Five AI Predictions to Watch in 2020
We'll check on these a year from nowSome problems experts hope AI can help with may be outside AI's capacities. Some people may simply want to believe doctored images and deepfakes, for example.
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2019 AI Hype Countdown #1: Tesla’s Robotaxis—Tales of a Phantom Fleet
Musk put out a tweet on December 22, saying “Sorry, it's been a bit of a struggle.” At last, a claim we can unreservedly believeBecause Tesla has yet to make a yearly profit in any of its sixteen years of existence, it depends on capital raises of various forms (equity, debt, etc.) to stay in business. Capital raises require big promises and Tesla’s overstatements about its self-driving cars are always good for a few billion.
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China: DNA Phenotyping Profiles Racial Minorities
In the United States, targeting minorities means political pushback; in China, no such discussion is allowedWhile there is some merit to the idea that the population of a particular geographic region will have similar DNA patterns, this science comes with a host of assumptions that, when taken too far, crosses the line into pseudoscience.
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2019 AI Hype Countdown #6: AI Will Replace Scientists!
In May of this year, The Scientist ran a series of pieces suggesting that we could automate the process of acquiring scientific knowledgeIn reality, without appropriate human supervision, AI is just as likely to find false or unimportant patterns as real ones. Additionally, the overuse of AI in science is actually leading to a reproducibility crisis.
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Can a Totalitarian State Advance AI?
China vs. Hong Kong provides a test caseGeorge Orwell identified two characteristics of a totalitarian state that offer insight into its central intellectual weaknesses.
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New Tech to Warn Drivers and Cars of Cyclists Ahead
Most people I have talked know (or knew) people who were struck by motor vehicles, either as cyclists or pedestriansHopefully, in ten years’ time, a bike suddenly emerging from behind a roadside dumpster will be fully visible to both the car and the driver long before a driver would usually see it today.
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Weighing the Costs of China’s High-Tech Power
Western nations like New Zealand, Australia, and Canada must weigh Beijing’s demands carefullySmaller Western countries, dependent on high-tech cooperation and the promise of huge markets in China, have muted their protests over Hong Kong and even accept Chinese government censorship in their own territories. That can put them in conflict with their own stated values.
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Gladwell’s Autonomy: The Future of Our Cars But Not Ourselves?
Malcolm Gladwell’s recent film probes independence, individuality, and what cars mean to usIn order to allow for autonomy to develop, the degrees of freedom available on the public roadways will probably have to decrease.
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Inventor? Entrepreneur? Beware the Patent Troll!
Touch screen inventor Hal Philipp shares tips for fending off spurious claims of ownershipBig companies have been known to just pay patent trolls to go away but individual inventors must be more resourceful.
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Why China Leans Hard on Central Asia
The region is critical to China’s ambitions, hence the generous offers of state-of-the-art surveillance technologyWhere is all of the data going and where is it stored? The short answer is China. The Central Asian countries’ current laws do not adequately protect their citizens’ privacy. In fact, most countries in the world do not have adequate laws to deal with the potential harms of facial recognition technology.
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How Tech Savvy Helps Hong Kong Hold Off China
Several other factors help, including spirituality and a sense of unique identity as HongkongersThe stakes are high. Hongkongers have been energized by the dramatic recent win for democracy at the polls. But so have the police.
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Hong Kong: The Dread That Lies Ahead
They fear the fate of the Uyghurs, under "complete video surveillance"They dread 2047 when Hong Kong comes completely under the jurisdiction of the Communist Party and is subject to the CCP’s rule of law rather than Hong Kong’s own laws under the current “one country, two systems” regime.
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Tiananmen Square 30 Years On: Words Still Have Power
Back then, students fought oppression via the fax. They depended on free media in Hong Kong to tell the worldThe Chinese government has described the Hong Kong protests as violent riots by extremists. And, as with mainland China’s reports on Tiananmen Square, the abuses by police in Hong Kong have been scrubbed from the Chinese internet, while violence by protesters has been highlighted.
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India’s Social Media Content Removal Order Is a Nail in the Coffin of the Internet As We Know it
The High Court of Delhi ordered Facebook, Google, and Twitter to remove content globally if it is considered defamatory locallyIn reaching its decision, the Indian court relied on a string of recent decisions from around the world. For example, it drew from the Canadian approach in Equustek, where the Supreme Court of Canada ordered Google to remove content globally.
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Hi-Tech Freedom Game in Hong Kong
Technology can oppress a people group or it can give them a voiceIn the end, technology, like any tool, depends on who wields it and whether they use it to help people or to control them.
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Wall Street Journal columnist to Big Tech: You are doomed
Companies like Google and Facebook aren’t monsters, says Andy Kessler, but each nourishes the seeds of its own destructionKessler told his audience at the COSM National Technology Summit that Big Tech companies are so vulnerable that, for legal reasons, the United States is the only safe place for their headquarters.
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Have Millennials broken up with America’s car culture?
They are less likely to have licenses; they prefer ride-sharing, says auto data analyst“People envision a future delivering mobility as a service,” Bryan Mistele of INRIX told the COSM Technology Summit, contrasting the Millennials’ approach with that of earlier generations who tended, at the same age, to see driving as a form of freedom.
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Your smartphone will disappear, says AT&T CTO
New 5G computing will introduce an era of ever smarter wearable devices, according to Andre FuetschFuetsch asks us to think of 3G (2001) and 4G (2010) internet as the difference between a junior high school rock band and a high school rock band: “The high school band is a lot louder and a lot faster.” And 5G? “It is a 40-piece orchestra. A wide spectrum of abilities but tight structure and control.”
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How Business in China Becomes Ethically Expensive
Hong Kong raises the cost of rights and freedoms rhetoric steeply. Many advocates are bowing outApple had once positioned itself in opposition to Big Brother. The NBA had been a strong advocate of social justice. But with Hong Kong, they suddenly caved to Beijing. What’s at stake?
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Anti-Technology Backlash: What’s Real? What’s Myth?
First, the Luddites, who started it all, were smarter than many people thinkBut there is not much point in being a traditional Luddite today. You don’t want to smash the robot; you want to bring the price down to where you can own a piece of it.
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