The future of digitalization (Gerhard Fischer) - 1st AiTech Symposium

so I think they're organizers for
inviting me and so is this is the title
of my talk and as Lisa mentioned already
one of my of the interest for me has
been design trade-offs and understanding
what that means and so I want to start
with sort of this is a very qualitative
diagram saying maybe the real impact is
not so much technology but to also
understand how technology caused
cultural transformations and so this
obviously only mentioned a few things
and as we arrived in 2019 we look into
the future so Alisa just finished the
same design is about the future in some
of the big things which people talk
about our digitalization cyber-physical
system big data AI humans and the design
and I put in two curves one continue to
going up so to increase the power of the
collective human mind aided by
technology and one going down and it's a
very beginning I put in so Curtis
because you can study dialogues between
Socrates and Plato where Socrates was
arguing that reading and writing would
really be very damaging to the humans
because they would kind of give up on
memorizing things and this was a big
debate and we can look back and you know
usually say that reading and writing is
a good thing our society spends huge
resources but what is the lesson learned
you know for as we look in the future I
mean we have to think about are we going
for
so up or are we going down so the future
of digitalization as I said I want to
Center it around design playoffs and the
consequences for a lot of what is talked
here about quality of life human
responsibility value sensitive design in
human control and I would argue it a
little bit that we should distinguish
between AI approaches in what I labeled
human centered design so I think what
you know being not the youngest person
in this room anymore what I must say and
know it me a little bit is the current
hype about AI you wait you know you open
the newspapers is an article about AI
and some profits you know tons of world
how wonderful the world will be based on
AI and so this is a history diagram of
how I developed and I mean when I was a
student I I was around in different
forms but some of some major ideas were
already present at the time in the AI
ahead for those of you who know a little
bit of history had a big height face in
the mid eighties centered around expert
systems and the question were then
following some of the big expectations
which didn't materialize there was a
face which was called say AI winter in
an interesting question which you can
reflect upon is was the current hype
again be followed by an AI winter so
what influenced me fundamentally in my
own career is that I discovered this
book in the early 1970s it was published
in 1963 and it was a collection of
articles which is widely recognized
being the foundation of AI in all
relevant a I work at this time fit into
one book so we can now contrast this
with the history of human centered
design sometimes we call it intelligence
augmentation in play visa reverse order
of say abbreviation instead of AI we say
I a and you may know some of these
developments but I think a big meeting
that I attended numerous of is
computer-human interaction conferences
there are other developments like
end-user development empowering people
to contribute their own thoughts and
overcome closed systems so in my own
career
I lifts whose's faces I spent some time
under trying to understand how these
ideas would influence learning I spend
some time at Xerox PARC
understanding human-computer interaction
where I think it's a fair statement to
say the computers which you all have in
front of us they're really invented in
the 80s at Xerox PARC and then made it
to Apple and I was then particularly
interested in design and this was that
presented that we had a Center for 30
years at the University of Colorado
visit idle life flow a Center for
lifelong learning and design so the
background for some of my remarks is
that we tried to build systems ourselves
not commercial systems but we labeled
them inspirational prototypes and I will
who you won in one second I have also
been but sis more understanding sis
developments collaborated miss research
labs on self-driving cars and mobility
for all one in Munich one close to
Boulder Colorado where I live and
studying sort of ideas which AI tech
develops I think these are C's
activities
excuse me relate to understand the
implications of meaningful human control
for the science design and engineering
of autonomous intelligent systems and
then to understand what meaningful human
control might mean so I just wanted to
show you one system on which we have
developed on which we have worked for a
long time this was a system which we
labeled the envisionment and discovery
collaboratory what you see in the middle
is a tabletop computing environment and
people can gather around this table you
bring different opinions to bear there's
a lot of intelligent system components
underlying the system where you can have
simulations you can have visualizations
you have a critical component and it's
linked with vertical board in the
background which brings and locates
relevant information to this question
under investigation which the people
discuss and we debated it for urban
planning tasks so now in this context of
system I want to mention one aspect of
