data

Dig out your tinfoil hat! Consumer neurotech is here to stay – and it needs more scrutiny

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“Thoughts are free and subject to no rule. On them rests the freedom of man, and they tower above the light of nature”

Philippus Aureolus Paracelsus (1493-1541)

This week, Facebook Reality Labs revealed the latest piece of hardware gadgetry that it hopes will introduce eager consumers to a new world of augmented and mixed reality. The wristband is a type of technology known as a neural — or brain-computer — interface, and can read the electrical nerve signals our brain sends to our muscles and interpret them as instructions.

In other words, you don’t have to move. You can just *think* your movements.

You’d be forgiven for wondering if we’ve evolved too far..

A jazzy, high production video features grinning young San Francisco-type execs describing this new, immersive experience. They’ve invented it, and they’ll be damned if they aren’t going to foist it upon us.  “The wrist is a great starting point for us technologically,” one chirps, “because it opens up new and dynamic forms of control.” Quite. 

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Here Are Five Reasons Consumers Won’t Buy Your Smart Home Device

/ Fiona J McEvoy / 1 Comment

This blog was originally posted on the Hill + Knowlton Strategies website.

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The Aware Home

In 2000, a group of researchers at Georgia Tech launched a project they called “The Aware Home.” The collective of computer scientists and engineers built a three-story experimental home with the intent of producing an environment that was “capable of knowing information about itself and the whereabouts and activities of its inhabitants.” The team installed a vast network of “context aware sensors” throughout the house and on wearable computers worn by the home’s occupants. The hope was to establish an entirely new domain of knowledge — one that would create efficiencies in home management, improve health and well-being, and provide support for groups like the elderly.

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RE•WORK Interview with Fiona J McEvoy, YouTheData.com

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This article was originally posted on the RE•WORK blog. Original

The way people interact with technology is always evolving. Think about children today – give them a tablet or a smartphone and they have literally no problem in figuring out how to work it. Whilst this is a natural evolution of our relationships with new tech, as it becomes more and more ingrained in our lives it’s important to think about the ethical implications. This isn’t the first time I’ve spoken about ethics and AI – I”ve had guests on the Women in AI Podcast such as Cansu Canca from the AI Ethics Lab and Yasmin J. Erden from St Mary’s University amongst others join me to discuss this area, and I even wrote a white paper on the topic which is on RE•WORK’s digital content hub – so it’s something that’s really causing conversation at the moment. Fiona McEvoy, the founder of YouTheData.com, joined me on the podcast back in June to discuss the importance of collaboration in AI to ensure it’s ethically sound. Fiona will be joining us at the Deep Learning Summit in San Francisco this week, so in advance of this, I caught up with her to see what she’s been working on…

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AI needs cooperation, not an arms race

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This article by Fiona J McEvoy (YouTheData.com) was originally posted on All Turtles.

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Writing in the New York Times recently, venture capitalist Kai-Fu Lee signaled an important, oncoming change in the way we think about artificial intelligence. We are graduating, he cautioned, from an age of discovery and vision into a more practical era of implementation.

Lee is promoting his new book, titled A.I. Superpowers: China, Silicon Valley, and the New World Order, and he suggests that this transition from lab to launchpad may naturally privilege Chinese advantages—like data abundance and government investment—above the research capabilities and “freewheeling intellectual environment” of the U.S.

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Trying on wearables

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This article by Fiona J McEvoy (YouTheData.com) was originally posted on All Turtles.

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The dramatic failures of Google Glass and Snapchat Spectacles demonstrated the countless challenges faced by wearable technologies. Beyond the ubiquitous activity trackers and smartwatches, wearable consumer products have yet to yield a mass-market success. Though the idea of wearable tech and human-technology synergy still gets marketers excited, product designers have yet to hit upon a breakout device that will prove as popular and indispensable as blue jeans. Still, the allure of developing such a product remains irresistible.

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Designing for Bad Intentions: Wearables and Cyber Risks

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YouTheData.com is delighted to feature a guest post by John Gray, the co-founder of MentionMapp Analytics. John is a media researcher and entrepreneur exploring how issues like the spread of misinformation, and the exploitation of personal privacy are eroding trust in our social institutions and discourse. He’s written numerous case studies and has co-authored “The Ecosystem of Fake: Bots, Information and Distorted Realities.” 

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“It’s the bad people with bad intent that’s causing the problem, not technology” – Shane Luke, Sr. Director of Digital Innovation, Nike

We exude data, like the sweat that streams off our skin. It’s the norm. Just as another new normal is the news of the latest PR tour by data breach apologists full like empty promises of “we’ll do better”. Like the soles of an ultra-marathoners shoes, the cliched technocratic mind-set of “moving fast, breaking things” and “asking for forgiveness rather than permission”, is beginning to wear thin.

We accept the devices in our pockets, and on our wrists, feet, and even our faces are communicating data. Yet the data they produce becomes a target for bad-actors. As technology weaves deeper into what we wear, there’s more to our fashion statements than meets the eye.

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Ready To Be “Deepfaked”? 3 Reasons You Should Be Concerned About The Internet’s Creepiest Data Heist

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fake

Fraudsters typically line their pockets by forging our signatures, cloning our credit cards, and stealing our personal identities. Yet, we’d like to think that folks who know us personally – our family, friends, colleagues, and acquaintances – would catch these counterfeiters out if they brazenly claimed to be us in public. After all, seeing is believing isn’t it? If you don’t look like me, you’re not me. If you do look like me, the chances are that you are me. Right?

Well…maybe. And this could soon become the subject of some confusion.

But how?

Well, imagine if stealing your identity could include stealing your image. And if scammers could then use that image to put words in your mouth and – in some cases – fake your very actions. This isn’t just some outlandish thought experiment, but a foreseeable hazard if we fail to prepare for a surge in the production of “deepfakes”.  Continue reading →

Want Artificial Intelligence that cares about people? Ethical thinking needs to start with the researchers

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We’re delighted to feature a guest post from Grainne Faller and Louise Holden of the Magna Carta For Data initiative.

The project was established in 2014 by the Insight Centre for Data Analytics  – one of the largest data research centres in Europe – as a statement of its commitment to ethical data research within its labs, and the broader global movement to embed ethics in data science research and development.

Magna Carta For Data 1

A self-driving car is hurtling towards a group of people in the middle of a narrow bridge. Should it drive on, and hit the group? Or should it drive off the bridge, avoiding the group of people but almost certainly killing its passenger? Now, what about if there are three people on the bridge but five people in the car? Can you – should you – design algorithms that will change the way the car reacts depending on these situations?

This is just one of millions of ethical issues faced by researchers of artificial intelligence and big data every hour of every day around the world. Continue reading →

If you aren’t paying, are your kids the product?

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There’s a phrase – from where I don’t know – which says: “If you aren’t paying, you’re the product.”  Never has this felt truer than in the context of social media. Particularly Facebook, with its fan-pages and features, games and gizmos, plus never-ending updates and improvements. Who is paying for this, if not you…and what are they getting in return? The answer is actually quite straightforward.

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