Artificial Intelligence in Society
Bob Bobby
Yale College

Abstract
This report deals with artificial intelligence in society. My motivation for writing this report was to expand my reader and my own knowledge of artificial intelligence. I read news articles, journals, books, blogs, and watched online lectures to get this information. The topics that will be discussed are the first mention of anything remotely related in AI in history, then when actual progress was made, what that progress was and its stages, then the most popular artificial intelligence machines created, and finally ending on the discussion of the future of AI and the possibility of the singularity.

Artificial Intelligence in Society
Introduction
Unbeknownst to me at the time my first experience with artificial intelligence was playing video games. I must have been at the ripe age of 5 already feverishly enjoying my Super Nintendo and Mario games. It never occurred to me the coding, algorithms, and all the hard work that was required to have the computer, my “opponent,” be challenging. My only assumption was it was always like that. It wasn’t until years later did I get the opportunity to see how artificial intelligence (AI) began. AI didn’t start so children could have fun; it started because some men had a dream, a dream to create artificial intelligent machine. The topics I will cover will be one of the first mentions of AI, the beginning of what we currently call AI, current AI systems that were used, and the future of what is to come.
Ancient History
The first mention of anything remotely related to AI involved imagination. It was in an ancient Greek myth by Homer, a poet. “He wrote of mechanical ‘tripods’ waiting on the gods at dinner.” (Buchanan 2005). This may not have any use to us now, but the fact we imagined what it would be like to have mechanical assistance 3000 years ago is fascinating. It wasn’t until second half of the 20th century until any real progress was made.

First progress, 1940s and onwards
In the dawn on the 1940s and 50s scientists speculated forming an artificial brain. This included sciences from many fields: engineering, psychology, biology, mathematics, computer science, and economics. Then a new field of science was found, artificial intelligence. This new and exciting field is defined by McCarthy, John; Minsky, Marvin; Rochest; Nathan; Shannon, Claude (1955) as “the science and engineering of making intelligent machines.” What really ignited the flame was what happened one year later in 1956. McCarthy and other prominent scientists such as: Minksy, Rochest, and Shannon, met together at Dartmouth College, known as the Dartmouth Meeting, to discuss how computers given enough power could not only outperform humans, but solve many complex problems, explains Turban, Sharda, and Delen (2011). Although, McCarthy and his colleague’s confidence in AI is admirable they were far too optimistic. Human intelligence was far more difficult to emulate than originally perceived. The evolution of AI as characterized by Turban et al.’s (2011) is as follows: naive solutions, general methods, domain knowledge, hybrid solutions, and embedded applications, each more complex than the last (located in figure 1). Their original optimism was during the naive solutions era, the solutions at that time were primitive and “after a few years of trial and error, scientists started focusing on developing more effective problem-solving methods, such as knowledge representation schemes, reasoning strategies, and effective search heuristics.” According to Turban et al.’s (2011). This was going on through the 60’s and 70’s and as we passed the general method era into the domain knowledge era AI was finally being applied to real-world uses. These applications were known as knowledge-based systems and expert systems. The following decade, 1990s, featured hybrid systems comprised of case-based and rule-based systems. In the last decade we encountered embedded AI applications that are in business rules, video games, all the way into homeland security. (Turban et al.’s 2011).

