Software-Technology

Designing Agentive Technology: AI That Works for People

It seems that advances in Artificial Intelligence (AI) have always been just over the world’s horizon ever since the 1950s. Although General AI – the kind that mimics full human intelligence – still seems decades away, our society seems to be adapting so-called Narrow AI already. (In fact, for work, I develop software that uses Narrow AI approaches for use by research administrators.) Noessel seeks to explain how non-programmers can design software that helps us humans do our lives better.

This book helps everyday people identify patterns in life that can be ameliorated through the use of technology. It’s not geared towards technical people like software developers or engineers as much as towards the general public. Ultimately, the public is going to be designing how this new software works, and these conversations need to be had at a societal level. Noessel uses plain examples and even explores a case-study of someone building an AI-equipped home garden.

In coining a new term, he calls this type of technology “agentive.” These are not just assistants to human tasks but “agents” that go out and do things for us. Technologists, like myself, are already developing software in this niche, and popular software companies – like Google, Apple, or Microsoft – are already fleshing out what these models mean in their products. Through this work, Noessel seeks to help us understand how we can adapt these advances to maximize beneficial human impact. The best technology relies on human reflection so that humans remain in the proverbial driver’s seat.

Of course, much discussion about the ethics of AI needs to happen as well. Noessel’s penultimate chapter, perhaps the longest in the book, focuses on ethics. Will this new paradigm lead to a utopia or a dystopia or something in-between? Much ink (or e-ink) has been spilt over generalized AI (can robots be human?), but not enough has been spilt over how to live in a world where most things are out of direct human control. Will the stock markets successfully adapt to algorithmic trading? What of the future of war? Will important human niches of knowledge be forgotten? Can people choose not to work in this new world? These questions are immensely interesting and need to be discussed before the situations present themselves.

Overall, this book addresses many real dilemmas faced by the march of technology. I like to keep up with software design to supplement and empathize with the designers who are my colleagues. It provided a dispassionate yet interesting exploration of things software deals with each day. It also brings to light many of the issues that I believe the wider public should deal with. Thinking about these things will facilitate their successful adoption by humans. Many in the software world are concerned that technology not become its worst impeding enemy; the reflections in this book advance that case, and for that reason, I’m grateful I stumbled across this book.

Designing Agentive Technology: AI That Works for People
By Christopher Noessel
Copyright (c) 2017
Rosenfeld Media
ISBN13 9781933820637
Page Count: 240
Genre: Computer Science, Artificial Intelligence
www.amazon.com