The Robots are Here

BIOGRAPHIES

PREFACE

THRIVING IN THE AGE OF ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

ROSEMARY SAGE AND RICCARDA MATTEUCCI

The mystery of human existence lies not in just staying alive, but in finding something to live for.

Fyodor Dostoyevsky: The Brothers Karamazov

A WORLD OF POSSIBILITIES

With smartphones in our pockets, the world is literally at our fingertips. An artist, Charlotte Prodger, has just won the 2018 Turner Art Prize with a film recording a video-diary of her life on her iPhone. Judges praised the lived experience as mediated through technology. The Internet of Things (IoT) means we are more connected than at any other time in history, but remotely rather than face-to-face. Now with Artificial Intelligence (AI) all of us are having to face a future of living with robots, which are machines now in human-type forms. This is a brave new world and takes some getting used to! Chatting to a ‘chat bot’ (robot machine) about a tax form seems weird and was not a useful experience as it could not answer specific queries! There was no flexibility demonstrated!

Such a machine movement has been dubbed the ‘Fourth Industrial Revolution’ and like previous ones has ignited fears over job security. The McKinsey Global Institute Report (2017) Applying Artificial Intelligence for Social Good, predicted that robots would eliminate around 30% of the global workforce by 2030, which is only a decade away! This equates to a possible loss of 800 million jobs world-wide, which frightens everyone! The report acknowledges that AI is not a silver bullet, but could help tackle some of the world’s most challenging social problems. Does this possible job scenario, however, present us with the full picture? Are we being bombarded with too much doom and gloom about the demise of many work roles, which might change in nature rather than disappear?

Over the last century machines have increasingly taken over routine jobs, such as product assembly, but luckily the workforce has survived, as new roles have been created. The changes, however, have had social consequences. Textile workers in the 1800s burnt down factories because of the introduction of mechanised looms. This innovation made the workforce helpless, hopeless and raised their hackles! New looms allowed the textile industry to expand, however, creating the need for more workers in new roles, like sales and marketing. In the 21st century, the service industry has now overtaken the industrial one and led to a huge increase in employment possibilities. Nevertheless, this has meant that people have had to develop new knowledge, attitudes and skills, which has been demanding and challenging, because more personal abilities are required that have not been taught in education programmes.

While we cannot know for certain how AI will impact on jobs, recent views are that it will boost sufficient growth to create as many roles as it replaces, suggesting a more promising future for everyone. New, creative, innovative thinking will drive technology for the better. This is being encouraged and promoted with examples like the Telegraph STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering & Maths) Awards 2019, which facilitate undergraduate students to find novel solutions to UK real social issues. Just think what doctors will be able to do with intelligent machines speeding up diagnosis rates. Also, the Army will benefit from smart bots analysing the battlefield to make winning more certain. The Telegraph STEM Awards offer higher education students the chance to prove their talent to some of the biggest names in industry. Now in its sixth year, the scheme requires students to tackle problems from the personal to the global. Take a look at the challenges below from industry sponsors. The aim of the participants is to solve one of them. If the idea is chosen as the winner, it could mean a career-defining work-experience programme and £25,000 for the lucky person.

These STEM Awards encourage us to be creative with 5 major issues facing society today:

1. The Innovation Challenge. How can robotics be used to make industrial processes more efficient? The UK has 72 industrial robots per 10,000 workers, meaning we lag behind China, Germany and Japan. Increasing industrial robot use is a key driver for increased productivity and necessary if British industry is to be competitive in a post-Brexit world. This challenge encourages participants to demonstrate how robotics can make an industrial process more efficient. It considers wider productivity gains from the innovation and the broader application.

2. The Electrical Challenge. How can we improve the efficiency of electric machines? Electrification shapes how we live, study and work, demonstrated by the many electrically-powered appliances, like kettles, that we use in life. No electric machine is completely efficient and manifested in the heat given out while in use. Heat management is a key challenge. This award section encourages the use of ideas to reduce waste heat and enhance performance.

