0
0
When an offensive lineman sets his foot at a certain angle on the turf before a play, defensive linemen take that as a sign it’s a pass play. They noticed this trend watching game film. Eighty-two percent of the time when the foot gets planted at a certain angle, they calculated, it’s a pass.
The defenders are using basic pattern recognition.
Why am I sharing this? Because the concept is central in another context. We are immersed in the age of artificial intelligence. But AI is a technology with so many sub-categories, capabilities, and types that it can be overwhelming to understand why it’s so important and becoming more widely used, and causing such a worldwide stir about privacy, bias, and the threat that people are losing control of their lives because of wicked intelligent machines.
In my reading about AI over the past several years, one concept keeps coming up that I have figured out to be a crucial capability: pattern recognition.
I haven’t come across anything more important to understanding AI than this basic concept. To be precise, a specific type of AI called machine learning excels at pattern recognition.
Machine learning collects data, and as it does this it becomes smarter and more accurate in its predictions about the future. Stay with me.
Sammy Sportface likes to write blogs on Saturday mornings. He also likes to order a mocha smocha latte while writing at Starbucks. Crunching this information, machine learning then predicts there’s an 89% chance that Sportface also likes to eat at Dunkin’ Donuts, a 92% chance he’ll go there on a Sunday morning, and a 78 percent chance while there he’ll tell someone he’s Sammy Sportface.
And there’s a 96 percent chance he’ll buy a book about writing blogs if you send him a text to his smartphone advertising such a book.
This is the basic idea of machine learning. Now extrapolate the scenario above what YouTube channels I watch on Tuesday nights between 7 and 9 p.m. and the technology can predict with higher levels of accuracy the likelihood I’ll watch a show about sports blogging during that time.
As the data keeps pouring into the machine learning machine, the technology gets better at recognizing more and more patterns and more accurate in its predictions about my future behavior.
All good, so far.
But here’s where this pattern recognition becomes a concern. Machine learning can execute pattern recognition much faster than a person can process much more information at once than we can. The human mind, by comparison, is like a turtle in this match-up against the machine-learning cheetah.
But what happens when that super-fast pattern recognition starts doing more and more of the thinking that we’re doing now or in the near future? What then will be our value? How can we contribute?
There’s more. It’s not just the faster pattern recognition that’s disconcerting. It’s the accuracy of those recognitions and predictions about future behavior.
The human brain can’t keep up with the pace effectiveness and value of these quantitative predictions about what a person will do next. Machines tend to be more accurate in forecasting what will happen next.
I’m not saying we’re doomed. I am saying we need to know more about how the power of machine learning’s pattern recognition can impact our lives for good and bad before unleashing more powerful AI technologies such as Chat GPT 5, the next version of the generative AI technology that has set off hysteria this year about AI overtaking people’s lives.
On a broad range of important levels we don’t fully understand, we’re up against something can’t compete with. And this something isn’t someone we can negotiate with easily or control what it does next.
Recognizing this pattern is the first step in figuring out what to do next. Slowing the dissemination of AI into the world is a smart first step.
For the good of all of us, especially the younger generation who will be grappling with this issue for the rest of their lives, we need to defer AI instant gratification and stop the greed grab, or the results could be beyond our control. We won’t be able to recognize patterns anymore.
Author Profile
-
Sammy Sportface, a sports blogger, galvanizes, inspires, and amuses The Baby Boomer Brotherhood. And you can learn about his vision and join this group's Facebook page here:
Sammy Sportface Has a Vision -- Check It Out
Sammy Sportface -- The Baby Boomer Brotherhood Blog -- Facebook Page
