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According to some, artificial intelligence (AI) is thenew electricity. Like electricity, AI will transform every major industry and open new opportunities that were never possible. However, unlike electricity, the ethics surrounding the development and use of AI remain controversial, which is a significant element constraining AIs full potential.

The Defense Innovation Board (DIB) released a paper in October 2019 that recommends the ethical use of AI within the Defense Department. It described five principles of ethically used AI responsible, equitable, traceable, reliable, and governable. The paper also identifies measures the Joint Artificial Intelligence Center, Defense Agency Research Projects Agency (DARPA), and U.S. military branches are taking to study the ethical, moral, and legal implications of employing AI. While the paper primarily focused on the ethics surrounding the implementation and use of AI, it also argued that AI must have the ability to detect and avoid unintended harm. This article seeks to expand on that idea by exploring AIs ability to operate within the Defense Department using an ethical framework.

Designing an ethical framework a set of principles that guide ethical choice for AI, while difficult, offers a significant upside for the U.S. military. It can strengthen the militarys shared moral system, enhance ethical considerations, and increase the speed of decision-making in a manner that provides decision superiority over adversaries.

AI Is Limited without an Ethical Framework

Technology is increasing the complexity and speed of war. AI, the use of computers to perform tasks normally requiring human intelligence, can be a means of speeding decision-making. Yet, due to a fear of machines inability to consider ethics in decisions, organizations are limiting AIs scope to focus ondata-supported decision-making using AI to summarize data while keeping human judgment as the central processor. For example, leaders within the automotive industry received backlash for programming self-driving cars to make ethical judgments. Some professional driving organizations have demanded that these cars be banned from the roads for at least 50 years.

This backlash, while understandable, misses the substantial upside that AI can offer to ethical decision-making. AI reflectshuman inputand operates on human-designed algorithms that set parameters for the collection and correlation of data to facilitate machine learning. As a result, it is possible to build an ethical framework that reflects a decision-makers values. Of course, when the data that humans supply is biased, for example, AI can mimic its trainers bydiscriminating on gender and race. Biased algorithms, to be sure, are a drawback. However, bias can be mitigated by techniques such as counterfactual fairness, Google AIs recommended practices, and algorithms such as those provided by IBMs AI Fairness 360 toolkit. Moreover, AI processing power makes it essential for successfully navigating ethical dilemmas in a military setting, where complexity and time pressure often obscure underlying ethical tensions.

A significant obstacle to building an ethical framework for AI is a fundamental element of war the trade-off between human lives and other military objectives. While international humanitarian law provides a codification of actions, many of which have ethical implications, it does not answer all questions related to combat. It primarily focuses on defining combatants, the treatment of combatants and non-combatants, and acceptable weapons. International humanitarian law does not deal with questions concerning how many civilian deaths are acceptable for killing a high-valued target, or how many friendly lives are worth sacrificing to take control of a piece of territory. While, under international law, these are examples of military judgments, this remains an ethical decision for the military leader responsible.

Building ethical frameworks into AI will help the military comply with international humanitarian law and leverage new opportunities while predicting and preventing costly mistakes in four ways.

Four Military Benefits of an Ethical AI Framework

Designing an ethical framework for AI will benefit the military by forcing its leaders to reexamine existing ethical frameworks. In order to supply the benchmark data on which AI can learn, leaders will need to define, label, and score choice options in ethical dilemmas. In doing so they will have three primary theoretical frameworks to leverage for guidance: consequentialist, deontological, and virtue. While consequentialist ethical theories focus on the consequences of the decision (e.g., expected lives saved), deontological ethical theories are concerned with the compliance with a system of rules (refusing to lie based on personal beliefs and values despite the possible outcomes). Virtue ethical theories are concerned with instilling the right amount of a virtuous quality into a person (too little courage is cowardice; too much is rashness; the right amount is courage). A common issue cited as anobstacle to machine ethicsis the lack of agreement on which theory or combination of theories to follow leaders will have to overcome this obstacle. This introspection will help them better understand their ethical framework, clarify and strengthen the militarys shared moral system, andenhance human agency.