3. The Automotive Technology Challenge. What new products or processes could be used to achieve weight benefits for high-performance sports cars? Using lightweight materials like carbon fibre brings efficiency benefits to all vehicles – not just sports and supercars. The UK McLaren Technology Centre is at the forefront of developing the new, future carbon-fibre technologies, to achieve higher performance levels and efficiency. This challenge encourages participants to achieve weight benefits that have the potential for wider uses in society.

4. The Healthcare Challenge. How can engineering, science and technology tackle the epidemics of tuberculosis (TB), malaria and neglected tropical diseases (NTDs)? The United Nations has outlined 17 sustainable goals (SDGs) to improve global well-being. A key aspect is ending TB, Malaria and NTD epidemics by 2030. Vaccines are being developed and medicines for prevention and treatment. Where will the emphasis be – prevention, diagnosis, cure, health-system strengthening or bioinformatics? The challenge is to develop solutions that tie into existing strategies and help people to feel better and live a quality life.

5. The Defence Technology Challenge. How will future armed forces stay connected in operations? What equipment might they need? The Army, Air force and Navy are increasingly inter-connected today. Technology knows their status continually and communicates with people and assets in operational fields. This must be maintained, sustained and developed, with equipment suitable for hostile battles, enabling armed forces to interact over time and space. How do we develop new personnel roles in this connected world? The challenge is to design battlespaces, explaining important features to be considered and how the vision can be realised.

These challenges will be faced by students in schools, colleges, universities and workplaces. They demand team cooperation, collaboration and engagement, requiring effective communication to share and develop ideas together, with competencies in production, presentation, performance, argument and negotiation. Presently, there is little emphasis on these abilities, needing expert instruction for success from teachers who understand such processes and provide development opportunities.

We have examples from Italy, with a tradition for developing knowledge and its implementation in educational opportunities. They have taught a robotics education for 10 years, monitored by university researchers. Italy leads the way, with STEM subjects encouraged in schools and engineers assisting children to invent and create robots to solve real-life problems. They then present achievements in spoken presentations locally and nationally in similar award challenges described above. This requires students to be in control of learning, encouraging motivation and self-discipline, through cooperation and collaboration with others. Initiatives are happening earlier in education than in the UK. Pulling together and pooling knowledge and skills is vital to save the planet. The United Nations Report (2018) showed climate change impact with stark conclusions and 12 years to save the planet and human beings.

Scientists agree on the major problem facing us. The rate at which humans produce CO2 is heating the atmosphere and changing climate patterns. Ice caps are melting and raising sea levels. What is the solution? Partly, this depends on engineering technology, but the challenge is finding lasting solutions, as opposed to quick fixes, along with motivating people to collaborate to solve complex, multi-faceted problems. Education is vital in making us aware of present dangers and wasteful life-styles, while helping to develop competencies to find answers to troubles. Upgrading our energy systems is vital for clean, affordable, secure supplies in the long-term to meet targets for reducing carbon emissions.

AI provides the next leap for controlling local and national energy consumption. It interprets live data at a speed beyond any human to help power grids and individual persons to optimise energy use and consumption. This is taking place with the Google-owned British AI business, DeepMind, working with the National Grid to assess demand from data sets. Included are detailed localised weather forecasts and online searches, hoping to reduce fossil fuel use in the grid. Another factor is local energy storage, so the Government has invested in the landmark ‘Faraday Challenge’, aiming to bring business and academia together for new thinking on micro-energy storage. This will propel the next electric cars as well as solar storage and other forms of sustainable energy, which our machine world must have ready.

A connected net-work of millions of smart batteries could provide clean energy for transport needs and give some back to the grids when needed. Moixa, a British Tech Company, offers battery systems to make better use of solar energy. Using AI, the company brings together large numbers of home batteries and connected devices to deliver service to the gird. Benefits are increased solar yields and storage to manage the gird infrastructure. It will only be possible if we achieve teams to share and develop ideas.

