Johnson opened his speech going over some of the usual things he says would be expected of a British PM: advancing democratic values, rules of a peaceful world, protecting freedom of navigation at sea, and finding a “two-state” solution to the conflict in the Middle-East.

“Of course, I’m proud to do all these things,” says Johnson. “But, no-one can ignore a gathering force that is reshaping the future of every member of this assembly. There has been nothing like it.”

Examples are given of past technological achievements such as the steam engine, aviation, and nuclear. Ultimately, all of these technologies were controlled by humans – for better or worse.

Automation, by its very nature, is increasingly taking away human control. Just earlier this week, AI News reported on comments by Microsoft chief Brad Smith who warned that killer robots are ‘unstoppable’ and a new digital Geneva Convention is needed.

Before sharing his personal concerns about emerging technologies like AI and the IoT, Johnson acknowledges their huge potential benefits.

“Smart cities will pullulate with sensors, all joined together by the Internet of Things,” says Johnson. “So no bin goes unemptied, no street unswept, and the urban environment is as antiseptic as a Zurich pharmacy.”

“Voice-connected connectivity will be in every room and almost every object. Your mattress will monitor your nightmares, your fridge will beep for more cheese, your front door will sweep wide open the moment you approach like some silent butler, your smart meter will go hustling on its own accord for the cheapest electricity.”

Of course, Johnson isn’t here to advertise the benefits of emerging technologies but to warn of the challenges they will present to nations around the world.

“They could also be used to keep every citizen under round-the-clock surveillance,” explains Johnson. “Every one of them will be minutely transcribing your every habit in tiny electronic shorthand – stored not in their chips where you can find it – but in some great cloud of data that hangs ever more oppressively over the human race.”

Johnson expresses the concern that, with each click or tap, we are ourselves becoming a resource.

Mass amounts of data about people is indisputably becoming ever more valuable. This could be for purposes such as targeting and influencing public opinion, as we saw with the Cambridge Analytica scandal, or for things such as training AI models.

“Data is the crude oil of the modern economy and we’re now in an environment where we don’t know who should own these new oil fields, who should have the rights or the title to these gushes of cash, and we don’t know who decides how to use that data.”

Johnson presents the audience with a series of rhetorical questions about the future of AI and the societal impacts it could have:

“Can these algorithms be trusted with our lives and our hopes? Should the machines decide whether or not we are eligible for a mortgage or insurance? What surgery or medicines we should receive? Are we doomed to a cold and heartless future in which a computer says yes or no with the grim finality of an emperor in the arena? How do you plead with an algorithm? How do you get it to see extenuating circumstances? How do we know that the machines have not been insidiously-programmed to fool us?”

Providing an example of how AI is being used today for malicious purposes, Johnson highlights that algorithms are enabling real-time censorship on messaging platforms in some countries.

“The digital authoritarianism is not alas the stuff of dystopian fantasy, but an emerging reality. The reason I’m giving this speech today with this gloomy proem is that the UK is one of the world’s tech leaders, and I believe governments have been simply caught unawares by the unintended consequences of the internet.”

Despite his warnings, Johnson says he’s optimistic about the ability of new technologies to “serve as a liberator and remake the world wondrously”.

Johnson points towards breakthroughs in nanotechnology allowing the development of robots a fraction the size of red blood cells that can swim through our bodies releasing medicine and attacking malignant cells. He also highlights neural interface technology which is enabling new cochlear implants and giving hearing to those without; allowing them to hear loved ones and sounds once again, or, perhaps, even for the first time.

“How we design the emerging technologies behind these breakthroughs and what values inform their design will shape the future of humanity,” says Johnson. “At stake is whether we bequeath an Orwellian world designed for censorship, oppression, and control; or a world of emancipation, debate, and learning. Where technology threatens famine and disease, but not our freedoms.”

Johnson acknowledges the work going on around the world to come up with rules around the development of groundbreaking technologies such as AI which will have a major effect on the very fabric of our societies:

“Month-by-month, vital decisions are being taken in academic committees, company boardrooms, and industry standards groups, they are writing the rulebooks of the future – making ethical judgments, choosing what will or will not be rendered possible. Together, we need to ensure that new advances reflect our values by design.

There is excellent work being done in the EU, the Commonwealth, and, of course, the UN, which has a vital role in ensuring that no country is excluded from the wonderful benefits of this technology and the industrial revolution it is bringing about.

