Age of AI) Ep.3 Using AI to build a better human

Throughout history, humans have consistently strived to enhance their predictive abilities. Prediction plays a crucial role in various aspects of life, from hunting and warfare to relationships. The accuracy of one’s predictions often determines their chances of survival. In this vein, the development of Artificial Intelligence (AI) can be seen as a natural progression, potentially increasing our survival odds.

In recent times, the capabilities of AI have expanded remarkably. Its linguistic prowess, for instance, has reached a point where it successfully passes the Turing Test, exhibiting a level of human-like interaction previously unattainable. Furthermore, AI is evolving beyond singular modes of interaction. The advent of multi-modal input systems marks a significant leap, equipping AI with sensory capabilities akin to humans, but powered by supercomputing processing power.

This technological revolution presents humanity with a thought-provoking question: Do we aspire to become superhuman? Or, is it the very imperfections of human nature that make life intriguing and fulfilling? This article delves into how AI is currently being utilized to augment human abilities across various fields. It also explores the potential transformations AI could bring to every facet of our lives, reshaping our future in profound ways.

Machine Learning

• So, machine learning is what’s called a subset field of Artificial Intelligence.
• We learn from experience.
• Machine learning is basically learning from the experience, where the experience is the data.
• It takes input from the world, and the input could be text in books, it can be camera images from a car, it applies a very complex mathematical function, and then has an output, which is a decision.
• Leg Amputation
• We actually create little biological joints by linking muscles together in pairs, so when a person thinks and moves the limb that’s been amputated away, these muscles move and send sensations that we can directly link to a bionic limb in a bi-directional way.
• So not only can the person think and actuate the synthetic limb, but they can actually feel those synthetic movements within their own nervous system.
• When we link Jim’s nerves in that bi-directional way, we’re able to create natural dynamics, so even though the limb is made of synthetic materials, it moves as if it’s made of flesh and bone.
• In the algorithm, we make a virtual model of his missing biological limb, so when he fires his muscles with his brain, we use an electrode to measure that signal, and then that drives the virtual muscle and sends sensations to the brain about the position and dynamics.

Sports and AI

• … but the big opportunity going forward is embedding devices that can collect real-time data to update strategies to take advantage of that learning. There’s a revolution going on in sports, and machine learning is at the core of it.
• but it’s not just the body that can be enhanced. Sometimes it’s something less tangible, like human intuition.
• Information is the next battleground
• Back in the day, intuition used to play a big part in sports. Athletes and coaches relied on their gut to make decisions. Now some competitors are leaning more and more on machine learning, looking to gain whatever extra edge they can.
• The strength of these A.I. systems come in having access to a ton of data and being able to find patterns in that data, generating insights and inferences that maybe people may not be aware of, and then augmenting people’s abilities to make decisions based on that data.
• Until now, many key decisions, like when to pit for tires or fuel, were made by the drivers and the crew chief using experience and intuition.
• Now, we’ve got artificial intelligence that’s making all these calculations in real time. Some of the crew chiefs that have done what I’ve done over the years, sometimes it’s hard for us to embrace it
• In a NASCAR race, pit stops are the key to a winning strategy. [Petree] You’re trying to decide when in that cycle is the best to make that stop, because you lose a lot of time when you come off the track and you have to stop, but then you gain a lot of speed when you put new tires on.
• Eric relays the message to the Childress team at the track. The final decision on when to pit will be up to the crew chief.
• Sometimes, what happens is, over the course of a race, those little bit better decisions puts you in a spot, and it puts you in an opportunity at the end of the race to be able to win the race.
• Reinforcement Learning — When the computer is given the rules of the game, plays it over and over till it learns every possible move and outcome,
• and then through trial and error, and patience that no human could possibly have becomes amazing.
• The hardest thing as we’ve incorporated more A.I.-based tools is trust.
• There’s still times when it’s counterintuitive, and everybody’s like, “It’s the wrong call, it’s the wrong call,” and over time, we have these battles because most of the time, the A.I. tools is right.
• Convincing humans that machines know what they’re doing is the central difficulty in deploying A.I. out in society, whether it’s the pit boss in car racing, or even astronauts flying to the moon.
• Do we trust the A.I. to make decisions for us?
• We already do with GPS maps. Perhaps here, the team just didn’t have enough experience with it to override their own intuition, but what about other situations?
• At what point do we start trusting A.I. in more serious matters?

Trusting AI

• Every two hours and 45 minutes, a U.S. citizen dies by fire in their own home. We’ve lost more than 3,000 a year consistently for 30 years.
• When we go into a structure that’s dark and smoky, the biggest challenge is the visibility. The ability to navigate is a… is a challenge, and often firefighters have become disoriented, and then they run out of air.

C-Thru Team

• The problem that C-THRU is trying to solve is really flipping the lights on for people operating in zero-visibility conditions.
• Sam and Omer created a mask with special glasses clipped inside which allows firefighters to see edges as green lines in an augmented reality overlay.
• Thermal imaging cameras stream video from the firefighter’s helmet into an A.I. processor.
• Using infrared light and a powerful edge-detection algorithm, the mask detects subtle changes in brightness to predict shapes invisible to the human eye, like a wall hidden by smoke,
• In an active firefight, it’s critical that things work. It’s life and death.
• What we’re working on is really a game-changing tool that completely has the potential to transform how the work here is done.
• now we have the possibility with machine learning and A.I. to progress to a place just a couple of years ago we couldn’t have imagined

Climbing with Bionics

• (After the machine broke) I remember looking down at it, seeing the foot at a strange angle, and, “Holy crap, that is gonna hurt. “That — “ Like, I was bracing for pain. I mean, how much more of a part of you does it need to be?
• It was a strange sensation, though, because all of a sudden, my ankle was broken, and you feel like you’re losing your limb all over again.
• In engineering, we’re kinda used to things not exactly going right the first time, so that’s why we have contingency plans.
• We have always hypothesized that if we can link the nerves of a human being to a bionic limb, the limb would become part of the person, part of identity.
• Remarkably, it’s happened
• We also have the goal of extending human capability beyond physiological function, jump higher, or run faster… So bionics not only seeks to achieve normative function in humans, but also to extend human expression beyond what people were born with.

AI’s Role In Humans

• Human enhancement and augmentation have been around through human history and mythology, from Prometheus stealing fire to the Civil War.
• Using tools to improve our abilities is a fundamental human development, whether it’s stone spears to protect our families or airplanes to transport us farther.
• That’s really what we’re seeing, the transformation of society, and not just racing, not just sports, is really using these A.I. tools, and they’ll become commonplace, won’t even be thought about otherwise.
• A.I. and machine learning… they’re just tools, ones that makes us stronger, smarter, faster.
• A.I. will play an increasingly dominant role across all the many dimensions of what it means to be human.
• There’s a good chance A.I. will continue to enhance us in ways both known and unknown, eventually becoming as invisible as the air we breathe.
• That narrative will play out across all types of human conditions. That will enhance human capability, fundamentally change who we are as a human race.
• The question then becomes, if it does, what do we do with our newfound superpowers?

The insights and information presented in these articles are based on the YouTube Originals Series “The Age of AI.” All script and content rights belong to the creators and producers of the series. This series served as a primary reference in the development of these articles.