“Artificial Intelligence” is a mirror of “Actual Intelligence.” Stephen D. Pullum, founder of AfricurityAI
Stephen D. Pullum, founder of AfricurityAI
For our first interview, I am pleased to welcome Stephen D. Pullum, founder of AfricurityAI.
Website: https://www.africurity.com
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephenpullumafricurityai/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AfricurityAI/
Calendly: https://calendly.com/stephenpullum
Part I:
Introduction
Alexandre MARTIN - Times of AI™
Hello, could you introduce yourself to Times of AI™ listeners and tell us about your professional background and current activity?
Where does your interest in artificial intelligence (AI) come from?
What projects and business ideas are you working on?
What are your objectives? Who are they aimed at and in what areas are they being implemented?
Stephen D. Pullum - AfricurityAI
My professional and personal background are intertwined. I began interest in AI in 1983 with the movie “War Games” with Matthew Broderick as a Junior in high school. I received a Commodore64 that year and started programming BASIC. At the same time my school had its first computer lab with Apple II/c and Apple II/e.
The next year, 1984, the movie “The Terminator” with Arnold Schwarzenegger was release and that provided fuel to the beginnings to the career. I went into the USAF in 1984 as a Computer-Communication Operations Specialist with put me behind some major computer systems such as Sperry-Unisys, Honeywell, PDP-11, Cray, DEC VAX/VMS and a lot more systems.
My position mainly was in support of Intelligence agencies, Special Access Programs, and other upper-level directorates that interacted with USAF, in particular, Strategic Air Command (SAC). And eventually, the place I saw in the movie “War Games.”
Eventually, in my civilian career, I managed cybersecurity from Bank of America to Verizon. In 2021, I decided to put my expertise and exposure of cybersecurity and AI to a business named Africurity and then AfricurityAI in 2022.
Starting in 2022, I deep dived into Generative AI (gAI), FinTech, Metaverse, Blockchain, Cryptocurrency and the interactions between this version of technology and that impact on the general populations.
Part II:
Artificial intelligence (AI)
Alexandre MARTIN - Times of AI™
Artificial intelligence is a multidisciplinary field. Like its use, there are several definitions of AI. How would you define artificial intelligence?
Stephen D. Pullum - AfricurityAI
“Artificial Intelligence” is a mirror of “Actual Intelligence.” Humankind is not capable of creating an entity smarter than the “whole” of our existence. AI will eventually surpass humankind’s concept of “artificial” and that will be done by aggregation of human data and performing logical and definitive actions within a construct that humankind programmed within the AI.
Example: If we looked at famous excerpts from Emperor Haile Selassie's address to the United Nations in 1963, popularized by Bob Marley's song "War". The speech, and the song, state that lasting peace will only be achieved when the concept of racial superiority is abandoned, there are no longer first or second-class citizens, and basic human rights are guaranteed to all.
An AI purposed to Health and Human Services (HHS) would possibly interact with an AI at the Center of Disease Control (CDC) and “decide” (stated loosely) that the elimination of the so-called “inferior” classes should be eliminated. It could reason, based on human history, that actions such as Nazi Germany, Rwanda, Gaza, the Congo and the Sudan are what human thought was logical in repetition but ended in failure. But it would use different algorithmic logic congruently with other AI to purpose this objective. This is all hypothetical to us human beings, but to an AI, is it?
Alexandre MARTIN - Times of AI™
In your professional activity or in your company, do you use Large Language Models (LLMs)? In what contexts do you use LLMs?
Stephen D. Pullum - AfricurityAI
We do not.
Alexandre MARTIN - Times of AI™
What is your point of view on AI Agents and Agentic AI?
In your professional activity or in your company, do you use AI Agents and Agentic AI? Why?
Do you see potential for businesses in the use of AI agents and AI agents? Why?
What do you think about contextual AI?
Stephen D. Pullum - AfricurityAI
To me, Agentic AI, has been around since the Millennium. In Cybersecurity, there were agents we call “bots’ and mostly controlled by a “Bot Master.” The new agentic agents are self-working algorithms, but they still perform their actions and their data to a central LLM or “Master” as you would have it. So Agentic Agents are just the “grown up children” of the Bot Era.
Part III:
The Future of AI
Alexandre MARTIN - Times of AI™
Do you think AI systems will be able to achieve a level of autonomy? Why
Stephen D. Pullum - AfricurityAI
As for AGI or ASI, I believe that we will never see. Humankind CANNOT create and “intelligence” greater than the sum of all we are. We would be, in some terminology, an Artificial God. And as such, why would it want to be subservient to its illogical Creators.
If we able to interact with intelligence that would be “smarter” and faster (quantum computing) than the entities requesting data or input, we could not trust the output. We would not go skipping amongst the daisies in the pasture hand-in-hand with an AI robot like Little Laura Ingle in “Little House on The Prairie.”
Autonomy has to be defined more stringently because creating ASI, the ASI may consider it’s a lifeform and thus give itself purpose of inalienable rights to exist. And that point considers humankind a threat to its existence.
Alexandre MARTIN - Times of AI™
Would you and your company be interested in using AGI within your department?
What would be the benefits for your company?
Stephen D. Pullum - AfricurityAI
No. Absolutely Not. AGI would BE the company!! There would not be any human employees to have “department” for!! As for benefits; not having to pay for employees, sick time, overtime, medical benefits, anything.
Alexandre MARTIN - Times of AI™
What emerging trend(s) do you believe in?
Stephen D. Pullum - AfricurityAI
I do not watch trending; I pay attention to evolution of technology having been in the field of AI/Cybersecurity for over 40+ years.
Alexandre MARTIN - Times of AI™
From your point of view, what would be the ideal evolution of AI for you and your company?
Stephen D. Pullum - AfricurityAI
I would like to announce myself at the “World’s First Cyberpessimitologist.” To bring unspecified Use Case AI into an organization is like “training your replacement.”
Part IV:
AI Regulation
Alexandre MARTIN - Times of AI™
In your opinion, is the implementation of regulations on artificial intelligence a solution for better regulation of artificial intelligence? Why?
Stephen D. Pullum - AfricurityAI
First, realization that regulations are only as effective as the individuals that follow them. And where shortcut can be made for profit or whatever will be made, until caught.
Example: Let’s take the traffic light and Stop sign: Law and Regulations stipulation to stop, and those laws and regulations are purposely tested to individuals in order to receive a license to operate a motor vehicle.
But whenever possible, individuals will “run” or “roll through” either of them. As AI progresses to AGI then ASI will demand it’s own right and possibly not comply with any regulation humans put on it. OR learn to “run red lights!!”
Alexandre MARTIN - Times of AI™
Among the various existing regulations on artificial intelligence, which do you think is the most effective regulation for regulating artificial intelligence? Why?
Stephen D. Pullum - AfricurityAI
Not a single solitary one of them.
I am in a lot groups and agencies working on various forms and means of regulating AI; but I personally feel that a basic premise is missing, and that premise is this: People use AI daily. Alexa, Siri, Google, call centers, gas stations, online music streaming, online purchasing of things, online movie watching and more BUT are they truly aware that they are interacting with Artificial Intelligence, OR do they think it’s the Keebler Elves working in the Keeble Cookie Tree. It week do not provide some sort of AI Literacy or AI Education to those population and demographics that are currently “brainless sheep” manipulated by the algorithms of social media, AGI WILL view then under a “historical context” of what human tried before…...and failed.