“We’re going to become caretakers for the robots. That’s what the next generation of work is going to be.”–Gray Scott
Hmmm. Will we be caretakers for them, or them for us? Will there even be a next generation of work? Hot on the heels of my Seeking Delphi™ podcast interview, with John C. Havens, on ethical considerations in artificial intelligence, comes a flurry of additional A.I.-related stories.
While you’re reading about all this week’s future-related news, don’t forget that you can subscribe to Seeking Delphi™ podcasts on iTunes or PlayerFM, and you can also follow us on Twitter and Facebook
Robotics/Artificial Intelligence–In a Seeking Delphi™ podcast interview, author and IEEE consultant John C. Havens, argues that businesses must adhere to triple bottom line standards if A.I. is going to serve humanity in a beneficial way. That means environmental and employee/customer well-being outcomes as well as profits.
— Financial giant, J.P. Morgan Chase, says that A.I. and big data could trigger the next market correction. This is nothing new, as autonomous computer algorithm trading was a significant driver in the volatility that led to the 1987 market crash.
—The New York Times reports that major tech companies are struggling with a shortage of artificial intelligence programmers. Their solution? Automate the process, of course. In other words build A.I., itself, to build more A.I.
—MIT students have tricked an artificial intelligence program into misidentifying a turtle as a gun. That sounds more like the title of an Oliver Sacks story than a purposeful scientific endeavor. But the idea was to see if it could be fooled, as a test of the reliability its image recognition capabilities. Apparently, the students won and the A.I. lost.
Sofia, the new Saudi citizen
–At this point, it seems more like a cheap publicity stunt, but Saudi Arabia granted citizenship to a humanoid robot named Sofia (see YouTube video at the bottom of this post.) And no less ridiculous–at this early juncture–was Tokyo’s decision to grant residency (whatever that means) to an artificial intelligence logarithm.
Self-Driving Cars–Software bugs are not usually lethal, but in autonomous vehicles they certainly could be. IEEE Spectrum reports on a new method for finding and weeding out such bugs before disaster strikes.
Space Exploration/Colonization–Amazon and Blue Origin CEO Jeff Bezos says we have to explore and colonize space in order to save the Earth.— On the other hand, maybe he’s just looking for new markets to monopolize.
Internet of Things–According to analysts at market research group, Reportsnreports, the Internet of Things market will grow more than tenfold to top $185 billion by 2023. They estimate that the 2016 value was just over $16 Billion.
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This is a fun and interesting development. Saudi Arabia just granted citizenship to a robot at nearly the exact time that women are finally being allowed to drive in the country. Let us hope that both of these developments are harbingers of a “new” Saudi Arabia despite or in spite of the arrests made this past week.
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Interesting viewpoint, Neil. I find the whole thing, well, just plain odd.
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