The Fairy God Model

The Fairy God Model

Happiness.  It’s a word used liberally to describe our emotional perspective on nearly everything in our lives.  Are you happy with your job? Are you happy with your car? Are you happy with your relationship? With your teacher?  And on and on. Those are relatively simple questions that we often respond quickly to, either yes or no and the reasoning why.  But happiness is a very complex topic and its attainment is highly elusive.

Hundreds of essays and books attempt to define happiness.  Eastern philosophy teaches us to look internally for balance and harmony as the keystones of happiness.  Western philosophy has all but been lost to a bombardment of ads for everything from autos to clothes to make up and numerous other externalities promoted to help us find happiness.  In all fairness, both Eastern and Western philosophies have religious offerings that found many of our society rules and personal guidelines, within which personal satisfaction, development and maturity can be defined.  But across the globe, consumerism has become the staple of happiness for many of us. As we excavate the ruins of temples from the past, we find many epitaphs to gods and rulers, the lasting memorials to the influences of those societies.  Generations from now, how will our descendants interpret the thousands of Starbucks and Golden Arches they dig up?

So what does all this have to do with artificial intelligence (AI)?  Everything. AI represents mankind’s first endeavor to empower technology to make decisions and perform actions on our behalf.  The decisions they make and the actions they perform will have to follow some form of rationale and that rationale will be based on the foundations of happiness.

Imagine when your car automatically slows down to avoid getting pulled over by a traffic officer you did not even see.  Or when your phone arranges dinner with an unknown person from across town meets because you are both single and have shared interests.  Or when your shirt summons an ambulance because it detected an imminent stroke you are about to have. These are not decisions and actions that would disappoint you.  The AI logic behind these examples would act like you own Fairy God Model, gathering, interpreting and weighing outcomes that would ultimately benefit you, make you happy and perhaps even save your life.