MSP44 Killer Code

Wipe your feet and mind your head as we enter a universe where mindless code decides whether we live or die. A dystopia on your doorstep? It’s time to Mattsplain.

Show Links:
https://medium.com/iotforall/the-difference-between-artificial-intelligence-machine-learning-and-deep-learning-3aa67bff5991

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/aug/29/coding-algorithms-frankenalgos-program-danger

Excerpt:
About three months ago, Kulturpop’s Matt Armitage claimed that we will soon be living in the Age of Amazon. A world ruled by mega-companies who control every facet of global trade and our economic activity. Has he had a change of heart? Has the algorithm running his thought process short-circuited? To find out, we’ll have to let him Mattsplain.

Now, we’re not actually in the studio together today.
•No. Your new studios have this really amazing facial recognition software.
•And they won’t let me in. I’ve had this problem for years, but for some reason facial recognition software identifies me as a basket of kittens.
•So, I’m recording my side of the show from kulturpop’s bunker inside a dormant volcano.

So, you’ve changed your mind about Amazon and the mega corporations?
•Would you be annoyed if I started yet another episode by saying yes and no?
•I think it’s too early to say that I’m wrong about Amazon, just as it’s too early to say that I’m right.
•What I’d like to do today is introduce new variables into the argument, and listeners can draw their own conclusions from there.
•You mentioned algorithms in the introduction, and that’s really what I’d like to talk about today.
•The intersection of our digital world, these massive IT powered corporate colossi and the uncertain growing power of code.

This is something that you’ve come back to quite often this year. The idea that we’re under threat from machine intelligence.
•Yes. And thank you for not calling it artificial intelligence.
•It’s probably quite important to make a distinction here.
•We often use terms like artificial intelligence comma machine intelligence, Machine learning, deep learning and others, quite interchangeably.
•I’m not going to go into that side of the argument too much today.
•If you are a bit confused about the terminology, there’s an on medium.com by a guy called Calum McClelland called the difference between artificial intelligence, Machine learning and deep learning.
•It’s a quick read and a great primer.
•We’ll post the link with the podcast.

Why is it important that I didn’t call it artificial intelligence?
•Because we’ve had various people calling artificial intelligence threat over the last couple of years.
•Including one of our old friends, the man who likes electric cars and space rockets and makes weird comments about cave rescuers.
•If you’ve been following this show this year, you’ll know that it’s not artificial intelligence in itself that concerns me.
•It’s the fact that the AI or machine intelligence or deep learning – whatever you want to call it –
•It’s the fact that the systems we have now are not intelligent enough that worry me.
•Systems that we are releasing into the world that have an incredible ability to affect our lives but have no ability to reason or to question.

A bit like a robot army in one of those old 1950s B-movies?
•Yes. I’ve mentioned on the shows already, I’ve been reading a lot of Philip K Dick’s short fiction this year, which is absolutely breath-taking for its scope.
•You can see that a lot of it Is him indulging in thought experi