Tag Archives: evil

#433907 How the Spatial Web Will Fix What’s ...

Posted on November 21, 2018 by Android

Converging exponential technologies will transform media, advertising and the retail world. The world we see, through our digitally-enhanced eyes, will multiply and explode with intelligence, personalization, and brilliance.

This is the age of Web 3.0.

Last week, I discussed the what and how of Web 3.0 (also known as the Spatial Web), walking through its architecture and the converging technologies that enable it.

To recap, while Web 1.0 consisted of static documents and read-only data, Web 2.0 introduced multimedia content, interactive web applications, and participatory social media, all of these mediated by two-dimensional screens—a flat web of sensorily confined information.

During the next two to five years, the convergence of 5G, AI, a trillion sensors, and VR/AR will enable us to both map our physical world into virtual space and superimpose a digital layer onto our physical environments.

Web 3.0 is about to transform everything—from the way we learn and educate, to the way we trade (smart) assets, to our interactions with real and virtual versions of each other.

And while users grow rightly concerned about data privacy and misuse, the Spatial Web’s use of blockchain in its data and governance layer will secure and validate our online identities, protecting everything from your virtual assets to personal files.

In this second installment of the Web 3.0 series, I’ll be discussing the Spatial Web’s vast implications for a handful of industries:

News & Media Coverage
Smart Advertising
Personalized Retail

Let’s dive in.

Transforming Network News with Web 3.0
News media is big business. In 2016, global news media (including print) generated 168 billion USD in circulation and advertising revenue.

The news we listen to impacts our mindset. Listen to dystopian news on violence, disaster, and evil, and you’ll more likely be searching for a cave to hide in, rather than technology for the launch of your next business.

Today, different news media present starkly different realities of everything from foreign conflict to domestic policy. And outcomes are consequential. What reporters and news corporations decide to show or omit of a given news story plays a tremendous role in shaping the beliefs and resulting values of entire populations and constituencies.

But what if we could have an objective benchmark for today’s news, whereby crowdsourced and sensor-collected evidence allows you to tour the site of journalistic coverage, determining for yourself the most salient aspects of a story?

Enter mesh networks, AI, public ledgers, and virtual reality.

While traditional networks rely on a limited set of wired access points (or wireless hotspots), a wireless mesh network can connect entire cities via hundreds of dispersed nodes that communicate with each other and share a network connection non-hierarchically.

In short, this means that individual mobile users can together establish a local mesh network using nothing but the computing power in their own devices.

Take this a step further, and a local population of strangers could collectively broadcast countless 360-degree feeds across a local mesh network.

Imagine a scenario in which protests break out across the country, each cluster of activists broadcasting an aggregate of 360-degree videos, all fed through photogrammetry AIs that build out a live hologram of the march in real time. Want to see and hear what the NYC-based crowds are advocating for? Throw on some VR goggles and explore the event with full access. Or cue into the southern Texan border to assess for yourself the handling of immigrant entry and border conflicts.

Take a front seat in the Capitol during tomorrow’s Senate hearing, assessing each Senator’s reactions, questions and arguments without a Fox News or CNN filter. Or if you’re short on time, switch on the holographic press conference and host 3D avatars of live-broadcasting politicians in your living room.

We often think of modern media as taking away consumer agency, feeding tailored and often partisan ideology to a complacent audience. But as wireless mesh networks and agnostic sensor data allow for immersive VR-accessible news sites, the average viewer will necessarily become an active participant in her own education of current events.

And with each of us interpreting the news according to our own values, I envision a much less polarized world. A world in which civic engagement, moderately reasoned dialogue, and shared assumptions will allow us to empathize and make compromises.

The future promises an era in which news is verified and balanced; wherein public ledgers, AI, and new web interfaces bring you into the action and respect your intelligence—not manipulate your ignorance.

Web 3.0 Reinventing Advertising
Bringing about the rise of ‘user-owned data’ and self-established permissions, Web 3.0 is poised to completely disrupt digital advertising—a global industry worth over 192 billion USD.

Currently, targeted advertising leverages tomes of personal data and online consumer behavior to subtly engage you with products you might not want, or sell you on falsely advertised services promising inaccurate results.

With a new Web 3.0 data and governance layer, however, distributed ledger technologies will require advertisers to engage in more direct interaction with consumers, validating claims and upping transparency.

And with a data layer that allows users to own and authorize third-party use of their data, blockchain also holds extraordinary promise to slash not only data breaches and identity theft, but covert advertiser bombardment without your authorization.

