AE-lementary, My Dear Watson!

It's been an interesting year so far. And today, as I write this, its Valentine's Day
2011, and I just became obsolete.
You see, just a few days ago as I am writing this, they created a working
nanoprocessor. (
http://www.mitre.org/news/releases/11/nanoprocessor_02_10_2011.html )
Additionally, they created a solution to the last major problem with constructing
graphene processors, which was a low "Band Gap". If you aren't familiar with how a
transistor works, basically if you visualize a stream, with a dam across it, and a gate
in the middle of it, you have the basic idea of what a transistor does. When the gate
is closed, it stops the flow of water, when it's open, it passes water through. That
"dam" also has a "height", if the height is too low, water just goes over the top of it
even when the gate is closed. That "height" is the band gap. For all its advantages,
graphene had a very low band gap, which meant that it didn't make a good "dam".
However, if you've read my article on graphene (
http://hplusmagazine.com/2010/05/03/graphene-next/ ) you'll recall I talked about
how the shape of graphene affected it's electrical properties? Well, it turns out that
a squared u-shape bend ( http://nextbigfuture.com/2011/02/u-bend-graphenetransistor-breakthrough.html ) is all it takes to make a band gap high enough to
create transistors every bit as functional as silicon. Additionally, a new material
Molybdenite ( http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/news/45056 ) is looking to be just
as useful as graphene in nanoelectronics. The irony is at almost the same time we
discovered molybdenite as a possible solution to graphenes low band gap, we
solved the low band gap problem.

So how does that make me obsolete? Well, the answer to that involves several
factors. First, it means that most of the barriers to manufacturing THz speed
computers have been overcome. One way or another, we are about to make
computers a thousand times more powerful than any that have ever existed before.
Think about that while you are looking at that monitor reading this. Imagine that
computer you are using is just one node of a thousand. That behind the screen you
are looking at is a computer with all the power of the new Chinese supercomputer. (
http://www.physorg.com/news/2010-11-chinese-supercomputer-world-fastest.html )
Have you done that? Good. Now look at your cell phone and imagine all that
computing power has been packed into something the exact same size. Then, once
you've managed to wrap your mind around that, watch as IBM's Watson plays
Jeopardy. ( http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2376035,00.asp )

If you failed to make the connection there, I won't be surprised. Watson is an

entirely new type of program that many people probably do not comprehend the
ramifications of. In fact, I had a friend completely dismiss Watson's importance by
comparing it to Big Blue, a highly specialized computer doing a highly specialized
task. What she failed to understand is that Watson is a demonstration of a semantic
UI, or what John Smart calls a "Conversational User Interface." (
http://www.accelerationwatch.com/lui.html ) In other words, unlike any computer
program ever existing before, Watson <b>understands<b> English. That's right,
Watson isn't comparing individual letters like most search engines. It comprehends
what <b>words<b> mean in a method more closely aligned with the way that
humans do, and it's doing so at the same speed that a human does. Even if Watson
loses in the official match, it is still a breakthrough that has enormous consequences
for the future of humanity. You see, in my opinion, Watson has been misnamed. Hes
much more like Sherlock than the good doctor. Watson represents the first primitive
version of what I would call an Artificial Expert. Unlike A.I. which is about
recreating Intelligence, A.E. is about recreating Expertise which is a much more
narrowly defined concept. Its also significantly different from an Expert system
because while the goals are the same, the methods are more advanced, and the
results are much more impressive
You see, Watson isn't using solely hand coded rules like an expert system, an
approach that tends to require prohibitively large rule sets, it's actually read
hundreds to thousands of general knowledge books and built a database in which it
comprehends some of the <b>context<b> of the data, not just the letter
combinations. Its using a combination of statistical analysis of text and speech and
an English language Expert System, and making judgments based on the
semantic structures. Where Google's search engine can offer you thousands of links
in which the specific letters you type in can be found, Watson understands the
<b>question<b> and can provide <b>answers.<b> Like Sherlock Holmes, given
the correct database, a fully mature AE would be able to answer nearly any
question, and explain things to the Watson asking the question. This approach has
some very definite limits, because answering a question outside of the scope of the
database would be entirely impossible, and unlike the famous detective, such a
program would not be able to extrapolate from its existing knowledge to deduce
new answers, but within these limits, AEs will still enable some remarkable changes
in our world.

