Introduction
In this era; particularly in the tech world; many advances have been made in the field of Artificial Intelligence, which; no doubt; has left the world in awe with the amazing abilities embedded in machines to simulate the human level of cognition. But even with all these advances, there have been reservations about a possible takeover by machines; but a feasible solution has arisen; which is the "Intelligence Augmentation".
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One of the purposes and ideas behind the technology of Artificial Intelligence is to mimic the human-level of cognition in machines in an unnatural way. And as it were; this has enabled machines to perform some tasks autonomously and devoid of human assistance. Examples of this can be seen in the driver-less vehicles, chatbots, digital personal assistants, and even factory automation.
But come to think of this; some reservations have arisen in relation to automations - one of this is the replacement of humans by machines. Take this scenario: In the normal heavy industry (like car assembly plant), a greater percentage of the work is being automated, and this runs on the technology of Artificial Intelligence. And no doubt, this automation has seen to the fewer physical exertion of human labour, which has in-turn reduced the need for human workers and ultimately increased job losses.
But looking at the purpose of technological advancement holistically, you would agree with me that technology is meant to complement humankind; not outrightly replacing us. But as we have seen, the emergence of complex AI has been seen to contravene this, and this has sent fear in the hearts of many. Okay look at this statistics - according to this publication, it has been stipulated that; with the current rate of replacement of jobs by automation; 800million jobs would be decimated by the year 2030. Does this send any signals to you? Remember, this is without recourse to emergence of Strong AI (like the Artificial Super intelligence, ASI) which can out-perform the human ability in both the cognitive domain and the psychomotor domain. No wonder Professor Morshe Vardi made this witty statement:
An era is approaching in which machines (Artificial Intelligence) would out-perform humans in almost all tasks. - Prof M. Vardi (computer scientist; Rice University Texas). Source.
Asides the area of job decimation, another area has raised concerns; and that is the incorporation of consciousness in machines to simulate the efferent domain of humans. One thing that makes us human is about to be replicated in an unnatural way in machines. What ideas does this give you. You may not be wrong to infer that this is working in apposition with the statement and prediction by the late Professor Stephen Hawking.
Artificial Intelligence would take over and end the human race. - S. Hawking [source]
Okay here's another reservation people have with Artificial Intelligence; we all agree that machines are fast in terms of computational abilities and viabilities, and can also perform some tasks autonomously, but there are some areas that would still require human assistance - Areas like common sense, taking rational decision, and even in efferent relationships; and not until there is an advancement in the concept of Full AI, these areas would rather remain in the grey zone. But hey!!; an idea has risen - instead of using machines to Complement us, why not use them to complete us? Now, that's the idea of Intelligence Augmentation (IA).
Migrating From AI to IA
What do I mean by Intelligence Augmentation? For a clearer understanding, I would break the word apart; Intelligence talks about cognition, knowledge and the ability to understand facts and principles. While Augmentation is all about supplementation, or making something better and/or larger. So putting both of them in apposition, you can say that Intelligence Augmentation (IA) is the technology that seeks to complement the ability and capacity of humans, but not totally replacing it. The idea behind this is to combine the strengths of machines (like speed, computational complexity, viability) with the strengths of humans (like logical reasoning, common sense, and rational decision taking) in a single system.
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Let us use the case of the autonomous-driving vehicle to elucidate more on this: You may have already been aware that the autonomous-driving vehicle runs on Artificial Intelligence. And as it were, it takes control away from the human driver totally. But there's another system that works on Intelligence Augmentation; and that is the "Car Collision Avoidance System". How does this work? Very simple; the system does not withdraw the control from you; and you would still be driving your car; but in an event where there is a calculated potential collision (maybe from an oncoming vehicle), the system would withdraw control temporarily from you just to effect some changes to stop the car from colliding with the other vehicle. After which, the control would be transferred back to you.
Technically, Intelligence Augmentation is a kind of interaction of humans with machines in an intelligent manner. You can call this: "Human-Machine Symbiosis". Though this is still grouped as emerging technology, but remotely, the idea behind this has been age-long. As a matter of precision, this was first mentioned in the 1950s [ref], which was actually the same period the idea of Artificial Intelligence sprang out, but it hasn't enjoyed much popularity until very recently.
If you looked critically at the scenario I gave earlier, you would agree with me that human-machine symbiosis could be what we need to save the race of humankind from the speculation that AI would replace and even end the human race. Maybe that's what Elon Musk meant when he made this statement:
Human would need to merge with machine to protect human race. - Elon Musk [source]
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That means, a technology-biology merger would be imminent to protect biology, and not necessarily the idea of technology replacing biology; just like it has been speculated that the future could probably favour technology over biology. The fears in the hearts of humankind would now be overridden by the rays of hope that; at least; Intelligence Augmentation would ultimately place the control in the hands of humans again, and machines would only serve in full capacity to complement our weaknesses (in other words; they would be subject to us), and not some bunch of AIs that would run autonomously and may probably achieve self-awareness someday and fight the system that created them. Together, we shall welcome another era of machine intelligence; which is the era of Intelligence Augmentation.
Conclusion
The limitations of the human body and capacity have created a need for supplementation. But before now, these came in form of Artificial Intelligence - but not without the threat of a possible replacement of humans by machines (which has already started). A better alternative needed to be sought out for, and the idea of complementing humans with machines came to be; which can be summed up as "Intelligence Augmentation".
Thanks for reading
References for further reading:
- Computational Intelligence.pdf
- Nvidia.com/AI-and-deepLearning
- HowStuffWorks/Robot-AI
- NetworkWorld/AI-vs-AI
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