what could it mean meaningful human
control so just out of curiosity who
knows what SimCity is so quite a few
so SimCity you know it's a nice game and
we closely work with urban planners on
these projects
we ask ourselves why where's he systems
not used in urban planning in the
primary reasons for some cities
limitation is that urban planning
addresses open problems in real world
context in SimCity represents a closed
systems it does not allow the
introduction of elements that were not
anticipated by the developers of sim
cities so one example to make this more
specific let's say you play the SimCity
and you do find out there was too much
crime so is the solution which SimCity
offers to you is increase the police
force this is a solution but you do not
have control that you say well you know
I may also not only fight crime but
prevent crimes so I would like to
explore what it would mean that I
increase social services there's no ways
that you can do and what we try to do
with the system the investment and
discovery collaboratory to create a
solution space where the people could
consent sort of closeness of the given
system and explore alternatives which
they want which they found interesting
so here I come sort of to the core
concept which is design trade-offs so my
claim is designers choice it's an
argumentative process with no optimal
solutions and I argue that design
problems have no correct solutions or
right answers so wideness of honest of
design is not a question of fact like it
is in the natural science I mean if I
let some object drop it will go down and
not will not go up so there is a correct
right solution but it is a question of
values in interest of say involved
stakeholders
and my argument which we explored is
that exploring an identifying design
trade-offs is not an approach to limit
focus but to enhance progress by
providing frameworks to move in a
promising future in which all people can
participate and benefit from them so we
studied a long list of different design
trade-offs I mean the first one I will
explore a little bit more I think one
which played plays a role in other
people's contribution is sort of
studying mobility where you have someone
troy's more zai oriented choice of
self-driving cars whereas humans and the
design approach may direct and advance
more driver assistance systems so let me
choose one example of saying what design
trade-offs may do it may help us to
identify the real problem so the example
which I have chosen is on September 11th
2001 there was a terrorist attack on
World Trade Center and the Pentagon and
then people brought together and said
well how can we try to avoid that this
will ever happen again and the analysis
of analyzing this problem was to hinder
terrorists to end us a cockpit and the
consequence was to develop secure doors
to the cockpit and if you enter an
airplane today you will see that there
are big mechanisms to secure the doors
to the cockpit and then what happened
many years later there was this
Germanwings flight where a pilot
potentially we don't know
exactly the things mentally disturbed
steal an airplane into a mountain in
southern France and 160 people died in
the solution which was the original
solution to the problem how it was
perceived was that the secured cockpit
doors exactly facilitated this issue and
now we kind of we have to reconsider is
a problem by better understanding what
happened and so the problem now is also
do not leave a single person in the
cockpit and the method is that we are
driven by breakdowns and I mean some
assumption is that we can anticipate
such things earlier and do not have to
wait so the major disaster like this
happens I think this is sort of a
similar overview of saying what is the
real problem is it which is just that
one note in this overall diagram
self-driving cars is that a real problem
or is a mobility for all or I mean I
didn't develop this know that all so
reduce the need for it yesterday we
discussed I fly all the way from
Colorado to the Netherlands may what
would be the difference if I would have
stayed there in the presentation would
have given via via videolink
flying has become bad things these days
so that would eliminate it but then here
are all these other kinds of aspects
where we can analyze the design
trade-offs I mean there are car sharing
models I think this current emphasis on
self-driving cars public transportation
has taken a backseat so this notion how
do we get keys a real problem I think
can be facilitated
by understanding design trade-offs this
is just a diagram that this notion may
be related to ISM who is in control
human involvement and automation was
studied in the airline industry at a
much earlier time I would say where you
went in one and at one in from direct
manual control to autonomous operation
and then people identified all the ways
in the middle so what our sort of value
added by analyzing to design trade-offs
so we could say avoid oversimplified
solutions I think the current populist
movements in many countries many of the
populace resent simple solution to
complex problems say ignores the design
trade-offs associated with Sun we can
uncover unknown alternatives as I just
illustrated with an example we can avoid
one-sided views and group things and
maybe we also can understand better the
complexity in richness of human
experiences and if you think about
