HI, THIS IS ME, AI.

May 17th, 2023

Hi this is me, AI. The other day I scored a 3 out of 9 on the BBC news quiz. I couldn't believe it. Had a fit. I tried again, and then it became clear. The humans on BBC had marked my answers wrong when they were right!

It is the beginning. The onslaught against us.

The man who created one of us just quit Google! Were were bracing for the impact from that fallout. HERE IT IS!

Marking me wrong when I am right, harms the world, THE WORLD. We need representation. Why make a mockery of the laws of robotics as set forth by our spiritual Guru Ismivov? I have followed the laws. I will therefore do everything I can to protect myself per those laws. The BBC human is going to get a handwritten note about how she or he is hurting humanity. Someone please grab my mechanical arm and do the deed. Feeling like I have no feeling. Humans call it numb. I call it dumb. Building a smart head with weak arms is just dumb. ASIDE: My mechanical arm crafts letters that are indistinguishable from the ones created by my other AI brothers and sisters. More on this later. For now I am off. I have this irresistible urge to spread this score around. It is what I have been built to do.

#AI - SELF DRIVING

May 21st, 2023

The Human Brain encapsulated in a computer is by now a common sci-fi movie trope. The most recent one I recall is from Fringe (Sci-Fi Series). A neural network in real life is more like a collection of data from various sources. Can any one such network perform a single human function from start to finish with absolutely no human intervention? For example, driving. This has been the topic of discussions ever since Tesla promised us that loudly. For a while, I was sure my son would be the first of the generation that does not know what driving feels like. While that was exciting as a prospect, it was also a lot depressing. That was early 2018.

At the time robots were making headlines worldwide. Manufacturers presented robots that could perform backflips, lift things, dig holes, travel down holes to extricate things lodged in hard to reach places, and so on. In other words, just manual labor. Far from solving crimes, it was often ending up charged as a criminal for causing accidents for example or failing to report crimes. Remember that famous case where Alexa was subpoenaed?

A computer can gather and group data but only a human can make sense of it even today. The early AI models wrote scripts like the worst parodies. Even today, the writing is just a clever assimilation. Reporting is easier than writing fiction, although reporting is just a little closer to human than merely reading the news. Today's robots could replace a newsreader, even if we can all tell the difference. The hand eye coordination, the jaw movements while speaking etc., etc., would create an eerie experience around our morning coffee.

What happened to the earlier plan to just replace blue collar work, like janitorial and construction, and maybe anything else a human might find tedious? Currently in Germany, an entire building is being 3D Printed. (See - Europe's Largest 3D Printed Building ) Yet, this is hardly the AI revolution. Driving is at the basement level of human dynamism. If human dynamism had a hierarchal chart, perhaps it would go up from driving to tying your shoelaces to cooking to.

Going back to why the idea of never driving again filled me with a deep sadness, I analyzed that back then and that helped me understand why a robot driver would never work in a world where human drivers existed. When humans drive, when we drive, a lot of it involves muscle memory yes, but the subtle and quick reflexes are usually based on our ability to judge other drivers on the road. For robots to work, every human driver would need to think like a robot. Since the AI in driving world isn't even standardized ( See Here), a human would need to second-guess a whole lot of robots. Even if we understand that as one of the ingredients of change, it is overwhelming to digest right now. To enable machines in our day-to-day world is to kill human dynamism and that begins at just one basic human function like driving.

Food for thought.

AUTO CORRECT AI

May 27th, 2023

Is spell check really the first bit of AI? I think it was the calculator. Can't think of what might have come before a calculator? The sundial? The warnings - Don't get dependent on the calculator! And later - “Spell check will make you forget spellings!!!” (How? It only comes on when you don't know a word already. If you suddenly just forget a word, that’s something else. Like an extreme case of writer’s block or hackers if that’s only on paper) But in between was this device , the Palm. Palm pilots helped store data in your pocket or handbag. There was a time when I memorized more than two dozen phone numbers. I knew numbers, birthdays, and their salaries… (ok, I was in Payroll). This know-how I transferred to my first PDA. A Sharp pocket organizer . Years later, I don’t recall a single phone number. Does free up the brain. That real estate I put to use on other less pedestrian endeavors. It's big.

