Can AI Make The World Happier and More Peaceful

thank you thank you

you may have heard of a story wherein

artificial intelligence is trying to

defeat

the human race and take over the world

or maybe seen a movie where a man

falls in love with an ai girlfriend

because his real girlfriend left him

i found it interesting that we so often

hear

about artificial intelligence in a

fearful or

funny context we don’t even realize it

but from medical devices to smartphones

air is already a part of our lives

at its core ai is a fundamental tool

that can help solve our most pressing

problems

in fact all the unjustified fear around

ai

is preventing us from properly using ai

to make our world a better place

it is unfortunate that despite

tremendous advances in technology

we still see millions of people going to

bed hungry

natural calamities like earthquakes and

floods

shatter millions of lives every year

can artificial intelligence help solve

these serious problems that we as humans

are facing every day

the answer is yes in this

talk i want to tell you how ai will make

the world

happier and peaceful hello everyone

i am pranav an engineering lead at

google research

i work on building artificial

intelligence to provide magical product

experiences for our users

recently i’ve been using ai to help

solve difficult humanitarian problems

that our global society has been facing

since a very long time

we all have probably heard the term ai

at some point or the other nevertheless

it would help to introduce it quickly

before we dive deeper well

artificial intelligence is the science

where machines can

self-learn from the data to make

themselves smarter

so instead of us giving it instructions

ai machine can go through patterns of

data

and learn to do tasks on their own

this is very similar to how we as

children learn to talk

walk or do things isn’t that fascinating

one important ai technology is neural

networks

neural networks are inspired by the

human brain

and work like the human brain just like

how our brain is organized as

nerve as layers of nerve cells called

neurons

neural networks are also structured in

the same manner

a small child observes their

surroundings

and learns things by observing patterns

around them

similarly neural networks learn by

observing many

examples and learning the connections

between the neurons based on those

examples

let us use a simple example to

understand this

we have an image at hand and the task

for our neural network

is to identify whether that image is

that of a cat or a dock

the way we solve it is by taking the

pixels of this image

and feeding it to the lowest layer also

called as the input layer

this layer processes this information

and then passes it on to the next higher

layer

this information flow is repeated

through multiple layers

until it reaches the top layer which has

two neurons

one corresponding to a dog and the other

corresponding to a cat

the neuron that gets more activated at

the top level

is essentially what gets predicted as

the final answer by this neural network

so this is how we use this neural

network to get

answers now one might wonder

how do we teach or train this neural

network

to teach it we feed in a bunch of

known examples examples where we already

know the answer

through this neural network when the

network gives

a wrong answer we use that opportunity

to back propagate the information

through the network

backpropagating is essentially a

feedback mechanism

using which we correct the edge weights

between the layers

such that the next time it is more

likely to give us a correct answer

this is just like learning from your

mistakes

on the other hand when the neural

network gives a correct answer

we reward it and we reinforce its ways

through the same process

very similar to how we reward a child

when they do the right thing

technique of back propagation learning

from your own mistakes

is what makes neural networks so

powerful enough to learn

almost anything

so now that we have an idea about the

basic concept

of ai and neural networks let us talk

about how it will help our society be

happier

air is already used in applications all

around us

ai is helping make our roads safer

through self-driving cars and smart

traffic signals

when you watch a video online ai often

helps you decide which video to watch

based upon your preferences

when you send a text message ai can even

help you draft that text message

through these applications ei is making

us more productive

by automating the mundane tasks and

happier by

freeing up our time to do things that we

love the most

[Music]

but some of the most challenging

problems that we continue to face

in the 21st century are problems like

hunger climate change or even illiteracy

given that we have ai in our quiver

we should expect and even rightfully

demand that it helps us solve these

difficult problems

let’s first talk about hunger about 690

million people

still go to bed on an empty stomach each

night

we are in the 21st century we claim

ourselves to be a modern civilization

so it’s simply not acceptable that so

many people suffer from lack of food

a major cause of hunger tends to be

calamities

not only natural calamities like floods

and earthquakes but also calamities

inflicted by humans like war

when a calamity strikes large

populations are cut off from basic

necessities like food and shelter

the global humanitarian community is

usually overwhelmed in the aftermath of

such a disaster

distribution of relief often tends to be

an even bigger problem than the

availability of relief material

so in partnership with the united

nations

we developed ai technology that can help

deploy aid

to disaster struck regions by analyzing

their aerial imagery

we analyzed that aerial imagery to

pinpoint the locations

that are most affected by damage and

thus

in critical need of aid

we solve this problem by using deep

learning

to compare before and after disaster

images of a region

when we compare the two images we were

able to determine where the most damage

had occurred as a result of the disaster

we do this using a two-step process the

first step

is to detect all of the buildings in a

given region

once we determine the buildings the

second step

is to determine which of these buildings

are damaged by the disaster

here’s an example from the haiti

earthquake

on the left side we can see buildings

identified as damaged

and on the right side we can see

buildings identified as not damaged

we can see that this technology is able

to make predictions that are at power or

even better than those made by humans

such information when aggregated

together

highlights regions that are hurt by the

disaster

this data this technology is hugely

useful to deploy

aid to people who are in critical need

of this aid

like food and medicine

this was an example of how ai is helping

solve

hunger but the potential of ai

extends far beyond to areas like health

care

and education in healthcare

i strongly believe that ai can make high

quality diagnosis accessible to the

entire planet

diagnosis that was previously accessible

only to the elite few

will become accessible to every single

person

we are already seeing this happen in the

field of diabetic retinopathy

which unfortunately has been a leading

cause of blindness

it’s truly saddening that most of these

patients did not have access to proper

diagnosis

as a result they didn’t receive adequate

treatment

and their health declined

using ai we now have diagnosis

technology

that performs at least as well as

doctors do

this is making diagnosis a lot more

scalable and accessible

this application is a perfect example of

human ai partnership

where an ai does the heavy lifting and

frees up our doctors to

spend more time interacting with and

helping their patients

i envision ai to work along similar

lines of human ai partnership

where both humans and ai work together

education education is the bedrock of

every society

after all that is what helps grow our

children to become capable citizens

unfortunately there are millions of

children out there

still without access to formal education

what if ei could make education more

accessible by providing a personalized

learning experience

to every child based on their strengths

and needs

every child is unique and deserves

access to high quality education that is

tailored

for them every field that we look

at be it agriculture or education or

healthcare can deeply benefit from ai

imagine a smartphone helping a farmer

to plan and plant crops get harvest

information

forecast weather forecast rainfall and

even get access to agricultural supplies

what is the use of technology if it

cannot truly uplift the repressed and

enrich their lives

friends ai is not science fiction

it’s a powerful tool that’s already here

to make our lives easier and happier

before closing i’ll say this

we cannot let irrational fear inhibit us

from using ai for human good

just like the steam engine invented in

the 18th century

or the telephone inventor in the 19th

century

ai has the potential to significantly

improve our lives

ei will help uplift millions of people

out of poverty

but just like the steam engine and like

the telephone

it will only be as useful as we make it

to be

so it is up to each of us to identify

such productive opportunities

and utilize ai to help heal the world

let us work together to use ai to make

our world

happier and more peaceful thank you very

[Applause]

much

you