Accessing crowdsourced reviews and AI-driven fact-checking, users will be able to validate advertising claims more efficiently and accurately than ever before, potentially rating and filtering out advertisers in the process. And in such a streamlined system of verified claims, sellers will face increased pressure to compete more on product and rely less on marketing.

But perhaps most exciting is the convergence of artificial intelligence and augmented reality.

As Spatial Web networks begin to associate digital information with physical objects and locations, products will begin to “sell themselves.” Each with built-in smart properties, products will become hyper-personalized, communicating information directly to users through Web 3.0 interfaces.

Imagine stepping into a department store in pursuit of a new web-connected fridge. As soon as you enter, your AR goggles register your location and immediately grant you access to a populated register of store products.

As you move closer to a kitchen set that catches your eye, a virtual salesperson—whether by holographic video or avatar—pops into your field of view next to the fridge you’ve been examining and begins introducing you to its various functions and features. You quickly decide you’d rather disable the avatar and get textual input instead, and preferences are reset to list appliance properties visually.

After a virtual tour of several other fridges, you decide on the one you want and seamlessly execute a smart contract, carried out by your smart wallet and the fridge. The transaction takes place in seconds, and the fridge’s blockchain-recorded ownership record has been updated.

Better yet, you head over to a friend’s home for dinner after moving into the neighborhood. While catching up in the kitchen, your eyes fixate on the cabinets, which quickly populate your AR glasses with a price-point and selection of colors.

But what if you’d rather not get auto-populated product info in the first place? No problem!

Now empowered with self-sovereign identities, users might be able to turn off advertising preferences entirely, turning on smart recommendations only when they want to buy a given product or need new supplies.

And with user-centric data, consumers might even sell such information to advertisers directly. Now, instead of Facebook or Google profiting off your data, you might earn a passive income by giving advertisers permission to personalize and market their services. Buy more, and your personal data marketplace grows in value. Buy less, and a lower-valued advertising profile causes an ebb in advertiser input.

With user-controlled data, advertisers now work on your terms, putting increased pressure on product iteration and personalizing products for each user.

This brings us to the transformative future of retail.

Personalized Retail–Power of the Spatial Web
In a future of smart and hyper-personalized products, I might walk through a virtual game space or a digitally reconstructed Target, browsing specific categories of clothing I’ve predetermined prior to entry.

As I pick out my selection, my AI assistant hones its algorithm reflecting new fashion preferences, and personal shoppers—also visiting the store in VR—help me pair different pieces as I go.

Once my personal shopper has finished constructing various outfits, I then sit back and watch a fashion show of countless Peter avatars with style and color variations of my selection, each customizable.

After I’ve made my selection, I might choose to purchase physical versions of three outfits and virtual versions of two others for my digital avatar. Payments are made automatically as I leave the store, including a smart wallet transaction made with the personal shopper at a per-outfit rate (for only the pieces I buy).

Already, several big players have broken into the VR market. Just this year, Walmart has announced its foray into the VR space, shipping 17,000 Oculus Go VR headsets to Walmart locations across the US.

And just this past January, Walmart filed two VR shopping-related patents. In a new bid to disrupt a rapidly changing retail market, Walmart now describes a system in which users couple their VR headset with haptic gloves for an immersive in-store experience, whether at 3am in your living room or during a lunch break at the office.

But Walmart is not alone. Big e-commerce players from Amazon to Alibaba are leaping onto the scene with new software buildout to ride the impending headset revolution.

Beyond virtual reality, players like IKEA have even begun using mobile-based augmented reality to map digitally replicated furniture in your physical living room, true to dimension. And this is just the beginning….

As AR headset hardware undergoes breakneck advancements in the next two to five years, we might soon be able to project watches onto our wrists, swapping out colors, styles, brand, and price points.

Or let’s say I need a new coffee table in my office. Pulling up multiple models in AR, I can position each option using advanced hand-tracking technology and customize height and width according to my needs. Once the smart payment is triggered, the manufacturer prints my newly-customized piece, droning it to my doorstep. As soon as I need to assemble the pieces, overlaid digital prompts walk me through each step, and any user confusions are communicated to a company database.

Perhaps one of the ripest industries for Spatial Web disruption, retail presents one of the greatest opportunities for profit across virtual apparel, digital malls, AI fashion startups and beyond.

In our next series iteration, I’ll be looking at the tremendous opportunities created by Web 3.0 for the Future of Work and Entertainment.

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Posted in Human Robots

#432303 What If the AI Revolution Is Neither ...

