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#431142 Will Privacy Survive the Future?
Technological progress has radically transformed our concept of privacy. How we share information and display our identities has changed as we’ve migrated to the digital world.
As the Guardian states, “We now carry with us everywhere devices that give us access to all the world’s information, but they can also offer almost all the world vast quantities of information about us.” We are all leaving digital footprints as we navigate through the internet. While sometimes this information can be harmless, it’s often valuable to various stakeholders, including governments, corporations, marketers, and criminals.
The ethical debate around privacy is complex. The reality is that our definition and standards for privacy have evolved over time, and will continue to do so in the next few decades.
Implications of Emerging Technologies
Protecting privacy will only become more challenging as we experience the emergence of technologies such as virtual reality, the Internet of Things, brain-machine interfaces, and much more.
Virtual reality headsets are already gathering information about users’ locations and physical movements. In the future all of our emotional experiences, reactions, and interactions in the virtual world will be able to be accessed and analyzed. As virtual reality becomes more immersive and indistinguishable from physical reality, technology companies will be able to gather an unprecedented amount of data.
It doesn’t end there. The Internet of Things will be able to gather live data from our homes, cities and institutions. Drones may be able to spy on us as we live our everyday lives. As the amount of genetic data gathered increases, the privacy of our genes, too, may be compromised.
It gets even more concerning when we look farther into the future. As companies like Neuralink attempt to merge the human brain with machines, we are left with powerful implications for privacy. Brain-machine interfaces by nature operate by extracting information from the brain and manipulating it in order to accomplish goals. There are many parties that can benefit and take advantage of the information from the interface.
Marketing companies, for instance, would take an interest in better understanding how consumers think and consequently have their thoughts modified. Employers could use the information to find new ways to improve productivity or even monitor their employees. There will notably be risks of “brain hacking,” which we must take extreme precaution against. However, it is important to note that lesser versions of these risks currently exist, i.e., by phone hacking, identify fraud, and the like.
A New Much-Needed Definition of Privacy
In many ways we are already cyborgs interfacing with technology. According to theories like the extended mind hypothesis, our technological devices are an extension of our identities. We use our phones to store memories, retrieve information, and communicate. We use powerful tools like the Hubble Telescope to extend our sense of sight. In parallel, one can argue that the digital world has become an extension of the physical world.
These technological tools are a part of who we are. This has led to many ethical and societal implications. Our Facebook profiles can be processed to infer secondary information about us, such as sexual orientation, political and religious views, race, substance use, intelligence, and personality. Some argue that many of our devices may be mapping our every move. Your browsing history could be spied on and even sold in the open market.
While the argument to protect privacy and individuals’ information is valid to a certain extent, we may also have to accept the possibility that privacy will become obsolete in the future. We have inherently become more open as a society in the digital world, voluntarily sharing our identities, interests, views, and personalities.
“The question we are left with is, at what point does the tradeoff between transparency and privacy become detrimental?”
There also seems to be a contradiction with the positive trend towards mass transparency and the need to protect privacy. Many advocate for a massive decentralization and openness of information through mechanisms like blockchain.
The question we are left with is, at what point does the tradeoff between transparency and privacy become detrimental? We want to live in a world of fewer secrets, but also don’t want to live in a world where our every move is followed (not to mention our every feeling, thought and interaction). So, how do we find a balance?
Traditionally, privacy is used synonymously with secrecy. Many are led to believe that if you keep your personal information secret, then you’ve accomplished privacy. Danny Weitzner, director of the MIT Internet Policy Research Initiative, rejects this notion and argues that this old definition of privacy is dead.
From Witzner’s perspective, protecting privacy in the digital age means creating rules that require governments and businesses to be transparent about how they use our information. In other terms, we can’t bring the business of data to an end, but we can do a better job of controlling it. If these stakeholders spy on our personal information, then we should have the right to spy on how they spy on us.
The Role of Policy and Discourse
Almost always, policy has been too slow to adapt to the societal and ethical implications of technological progress. And sometimes the wrong laws can do more harm than good. For instance, in March, the US House of Representatives voted to allow internet service providers to sell your web browsing history on the open market.
More often than not, the bureaucratic nature of governance can’t keep up with exponential growth. New technologies are emerging every day and transforming society. Can we confidently claim that our world leaders, politicians, and local representatives are having these conversations and debates? Are they putting a focus on the ethical and societal implications of emerging technologies? Probably not.
We also can’t underestimate the role of public awareness and digital activism. There needs to be an emphasis on educating and engaging the general public about the complexities of these issues and the potential solutions available. The current solution may not be robust or clear, but having these discussions will get us there.
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#431023 Finish Him! MegaBots’ Giant Robot Duel ...
It began two years ago when MegaBots co-founders Matt Oehrlein and Gui Cavalcanti donned American flags as capes and challenged Suidobashi Heavy Industries to a giant robot duel in a YouTube video that immediately went viral.
The battle proposed: MegaBots’ 15-foot tall, 1,200-pound MK2 robot vs. Suidobashi’s 9,000-pound robot, KURATAS. Oehrlein and Cavalcanti first discovered the KURATAS robot in a listing on Amazon with a million-dollar price tag.
In an equally flamboyant response video, Suidobashi CEO and founder Kogoro Kurata accepted the challenge. (Yes, he named his robot after himself.) Both parties planned to take a year to prepare their robots for combat.