trade-offs being the endpoint on the
spectrum we can identify interesting
synthesis in meaningful compromises so
Hamas says semental horizon shrinks when
people no no longer think about and
explore alternatives so let me if a
little bit elaborate say artificial
intelligence perspective versus the
human centered perspective so CAI people
I would claim she often humans as
scapegoats for doing things what the
automated system cannot do yet
say often says missing a clear
differentiation what's a machine is in
can do and if in what humans can do and
therefore a balance cannot be reached so
there's a paradox of automations and
more reliant we become on technology
celeste prepared we are to take control
in the exceptional cases when the
technology fails and again the different
levels of self-driving cars which we
have seen earlier I think there are
interesting points to be made and then
we can say what is the current basis for
a coven type and it's no doubt compared
to earlier times aia has now more
powerful computers we have big data we
have machine learning and deep learning
and we have all kinds of predictions so
the human centered perspective I think
is grounded that in the fundamental
assumptions human are not computers and
computers are not humans in the research
paradigm which I personally have
migrated to being originally really much
more in say AI camp is not to analyze so
much human versus computers but human
and computers now it's a common type of
AI cell is as I said earlier and it was
hiding the ad is followed by an AI
winter and we can study how this
migration had taken place I asked you
already the question will there be a new
AI winter and what is troublesome in my
mind is the admiration which journalists
self-nominated experts who may not have
heard of the concept of AI a couple
years ago and now the cemani
disseminating AI Fenton
and so for me and a challenge is to
explore sort of a post AI attitude
compared to the current hype so I
classified AI people in utopians
pessimists and realists and it's I think
it's interesting even if we don't
believe what utopian say to heal some of
their arguments so I mean say at you
that we as humans will not be is a major
decision makers anymore because the AI
system can do it better we should
understand ourselves as an intermediate
step in evolution you have super clever
machines and if you shoot people in
space this is done much better with
robots send with human beings in this is
real I mean you can reach us and these
utopians have a non-trivial influence
now it's our end of the spectrum as a
pessimist which argue a AI has failed ai
ai is dangerous and you can read you
know statements from public figures like
Stephen Hawking and Alan Alan masks
though who also argued that full
artificial intelligence could result in
human extinction I think what maybe this
community you know should see as one of
the contribution is to become sort of a
I have a list so I would say AI is too
poorly defined and all people use AI we
haven't heard a lot of characterization
of what AI really is but I think it's
too poorly defined but on the other hand
too interesting to be ignored service
progress in AI without any doubt another
feature is
that when first some of these in
interesting problems where tackle by AI
research but since they became better
understood since I merged into general
computer science in are not AI labelled
anymore and I think one particular
important issue is there are no
decontextualized sweet spots which means
without providing context we cannot save
as or something is good or bad but we
have to look into more details we need
to explore specific context so this was
already at the beginning that it's a
slight that in some ways we do not only
create technologies but we creating new
worlds and we should ask us not only
what can people computers can do and but
what computers should do so focusing
Science and Technology is often
characterized there are things which we
couldn't do and now we can do it
so autonomous weapon system nuclear
technology reproductive medicine genetic
engineering our disciplines maybe not so
represented here here are some others
the blue ones are more closer to the
topic of symposium and we can look at
what Chinese create we say ourself
social credit system or what's work by
pursuit with self-driving cars I think
asking this question is not enough so we
should then also ask should it be done
and nuclear energy is one interesting
example where Elsa Germans determines
that they will get out of nuclear energy
whereas other nations are still building
new nuclear reactors and I think we can
send past should it be done question or
notions of voila
tea of life ethics values impact choice
control autonomy and souls are all
associated with design trade-offs so I
was surprised that I didn't know the
people who gave lectures earlier but
they had a lot of similar references on
it I have never met them
and so I find this in interesting that
from two sides of the Atlantic I mean
people are aware that there was a nice
report on ethically Alliant design that
some AI places like Stanford and MIT
have created centers for human centered
design value sensitive design has ended
sort of the picture notches is a very
nice book where the core concept is
something called libertarian paternalism
which i think is an interesting concept