Posted on March 14, 2018 by Android

Why does everyone assume that the AI revolution will either lead to a fiery apocalypse or a glorious utopia, and not something in between? Of course, part of this is down to the fact that you get more attention by saying “The end is nigh!” or “Utopia is coming!”

But part of it is down to how humans think about change, especially unprecedented change. Millenarianism doesn’t have anything to do with being a “millennial,” being born in the 90s and remembering Buffy the Vampire Slayer. It is a way of thinking about the future that involves a deeply ingrained sense of destiny. A definition might be: “Millenarianism is the expectation that the world as it is will be destroyed and replaced with a perfect world, that a redeemer will come to cast down the evil and raise up the righteous.”

Millenarian beliefs, then, intimately link together the ideas of destruction and creation. They involve the idea of a huge, apocalyptic, seismic shift that will destroy the fabric of the old world and create something entirely new. Similar belief systems exist in many of the world’s major religions, and also the unspoken religion of some atheists and agnostics, which is a belief in technology.

Look at some futurist beliefs around the technological Singularity. In Ray Kurzweil’s vision, the Singularity is the establishment of paradise. Everyone is rendered immortal by biotechnology that can cure our ills; our brains can be uploaded to the cloud; inequality and suffering wash away under the wave of these technologies. The “destruction of the world” is replaced by a Silicon Valley buzzword favorite: disruption. And, as with many millenarian beliefs, your mileage varies on whether this destruction paves the way for a new utopia—or simply ends the world.

There are good reasons to be skeptical and interrogative towards this way of thinking. The most compelling reason is probably that millenarian beliefs seem to be a default mode of how humans think about change; just look at how many variants of this belief have cropped up all over the world.

These beliefs are present in aspects of Christian theology, although they only really became mainstream in their modern form in the 19th and 20th centuries. Ideas like the Tribulations—many years of hardship and suffering—before the Rapture, when the righteous will be raised up and the evil punished. After this destruction, the world will be made anew, or humans will ascend to paradise.

Despite being dogmatically atheist, Marxism has many of the same beliefs. It is all about a deterministic view of history that builds to a crescendo. In the same way as Rapture-believers look for signs that prophecies are beginning to be fulfilled, so Marxists look for evidence that we’re in the late stages of capitalism. They believe that, inevitably, society will degrade and degenerate to a breaking point—just as some millenarian Christians do.

In Marxism, this is when the exploitation of the working class by the rich becomes unsustainable, and the working class bands together and overthrows the oppressors. The “tribulation” is replaced by a “revolution.” Sometimes revolutionary figures, like Lenin, or Marx himself, are heralded as messiahs who accelerate the onset of the Millennium; and their rhetoric involves utterly smashing the old system such that a new world can be built. Of course, there is judgment, when the righteous workers take what’s theirs and the evil bourgeoisie are destroyed.

Even Norse mythology has an element of this, as James Hughes points out in his essay in Nick Bostrom’s book Global Catastrophic Risks. Ragnarok involves men and gods being defeated in a final, apocalyptic battle—but because that was a little bleak, they add in the idea that a new earth will arise where the survivors will live in harmony.

Judgement day is a cultural trope, too. Take the ancient Egyptians and their beliefs around the afterlife; the Lord of the underworld, Osiris, weighs the mortal’s heart against a feather. “Should the heart of the deceased prove to be heavy with wrongdoing, it would be eaten by a demon, and the hope of an afterlife vanished.”

Perhaps in the Singularity, something similar goes on. As our technology and hence our power improve, a final reckoning approaches: our hearts, as humans, will be weighed against a feather. If they prove too heavy with wrongdoing—with misguided stupidity, with arrogance and hubris, with evil—then we will fail the test, and we will destroy ourselves. But if we pass, and emerge from the Singularity and all of its threats and promises unscathed, then we will have paradise. And, like the other belief systems, there’s no room for non-believers; all of society is going to be radically altered, whether you want it to be or not, whether it benefits you or leaves you behind. A technological rapture.

It almost seems like every major development provokes this response. Nuclear weapons did, too. Either this would prove the final straw and we’d destroy ourselves, or the nuclear energy could be harnessed to build a better world. People talked at the dawn of the nuclear age about electricity that was “too cheap to meter.” The scientists who worked on the bomb often thought that with such destructive power in human hands, we’d be forced to cooperate and work together as a species.

When we see the same response over and over again to different circumstances, cropping up in different areas, whether it’s science, religion, or politics, we need to consider human biases. We like millenarian beliefs; and so when the idea of artificial intelligence outstripping human intelligence emerges, these beliefs spring up around it.

