technology

Five things that will soon seem quaint thanks to AI

/ Fiona J McEvoy / Leave a comment

wifi code

Remember VHS? Or downloading music onto your iPod? If you do, the chances are it doesn’t seem too long ago – and that’s because it wasn’t. At least not in the scheme of things.

Think about it.

Our ancestors were stuck with pen and ink for a good long while before those clacky, qwerty typewriters came along. Similarly, it took millennia for us to eventually switch our stirrups for steering wheels (and, alas, lose those well-honed riding skills!). In more recent history, video did indeed kill the radio star, and smartphones killed-off just about every other mode of communication…

But technological evolution does not end here. As we speak, AI innovators are dreaming up new ways to automate the daily processes we currently take for granted. So, as we forge ahead into a new(ish) world of bots and blockchain, which fundamental parts of our lives will soon seem as charming as carrying a handkerchief…?

(And what kinds of opportunities might emerge?) Continue reading →

5 Disabling Barriers New Tech Is Helping To Smash Down For The Physically And Developmentally Impaired

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assistive tech

Jenny Morris –  a disabled feminist and scholar –  has argued that the term “disability” shouldn’t refer directly to a person’s impairment. Rather, it should be used to identify someone who is disadvantaged by the disabling external factors of a world designed by and for those without disabilities.

Her examples: “My impairment is the fact I can’t walk; my disability is the fact that the bus company only purchases inaccessible buses” or “My impairment is the fact that I can’t speak; my disability is the fact that you won’t take the time and trouble to learn how to communicate with me.”

According to Morris, any denial of opportunity is not simply a result of bodily limitations. It is also down to the attitudinal, social, and environmental barriers facing disabled people. Continue reading →

Should you have sex with an AI?

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It might not be a question you’re asking yourself right now, but according to a California-based developer of artificially intelligent sex robots, they will be soon be as popular as porn.

sex robots

This is, at least, the hope of Matt McMullen. He’s the founder of RealDoll, a “love doll” company featured in the documentary, “The Sex Robots Are Coming”.  The film seeks to convince its audience that combining undeniably lifelike dolls like Matt’s with interactive, artificially intelligent features will lead to an explosion in the market for robotic lovers.

But is this okay? Many say that it absolutely isn’t. Continue reading →

Online choice “nudge” and the convenient encroachment of AI

/ Fiona J McEvoy / 1 Comment

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The beginnings of the internet seem so long ago to those of us who lived through them. Hours spent trawling through pre-Google search results, which often ranged from the useless to the bizarre. Blindly researching gifts and listening to music, sans intelligently selected recommendations.  Checking social media accounts of our own volition, rather than through prompting from “notifications”.

Then the world began to change.

Under the banner of convenience, clever algorithms started to adapt both to our interests and – critically – the interests of commercial entities. We saw (or rather didn’t see) the covert introduction of the digital “nudges” that now regularly play upon our cognitive blind spots, and work to “guide” our decision-making.  Continue reading →

FEATURED MEDIA: “Letting Facebook control AI regulation is like letting the NRA control gun laws” – Quartz

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Mark Zuckerberg

Writing for Quartz, international dispute lawyer, Jacob Turner, elaborates on the dangers of letting Silicon Valley execs set their own rules:

“We wouldn’t trust a doctor employed by a tobacco company. We wouldn’t let the automobile industry set vehicle-emissions limits. We wouldn’t want an arms maker to write the rules of warfare. But right now, we are letting tech companies shape the ethical development of AI.”

Read the whole article here: Letting Facebook control AI regulation is like letting the NRA control gun laws.

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.

children

Continue reading →

6 Tech Terms Every Adult Should Learn About To Avoid Being Left Behind

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adults

Not for the first time, Apple CEO Tim Cook has spoken out this week about how important it is for children to learn computer code. He’s not alone in believing that this “language of the future” will be critical for kids growing up right now. In a sea of unknowns one thing appears to be certain: technical understanding is a very valuable asset indeed.

It’s interesting then, that in spite of remarkable efforts to equip the adults of tomorrow with such skills, very little is being done to familiarize young adults, middle-aged parents, or retirees (with impressively long-life expectancies!) with the signature terms of the “AI Age”. This seems a like an oversight. Continue reading →

Bots may be determining all our futures

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social bots

We’ve all seen the stories and allegations of Russian bots manipulating the Trump-Clinton US election and, most recently, the FCC debate on net neutrality. Yet far from such high stakes arenas, there’s good reason to believe these automated pests are also contaminating data used by firms and governments to understand who we (the humans) are, as well as what we like and need with regard to a broad range of things… Continue reading →

All teens make mistakes, but hyperconnected Generation Z faces steeper consequences

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Teenage Young Teen Youth Portrait Tween Casual

Last week a young contestant on a British reality TV show was left humiliated after producers chose to remove him from the program’s Australian jungle setting after just a couple of days. Their reason? Tweets and social media messages sent in 2011, when the vlogger was in his teens.

Now let’s be clear, the things that Jack Maynard said were unpalatable and offensive. They are not acceptable sentiments in any scenario, and certainly not from someone with a YouTube reach of several million and an incredible leverage over (predominantly) teenage girls.  Nevertheless, watching a young man’s fledgling media career left in tatters should prompt us to sharpen our focus on an increasingly important question: in our hyperconnected era, to what extent can we punish and pillory the adult for the sins of the teen?   Continue reading →

Five AI misnomers (probably)

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artificial intelligence

Not being an artificial intelligence “expert”, an egghead, or a mad scientist, I can sometimes find the trajectory of AI confusing. In my reading, I’ve come across evidence to convince me in entirely contradictory directions, and there is certainly a lot of tension in the public conversation.

Are we in the run-up to an AI apocalypse? A technological utopia? Or, even with all our computational power, is AI still as dumb as a rock?  Continue reading →