HELPING POOR COMMUNITIES

Small-scale storage solutions offer a brighter future for energy to poor communities, where renewable sources are available but storage problematic. Robotics are used to help optimise energy sources so that engineers, environmental and other experts can work together in a nuanced way to meet demands. Robots are accurate, precise, strong and reliable and are employed to meet many needs. Multi-discipline teams, with engineers, environmental, cultural and people experts, work with academics, to adapt robots for niche purposes. Saving the planet is urgent, but producing people to do so is vital to prevent global catastrophe. Partnering with robots and educating people to work with them is the world’s future.

Cyber-utopianism promises magic outcomes for poverty, but old methods work in classrooms: well-qualified, knowledgeable, skilled teachers, fresh air and exercise with exploration of the real world. This is also what ‘digital natives’ want. A study of e-learning showed that students preferred ordinary, real-life lessons with a smart person at the front of the class to facilitate activity. (Warschauer, 2004)

Children are on the conveyor belt of an ‘information economy’ in present schools. We do not want them to be robotic competitors in future jobs. Students can opt out of Religious Education, but where technology is concerned, they are bound by blind determinism. Surely we should choose the direction technology is taking with education an example? Children turn up in schools with undeveloped brains and must learn to design a future in collaboration with others. It is time for schools to think again about the system, which originated to teach compliancy for factory and office jobs but must focus now on creativity for new world solutions.

WHAT EXPERTS SAY

Technology for children is questioned, as innovations have ups and downs. The Children’s Commissioner for England warns that youngsters are facing a social media ‘cliff edge’ as they encounter online cyber-bullying and pornography. According to Public Health England, extended screen use correlates with emotional distress, anxiety, depression and disruptive behaviour. The American College of Paediatricians links it to sleep problems, obesity, increased aggression and low self-esteem.

Other reasons suggest screen technology is harmful to children with little evidence it helps either personal or academic learning. The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD, 2015) found computer impact on pupil performance was mixed and in most cases was ‘hurting learning’. Kucirkova (2014) in Frontiers in Psychology said there is ‘an absence of research supporting the enthusiastic claims that iPads will revolutionise education’ (p.3). Durham University found ‘technology-based interventions tend to produce just slightly lower levels of improvement’ compared with other approaches (Higgins, 2012). The Head of the e-Learning Foundation says finding if technology improves results remains the ‘holy grail’. Education technology is justified on grounds that it boosts disadvantaged children, yet Warschauer (2004) says it widens not bridges socioeconomic divides. The One Laptop per Child programme, distributing 25 million low-cost computers, with learning software, to children in the developing world, failed to improve language or maths results.

Such evidence does not dent the faith of technology proselytisers who say children must be prepared for the future. Companies do not want children who learnt PowerPoint in primary schools, but employees who can think and express thoughts in speech and writing from first principles. Software programmes rapidly become obsolete. Coding classes only teach children to assemble pre-made building blocks. Silicon Valley executives restrict social media use. The Waldorf School of the Peninsula bans technology in classrooms, where Google, Apple and Yahoo staff send their offspring with not an iPad, smartphone or screen in sight.

Instead, teachers prefer experiential learning that contrasts sharply with the rush to fill classrooms with the latest electronic devices. Pedagogy targets communication and imagination in learning, taking a holistic approach to integrate pupil intellectual, practical and creative development. The fact that pioneering technology company employees query computer value in education begs the question – are high-tech classrooms in the best interests of the next generation? Beverly Amico, leader of outreach and development at the Association of North American Waldorf Schools, says their approach uses time-tested ideas on how children learn best. Teachers encourage students to learn curriculum subjects, by giving opportunities for them to express themselves through talk and activities like painting, drawing and performing, rather than consuming information from a tablet.

