Ruled by AI: The Matrix is 20 years old this year
Unbelievably, The Matrix turned 20 this year. Released on the 31st March 1999, it introduced an apparently humdrum world, which turns out to be an illusion. In reality, the Earth is ruled by all-powerful machines who have trapped humanity in a hyper-realistic simulation. The only reason why the machines haven’t wiped us out is that they, er, need us as an energy source. One might have thought that these ultra-sophisticated artificial intelligences would have devised a more reliable way of generating power than from a bunch of dribbling, smelly, hairless apes with rebellious tendencies – but there you go.
There’s a parallel between the world of The Matrix and what I’m assuming is the actual real world. Of course, our own AI systems aren’t about to achieve sentience, let alone the ability to enslave us. But here’s the parallel: though AI can ‘learn’, the learning process is in most cases deeply dependent on human beings. I don’t just mean the clever researchers who create the hardware and develop the software – I also mean the people who supply the data that’s the basic fuel of the learning process.
Those people include you and me. When you fill in one of those ‘I am not a robot’ forms on a website – perhaps by decyphering a piece of distorted text or clicking on images that contain a specified object – you are creating labelled data that an AI system can learn from. By spotting commonalities in labelled data items, the system learns to identify unlabelled data items that contain the same patterns. And, of course, if they’ve done it once, they can do it again and again with super-human speed and attention to detail.
However, every time we want an AI system to learn a new pattern it needs another source of human labelled data – this is the ‘energy source’ that powers AI’s continued progress.
In an important piece for Bloomberg, Matt Day, Giles Turner and Natalia Drozdiak write about the workers who help Alexa – the digital assistant who ‘lives’ in Amazon’s smart speaker products – to get better at her job :
“Amazon.com Inc. employs thousands of people around the world to help improve the Alexa digital assistant powering its line of Echo speakers. The team listens to voice recordings captured in Echo owners’ homes and offices. The recordings are transcribed, annotated and then fed back into the software as part of an effort to eliminate gaps in Alexa’s understanding of human speech and help it better respond to commands.”
This is the sort of thing the Alexa’s human assistants do for her:
“One worker in Boston said he mined accumulated voice data for specific utterances such as ‘Taylor Swift’ and annotated them to indicate the searcher meant the musical artist.”
It’s not that Amazon and other companies in the field are denying this. Indeed, the whole point of a smart speaker is that it’s listening to us, ready to act upon our desires.
Is it a problem that Amazon’s human workforce may be listening in too? The article includes a statement from Amazon assuring us that they “only annotate an extremely small sample of Alexa voice recordings in order [to] improve the customer experience” and that “employees do not have direct access to information that can identify the person or account as part of this workflow”. (But – see this follow-up report from Matt Day and his Bloomberg colleagues).
A quick flick through UnHerd’s tech coverage should make it clear that we’re not exactly uncritical of the big tech companies. However, on this issue, I don’t think we should panic – yet. Day tells us that 78 million smart speakers were sold last year alone. To the extent that the tech companies can afford to pay people to listen in, it will be to gain a competitive edge in improving the technology itself. I doubt they’re interested in our private gossip. We give away enough of that to Facebook anyway.
If the AI companies are downplaying the human side of their operations, it’s to make the AI side seem more impressive than it actually is so far. It’s an uncomfortable irony that this most futuristic of technologies is dependent on so much mundane human labour.
As with so much else in the tech industry, costs are kept down by outsourcing much of the work to low-wage countries. However, this leaves companies with a problem when they want to train up AI systems in languages that are only spoken in high-wage countries.
Writing for The Verge, Angela Chen looks at the situation in Finland – a country whose beautiful but difficult language is spoken pretty much exclusively by Finns. Where can you find enough people both willing and able to do the laborious work of teaching an AI how to process spoken or written Finnish? Chen reports that one start-up has hit upon a solution: a joint venture with the authorities to get the country’s prisoners to do the work. Apparently, it’s preferred to traditional prison work – which includes metal-smithing – because it doesn’t involve equipment that can be used as a weapon.
It’s also a great example of the domain dependency of AI – however well it learns one task it is extremely limited in applying that skill to another task and thus must turn once more to human tutors. Far from finding ourselves trapped in a computer-generated simulation, the fact is that AI lives within the ‘human matrix’ – the various bubbles of language and thought through which we perceive and conceptualise the real world.
Of course, we shouldn’t forget that the army of human workers currently being used to fuel the development of AI is ultimately working towards its own obsolescence – a state in which computers will be able to recognise anything we can recognise and understand anything we can understand.
This will mean a world of surveillance unlimited by the availability of human eyes and ears. Potentially anything we say or do within sight or hearing of a machine will be looked at, listened to and, in some way, interpreted. Just how much power that will give them (and their controllers) and what they do with it remains to be seen.
