I, Human

Léonie Watson

I, Human

Accessibility Scotland, Edinburgh October 2019

Léonie Watson, TetraLogical

3rd Century BCE: Argonautica

Talos towering over figures on a beach
Apollonius Rhodius' Talos

8 CE: Metamorphoses

Oil painting representing Pygmalion reaching for his statue
Ovid's Pygmalion

1818: Frankenstein

Boris Karloff as Frankenstein
Mary Shelley's Frankenstein

1872: Erewhon

Erewhon first edition cover
Samuel Butler's Erewhon

1950: I, Robot

Isaac Asimov headshot
Isaac Asimov
I, Robot First Edition Cover
I, Robot

2058: Handbook of Robotics (56th Edition)

  1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm
  2. A robot must obey orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law
  3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law

Asimov on the Three Laws

The Three Laws are the only way in which rational human beings can deal with robots - or anything else. But when I say that, I always remember (sadly) that human beings are not always rational!

About 300,000 years ago: Homo Sapiens

Homo Sapien Evolution from ape to man with iPad
Homo-sapiens

About 50,000 years ago: Behavioural Modernity

Lascaux Cave Painting
Lascaux cave painting

Human intelligence

Seeing

Seeing

Optical illusion checkerboard

Seeing

Hearing

Hearing

Hey Jude, don't make it bad; Take a sad song, and make it better.

Hearing

Speaking

Speaking

Hello! How are you? G'day! Hey! What's the crack? Hola! Olà! Como esta? Xin chào! merhaba! Marhaba! salamaleikum! bonsoir! Bonjour! Hallo! Ciao! konnichi wa! namaskara! namaste! Sawasdee! Sawasdee khaa! Oi! Salaam!...

Speaking

1950: Computing Machinery and Intelligence

Bombe computer
Alan Turing

1956: Dartmouth workshop on AI

every aspect of learning or any other feature of intelligence can be so precisely described that a machine can be made to simulate it

First Law

A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm

Seeing: Image Recognition

The process of analysing and understanding images

1976: Simulating sight in real-time

2011: Computer vision applications

1980s: Moravec's paradox

High-level reasoning requires little computation, but low-level sensory processing requires enormous computational resources
Code reflected in eye

A chair

Wooden Chair

And another

Camping Chair

And one more

Rotating Chair

2006: Cloud computing

Google cloud platform
Eric Schmidt

2016: Facebook image recognition

Facebook status image
One person in a room close up

2017: Microsoft SeeingAI

2018: Apple's face ID

Second Law:

A robot must obey orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law

Hearing: Speech Recognition

The process of identifying speech and translating it into text

1993: Apple voice recognition

1997: Dragon speech recognition

2013: Kinetic Sign Language translation

Speaking: Text To Speech

The process of translating text into synthetic speech

1769: Speaking machine

Reconstruction of the speaking machine
Wolfgang von Kempelen's speaking machine

1931: Voder speaking machine

1961: Daisy Bell

Formant synthesis

For millions of years mankind lived just like the animals. Then something happened that unleashed the power of our imagination: we learned to talk.

Concatenative synthesis

For millions of years mankind lived just like the animals. Then something happened that unleashed the power of our imagination: we learned to talk.

Parametric synthesis

Never had much faith in love or miracles
Never wanna put my heart on the line!

2014: Amazon Echo

Alexa default

const speechOutput =
  "The terror, which would not end for another twenty-eight years – if it ever
  did end – began, so far as I know or can tell, with a boat made from a sheet
  of newspaper floating down a gutter swollen with rain.";

Changing voice and emphasis

const speechOutput = 
  "<voice name='Matthew'><lang xml:lang='en-US'>
    The <emphasis level='moderate'>terror</emphasis>, which would
    not end for another twenty-eight years – if it ever 
    <emphasis level='moderate'>did</emphasis> end – began, 
    <emphasis level='reduced'>so far as I know or can tell</emphasis>, 
    with a boat made from a sheet of newspaper floating down a gutter 
    <emphasis level='moderate'>swollen</emphasis> with 
    <emphasis level='moderate'>rain</emphasis>.
  </lang></voice>";

Alexa default

const speechOutput =
  "<p>Hello, my name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die.</p>";

Changing voice and timing

const speechOutput =
  "<voice name='Enrique'><lang xml:lang='es-ES'>
  <p>Hello, <break time='500ms'/> my name is Inigo Montoya.
  You killed my father. <break strength='x-strong'/>Prepare to die.</p>
  </lang></voice>";

Alexa default

const speechOutput = 
  "Piglet sidled up to Pooh from behind.
  'Pooh!' he whispered.
  'Yes, Piglet?'
  'Nothing', said Piglet, taking Pooh's paw.
  I just wanted to be sure of you.";

Changing pitch, speed, and volume

const speechOutput = 
  "<voice name='Brian'>
  Piglet sidled up to Pooh from behind.
  <prosody pitch='x-high' rate='medium' volume='soft'>'Pooh!'</prosody> he whispered.
  'Yes, Piglet?'
  <prosody pitch='x-high' rate='x-fast'>'Nothing',</prosody> said Piglet, taking Pooh's paw.
  <prosody pitch='x-high' rate='x-fast'>I just wanted to be sure of you.</prosody>
  </voice>";

Third Law

A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law

2013: IBM Watson learns to swear

IBM Watson
IBM Watson
Urban Dictionary
Urban Dictionary

2016: Microsoft's Tay.AI learns bad behaviour

Microsoft
Microsoft
Tay.AI
Tay.AI
Racism
Racism

2017: Google Translate has gender bias

Google
Google
Sexism
Gender Bias

2017: Hansen robot gets carried away

OK. I will destroy humans

2018: Amazon Rekognition mis-identifies US Congress

Amazon Rekognition
Amazon Rekognition
Criminal
Criminal

AI amplifies human ingenuity

Thank you!

Accessibility Scotland, Edinburgh October 2019

Léonie Watson, TetraLogical