For example, a typical 4th grade lesson might include learning about Norse mythology, by making story pictures. Pupils acquire problem-solving mathematic skills through knitting or speaking a modern language and even playing a game of catch. They then share ideas with each other in spoken presentations. Amico says this creative learning approach brings lessons to life and is more effective than showing a series of images on a screen or hearing a teacher monologue about a subject.

‘Lessons are delivered by a human being that not only cares about the child’s education, but also about them as individuals,’ she says. ‘What do you remember as a child in the classroom? It is usually field trips, getting your hands dirty in a lab or a beautiful story. Those are the things that stay with you 50 years later.’ (Guardian Press Interview, 2017)

Waldorf classrooms are designed to make pupils feel relaxed and comfortable, with natural wooden desks and plants. Removing the distraction of electronic media encourages stronger, interactive, spoken engagement between teacher and pupil. A reason parents in the digital industry choose a low-tech, no-tech education is that it teaches innovative thinking and language expressive skills that employers desire. Students weaned on technology often lack ability to think outside the box, problem solve and articulate this knowledge clearly and concisely to others.

The London Acorn School questions the assumption that limiting or removing technology use in class has a negative impact on student future employability. Children, under 12, are banned from using smartphones, computers and watching TV of films at all times, including holidays. The ethos is a gradual integration of electronic devices throughout child development. Students can watch television when 12 years old, but only documentaries vetted by parents. They cannot watch films until age 14; the Internet is banned for under 16s, at home and school, with computers only used for over-14s.

A considered approach to class technology use allows teachers to help students develop core skills like communication, executive decision making, creativity and concentration – which are more important than ability to swipe an iPad or fill an Excel spreadsheet. Technology, considered cutting edge today, will appear primitive tomorrow. The problem with instant information is that the ease you get from A to B for answers does not reflect life, so making children think that everything is readily obtainable.

Restricting technology use is a challenge for today’s teachers, used to accessible resources and information from interactive whiteboards and computers. Educators suggest that digital devices inhibit imaginative thinking, movement, interaction and attention spans, with no place in teaching youngsters. You must be more creative in how lessons are delivered and work with your voice (loud/quiet) to engage and give incentives. Pupils must be interested in what comes next. Teaching is about human contact and interaction. Children are disadvantaged by being taught by machines at a young age.

The neuroscientist, Catharine Young (2015), encourages teachers to ‘appeal to all senses’ and employ repetition to help pupils remember information. Technology can be useful, especially for learning-based games, where students engage with familiar and new content interactively. Ideas that technology is one-way traffic and not interactive is untrue. Another neuroscientist, Judy Willis (2015) focuses on balance. She suggests that computer-assisted learning cannot replace good teaching but does not overlook its advantages. Online games help students to build skills to an automatic level at an appropriate pace for them. If we spent more time discussing an appropriate balance then perhaps more people would realise how technology can boost cognitive and creative development.

Educational Technology is predicted to be worth £129 billion by 2010. The world’s largest Ed Tech convention (BETT) is about creating a better future by transforming education with the latest gadgets. Google, Microsoft and Facebook sell expensive kit to cash-strapped schools, promoting engagement and interactivity. The traditional teacher-pupil hierarchy must be ‘flipped’ to empower pupils to control and direct learning. In reality, children tap away on tablets, whose workings are as mysterious to them as outer space. They are often required to stare (in dark classrooms) at a giant, interactive whiteboard. Although temporarily attracted, attention spans eventually shrink if they do not have opportunities to interact and share ideas with others to produce new thoughts in novel ways.

The University of Buckingham, School of Education’s new Centre for Educational Practice, has participants on the Practitioner Education Doctoral Programme piloting initiatives to be proactive for future, holistic, creative learning. Links nationally and internationally share knowledge and increase awareness of the need for radical, education changes. Assessing the political, economic and social factors that influence policy and practice, as well as student issues preventing learning, help in making decisions that could contribute to improved personal and academic abilities that life today demands. This book presents some ideas so we hope you enjoy reading it and reflecting on some interesting experiences happening in schools.