We don’t love facts. We don’t love information. We aren’t as rational as we’d like to think. We are creatures of narrative. Physicists observe the world and we weave our observations into narrative theories, stories about little billiard balls whizzing around and hitting each other, or space and time that bend and curve and expand. Historians try to make sense of an endless stream of events. We rely on stories: stories that make sense of the past, justify the present, and prepare us for the future.

And as stories go, the millenarian narrative is a brilliant and compelling one. It can lead you towards social change, as in the case of the Communists, or the Buddhist uprisings in China. It can justify your present-day suffering, if you’re in the tribulation. It gives you hope that your life is important and has meaning. It gives you a sense that things are evolving in a specific direction, according to rules—not just randomly sprawling outwards in a chaotic way. It promises that the righteous will be saved and the wrongdoers will be punished, even if there is suffering along the way. And, ultimately, a lot of the time, the millenarian narrative promises paradise.

We need to be wary of the millenarian narrative when we’re considering technological developments and the Singularity and existential risks in general. Maybe this time is different, but we’ve cried wolf many times before. There is a more likely, less appealing story. Something along the lines of: there are many possibilities, none of them are inevitable, and lots of the outcomes are less extreme than you might think—or they might take far longer than you think to arrive. On the surface, it’s not satisfying. It’s so much easier to think of things as either signaling the end of the world or the dawn of a utopia—or possibly both at once. It’s a narrative we can get behind, a good story, and maybe, a nice dream.

But dig a little below the surface, and you’ll find that the millenarian beliefs aren’t always the most promising ones, because they remove human agency from the equation. If you think that, say, the malicious use of algorithms, or the control of superintelligent AI, are serious and urgent problems that are worth solving, you can’t be wedded to a belief system that insists utopia or dystopia are inevitable. You have to believe in the shades of grey—and in your own ability to influence where we might end up. As we move into an uncertain technological future, we need to be aware of the power—and the limitations—of dreams.

Image Credit: Photobank gallery / Shutterstock.com

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Posted in Human Robots

#431899 Darker Still: Black Mirror’s New ...