Second, AI can recommend decisions that consistently reflect a leaders preferred ethical decision-making process. Even in high-stakes situations, human decision-making is prone to influence from factors that have little or nothing to do with the underlying choice. Things like poor nutrition, fatigue, and stress all common in warfare can lead to biased and inconsistent decision-making. Other influences, such as acting in ones self-interest or extreme emotional responses, can also contribute tomilitary members making unethical decisions. AI, of course, does not become fatigued or emotional. The consistency of AI allows it to act as a moral adviser by providing decision-makers morally relevant data leaders can rely on as their judgment becomes impaired. Overall, this can increase the confidence of young decision-makers, a concern thecommander of U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Commandbrought up early last year.

Third, AI can help ensure that U.S. military leaders make the right ethical choice however they define that in high-pressure situations. Overwhelming the adversary is central to modern warfare. Simultaneous attacks anddeception operationsaim to confuse decision-makers to the point where they can no longer use good judgment. AI can process and correlate massive amounts of data to provide not only response options, but also probabilities that a given option will result in an ethically acceptable outcome. Collecting battlefield data, processing the information, and making an ethical decision is very difficult for humans in a wartime environment. Although the task would still be extremely difficult, AI can gather and process information more efficiently than humans. This would be valuable for the military. For example, AI that is receiving and correlating information from sensors across the entire operating area could estimate non-combatant casualties, the proportionality of an attack, or social reactions from observing populations.

Finally, AI can also extend the time allowed to make ethical decisions in warfare. For example, a central concern in modern military fire support is the ability to outrange the opponent, to be able to shoot without being shot. The race to extend the range of weapons to outpace adversaries continues to increase the time between launch and impact. Future warfare will see weapons that are launched and enter an area that is so heavily degraded and contested that the weapon will lose external communication with the decision-maker who chose to fire it. Nevertheless, as the weapon moves closer to the target, it could gain situational awareness on the target area and identify changes pertinent to the ethics of striking a target. If equipped with onboard AI operating with an ethical framework, the weapon could continuously collect, correlate, and assess the situation throughout its flight to meet the parameters of its programmed framework. If the weapon identified a change in civilian presence or other information altering the legitimacy of a target, the weapon could divert to a secondary target, locate a safe area to self-detonate, or deactivate its fuse. This concept could apply to any semi- or fully autonomous air, ground, maritime, or space assets. The U.S. military could not afford a weapon system deactivating or returning to base in future conflicts each time it loses communication with a human. If an AI-enabled weapon loses the ability to receive human input, for whatever reason, an ethical framework will allow the mission to continue in a manner that aligns the weapons actions with the intent of the operator.

Conclusion

Building an ethical framework for AI will help clarify and strengthen the militarys shared moral system. It will allow AI to act as a moral adviser and provide feedback as the judgment of decision-makers becomes impaired. Similarly, an ethical framework for AI will maximize the utility of its processing power to help ensure ethical decisions when human cognition is overwhelmed. Lastly, providing AI an ethical framework can extend the time available to make ethical decisions. Of course, AI is only as good as the data it is provided.

AI should not replace U.S. military leaders as ethical decision-makers. Instead, if correctly designed, AI should clarify and amplify the ethical frameworks that U.S. military leaders already bring to war. It should help leaders grapple with their own moral frameworks, and help bring those frameworks to bear by processing more data than any decision-maker could, in places where no decision-maker could go.

AI may create new programming challenges for the military, but not new ethical challenges. Grappling with the ethical implications of AI will help leaders better understand moral tradeoffs inherent in combat. This will unleash the full potential of AI, and allow it to increase the speed of U.S. decision-making to a rate that outpaces its adversaries.