And no, Watson is not even close to being a fully functional Artificial Expert yet,
more like the equivalent of DOS or Windows 3.11, and it has a lot of maturing to
do before its market ready, but I think it is a major step towards AEs, especially
in combination with the computer advances I described above.

Now, I'm sure most of you have read about how the internet is a vast information
network connecting all of humanity. And I'm sure all of you are just as aware of the
fact that there is <b>so much<b> information on it that finding any specific article
of information can be difficult. Put any query you wish into Google and odds are
good you will find at least a hundred links, all of which may only partially apply to
the question you have. From there, you have to sort out yourself what information is
good, and what is bad.

A fully mature Artificial Expert can change that. Right now, Watson is run by a pretty
sophisticated supercomputer that's of considerable size. But given all those
advances in computer power I discussed above, how long do you really think it will
be before a Watson comparable AE can be run by any computer? And long before
we see it on our personal "computerphone" we will see it used by Google and Bing,
and all those other search engines to create a "Semantic Web." (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semantic_Web ) Over the next decade, Watsons
descendants are going to be evolving, and improving far beyond what we have
today.

Now, you are probably still wondering why I can say that any of that is making me
"obsolete," but I haven't given you all the pieces of the puzzle yet, so let me have
you think about what the ramifications of computers able to understand semantics
actually means. Semantics is all about interpreting "meaning" which is actually a
very fluid concept. Words can sometimes say one thing and mean another. We
humans excel at comprehending "puns" and "sarcasm" and various other forms of
"wordplay." In fact, Jeopardy is well known for these very kinds of wordplay. By
having Watson play Jeopardy, IBM is demonstrating that Watson is not just able to
comprehend <b>basic<b> English, it's capable of interpreting many of the
<b>nuances<b> as well. You won't have to talk to it in idiot simple language, but
can communicate with it almost like you can with a fellow human. As time goes by,
Watson is only going to improve in this ability and evolve into an AE. A future
version AE running on a THz processor network able to query the web might be as
revolutionary when it finally reaches the public as Google was when it first
appeared.

All of which means that future versions of such AEs will be able to compete with
humans in many jobs that cannot currently be automated. It also means that it will
be used to make many jobs that currently are only partially automated fully so.

I used to be a Customer Service Rep for SONY. During my employment, SONY rolled
out a new system it called SONY Max. Max was a voice based "operator" that could
understand customer complaints in a very limited way, and through a menu based
system, enable customers to get answers to common "problems", mostly those that
we service reps called "ID: 10t" or "PEBKAC" errors, (Problem Exists Between
Keyboard And Chair). Only those calls which actually required a human capable of
comprehending the nuances of language were passed through this system to the
CSRs. And even most of those were of the "This doohickey that makes the arrow
move about the screen isn't working" variety, or of the "I just clicked yes on a
whole bunch of neat stuff I found on the web and now I can't get this purple ape off
my screen." kind of problems. Most of us could provide solutions to customers
without even needing to bother searching the database, but we still had to
document step by step what we did to fix the problems. Every day, every call, we
built a database of solutions for nearly every possible problem that a customer
could have, from the most ridiculous to the actual serious problems. I myself
contributed hundreds of problem solutions to that database, mostly about fixes and
workarounds for issues caused by various software programs and the locations of
where I found those fixes.

A mature enough AE could probably do my job, with very, very, few cases that it
would have to pass along to an actual human tech. With one very crucial difference.
SONY had several thousand CSR's scattered around a dozen or so call centers. With
an evolved AE, and sufficient THz speed computing power, they could probably do
the exact same job with less than a dozen top notch techs. An AE could read
through that entire massive solutions database and provide an answer to nearly any
question a customer could ask. And it could do so 24 hours a day, 7 days a week,
regardless of call volume, and without ever needing a break, or food, or having to
use insurance, or getting into a fight with another CSR, or having a bad day, or
showing up to work drunk, or having any single human foible. After all, we spent the
majority of our day making that database so comprehensive that even a child could
use it, all so that we could make our own jobs easier. We've already done 90% of the
work needed to automate the job. An EA would simply be the finally 10%.