Posted on January 10, 2018 by Android

The key difference between science fiction and fantasy is that science fiction is entirely possible because of its grounding in scientific facts, while fantasy is not. This is where Black Mirror is both an entertaining and terrifying work of science fiction. Created by Charlie Brooker, the anthological series tells cautionary tales of emerging technology that could one day be an integral part of our everyday lives.
While watching the often alarming episodes, one can’t help but recognize the eerie similarities to some of the tech tools that are already abundant in our lives today. In fact, many previous Black Mirror predictions are already becoming reality.
The latest season of Black Mirror was arguably darker than ever. This time, Brooker seemed to focus on the ethical implications of one particular area: neurotechnology.
Emerging Neurotechnology
Warning: The remainder of this article may contain spoilers from Season 4 of Black Mirror.
Most of the storylines from season four revolve around neurotechnology and brain-machine interfaces. They are based in a world where people have the power to upload their consciousness onto machines, have fully immersive experiences in virtual reality, merge their minds with other minds, record others’ memories, and even track what others are thinking, feeling, and doing.
How can all this ever be possible? Well, these capabilities are already being developed by pioneers and researchers globally. Early last year, Elon Musk unveiled Neuralink, a company whose goal is to merge the human mind with AI through a neural lace. We’ve already connected two brains via the internet, allowing one brain to communicate with another. Various research teams have been able to develop mechanisms for “reading minds” or reconstructing memories of individuals via devices. The list goes on.
With many of the technologies we see in Black Mirror it’s not a question of if, but when. Futurist Ray Kurzweil has predicted that by the 2030s we will be able to upload our consciousness onto the cloud via nanobots that will “provide full-immersion virtual reality from within the nervous system, provide direct brain-to-brain communication over the internet, and otherwise greatly expand human intelligence.” While other experts continue to challenge Kurzweil on the exact year we’ll accomplish this feat, with the current exponential growth of our technological capabilities, we’re on track to get there eventually.
Ethical Questions
As always, technology is only half the conversation. Equally fascinating are the many ethical and moral questions this topic raises.
For instance, with the increasing convergence of artificial intelligence and virtual reality, we have to ask ourselves if our morality from the physical world transfers equally into the virtual world. The first episode of season four, USS Calister, tells the story of a VR pioneer, Robert Daley, who creates breakthrough AI and VR to satisfy his personal frustrations and sexual urges. He uses the DNA of his coworkers (and their children) to re-create them digitally in his virtual world, to which he escapes to torture them, while they continue to be indifferent in the “real” world.
Audiences are left asking themselves: should what happens in the digital world be considered any less “real” than the physical world? How do we know if the individuals in the virtual world (who are ultimately based on algorithms) have true feelings or sentiments? Have they been developed to exhibit characteristics associated with suffering, or can they really feel suffering? Fascinatingly, these questions point to the hard problem of consciousness—the question of if, why, and how a given physical process generates the specific experience it does—which remains a major mystery in neuroscience.
Towards the end of USS Calister, the hostages of Daley’s virtual world attempt to escape through suicide, by committing an act that will delete the code that allows them to exist. This raises yet another mind-boggling ethical question: if we “delete” code that signifies a digital being, should that be considered murder (or suicide, in this case)? Why shouldn’t it? When we murder someone we are, in essence, taking away their capacity to live and to be, without their consent. By unplugging a self-aware AI, wouldn’t we be violating its basic right to live in the same why? Does AI, as code, even have rights?
Brain implants can also have a radical impact on our self-identity and how we define the word “I”. In the episode Black Museum, instead of witnessing just one horror, we get a series of scares in little segments. One of those segments tells the story of a father who attempts to reincarnate the mother of his child by uploading her consciousness into his mind and allowing her to live in his head (essentially giving him multiple personality disorder). In this way, she can experience special moments with their son.
With “no privacy for him, and no agency for her” the good intention slowly goes very wrong. This story raises a critical question: should we be allowed to upload consciousness into limited bodies? Even more, if we are to upload our minds into “the cloud,” at what point do we lose our individuality to become one collective being?
These questions can form the basis of hours of debate, but we’re just getting started. There are no right or wrong answers with many of these moral dilemmas, but we need to start having such discussions.
The Downside of Dystopian Sci-Fi
Like last season’s San Junipero, one episode of the series, Hang the DJ, had an uplifting ending. Yet the overwhelming majority of the stories in Black Mirror continue to focus on the darkest side of human nature, feeding into the pre-existing paranoia of the general public. There is certainly some value in this; it’s important to be aware of the dangers of technology. After all, what better way to explore these dangers before they occur than through speculative fiction?
A big takeaway from every tale told in the series is that the greatest threat to humanity does not come from technology, but from ourselves. Technology itself is not inherently good or evil; it all comes down to how we choose to use it as a society. So for those of you who are techno-paranoid, beware, for it’s not the technology you should fear, but the humans who get their hands on it.
While we can paint negative visions for the future, though, it is also important to paint positive ones. The kind of visions we set for ourselves have the power to inspire and motivate generations. Many people are inherently pessimistic when thinking about the future, and that pessimism in turn can shape their contributions to humanity.
While utopia may not exist, the future of our species could and should be one of solving global challenges, abundance, prosperity, liberation, and cosmic transcendence. Now that would be a thrilling episode to watch.
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Posted in Human Robots

#431315 Better Than Smart Speakers? Japan Is ...

