INBO Inspiration day 2024

• Damiano Oldoni

INBO 2024 AI
Image by pxhere
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General

AI and ethics

Presenter: Lode Lauwaert (KU Leuven)

Author of Wij, robots (Lannoo Campus)

Introduction

AI: one of the technologies which will be a game changer.

1956: Summer school at Dartmouth College. Start of AI Increase of interest by the Ministry of Defense. So, increase of investments. Expectations around AI diminished around 1990-2010

2012: Geoffrey Hinton, AlexNet

AI is changing almost every field: insurances, visual recognition, pandemic, spam, climate change, traffic safety, cancer screening, sport, targeted advertising

Classic historical AI systems are called expert systems or rule-based systems. The very first AI system used in the health sector, MYCIN, was an expert system. It was developed to “identify bacteria causing severe infections, such as bacteremia and meningitis, and to recommend antibiotics, with the dosage adjusted for patient’s body weight” (source: Wikipedia)

Plus: transparency. Mins: modelling rigidity

Machine learning: one of machine learning systems is deep learning (convolutional neural networks). It needs big data: it searches for correlations among data.

Plus: learning Mins: data dependent, dependent on data quality

OpenAI was founded in 2015 by Elon Musk and Sam Altman. It’s 80 billion worth.

OpenAI one liner: “Building safe and beneficial AGI is our mission”. AGI: Artificial General Intellingence.

CHatGPT: it’s a Chatbot. Launched on 2022.

ChatGPT: it seems that there is a lot of human work for the data labelling/cleaning of the training dataset. Time published “Ghost work” (Mary L.Gray and Siddhart Suri), an article where it was shown that such data cleaning was done in Kenya by underpaid workers, 2$ per hour.

What can you do with ChatGPT?

  • translation
  • providing information
  • produce text based on keywords
  • writing essays
  • compose music
  • text paraphrasis
  • code writing
  • writing abstracts

But also:

  • new research ideas
  • searching information about domains or subjects
  • generating synthetic data
  • visualising research outputs

6 deadly ethical sins

  1. Misusage
  2. Privacy
  3. Safety
  4. Bias
  5. Transparency
  6. Sustainability

Misusage

Examples: deep fakes where Obama or Zelensky say something they have never said.

Sometimes deepfakes are used for good causes, e.g. finding paedophile networks in the darknet.

Plagiarism: difficult to know which existing ideas have been used for producing the text/ideas returned by chatGPT.

Hallucinations: incorrect information or references.

LU Leuven developed a guideline for the use of genetics AI (GenAI).

Privacy

There is a high risk that AI model

Example: Clearview.ai. The billion images with faces were used without the permission of the people depicted in such images.

Bias

AI bias: the output depends on the training data, so AI models are by definition sensible of biases present in the training data.

These biases can result in racist and/or sexistic results.

There is also a bias about the people developing AI models.

Transparency

Black box problem: AI systems are so complex that nobody understands why returning a specific output, AI programmers included.

Sustainability

AI is based on data. Data is stored in a data centre. The Utah Data Center, the second in the world. It is 1.5 billion m2. And there are thousands of such data centres.

Issues:

  • energy consumption

At the moment AI uses 1% global electricity, 200 TWh/year = Japan or India. In 2030 it will be 800.

The training of one system produces 200000 kg CO2 = 40k autos, or 500 planes.

What in 2050?

Some existing dangers:

  • bioterrorism (toxic molecules)
  • chemical weapons
  • cyber hacking

What about Artificial General Intelligence (AGI)? A general, more human like intelligence, broad scope intelligence.

Answer: It will come, very likely.

This is the meaning of 750 scientists. Billions dollars are spent for developing this technology

AGI could result in loss of control. What if a super intelligent exists?

Should we forbid AGI? Unfeasible to control every country will forbid it. AGI could also propose solutions for important problems, e.g. climate change.

Life quality - work life balance

Presenter: Cynthia Ghysels

Personal experience: walking in a park/nature. It helps.

Why do we stress all the day long?

  • Why do we react to all messages/mails/…
  • Why do we sleep less even if we know that is unhealthy?
  • Why do we not dare to say “No”?
  • Why do we not stop working even if we are with our kids?

A lot of pressure factors.

This topic is hot: a lot of books, podcasts. It’s a need because many people experience this

Three important

  • awareness

  • self-organisation

Awareness

Awareness grows by taking distance from your daily routine. By taking a pause to see where you are in your life/work.

Exercise for awareness arising: What would you like people will remember and tell during your funeral?

Self-organisation

You should build your week/day based on what you like/want. You get back a feeling of rest, fulfillment.

Exercise/self-reflection: how does your ideal week looks alike?

Compare your ideal week with the present week. By this exercise can you gradually change your life and so get a better day/week filling.

Writing helps!

Planning your next week on paper helps to have a guide to focus on the critical points.

First tip/exercise: what do you do with your time? Via logbook or sheet. In this way you have an overview about where you spend time.

Second tip: do things one by one. Multitasking is not effective: only extra stress.

Third tip: learn to say “no”. Not everything is even important, both at work and in your free time. Optimizing

Fourth tip: plan enough time for things you find important.

Energy

What gives you energy? What do you do to get this energy?

Attention to yourself:

  • physically
  • mentally
  • emotionally

Take time for activities which recharge your battery, physically, mentally and emotionally.

You loose energy constantly: you need to find activities which recharge your battery. Sometimes are small activities. Spending 1 hour per day for these activities is typically enough.

Sleeping is extremely important. Book suggestion: Slaap, by Matthew Walker.