REFERENCES

Flynn, J. (2013) Intelligence & Human Progress: The Story of what was Hidden in our Genes. Els. Inc.

Higgins, S., Xiao, Z. & Katsipataki, M. (2012) The Impact of Digital Technology on Learning. University of Durham Report. Education Endowment Foundation

Kucirkova, N. (2014) I pads in Early Education: Separating Assumptions & Evidence. July. Frontiers in Psychology

The Mckinsey Global Institute Report (2017) Applying Artificial Intelligence for Social Good, 2018 https://www.mckinsey.com/mgi/overview. Accessed 27 Nov. 2018

Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD, 2015) Report into Students, Computers & Learning. OECD Publication.

Public Health England (2013) Report: Sedentary Lifestyles and Too Much Screen Time Affects Children’s Well-being. Published by Gov.UK

The Telegraph Stem Awards 2019. Tgr.ph/stem. Accessed 27 Nov. 2018

Warschauer, M., Knobel, M. & Stone, L. (2004) Technology and Equity in Schooling – Deconstructing the Digital Divide. Educational Policy. September 2004. Sage Publishing

Wills, J. (2015) The Science of Homework. Teacher Network

Young, C. (2015) Don’t Forget the Science of Memory. Teacher Network

PROLOGUE

THE ROBOTS ARE HERE: HOW TO SURVIVE THEM

Technology is giving life the potential to flourish like never before or to self-destruct (Future of Life Institute)

ROSEMARY SAGE

AN INTRODUCTION

SUMMARY

Our world awaits transformation by intelligent machines (artificial intelligence/robots), which break down human tasks and are programmed to carry these out more effectively than us. We now have machines with capacity to pick those shy, red strawberries hiding lush beauty behind copious, green leaves! Whether robots relieve workers of dangerous, tedious tasks, enable medics to diagnose illnesses and prescribe more accurately, help carers lift and carry patients, or through adaptive learning allow students to be educated in line with personal needs, they have potential to make life easier for everyone. The UK is only average in world rankings for robot use and bottom of advanced nations. This contributes to low outputs and wages with Germans producing 35% and Americans 30% more than us. The need to produce goods and services more quickly, efficiently and in greater quantities is vital to sustain huge human population growth worldwide. The Czech Academy of Sciences is paving the way by writing data 1000 times faster, on copper manganese arsenide crystals (antiferro magnets). This will lead to supercharged computers, so speeding up processes, solving more problems and extending activities. Policy makers, employers and educators must quickly grasp present opportunities to expand, enhance and educate lives in new ways. It is vital to adapt to a changing political, economic and social backdrop as, more than ever, innovation is key to stand out in a competitive landscape. We must work with change and not against it to survive. Robots are here to augment what humans do and we need to be comfortable about this new presence in our lives and use intelligent machines judiciously.

INTRODUCTION

THE HISTORY OF ROBOTS & ROBOT LEARNING (R-LEARNING)

Humans have long imagined machines that can perform their tasks – depicted in drawings, books, plays and science fiction. The word ‘robot’ comes from the Czech word, ‘robota,’ meaning ‘forced labour’ with initially evil connotations. A robot was first used in a 1920 play – RUR-Rossum’s Universal Robots- by the Czech writer, Karel Copek. The plot was – man makes robot and then robot kills man. In 1977, the Star Wars movie represented robots as human helpers, made to look like people and called androids or humanoids. Recently, there has been an explosion of industrial robots to assist workers, with China (a major developer) building 52% more for world-wide distribution, in the first 6 months of 2017, than in the corresponding period of the previous year. In Japan, 5,000 construction sites are manned by robots doing all tasks, with just a highly qualified human engineer coordinating actions from a comfortable office. No longer do workers have to endure the dirt and danger of a building site!

