The first full week of October is buzzing here in Stockholm. This is when the winners of this year’s Nobel Prizes are announced. One prize each day: Medicine, Physics, Chemistry, Literature, Peace. Monday next week the prize in Economics which was added later.
The Nobel Prize organisation does a great job of explaining the scientific achievements for which the prizes are awarded. In a world full of war, conflict and rampant capitalism it is so nice to for once to celebrate science. Scientists that dedicate their life and career to discover and learn and build and create.
Buried under the ice
I recall the buzz from previous years so this year I invited my oldest to join me at the Nobel Prize Museum after school. We went there Tuesday, the day the Nobel Prize in Physics was announced. There was a talk about the neutrino detector at the South Pole the same afternoon. The talk was planned long before they knew that the prize this year was awarded to Francis Halzen for coming up with the idea. The prize is given to one person or shared between a few persons but especially in physics, scientific progress is the result of large international teams working together for decades. They had celebrated all day.
It was fun to learn both about the science and about how the idea was realised. Presented by a Swede who skipped Midsummer for 8 months drilling and keeping the detector running through the arctic night at 70 below. A true testament to a life dedicated to achieve something greater than one self, greater than money and convenience.
What AI can and cannot do
Wednesday I visited KTH, the technical university of Stockholm. Here Professor Danica Kragic held a talk about AI and robotics. She is a techno optimist with a detailed and deep insight into the history of AI and robotics. What has been achieved and what technology cannot yet do for us. While ai agents now solve advanced tasks for knowledge workers, robots still cannot solve trivial every day tasks that humans do like cooking, vacuum cleaning, hanging up clothes, emptying the dishwasher, changing diapers, or giving someone a nice haircut.
She brought up ethical dilemmas and used a metaphor of technology as doors that are open to us but that we must still choose ourselves to walk through. When self driving cards first became possible she was convinced that they would become common quickly, such an obvious way to save time and money and make things convenient. As the trolley problem shows, there are very valid reasons for an individual to not share personal health data freely even if there are overall benefits for society. Self driving cars are not allowed in Sweden.
She shared a personal motivation that new technology would help her create a good life for her 19 year old son with special needs. She believes that people should have the choice of whether to be served by a human or a robot.
I asked her after the talk if the hype is really necessary or even useful as a way to drive adaption of ai. One thing that puts me off from exploring and adapting ai is the hype. Grossly overstating what technology can do now and what it will be able to do “soon” and greatly ignoring or ridiculing underlying concerns. Even if we accept capitalism as the way to drive technological development, is the ai hype train really the best way to achieve a faster and wider adaption of these new tools? Do we development new technology to make money or to solve real world problems?
To me money is a means, not a goal. But with AI, it seems that the ever rising share prizes and insane wealth of a few individuals is the measure of success of this new tool. The AI hype is as much the result of personal egos than anything, she offered. She was not optimistic about politicians being able to regulate and control development and adaptation of these new technologies.
Exoskeletons and talking heads
After the talk I visited Digital Futures also at KTH. Ph.d. students presented their research projects within ai and robotics. In small groups we walked between stations. Exoskeletons that help people walk after a stroke, a brain model that help building better helmets to reduce brain trauma, an app with personalised sounds that helps you sleep better, and a talking head that can help you come up with a recipe for cooking with the ingredients you have at home. The last one lost internet connection and failed to come up with a recipe. A little reminder that all technology comes with its own problems.
Overall it was super nice to experience first hand passionate young people enthusiastic about solving real world problems with technology and science.
Many events during the Nobel Calling Week are free and without signup. You can walk in from the street and take part in great presentations of scientific work. A true privilege to have this possibility.