Sessione straordinaria 2018 Seconda prova scritta

Ministero dell’Istruzione, dell’ Università e della Ricerca 

PL01 – ESAME DI STATO DI ISTRUZIONE SECONDARIA SUPERIORE

 Indirizzi: LI04, EA03 - LICEO LINGUISTICO Tema di: LINGUA STRANIERA

Sessione straordinaria 2018 Seconda prova scritta

 - INGLESE A - ATTUALITÀ How to manage AI's risks and rewards

Technological advances in artificial intelligence (AI) promise to be pervasive, with impacts and ramifications in health, economics, security and governance. In combination with other emerging and converging technologies, AI has the potential to transform our society through better decision-making and improvements to the human condition.

But, without adequate risk assessment and mitigation, AI may pose a threat to existing vulnerabilities in our defences, economic systems, and social structures, argue the authors of the Wilson Center report, Artificial Intelligence: A Policy-Oriented Introduction, Anne Bowser, Michael Sloan, Pietro Michelucci and Eleonore Pauwels.

Recognizing the increasing integration of technology in society, this policy brief grounds the present  excitement around AI in an objective analysis of capability trends before summarizing perceived benefits and risks. It also introduces an emerging sub-field of AI known as Human Computation, which can help achieve future AI capabilities by strategically inserting humans in the loop where pure AI still falls short.

Policy recommendations suggest how to maximize the benefits and minimize the risks for science and society, particularly by incorporating human participation into complex socio-technical systems to ensure the safe and 15 equitable development of automated intelligence. The report offers a number of key recommendations:

Planning in an Age of Complexity: recommendations for policymakers and funders

AI is a critical component of the fourth industrial revolution (4IR), “a fusion of technologies that is blurring the lines between the physical, digital, and biological spheres.”

Compared to previous revolutions involving processes like mechanization, mass production, and automation, the fourth industrial revolution is characterized by the convergence of new and emerging technologies in complex socio-technical systems that permeate every aspect of human life.

Convergence also implies the increasing interaction of multiple fields, such as AI, genomics and nanotechnology, which rapidly expands the range of possible impacts that need to be considered in any science 25 policy exercise.

Ten years ago, nanotechnology was celebrated largely for its impacts on chemistry and material sciences. But the ability to precision engineer matter at genetically relevant scale has resulted in significant advances in genomics and neurosciences, such as creating the ability to model networks of neurons. This example illustrates how the convergence of two emerging technologies - AI and genomics- leads to advances beyond 30 the initial capabilities of either alone. Meeting the challenges of convergence requires drawing on a wide range of expertise, and taking a systems approach to promoting responsible research and innovation.

As “outsiders” to the AI design processes, it is extremely difficult for policymakers to estimate AI development due to limited comprehension of how the technology functions. Many may also draw inspiration from traditional regulatory models that are inadequate for AI, playing a catch-up game to decode the terms of 35 reference used by researchers, or fall victim to the human fallacy of overestimating the short-term capabilities of new technologies.

There will be significant systems’ transformations through AI over the next few decades, but perhaps it will be more incremental than we fear or imagine.

Conduct broad and deep investigations into AI with leading researchers from the private sector and 40 universities.

In the US, early reports from policy bodies and researchers at institutions such as Stanford offer high-level roadmaps of AI R&D. Expert groups convening under organizations like IEEE compliment these overviews with in-depth considerations of things like ethically-aligned AI design to maximize human well-being.

In the near-future, AI researchers involved in collaboration with policymakers should conduct additional in45 depth studies to better understand and anticipate aspects of AI related to (for example) job automation at a more granular level, considering impact across time, sectors, wage levels, education degrees, job types and regions. For instance, rather than low-skill jobs that require advanced hand-dexterity, AI systems might more likely replace routine but high-level cognitive skills. Additional studies could investigate areas like national security.

Advocate for a systems approach to AI research and development that accounts for other emerging technologies and promotes human participation.

AI seeks to replicate human intelligence in machines – but humanlike intelligence already exists in humans. Today there is an opportunity to develop superhuman intelligence by pairing the complementary abilities of human cognition with the best available AI methods to create hybrid distributed intelligent systems. In other 55 words, it is in our reach to build networks of humans and machines that sense, think, and act collectively with greater efficacy than either humans or AI systems alone.

 The emerging subfield of AI known as Human Computation is exploring exactly those opportunities by inserting humans into the loop in various information processing systems to perform the tasks that exceed the abilities of machine AI. For this reason, human computation is jokingly referred to as “Artificial AI”. […] [760 words]

World Economic Forum: Geostrategy platform Available on line: https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2018/01/how-to-manage-ais-risks-and-benefits Accessed on February 25th 2018

COMPREHENSION AND INTERPRETATION Answer the following questions. Use complete sentences and your own words.

 1. Why can it be said that AI is going to be pervasive?

2. What makes it possible for AI to potentially improve the human condition?

 3. Why is it important to deliver an adequate risk management process for AI, according to the authors of the Wilson Centre report?

4.How can the benefits of AI be maximised to outweigh the harm for both science and society?

5. What are two distinctive traits of the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) which are mentioned in the report?

6. What example do the authors offer which shows the interaction of AI with multiple fields?

7. Why does it become difficult for those in charge of designing policies to estimate the impact of AI?

8. What do the authors suggest is the result of the collaboration between AI researchers and policymakers? 9. How can human cognition and available AI methods complement each other and to what effect?

10. What is the authors’ purpose in writing the report and what kind of readers do you think is it intended for?

PRODUCTION Choose one of the following questions. Number your answer clearly to show which question you have chosen. 
Either

1.      The rapid development of robotics and AI might have the potential to transform our lives and work practice and offer enormous economic and innovative benefits for our society. Explain how important it is to ensure a sustainable coexistence between robots and humans and for researchers and robot designers to operate in accordance with legal and ethical standards and provide a “safe and equitable development of automated intelligence” (lines 14-15). Write an essay of about 300 words.

2.      Or 
2. A student magazine is inviting readers to contribute to series of articles called “Amazing Future” on some societies imagined by science fiction writers. Submit an article describing a future scenario you imagine and explaining how humans and robots can interact and what people could be dependent on for feelings of emotional satisfaction in this future. Write your article in about 300 words