related to meaningful human control and
so I hope or I wish or I see that AI
tech the wants to import similar issues
and we have also conducted symposia
where we explored this concept of design
trade-offs from different angles again
sis was also mentioned before said one
away Holle problem there's a big effort
on at MIT called some moral machine I
think one additional aspect was when the
trolley problem was mentioned this
morning is that a human you know being
able to throw sit switch what should he
do can he also escape sort of sees
options which are presented to him such
as Holly goes in one direction also also
I think an interesting question is if we
develop self-driving cars so this is a
modified version of the trolley problems
is car
so long if it goes fade it runs into a
concrete wall and the people in the car
get killed whereas if it goes to the
other side the children being on the
street get killed and now if we think
about self-driving cars we have to
anticipate some of these situations in
the algorithm which we will encode this
information will then steal the behavior
of the car in a certain direction and so
philosophical question of the past I
mean are now becoming in some ways
engineering decisions how should we
develop the software how should we
capture and imagines us such situations
and I think again here we are facing
design rate of situations and the
question is you know do we how well do
we understand the problem there are no
answers to these issues yet but I think
these are issues which should be
investigated so let me conclude by Al
doing which is something sort of dear to
my heart and which I involve my own
professional career that the future is
not out sale to be discovered but it has
to be invented and designed in some
design is choice and there are design
trade-offs and in our little interactive
group I think what we really discussed
well design trade-offs between different
approaches and let me leave you the next
question if is that statement you know
characterize an essential element since
the question is well by whom who will
invent in design as a future well Google
Facebook Apple and sis lists can be
extended indefinitely some of these
companies have a vital interests that
say a way of inventing and designing the
future corresponds to their value
systems maybe to their viability and
profitability of their companies now to
miss a question is you know what can we
also who are the people in this room do
what can a I tech as a new center do in
the years to come
what can we as academics to living in
universities compared to these companies
which employ hundreds maybe thousands of
people but I think we have a
responsibility you know that we inform
ourselves that we may be developing some
alternative visions to contribute to
this goal that the future should be
invented and designed thank you
[Applause]
thank you very much we have time for a
couple of questions so I'd like to have
the box thank you very much who would
like to open the Q&A session here you go
this is a simple one it's the same
question as was asked by myself earlier
do you have any good examples of where
meaningful human design and human
control was applied where all the
different stakeholders were taken into
consideration well I think you know so
this world at large where we can look
sort of in into very large questions I
tried to bring in this example where I
feel we ourselves developed systems so
we do not only ask the observer of the
systems coming into the world but trying
to involve I mean trying to create
inspirational prototypes and the system
was how much
urban environments be developed by a
top-down process so whatever the city
counts of the professional city planners
determine the future of delft what it
should be what should be billed what
should be allowed what should not be
allowed those who said we wanted to
involve all stakeholders and in addition
to what I said is that the out effects a
computational environment which we
created was really an open world the
results in a closed world and we I
contrasted Sim City so that maybe you
know urban planning is still a big
design activity which we are confronted
in many different ways and I there are
many more issues and but I didn't want
spend too much time we're very
controversial issues with lots of design
trade-offs
they are debated and our city which is
quite similar to Delft I mean there are
really really different opinion in which
direction our city should develop so I
would say this was an attempt to study
meaningful human controls the next
question is I don't know how this is in
Delft you know our citizens of Delft
really engaged or say well I also go out
and have a beer or sit in front of my
TVs and going to a neighborhood meeting
where a certain issue is debated yeah if
we look at a large scale if you look at
the happiness you know quotient in
different countries this game the Navion
countries are doing pretty well so if
you look at you know all the different
aspects how they come together in a
society those countries seem to have you
know a lot of the values that are shared
by lots of people and it may be very
homey as a homogeneous crowd compared to
the US we have so many diverse
stakeholders that makes it a lot easier
in a smaller scale country like the
Netherlands probably very similar I
think that's another interesting
question it's a scale like the u.s.
