Archive for 2009
“Gaydar” Experiment Raises Eyebrows
As the article concludes, there are a number of public policy issues worth pondering here — and ponder them we will. But there are other ways that a technology company using such data can misstep: issuing “false positives.” About a dozen years ago, at a time when I was employed as a theater producer in the San Francisco Bay Area, I became a big customer of dramatic literature on Amazon. Soon after my first order, I began getting recommendations for books on topics like, oh, gay life in San Francisco. I was not in the least offended, but I was surprised to see that the mighty and famous Amazon recommendation engine was actually quite crude (at least back then). When you automate things like gaydar — or any idea for identifying people based on their explicit or implicit behavior — you not only expose yourself to public policy concerns but also run the risk of looking like a stooge. My Amazon experience was the e-commerce equivalent of the Turing Test — the idea that artificial intelligence will reach a milestone when a machine can “pass” for a human being. The false positive in 1997 simply reminded me that Amazon customer service was driven by machines, not human beings. Not a good thing for your customers to feel when you are attempting to persuade them to stop buying from people. Of course, Amazon has spent the past ten years perfecting its engine. But not without great care and expense.
The Unbundling of “Augmented Reality” — Behold the Bionic Eye
Critics of these various unbundlings claim that consumers will never allow themselves to be encumbered by new tech appendanges. But that’s what makes the contact lens so intriguing. There are many of us who would never wear glasses (too dorky). And there are many of us who would never wear contacts (too fussy). And I’d bet that there are even more of us who would never walk down the street pointing phones at people, places, and things (way too dorky). But with the options for “better vision” ever increasing, AR is beginning to look like it’s really going to happen. We’ve been dealing with the issues of vanity, usaability and technology-prosthetics for many generations. And we have learned a great deal. I trust that AR technologists and designers will get things right.
UK Apologizes for Persecuting Gay Scientist
U.K. Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s formally apologized today for the country’s “appalling” treatment of WWII codebreaker and AI pioneer Alan Turning, who was prosecuted for gross indecency and sentenced to chemical castration in 1952. Two years later, Turing took his own life. Today’s announcement came following a petition that collected thousand of signatures from citizens calling for a posthumous apology.
Call Center Robots Will Answer the Most Annoying Questions
A Minneapolis company called Subjex is claiming a big first in artificial intelligence: a service that enables call centers to replicate the human voice — in text — for complex conversations with human beings…. I like the bits [in the press release] about “redundancy questions,” and simulating a call center’s “best employee.” How about the system’s ability to answer annoying questions? Much has been written about the dangers of robotic technology. But one of the big plusses is the capability of doing things that the best employee cannot — or simply will not — do.
AI Digest: 9/9/09. Hiring Spree at Robot Company.
Daily links on AI, IA and the place where social tech meets the two. Today: hiring spree at robot company; Koreans build massive robot; augmented reality apps roundup.
Nokia’s Future Product “Mix”?
For the uninitiated, augmented reality is a set of technologies that enable businesses to overlay data on top of a consumer’s view (say, over a mobile phone). The technologies have been embraced by an army of marketers and developers, mostly outside of the U.S. But with recent news that some U.S. mobile phones can now run augmented-reality applications, U.S. consumers can expect to hear a lot more about the category over the next few months. And what is Nokia’s vision? It’s a world turned on by augmented reality that doesn’t necessarily depend on the phone. That’s a rather evolved view for a phone manufacturer. But perhaps Nokia’s world, too, has become augmented.
AI Digest: 9/3/09. Robot Army Audition
Daily links on AI, IA, and the place where social tech meets the two. Today: robot army audition; augmented reality glasses; robots help kids with cerebral palsy.
AI Digest: 9/1/09. Life Through a Lens.
Daily links on AI, IA, and the place where social tech meets the two. Today: life through a lens; robots fill jobs in Japan; caregiving robots in the US.
What Does it Mean to be “Real-Time”?
The Twitter “database of intentions” is too vast, too unwieldy, for human hands, and already a number of useful, practical tools have emerged for enabling human beings to navigate that database. The problem is that it’s too easy to rely on machines to do the work of humans. We can expect businesses to misstep here, and do the real-time marketing equivalent of sending form letters. We can expect others to use these tools in a more intelligent way, offloading work that’s better handled by machines, and freeing up people to do what they do best. For in the final analysis, what it takes to be real-time is both the philosophical and practical commitment to be real … and to do this in the face of one of the most exciting new opportunities in the history of business (it’s bigger than marketing). As always, the temptation to do things the easy way will be extreme. Resist the temptation.
AI Digest: 9/1/09. iRobot Snags Army Contract.
Daily links on AI, IA and the place where social tech meets the two. Today: iRobot army contract; another way to think about augmented reality; ant-size microbots.
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