Lumen Spring Summer 2023 - Flipbook - Page 14
deployed somewhere and you tell it that you
want it to move to an object somewhere
else; that uses vision and language
components together.
intelligence onto the machine. It’s intelligent,
but in a certain way, and knowing when and
when not to use it is important.
We are leading in the issue of correlation
and causality. I always bring my umbrella
when it is raining, that’s correlated together.
If I bring my umbrella into my office, that
does not mean it will rain, that’s causality.
Humans are great at determining if it
is likely to rain and what to do about it,
machines don’t necessarily do reasoning
and the counterfactuals that humans do.
Machines are great at rote memorisation en
masse but they’re only as good as the data
they have been exposed to.
There’s a big area in AI at the moment
called alignment. They’re trying to align AI
with human values – I think that’s really
going to drive it forward. At AIML and the
University of Adelaide, we’re interested in
the narratives around responsible AI. Such
as how we can make sure that AI is being
used responsibly, has guardrails, where it
should and shouldn’t be used, where it is
weak; all things industries need to know to
invest strategically. AIML’s role, and the
University’s role, is advising government and
industry what the opportunities are and how
to maximise them.
What are some of the greatest
challenges ahead?
We project our human view of intelligence
onto the machine. We ask ourselves ‘if I
was a super intelligent entity what would I
do?’ Take over the world? That’s a human
projection.
Fear of what AI is and what it can do is a
challenge. Another is misunderstanding
what AI is good at and not good at. With
large language models like ChatGPT, it’s a
fantastic tool, but if it’s used in the wrong
way, such as asking it about your love life,
it’s dangerous. When used for things like
‘write me a letter intended for a student,
that I need to inform them of an issue
with their homework’ and make edits, it’s
good. We tend to use the word intelligence
and try to project our human definition of
How do we combat these challenges?
Innovation, and the models that you would
have used in, say, 2017-18, have remained
remarkably similar to what we’re seeing
now. What has changed dramatically is
the amount of data and computers, a lot
of companies are calling this scale. It is
essentially the number of numbers in the
neural network. If we can scale that, the
belief is we get more emergent behaviour.
Perhaps GPT-3 couldn’t pass the Bar exam,
but GPT-4 can.
Should we be hesitant to adopt it so
quickly considering the challenges?
It would be catastrophic for Australia to
leave AI up to other countries. It will be
more like electricity or the internet but
on steroids. It will permeate everything,
The Australian Institute of Machine Learning (AIML), Lot Fourteen, North Terrace. Photo by Josh Geelen
14
THE UNIVERSITY OF ADELAIDE
including how we work, how we consume
media, even how democracies run.
We want our values projected into the
future, and if we do not have a seat at the
table with respect to innovation of AI, our
voices will be drowned out.
Social media, as an example, brought a lot of
good, but it’s been a bit of a catastrophe, too,
in terms of social democracy.
There will always be bad and good use
cases, but we cannot put our head in the
sand and stop because the world isn’t going
to stop, nor are bad actors.
We need to progress and project the future
that we want to see, and ensure we have a
seat at the table, ensuring that guardrails
from a legal standpoint are in place, and
that we have allies working with us for this.
Australia has amplified itself as a middle
power by leading through alliances. Australia
has a voice and a role to play, and by leading
and benefitting from the technology, we can
amplify our voice.
Interview by Lachlan Wallace, Communications
Assistant for the University of Adelaide.
The Australian Institute for Machine Learning
(AIML) is Australia’s first institute dedicated
to research in machine learning. The institute
was established as a partnership between the
University of Adelaide and the Government
of South Australia.
