B1 - Group A: Samuel Boyce

Artificial intelligence as a term was first coined in 1955, but as with a lot of computer technology the development speed has been exponential; therefore large gains have been made since entering this millennium. Many of you will have seen that IBM created a question answering machine that was able to defeat two humans at a game of Jeopardy!. Although it could be said that this is somewhat of a gimmicky development for the field of AI, that was just the start. Watson has already gone on to be used in the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in order for lung cancer treatment decisions to be made. Now the real implications for this technology can be seen. This is why I chose the article “IBM’s Watson shown to enhance-computer co-creativity, support biologically inspired design” as the article to look at. The AI in our smartphones pales in comparison to what Watson can accomplish; but like all technology, it will only get cheaper and more accessible as time goes on. It is hard to draw any negatives from this. In this article, Watson is being trained in order to answer questions that relate to biomimetic, which biologically inspired design. The idea is hypotheticals could be run by Watson and an expert answer provided, saving both on time and money. This naturally leads into the discussion that Watson could be the best research assistant you will ever work with, as it is able to absorb knowledge well beyond a human capability.

Source: Ashok Goel, Brian Creeden, Mithun Kumble, Shanu Salunke, Abhinaya Shetty, Bryan Wiltgen. Using Watson for Enhancing Human-Computer Co-Creativity Procs. AAAI 2015 Fall Symposium on Cognitive Assistance. Nov. 2015. (open access)

My second tag to look at, computers, ties into Watson as computers for now will be our access route to the knowledge base that Watson holds. The main goal for computing is to get faster and smaller, as evidenced by looking at the development from the first computers to what we have for phones today. We are rapidly moving to a day and age where computers will be everywhere, the “Internet of Things”. This is discussed in the article “Why It Matters”. The company Freescale has managed to create a computer that is two millimeters square. Discussions are made in the article that the aim of this minicomputer is create a wireless enabled computer that can be swallowed, thus really ensuring the “Internet of Things”. There is even talks of harnessing energy from heat, radio waves or light in order to ensure complete independence of the microprocessors.

Source: http://www.technologyreview.com/news/514101/wanted-for-the-internet-of-things-ant-sized-computers/

Moving on to yet another related tag, software, we begin to see the ever increasing importance of having computers, and especially those that are sized correctly and powerful enough for the applications required of them. The article in question is “Five Lessons the Buildings Industry Can Learn From the Wearable Tracker Craze”. These are summarized as follows:

1.      Use wearables that can track even more than just a step count, in order to ensure effective running of the building.

2.      Create friendly competition between building occupants by allowing shared access to data in order for people to improve themselves

3.      Create positive targets for people to achieve and receive reward

4.      Use multiple data points in order to ensure efficiency of data applications and correct inferences

5.      Make use of the data in a constructive way

This is somewhat similar to technology that is being implemented at the new Ambulatory Care Center at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. They are using wearables on all patients and staff that will be tracking their location in the hospital, in order to ensure their location and timely treatment. Their entire appointment can be tracked throughout and this data can be utilized in order to increase efficiency of patient care, as well as see where deficiencies exist in the patient care model.

Source: http://blog.rmi.org/blog_2015_07_07_five_lessons_building_industry_can_learn_from_wearable_tracker_craze

And now finally, a look towards the future. I had mentioned earlier that there is this concept that exists which is known as the Internet of Things. All the technologies previously discussed will be a part of this. As discussed in the article, “Future computing: The Internet of Things”, there is a goal of making life simpler too. This can even be down to the mundane task of checking where the gas level in your barbecue is at. Now this isn’t necessarily going to save the world, but just think that this could be also be applied to the oxygen tank levels of a hospital. We begin to see that there are many applications for this small computer based sensors, from security, to health care to automobiles. However, there is a dark side to all of this, which is that by connecting everything, you open yourself to attack; such as when a man was able to hack into a plane’s cockpit while sat in his seat, using the in-flight entertainment system. It should be hoped for that the rapid advancements in technology do not come without some forethought into what could happen if things go wrong.

Source: http://windowssecrets.com/newsletter/future-computing-the-internet-of-things/

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