Let me tell you a #story. A #real one. Not #created by an #AI or any other #SimulatedIntelligence. But a real #human story, about AI and a #journey to #understand#Cogniton. The Back story on #JabeOnAI (my new regular posts to come).
So, we begin at the start, or maybe a little earlier. In a long distant time, called the #1980s. #AlongtimeagoinaGalaxyfarfaraway … a friend lent me a book. The time was Autumn 1987, and the book was called #GodelEscherBach(#GEB), it was the first time I had picked up a ‘real book’ on #ArtificialIntelligence, rather than some #ScienceFiction (oh, #HappyStarWarsDay / #StarWarsDay) … it cast a light on a new world for me. A year later, I spied the book #GEB on a shelf belonging to a friend’s older brother who was away at the #UniversityofSussex. Turned out his brother was away at University studying of all things … an #ArtsDegree in #artificialintelligence . I was on a #mission …
… with a bit of hard studying, and coding to an audio #cassette recorder … my #AcornElectron#computer had no hard drive! … in #1989 … I arrived at #COGS– the #CentreforCognitiveScience, exercise one writing a version of the #Eliza(#ChatBot) in #POP11 on a #Vax8530 computer … it began and I have been studying, coding and working with AI for 35 years.
Over that time I have been blessed to study with #MargaretBoden, #AaronSloman, and many other #stars of the AI world whose experience stretched back to the #founding#pioneering days of AI, right back to the 1950s. Since then, I have worked in a few #technology companies, and had the good fortune to arrive at #ElsevierScience (now #Elsevier) just as it was starting it’s #digital journey, working with talented #technologists and #subjectmatterexperts, and with partners and customers in #commercial R&D companies (across #Pharma, #Energy, #Engineering, #LifeSciences, #Chemistry and #Physics), through the days of #textmining, #semanticweb, #knowledgegraphs, early #deeplearning, #predictiveanalytics and now … the #hype of the moment #GenerativeAI.
Having done the early heavy lifting in #PhilosophyofMind; #ComputationalModels of Psychological Processes; Natural Language processing and #Linguistics; #LogicBasedProgramming, and Connectionist programming (I.e. #ArtificialNeuralNetworks, or #MachineLearning) when people ask me over coffee about AI, I feel that I have a pretty good handle on it.
There are huge #existential#risks and #opportunities in front of us. Each of us who is able, needs to #stepup and #playourpart in #steering towards #goodoutcomes rather than ill.
My first thought. I read the recent opinion piece by #YuvalNoahHarari … who I respect #immensely. He stated that we are seeing an #Alien Intelligence. It made me #thinkdifferently. I say: “What we are seeing with this #waveofAI is #us. All of us, #reflectedinthemirror. This is us and who we are.” We all need to step up and start #steering. In the true sense of the word ‘#cyber’ to #steer. #letsdothis ! … more soon!
