24 JUNE/JULY 2019 www.vanguardcanada.com
the Black Box Conundrum
BY VALARIE FINDLAY
artifiCial intelligenCe
T
he one thing guaranteed to
make me laugh out loud is
Boston Dynamics' video of
their robot-dog, SpotMini,
slipping on a pile of banana
peels. Another video of SpotMini's "ro-
bustness test" shows an equally funny fail-
point as a man armed with a hockey stick
attempts to dissuade SpotMini from com-
pleting its task. He is flat out defeated.
Even though these are rudimentary fail-
points of neural and artificial intelligence
(AI), the pratfalls and indignation may be
harbingers of a larger problem on the hori-
zon. The deep learning aspects of advanced
generative technologies that we can't see,
control or explain – the black box – has
become a blind spot of trust, ethics and
accountability.
Several years ago when AI gained ground
with its ability to process and analyze vast
amounts of data into predictive results, the
Why did the robot-dog slip on the banana?
We don't know. And neither does its engineers.
artifiCial
intelligenCe:
Boston Dynamics' SpotMini
