Rational Machines and Artificial Intelligence

Intelligent machines are populating our social, economic and political spaces. These intelligent machines are powered by Artificial Intelligence technologies such as deep learning. They are used in decision making. One element of decision making is the issue of rationality. Regulations such as the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) require that decisions that are made by these intelligent machines are explainable. Rational Machines and Artificial Intelligence proposes that explainable decisions are good but the explanation must be rational to prevent these decisions from being challenged. Noted author Tshilidzi Marwala studies the concept of machine rationality and compares this to the rationality bounds prescribed by Nobel Laureate Herbert Simon and rationality bounds derived from the work of Nobel Laureates Richard Thaler and Daniel Kahneman. Rational Machines and Artificial Intelligence describes why machine rationality is flexibly bounded due to advances in technology. This effectively means that optimally designed machines are more rational than human beings. Readers will also learn whether machine rationality can be quantified and identify how this can be achieved. Furthermore, the author discusses whether machine rationality is subjective. Finally, the author examines whether a population of intelligent machines collectively make more rational decisions than individual machines. Examples in biomedical engineering, social sciences and the financial sectors are used to illustrate these concepts.

Dr. Tshilidzi Marwala is the Rector of the United Nations (UN) University and the UN Under-Secretary-General from 1 March 2023. He was previously the Vice-Chancellor and Principal of the University of Johannesburg, Deputy Vice-Chancellor for Research and Executive Dean of the Faculty of Engineering at the University of Johannesburg. He was Associate Professor, Full Professor, the Carl and Emily Fuchs Chair of Systems and Control Engineering at the University of the Witwatersrand. He holds a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering (magna cum laude) from Case Western Reserve University, a Master of Mechanical Engineering from the University of Pretoria, PhD in Artificial Intelligence from the University of Cambridge and a Post-Doc at Imperial College (London). He is a registered professional engineer, a Fellow of TWAS (The World Academy of Sciences), the Academy of Science of South Africa, the African Academy of Sciences and the South African Academy of Engineering. He is a Senior Member of the IEEE and a distinguished member of the ACM. His research interests are multi-disciplinary and they include the theory and application of artificial intelligence to
engineering, computer science, finance, social science and medicine. He has supervised 28 Doctoral students published 15 books in artificial intelligence (one translated into Chinese), over 300 papers in journals, proceedings, book chapters and magazines and holds five patents. He is an associate editor of the International Journal of Systems Science (Taylor and Francis Publishers). He has been a visiting scholar at Harvard University, University of California at Berkeley, Wolfson College of the University of Cambridge, Nanjing Tech University and Silesian University of Technology in Poland. His opinions have appeared in the New Scientist, The Economist, Time Magazine, BBC, CNN and the Oxford Union. Dr. Marwala is the author of Rational Machines and Artificial Intelligence from Elsevier Academic Press.