Posted on October 18, 2017 by Android

While American internet giants are developing speakers, Japanese companies are working on robots and holograms. They all share a common goal: to create the future platform for the Internet of Things (IoT) and smart homes.
Names like Bocco, EMIEW3, Xperia Assistant, and Gatebox may not ring a bell to most outside of Japan, but Sony, Hitachi, Sharp, and Softbank most certainly do. The companies, along with Japanese start-ups, have developed robots, robot concepts, and even holograms like the ones hiding behind the short list of names.
While there are distinct differences between the various systems, they share the potential to act as a remote control for IoT devices and smart homes. It is a very different direction than that taken by companies like Google, Amazon, and Apple, who have so far focused on building IoT speaker systems.
Bocco robot. Image Credit: Yukai Engineering
“Technology companies are pursuing the platform—or smartphone if you will—for IoT. My impression is that Japanese companies—and Japanese consumers—prefer that such a platform should not just be an object, but a companion,” says Kosuke Tatsumi, designer at Yukai Engineering, a startup that has developed the Bocco robot system.
At Hitachi, a spokesperson said that the company’s human symbiotic service robot, EMIEW3, robot is currently in the field, doing proof-of-value tests at customer sites to investigate needs and potential solutions. This could include working as an interactive control system for the Internet of Things:
“EMIEW3 is able to communicate with humans, thus receive instructions, and as it is connected to a robotics IT platform, it is very much capable of interacting with IoT-based systems,” the spokesperson said.
The power of speech is getting feet
Gartner analysis predicts that there will be 8.4 billion internet-connected devices—collectively making up the Internet of Things—by the end of 2017. 5.2 billion of those devices are in the consumer category. By the end of 2020, the number of IoT devices will rise to 12.8 billion—and that is just in the consumer category.
As a child of the 80s, I can vividly remember how fun it was to have separate remote controls for TV, video, and stereo. I can imagine a situation where my internet-connected refrigerator and ditto thermostat, television, and toaster try to work out who I’m talking to and what I want them to do.
Consensus seems to be that speech will be the way to interact with many/most IoT devices. The same goes for a form of virtual assistant functioning as the IoT platform—or remote control. Almost everything else is still an open ballgame, despite an early surge for speaker-based systems, like those from Amazon, Google, and Apple.
Why robots could rule
Famous android creator and robot scientist Dr. Hiroshi Ishiguro sees the interaction between humans and the AI embedded in speakers or robots as central to both approaches. From there, the approaches differ greatly.
Image Credit: Hiroshi Ishiguro Laboratories
“It is about more than the difference of form. Speaking to an Amazon Echo is not a natural kind of interaction for humans. That is part of what we in Japan are creating in many human-like robot systems,” he says. “The human brain is constructed to recognize and interact with humans. This is part of why it makes sense to focus on developing the body for the AI mind as well as the AI mind itself. In a way, you can describe it as the difference between developing an assistant, which could be said to be what many American companies are currently doing, and a companion, which is more the focus here in Japan.”
Another advantage is that robots are more kawaii—a multifaceted Japanese word that can be translated as “cute”—than speakers are. This makes it easy for people to relate to them and forgive them.
“People are more willing to forgive children when they make mistakes, and the same is true with a robot like Bocco, which is designed to look kawaii and childlike,” Kosuke Tatsumi explains.
Japanese robots and holograms with IoT-control capabilities
So, what exactly do these robot and hologram companions look like, what can they do, and who’s making them? Here are seven examples of Japanese companies working to go a step beyond smart speakers with personable robots and holograms.
1. In 2016 Sony’s mobile division demonstrated the Xperia Agent concept robot that recognizes individual users, is voice controlled, and can do things like control your television and receive calls from services like Skype.

2. Sharp launched their Home Assistant at CES 2016. A robot-like, voice-controlled assistant that can to control, among other things, air conditioning units, and televisions. Sharp has also launched a robotic phone called RoBoHon.
3. Gatebox has created a holographic virtual assistant. Evil tongues will say that it is primarily the expression of an otaku (Japanese for nerd) dream of living with a manga heroine. Gatebox is, however, able to control things like lights, TVs, and other systems through API integration. It also provides its owner with weather-related advice like “remember your umbrella, it looks like it will rain later.” Gatebox can be controlled by voice, gesture, or via an app.
4. Hitachi’s EMIEW3 robot is designed to assist people in businesses and public spaces. It is connected to a robot IT-platform via the cloud that acts as a “remote brain.” Hitachi is currently investigating the business use cases for EMIEW3. This could include the role of controlling platform for IoT devices.

5. Softbank’s Pepper robot has been used as a platform to control use of medical IoT devices such as smart thermometers by Avatarion. The company has also developed various in-house systems that enable Pepper to control IoT-devices like a coffee machine. A user simply asks Pepper to brew a cup of coffee, and it starts the coffee machine for you.
6. Yukai Engineering’s Bocco registers when a person (e.g., young child) comes home and acts as a communication center between that person and other members of the household (e.g., parent still at work). The company is working on integrating voice recognition, voice control, and having Bocco control things like the lights and other connected IoT devices.
7. Last year Toyota launched the Kirobo Mini, a companion robot which aims to, among other things, help its owner by suggesting “places to visit, routes for travel, and music to listen to” during the drive.

Today, Japan. Tomorrow…?
One of the key questions is whether this emerging phenomenon is a purely Japanese thing. If the country’s love of robots makes it fundamentally different. Japan is, after all, a country where new units of Softbank’s Pepper robot routinely sell out in minutes and the RoBoHon robot-phone has its own cafe nights in Tokyo.
It is a country where TV introduces you to friendly, helpful robots like Doraemon and Astro Boy. I, on the other hand, first met robots in the shape of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Terminator and struggled to work out why robots seemed intent on permanently borrowing things like clothes and motorcycles, not to mention why they hated people called Sarah.
However, research suggests that a big part of the reason why Japanese seem to like robots is a combination of exposure and positive experiences that leads to greater acceptance of them. As robots spread to more and more industries—and into our homes—our acceptance of them will grow.
The argument is also backed by a project by Avatarion, which used Softbank’s Nao-robot as a classroom representative for children who were in the hospital.
“What we found was that the other children quickly adapted to interacting with the robot and treating it as the physical representation of the child who was in hospital. They accepted it very quickly,” Thierry Perronnet, General Manager of Avatarion, explains.
His company has also developed solutions where Softbank’s Pepper robot is used as an in-home nurse and controls various medical IoT devices.
If robots end up becoming our preferred method for controlling IoT devices, it is by no means certain that said robots will be coming from Japan.
“I think that the goal for both Japanese and American companies—including the likes of Google, Amazon, Microsoft, and Apple—is to create human-like interaction. For this to happen, technology needs to evolve and adapt to us and how we are used to interacting with others, in other words, have a more human form. Humans’ speed of evolution cannot keep up with technology’s, so it must be the technology that changes,” Dr. Ishiguro says.
Image Credit: Sony Mobile Communications Continue reading →