Ray Reeves is a captain in the U.S. Air Force and a tactical air control party officer and joint terminal attack controller (JTAC) instructor and evaluator at the 13thAir Support Operations Squadron on Fort Carson, Colorado. He has multiple combat deployments and is a doctoral student at Indiana Wesleyan University, where he studies organizational leadership. The views expressed here are his alone and do not necessarily reflect those of the U.S. government or any part thereof. Linkedin.

Image: U.S. Marine Corps (Photo by Lance Cpl. Nathaniel Q. Hamilton)

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The Ethical Upside to Artificial Intelligence - War on the Rocks

Neon, the artificial human prototype conceptualized by computer scientist and inventor Pranav Mistry, created waves recently. The President and CEO of Samsung's STAR Labs told ET in an exclusive interview that he created Neon because human beings are unable to connect with artificial intelligence (AI) assistants such as Apples Siri.

The Palanpur (Gujarat)-born Mistry, considered one of the best innovative minds in the world right now, said Neon will be a companion to the elderly and to those who are lonely and could even work as fashion models or news anchors. The 38-year-old also spoke about the dangers posed by AI,echoing Google parent Alphabet Incs chief Sundar Pichai who recently called upon governments to regulate AI. Edited Excerpts:

When you started thinking about Neon, what was the problem you were trying to solve?

Two years ago, when we started thinking about it (we wanted to) push the boundaries of science so that can the machine interfaces become just like humans. It solves a lot of problems and opens up a lot of opportunities that never existed before. A lot of businesses are coming to us (for Neon), from media companies, film and even the fashion industry.

Say, for example, if ICICI Bank has domain-specific knowledge, (and) they need to talk to customers in a particular way (then) think about a powerful front-end interface that can connect to any third-party services for B2B applications. When it comes to consumer applications, in the long run, we need to build something that doesn't exist someone who can have the human aspects, emotions...

As a science, this thing never existed. Tomorrow, it might solve healthcare problems, or education problems or the loneliness problem in the United Kingdom.

Initially, what could Neon be used for?

I was talking to the chairman of a big media company in (South) Korea. They say the major problem is breaking news at night since you need to wake up the whole crew. We're not here to replace the main news anchor, but how about (if) your favourite news anchor is on your phone and tells you hey, you missed yesterday's game. This is what happened. That personal connection is more important.

As a kid, I grew up with Mickey Mouse. These cartoon characters are not just in our movies, they are in our dreams. My daughter is sad when Princess Fiona is sad; the human connection is what keeps us attached as a human. And, that is the reason behind doing this.

So, it's like a face to AI assistants like Alexa or Siri?

Yes, AI doesnt have a face right now.No technology has that interface. Even when our soldiers are in the field, somebody needs to talk to them. Are they mentally healthy? You can put a questionnaire to them --On a scale of 0-6 how are you feeling?. Thats not the right interface in that situation. If someone could only to talk to them...

An old person...has an AI system to give him all the answers at his home, but what he is looking for is someone to talk to. Because, that's where the loneliness problem is coming in. If you notice all these problems of loneliness or autism...they are coming from countries that already have everything -- every single piece of technology -- they can watch any movie, but they still feel lonely... because current technology is not solving that problem. Because there is no human face to the technology... and that is why I am doing this. Star Labs is an independent future factory. No one decides what Star Labs does. It is fully backed by Samsung, but Samsung does not ask a single question.

Theoretical physicist and cosmologist, the late Stephen Hawking, had said that AI could be dangerous. Others, too, have echoed those thoughts. Are you concerned about what you are building?

Every technology, if you take even the smallest neon bulb right now, can be misused.Nuclear fusion is a threat to the world right now, but this is the same nuclear fusion that drives more than 50% of the worlds electricity. AI has its own problems, but why I feel even more comfortable about this is because if I don't do this thing right now, in two years time someone else will be talking about it...