But we must be still more ambitious. We need to find the right balance between freedom and control, between innovation and regulation, between private enterprise and government oversight. We must insist that the ethical judgments inherent in the design of new technology are transparent to all and we must make our voices heard more loudly in the standards bodies that write the rules. Above all, we need to agree a common set of global principles to shape the norms and standards that will guide the development of emerging technology.”

There are few better places to make the case for a new digital Geneva Convention as envisioned by Brad Smith than at the UN. Johnson used his speech to advocate for a new universal declaration and invited world leaders to a summit in the UK:

“Seven decades ago, this general assembly adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights with no dissenting voices, uniting humanity for the first time behind one set of principles. Our joint declaration upholds freedom of opinion and expression, the privacy of home and correspondence, and the right to seek and impart information and ideas. Unless we ensure that new technology reflects this spirit, I fear that declaration will mean nothing and no longer hold. So, the mission of the United Kingdom – and all who share our values – must be to ensure that emerging technologies are designed from the outset for freedom, openness, and pluralism; with the right safeguards in place to protect our peoples.

I invite you next year to a summit in London. We have, in the UK, by far, the biggest tech sector – fintech, biotech, edtech, medtech, nanotech, greentech, every kind of tech – in Europe.

We will seek to assemble the broadest possible coalition to take forward this vital task, building on all the UK contributes to this mission as a global leader in ethical and responsible technology. If we master this challenge, and I have no doubt that we can, then we will not only safeguard our ideals, we will surmount the limits that once constrained humanity and conquer the perils that once ended so many lives.”

Johnson ends on a positive note, with a rallying call to world leaders that it is possible to unlock the huge benefits of emerging technologies – while minimising their downsides – with a united approach.

“Together, we will vanquish killer diseases, eliminate famine, protect the environment, and transform our cities. Success will depend now, as ever, on freedom, openness, and pluralism; the formula that not only emancipates the human spirit, but releases the boundless ingenuity and inventiveness of mankind. And which, above all, the United Kingdom will strive to preserve.”

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The study, by the UN World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO), was published on Thursday.

US tech giant IBM is leading in AI patents with 8,920 filed. Microsoft followed with 5,930.

Japan’s Toshiba has the next highest number of patents (5,223), ahead of South Korea’s Samsung (5,102), and Japan’s NEC Group (4,406).

Chinese organisations make up 17 of the top 20 academic players in AI patenting, as well as 10 of the top 20 in AI-related scientific publications.

Machine learning is currently the most patented technique of artificial intelligence.The fastest growing, however, is deep learning with a 175 percent annual increase in patent applications from 2013 to 2016.

In terms of applications, ‘AI for robotics’ grew the fastest over the same period with an increase of 265 percent.

When delving into the growth of AI use per industry, transportation was by far the fastest growing (134%) which is of little surprise considering the investment around self-driving vehicles.

This industry was followed by telecommunications (84%), life and medical sciences (40%), and personal devices, computing, and HCI (36%).

With their large economies and populations, it’s unsurprising to see the US and China leading in AI.

Andrew Ng, renowned AI expert and CEO of DeepLearning.ai, said in the report: “It’s very difficult for other countries, even those with great education, to compete with the business, engineering, and investing talent” of China and the US.

WIPO Director General Francis Gurry noted how the cultural and linguistic diversity of Europe is an obstacle to machine learning.

Gurry fears a growing use of AI for military purposes by major geopolitical players, but that AI overall could be good for mankind if used properly.

“Is it (AI) good news or bad news? Well, I would tend to say that all technology is somewhat neutral and it depends on what you do with it,” he commented.

”So, insofar as you may use AI science and techniques for developing autonomous weapons systems that are going to kill us all, is not very good news. Insofar as it’s being used to improve health indicators for diagnostics, for other purposes, it’s great news.”

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Irakli started with a positive note that’s easily forgotten: never has the world been more safe, connected, and prosperous.

“We have developed technologies which have the potential to solve problems we never thought were possible,” says Beridze. “Most of them are related to the UN’s sustainable development goals.”

World-Changing Benefits

A look at the statistics provides evidence of a huge reduction in those dying from violence or living in extreme poverty. Many of the greatest threats we face today are shared challenges such as climate change, disease, and dwindling resources.

AI is a powerful tool which can help with all these challenges and more if we, as humankind, choose to use it this way. Alternatively, it could pose an existential threat.

Here are just some of the ways Beridze expects AI to aid the UN towards its goals:

Beridze dives deeper into some other potential benefits of AI to societies. A couple of the most interesting suggestions are its use to improve health and wellbeing, and to maintain peace, justice, and strong institutions.