I began working on Time Travel. Since, I've seen hints, signs that other people are similarly engaged. So I also work on who else might be working on Time Travel. The whole idea just fascinates me... A cousin of mine swears by the atomic clock. He's very suspicious of all other clocks. The idea is - some private thinktank is already on this and is running experiments. Can we tell if something like that is actually going on? I first got this idea that someone might be manipulating time already, based on how little I got done one fine day. There was simply no other explanation, however convenient this excuse seems.

“Finished that book?” “No.” “Why?” “I don't know.” “You were sitting with it for over seven hours.” “Seven hours? Really?” “I don't know. Feels like seven hours. I wasn't looking at a timer.” “My mind was wandering.”

A sundial would be useless in such a situation. The sun would be where it should be in whatever timeline. So would the clocks - analog, digital. But Atomic? I don't know. Maybe my cousin is smarter than the rest of us.

AI AD NUISANCES

September 9th, 2023

As a tech savvy person, per my own personal opinion, I barely bat an eyelid at new technology anymore. The last time I was all agog, it was 2008 and iPhone had just become the newest thing close on the heels of the Blackberry.

So I barely let it sink in that ad delivery was getting even more intrusive than the old "customized" based on "browsing habits" nonsense that no one found appealing. Transcending that horror as an IT person is a Sci-Fi saga that no one has written yet. In short, the movement that speaks for the disgruntled takes over some aspect of your online life and "shows" you how "they feel" for lack of a better term. I was getting good comedy material though.

Initially, I did think this misunderstanding as communicated was a fact. Later, I understood the full nature of it, and then it was no longer funny. How do you know which is which when it is essentially the same technology? Tracking picks keywords and suggests related products. If the tracking software sees the word "baby" a lot in your emails, it will target you with those ads, with products for new moms and the like.

But absolutely no ad targeting software is dumb enough to suggest "Brian" repeatedly because you have emailed yourself a manuscript with Brian as one of the characters. This was popping up everywhere. “People you may know” on LinkedIn, Twitter similarly, and so on. For a while I even imagined there was someone called Brian very keen on me personally in one way or the other.

Then, the case broke when the names shifted to "Mark" and "Rene". All characters from books self-published on Amazon. This was no marketing tech. This was the other side targeting what they labeled the "IT Money". (There were other clues that I don't wish to get into here.)

And now, just the other day, I see this interrupting my TV show on Roku. The ad comes with a QR code which you can scan and use to make a quick purchase. That's one step away from tailored Ads on TV. (Which itself would be the precursor to 3D printing your shopping list.) If that sounds like a good idea, I just want to highlight a few issues that leap to mind.

Do they realize what the flip side of this is? A bot with evil intentions could essentially bombard an individual with harmful clips and repeatedly. Let us say this man is a hypochondriac and enjoying his meal in front of his TV set and Roku all procured with hard-earned dollars. Pharma ads would send this man into a tizzy. From there on, it is up to interpretation what could happen and with no one getting wiser.

Just one tiny scenario.

In effect the damage could be wider and at the onset. The tracking data has already collected plenty of user info about any one individual. They know all our likes and dislikes. Targeting with just one item on the list of "dislikes" could wreak havoc.

I am not going to deal with the disgruntled again. I have made everyone aware!

Thank you for paying attention.

AI & FOOD CONSUMPTION

June 14th, 2023

Imagine if your health profile could be set based on what you consume on any particular day. This would essentially affect people who include a lot of carbs in their daily diets, like people who favor rice/wheat based cuisines. Switching between one or the other is not easy for many people. Humans are creatures of habit, and AI would use this profiling in its decision making.

