Namaste Yogis. Welcome to the Blockchain & AI Forum, where your technology questions are answered! Here no question is too mundane. As a bonus, a proverb is also included. Today’s question comes from Ian and he wants to know what is the Cambridge University Center for Human Inspired Artificial Intelligence (CHIA)?
Ian, you came to the right place. CHIA is dedicated to advancing AI for the betterment of human society, says Cambridge. According to Cambridge, CHIA brings together an interdisciplinary community of researchers to investigate the innovative ways in which human and machine intelligence can be combined to yield AI which is capable of contributing to social and global progress. An ambitious task indeed! Let’s learn more about CHIA by examining their program in detail.
Fundamental Human-Level AI. Within the Fundamental Human Level-AI program area, CHIA aims to combine the latest advances in algorithms and computing with human insights and intelligence. The intent is to improve machine learning, speech and language processing, computer vision, robotics and other forms of machine intelligence. What makes the program unique, say CHIA, is the collaboration between AI and a wide variety of human-centric disciplines.
Responsible AI. Ethical use of AI, is a central tenet at CHIA, says CHIA. The standard CHIA aspires to is non-bias models with human oversight of AI. They correctly note, AI systems used for sensitive, assistive or predictive tasks such as medical or legal decision-making must aim for the pinnacle of ethical behavior. I find this reassuring but only time will prove whether they adhere to this noble standard.
Social and Interactive AI. Over the last few years, it’s become increasing obvious that conversational AI technology enables humans and computers to communicate clearly and effectively through speech or text. For instance, chatbots and voice assistants are now commonplace, sometimes to much consternation! Not surprisingly, CHIA has decided to dedicate resources ensuring AI learns to recognize human communication and its nuances. To do so, CHIA is blending the disciplines of computer science, sociology, psychology, physiology and others.
Cognitive AI. CHIA’s goal is to equip machines with human-like learning, reasoning and perceptual abilities. Holy consciousnes! According to CHIA, human-like computing could be integrated into AI, cognitive, biological, and other sciences. The end goal? The ultimate goal is to benefit the numerous applications that require close interaction between computers and human users, e.g., AI-powered tutoring, personalized healthcare, among others.
Health and Global AI. Cambridge asserts, and many agree, that AI has many health-related applications, ranging from systems that automatically generate new medical discoveries, diagnostic techniques and treatments to those that use multi-sensory data for early health diagnosis or management of medical conditions. The folks at CHIA note, AI may one day predict major economic, geopolitical, societal, and technological risks. Moreover, the innovations coming out of CHIA could be used to understand, predict, monitor, and manage natural systems and environmental risks such as climate change. To those in the prediction business, I say use the humble on-ramp.
Creative AI. CHIA claims their Creative AI program is aimed at developing systems that can support, augment, or even automate the creative process. Do you believe the creative process can be automated? Put me in Camp Skeptical! Being brilliant minds, CHIA staff recognize this endeavor will be “… highly challenging and required close collaboration between fields that have been traditionally quite distant from each other: AI and arts and humanities.” An elegant understatement.
Time to end with a proverb from Pakistan: “a white beard does not mean gold or wisdom”.
Until next time,
Yogi Nelson
Blockchain & AI Forum 