Podcast #12: Artificial Emotional Intelligence

May 5, 2017 by Mark Sackler

“Your intellect may be confused, but your emotions will never lie to you.”–Roger Ebert

In episode #11, futurist Ian Pearson spoke to his assertion that artificial intelligence will create jobs. One of the main reasons for this, he believes, will be the need to provide an emotional human interface between A.I. and its intended beneficiaries, be they patients, consumers, or business clients. But the field of affective computing is rapidly developing artificial intelligence that can read and respond to human emotion. They are systems with emotional intelligence. In episode #12, I talk with author Richard Yonck. His new book, Heart of the Machine, provides a comprehensive overview of the current state of development in emotional A.I., while providing cogent scenarios projecting where it might lead us in the future.

Links to relevant stories appear after the audio file and embedded YouTube video below. A reminder that Seeking Delphi is available on iTunes and PlayerFM, and has a channel on YouTube. You can also follow us on Facebook.

Podcast #12: Artificial Emotional Intelligence

You Tube Slide Show of Episode #12

Richard Yonck’s background on Intelligent-Future.com

Heart of The Machine on Amazon and Barnes and Noble.

Ray Kurzweil’s review of Heart of The Machine in the New York Times.

News items:

Atlanta sets goal to run on 100% renewable energy by 2035.

SpaceX plans to begin launch of global network of internet providing satellites in 2019

University of Houston Master of Science in Foresight web page

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The Future This Week: April 30, 2017

May 1, 2017 by Mark Sackler

“If the government regulates against use of drones or stem cells or artificial intelligence, all that means is that the work and the research leave the borders of that country and go someplace else.”–Peter Diamandis

http://www.savagechickens.com

Automation and artificial intelligence continue to be hot topics–and getting hotter. I’ve heard more than one call to limit or ban them in the last week. That won’t work, for the very reason Peter Diamandis states in the quote above. There are over 200 countries in the world; there is no global governance that can impose the same restrictions on all of them. We have no choice but to proceed. Proceed with caution, of course. Proceed with our eyes open and with a close monitoring of the consequences. But proceed we must.

Automation/artificial intelligence–Swedish company Wheelys announced the opening in Shanghai of an automated, app-controlled, convenience store that will operate virtually staff-free. After a successful mini-test in a small Swedish town, the new store will attempt proof-of-concept in a busy urban environment.

Google’s director of research, Peter Norvig, said that he does not buy the doomsday scenarios of rampant, runaway artificial intelligence destroying mankind. Speaking in an interview with CNBC, though, he did warn that massive workplace disruption is coming. “The pace may be so rapid as to create disruptions. We need to find ways to mitigate that,” he said.

Wired co-founder Kevin Kelly, writing in the online forum Backchannel, said that he thinks the advent of superhuman AI is a myth.

Elon Musk–It wouldn’t be The Future This Week without something from Elon. He graced the annual TED talk conference and sat down to be interviewed by TED curator Chris Anderson to discuss his ambitious plans for Tesla, SpaceX, hyperloops and his new effort to build a network of highways under Los Angeles.

Musk, speaking in the same interview, said that one of his Tesla vehicles will make an autonomous trip from Los Angeles to New York by the end of this year. The promise is that after the initial programming in of the destination, there will be no human intervention.

Mars/NASA–the space agency unveiled a multi-step plan to land astronauts on the red planet by 2033.Human spaceflight to Mars has been in NASA’s sites for years now–but until now there was no concrete plan. That changed this past week when

The view from 2033

A reminder that the Seeking Delphi™ podcast is available on iTunes, and has a channel on YouTube. You can also follow us on Facebook.

The Future This Week: April 23, 2017

April 23, 2017 by Mark Sackler

“Getting information off the internet is like taking a drink from a fire hydrant.”–Mitchell Kapor

This week, I feel like I’m trying to take a drink from an open fire hydrant. There’s simply a flood of news from all the usual suspects: A.I., robotics, transhumanism, flying cars, AR, VR, gene editing. Oh, don’t forget Elon Musk–he’s perpetually in the news, though he might have been upstaged by Neil DeGrasse Tyson this week.

Elon Musk–Full page ads–described by CNN as anti-Elon Musk–ran in the Sunday editions of several major news papers including the New York Times and Washington Post. They were run by a silicon valley investor who is critical of Musk’s participation in the Trump business advisory council.

Neil DeGrasse Tyson–Timed to coincide with the national march for science day, Tyson released a statement warning that America faces pending collapse if it abandons the rational, empirical world of science. (video below)

Facebook F8 conference–Speaking at Facebook’s annual F8 conference, Michael Abrash, chief science officer of Oculus Research, said that AR glasses will be hotter than smartphones in five years. Maybe he’s looking at the digital world through rose-colored glasses?

Meanwhile, at the same conference, Facebook executive Regina Dugan announced an ambitious project to enable direct brain to computer typing at 100 words per minute. She asserted that, unlike Elon Musk’s neural lace, this will be a non-invasive process. I can’t wait to be able to think-type “the quick brown fox jumped over the lazy neuron.”

Genetic Editing/CRISPR–Feng Zhang, one of the co-inventors of the breakthrough CRISPR Cas/9 gene editing technique, has a new acronym for you biotech fans. SHERLOCK. It employs a relative of the Cas/9 protein designated Cas/13a and according to a paper published by Zhang and others in the journal Science, will be useful for rapid and cheap diagnosis of genetic disorders.