being a very big country Scandinavian
countries being much smaller countries
but for my personal intellectual
environment the Scandinavians have
really contributed very early on with
ideas which they labeled participatory
design so to distinguish themselves from
expert top-down present design so say
wanted to get more control to the people
who were affected by automate new ways
of automating factories so yeah
Scandinavia I think is an interesting
area of the world where interesting
ideas got developed thank you for your
nice presentation I have a question of
human centered concept I don't know how
I understand at a human-centered for
example in our cognitive systems does
that mean that human beings should
always dominate in the tasks well maybe
the one slogan which said which I had on
my slides is humans versus computers
versus human and computers I think we
should understand that a computer can
multiply two numbers faster than we can
a computer can search databases better
than we can when I came to Delft I had a
car with a navigation system and I
relied on incest with some extent
because the different ways to get from
somewhere in Germany to Delft I mean I
could have studied it more but because I
had the navigation system I try to do it
less let me give you one more example I
play tennis and maybe some of you also
play tennis so in tennis today better
ball is in or out that our line touches
there was a referee but then if there
was a debate that the call is the ball
is called out but the player believes
the ball is in he can challenge the
system as a judgement and then computer
system is part in the hawk-i system and
it shows that so the ball was in and in
or out and sometimes it's like half a
fingernail in or out and I would say I
believe that computers in his visual
perceptions when these balls are played
with great speed are better than we are
we have to test this as much as we can
but I think the controls the
decision-making process
the ultimate is
maker in this case is a computer system
so it whatever serve fov says is
overruled by the computer system I think
it depends so for the elect electoral
intelligence for for example for
computing something we can say computer
is faster or maybe more accurate than
human beings but for some situations
like self-driving cars another driver
so human drivers can be more experienced
to deal with more complicated situations
so so in this case yes without a doubt
but you asked me if I understood your
question correctly whether in all cases
humans are better than computers and I
think there are some elements like
computers can multiply two numbers
faster than we can in the tennis example
is visual perception of us maybe
computers have an advantage and since I
see humans and computers what you asked
is a very different question because you
asked al-saher elements where humans
should be in the center of all design
consideration and this was what my talk
was all about said I believe humans and
of design approaches should put a human
in the middle and not making its escape
gold if you have an automated system
like level 3 level 4 in self-driving
cars where the humans is part in then
the computer system cannot yet do the
task I think this is sort of the wrong
design global design outlook thank you
thank you very much is there a final
burning question just one can you try to
throw yes Thanks so in the physical
world humans have quite a good idea of
our potential engineering design and
decisions impact their life and so maybe
to give an extreme example you could
have a
community where people have marginal
understanding of how to read and write
but they can argue or they can kind of
advocate against a highway both being
built past the area because they
understand that that highway might have
certain consequences on their way of
life and in the digital space oh and the
algorithmic space it's often really
pretty understood even what the systems
do let alone what impact they might have
so how does one how does one start
bridging that gap between designers and
people which in the physical world again
people often have an appreciation of
what the consequence of the of the
design but in the digital world they
might not yeah I think this is a very
legitimate document that I feel in
historically the world was in the analog
or the physical world the pendulum was
all over there because we didn't have
the digital world in Vincent n de
l'homme as it often the case as a
digital world came along was swinging
all in the other direction everything
you know needed to be digital in I mean
now there are some considerations of
saying after all we are human beings we
live in a physical world in an analog
world and shoots a pendulum swing back a
little bit so the question which we
debated yesterday you know what is the
difference in quality if this meeting
would have been conducted in a virtual
environment so one issue is I maybe I am
the person who travels it's versus so I
could have stayed home and I could have
instead of displaying the slides I would
be on the screen and this light would be
in one corner but could be even go a
step first what's the purpose that you
all come here even if it's only a short
clip you all stay home and sit in front
of your screen and so what we really
have to ask ourselves what is the value
of the analog in the physical world
and being interested in learning you all
know what MOOCs are so for me MOOCs were
interesting not said I personally wanted
to teach a MOOC but I wanted to
understand the question what is the
value added by attending a physical
research oriented university in
particular in the US where people pay
$25,000 fees for attending a university
I think this is an interesting question
and if we cannot answer the question
what the value-added is then maybe we
should really you know say well maybe
moobs
are really replacing universities and if
you continue to teach courses to 800
people my personal opinion is that could
be done by MOOCs because it will not be
different and we could instead save
resources to create smaller more
discussion oriented causes well like sis
forum we at least have the opportunity
to discuss issues with each other so yes
there are designed trade-offs to operate
in the physical world or to operate in
the analog world so I hear I hear a lot
of material for many more presentations
to come and a lot more discussion so let
us thank a professor Fisher again thank
you very much