Natural vs Artificial Intelligence

Looking at the analytics required for sustained, concentrated and prolonged research, you can see scientists and mathematicians spending decades in exceptionally narrow-focused study to solve increasingly complex problems. Even with the most advanced super-computers, making trillions of calculations per second, the humans generating the data, asking the questions and shifting the emphasis are among the most brilliant individuals in the world. Adding such minds to artificial intelligence (self-teaching computers with massive high-speed processing) is necessary in a world of incredible technological complexity. Yet, the United States, it seems, is about to yield its technological supremacy to China, however.

One of the pillars of Donald Trump’s trade policy against China has been to tilt heavily against their rather obvious proclivity to hack into our research facilities and require information-sharing for companies doing business in the People’s Republic of China to short-cut that massive research effort. IP theft. Yet it is worthy to note that as our hypocritcal federal government continues to defund research grants and pure scientific inquiry within the government as well as universities and non-profit institutions – tax breaks for the rich take priority – China has pledged to be the global leader in artificial intelligence within the next five or six years. Hence the short cuts?

China has also pledged additional massive funding – hundreds of billions of dollars – to supplant the US in that technical field, which given the level of increasing hard patents from the PRC and a decrease in the rate of new hard patents in the United States, is clearly achievable. Likewise, our continuing shift of the cost of higher education to enrolled students has saddled young entrants into the US job market with unsustainable levels of student loan debt. An education that would be substantially free at almost any university in Germany costs tens of thousands of dollars a year here. Top Chinese universities are rapidly following this model as well, as the upgrade primary and secondary education with heavy spending.

When you look at the fields in the United States that have generated the greatest recent wealth here, they are focused on communications and social media patents (which I refer to as “soft patents”). When you look at young people, particularly in the United States, you also see the impact of generations bombarded with too much information, too much content and constantly distracted and interrupted in this digital era. American X and Y generations would rather live without a car than their smart phones. Living in this highly distracted universe appears to have materially altered the thinking processes of the majority of those generations in a way that is less than positive, one that might impact our technological competitiveness.

Not only do scientific findings suggest that these generations are less capable of prolonged narrow-focused research than prior generations – an essential ability when dealing in complex scientific and mathematical research – but these distracted modern realities may actually be creating very unhealthy changes in the brains of this younger cohort. The July 18^th Los Angeles Times presents some of the underlying research:

“What with all the swiping, scrolling, snap-chatting, surfing and streaming that consume the adolescent mind, an American parent might well watch his or her teen and wonder whether any sustained thought is even possible.

“New research supports that worry, suggesting that teens who spend more time toggling among a growing number of digital media platforms exhibit a mounting array of attention difficulties and impulse-control problems.

“In a group of more than 2,500 Los Angeles-area high school students who showed no evidence of attention challenges at the outset, investigators from USC, UCLA and UC San Diego found that those who engaged in more digital media activities over a two-year period reported a rising number of symptoms linked to attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder.

“The association between digital media use and ADHD symptoms in teens was modest. But it was clear enough that it could not be dismissed as a statistical fluke. On average, with each notch a teen climbed up the scale of digital engagement, his or her average level of reported ADHD symptoms rose by about 10%.

“The results do not show that prolific use of digital media causes ADHD symptoms, much less that it results in a level of impairment that would warrant an ADHD diagnosis or pharmaceutical treatment… Indeed, it’s possible the relationship is reversed — that attention problems drive an adolescent to more intensive online engagement.

“But at a time when 95% of adolescents own or have access to a smartphone and 45% said they are online ‘almost constantly,’ the new study raises some stark concerns about the future of paying attention. It was published Tuesday in the Journal of the American Medical Assn.

“The findings come as mental health professionals are rethinking their understanding of ADHD, a psychiatric condition that was long thought to start in early childhood and last across a lifetime. Marked by impulsivity, hyperactivity and difficulty sustaining attention, ADHD is estimated to affect about 7% of children and adolescents.

“But the disorder is increasingly being diagnosed in older teens and adults, and in some it waxes and wanes across a lifespan. Whether its symptoms were missed earlier, developed later or are brought on by changing circumstances is unclear.

“The new research, involving 2,587 sophomores and juniors attending public schools in Los Angeles County, raises the possibility that, for some, ADHD symptoms are brought on or exacerbated by the hyper-stimulating entreaties of a winking, pinging, vibrating, always-on marketplace of digital offerings that is as close as the wireless device in their pocket.”

We need a ground-up retooling of how we integrate children into a competitive adult world: Not only what and how we teach rising generations, how we prioritize education, how we pay for it, but what we can do about an environment that takes such a massive toll on the thinking power and social compatibility of those who are destined to inherit our future. As current federal priorities stand, we seem to be heading towards a less competent, less competitive future where we will increasingly watch other countries take advantage of our self-inflicted weaknesses and pass us by.

I’m Peter Dekom, and I am afraid that we are adopting a “Make Sure America is Never Great Again” litany of self-inflicted “death of a thousand cuts” governmental policies.