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Image 1: Mdjourney generated picture using the prompt: "cartoon of human soldiers fighting a small robot. it shows the defeated robot in the middle and human soldiers aiming their rifles at the robot" |
That quote will be recognizable if you have read Dune by Frank Herbert. I found it suitable to bring the novel up during the extreme mixture of excitement and fear among people given the recent advance in artificial intelligence. Even an open letter was signed by many extremely influential people to halt the progress of artificial intelligence research to avoid a situation like in the cartoon above in image 1 (which is ironically AI generated).
This blog is not about whether we should fear AI or not, but about giving a deeper insight into where we should put our research efforts as an alternative way of thinking.
The most important invention of the 20th century
A bit of history, "standing on the shoulders of giants" is a well-known phrase, especially among scientists. It basically signals that progress is cumulative, we all build on the works of our ancestors. Many argue that the most important invention is the transistor invented in the legendary Bell Labs in 1947. Indeed, it was a pivotal moment in history, we could trace how AI came about by tracing back first to cloud computing, which came after the internet, after the personal computing revolution which was possible thanks to industrial computing and back to the transistor invention. Computers, or I should say microprocessors, in general, are ubiquitous and can be found literally everywhere. From your fridge, computer, car, and even most watches have some sort of electronic circuit even if it looks analogue; banking and money are becoming digital. This rapid acceleration was enhanced by capitalist forces. If you're an engineer designing a solution for whatever application, you'd probably use some sort of microcontroller to fix the problem. It is becoming our default go-to solution for fixing any problem. Are we missing out on better solutions perhaps?
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| William Shockley (centre) among other scientists won the Noble Prize for their work on transistors in Bell Labs. [1] |
Computers can solve anything?
The previous statement is a common phrase nowadays. Demis Hassabis, the CEO and co-founder of Google Deepmind said that his company's goal is to solve AGI (Artificial General Intelligence) and use that to solve everything else [2]. The company certainly did impressive work, especially with the work of Alphafold – I think it deserves a noble prize. But can AGI solve everything? Or are we going too deep into the path of computers that we are purposefully turning a blind eye to what is possible out there?
Opening new paths of knowledge
When James Clerk Maxwell published his electromagnetism equations in 1865, it prompted a discovery that no one has thought of before, that light, magnetism and electricity are basically the same thing. All radio and wireless connectivity and electronics trace their roots to Maxwell equations. One can only imagine how society would have evolved without these equations.
But let us imagine for a moment the plot of Dune; Herbert opened up the plot by introducing a highly advanced society that lives among a highly advanced form of AI of their creation who weren't really fond of humans. A war erupted and humanity managed to rid itself of AI once and for all, banning further development of AI, even calculators were banned. Naturally, a period of depression occurred to the civilization but soon enough humans were among the stars, how did they do it without AI?
Human ingenuity is the answer, they managed to build interstellar capable machines without computers because they had no other option, more resources went into the unknown and some paid off. Interestingly, the mention of AI was introduced by Herbet at the beginning as a literature trick so he doesn't have to write about technology later on and focus the plot on humanities far in the future, but this is the topic of the blog.: How banning certain technologies opened the path for other technologies to emerge, it is a testimony of the power and ingenuity of human beings.
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| Figure 1: 2021 statistics on R&D spending by industry [3] |
Unsurprisingly, most of the R&D funding is spent in computer-related fields, it has a quick return on investment and tremendous support of the capitalistic mindset (figure 1) [3]. In an overly commercial world, one should ask the question: Are there other fundamental technologies we haven't discovered yet? Would we discover better materials that help in medicine if we spend more money on material science? Would we discover alternative propulsion systems if we spend more money on other areas of research?
Insulin pump alternatives
One of the beauties of modern science is how easy it can make life for the less fortunate. Type I diabetic patients struggled with carrying insulin needles everywhere they need to go. Now, the obvious solution and perhaps the most affordable one is to use the abundance of electronics to A) measure glucose content using any glucose measuring sensor and B) communicate that information to a microcontroller/pump system that is connected directly to your bloodstream (figure 2) [4]. The control logic of such a system is similar if not the same as in your home HVAC temperature control, cruise control of your car and temperature control of your fridge: A traditional feedback control system.
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| Figure 2: Insulin pump working principles [4] |
Because much of our society is built upon such systems, it is easier for the default engineer mindset to use "off-the-shelf" solutions. However, some scientists are pushing the boundaries and inventing creative solutions that are completely analogue, albeit not commercial yet due to the strong economical forces pushing for microchips.
One such example of solving insulin injection into the bloodstream is proposed by a group of scientists in the US, it uses a microneedle system fitted with specially fabricated glucose-responsive vesicles (figure 3) [5]. An awesome and clever solution that many people proposed as early as 2015. So why don't people use it? Because it is expensive, mass-producing these materials for one purpose only is not economically viable in today's culture of electronics.
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| Figure 3: A 2020 Nature paper illustrating how glucose-responsive microneedles work [5]. |
Summary
We are living in high technological advancement largely thanks to capitalism which rewards fast innovation. However, we mustn't forget that many of the technologies are built on fundamental discoveries that were discovered more than a century ago. We must spend more money on fundamental innovations that might not have near-term economical returns but benefit humanity in the long run.
Sources:
[1] https://www.marketplace.org/2022/12/13/bell-labs-the-research-center-behind-the-transistor-and-so-much-more/
[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GdeY-MrXD74
[3] https://www.statista.com/statistics/270233/percentage-of-global-rundd-spending-by-industry/
[4] https://www.umassmed.edu/dcoe/diabetes-education/pumps_and_cgm/
[5] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41551-019-0508-y#Fig1
[6] https://dune.fandom.com/wiki/Butlerian_Jihad
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