and Maggie Bender discuss the intersection between theology and technology in the budding world of AI and other emerging technologies. They bring the best from academy, industry and church together in a lively conversation. Join us and expand your mind with topics like ai ethics, ai for good, guest interviews and much more.

Here is episode 1: Faith, AI and the Climate Crisis

Elias Kruger and Maggie Bender discuss how AI and faith can help address in the climate crisis. We dive into some controversy here and how religion has not always been an ally in the battle for conservation. Yet, what are the opportunities for AI and faith to join forces in this daunting challenges. The conversation covers creation, worship, algorithms, optimization and recent efforts to save the Amazon.

After listening, don’t forget to hare wih friends and give us your feedback. Also don’t forget to rate the episodes on the podcast platforms.

What do you want to hear about next?

AI for Good in the Majority World: Data Science Nigeria

Data Science Nigeria has an ambitious goal: to train 1 million Nigerian data scientists by the end of the decade. Yet, it does not end there, the non-profit aims to make the largest African nation a leading player in the growing global AI industry. Hence, DSN is a shining example of the growing trend of AI for good in the majority world.

AI holds great potential to solve intractable socioeconomic problems. It is not a silver-bullet solution, but a great enabler to speed up, optimize, and greatly improve decision making. Hence, it is not surprising to see the burgeoning AI for good trend emerging in the majority of the world. Yet, what makes DSN stand apart is that it goes a step further. It seeks not only to solve social problems but also to create economic opportunity that would not exist otherwise.

It is this abundance mentality that will best align AI with the flourishing of life.

Re-framing Who Are AI’s Customers

I learned about DSN while attending Pew Research recent webinar on AI ethics. One of its panelist was Dr. Uyi Stewart, DSN board member and IBM distinguished engineer, whose perspective stood out. While others discussed AI ethics in abstract terms, he proposed that AI should be about solving problems for 75% of the world population. That is, AI is not limited to solving complex business problems for the world’s largest corporations. Instead, it can and should be part of the daily life of those living in remote villages and cramped urban centers in the Southern Hemisphere.

Photo by Nqobile Vundla on Unsplash

How so? He went further to provide an example. The world’s poor today face life-and-death choice around the scarcity of resources. The farmers must contend with the fluctuations of a warming climate. The urban dweller, must make key decisions with very limited financial resources. Most of them already own a phone. Hence, he believes industry should develop decision support solutions through their devices so they can make better choices. These are not ways to optimize profit but can represent the difference between life and death for some.

Where most see a social problem, Dr. Stewart envisions a potent market opportunity.

From Scarcity to Abundance

Our economic system is mostly based on the concept of scarcity. That is, the idea that resources are finite and therefore must be allocated efficiently. It is scarcity mentality that drives the market to increase prices for commodities even when they are abundant. Moreover, companies and government may limit production of a product simply to simulate this effect and therefore achieve higher profit margins.

The digital economy has turned the concept of scarcity on its head. When knowledge is digitized and storage is cheap, we move from finite resources to limitless solutions. Even so, one must first optimize these solutions which is why AI becomes crucial in the digital economy. The promise of AI for good in the majority world is unleashing this wealth of opportunity in places where physical resources are scarce. DSN is leading the way by empowering young Nigerians to become data scientists. With this knowledge, they can unlock hidden opportunities in the communities they live.

By investing in the Nigerian youth, this organization is tapping into the majority world’s greatest resource. This is what AI for good is all about: technology for the flourishing of humanity in places of scarcity.

Green Tech: How Scientists are Using AI to Fight Deforestation

In the previous blog, I talked about upcoming changes to US AI policy with a new administration. Part of that change is a renewed focus on harnessing this technology for sustainability. Here I will showcase an example of green tech – how machine learning models are helping researchers detect illegal logging and burning in the vast Amazon rainforest. This is an exciting development and one more example of how AI can work for good.

The problem

Imagining trying to patrol an area nearly the size of the lower 48 states of dense rainforest! It is as the proverbial saying goes: finding needle in a haystack. The only way to to catch illegal activity is to find ways to narrow the surveilling area. Doing so gives you the best chances to use your limited resources of law enforcement wisely. Yet, how can that be done?

How do illegal logging and burning happen in the Amazon? Are there any patterns that could help narrow the search? Fortunately, there is. A common trait for them is happening near a road. In fact, 95% of them occur within 6 miles from a road or a river. These activities require equipment that must be transported through dense jungle. For logging, lumber must be transported so it can be traded. The only way to do that is either through waterways or dirt roads. Hence, tracking and locating illegal roads go along way to honing in areas of possible illegal activity.

