In our myopic, short-term minded society, how do we start to take a long view of the future? In Seeking Delphi™ episode #34, host Mark Sacckler chats with Frank Spencer, founder and creative director at Kedge, The Futures School, about what he does, and how he teaches about the future.
Disruption. It’s a term that’s frequently on the lips of just about anyone interested in technology. Is it the technology, though, that’s disruptive? Or is it the individuals that are driving the technology? Maybe all of us who latch on to the technologies are the disruptors.
I think it’s all three. In the latest Seeking Delphi™ podcast, I speak with fellow podcaster, Matt Ward. He’s an entrepreneur, angel investor, and host of The Disruptors. In a kind of dueling podcasts, we interviewed each other for our respective programs.
“Our aim is to develop affectionate robots that can make people smile.”– Masayoshi Son
What–he worry? Ford’s delivery robot.
Will that thing to the left make you smile? I have my doubts about that. If you’re not familiar with the concept of the uncanny valley, you will be soon. Welcome to the creepy future!
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, PlayerFM, or YouTube(audio with slide show) and you can also follow us on Twitter and Facebook.
–The Artemis 1 mission, won’t carry astronauts. But it will carry yeast into orbit around the sun. The mission will launch 13 cubesats next year, one of which will carry two varieties of yeast to test their survivability and growth in the radiation of deep space. E.T. make bread?
–A team of USC students have accomplished a rocketry first. They are the first students to design and build a rocket that reached the 100Km (62 mile) altitude that is defined by international law as the boundary of space. The school’s report says it used a parachute to land safely after reaching it’s targeted height–but it doesn’t say where. Oh well, to quote that old Tom Lehrer song, “Once the rockets are up, who cares where they come down?
That’s not my department says Wernher von Braun.” [See Video below]
Elon Musk–Tesla might be in all sorts of financial troubles, but Elon Musk has landed some funding for his The Boring Company. His tunnel-digging enterprise has just landed its first paying customer, The Las Vegas Convention Center. The center’s board of directors, as part of a $1.4 billion expansion plan, has allocated $46 million for two tunnels beneath the 200-acre site. They will be cut to provide passage for electric vehicles and pedestrians.
“With artificial intelligence we are summoning the demon.”–Elon Musk
Our thoughts–or theirs?
One might easily say about the notion of the ethics of disruptive technology–much like Mark Twain’s misattributed missive about the weather–that “everybody talks about it, but nobody does anything.” But IEEE, the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers, is doing something. Freshly minted from their Global Initiative on Ethics of Autonomous and Intelligent Systems, is the 290-page first edition of Ethically Aligned Design: A Vision for Prioritizing Human Well-Being with Autonomous and Intelligent Systems. If that title sounds like a mouthful, it ought to. The issues that need to be addressed, to prevent the summoning of the demon that Elon Musk warns of, are complex.
In Seeking Delphi podcast #31, host Mark Sackler talks at length with John C. Havens, executive director of the initiative, about the massive effort, with hundreds of volunteers, that went into this volume. Havens previously was a guest on Seeking Delphi™ episode #17, to discuss the challenges of ethics in A.I. design and implementation. He is also the author of Heartificial Intelligenceon Emotion A.I.
You can download Ethically Aligned Design from the link below.
“I would love to have a robot butler.”–Brett Ratner
“I think I’d take a human butler over a robot one.”–Tom Felton
Want one of these?
Are you disappointed that we still don’t have flying cars? Well then, you might also be bummed out that we don’t have robot butlers, either. And while one company is trying to provide those robot butlers by an odd hybrid operated by human remote-control, I’m thinking it’s still a bit premature. I won’t be letting a robot handle a bottle of ’83 Lafite Rothschild any time soon.
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, PlayerFM, or YouTube(audio with slide show) and you can also follow us on Twitter and Facebook.
Robotics–If Alexa, Siri, or even a Roomba, is not enough for you, the Japanese firm MIRA may have just the answer. They plan to launch the world’s first robot butler service. But there’s a rather odd catch, and it’s maybe a bit creepy. The robots won’t operate autonomously. They will be operated by remote control by employees of MIRA.
–Robots in the home might have a ways to go. But robots in the hospital? Those are here now. (see below)
5G/mobile technology–Even as the U.S. and China square off in a battle dominate the emerging 5G segment of cellphone technology, Russia is making a desperate play to make up for it’s own lagging effort. They want to scare US consumers into thinking it’s dangerous. Will anti-5Gers become the kindred spirits of anti-vaxxers?
Seeking Delphi™ podcast/coming attractions: John C. Havens on IEEE’s new volume, Ethically Aligned Design, laying out their proposed framework for the safe and beneficial development of A.I. and other automated systems.
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