Peter Franklin is Associate Editor of UnHerd. He was previously a policy advisor and speechwriter on environmental and social issues.
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SubscribeWhen the Russians or the Chinese saw Biden’s woeful response and spineless lack of resolve, I struggle to understand why you wouldn’t think that it might embolden them to attack Ukraine, or annexe Taiwan, with impunity.
Optics really matter. If Biden’s withdrawal from Afghanistan had been seen to be orderly, well-managed and well-executed, it would give the impression that it was happening at the will of the sitting President, who has at his command an awesome military power that might return if the Taliban become another rogue Isis-like regime.
When the withdrawal was as disorderly, poorly managed and badly executed as we saw, then it gives the impression that the sitting president has panicked, that his military is in disarray – not only does that weaken America in the eyes of its superpower rivals it also acts as the best possible recruiting-sergeant for jihadists around the globe, who are emboldened to target US and Western interests because they perceive them as weak.
Military power, now that we are beyond the era of empire building, is mainly about deterrence.
Little about Biden’s panicky response would have deterred anyone. Indeed, in the case of Russia/Ukraine, it merely invited attack.
I agree, who is this writer and what does he really want? because I find this article to be absurd. ‘Defense Authorities’? who are they? Maybe Unherd can explain.
The weapons abandoned – that looks stupid too. The Trillions of $ in Afghani mineral wealth we did not even bother to set up for production so the Afghani people would have an industry is shocking.
When the Russians were in Afghanistan we should have just left them alone. They would have built roads, opened Mines, built dams for hydro – opened girls schools because they know half the population staying home instead of working means endless poverty….
If Russia had gotten it going the place would be an actual Nation now, like a Kazakhstan say…not great, but having an economy and some functioning state.
Instead the USA went in and spent 20 years trying to bring in Woke Feminism they did not want, and pretty much nothing else.
Now China has it – they will get the mines running, and plunder and debt diplomacy, and all kinds of stuff.
USA cannot win the Peace!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Not since MacAthur. We let the NGO’s and stupid products of our hard Lefty Liberal Universities set the agenda for the peace, set the goals in country, set the processes, give them Billions and Billions – and none of them have ever held a job, all they want is to play Woke games with the nations they are given to ‘Fix’ – and they destroy the place, just like they are doing in USA.
I think it is important to draw a distinction between the US defence, military and intelligence and the US politicians. The first group are probably the best in the world at doing what they do – they can deploy massive force anywhere in the world at very short notice and certainly have the best equipment bar none. No other country is remotely close. The second group are quite different !
It might just be that the lack of a history of colonialism in the US (that is large scale colonisation of other countries – they had some small colonies, but nothing large scale) gives them a “cultural gap” which makes overseas adventures like Vietnam and Afghanistan much harder for them. I’m absolutely not arguing for colonialism here, just floating a thought that came into my head.
My own suspicion is that the American understanding of Europe is significantly better than it is for the Middle East, which is far too different from their mindset. US military failures all seem to have been in areas with very different cultures.
So I have some sympathy with the author’s view that failure in Afghanistan should not be seen as a lack of seriousness and commitment in general. If Putin drew that conclusion, then he clearly made yet another blunder.
The Phillipines a small colony? You have probably upset many Filipinos by leaving them out.
I know – was aware when I wrote this and considered that. My point was that the external population and land area colonised by the US is much, much smaller than the US itself, whereas the European countries colonised areas (and often populations) much larger than they were. So the impact of colonisation on the behaviour and culture of the US must be correspondingly much smaller.
It is not the supposed assurance of U.S. help that keeps European leaders from taking strategic autonomy too seriously. Western European societies will not defend themselves militarily in any circumstances. Neither would Japan, South Korea, or for that matter, Taiwan, who even now are spending barely 2% of GDP on defence. Like the US, Europeans will not even secure their own borders. The assurance of US military help, if that is thing, is neither here nor there. Any martial spirit has completely dissipated over two or three generations. Europeans today do not like or admire the US, and the withdrawal of US military support, which nobody has confidence in anyway, will not lead to a reassertion of European military power. That may be regrettable, but it is the reality.
The disordered and humiliating US withdrawal from Afghanistan clearly damaged American prestige. Most historians of decolonisation stress that each successful independence movement degraded the metropole’s aura of invincibility and thus encouraged similar efforts elsewhere. When the European empires came to be perceived as vulnerable, there were concrete consequences. Reputations matter. Of course, this is not the whole story but there is no need to acknowledge the other side of the argument if you can simply label those who disagree with you (in this case as “neoconservative”).
Not remotely persuaded by this argument, well-rehearsed though it certainly is.