While authorities had records for the government-built roads, no one knew the extent of the illegal network of roads in the Amazon. To attack the problem, enforcing agencies needed richer maps that could spot this unofficial web. Only then could they start to focus resources around these roads. Voila, there you have, green tech working for preserving rather than destroying the environment.

An Ingenious solution

In order to solve this problem, Scientist from Imazon (Amazon’s Institute of Humans and the Environment) went to work in a search for ways to detect these roads. Fortunately, by carefully studying satellite imagery they could manually trace these additional roads. In 2016 they completed this initial heroic but rather tedious work. The new estimate was now 13 times the size of the original! Now they had something to work with.

Once the initial tracing was complete, it became clear updating it manually would be an impossible task. These roads could spring up overnight as loggers and ranchers worked to evade monitoring. That is when they turned to computer vision to see if it could detect new roads. The initial manual work became the training dataset that taught the algorithm how to detect these roads from the satellite images. In supervised learning, one must first have a collection of data that shows the actual target (labels) to the algorithm (i.e: an algorithm to recognize cats must first be fed with millions of Youtube videos of cats to work).

The result was impressive. At first, the model achieved 70% accuracy and with some additional processing on top, it increased to 90%. The research team presented their results in the latest meeting of the American Geophysical Union. They also plan to share their model with neighboring countries so they can use it for their enforcement of the Amazon in areas outside Brazil.

Reflection

Algorithms can be effective allies in the fight for preserving the environment. As the example of Imazon shows, it takes some ingenuity, hard work, and planning to make that happen. While a lot of discussions around AI quickly devolve into cliches of “machines replacing humans”, this example shows how it can augment human problem-solving abilities. It took a person to connect the dots between the potential of AI for solving a particular problem. Indeed the real future of AI may be in green tech.

In this blog and in our FB community we seek to challenge, question and re-imagine how technologies like AI can empower human flourishing. Yet, this is not limited to humans but to the whole ecosystem we inhabit. If algorithms are to fulfill their promise, then they must be relevant in sustainability.

How is your work making life more sustainable on this planet?

What Would Open AI Look Like?

In a previous blog I talked about how big government and big business were racing to get a piece of the AI revolution. In this blog, I want to explore the parallel grass-roots movement of open AI and its possibilities.

Open-Source Movement: The Democratization of Technology

There was a time in which to compete with technology required a hefty upfront investment. This is no longer the case. For one, consumers and businesses have now the ability to buy hardware as a service which greatly diminishes initial costs. Along with that, most expensive softwares have now an open-source version available for free. So today, open source solutions and hardware services like the cloud allows for even small players to compete alongside Fortune 500 companies.

I can speak from experience. When I entered the field of data science eight years ago, I remember wondering what would it take for me to do the things I did in my corporate job at home. First, I would have to purchase a server to get computing power. Then I would have to buy very expensive software to run the algorithms. At that point, open-source options were emerging in academic circles but service like the cloud did not exist. Today, the scenario could not be different. I can now perform the same tasks by downloading open-source software to my laptop and if necessary rent some space in the cloud for more computing power. Needless to say, the environment is ripe for start-ups to flourish as the barriers of entry are low. The main barrier of entry now is not technology but humans with the know-how to run these widely available tools.

This democratization trend is not limited to technology-related fields but is disrupting other industries like web development, education and the non-profit sector. Web development can now be accomplished through open-source web services like “WordPress” (which I use for this blog). Large Universities are offering online open courses to students all-over the world promising the same level of quality of their on-campus classes. Social entrepreneurs can now raise funds through crowdsourcing, greatly expanding their donor base. The “open” phenomenon is obliterating set up costs empowering individuals and small organizations to do more with less.

What About Open AI?

Because the barriers of entry are low for data science, I don’t see why we should not see a vigorous grass-roots movement to democratize AI. The hardware and software is available and affordable. The biggest challenge is one of skills and know-how. The skills required for running and understanding AI algorithms are very scarce at the moment. Only a small group of professionals and academics have experience working with the advanced algorithms needed to develop AI applications.

Yet, even this current bottleneck is not bound to last long. Numerous coding schools start-ups are offering data science camps enabling data veterans and even new entrants to learn how these algorithms work. Moreover, soon enough entrepreneurs will develop solutions that enable AI development without having to code. Of course, AI is not limited just to machine learning but encompasses robotics and engineering among other technical fields. While I cannot speak from experience in these areas, the rise in high-school robotics competitions and engineering camps for kids tells me that efforts already exist to democratize these skills as well.

