Is it time to change the way you think about machines?

Conventional wisdom maintains that smart machines threaten our lives and our livelihood (indeed, in a recent analysis of over 700 jobs, machines are projected to be capable of replacing half of them). But authors Julia Kirby and Thomas Davenport who released Only Humans Need Apply: Winners and Losers in the Age of Smart Machines earlier this year, insist that it’s time to change our automation mindset and adopt an augmentation strategy, allowing man and machine to bring out the best in one another.

We’re talking, of course, about Artificial Intelligence (AI): that is, the ability of machines to mimic human intelligence. Author and futurist Ray Kurzweil predicts that human-level AI will be achieved by 2029; others describe the smart-machine revolution as “the true next step in evolution.” And groups such as MIT’s Future of Life Institute, the Cambridge Center for Existential Risk, the Future of Humanity Institute, and the Machine Intelligence Research Institute are exploring in depth its promise and perils (see sidebar).

So it may be time to change the way you think about machines. Said Kirby and Davenport, in a piece for the Harvard Business Review: “Conventional wisdom is that as machines threaten their livelihood, humans must invest in ever higher levels of formal education to keep ahead.” Noted Gregg Scoblete, in an article for cnn.com: “A study by Carl Frey and Michael Osborne of Oxford's Program on the Impacts of Future Technology put the matter starkly. In their analysis of over 700 jobs, almost half could be done by a computer in the future. This wave of computerization could destroy not simply low-wage, low-skill jobs (though those are in acute danger) but some white-collar and service sector jobs previously thought to be immune as well.”

But Kirby and Davenport urge us to make “peace with smart machines.” They explained: “By emphasizing augmentation, we can remove the threat of automation and turn the race with the machine into a relay rather than a dash. Those who are able to smoothly transfer the baton to and from a computer will be the winners.”

Here's their primary thesis: “What if we were to reframe the situation? What if, rather than asking the traditional question (what tasks currently performed by humans will soon be done more cheaply and rapidly by machines?), we ask a new one: What new feats might people achieve if they had better thinking machines to assist them?”

This then is our challenge. To think differently, to construct a true partnership with man and machine, emphasizing our inexorable human qualities: intuition, creativity, flexibility, ingenuity, reason, emotion, common sense. Imagine, for a moment, as machines begin to handle our more routine tasks that we focus on strengthening our interpersonal and intrapersonal skills, building our power of observation and human connection.

It may be time to embrace the inevitable, and think differently about the relationship between man and machines.

The Promise & The Peril
In what ways will smart machines advance mankind? Kris Hammond of computerworld.com points to “self-driving cars, automated warehouses and intelligent advisory systems,” while Kirby and Davenport envision “machines digesting legal documents and suggesting courses of action and arguments.” But the promise goes far beyond. In a famous op-end piece, physicist Stephen Hawking, MIT physicist Max Tegmark, Nobel laureate Frank Wilczek and computer scientist Stuart Russell, called AI “the biggest event in human history,” with smart machines capable of wiping out war, disease and poverty.

But they fear that left unchecked, AI could dramatically change the world as we know it. In a time.com article, Bill Gates told Matt Peckman that he “doesn’t understand why some people are not concerned.” And Nick Bostrom, author and director of Oxford’s Future of Humanity Institute, told Peckman that while AI would harbor “economic miracles and technological awesomeness,” there may be no one around to benefit.

Computer programmer Sam Altman offers perhaps the most optimistic view. Writes Peckman: “Altman . . . believes future iterations could be designed to self-police, working only toward benevolent ends. The 30-year-old computer programmer and president of startup incubator Y Combinator says his ‘OpenAI’ system will surpass human intelligence in a matter of decades, but that the fact that it’s available to anyone (as opposed to locked behind private, proprietary doors) should offset any risks.”

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