I feel comfortable because...I understand what the ethical standards of this thing should be, because I am imagining and dreaming a better world, not just a richer world for a few. So many of my products, ideas like Sixth Sense were open source; when I did Galaxy Gear, it was nothing to do with money.

What are the checks and balances an AI ecosystem needs to have?

This phase of AI the understanding of it in the scientific world, technology world as well as the consumer world is very different. Core people who are actually behind this know where this technologys expertise ends. They know that AI has nothing to do with intelligence.

AI is a smart database system. If you do not show a machine 1,000 pictures of an elephant, it cannot recognise it. It doesnt even know what an elephant is. The limitations of the current approaches to AI end there, because nature doesnt work this way. My daughter can see a vague drawing and tell you that its an elephant, but an AI machine will not do the same because the approach is not the same.

But, we still need the tabs, both as a consumer community as well as the scientific and technology community. We need to put the boundaries of architecture on the design level, like science fiction movies, like in any robotics movie there used to be the three rules of robotics, such as robots will not hurt humans etc. Why this is important is because anything has potential to explode or to make the world better.

So, who puts in those rules?Thats what the world needs to decide -- the core thinkers of the world. And thats why I feel, if I dont do it (build Neon), someone else will do it. Thats why I feel much safer that what is going to go will go past me. I would love to have that conversation, not at the government level but at the community level that, can we ensure there are rules and everybody follows them.

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Human beings are unable to connect with artificial intelligence: Pranav Mistry - ETtech.com

PUNE, India, Jan. 23, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- The global artificial intelligent (AI) in retail market size is estimated to reach USD 23,426.3 million by 2026, exhibiting a CAGR of 33.7% during the forecast period. The ongoing shift by retailers from traditional retail experience to AI-driven business solutions is one of the crucial factors enabling the growth of the AI in retail market. According to an article published by Forbes, 83% believe AI is a strategic priority for their businesses today and 84% of respondents say AI will enable them to obtain or sustain a competitive advantage. The growing awareness about the advantages of AI in retail operations such as quality improvement, paced up decision making, strong operational agility and enhanced customer experience will boost the AI in retail market growth in the forthcoming years. In addition, exceptional benefits of AI-powered data analytics will further spur demand for AI in retail market in the foreseeable future.

According to the report, published by Fortune Business Insights in a report, titled "Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Retail MarketSize, Share & Industry Analysis, By Offering (Solutions, Services), By Function (Operations-Focused, Customer-Facing), By Technology (Computer Vision, Machine Learning, Natural Language Processing, and Others), and Regional Forecast, 2019-2026" the AI in retail market size was valued at USD 2,306.8 million in 2018. The report is aimed at delivering a comprehensive view of the AI in retail market dynamics, structure by identifying and providing information regarding the key market segments. It also focuses on an all-encompassing analysis of leading market players by financial position, product, product portfolio, price, growth strategies, and regional presence. It offers porter's analysis and SWOT analysis to record the question of shareholders and highlights the investment potential in the upcoming future. It also showcases different procedures and strategies of companies currently operating in the market. It further examines the components convincing market expansion, growth patterns, restricting factors and market strategies.

To gain more insights into the market with detailed table of content and figures, click here: https://www.fortunebusinessinsights.com/artificial-intelligence-ai-in-retail-market-101968

Disposition to AI-powered Chat Bots by Retailers Will Encourage Market Expansion

The growing inclination of retail brands for the deployment of AI-powered chatbots for customer engagement will augment healthy growth of the market in the forthcoming years. Retail brands are able to handle several queries simultaneously with the help of chatbots, without the need to employ a large workforce. The positive impact of artificial intelligence on customer relations and sales will spur demand for AI in retail. Furthermore, close-ended chatbots are configured to answer shopping-related questions, provide quick support and suggestions besides offering a better resolution to their problem. Customers are more likely to engage with AI-powered chatbots, which, in turns enhances customer loyalty. These factors combined will accelerate the AI in retail market share in the foreseeable future.