Clearly the seeds are in place for an open AI movement to flourish. It is in this context that I plan to invest my time and creative energies in the next few years. As I mentioned in the previous blog, preparing the next generation for an AI future is not about training them for jobs but empowering with tools that can harness their creativity. What would happen if at-risk children today could have a place to learn and “do” AI? What if the unemployed and young adults could become part of learning communities that are experimenting with the latest machine learning technologies?

What kind of problems would they solve and what kind of world would they build?

Kasparov, Wall-E and AI Hope

The first man to be beaten by a machine is now optimistic about AI.

Gary Kasparov, Russian chess champion, also holds the title of being the first human beaten by a machine. The momentous occasion happened in 1997. He reportedly did not react well to his defeat, once accusing IBM of cheating by using a humans to improve the computer’s gaming strategy. He would later become one of the first voices to warn about the danger of AI. So, it is with great surprise that I read last week his turn-of-heart article where he encourage readers to embrace the AI revolution.

He is describing what I talked about in the blog about augmentation – machines taking over menial tasks leaving us free to pursue occupations that require creativity. That is, since machines are well suited for performing repetitive endeavors with precision, humans are then free to create new products, improve on existing systems and care for each other.

Wall-E: the adorable truth-speaking robot

On Saturday, for our family movie night, we sat down to watch Wall-E. I was excited about the choice and the break from the usual tales of fair princesses. Indeed, I had forgotten how much I enjoyed this animated movie. The robot characters and their romance are as endearing as it could get. It is funny, adorable and in some ways prophetic. Sophia, my seven year-old, turned to me at the end of the movie to inform me that the movie teaches a lesson on how to care of our earth. Even kids get it!

If you have not watched it, please do so in the next few days. Without giving much of the story away, the movie paints a bleak future of an Earth abandoned and trashed. The only remaining survivors are a cute clean-up robot called Wall-E and his companion cockroach. He toils away day after day compacting and piling up trash. Yet, in his spare time he watches old musicals in an old TV set. His world changes when EVE, an adorable female robot, arrives on earth in search for life.

The movie centers on their budding relationship in which humans play only a secondary part. In the movie, people live in a cruise-like spaceship designed by a large multi-national corporation to keep them in space until the clean up effort on Earth was complete. Except, the clean up effort failed and humanity was stuck in this ship where robots catered to all their needs. So much so, that most did not even walk developing morbidly obese bodies. Sounds eerily familiar? Well, it should.

Now what these two stories have in common?

I see the Wall-E modern parable as a cautionary tale of a Kasparov’s vision going terribly wrong. By replacing all labor with robots , humans would be doomed to entertain themselves to death. It raises questions about the recent discussions on technology replacing human employment with basic guaranteed income. The irony of the movie was that while the robots were there to serve humans, humans had actually become enslaved to the machines.

They had built the the perfect convenient life that they lost themselves in the machines meant to make their lives better.

They never pursued the higher endeavors of creativity, art and building new worlds. Their desire atrophied, their vision darkened and their lives became a meaningless distraction from the real work waiting for them on earth.

What then is AI hope?

Kasparov’s point is still well-taken, as long as we balance it with the lessons from Wall-E. Technology created to set us free had many times enslaved to addictive entertainment. I see that in the growing popularity of video games which now is not confined to children anymore but has become a serious hobby for adults.

The future of augmentation, must be built around a telos that goes beyond the perpetual pursuit for novelty. Motherboard released an article titled “people don’t want to leave AI up to corporations“. Raising the question is a good start. Left to their own devices, corporations will continue to feed us with perpetual dreams of novelty. While progress will occur, and quality of life will improve, resources will be channeled to what is profitable not what is good.

AI hope starts by broadening the conversation. It must begin by extending the table and welcoming new stakeholders to the conversation. The purpose of human flourishing must be a guiding principle.

In a micro level, this means expanding the digital opportunities of employment to those usually shut out of them. It starts with movements to teach STEM skills in schools and homes. It begins by de-mystifying computer work from being specialized for the “geeks” to being everybody’s work, especially girls and minorities.

Towards that end, it is encouraging to see companies like Facebook and Apple offering coding camps and other resources that democratize IT knowledge. Yet, the vision of benevolent augmentation, where humanity is free from toil and directed towards creativity, will not come through technologies or even tech companies. It will come by the collective work of multiple stakeholders steering the development of technology towards equal opportunity. In short, it must be primarily concerned with human flourishing.

How can you make your voice heard in the AI conversation? How can you influence the development of technology towards human flourishing? I would love to hear your thoughts.

Tag: AI for Good