VITAL (machine learning software)

Academics and journalists viewed VITAL's board appointment with skepticism. University of Sheffield computer science professor Noel Sharkey called it "a publicity hype". Michael Osborne, a University of Oxford associate professor in machine learning, found it is "a gimmick to call that an actual board member".{{cite news|last=Brown|first=Sophie|date=2014-09-30|title=Could computers take over the boardroom?|publisher=CNN|url=http://www.cnn.com/2014/09/30/business/computers-ceo-boardroom-robot-boss/|access-date=2016-01-03|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160103054043/http://www.cnn.com/2014/09/30/business/computers-ceo-boardroom-robot-boss/|url-status=live|archive-date=2016-01-03}} Simon Sharwood of The Register, wrote there is "a strong whiff of stunt and/or promotion about this".{{cite news|last=Sharwood|first=Simon|date=2014-05-18|title=Software 'appointed to board' of venture capital firm|newspaper=The Register|url=http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/05/18/software_appointed_to_board_of_venture_capital_firm/|access-date=2016-01-03|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160103061058/http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/05/18/software_appointed_to_board_of_venture_capital_firm/|url-status=live|archive-date=2016-01-03}} In a 2019 speech, the Chief Scientist of Australia, Alan Finkel, commented, "At the time, most of us probably dismissed Vital as a PR exercise. I admit, I used her story three years ago to get a laugh in one of my speeches."{{cite news|last=Finkel|first=Alan|date=2019-03-05|title=The Innovation Imperative|publisher=Office of the Chief Scientist|url=https://www.chiefscientist.gov.au/sites/default/files/AICD-Governance-Summit-2019-Speech-Final.pdf|access-date=2020-04-29|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200429073607/https://www.chiefscientist.gov.au/sites/default/files/AICD-Governance-Summit-2019-Speech-Final.pdf|archive-date=2020-04-29}}

Florian Möslein, a law professor at the University of Marburg, wrote in 2018 that "Vital has widely been acknowledged as the 'world's first artificial intelligence company director'".{{cite book |last=Mölein |first=Florian |editor1-last=Barfield |editor1-first=Woodrow |editor2-last=Pagallo |editor2-first=Ugo |date=2018 |chapter=Robots in the boardroom: artificial intelligence and corporate law |title=Research Handbook on the Law of Artificial Intelligence |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=KqV-DwAAQBAJ&pg=PA649 |location=Cheltenham |publisher=Edward Elgar Publishing |pages=649–650 |isbn=978-1-78643-904-8 |access-date=2020-04-19 }} Vice journalist Jason Koebler suggested that the software did not have any article intelligence capabilities and concluded "VITAL can’t talk, and it can’t hear, and it can’t be a real, functional executive of a company."{{cite news|last=Koebler|first=Jason|date=2014-05-13|title=The First Robot Venture Capitalist Won't Do Interviews|newspaper=Vice|url=https://www.vice.com/en/article/the-robot-turned-venture-capitalist-exec-isnt-giving-interviews/|access-date=2016-01-03|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160103055647/http://motherboard.vice.com/read/the-robot-turned-venture-capitalist-exec-isnt-giving-interviews|url-status=live|archive-date=2016-01-03}} Sharwood of The Register noted that because VITAL was not a natural person, it could not be a board member under Hong Kong's corporate governance laws. However, in a 2017 interview to The Nikkei, Dmitry Kaminskiy, managing partner of Deep Knowledge Ventures, stated that VITAL had observer status on the board and no voting rights.{{cite news|last=Burridge|first=Nicky|date=2017-05-10|title=Artificial intelligence gets a seat in the boardroom: Hong Kong venture capitalist sees AI running Asian companies within 5 years|newspaper=The Nikkei|url=https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Artificial-intelligence-gets-a-seat-in-the-boardroom|access-date=2020-04-19|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200419222157/https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Artificial-intelligence-gets-a-seat-in-the-boardroom|archive-date=2020-04-19}}

University of Sheffield computer science professor Noel Sharkey said of VITAL, "On first sight, it looks like a futuristic idea but on reflection it is really a little bit of publicity hype." Vice journalist Jason Koebler said "this is a gimmick" and said "There is literally nothing to suggest that VITAL has any sort of capabilities beyond any other proprietary analysis software". Michael Osborne, a University of Oxford associate professor in machine learning, found VITAL's appointment to be noncredible, saying it is "a bit of a gimmick to call that an actual board member". Osborne said that a core duty of board members to converse with each other, which the algorithm is incapable of doing, so its more likely functionality is to serve as a springboard for conversation among other board members. In a 2019 speech, the Chief Scientist of Australia, Alan Finkel, commented, "At the time, most of us probably dismissed Vital as a PR exercise. I admit, I used her story three years ago to get a laugh in one of my speeches."