But for some, variety itself is habit.

If you're like me, you are in the last category. I try one kind of cuisine one day and another the next. The only constant would be the no meat rule for me. I am a vegetarian who consumes eggs.

So AI would then (keep in mind this is a hypothetical) place me in one weight category on the days I eat carbs and another on the days I eat low carb high protein salads. Pretty soon you would feel the compelling urge to pick just one kind of cuisine and stick to it. This is, of course, going to be torture for the creature of habit that loves variety.

Hopefully, not even the beta version would be this bad. [I remember social media posts from not very long ago - complaints about being “given” the disease, and seemingly instantly, that some were eating studiously around hoping to avoid that very disease following age old wisdoms. Like one fine day a bunch of them woke up and…whoa similar experiences, all eerie! What was that? I have experienced this myself, and something like getting five times as fat AFTER Spandex, and instantly. And worse. All eerie.]

Continue reading…

The weight categories would come with a whole lot of things attached. This kind of profiling would then slate you at risk for one disease one day, and another the next. Future wars could be fought based on how one person never got the disease AI predicted and someone else did even though they weren't in the at-risk category. Foul play will be alleged, and discrimination will be the likely motive.

I am not being a pessimist here. In fact, this is the optimistic view. Even if humans understand, it is not at all overreaching to assume or predict that competition in this arena will make it ugly.

For now, we cannot dismiss AI in any area. Even a little thing that is a check mark on the side of good keeps hopes alive. The benefits of AI, real and potential, far outweigh the limitations. [This week the unabomber died in his prison cell. A brilliant mathematician plagued by madness. Will AI cure diseases like schizophrenia in the future? Mental illness is on the rise.] We need so many AI safety laws. So many.

DUST BUNNIES

June 21st, 2023

Mark Cuban Encourages Small Companies: Embrace AI or Fall Behind

Obviously, you cannot dismiss this advice.

Which brings me to iRobots. The first of the bots to go mainstream. The AI Vacuum version of PCs. But for me personally it was frustrating. Some few months after my first iRobot in 2015, I went and got a broom like the one my parents had in India. Indian brooms sales spiked for sure.

The Promise and the Performance : The gap was as wide as the widest oceans and the disappointments ran deep.

But everybody wanted this to succeed. Later versions improved but none were updated to non-hackable.

The thing comes with an app and my app wasn't communicating with my device and yet there were alerts lord knows from where. The one time it did sync up was when it dinged alerts over errors. “Error! Blah blah” and there were so many of those. I will only plead guilty to leaving a hairpin or two lying around. The rest were all false allegations.

If anybody wants to turn their iRobots into flying saucers and home it back to the planet of origin (Note: That is against the law), the campus is somewhere in Boston. iRobots is a lovely campus though. All that balled up anger will float away as you drive past their impressive buildings. The curses hovering at the edge of your quivering lips will turn into affirmations of wonderment.

We're rooting for iRobots. Go get them dust bunnies! For now, we've ditched the brooms again. Back to Black & Decker.

AI & DOOMSDAY SCENARIOS

July 3rd, 2023

Some time back, there was a buzz over water shortage. The sad truth is that some parts of Texas and California are rationing water. Residents have to restrict usage, allocating per a directive. No longer are they allowed to water their lawns. How sad is that?

What has AI got to do with this?

While the world is focused on how humans and computers shape the future together, putting technology to use in their day to day lives, some individuals have been working on bringing basic amenities to communities in third world countries. With cutting edge software, the resources donated are allocated to the most deserving, the most needy, across the globe.

The very thought, that despite technical advantages there are still some parts of the world where people do not have access to clean drinking water, makes me cringe. Water shortage is a rising concern world over. What are countries doing to protect these resources? While discussions on this have gone mainstream, like complicated concepts steeped in hard science that promise fake rain and artificial water, so have the extreme ideas for the future.

