Listen to this article
Estimated 4 minutes
The audio version of this article is generated by AI-based technology. Mispronunciations can occur. We are working with our partners to continually review and improve the results.
One of the world’s top artificial intelligence researchers working in New Brunswick is optimistic about what the future could bring with advancements of the technology, but he does urge caution.
Moulay Akhloufi, an AI researcher at the Université de Moncton, was listed by Stanford University in the top two per cent of AI researchers worldwide.
The list is compiled by looking at the number of research papers someone authors, or co-authors, and how often those papers are cited by other scientists.
Akhloufi said the future of AI will be influenced by education about the technology and how it is used.
“We have seen historically every technology we see the good uses and the bad uses,” he said.
Machine learning
Akhloufi works primarily in the field of machine learning, a subset of AI where computers are trained to perform specific tasks.
This would be distinct from more general AI like large language models, such as ChatGPT, and other forms of generative AI.
Akhloufi works with machines and robots trained with machine learning which could be used by businesses.
“For example, we have a client in Saint John where he wants to use this kind of robot to move, ,for example parcels for [elderly] people or to go pick up the garbage for example using these robots,” said Akhloufi.
LISTEN | Moulay Akhloufi on Information Morning Moncton:
Information Morning – Moncton10:35U de M professor ranked among the world’s top A.I. researchers
Moulay Akhloufi is a professor in the department of computer science at l’Université de Moncton.
Akhloufi said this could be beneficial in countries where there is a labour shortage and businesses can’t hire enough humans to do the work.
But he acknowledged this could also lead to job losses and said the key will be offering training to people who find themselves replaced by an AI worker.
“We will still need humans, but not the same jobs,” said Akhloufi.
But speed will be key to getting people trained for new jobs, and he doesn’t believe government is working fast enough to address it.
“I think we’ll have to move faster in finding ways to train people to upscale people,” said Akhloufi.
“Otherwise we will have as a society some problems at some time.”
Existential threat
One area some AI researchers have been concerned about is the development of Artificial General Intelligence, also known as Super AI.
Super AI is a theoretical step in AI when its intelligence exceeds human intelligence and, depending on who you ask, it’s arrival may come sooner than later.
And the risk it may pose to humanity is also something researchers are debating.
In 2022, Oxford University and the Machine Intelligence Research Institute, a California-based think-tank examining existential threats posed by AI, surveyed 738 AI researchers. The survey showed 48 per cent of respondents pegged the odds that the “long-run effect of advanced AI on humanity will be ‘extremely bad (e.g., human extinction)’” at 10 per cent.
Akhloufi didn’t want to give a numerical value to the possible existential threat posed by Super AI, but he said there is a “real concern.”
He said technology isn’t at the level of Super AI yet, but it is important to think about that possibility, especially with some of the malicious uses that have come from existing AI, like deepfakes — images and videos that are doctored using AI.
“If we don’t put some guardrails, we will have a big trouble and we will have probably big problems,” said Akhloufi.
“I am sure that, for example, bad people will use these tools for bad things. So that’s where we will have to to be careful.”
But Akhloufi maintained a lot of good can come from AI, especially in the medical field where the technology could speed up detection of diseases and drug development.
He said: “I try to be optimistic because what we are doing is really positive and have impact on on our society.”