VITAL was created by a group of programmers employed by Aging Analytics {{Cite web|title=Aging Analytics UK Launches VITAL, a Predictive Investment Tool For the Regenerative Medicine Sector', 13 May|url=https://www.thecorporatecounsel.net/nonMember/docs/05_14_AgingAnalytics.pdf|last=Fontaine|first=Jessica|date=2014|website=Cadogan Consulting Group|access-date=6 May 2020}} According to Andrew Garazh, Aging Analytics Senior Analyst, VITAL was not a machine learning algorithm as the necessary datasets on investment rounds, intellectual property and clinical trial outcomes are generally not disclosed. Rather, VITAL used fuzzy logic based on 50 parameters to assess risk factors.

Aging Analytics licensed the software to Deep Knowledge Ventures.{{cite journal|last=Lin|first=Shaowei|date=2018|title=人工智能对公司法的影响:挑战与应对|trans-title=The impact of artificial intelligence on company law: challenges and responses|url=http://www.civillaw.com.cn/uploadfile/lmpic/20180619/20180619064349418.pdf|journal=Journal of East China University of Political Science and Law|language=zh|publisher=East China University of Political Science and Law|access-date=2020-04-19|via=CNKI}} It was used to help the human board members of Deep Knowledge Venture make investment decisions in biotechnology companies. For instance, it supported investments in Insilico Medicine,{{Cite web|title=Deep Knowledge Ventures and Insilico Medicine Enter into a Convertible Bridge Note Agreement to Combat Aging|url=https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20150211006103/en/Deep-Knowledge-Ventures-Insilico-Medicine-Enter-Convertible|date=2015-02-11|website=www.businesswire.com|language=en|access-date=2020-05-06}} which creates ways for computers to help find drugs in research into aging. VITAL also supported investing in Pathway Pharmaceuticals,{{Cite web|title=Deep Knowledge Ventures announces new investment fund for life sciences and aging research|url=http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2015-12/brf-dkv121515.php|website=EurekAlert!|language=en|access-date=2020-05-06}} which uses the OncoFinder algorithm{{Cite journal|last1=Buzdin|first1=Anton A.|last2=Zhavoronkov|first2=Alex A.|last3=Korzinkin|first3=Mikhail B.|last4=Roumiantsev|first4=Sergey A.|last5=Aliper|first5=Alexander M.|last6=Venkova|first6=Larisa S.|last7=Smirnov|first7=Philip Y.|last8=Borisov|first8=Nikolay M.|date=2014-08-26|title=The OncoFinder algorithm for minimizing the errors introduced by the high-throughput methods of transcriptome analysis|journal=Frontiers in Molecular Biosciences|volume=1|pages=8|doi=10.3389/fmolb.2014.00008|issn=2296-889X|pmc=4428387|pmid=25988149|doi-access=free }} to choose and appraise cancer treatments. According to Dmitry Kaminskiy, managing partner of Deep Knowledge Ventures, the motivation for using VITAL was the large number of failed investments in the biotechnology sector and the desire to avoid investing in companies likely to fail.

Scholars addressed questions around the safety, privacy, accountability transparency and bias in algorithms.