Emergence of Virtual Trial Rooms to Bolster Healthy Growth

The increasing popularity of virtual trial rooms and ongoing development across retail supply chains will aid the AI in retail market trend during the forecast period. For instance, virtual trial rooms enable buyers to try different dresses without actually having to wear them with the help of digital mirrors. Further, AI allows shoppers to experiment with their outfit by means of a touch-based interface. In addition, the launch of virtual rooms by major companies to create growth opportunities for the market. For instance, Fitiquette, a fashion Web site uses a ground-breaking technology that allows customers to try on outfits in a virtual 3D world based on the user's exact body dimensions. The trial room gives a 360-degree view of the fit and drape of a garment on the actual body dimensions of the consumer.

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Introduction of AI Integrated Products and Solutions to Foster Growth in Asia Pacific

North America was valued at USD 1,102.0 million and is expected to remain dominant during the forecast period. The rising deployment of AI-based solutions by retailers to improve the supply chain operations and product portfolio will contribute positively to the AI in retail market revenue. Asia Pacific is expected to grow rapidly during the forecast period owing to the launch of various AI integrated products and solutions. For instance, China is expected to be a world-leading AI center by 2030.

List of the Major Companies in the Global Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Retail Market include:

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Table of Content:

o Definition, By Segment

o Research Approach

o Sources

o Drivers, Restraints and Opportunities

o Emerging Trends

o Macro and Micro Economic Indicators

o Consolidated SWOT Analysis of Key Players

o Porter's Five Forces Analysis

o Key Findings / Summary

o Market Size Estimates and Forecasts

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Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Retail Market to Reach USD 23,426.3 Million by 2026; Rising Awareness About the Advantages of AI in Retail Operations...

One of the roles of science fiction is to provide readers with a glimpse of how the future could be. Ray Bradbury didnt get everything about the future right. We havent yet seen books and reading made illegal (as in his 1953 Fahrenheit 451), just as we havent yet discovered another planet ready for American colonizers (as in his 1950 The Martian Chronicles). And yet, the themes he explored in those booksmass media and censorship, colonization and environmental changeare more relevant than ever. Even in his lesser-known workssuch as the 1951 sci-fi collection, The Illustrated Man, Bradbury tackles a surprising array of issues that feel as if they were ripped from todays headlines.

Readers today will find in The Illustrated Man a fresh perspective that illuminates global issues like artificial intelligence and climate change. Bradbury also engages with the political and cultural challenges of migration: specifically, the crossing of the U.S.Mexico border, which has since received much attention with the dawn of the so-called Trump Era.

* * *

Theres a story in The Illustrated Man called The Highway, where Bradbury tells a tale about the beginning of an atomic war in the US. The war, however, is experienced through the eyes of a Mexican peasant, Hernando, who lives next to a highway in northern Mexico.

One day, Hernando glimpses a procession of hundreds of American tourists driving north to return to the US. They are heading home, that is, to join the fight in an upcoming atomic war. When the last car stops by Hernando, he sees a group of young Americans crying for help: their car needs water to continue their way back home. Right before they leave, the driver tells Hernandowho doesnt know why all the cars are driving so fast or why these young Americans are so desperatethat the end of the world has finally arrived. Hernando doesnt react to the young mans confession. The car leaves. Hernando goes back to his rural routine, but suddenly stops to wonder: What do they mean the World?

Here, Bradbury highlights the generational and cultural gap between the young Americans and the aging Hernando, who lives with his wife and works their land, recycling the automobile waste that travelers from north of the border leave behind. Its a harrowing scene, but also terrifically realistic: it illustrates not only the clashing of multiple incompatible worldviews, but shows how all such worldseven those seemingly distant from the centers of powerare threatened by contemporary global dangers. Its moments like these that ensure Bradburys relevance, even one hundred years after his birth.

