Top 13 challenges AI is facing in 2017

AI and ML feed on data, and companies that center their business around the technology are growing a penchant for collecting user data, with or without the latter’s consent, in order to make their services more targeted and efficient. Already implementations of AI/ML are making it possible to impersonate people by imitating their handwriting, voice and conversation style, an unprecedented power that can come in handy in a number of dark scenarios. However, despite large amounts of previously collected data, early AI pilots have challenges producing  dramatic results that technology enthusiasts predicted. For example, early efforts of companies developing chatbots for Facebook’s Messenger platform saw 70% failure rates in handling user requests.

One of main challenges of AI goes beyond data: false positives. For example, a name-ranking algorithm ended up favoring white-sounding names, and advertising algorithms preferred to show high-paying job ads to male visitors.

Another challenge that caused much controversy in the past year was the “filter bubble” phenomenon that was seen in Facebook and other social media that tailored content to the biases and preferences of users, effectively shutting them out from other viewpoints and realities that were out there.

Additionally, as we give more control and decision-making power to AI algorithms, not only technological, but moral/philosophical considerations become important – when a self-driving car has to choose between the life of a passenger and a pedestrian.

To sum up, following are the challenges that AI still faces, despite creating and processing increasing amounts of of data and unprecedented amounts of other resources (number of people working on algorithms, CPUs, storage, better algorithms, etc.):

1. Unsupervised Learning: Deep neural networks have afforded huge leaps in performance across a variety of image, sound and text problems. Most noticeably in 2015, the application of RNNs to text problems (NLP, language translation, etc.) have exploded. A major bottleneck in unsupervised learning is labeled data acquisition. It is known humans learn about objects and navigation with relatively little labeled “training” data. How is this performed? How can this be efficiently implemented in machines?
2. Select Induction Vs. Deduction Vs. Abduction Based Approach: Induction is almost always a default choice when it comes to building an AI model for data analysis. However, it – as well as deduction, abduction, transduction – has its limitations which need serious consideration.
3. Model Building: TensorFlow has opened the door for conversations about  building scalable ML platforms. There are plenty of companies working on data-science-in-the-cloud (H2O, Dato, MetaMind, …) but the question remains, what is the best way to build ML pipelines? This includes ETL, data storage and  optimisation algorithms.
4. Smart Search: How can deep learning create better vector spaces and algorithms than Tf-Idf? What are some better alternative candidates?

5. Optimise Reinforced Learning: As this approach avoids the problems of getting labelled data, the system needs to get data, learn from it and improve. While AlphaGo used RL to win against the Go champion, RL isn’t without its own issues: discussion on a more lightweight and conceptual level one on a more technical aspect.

6. Build Domain Expertise: How to build and sustain domain knowledge in industries and for problems, which involve reasoning based on a complex body of knowledge like Legal, Financial, etc. and then formulate a process where machines can simulate an expert in the field.
7. Grow Domain Knowledge: How can AI tackle problems, which involve extending a complex body of knowledge by suggesting new insights to the domain itself – for example new drugs to cure diseases?
8. Complex Task Analyser and Planner: How can AI tackle complex tasks requiring data analysis, planning and execution? Many logistics and scheduling tasks can be done by current (non-AI) algorithms. A good example is the use of AI techniques in IoT for Sparse datasets . AI techniques help this case because there are large and complex datasets where human beings cannot detect patterns but machines can do so easily.
9. Better Communication: While proliferation of smart chatbots and AI-powered communication tools is a trend since several years, these communication tools are still far from being smart, and may at times fail at recognising even a simple human language.
10. Better Perception and Understanding: While Alibaba, Face+ create facial recognition software, visual perception and labelling are still generally problematic. There are few good examples, like this Russian face recognition app  that is good enough to be considered a potential tool for oppressive regimes seeking to identify and crack down on dissidents. Another algorithm proved to be effective at peeking behind masked images and blurred pictures.
11. Anticipate Second-Order (and higher) Consequences: AI and deep learning have improved computer vision, for example, to the point that autonomous vehicles (cars and trucks) are viable (Otto, Waymo) . But what will their impact be on economy and society? What’s scary is that with advance of AI and related technologies, we might know less on AI’s data analysis and decision making process. Starting in 2012, Google used LSTMs to power the speech recognition system in Android, and in December 2016, Microsoft reported their system reached a word error rate of 5.9%  —  a figure roughly equal to that of human abilities for the first time in history. The goal-post continues to be moved rapidly .. for example loom.ai is building an avatar that can capture your personality. Preempting what’s to come, starting in the summer of 2018, EU is considering to require that companies be able to give users an explanation for decisions that their automated systems reach.
12. Evolution of Expert Systems: Expert systems have been around for a long time.  Much of the vision of expert systems could be implemented in AI/deep learning algorithms in the near future. The architecture of IBM Watson is an indicative example.
13. Better Sentiment Analysis: Catching up but still far from lexicon-based model for sentiment analysis, it is still pretty much a nascent and unchartered space for most AI applications. There are some small steps in this regard though, including OpenAI’s usage of mLSTM methodology to conduct sentiment analysis of text. The main issue is that there are many conceptual and contextual rules (rooted and steeped in particulars of culture, society, upbringing, etc of individuals) that govern sentiment and there are even more clues (possibly unlimited) that can convey these concepts.

Thoughts/comments?