And for those of you who I hear protesting that humans would give "better customer
service," let me clue you in on a fact of life. The "Customer Service" division was
controlled by "Marketing" and was primarily concerned with getting the customers
registration info, like names, addresses and phone numbers. There was no concern
with "fixing" a customer's problem. Remember that "Purple Ape"? It was called the
Bonzi Buddy, and it was actually fairly easy to uninstall. SONY's "solution" to it?
Reformat the computer to original configuration, wiping all the customers data.
Had a driver conflict? Wipe. Had a malfunctioning program? Wipe. Had any software

related problem at all? Wipe. We CSR's would get lower "grades" for actually taking
the time to walk a customer through an actual fix. SONY has just two "accepted"
solutions to any problem. Wipe and reformat, or send the unit to be serviced, where
the first step of repair would be to wipe and reformat anyway. Every other solution
in the database was "optional" if we weren't "busy" with high call volume.

Are you still so certain that corporations actually give a damn about customer
service? Personal experience has shown me that they only pay it lip service,
otherwise you wouldn't be calling CS these days to get someone who only barely
speaks English. Believe me, a fully functional Artificial Expert is the answer to the
corporations problems with those pesky customers who have the unmitigated gall to
actually want the company to provide <b>support<b> for their products.

Now, understand, in order to have the CSR job at SONY, it was required to either
possess an A+ certification, or to prove equivalent knowledge. That means that it
was a "Knowledge Based Job" for a "Skilled worker", and not an "Unskilled labor
position." It's not a "Blue collar job" like those manufacturing jobs I discussed in my
last article ( http://hplusmagazine.com/2011/02/14/adding-our-way-to-abundance/ )
that were threatened by 3D printers. It's a "White Collar Job" that is supposedly
"safe" from automation. And if a complex enough AE can do a CSR job for a large
extremely high profile company like SONY, which CSR job anywhere is safe? They all
work <b>exactly<b> the same way SONY does, after all, with those massive
databases of "solutions" created by decades of CSRs. This makes them
<b>ideal<b> candidates for exactly the kind of data mining that Watson does.

And if future AEs can do a "knowledge based job" like "IT technician" what makes
you think <b>any<b> "knowledge based job" would be beyond it? Like, for
example, Law? We have <b>hundreds<b> of years worth of "databases" of
"solutions" on file. With massive increases in computing power, and equally massive
increases in memory storage, how long do you really think it will be before law firms
are using those improved Watsons to build cases for them? And how long after that
to do you think they will be firing all those legal researchers, paralegals, and junior
attorneys? And how long after that do you imagine that a few disgruntled exemployees will start using their own AEs to file lawsuits against those companies for
various reasons, all basically intended to allow those "obsolete professionals" to get
back into the "financial status tier" they were so abruptly tossed out of?

How about medical technicians? How many of them do you think can compete with
a mature AE? When after digesting millions of medical records it could diagnose an
x-ray or read a cat scan better than a human? We are already developing a gestural
based UI for surgeons so that a robot can replace scrub nurses at handing them
instruments, ( http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-02-future-surgeons-roboticnurse-gesture.html ) and using Kinect's to enable them to give force feedback
information for remote robotic surgery, (
http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/shortsharpscience/2011/01/microsoft-kinecthack-used-to.html ) so why would anyone assume that other computer based
advances like AE would leave the medical industry alone?

And how many other knowledge based jobs could we find for an AE to do? We like to
tell ourselves that humans are too versatile to ever be replaced by robots or
software in the labor market, but how much longer will this really be true?
Computers actually able to comprehend language certainly are not "A.I." as
commonly defined, and nowhere near as capable of, as Ben Goertzel puts it,
creative improvisation in the face of the fundamentally unknown, but I know from
experience how little "improvisation is actually needed, or even desired, to perform
many "knowledge based jobs." All it takes is being able to provide a correct answer
to a properly asked question. All the years of training, study and memorization that
it takes to enable a human to be able to perform this task are meaningless to a
computer, which needs only to access a database, a database that we humans have
been building for decades already. No, the modern day Watson isnt ready for this,
but how much are you willing to bet that the technology <b>will not improve?<b>

Feel free to find any excuses you want to try and give yourself some hope. I'm
simply looking at this logically. Once AEs have evolved their way out of the lab, and
are mature enough to be made into real world applications, your education will
become meaningless. All those years you spent going to college to learn your
specialized knowledge can be condensed by a future AE to however long it takes for
it to be connected to a database of that same specialized information and digest it
the same way todays Baby AE Watson digested all those general knowledge
books to play Jeopardy. Somehow, I have this feeling that it will take considerably
less time for an AE to become an expert in any given field than it takes a human.
No, it wont be today, and it wont be tomorrow, but I just have this sinking
suspicion that its not going to be that many years down the road either.