MiRo, the robotic dog

Robotics–The Daily Mail reported that researchers at the University of Sheffield, in England, have created a robotic dog that is designed to be a responsive companion for the isolated elderly. The article, along with a video, is available here.

Flying Cars–German company Lilium Aviation previewed its electric-powered vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) vehicle. Essentially, a flying car. (video below)

A reminder that the Seeking Delphi™ podcast is available on iTunes, and has a channel on YouTube. You can also follow us on Facebook.

Podcast #11: Will Artificial Intelligence Kill Your Job?

April 20, 2017 by Mark Sackler

“By far, the greatest danger of Artificial Intelligence is that people conclude too early that they understand it.”–Eliezer Yudkowsky

One of the hottest topics in foresight today is artificial intelligence. And while many of the most visible forward thinkers have been stressing over potential existential threats to all of humanity, there is a more mundane threat to all of us. That would be our world of work. As automation on the assembly line replaces more and more unskilled labor jobs, there lies the looming threat of artificial intelligence taking on skilled, professional jobs. Will A.I. kill your job? Create you a new one? Both? Neither? While the media is full of pessimism on this account, at least one prominent futurist is cautiously optimistic. Author, speaker and blogger Ian Pearson, of Futurizon thinks that, at least in the short term, A.I. will create more jobs than it kills. I talk to him about these views, as well as the longer range existential effects of A.I., in this week’s Seeking Delphi Podcast.

Links to relevant stories appear after the audio file and embedded YouTube video below. A reminder that Seeking Delphi is available on iTunes, and has a channel on YouTube. You can also follow us on Facebook.

Ian Pearson

Podcast #11: Will Artificial Intelligence Kill Your Job?

You Tube Slide Show of Episode #11

Ian Pearson’s blog post on A.I. and the future of work

News items:

Elon Musk’s Tesla to produce electric semi and pickup truck

European Space Agency warns on orbiting debris

Michael Abrash says full AR still 5-10 years away

Steve Wozniak on Google, Apple, and Facebook in 2075

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The Future This Week, April 9, 2017:

April 10, 2017 by Mark Sackler

“I want to die on Mars; just not on impact.”–Elon Musk

Mr. Musk

No. Really. This is The Future This Week. It only seems like Elon Musk This Week. Indeed, there is at least one twitter account dedicated exclusively to Elon Musk news. If forced to make a prediction, I’d say there will be enough material for a 24/7 Elon Musk cable news channel by next year. When it comes to inventing the future, nobody tops Elon. Tesla, SpaceX, Solar City, Neuralink, Hyperloop One (OK, that last one isn’t his company, but hyperloop is his idea). You get the idea. He’s all over the place; with some of this stuff he might actually be successful. Like Babe Ruth, he may set a home run record but strike out a lot in the process.

Tesla/SpaceX/Musk news–

According to an article in Next Big Future, Elon Musk’s projected net worth would make him the richest man in the world by 2025. That assumes more home runs than strikeouts.
SpaceX announced it’s hiring for hundreds of new positions. Sorry, Mr. Trump, “unskilled factory worker previously displaced by China or Mexico” is not among them.
Tesla’s peak of inflated expectations
Tesla’s has made only one measly quarter of profit in its history, but its market cap passed Ford last week. Forbes Magazine was not impressed. UPDATE: Just minutes after this episode of The Future This Week posted, several sources reported that Tesla has now also passed GM to become the biggest US auto maker by market capitalization. There’s not much mystery as to where that lands it on the Gartner Hype Cycle. Can you say “peak of inflated expectations?”

Robotics–

Disney filed a patent for “soft” robots which apparently are designed to interact with visitors to their theme parks. Yes, that does sound a creepy bit like Westworld.
Dozens of robots–along with their student creators–descended on Las Vegas for a first annual regional robotics competition. When do you think the robots will attend these events by themselves? Or maybe come with the students that they created?

Biometrics–

Several sources reported that the U.S. border patrol is trying to build face-reading drones. And you thought web browser history was your only government snooping privacy concern.
Samsung’s new Galaxy S8 unveiled a variety of biometric security options, including iris and facial recognition. Almost immediately, reports of hacking the face recognition using a simple picture of the user, hit the net. Does it have sneer recognition?

A reminder that the Seeking Delphi™ podcast is available on iTunes, and has a channel on YouTube. You can also follow us on Facebook.

Podcast #10: Lights! Action! Camera! The Future of Cinema and Digital Entertainment

April 7, 2017 by Mark Sackler

“Movies are a fad. Audiences really want to see live actors on a stage.”–Charlie Chaplin

http://www.savagechickens.com

How wrong could Charlie Chaplin have been, over 100 years ago, when he made that statement? He was in the nascent stages of a film career that would make him one of the most iconic figures in the history of cinematic arts. Yet, even in the middle of a major communication revolution, he couldn’t see the forest for the trees. Today, technology changes that used to take decades, take barely a few months. Can we be any better than Charlie Chaplin at foreseeing which of today’s new media technologies will be the long term winners? For that matter, will anything last long enough to be considered “long term?” In Episode #10 of Seeking Delphi, I talk to author and filmmaker Steven D. Katz. He was writing about technologies like CGI and digital media for Millimeter Magazine before most others in the industry were even noticing them. Steve acknowledges that the traditional large-screen movie house will have to continue to up its game to compete with home technologies and distribution options that keep on getting better.

Links to relevant stories appear after the audio file and embedded YouTube video below. A reminder that Seeking Delphi is available on iTunes, and has a channel on YouTube. You can also follow us on Facebook.