Electricity + Control January 2019

NOT TO BE MISSED

Artificial intelligence – threat or saviour?

SAUPEC/RobMech/PRASA Conference 28 – 30 January 2019 Central University of Technology, Bloemfontein Advancing the knowledge and understanding of power. Enquiries: Gerda Geyer. Tel. +27 (0) 11 487 9043 or email gerdag@saiee.org .za Robotic Process Automation Conference 31 January 2019 Gallagher Convention Centre, Johannesburg The Robotic Process Automation Conference focuses on the Robotic Process Automation (RPA) technology, which is the next frontier for businesses looking to streamline processes, increase productivity and ultimately improve the bottom-line. Enquiries: www.rpaconferences.com

by Professor Peter Cochrane

N ew technologies often see people react with scepticism, suspicion and fear, and this has been the case for Artificial Intelligence (AI). The reality is all our technologies are benign and any risk is entirely down to people and what they might do. In the case of AI, the advantages afforded to medical science are the most visible and well-known with dramatic improvements in diagnosis, treatment and outcomes. Lives are being saved and the quality of life for millions of people enhanced. At the other end of the scale, the military is using AI in robotic weapons for the purposes of disabling machines and killing people. Our job is to weigh up the good versus the bad. So far the balance sees an overwhelming weight of evidence on the side of AI being of great benefit and unlikely to realise the dystopi- an futures favoured by extreme naysayers. AI is also making huge contributions to the world of commerce, finance and management. It controls investments, writes reports and reviews, models and predicts outcomes, controls production sys- tems, conducts the testing of impossibly com- plex technologies, controls our logistic and trans- port systems. All of which we now depend on. At a human dialogue level, AI is enriching lives by providing rapid access to knowledge and solu- tions to complex problems and situations. How- ever, today’s state of play is a mere ‘window’ into a much broader and more powerful future. The wider, and essential, opportunity is the realisation of sustainable societies and green futures. Where does this start? Industry 4.0 might seem the unlikely champion of all human futures but the reality is that it has to be a giant step to- wards low energy and low material use, with re- cycling, repurposing and reuse that works. What we know for sure is that we can’t power into the future on the basis of polishing our old industries and processes and making them more and more efficient: such a path only slows down the rate of demise and puts back the day of reckoning. The change needed hinges on the realisation of new materials that do not occur in nature, they are shaping and forming into products with a high-efficiency of ownership and operation during their life. And crucially, the low energy recovery of all materials at the end of life. To do all this Indus- try 4.0 embraces key technologies: new materi- als created by biotech and nanotech; their trans- formation into products by robotics and additive engineering and material programming; the inter-

net of things providing communication between everything, along with embedded/distributed intelligence in all things to record their manufac- turing processes, purchase and operational use in preparation for their end of life recovery. The real key to all this is AI which is already discovering newmaterials and structures, whilst solving prob- lems that are beyond human capability. We are at the peak of Industry 3.0 and can progress no further, Even so, our abilities are al- ready formidable in that we are able to design and build over two billion mobile devices of in- credible complexity (greater than a Cray 3 Super- Computer) and ship them to global customers working across multiple networks and stand- ards. This ability is reflected in every aspect of human activity; we have progressively achieved far greater performance with far fewer materials at lower energy costs than ever before. But this cannot continue without Industry 4.0 and AI. Although AI might already appear as magic; it is meagre compared to what is to come. Our AI is on the first rung of a ladder that ultimately leads to general purpose, and fully sentient machines. Today’s AI progress is a replay of computer history with the task specific computers of the 1950/60s, and we have to buy task specific AI systems. Cur- rent generations of machines are outstanding at pattern recognition and learning, and in the past 12 months the big leap forward has been to see them eclipse their human programmers. This ability was not expected to be available for at least another decade. What most people don't really understand is that new technology begets even more powerful technology, and that is certainly the case with AI. Progress will not be linear, slow and predictable, it will be expo- nential, quantified, and it will take us by surprise. There really is only one big question to ask: can AI rise to the challenges facing our species with increasing shortages of water, food, fuel, raw materials and energy; with climate change and rising sea levels, on a planet managed by sim- ple minded politics and economics? To sustain 7.5 billion people at some equitable standard of living demands greater intelligence, and we can only do it with the help of AI - it really is a ‘ fait accompli ’ that will change lives, living and work! This is an edited extract of a talk delivered by Prof Cochrane at the University of Pretoria’s Flexible Futures Conference. Prof Peter Cochrane, OBE was chief technology officer at British Telecommunications and recently became a Professor of Sentient Systems at the University of Sussex, Ipswich.

Mining Indaba 4-7 February 2019

Cape Town International Convention Centre Championing Africa’s sustainable economic growth. Enquiries: Visit www.miningindaba.com

Africa Automation Fair Ticketpro Dome, Johannesburg 4 – 6 June 2019

Africa Automation Fair will host the second edition of the Connected Industries conference in line with growing international focus on the ‘The Fourth Industrial Revolution and the ad- vanced, connected industries of the future. Enquiries: Tel. +27 (0) 11 549 8300 or email info@africaautomationfair.com

40 Electricity + Control

JANUARY 2019