Starting with health, Beridze highlights the use of AI to analyse large quantities of healthcare data in order to make scientific breakthroughs. Furthermore, it could be used to predict and project disease outbreaks to reduce mortality rates.

The impact of AI on healthcare is among our most covered subjects here on AI News. There are exciting developments on a near-daily basis.

Next up is the potential for AI when it comes to peace, law, and governance. Beridze believes AI can be integrated within an ‘e-government’ to reduce discrimination, prejudice, and corruption.

AI currently has a well-documented bias problem. However, solutions are becoming available to ensure the algorithms behind AIs are fair and do not favour any part of society over another. It’s ultimately easier to make a machine less discriminate than a person.

Global powers are seeking to establish themselves as leaders in AI. China and the US continue to be dominant by pumping billions of cash into developments, while smaller economies are playing to their own strengths.

Countries such as Japan are strong in fields such as robotics. The EU has the highest number of service robot manufacturing. Meanwhile, the UK is known for its leadership in ethics and strong academic attributes with leading universities.

There’s a now famous quote from Russian President Vladimir Putin speaking about AI which said: “Whoever becomes the leader in this sphere will become the ruler of the world.”

Putin’s quote was received in many ways. Some believe it was simply a matter of fact, while others saw it as confirmation of a potentially reckless race between world powers to become a leader.

AI-as-a-Threat

Regardless of what states do, criminals will seek to exploit AI for their own gain. This could take many forms, but one clear example is that of impersonation.

During Google’s I/O conference this year, the company showed off its Duplex demo where an AI assistant called a hair salon on a user’s behalf and was convincing enough to pass for a human. By training such a system with someone else’s voice, fraud could be completely automated.

Beridze will be meeting with Interpol next month to discuss the new risks posed by criminals using artificial intelligence, and how law enforcement agencies can work to counter them.

“When talking about the good sides of AI, we should never forget about the possible risks,” warns Beridze. “One of the biggest risks is the pace of development with how quickly it’s being developed and how fast we can adapt to that.”

One major concern is the potential impact on jobs. Low-wage workers are particularly threatened by automation.

“We don’t really have any solutions,” Beridze says. “We have some ideas that have been put on the table such as; Universal Basic Income, retraining of the population, some even say to slow down the pace of innovation.”

Other concerns highlighted by Beridze includes automated weapons, superintelligent systems like SkyNet famously depicted in the Terminator movies, and using things such as bots to influence democratic processes.

Solving International Verification

One of the most interesting uses for AI is for the verification of incidents where nations do not trust each other. This has perhaps been seen most often between Western nations and Russia where there’s still a clear level of distrust.

Take the recent chemical attack in Salisbury, UK on a former spy and his daughter. Western nations agreed it could only have been carried out by Russia. For its part, Russia denies the allegations and claims to have been locked out of seeing any evidence.

Beridze served as a special projects officer at the OPCW (Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons) prior to joining UNICRI.

The OPCW is an independent organisation working alongside the United Nations that investigates chemical attacks. Members of OPCW represent around 98 percent of the global population.

Until a ruling last week, the OPCW was prohibited from assigning blame for a chemical attack. In Salisbury, the organisation stated it agreed with the UK’s findings the nerve agent of the kind first developed by the Soviet Union.

There have also been multiple chemical attacks in Syria. One particularly devastating attack in Douma was to be investigated by the OPCW but investigators claim they were blocked from accessing the site by Syria and its Russian allies.

Investigators were eventually provided access over a week after. However, Chlorine – at least one of the suspected chemicals used – is notoriously difficult to detect even a day after because of its gaseous state.

Russia and Syria both reject claims that chemical weapons were used. Moscow has offered several narratives on Douma, claiming simultaneously that there never was an attack and that it was the work of rebels in the area.

France said it was likely the evidence is gone, and the USA accused Russia and Syria of tampering with the site.

When everyone is pointing the finger at each other, there needs to be independent verification. Whenever people are involved there’s nearly always some accusations of foul play.

A provably unbiased, open-source AI which examines the evidence could be the answer.

“The time has come where we should employ technologies like AI and blockchain to start verification of issues where countries do not trust each other,” says Beridze. “We need to make a major leap from a system created in the [19]40s, to 80 years down the road where we live in a completely different world.”

Beridze’s session highlighted both the near-limitless potential for AI to have a positive impact on the world, or it could just as easily be devastating.

One thing is for sure, AI will transform our world. For better or worse, that’s up to all of us.

You can watch our interview with Irakli Beridze below:

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