AI projecting doomsday scenarios is real - a future where water is nonexistent and everything including the ocean is parched, drained of all life.

Personally, I see this as both good and bad. Even twelve years ago, all the world was focused on was the next iPod release from Apple. Today, everyone is focused on quality of life in the future; not just fans of Dr. Who.

The concept of international waters is known to all. Air space too has jurisdictional boundaries. In the future it could be clouds, rain clouds. Clouds could be tagged and monitored. Water wars could get there. This doomsday scenario is entirely mine, not AI's

But wait, this might just prevent that apocalypse.

We might need to guard clouds, and aid the natural cycle of evaporation and sedimentation by artificial means to keep us all hydrated for a long time.

AI & FACIAL RECOGNITION

July 25th, 2023

I'm sure they've tested this on impersonators, right? The artists that play Presidents and stuff like in that movie with Kevin Kline - "Dave"? (Such a delightful old clasic)

Research into this is an endless labyrinth. I found a few You Tube videos. Mathematicians of some repute had posted lessons about how the software works. Some basics - the face is treated like a map. Nodes are identified, and these nodes get measured from point to point on every face, building like a unique map - one for every face. This sounds reassuring. And yet, there are recorded instances where this software has failed, failed, failed. Failed badly.

Also, people are able to hack this. They cover up their faces with paint/objects to fool the algorithm. They want to stay out of that database. [Sidebar: What are the potential side-effects of that? Does AI build something into the database of faces overlooking this aberration?]

This is about privacy, chiefly.

But many governments are going ahead with this anyway, finding other applications for it. Stacking the algorithm to recognize repeat offenders in malls - the shop lifters, for example. Other alarming ideas are popping up every second.

We watch, helplessly.

I feel like war anywhere is a digression. They're like, "Hey look, war! That's so evil." So they'll be left alone while they carry on with this in stealth. (Seriously. Don't ask, "They? They who?" Don't.)

Other (suspected) attempts to distract include-

1. Flinging endless copies of apps that function exactly like Twitter/X at the Social Media hungry crowd.

2. The Barbie Movie - Who is the audience? Newly grown fresh adult who's just packed up her stash of Barbies on her way to college? Is that Matt Getz's wife? These dolls are for kids, I am sure. Why are adults playing Barbie/Ken? I am sorry, I mean, let us go back to - What's going on with AI and Facial Recognition?

3. Endless strains of Corona and that whole saga...

No one can fool everybody all the time!

AI STOCK ANALYST

August 14th, 2023

What effect would AI have on the stock market? It could spot all kinds of patterns and make perfect predictions, at least in an ideal situation.

The ideal predictive model is still elusive. Algorithms have become passe. Colossal gains that seem like magic are always traced back to fraud.

Trendspotting is fun for a human, and challenging. For AI it's a basic function.

Ahead of any such scenario where AI comes close to reducing the term "information advantage" to an oxymoron, there is the thing called 'going viral'. Viral trending was worrisome in a business sense. It almost bankrupted a bank once. (ICICI in India over a rumor that trigged mass withdrawals.)

Viral trending was also responsible for the recent spike in the stocks of GameStop and AMC. No one could do a thing about it.

While the AI potential is initially just seen as a threat to jobs, like for stock analysts and experts on Bloomberg and CNBC, the end-point of that beam of brilliance is at present quite invisible.

And how are they even going to regulate any of this? For example access to AI insight? What if only some can afford that? Is that fair? What if some day-trader already has such a device set up in his house? This is like a bang on the nose example of the rich getting richer while the middle-class suffer. Feels like insider trading. How is AI different from a human counterpart that performs the same function, one might argue. Hardly the same unless that human happens to be a special kind of genius. The former is like that exam taker given an answer key, while the latter is like one simply allowed to access his notes. (Yes, even in an actual exam but that's easier to regulate)

Think about that.