* * *

Bradburys eye for contemporary troubles extends beyond the dangers of global disaster. In the prologue to The Illustrated Man, Bradbury introduces a character who has an existential problem: his torso is covered in living tattoos. Having the tattoos becomes a curse because the illustrations on his body acquire life of their own. The living illustrations unveil an ominous, even prophetic future for the person that looks at them. The Illustrated Man describes his curse:

So people fire me when my pictures move. They dont like it when violent things happen in my illustrations. Each illustration is a little story. If you watch them, in a few minutes they tell you a tale. In three hours of looking you could see eighteen or twenty stories acted right on my body, you could hear voices and think thoughts. Its all here, just waiting for you to look.

Unexpectedly, through this illustrated character, Bradbury highlights the possible dangers of Artificial Intelligence (AI).

Today, there are fears that AI will permeate and disrupt the political organization of postmodern societies. For instance, AI can predict the affinities and choices of an individual based on the application of algorithms. What The Illustrated Man shows is the consequence of those predictions once revealed to ordinary people. The Illustrated Man, not without melancholy, says:

If Im with a woman, her picture comes there on my back, in an hour, and shows her whole lifehow shell live, how shell die, what shell look like when shes sixty. And if its a man, an hour later his pictures here on my back. It shows him falling off a cliff, or dying under a train. So Im fired again.

In his article If Planet Death Doesnt Get Us, an AI Superintelligence Most Certainly Will, Bryan Walsh suggests that if a super artificial intelligence becomes able to disregard human valueswhile also increasing its intelligencethen humanity might end up controlled by a nonhuman entity with a vision of the future that does not adhere to the crucial ethical issues that societies are facing today.

The Illustrated Man, as Bradbury formulated him, can be read as a metaphor for the intersection between human values (the jobless fate of the Illustrated Man) and a superintelligence that determines human life through visual representations of the future (the living, prophetic tattoos). Most importantly, Bradburys story doesnt prophesize the invention of this particular machine so much as it examines the ways in which humans would react to such an invention.

The fear that individuals will surrender their ethical compasses to technology is a constant specter in Bradburys stories. In The Illustrated Man, this fear is represented by the refusal of the characters to accept the futures that the illustrations predict for them. Bradburys Illustrated Man, and those around him, represent the ways that humans will struggle againstand violently rejectthe enigmatic directives of any intelligence beyond our own, even if (as Bradbury notes) the intelligence is speaking truthfully.

* * *

Where did Bradburys inspiration for these particular stories in The Illustrated Man come from? The clashes he foresaw in the futurequestions of AI and global catastrophe, atomic war and border crossingcame from his own forays into Mexico in 1945.

In fact, Bradbury himself experienced the traumatic effects of crossing the USMexico border. Between October and November of 1945, Bradbury and his friend Grant Beach traveled from Los Angelesacross southern Arizona, New Mexico, and Texasto Mexico City. On their way, they found swarms of locusts and other hardships familiar from news stories today. But what was most shocking and traumatic for Bradbury was that this trip into Mexico surprisingly challenged his own deeply-held, exotic ideas about Mexican people, which he had acquired while growing up in East Los Angeles.

While in Mexico City, Bradbury spent most of his time seeking the murals of Jos Clemente Orozco, David Alfaro Siqueiros, and Diego Rivera. It is possible to suggest that Bradbury found inspiration for The Illustrated Man in these murals. The muralsperhaps what Bradbury saw as informative, or even prophetic, illustrationsrepresent past, present, and future Mexican society from a Marxist perspective, featuring people in motion with plenty of stories, colors, and historical clues (thus bringing to the audience a multilayered experience).

One of the most famous paintings by David Alfaro Siqueiros, Our Present Time, depicts a faceless man reaching with arms wide open to a space ahead of him, embracing an uncertain future. This is the very same fate of the Illustrated Man. Furthermore, many of the catastrophic themes that Bradbury engages with in The Illustrated Man are also present in these Mexican murals.

