Search Results for: emerging technology

[This story has been revised and updated.]

Big data has turned out to be a key ingredient in turning machine learning from an abstract technology into a potentially invaluable tool of insight and foresight for businesses across industries. The burgeoning cognitive technologies of predictive analytics and data visualization are opening new windows of opportunity to companies trying to solve complex problems with multiple moving parts. From finding ways to retain new customers to more efficiently monitoring multiple performance metrics and easing performance volatility, more companies are gravitating towards machine learning-based data analysis tools in an effort to optimize operations and find innovative solutions and opportunities that were once too obscure for only the human eye.

Episode Summary: How does automation influence society today? This is an open-ended question with likely endless answers that can be observed in many different areas of society. As a Writer, Speaker, and Professor in Media Theory and Economics, Douglas Rushkoff has made it his livelihood to examine the impacts of automation in our evolving digital society. In this episode, we speak about his 'disappointment' in how automation has been used by many industries without regard for employees' long-term well being, and how a cultural shift in business' priorities may be what's needed to make automation beneficial for the majority.

Episode Summary: Few astrophysicists are as decorated as Martin Rees, Baron Rees of Ludlow, who was a primary contributor to the big-bang theory and named to the honorary position of UK's astronomer royal in 1995. His work has explored the intersections of science and philosophy,  as well as human beings’ contextual place in the universe. In his book "Our Final Century", published in 2003, Rees warned about the dangers of uncontrolled scientific advance, and argued that human beings have a 50 percent chance of surviving past the year 2100 as a direct result. In this episode, I asked him why he considers AI to be among one of the foremost existential risks that society should consider, as well as his thoughts around how we might best regulate AI and other emerging technologies in the nearer term.

Wall Street, venture capitalists, technology executives - all have important reasons to understand the growth and opportunity in the artificial intelligence market, but the inherent vagueness of the term makes any single valuation extremely difficult. Indeed, the term "artificial intelligence" is notorious for having a relatively amorphous definition.

Episode Summary: There’s a small lab in Pennsylvania that may know your gender, age, and understands facets about your personality, whether you’re introverted or extroverted, for example…and it's using machine learning to help make conclusions from social media information. For those who are raising an eyebrow, know that they’re not tapping into people’s accounts without permission. The described study is happening at University of Pennsylvania and is led in part by Dr. Lyle Ungar. In this episode, we talk about the focus of his work - on finding patterns between users and their language on social media content, and building an understanding for how this information might help individuals and communities in the future.

In case we haven’t been cautioned enough about the threats of emerging artificial intelligence, a panel of academics addressed the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) on Sunday with a warning that advancements in intelligent and semi-intelligent automation could lead to overwhelming unemployment across many industries.
 
Machines’ ability to recognize patterns is yet to match our own, but their increasing sophistication in regards to tasks like speech recognition and data analysis has seen AI applied to real world applications such as autonomous driving. In this vain Bart Selman, professor of computer science at Cornell University, said, “For the first time, we’re going to see these machines and systems as part of our everyday life.”
The predicted success of self-driving cars may prove to be a blessing that greatly reduces car accidents, but – with 10% of U.S. jobs requiring some degree of vehicle operation – the technology will also undoubtedly effect the labor market. Moshe Vardi, professor of computer science and director of the Ken Kennedy Institute for Information Technology at Rice University, told AAAS, “We can expect the majority of these jobs will simply disappear.” He went on to suggest that the disconnect between the manufacturing industry and job growth is a result of automation. Though manufacturing volume is right now at its peak, U.S. manufacturing jobs are currently below the figures from the 1950s. He pointed to the 250,000 industrial robots in the U.S. and the increasing growth rate of their use.
What Vardi suggests will happen is “job polarization”, a phenomenon that emerges when high-skilled jobs demand complex human intelligence and low-skilled jobs are too expensive to automate. Thus, the middle ground jobs will be the easiest to automate, leading to greater economic inequality. Vardi also noted that although this issue is widely regarded as a threat that could make a huge impact on American economic life, there is no discussion of it in politics, particularly not in the presidential election. “We need to start thinking very seriously: What will humans do when machines can do almost everything?” he said. “We have to redefine the meaning of good life without work.”
Furthermore, Wendell Wallach, an ethicist at Yale University’s Interdisciplinary Center for Bioethics and the Hastings Center, said  “There’s a need for concerted actions to keep technology a good servant and not let it become a dangerous matter.” He also proposed that 10% of AI research funding should be put towards studying the impact that AI machines will have on society, echoing Vardi’s concern that politics has failed to address the tremendous issue. “We need strong, meaningful human control,” he said.

Episode Summary: Over the last decade, many first-world militaries have developed, and in some cases deployed, autonomous “killer”  robots. Some proponents believe that such robots will save human lives, but another side believes that an accidental arms race of this type would yield long-term detriments that outweigh any good. University of Sheffield’s Dr. Noel Sharkey stands by the latter argument.

It was nearly a year ago when Elon Musk likened artificial intelligence to "summoning the demon." The complete over-quoted quote from his 2014 talk at MIT is as follows:

In this episode, I interview Co-Founder and Partner of NextView Ventures David Beisel. NextView Ventures focuses on consumer web, mobile, SaaS and other Internet startups.

In the 21st century, our privacy doesn't have much to do with our "paper trail," but instead involves our "digital trail." From cell phone GPS to email to Google Glass, secrets are harder to keep than ever - and private is beginning to lose it's "private-ness." Dr. Ashraf Aboshosha, Editor-in-Chief at of the International Congress for Global Science and Technology (ICGST), believes that this transition to transparency may be necessary in order for us to create a better world.