A Human Choice

 I know that today, the major topics of conversation, at least in America, are the results of the Senate elections in Georgia and the official certification of the Electoral College vote in Congress, but I am not going to write about those.

I saw a headline on BBC News that seemed relevant to this collection of my thoughts. I write bits about algorithms, without actually looking them up or anything, because I read some time ago that algorithms would be taking over the world, because they self-correct and get stronger, better, more accurate, and therefor more powerful over time. That is probably true, but my experience with algorithms has not made me fear them. For one thing, I read Asimov's short story collection, I Robot, which is not portrayed accurately in movies. The actual stories are about the advance of robot technology to the point that robots control most decisions, and keep the peace, direct commerce, and generally make the world better for people. There is minimal conflict between humans and robots, except in the early stages, when some robots either misunderstand orders or take actions that have social effects that clearly the robots don't understand. But the early programmers set the course so robots have no actual ambition. They just have a job, which is to make the world better, and ends up meaning making the world better for humans, which certainly doesn't harm robots. Robots themselves have no desires or emotions, so they have no incentive to "take over" or anything like that. I can see how that story would not make for much drama in a movie, but it is probably closer to reality than the movie, I, Robot, or Terminator, or any of the others about a robot apocalypse.

Algorithms keep offering me advice and ads that I just ignore because of a complete lack of connection to me. Sometimes I smile a little at the oddities, like the constant barrage of ads for enrollment in the school where I teach. Sure, there is a connection between the school and my life, but the ads are still not going to convince me to change that relationship from educator to student.

Today, a Minister in the United Kingdom announced that exams there would be graded by humans, and not algorithms. I don't know much about the British education system. I have read Harry Potter, so I understand that references to OWLS and NEWTS are analogous to A-Levels in real testing, and maybe another that I don't know about. Without knowing the nature of the tests, I can't offer an opinion of the differences between human and algorithmic grading. If they are essay questions, then there would be large differences, and I would give the advantage to humans. I can imagine creating an expert system capable of grading written exam papers, but I'm not sure how much faith I would have in it. Expert systems have been shown to be better than doctors in making some diagnoses, so they could also, at some point, be better at grading essays, but I would be skeptical without convincing data to demonstrate such superiority. I doubt the British public would be very accepting of judgments coming from an AI construct about English literature or musicology.

I wonder, though, if I am just being stubborn about all this. Maybe the algorithms are just as good, or better, at grading essays or stories, at least in some objective sense, and I prefer a human decision because I'm human, which makes me feel closer to the process that way. I expect comparisons could be made, if someone wanted to put in the effort to have a whole stack of essays graded both ways to validate the algorithm. It might work, even in the public were resistant, and the algorithm would command a lower salary, making the process more efficient and cost effective. But that would cost essay graders their jobs, and, really, doesn't that seem like to high a cost? Algorithms are tools we use to make our economy more productive. We should never lose sight of that.