Artificial Intelligence and the Internet of Things
The Internet of Things, in my opinion, is a natural outgrowth of the development of technology. When we can’t grow vertically as easily as we used to, we grow horizontally, creating connections between our tech. As the Eight Myths about IOT mention, it’s not just about the data - it’s a building block and the distribution of information is the wealth. This is really when interoperability comes into play - who will get to design the standard? Or, will we use existing standards to ensure compatibility, but will that just be a crutch and stunt the growth of IoT?
An interesting aspect of AI to consider is incorporating humans to bridge the gap that machines would encounter. For example, in my other class about crowdsourcing, there was a very interesting paper about using humans to find vulnerabilities in predictive models that would not otherwise be found easily through sampling. Sampling would provide cases the model was already unsure about while humans could try to find examples they think the model <i>thinks</i> it knows about confidently and prove it wrong. It was really interesting in a way to improve the “intelligence” of this system using humans - without replacement.
It’s going to be extremely interesting when we get to the point where we think about the moral ambiguities of AI. What is intelligence, self awareness, etc? I may be probing too much into the science fiction, and I recognize that AI work is far from passing the Turing Test (except for a particular case, but I still don’t think it’s even far enough along to count). The paper “Computing Machinery and Intelligence” outline Turing’s philosophical ideas. The examples of trying to trick a human into thinking they’re talking to a machine are quite interesting. Should the machine wait when calculating large numbers? If it recites poetry and thinks, is that enough to convince us of its equality to our brains? Anyways, my point was that information policy along AI will get very convoluted with the morality of it all. It’s thrilling.
Lastly, for those of you who are gamers, I <i>highly</i> recommend the Mass Effect series for these kind of conundrums. There are some great examples of AI and the possibilities in the future: the Geth, where together their collective conscience becomes more advanced and yet there is still a vague sense of individuality in each machine, or the hybrid AI overlord where a human was inhumanely hooked up to a virtual intelligence system to “fill the gaps” of its capabilities with human decision.
I think I’ve diverged a bit, but this is such a large field of study and its possibilities grow greater every day. However, in the future, will the “AI” we refer to now just be basic mathematics in the future as the level of complexity required to be intelligent grows and kids grow up learning about it like it’s 2nd grade math? I hope so - because I think that will truly mean we as humans have raised the bar and reach even higher.
And while I’m sure people are having sex with robots in some form or another, I think we’re very far from actually making intimate connections with AI. So if that’s a win or a lose, I’m leaving that for others to decide. : )