It may very well depend mostly upon the optics as opposed to deep analysis of the strategic realities, but there can be no doubt that the chaos of the USA’s withdrawal last year has changed the reckoning of the many people who might risk their lives in future to collaborate with the USA and the West in general.
Not quite as bad as Bladensburg, but a good try none the less.
The US departure from Afghanistan confirmed what was already evident in Iraq, Libya and Syria, The US is so self contained, and consequently self absorbed, that it has no comprenension of what is in the minds in the citizens in other countries. Accordingly things never turn out as they intend. They most certainy do not end up in nation building in the sense that the US regards its own nation. The rest of the world can reasonably expect that the US will be more reluctant, for a while, to commit troops overseas.
What was far more damaging was Biden’s declaration that he would not commit troops to the Ukraine – it was far more important to him to reassure his own electors than leave an uncertainty that could have deterred Putin. Bush at least responded to Putin’s advance in Georgia by declaring the US would send humanitarian aid.
What we can be certain of is that China will analyse what has happened and will invest accordingly. There we need to make a better fist of understanding the minds of the key political leaders, which failed to do with Russia. It is unseen diplomacy that is needed if we are to rebuild and improve harmony in the world
Even compared with the information given on his own website this article is idiotic.
When I was just a kid in the USA, our President, John F. Kennedy, went to Berlin and spoke to those enthusiastic German citizens about the difference between a free country and a country under bondage.
He challenged the people of this world: “Let them come to Berlin!”
Let them come to Berlin to see, first hand, the difference between the western side of that great city, the free zone, as compared to east berlin, controlled by oppressively Soviet occupiers who were depending on a wall that they had built, a wall to keep East Berliners in their captivated territory.
“Ich bin ein Berliner!” he proclaimed to the Berliners, and to the world.
In other words, we are all, together, citizens of this world, and we are in a position of freedom and prosperity ought to reach out and lend a hand to oppressed people, and nations, to assist them in climbing, crawling or flying out of oppressive tyrannical regimes.. .
such as the Taliban.
We gave 20 years to that project, and that was enough.One important lesson in this life is: You can’t win ’em all. Resources do not permit infinite expeditions in foreign lands when there is still much work to be done at home.
My son in-law, a C17 pilot in the US AirForce, assisted by his highly competent crew, piloted the very first transport plane that landed in Kabul a year ago to carry our people and some Afghans out of that talibanated nation. As that C17 was approaching the Kabul airport, a crewman reported to his crew that the runway was “compromised.”
I’ll not go into the details. You many have heard reports, or seen photos, of what was happening at the Kabul airport on that fateful day.
But the pilot of that huge transport jet was required, in order to accomplish their mission while preserving and protecting human life, had to do maneuvers with that big air machine that he had never done before.
Later, that pilot and his crew were awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross, by the US Air Force.
What happened at Kabul on that fateful day was not pleasant, not simple, not easy to perform, and indeed–not without death and suffering– especially later when terrorists set off an explosion at the gates of the airport.
But our guys accomplished the mission that had been laid upon them by our President and the citizens of our United States. It was a long time coming, but it had to be done. Read ’em and weep, all you GOP naysayers.
Like it or not, we are now free–and less-entangled than before that drawdown–free to come to the assistance of other persons or nations in other parts of the world who may require our assistance in resisting and defeating tyranny and oppressive regimes, whether under the radar or over it.
Let them, the nations, come to America! to see what a nation of free people can do to assist other citizens of the world who are seeking help.
Even so, Ask not what America can do for you, but what, together, we can do for the freedom of man.
If you consider Afghanistan a success, I would hate to see what you call a failure.
“We gave 20 years to that project, and that was enough.One important lesson in this life is: You can’t win ’em all. Resources do not permit infinite expeditions in foreign lands when there is still much work to be done at home.”
You haven’t won anything in a long, long, time. This is no reflection on your son-in-law or the men he served with. But it is a reflection of the men they serve under. It’s difficult to know exactly what the world’s opinion of America is, there are so many different relationships or perspectives. It may be the sheer strength of the US military people admire, but I doubt it’s their foreign policy. Who could possibly trust them?
America hasn’t ‘won’ anything since Grenada. The military-industrial complex Eisenhower warned of however has achieved much for its stakeholders.
I arrived, as Master of a small Vessel, shortly after “Grenada” and was assured by the Harbour Master that ‘half-a-dozen London Bobbies would have achieved the same objective in a shorter time’. Nothing against the USMC (sometimes referred to as Uncle Sams Misguided Children) just the politicians using the proverbial big stick before finding out what was really needed.
Why do you classify the GOP as naysayers – “Trumps” original plan was to use Baghram which would have worked well. I can only presume that it was a political decision to change the plan. Any military planner in their right mind would not choose an airfield who approaches were under ‘enemy’ control.