Merge pull request #64 from UCLAIS/blog-post-5

Blog post 5

Author: kwabenankyi

blog/2024-12-13-algorithms-in-governance.md

@@ -11,13 +11,13 @@ I wouldn’t disagree with anyone who thinks the algorithms that influence what
 
 Ask how they work? These shapeless entities are sometimes indescribable, even by the engineers who initially wrote them. Then there’s the issues of algorithms that just don’t work for any number of reasons – the harmful human biases behind erroneous outputs, overfitted algorithms crumbling outside the nursery of a training set, or on the other hand, algorithms that are pushed into service too early.
 
-Consider then the possibility that these algorithms don’t just exist on your Instagram feed or the Amazon home page. Consider the possibility that these systems are making real decisions on human lives. Consider a reality where they choose who passes an exam and who fails<sup>1</sup>; who stays and who is deported<sup>2</sup>; who is a criminal and who walks free.<sup>3</sup>
+Consider then the possibility that these algorithms don’t just exist on your Instagram feed or the Amazon home page. Consider the possibility that these systems are making real decisions on human lives. Consider a reality where they choose [who passes an exam and who fails](https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5f3e125cd3bf7f1b13f65134/6674_Requirements_for_the_calculation_of_results_in_summer_2020_inc._Annex_G.pdf); [who stays and who is deported](https://www.ft.com/content/0206dd56-87b0-11e9-a028-86cea8523dc2); [who is a criminal and who walks free](https://homeofficemedia.blog.gov.uk/2023/10/29/police-use-of-facial-recognition-factsheet/).
 
 That reality is here already. So why not reform it while we still can? We’re still quite far away from the days of sentient robotic overlords. Before we get there though, it would be a good idea to build responsible AIs, rather than reckless, anthropomorphic ones.
 
-Take the case of the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) reaching out to the big data consultants Palantir about using their tech to calculate prisoners’ reoffending risks.<sup>4</sup> Whatever you think of Palantir, or the MoJ for that matter, this marks an auspiciously tech-savvy move from the Civil Service. The British prison system veered dangerously close to a crisis in the summer, and had to take emergency measures, such as early releases of certain eligible prisoners, to ensure it didn’t reach breaking point.<sup>5</sup> This was the result of over a decades’ worth of chronic negligence, and it’s only expected to buy the government another few months without a new strategy.
+Take the case of the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) reaching out to the big data consultants Palantir about [using their tech to calculate prisoners’ reoffending risks](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2024/nov/16/tech-firm-palantir-spoke-with-moj-about-calculating-prisoners-reoffending-risks). Whatever you think of Palantir, or the MoJ for that matter, this marks an auspiciously tech-savvy move from the Civil Service. The British prison system veered dangerously close to a crisis in the summer, and had to take emergency measures, such as [early releases of certain eligible prisoners](https://www.gov.uk/government/news/process-activated-to-manage-prisoner-movements), to ensure it didn’t reach breaking point. This was the result of over a decades’ worth of chronic negligence, and it’s only expected to buy the government another few months without a new strategy.
 
-Overcrowding has been an issue for a while – England and Wales have the highest imprisonment rate in Western Europe.<sup>6</sup> Also, our prisoners have started spending longer in prison, with a convict serving an average of 20.9 months in 2023, up from 15.5 in 2013.<sup>7</sup> Without too much mental maths, you can start to see where the problems pile up. Throw in the fact that two in five adults are reconvicted in less than a year after release, and now retaining this strained system seems almost untenable.
+Overcrowding has been an issue for a while – England and Wales have the [highest imprisonment rate in Western Europe](https://prisonreformtrust.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Winter-2024-factfile.pdf). Also, prisoners here have started spending longer in prison, with a convict serving [an average of 20.9 months in 2023](https://www.statista.com/statistics/1100628/prison-sentence-length-in-england-and-wales-over-time/), up from 15.5 in 2013. Without too much mental maths, you can start to see where the problems pile up. Throw in the fact that two in five adults are reconvicted in less than a year after release, and now retaining this strained system seems almost untenable.
 
 We shouldn’t continue to allow humans to fail to deliver, when we can take this opportunity to build a completely new and improved system. It’s the best time ever to invest time and resources into the effervescent world of AI. The UK government have the chance to go all-in on a project that, pending success, will have tangible benefits for thousands of individuals disadvantaged by a flawed system.
 
@@ -29,14 +29,3 @@ We could even take it one step further and use it to identify who would benefit
 However, we must ensure the same biases pervasive in other government algorithms are eroded first. Responsible AI principles must be used in this system’s building – stakeholders should understand how it works without it being exploitable, and training sets should be curated to ensure fair representation across class, background, and representation. These systems should also be able to learn from the human decisions made alongside its use, to further tune its decision-making without falling into bias.
 