The first industrial robots were employed in 1961 by General Motors, New Jersey, to assemble cars. With sophisticated voice and image-recognition, language translation and automated game-playing technologies now in operation, the International Federation of Robotics forecasts an enormous boom in sales worldwide. An example is Amazon’s Alexa voice recognition, employed by the BBC for interactive audio adventures. In Inspection Chamber, a science fiction story, users were able to control the direction of the narrative, allowing them to experience interacting with the drama characters. Alexa is now a common acquisition, enabling people to interact with the machine to play the music they want or find out specific information like weather forecasts for the next football match! You just ask the small black box and a female voice obliges. The ‘Once in Royal’ carol was requested and Alexa immediately responded, saying that the descant was by Wilcox. How impressive! Alexa, an intelligent ‘virtual assistant’, whose functions include answering questions and playing music, is a surprisingly useful, smart investment. Recently, reports suggest that Alexa does not cope with strong dialectal English. In the UK, we have moved away from encouraging Standard English (SE) as elitist, with increasing problems in understanding each other’s communication. Perhaps Alexa will play a role in facilitating a move back to teaching SE for public use, as is normal in other languages.

Below is a picture of Professor Dottaire Riccarda Matteucci teaching Practitioner Education Doctoral students at the University of Buckingham, UK (November 2017 study school) on robot learning across the World. Dubai has appointed a Minister of Robotics to support appropriate educational development that will prepare future employees for new jobs and different directions in present ones.

DEEP LEARNING

An approach called deep learning has transformed the field of AI, rebranding an earlier computer learning method, artificial neural networks (ANNs) in order to gain knowledge from data and make speedier classifications and predictions than is humanly possible. Deep learning has developed more efficient ways to train neural networks containing many more layers. Although a very simplified model of brain functions, it relies on unprecedented networks of thousands of millions of neurons, simulated in software, to enable them to adapt and learn in response to copious data.

Copyright picture of Sally Elvin, Marketing Manager in the School of Education with permission for use

The School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, has used deep learning to analyse 75,000 patient records and 78 diseases, predicting severe diabetes, schizophrenia and many cancers with high accuracy. Google AI is now being trialled at London Moorfields Eye Hospital and is spotting disease better than doctors. This brings ethical concerns. How can a medical practitioner tell a patient they will develop a disease or must alter their lifestyle because a deep network says so? Can preventive treatment be started when no explanation is available? Researchers are working on this, suggesting that these are possible, using cognitive psychology methods to understand what the neural networks are responding to in making predictions. Other AI techniques, however, have explanations from formal mathematical underpinning, allowing us to judge our trust in such methods. AI is a plethora of different approaches applied for different needs and contexts. Deep learning impacts on life and work in ways that we are unaware of its use, such as monitoring shopping habits and web contacts. Whether we find this terrifying or not is important, because public sentiment drives education, investment and regulation, making outcomes self-fulfilling prophecies. New technologies disrupt and cause distress before producing benefits that change views. Concern is that if a proliferation of autonomous, intelligent machines hits lower-income people the hardest, to rid them of routine jobs, will inequality increase? Like all inventions, AI is capable of being used for good or evil and morality matters. Making better humans is more important than smarter machines. Today’s solutions to technology problems (like abusing personal data), are vital for tomorrow’s successes, with monitoring and regulation necessary for responsible robot use. DeepMind has set up a research unit focusing on ethical and social implications of AI and this is important now that systems are regularly hacked by cyber-terrorists.

Fullan & Langworthy (2016) collated international research exploring the curriculum needs for the future, which advocates learning ‘in more challenging and engaging ways’, ensuring pupils gain ‘real experience in creating and using new knowledge in the world beyond the classroom’ (p.22). This approach advocates digital mastery but anticipates future key learning competencies to comprise:

Communication, creativity & imagination, critical thinking & problem solving, collaboration, character education and citizenship. These reflect the European Commission competencies: communication & cultural awareness, learning how to learn, mathematics, digital,