Posted in Human Robots

#431058 How to Make Your First Chatbot With the ...

Posted on September 8, 2017 by Android

You’re probably wondering what Game of Thrones has to do with chatbots and artificial intelligence. Before I explain this weird connection, I need to warn you that this article may contain some serious spoilers. Continue with your reading only if you are a passionate GoT follower, who watches new episodes immediately after they come out.
Why are chatbots so important anyway?
According to the study “When Will AI Exceed Human Performance?,” researchers believe there is a 50% chance artificial intelligence could take over all human jobs by around the year 2060. This technology has already replaced dozens of customer service and sales positions and helped businesses make substantial savings.
Apart from the obvious business advantages, chatbot creation can be fun. You can create an artificial personality with a strong attitude and a unique set of traits and flaws. It’s like creating a new character for your favorite TV show. That’s why I decided to explain the most important elements of the chatbot creation process by using the TV characters we all know and love (or hate).
Why Game of Thrones?
Game of Thrones is the most popular TV show in the world. More than 10 million viewers watched the seventh season premiere, and you have probably seen internet users fanatically discussing the series’ characters, storyline, and possible endings.
Apart from writing about chatbots, I’m also a GoT fanatic, and I will base this chatbot on one of the characters from my favorite series. But before you find out the name of my bot, you should read a few lines about incredible free tools that allow us to build chatbots without coding.
Are chatbots expensive?
Today, you can create a chatbot even if you don’t know how to code. Most chatbot building platforms offer at least one free plan that allows you to use basic functionalities, create your bot, deploy it to Facebook Messenger, and analyze its performance. Free plans usually allow your bot to talk to a limited number of users.
Why should you personalize your bot?
Every platform will ask you to write a bot’s name before you start designing conversations. You will also be able to add the bot’s photograph and bio. Personalizing your bot is the only way to ensure that you will stick to the same personality and storyline throughout the building process. Users often see chatbots as people, and by giving your bot an identity, you will make sure that it doesn’t sound like it has multiple personality disorder.
I think connecting my chatbot with a GoT character will help readers understand the process of chatbot creation.
And the name of our GoT chatbot is…
…Cersei. She is mean, pragmatic, and fearless and she would do anything to stay on the Iron Throne. Many people would rather hang out with Daenerys or Jon Snow. These characters are honest, noble and good-hearted, which means their actions are often predictable.
Cersei, on the other hand, is the queen of intrigues. As the meanest and the most vengeful character in the series, she has an evil plan for everybody who steps on her toes. While viewers can easily guess where Jon and Daenerys stand, there are dozens of questions they would like to ask Cersei. But before we start talking to our bot, we need to build her personality by using the most basic elements of chatbot interaction.
Choosing the bot’s name on Botsify.
Welcome / Greeting Message
The welcome message is the greeting Cersei says to every commoner who clicks on the ‘start conversation’ button. She is not a welcoming person (ask Sansa), except if you are a banker from Braavos. Her introductory message may sound something like this:
“Dear {{user_full_name}}, My name is Cersei of the House Lannister, the First of Her Name, Queen of the Andals and the First Men, Protector of the Seven Kingdoms. You can ask me questions, and I will answer them. If the question is not worth answering, I will redirect you to Ser Gregor Clegane, who will give you a step-by-step course on how to talk to the Queen of Westeros.”
Creating the welcome message on Chatfuel
Default Message / Answer
In the bot game, users, bots, and their creators often need to learn from failed attempts and mistakes. The default message is the text Cersei will send whenever you ask her a question she doesn’t understand. Knowing Cersei, it would sound something like this:
“Ser Gregor, please escort {{user_full_name}} to the dungeon.”
Creating default message on Botsify
Menu
To avoid calling out the Mountain every time someone asks her a question, Cersei might give you a few (safe) options to choose. The best way to do this is by using a menu function. We can classify the questions people want to ask Cersei in several different categories:

Iron Throne
Relationship with Jaime — OK, this isn’t a “safe option,” get ready to get close and personal with Sir Gregor Clegane.
War plans
Euron Greyjoy

After users choose a menu item, Cersei can give them a default response on the topic or set up a plot that will make their lives miserable. Knowing Cersei, she will probably go for the second option.
Adding chatbot menu on Botsify
Stories / Blocks
This feature allows us to build a longer Cersei-to-user interaction. The structure of stories and blocks is different on every chatbot platform, but most of them use keywords and phrases for finding out the user’s intention.

Keywords — where the bot recognizes a certain keyword within the user’s reply. Users who have chosen the ‘war plans’ option might ask Cersei how is she planning to defeat Daenerys’s dragons. We can add ‘dragon’ and ‘dragons’ as keywords, and connect them with an answer that will sound something like this:

“Dragons are not invulnerable as you may think. Maester Qyburn is developing a weapon that will bring them down for good!”
Adding keywords on Chatfuel
People may also ask her about White Walkers. Do you plan to join Daenerys and Jon Snow in a fight against White Walkers? After we add ‘White Walker’ and ‘White Walkers’ on the keyword list, Cersei will answer:
“White Walkers? Do you think the Queen of Westeros has enough free time to think about creatures from fairy tales and legends?”
Adding Keywords on Botsify

Phrases — are more complex syntaxes that the bot can be trained to recognize. Many people would like to ask Cersei if she’s going to marry Euron Greyjoy after the war ends. We can add ‘Euron’ as a keyword, but then we won’t be sure what answer the user is expecting. Instead, we can use the phrase ‘(Will you) marry Euron Greyjoy (after the war?)’. Just to be sure, we should also add a few alternative phrases like ‘(Do you plan on) marrying Euron Greyjoy (after the war),’ ‘(Will you) end up with Euron Greyjoy (after the war?)’, ‘(Will) Euron Greyjoy be the new King?’ etc. Cersei would probably answer this inquiry in her style:

“Of course not, Euron is a useful idiot. I will use his fleet and send him back to the Iron Islands, where he belongs.”
Adding phrases on Botsify
Forms
We have already asked Cersei several questions, and now she would like to ask us something. She can do so by using the form/user input feature. Most tools allow us to add a question and the criteria for checking the users’ answer. If the user provides us the answer that is compliant to the predefined form (like email address, phone number, or a ZIP code), the bot will identify and extract the answer. If the answer doesn’t fit into the predefined criteria, the bot will notify the user and ask him/her to try again.
If Cersei would ask you a question, she would probably want to know your address so she could send her guards to fill your basement with barrels of wildfire.
Creating forms on Botsify
Templates
If you have problems building your first chatbot, templates can help you create the basic conversation structure. Unfortunately, not all platforms offer this feature for free. Snatchbot currently has the most comprehensive list of free templates. There you can choose a pre-built layout. The template selection ranges from simple FAQ bots to ones created for a specific industry, like banking, airline, healthcare, or e-commerce.
Choosing templates on Snatchbot
Plugins
Most tools also provide plugins that can be used for making the conversations more meaningful. These plugins allow Cersei to send images, audio and video files. She can unleash her creativity and make you suffer by sending you her favorite GoT execution videos.

With the help of integrations, Cersei can talk to you on Facebook Messenger, Telegram, WeChat, Slack, and many other communication apps. She can also sell her fan gear and ask you for donations by integrating in-bot payments from PayPal accounts. Her sales pitch will probably sound something like this:
“Gold wins wars! Would you rather invest your funds in a member of a respected family, who always pays her debts, or in the chaotic war endeavor of a crazy revolutionary, whose strength lies in three flying lizards? If your pockets are full of gold, you are already on my side. Now you can complete your checkout on PayPal.”
Chatbot building is now easier than ever, and even small businesses are starting to use the incredible benefits of artificial intelligence. If you still don’t believe that chatbots can replace customer service representatives, I suggest you try to develop a bot based on your favorite TV show, movie or book character and talk with him/her for a while. This way, you will be able to understand the concept that stands behind this amazing technology and use it to improve your business.
Now I’m off to talk to Cersei. Maybe she will feed me some Season 8 spoilers.
This article was originally published by Chatbots Magazine. Read the original post here.
Image credits for screenshots in post: Branislav Srdanovic
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