we,
for one, do not welcome our new robot overlords.
Let me elaborate.
Writing about Artificial Intelligence is a challenge. By
and large, there are two directions to take when discussing the subject: focus
on the truly remarkable achievements of the technology or dwell on the dangers
of what could happen if machines reach a level of Sentient AI, in which self-aware machines reach human level
intelligence).
Robot
This dichotomy irritates me. we don’t want to have
to choose sides. As a technologist, we embrace the positive aspects of AI, when
it helps advance medical or other technologies. As an individual, I reserve the
right to be scared poop-less that by 2023 we might achieve AGI (Artificial
General Intelligence) or Strong AI — machines that can successfully perform any
intellectual task a person can.
Not to shock you with my mad math skills, but 2023
is 10 years away. Forget that robots are stealing our jobs, will be taking care
of us when we’re older, asking us to turn and cough in the medical arena.
In all of my research, I cannot find a definitive
answer to the following question:
So, yes, we have control issues. I would prefer
humans maintain autonomy over technologies that could achieve sentience,
largely because I don’t see why machines would need to keep us around in the
long run.How we can ensure humans will be able to control AI once it achieves
human-level intelligence?
Would
you wear an electronic tattoo if you couldn’t log
on to the Internet without one? That may sound crazy to many of you, but the
technology for such a system already exists. RFID tattoos have existed for
quite some time, and they are already being used on animals. But now an
entirely new generation of electronic tattoos are being developed that can
monitor your vital signs, interact with your mobile phone and even communicate
directly with your mind. These new electronic tattoos are thinner than a human
hair, and they are going to fundamentally transform the way that we think about
human identification.
Right now, the Internet is being absolutely plagued
by hackers and identity theft has become a multi-billion dollar enterprise. It
is becoming increasingly difficult to determine if someone is actually who they
say that they are. And as even more of our commerce gets conducted through the
Internet, identity security is going to be absolutely critical. Without a
doubt, there will continue to be a push for more secure forms of identification
than we have today. But there is also a very dark side to this kind of
technology. What if someday a tyrannical government decides to make a permanent
electronic tattoo for identification purposes mandatory for all citizens? What
if you are not able to buy, sell, get a job, have a bank account or log on to
the Internet without “proper identification”? What if the price for receiving
your tattoo is to swear absolute allegiance to that tyrannical government? The
truth is that technology is always a double-edged sword. It always brings with
it the promise of progress, but it also always has a dark side that could
potentially be abused.
The latest generation of electronic tattoos is
quite remarkable. They are called “Biostamps”, and they were originally
developed for medical purposes. However, as a recent Daily Mail article
detailed, Motorola believes that these Biostamps could potentially replace
passwords and make the Internet a much more secure place…
MC10 originally designed the tattoos, called
Biostamps, to help medical teams measure the health of their patients either
remotely, or without the need for large expensive machinery.
Motorola claims that the circuits, which also
contain antennae and built-in sensors, could be adapted to work with mobile
phones and tablets.
The mobile devices could then be used to confirm
the owner’s identity and log them in to accounts automatically.
This would prevent thieves and other people from
being able to access a phone, or individual apps on the device, if it is stolen
or lost.
These Biostamps are extremely, extremely thin. As I
mentioned above, they are actually thinner than a human hair. The following
description of Biostamps was taken from a Wired Magazine article…
The development takes wearable technology to the
extreme, designed as a non-invasive diagnostic sensor that could be used to
measure hydration, activity, and even infant temperature. It bonds to the skin,
somewhat like a temporary tattoo, flexing and bending in sync with your skin
the way you wish a Band-Aid would. How? Researchers at the University of
Illinois, Dalian University of Technology in China, and the University of
California at San Diego made it really, really small.
With a thickness of 0.8 micrometers at the widest —
around one-thousandth the diameter of a human hair — the thin mesh of silicon
actually nestles in to the grooves and creases in your skin, even the ones too
small to see. Being small helps, but it’s also important that the silicon is laid
out in a serpentine pattern and bonded to a soft rubber substrate, allowing the
stiff material to flex, a little bit like an accordion.
But why would such technology be needed on the
Internet?
After all, don’t our passwords work just fine?
Actually, we are rapidly getting to the point where
passwords are a joke. Hackers are becoming so sophisticated that they can crack
even very long passwords with ease…
A team of hackers, commissioned by technology
website Ars Technica, recently managed to crack more than 14,800 supposedly
random passwords – from a list of 16,449 – as part of a hacking experiment.
The success rate for each hacker ranged from 62
percent to 90 percent, and the hacker who cracked 90 percent of hashed
passwords did so in less than an hour using a computer cluster.
The hackers also managed to crack 16-character
passwords including ‘qeadzcwrsfxv1331′.
Were you alarmed when you read that?
I know that I was.
Obviously we need a better system.
But personally I never plan to wear an electronic
tattoo. That crosses the line in a big way.
Unfortunately, this kind of technology is going to
be heavily pushed in the years ahead. According to Wired magazine, even the
U.S. military is devoting resources to developing electronic tattoo technology…
In its ongoing quest to measure every aspect of
U.S. troops’ physiology, Pentagon researchers are looking to develop a durable,
unobtrusive device that can track the body’s physical response to stress.
Military scientists believe that using the device — preferably a tattoo — to
track heart-rate, temperature or bio-electric response during various training
situations will help them crack the code of combat fatigue.
Another significant trend is the development of
electronic devices that we can control directly with our minds. In the past,
such technology was the stuff of science fiction novels, but now even the New
York Times is writing about it…
Soon, we might interact with our smartphones and
computers simply by using our minds. In a couple of years, we could be turning
on the lights at home just by thinking about it, or sending an e-mail from our
smartphone without even pulling the device from our pocket. Farther into the
future, your robot assistant will appear by your side with a glass of lemonade
simply because it knows you are thirsty.
Researchers in Samsung’s Emerging Technology Lab
are testing tablets that can be controlled by your brain, using a cap that
resembles a ski hat studded with monitoring electrodes, the MIT Technology
Review, the science and technology journal of the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology, reported this month.
The technology, often called a brain computer
interface, was conceived to enable people with paralysis and other disabilities
to interact with computers or control robotic arms, all by simply thinking
about such actions. Before long, these technologies could well be in consumer
electronics, too.
So what if you could combine the two trends
discussed above?
What if an electronic tattoo would allow you to
operate your tablet computer, send an email, fly a drone or even “speak”
telepathically using only your mind?
Actually, researchers are already working on such
technologies. The following comes from a recent article by Charles Q. Choi…
But brain implants are invasive technologies,
probably of use only to people in medical need of them. Instead, electrical
engineer Todd Coleman at the University of California at San Diego is devising
noninvasive means of controlling machines via the mind, techniques virtually
everyone might be able to use.
His team is developing wireless flexible
electronics one can apply on the forehead just like temporary tattoos to read
brain activity.
“We want something we can use in the coffee shop to
have fun,” Coleman says.
The devices are less than 100 microns thick, the
average diameter of a human hair. They consist of circuitry embedded in a layer
or rubbery polyester that allow them to stretch, bend and wrinkle. They are
barely visible when placed on skin, making them easy to conceal from others.