 The success of technology in failing institutions is the seed for a future powered by it. It’s the seed for a future without decisions made by humans. However, a future without humans is a future without accountability. Let’s hope this future doesn’t arrive too early.
-
-### References
-1. Ofqual, “Requirements for the calculation of results in summer 2020: GCE (AS/A level), GCSE, Extended Project and Advanced Extension Award Qualifications,” Aug. 2020. https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5f3e125cd3bf7f1b13f65134/6674_Requirements_for_the_calculation_of_results_in_summer_2020_inc._Annex_G.pdf
-
-2. H. Warrell, “Home Office under fire for using secretive visa algorithm,” Financial Times, Jun. 09, 2019. https://www.ft.com/content/0206dd56-87b0-11e9-a028-86cea8523dc2
-
-3. Home Office, “Police Use of Facial Recognition: Factsheet - Home Office in the Media,” homeofficemedia.blog.gov.uk, Oct. 29, 2023. https://homeofficemedia.blog.gov.uk/2023/10/29/police-use-of-facial-recognition-factsheet/   
-4. B. Quinn, “Tech firm Palantir spoke with MoJ about calculating prisoners’ ‘reoffending risks,’” The Guardian, Nov. 16, 2024. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2024/nov/16/tech-firm-palantir-spoke-with-moj-about-calculating-prisoners-reoffending-risks   
-5. Ministry of Justice, HM Prison and Probation Service, and Lord Timpson OBE, “Process activated to manage prisoner movements,” gov.uk, Aug. 18, 2024. https://www.gov.uk/government/news/process-activated-to-manage-prisoner-movements   
-6. Prison Reform Trust, “Bromley Briefings Prison Factfile,” Feb. 2024. https://prisonreformtrust.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Winter-2024-factfile.pdf  
-7. D. Clark, “Average prison sentence length in England and Wales 2000-2019,” Statista, Jul. 18, 2024. https://www.statista.com/statistics/1100628/prison-sentence-length-in-england-and-wales-over-time/   

blog/2025-01-28-blog-5.md

@@ -0,0 +1,41 @@
+---
+slug: how-ww2-shaped-ai
+title: >-
+    The Intelligence Race: Now and Then
+authors: [sofiya]
+tags: [history, ww2, turing, turing test, chatbots]
+---
+New “modern intelligence” technologies such as signals, telegraphy, and radios emerged at the beginning of the 20th century. They quickly became indispensable, especially in wartime, where they gave significant strategic advantages to military forces. But until recently, we underappreciated the significance of the once-obscure role intelligence played in WW2, especially for the “Big Four” Allies (the United States, Soviet Union, United Kingdom and China).
+
+**‘Often intelligence is a winning factor.” - John Ferris, The Cambridge History of the Second World War.**
+
+However, the most interesting take-away is that technologies born of the war planted the seed for Artificial Intelligence as a concept. The appearance of AI can be traced back to the work of cryptographers during World War II, who used early computing machines to crack military codes. The appearance of AI can be traced back to the work of cryptographers during World War II, who used early computing machines to crack military codes.
+
+### The Enigma and the Bombe
+Every country involved in World War II had to encode its military communication to protect vital information from enemy forces. The Enigma Machine used by the Germans at that time was an electromechanical device used to encrypt and decrypt messages. Operators would input plaintext messages on the keyboard, and the machine would encipher the message by illuminating a corresponding letter. The encoded message would then be transmitted, typically via radio. The algorithm would constantly change, so each keystroke would result in a new encryption pattern, which made the Enigma especially complex to crack. 
+
+To counteract Enigma algorithms, the brilliant minds at Bletchley Park, including now-renowned Alan Turing developed the Bombe. The Bombe was designed to automate the process of testing possible Enigma rotor configurations to deduce the daily settings. It worked by going through millions of rotor settings of the Enigma machine to determine which composition was used to encrypt a message. 
+
+But how was this code-breaking machine a predecessor to modern AI?
+
+![The Enigma machine](/img/blog/history-of-ai-1.png)
+
+Breaking the Enigma cipher involved identifying patterns in ciphertext to deduce the underlying encryption keys. Modern neural networks, particularly in deep learning, excel at recognising patterns in complex datasets. Image and speech recognition, genomics, and medical imaging are all fields where we use trend detection nowadays. 
+
+Alan Turing’s Bombe is considered to be an early example of a deterministic (predictable) finite automaton (DFA), which is a theoretical model of computation that processes input step by step (ciphertext), transitioning between predefined states (in his case, rotor positions) according to a set of rules.  Bombe's operation highlighted the essence of algorithmic problem-solving and showed the potential of automation, by minimising human error and speeding up repetitive tasks, both now the core principles of AI.
+
+### The Turing Test
+The lessons learnt from Enigma’s cryptanalysis then got Turing thinking about intelligence. His well-known 1950 paper, “Computing Machinery and Intelligence,” posed the provocative question, “Can machines think?”. He proposed the Turing Test, a standard to determine whether the machine intelligence can be distinguished from the human one. The original Turing Test is set out this way:
+
+- Three participants, human evaluator, human respondent and a machine.
+- After some dialogue, the evaluator will have to decide whether they are interacting with a machine or a human. 
+- If the machine succeeds in deceiving the evaluator, it has passed the Turing Test. 
+
+The principles of the Turing Test have sparked divergent evaluations over the past decades. Critics today argue that machines might pass the Turing Test by simply mimicking human-like responses without needing to demonstrate any thought or consciousness. So, they say, passing the Turing Test does not mean that these machines have human-like intelligence; rather, it is overly focused on language, and cognition cannot be fully captured by text-based communication. There now exist numerous alternatives such as Coffee Test, Visual Turing Test, The Lovelace Test, The Theory of Mind test, that take many other modalities into account such as visual perception, decision-making or even emotional understanding.
+
+Alan Turing and the work of cryptologists during WWII have directed and pioneered the development of modern computing and created out many major ideas, still inspiring works in the Artificial Intelligence field today. However, we are still on a journey to realise how machines evolve. Even current AI models like ChatGPT-4 and Google Bard haven't yet advanced to a point where they can consistently pass the Turing test. In fact, nothing in AI today is even close to meeting the true intent of the Turing Test. The pursuit of creating machines that truly emulate human-like intelligence remains an ongoing challenge.
+
+### References
+Ferris, J. (2015). Intelligence. The Cambridge History of the Second World War, pp.637–663. doi:https://doi.org/10.1017/cho9781139855969.027.
+
+Dolan, J. (2023). Is the Turing Test Outdated? 5 Turing Test Alternatives. [online] MUO. Available at: https://www.makeuseof.com/is-turing-test-outdated-turing-test-alternatives/.