In the end, it took twice the amount of time. Nonetheless, the battle is going down this September in an undisclosed location.
Oehrlein shared more about the much-anticipated showdown during our interview at Singularity University’s Global Summit.
Two years since the initial video, MegaBots has now completed the combat-capable MK3 robot, named Eagle Prime. This new 12-ton, 16-foot-tall robot is powered by a 430-horsepower Corvette engine and requires two human pilots.
It’s also the robot they recently shipped to take on KURATAS.
Building Eagle Prime has been no small feat. With arms and legs that each weigh as much as a car, assembling the robot takes forklifts, cranes, and a lot of caution. Fortress One, MegaBots’ headquarters in Hayward, California is where the magic happens.
In terms of “weaponry,” Eagle Prime features a giant pneumatic cannon that shoots huge paint cannonballs. Oehrlein warns, “They can shatter all the windows in a car. It’s very powerful.” A logging grapple, which looks like a giant claw and exerts 3,000 pounds of steel-crushing force, has also been added to the robot.
“It’s a combination of range combat, using the paint balls to maybe blind cameras on the other robot or take out sensitive electronics, and then closing in with the claw and trying to disable their systems at close range,” Oehrlein explains.
Safety systems include a cockpit roll cage for the two pilots, five-point safety seatbelt harnesses, neck restraints, helmets, and flame retardant suits.
Co-founder, Matt Oehrlein, inside the cockpit of MegaBots’ Eagle Prime giant robot.
Oehrlein and Cavalcanti have also spent considerable time inside Eagle Prime practicing battlefield tactics and maneuvering the robot through obstacle courses.
Suidobashi’s robot is a bit shorter and lighter, but also a little faster, so the battle dynamics should be interesting.
You may be thinking, “Why giant dueling robots?”
MegaBots’ grand vision is a full-blown international sports league of giant fighting robots on the scale of Formula One racing. Picture a nostalgic evening sipping a beer (or three) and watching Pacific Rim- and Power Rangers-inspired robots battle—only in real life.
Eagle Prime is, in good humor, a proudly patriotic robot.
“Japan is known as a robotic powerhouse,” says Oehrlein, “I think there’s something interesting about the slightly overconfident American trying to get a foothold in the robotics space and doing it by building a bigger, louder, heavier robot, in true American fashion.”
For safety reasons, no fans will be admitted during the time of the fight. The battle will be posted after the fact on MegaBots’ YouTube channel and Facebook page.
We’ll soon find out whether this becomes another American underdog story.
In the meantime, I give my loyalty to MegaBots, and in the words of Mortal Kombat, say, “Finish him!”
via GIPHY
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#431022 Robots and AI Will Take Over These 3 ...
We’re no stranger to robotics in the medical field. Robot-assisted surgery is becoming more and more common. Many training programs are starting to include robotic and virtual reality scenarios to provide hands-on training for students without putting patients at risk.
With all of these advances in medical robotics, three niches stand out above the rest: surgery, medical imaging, and drug discovery. How have robotics already begun to exert their influence on these practices, and how will they change them for good?
Robot-Assisted Surgery
Robot-assisted surgery was first documented in 1985, when it was used for a neurosurgical biopsy. This led to the use of robotics in a number of similar surgeries, both laparoscopic and traditional operations. The FDA didn’t approve robotic surgery tools until 2000, when the da Vinci Surgery system hit the market.
The robot-assisted surgery market is expected to grow steadily into 2023 and potentially beyond. The only thing that might stand in the way of this growth is the cost of the equipment. The initial investment may prevent small practices from purchasing the necessary devices.
Medical Imaging
The key to successful medical imaging isn’t the equipment itself. It’s being able to interpret the information in the images. Medical images are some of the most information-dense pieces of data in the medical field and can reveal so much more than a basic visual inspection can.
Robotics and, more specifically, artificial intelligence programs like IBM Watson can help interpret these images more efficiently and accurately. By allowing an AI or basic machine learning program to study the medical images, researchers can find patterns and make more accurate diagnoses than ever before.
Drug Discovery
Drug discovery is a long and often tedious process that includes years of testing and assessment. Artificial intelligence, machine learning and predictive algorithms could help speed up this system.
Imagine if researchers could input the kind of medicine they’re trying to make and the kind of symptoms they’re trying to treat into a computer and let it do the rest. With robotics, that may someday be possible.
This isn’t a perfect solution yet—these systems require massive amounts of data before they can start making decisions or predictions. By feeding data into the cloud where these programs can access it, researchers can take the first steps towards setting up a functional database.
Another benefit of these AI programs is that they might see connections humans would never have thought of. People can make those leaps, but the chances are much lower, and it takes much longer if it happens at all. Simply put, we’re not capable of processing the sheer amount of data that computers can process.
This isn’t a field where we’re worrying about robots stealing jobs.
Quite the opposite, in fact—we want robots to become commonly-used tools that can help improve patient care and surgical outcomes.
A human surgeon might have intuition, but they’ll never have the steadiness that a pair of robotic hands can provide or the data-processing capabilities of a machine learning algorithm. If we let them, these tools could change the way we look at medicine.
Image Credit: Intuitive Surgical Continue reading
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