Will every job be able to be reduced down to a "question asked/answer given"

format? Of course not, but how confident are you that <b>your<b> job is one of
the safe ones? Especially given todays business environment? Especially when

you consider the advantages that a fully functional mature AE will give to nearly any
business?

There is, however, a flip side to the development of fully mature Natural Language
interfaces and Artificial Experts which empowers the common person as well.
Because consider this, a fully mature Watson descendant capable of understanding
Natural Language at even a grade school level will make an Instant Expert out of
anyone.

If you think about that for a few seconds, it should be obvious that by connecting a
mature Artificial Expert to a database and creating a program that can answer
nearly any question you could ask about a particular subject, what you've basically
done is enabled <b>anyone,<b> not just corporations, to gain the benefit of all of
that knowledge. Not only will mature AEs "automate" millions of jobs that require
years of specialized learning to do, it will enable good ole Joe Schmoe to have
access to that same knowledge. Remember I was talking last article about how
anyone with a 3D printer and some design knowledge could compete on an equal
footing with a giant corporation? A mature AE could enable anyone to have every
bit as much "design knowledge" as the "pros" In fact, it would be like having a "pro"
on hand 24 hours a day 7 days a week able to answer any and every question you
might have. Yes, the corporations will have the advantage at first, but as time
passes, and those AE programs improve and increase in functionality, that
advantage will rapidly vanish.

How long that will take I can't tell you, but I don't expect it to be very long, because
once AEs begin replacing all those professionals in the job market, what do you
think those experts are going to be doing? I know what I would be doing -- making
improvements in the open source versions of AEs to put the company that sacked
me so the CEO could keep making a bonus out of business. Revenge is, after all,
such a <i>human<i> emotion.

But that mature AE would have a lot more uses than just technical ones. Like I
mentioned earlier, if a mature AE could replace legal researchers, it could result in
"Software Attorneys" which could not only advise you on the proper way to file your
case, but provide for the necessary "precedents" needed to ensure your case wins.
Given that possibility, I'm sure you could see also see how many other "professional
services" could also be provided by a similar "Artificial Expert." In fact, a fully
mature AE combined with limited A.I.s will make such "Personal Digital Advisors" as

John Smart's "Cybertwin" ( http://www.accelerating.org/articles/hpe2032army.html )

concept possible. By creating a Software Secretary able to use any AE as a plugin,
you could make a Virtual You that could live on the web and hunt down
information, songs, video, and any other kind of data that it knows would be of
interest to you.

And then think about how AE technology could be applied in the field of education.
Imagine having your professor on hand, regardless of subject. Imagine a child
having access to AE tutors from early childhood. Imagine having a forum discussion
with your Cybertwin providing you data to support your arguments, or proving
that the data fails to support them before you stick your foot in your mouth.
Imagine how useful AEs are going to be to self education. Imagine a child in Africa
having access to their own AE. Imagine a soldier in the field getting strategy advice
from his own personal Sun Tzu. Imagine having your own personal Sigmund Freud,
or Steven Hawking. Imagine that any time you have a question about any subject
imaginable, from where to get good pizza to how virtual particles interact between
bosons, you have your AE there willing to whisper the answer in your ear.

Then imagine a world in which ignorance and poor education no longer exist. In
which everyone everywhere has the potential to be your intellectual equal, where
the geek and the jock are on equal footing taking that physics test. A world where
<b>everyone<b> is Einstein. Humanity just took its first steps towards real
cognitive enhancement and eventually, Watsons future children will have the
potential to make us all "transhuman"

So yeah, as a "knowledge specialist", I just became obsolete today. And that's a

<b>good<b> thing.