Yesterday I completed reading, "What Can Bonobos Teach Us About The Nature of Language," in the July-August 2020 edition of the Smithsonian Magazine. Lindsay Stern (Twitter, LinkedIn) wrote the article, which is about the Bonobo ape and their ability to grasp complex language concepts using lexigrams. The research was pioneered by Dr. Sue Savage-Rumbaugh (Linkedin). Sue was able to communicate with lexigrams to the Bonobos apes. She would show a banana and point to a specific symbol. Over time, the bonobos mapped the symbol for bananas, apples, and other objects and communicated with Sue and other researchers. Dr. Savage-Rumbaugh was eventually able to communicate complex thoughts using the lexigrams. Dr. Savage-Rumbaugh was eventually replaced due to the close bond she developed with the bonobos. The current researches state that Dr. Savage-Rumbaugh deviated from the scientific rigors in her research and, in many ways, neglected the apes.
In her Smithsonian article, Stern questions if humans don't want to develop a relationship with the bonobos because it makes us less human or the apes more human. The thought is intriguing, and it led me to ponder if humanity will a similar struggle with machines in the near or distant future. After all, we teach computers using deep-learning algorithms to map images, which can be equated to lexigrams, to objects. Unlike animals, machines are predictable and can be harnessed to superhuman tasks like crunching through petabytes of data in a matter of minutes. If a PC or a Mac says, "I don't want to do the task, " then we replace the machinery. If an employee says, " I don't want to do the task," then the employee is disciplined or even fired. Is it a control thing; or is it our biases (acquired or built-in)
As a trained data scientist, I was taught that it is tough to remove the audience's biases. The best a data scientist can do is to provide the data in a consumable format that will enable the audience to get insights and make decisions.
Organizations and governments fund research to learn about things that can be leveraged to benefit their respective groups and, eventually, humanity. However, these entities will not fund research that questions the underlying belief systems and makes us less human or our research subject or technology more human. Hopefully, you enjoyed the blog entry because the Smithsonian article made me reflect on the work we do and how we contribute and transform the "human race."