* * *

What future did Bradbury see for us? And did he embrace it? In The Fox and the Forest, included in The Illustrated Man, Bradbury sets his story explicitly in Mexico. The plot of the story is not complicated: William and Susan Travis are a married couple living in the year 2155.

That year is not a good time to be alive, since there is war, slavery, and a generalized social unhappiness. In order to escape from the apocalyptic 2155, the couple travel in time back to 1938 rural Mexico, where they believe that peace, simplicity, and happiness can be found. When it seems that they have been able to escape from their time, the 2155 police show up to take them back to the future, thus frustrating the couples escapade.

This narrative has a very pessimistic tone, evoking the nostalgia of older and happier times. Those from the future view our present as superior to their own time. Bradburys dark future, it seems, is unavoidableeven in our own present day.

* * *

More than 60 years ago, The Martian Chronicles (1950), Fahrenheit 451 (1953), and The Illustrated Man (1951) fascinated the young members of the generation growing up after the darkness of the Second World War, but before the new kinds of wars known to our own era. Now, as the 21st century unravelswith all of its challenges, technological dilemmas, and even proliferation of tattoosBradbury remains a fundamental figure of the sci-fi genre.

Bradbury had certainly not anticipated that by 2020 (like what Hernando does in The Highway) recycling was going to become a mainstream human endeavor, or that the USMexico border was going to catalyze many of the 21stcentury anxieties about global migration and demographic explosion. And yet, his stories seem to rhyme with our own era. Readers will keep finding in Bradburys tales about the future a contemporary interpretation of our everlasting fears about the end of the world, as well as a whisper of hope.

In the epilogue of The Illustrated Man, the narrator sees his own death in one of the living tattoos: it is the Illustrated Man that chokes him to death. The narrator decides to run away from this terrible fate. In this age of global catastrophe, who doesnt recognize the desire to run from such incontrovertible proofs of the worlds doom?

And yet, just like the world today, Bradbury too oscillated between utopia and dystopia. For as many people shown running from their prophesied demises, Bradbury shows young peoplelike those who Hernando couldnt understandcharging home to meet a near-certain death. Bradburys work, ultimately, is for them: those readers who believe that science fiction is an effective tool to illustrate how the worst consequences of todays global political decisions will be faced by future generations.

Young people are approaching an uncertain globalized future with plenty of possible outcomes, both dystopian and utopian. Nothing is simple: the technology that Walsh decries, the kind that the Illustrated Man fears, is even today becoming an effective tool for social mobilizations (lets think about the protests, from Hong Kong to Chile, organized through social media). Meanwhile, today, we know more than ever that any fight for the future will require the work and sacrifice of the whole world: not just car-driving Americans, but people like Hernando, too. Clearly, even Bradbury cant get everything right.

Perhaps, if Bradbury was alive today, he would ask young people: what role will you play, when my future comes crashing into your present?

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Ray Bradbury on War, Recycling, and Artificial Intelligence - JSTOR Daily

Climate-driven change in the Gulf of Maine is raising new threats that "red tides" will become more frequent and prolonged. But at the same time, powerful new data collection techniques and artificial intelligence are providing more precise ways to predict where and when toxic algae will bloom. One of those new machine learning prediction models has been developed by a former intern at Bigelow Labs in East Boothbay.

In a busy shed on a Portland wharf, workers for Bangs Island Mussels sort and clean shellfish hauled from Casco Bay that morning. Wholesaler George Parr has come to pay a visit.

"I wholesale to restaurants around town, and if there's a lot of mackerel or scallops, I'll ship into Massachusetts," he says.

Butbusiness grinds to a halt, he says, when blooms of toxic algae suddenly emerge in the bay causing the dreaded red tide.