Figure 1 – Turban et al. (2011)
Popular Artificial Intelligence in Society
The most popular moments in AI had resound effects on society motivating and inspiring people that AI was becoming more advanced. One of these first popular AI systems was the IBM computer, Deep Blue. Deep Blue was a chess program developed by Dr. Feng Hsiung Hsu in 1985. It played against the world chess champion, Garry Kasparov, for the first time in 1988 and was defeated. After years of refinement and fine-tuning Deep Blue was ready to play again in 1996. Although, Kasparov still won 4-2 in the six game battle it still was a milestone in AI. (“Deep Blue beats Kasparov at chess,” 1996).
The next big moment in popular AI was another IBM super computer, Watson. Two of Jeopardies biggest winners, Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter, attempted to defeat this super computer in an all-out battle of puns, play on words, metaphors, similes etc. Watson managed to defeat both of them, but did stumble on a couple subject such as: politics, and historical geography. Why this is so significant is because of the “machine’s ability to understand context in human language.” After personally watching the match it became apparent that Watson’s true advantage was not only that it could read 200 million pages of information stored in its memory in 3 seconds, but that it could also activate the buzzer faster than a human can. (“IBM Watson Wins Jeopardy, Humans Rally Back,” 2011)
The last popular AI example is my personal favorite, it’s Google’s self-driving car. The fact that we even have self-driving cars already is astounding. Currently only three states allow citizens to operate driverless cars: California, Florida and Nevada. “The automated cars use video cameras, radar sensors and a laser range finder to “see” other traffic, as well as detailed maps (which Google collect using manually driven vehicles) to navigate the road ahead. This is all made possible by Google’s data centers, which can process the enormous amounts of information gathered by their cars when mapping their terrain. (“What we’re driving at,” 2010).
Future
A very controversial topic is of the singularity. Essentially it’s the point in when one computer is equal or more intelligent than the entire human race combined. Ray Kurzweil (2012) a computer scientist and futurist says it’s only a matter of time that this will occur. Looking at the accelerating pace of change in figure 2 you can see that technology has advanced in a smooth trajectory and if it follows the same trend will eventually reach the singularity by the year 2045. Even during periods of turmoil such as, war and recessions, the pace didn’t seem to be effected.
Figure 2 Kurzweil (2011)
Will this happen? Is it true? It’s hard to say, during the mid-20th century we we’re “promised” flying cars by the 2000s, so it’s understandable that there are skeptics. What is even more alarming than computers being more intelligent than us is what the a Bayesian statistician, I. J. Good (1965), calls the “intelligence explosion.” “This explosion would be brought about by an artificial intelligence improving the design of its own intelligence could be expected to reshape the universe more than all human actions up to this point.” (Yudkowsky 2008). AI evolving independently from us and making itself more and more intelligent would leave us in the dust. It’s a scary thought, but we have plenty of time until then and can make plans accordingly.
Conclusion
We’ve come a long way since Homer first wrote of three legged tables serving food and beverages to Zeus and other gods. Self-driving cars and talking encyclopedias are currently our most advances AI machines yet. No one knows what will happen in the end. Will we be the cause of our own destruction trying to delegate tasks to artificial machines, or a nuclear war? All we have is each other and the dream one day to be free to do as we please and love one another. AI can possible get us to our utopia, not right now, but maybe someday in the future. If not, then in the words of Ken Jenning, Jeopardy finalist who was defeated by super computer Watson, "I for one welcome our new computer overlords."

References
Turban, Sharda, and Delen. Decision Support and Business Intelligence Systems. Upper Saddle River: Prentice Hall, 2011. CourseSmart. Web. 02 Dec. 2012.

Thrun, S. What we’re driving at. Retrieved from http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/10/what-were-driving-at.html

Ray Kurzweil. Singularity Institute. http://fora.tv/2012/10/13/Ray_Kurzweil_How_to_Create_a_Mind

http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/deep-blue-beats-kasparov-at-chess . Deep Blue beats Kasparov at chess,” 1996).

Buchanan, B. “A (Very) Brief History of Artificial Intelligence.” AI Magazine. 2005.
Spector, L. “Evolution of artificial intelligence.” Cognitive Science, Hampshire College. 7 Nov. 2006.

Yudkowsky, E. “Artificial intelligence and society.” Accelerating Future. 2008. http://www.acceleratingfuture.com/people-blog/2008/artificial-intelligence-and-society/

Paul, I. “IBM Watson Wins Jeopardy, Humans Rally Back.” PCWorld. 17 Feb. 2011. http://www.pcworld.com/article/219900/IBM_Watson_Wins_Jeopardy_Humans_Rally_Back.html