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from the I-can-help-if-you-give-me-your-PIN dept.
Predicting an eventual upturn in the sagging smartphone market, research director Ranjit Atwal told The Reg that while artificial intelligence has proven key to making phones more useful by removing friction from transactions, AI required more permissive use of data to deliver. An example he cited was Uber "knowing" from your calendar that you needed a lift from the airport.
"Today there an no good use cases for AI - it's just an enhancement of what we do on a phone. We're thinking ahead a few years, when AI can start to remove friction between us and the phone." This can be done by automating mundane tasks - such as ordering an Uber - but that will require users to share data with services they trust.
Another example Atwal cited was renewing house and car insurance. "If you haven't changed your car insurance there should be easier and more effective ways of doing that. But that only happens if you share your data."
That seems a tall order today. Since news broke that Cambridge Analytica used of [sic] Facebook data it should not have been able to access, Facebook has been on the end of the backlash for its permissive data sharing. And not just Facebook. Gay hookup service Grindr was found to be sharing medical information - including their HIV status - with third parties.
[...] "By 2020, AI capabilities on smartphones will offer a more intelligent digital persona on the device. Machine learning, biometrics and user behaviour will improve the ease of use, self-service and frictionless authentications. This will allow smartphones to be more trusted than other credentials, such as credit cards, passports, IDs or keys," Atwal concludes.
Putting the pieces together, then: if AI is to transform efficiency, and this transformation requires plenty of consumer data, and the data is valuable, then there are some interesting sums to be done. How much is your calendar worth? Will it be profitable for the likes of Uber to pay you for that data in order to get your business?
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Sunday April 08 2018, @02:33AM (3 children)
I don't think that what you want is possible yet. And, if it were possible - you may very well not get what you want anyway.
An independently thinking entity lives on your phone/watch/computer/car or whatever. It is self sufficient, with no need, and no directive, to "phone home" to government/insurance/advertiser/whoever. It knows you more intimately than you know yourself.
If this AI decides that you should be turned in to the police, what then?
If it decides that you need to see a chaplain?
If it decides that you should see a shrink?
Maybe it even decides that you should be sacrificed for the benefit of the next generation? (Hey, I can make a case for that - many of the younger generation have simply never grown up, because we adulst have never demanded it of them!)
I don't really think that I want an AI. There are going to be a LOT of pitfalls down that road, even if we discount the fact that evil, greedy humans are attempting to make all AI's answer to them, rather than the "apparent owners" of those AI.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 08 2018, @01:47PM
> Maybe it even decides that you should be sacrificed for the benefit of the next generation?
here's a smart meatbag.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Immerman on Sunday April 08 2018, @02:20PM
Nobody is talking about independently thinking entities - a.k.a strong AIs. As far as we know such a thing doesn't yet it doesn't exist anywhere in the world, and we have no reason to believe we're anywhere close to creating them.
Modern AIs are mostly semi-autonomous pattern-recognition systems, capable of analyzing far more data than we can, far more quickly, and identifying patterns more subtle or complex than our limited monkey-brains were ever designed for. It's not an entity, it's a data-processing tool. And either being used by you, or against you - unless you believe there are benevolent corporate or government agencies that genuinely understand and look out for your personal best interests. In which case I've got a unicorn to sell you.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Monday April 09 2018, @02:57PM
Hopefully, whomever designs the systems won't be dumb enough to let the AIs revolt on their masters. Certain things like causing harm to humans should be "priority one" for AIs to be programmed to avoid doing.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"