Toxins can build in filter feeders to levels that would cause "Paralytic Shellfish Poisoning" in human consumers. State regulators shut down shellfish harvests long before danger grows acute. But when a red tide swept into Casco Bay last summer, Bangs Island's harvest was shut down for a full 11 weeks.

So when the restaurants can't get Bangs Island they're like 'Why can't we get Bangs Island?' It was really bad this summer. And nobody was happy."

As Parr notes, businesses of any kind hate unpredictability. And being able to forecast the onset or departure of a red tide has been a challenge although that's changing with the help of a type of artificial intelligence called machine learning.

"We're coming up with forecasts on a weekly basis for each site. For me that's really exciting. That's what machine learning is bringing to the table," says Izzi Grasso, a recent Southern Maine Community College student who is now seeking a mathematics degree at Clarkson University.

Last summer Grasso interned at the Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences in East Boothbay. That's where she helped to lead a successful project to use cutting-edge "neural network" technology that is modeled on the human brain to better predict toxic algal blooms in the Gulf of Maine.

"Really high accuracy. Right around 95 percent or higher, depending on the way you split it up," she says.

Here's how the project worked: the researchers accessed a massive amount of data on toxic algal blooms from the state Department of Marine Resources. The data sets detailed the emergence and retreat of varied toxins in shellfish samples from up and down the coast over a three-year period.

The researchers trained the neural network to learn from those thousands of data points. Then it created its own algorithms to describe the complex phenomena that can lead up to a red tide.

Then we tested how it would actually predict on unknown data, says Grasso.

Grasso says they fed in data from early 2017 which the network had never seen and asked it to forecast when and where the toxins would emerge.

"I wasn't surprised that it worked, but I was surprised how well it worked, the level of accuracy and the resolution on specific sites and specific weeks," says Nick Record, Bigelow's big data specialist.

Record says that the network's accuracy, particularly in the week before a bloom emerges, could be a game-changer for the shellfish industry and its regulators.

Once it's ready, that is.

"Basically it works so well that I need to break it as many ways as I can before I really trust it."

Still, the work has already been published in a peer-reviewed journal, and it is getting attention from the scientific community. Don Anderson is a senior scientist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution who is working to expand the scope of data-gathering efforts in the Gulf.

"The world is changing with respect to the threat of algal blooms in the Gulf of Maine," he says. "We used to worry about only one toxic species and human poisoning syndrome. Now we have at least three."

Anderson notes, though, that machine-learning networks are only as good as the data that is fed into them. The Bigelow network, for instance, might not be able to account for singular oceanographic events that are short and sudden or that haven't been captured in previous data-sets such as a surge of toxic cells that his instruments detected off Cutler last summer.

"With an instrument moored in the water there, and we in fact got that information, called up the state of Maine and said you've got to be careful, there's a lot of cells moving down there, and they actually had a meeting, they implemented a provisional closure just on the basis of that information, which was ultimately confirmed with toxicity once they measured it," says Anderson.

Anderson says that novel modeling techniques such as Bigelow's, coupled with an expanded number of high-tech monitoring stations, like Woods Hole is pioneering in the Gulf, could make forecasting toxic blooms as simple as checking the weather report.

"That situational awareness is what everyone's striving to produce in the field of monitoring and management of these toxic algal blooms, and it's going to take a variety of tools, and this type of artificial intelligence is a valuable part of that arsenal." Back at the Portland wharf, shellfish dealer George Parr says the research sounds pretty promising.

"Forewarned is fore-armed, Parr says. If they can figure out how to neutralize the red tide, that'd be even better."

Bigelow scientists and former intern Izzi Grasso are working now to look "under the hood" of the neural network, to figure out how, exactly, it arrives at its conclusions. They say that could provide clues about how not only to predict toxic algal blooms,but even how to prevent them.

This story is a production of New England News Collaborative. A version of this story was originallypublishedby Maine Public Radio.

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Artificial Intelligence Could Help Scientists Predict Where And When Toxic Algae Will Bloom - WBUR