Writing in the philosophical journal Multitudes, the academic Ariel Kyrou raised questions about the consequences of a mistake made by an algorithm recommending a dangerous investment.{{cite journal |last=Kyrou |first=Ariel |date=2015 |title=Les robots sont des personnes comme les autres |language=fr |url=https://www.cairn.info/revue-multitudes-2015-1-page-94.htm |journal=Multitudes |via=Cairn.info |volume=58 |issue=1 |pages=94–104 |doi=10.3917/mult.058.0094 |access-date=2020-04-19 |archive-url=https://archive.today/20200419221508/https://www.cairn.info/revue-multitudes-2015-1-page-94.htm |archive-date=2020-04-19 |doi-access=free }} He raised the hypothetical where VITAL was able to persuade the board to invest in a startup that had the facade of doing research into treatment for age-associated ills, but in actuality was run by terrorists who were raising funds. Kyrou raised a series of questions about who society would fault for VITAL's mistake. As the owner of VITAL, should Deep Knowledge Ventures be held accountable, or rather should the companies that supplied data to VITAL or the people who created VITAL be held liable?

Simon Sharwood of The Register wrote that because the appointment of a software program to the board directors is not legally feasible in Hong Kong, there is "a strong whiff of stunt and/or promotion about this". Quoting a Thomson Reuters website describing Hong Kong legislation related to corporate governance, Sharwood pointed out that in Hong Kong "the board comprises all of the directors of the company" and "a director must normally be a natural person, except that a private company may have a body corporate as its director if the company is not a member of a listed group." He concluded that since VITAL cannot be considered a "natural person", it is merely a "cosmetic" appointment to the board and that "this software is no more a Board member than Caligula's horse was a senator". Sharwood further argued that corporations frequently purchase directors and officers liability insurance but that it would be practically impossible to get such insurance for VITAL. Sharwood also wrote that were VITAL to be hacked, any misinformation it outputs could be considered "false and misleading communications".

In the book Research Handbook on the Law of Artificial Intelligence, Florian Mölein wrote that VITAL could not become a director as defined in Hong Kong's corporate laws, so the other directors just were approaching it as "a member of [the] board with observer status". Lin Shaowei raised concerns in a Journal of East China University of Political Science and Law article about how the software's appearance inspired a complex question about the relationship between corporate law and artificial intelligence. VITAL could be considered either a board director who has voting rights or an observer who does not. Lin said either choice raised questions about whether VITAL is subject to corporate law and who would be held accountable if VITAL recommends a choice that turns out to be damaging to the company.

David Theo Goldberg in the Critical Times, a peer reviewed journal in Critical Global Theory, argues that VITAL processed a dataset{{cite journal|last=Colberg|first=David|date=2019|title=Coding Time|url=https://read.dukeupress.edu/critical-times/article/2/3/353/149393/Coding-Time|journal=Critical Times|publisher=Duke University Press|volume=2|issue=3|pages=353–369|doi=10.1215/26410478-7862517|issn=2641-0478|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200429060320/https://read.dukeupress.edu/critical-times/article/2/3/353/149393/Coding-Time|archive-date=2020-04-29|access-date=2020-04-29|doi-access=free}} to predict the most remunerative investment opportunities. Drawing his analysis on an article from Business Insider,{{Cite web|title=A Venture Capital Firm Just Named An Algorithm To Its Board Of Directors — Here's What It Actually Does|url=https://www.businessinsider.com/vital-named-to-board-2014-5|last=Wile|first=Rob|website=Business Insider|access-date=2020-05-06}} Goldberg describes VITAL's decision-making predictiveness based "on surface pattern recognition and the identification of regularities and/or irregularities". In other words, Goldberg asserts that "the normativity of the surface" explains algorithmic knowledge of a "product" like VITAL.{{Relevance inline|date=May 2020|reason=Is it really relevant this author? it sounds quite cryptical, his analysis is based on an article from the blog Business Insider.}}

In Homo Deus, Yuval Noah Harari mentions VITAL as an example of the future risks that humankind faces.{{cite book|last=Harari|first=Yuval Noah|title=Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow|date=2017|publisher=Harper|isbn=978-0-06-246431-6|location=New York|pages=322–323|author-link=Yuval Noah Harari}} Harari argues that the human mind is being replaced by a world in which algorithms and data make the decisions. Specifically, it is argued that "as algorithms push humans out of the job market," executive boards driven by artificial intelligence are more likely to give priority to algorithms over the humans.

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Category:2014 software

Category:Data mining and machine learning software

Category:Publicity stunts

Category:Proprietary software