The mirror test is used as a method of testing self-awareness in animals. Some higher animals, including us humans, are quite good at recognizing their mirror image. And so will autonomous machines have to be if they want to successfully navigate the real world. In particular if they are household aids where mirrors are a quite common sight.

However, unlike for most humans deciding whether they look in a mirror or not might not be as easy for robots. Humans, unless they are identical twins, almost never encounter another person that looks exactly like them. For robots encountering “mirror” copies of themselves is rather likely. In that case they need to decide whether they look at another robot or at a mirror.

For humans this is simple: we just wink. If we aren’t looking in a mirror the person opposite to us will have problems to wink exactly at the same time. Not so for a robot. If its twin is fast enough it might succeed in tricking the robot into thinking it deals with a mirror.

This scenario could be thought of being rather unlikely. And it certainly is for household robots. However, if battlefield robots are starting to encounter each other more often a behavior like this will emerge rather sooner than later. And this friend-foe detection will not be a trivial problem to solve. Instead of camouflage print we might see intricately patterned raggery on robots…

This year I have submitted a talk based on the work for the “Augmenting Man” chapter of the “BitBang – Rays to the Future” book. The talk was titled “Here be Electric Dragons – Preparing for the Emancipation of Machines”. There I tried to show that autonomous machines are distinctly different from conventional machines: unlike them they are not merely an extension of our bodies but rather a new kind of symbiotic species. The interest in the topic was overwhelming and the reception really positive. The talk was also broadcasted and there will be a video download available shortly.

Revolutions create a curious inversion of perception. In ordinary times, people who do no more than describe the world around them are seen as pragmatists, while those who imagine fabulous alternative futures are viewed as radicals. The last couple of decades haven’t been ordinary, however. Inside the papers, the pragmatists were the ones simply looking out the window and noticing that the real world was increasingly resembling the unthinkable scenario. These people were treated as if they were barking mad. Meanwhile the people spinning visions of popular walled gardens and enthusiastic micropayment adoption, visions unsupported by reality, were regarded not as charlatans but saviors. When reality is labeled unthinkable, it creates a kind of sickness in an industry. Leadership becomes faith-based, while employees who have the temerity to suggest that what seems to be happening is in fact happening are herded into Innovation Departments, where they can be ignored en masse. This shunting aside of the realists in favor of the fabulists has different effects on different industries at different times. One of the effects on the newspapers is that many of their most passionate defenders are unable, even now, to plan for a world in which the industry they knew is visibly going away.

link: Newspapers and Thinking the Unthinkable « Clay Shirky

I have a dream of a navigation aid that feels natural, is more useful, and less incapacitating. It should aid me in finding my way in a flexible manner without forcing its route on me. These requirements already make one thing clear: looking at a screen is not an option. The interaction has to be much less obtrusive. Spoken instructions seem to be the best solution. But here it isn’t enough to tell me to take a right in 50, 20, 5 meters.

Why not? For example, often I don’t need to take the shortest route. I would like to walk and just “happen to find”¹ my way. The navigator needs to leave room for a certain amount of fuzziness: “The location is about 15 min walk ahead of you.” There is then also not necessarily a need to calculate a route at all. Instead I might prefer to navigate by landmarks: “Walk towards the church tower” or “Cross the river and then walk right”.

Am I asking for too much? I guess from a technology point of view it should be possible. Most maps already have useful landmarks. Other information is also available. For example, the navigation software knows the position of the sun/moon, it can find out the weather at my location and can make an educated guess on whether it might be useful for me to know whether I should “have the sun on my left” or walk “with the wind in my back”. ² The data is there, someone just needs to make use of it.

The content provider is pursuing an exponential business model. They have to. This is how corporate industry works. They think of the audiobook as a big asset they have created and that they can from that point on sell forever, and with each sold copy generate profit. And a great asset it is since selling it does not reduce it. And so it delivers a steady stream of revenue as long as it is in demand. Thus, by creating more and more of this immaterial works the revenue stream can grow exponential. This is the logic of content providers and the reason for copyright protection.

In contrast, the business model of the service provider is linear. The service provider can only expects payment for the creation of the audiobook. Once this is done the revenue stream ends. The service provider has to go on and create another work. There is a fixed amount of money for him independent of whether one or one million reader download the book.

The content provider will say this business model is unfair. That people who download an audiobook without paying are stealing its property. Interestingly, the providers have no problem with applying the very same model within their business process. Is the person recording the book payed based on how many people listen to it? I doubt it. Therein lies a fundamental unfairness and the hypocrisy of copyright. So yes, leaving the content provider idea behind means saying good bye to comfortable business models and exponential revenue. But it might be the moral imperative.

Even though this idea might sound far fetched at a first look its realization requires only some incremental development. In fact building the required hardware is entirely feasible already today. In a simple version it could be based on a 2009 smart phone. These devices are connected wirelessly to cloud storage and computation resources and are also equipped with local storage and processing capabilities. They already come with a wide range of sensors, e.g. microphone, camera, gps, thermometer, accelerometer, etc. And they have a broad range of radio communication interfaces as well as acoustic and optical outputs. Such a device can act as an intermediary between the user and all other computerized technology. ² In order for such a device to work as a dæmon only natural language understanding and augmented reality output need to be improved.

However, why should these digital personal assistant look and behave like the dæmons in Pullman’s Dark Materials trilogy? There is only one thing not likely to change significantly in the next 25 years: human physiology and behavior. In a competitive environment the best-adapted device wins market share, the best-adapted means thus the best adapted to human capabilities. This means there is a trend toward more human-like interaction. Thus it is rather obvious that the optical representation of these assistants is likely to look like an animals.³

Pullman’s book is highly popular probably because of the appeal his dæmons have to the readers. They see in them the ultimate pet companion. However, when one reads ⁴ the book with a technology perspective it becomes obvious that this is what also makes dæmons the ultimate UI concept.⁵

Determine the total domestic CO2 emission for the last year. Divide the total amount by the population count. Give every resident its share of the emission rights in the form of certificates. Establish an exchange system where companies can buy pollution rights. Reduce the total amount by a fixed percentage every year.

What would be the consequences? Greenhouse gas emissions would steadily decline. Market mechanisms would price the cost for technological adaption. People with a small carbon footprint get rewarded.¹ The planet is saved!

But not so quick! The export dependent industries would suffer. Production would move to other countries without cap and trade. Millions will be unemployed, the economy ruined, and the country bankrupted. Or something like this.

That is why this system would need to be implemented globally. Then it would help foremost those poor nations ² that have to suffer most from the effects of global warming. The revenue from certificate sales could then be taxed locally to provide funding for climate change adaption programs. It could help poverty stricken countries to restore their economy. And that is precisely why industrial nations would never advocate it!

Or is it? The most interesting aspect of this idea is its pervasiveness. On top of being just, sustainable, and highly effective, it is also extremely populistic. Since every citizen get its share of certificates (= money) it is difficult to generate widespread opposition to it. Again, no cost, fee, tax, or the like – every person on earth gets the same amount of (valuable) certificates.³ Is it crazy to assume that any democratic system is highly susceptible to this idea? It seems to fulfill all requirements for a successful social hack. Someone somewhere just has to set the ball rolling!

Unnecessary to tell that this story is constructed, but it isn’t anywhere out of the ordinary. And there is really nothing special about it, or is there? Not unless I would claim that this happens to me every single day. Then, at least 20 years ago, this would have been material for a novel; titled something like “The lucky One”. Today, however, it is entirely obvious which technologies have been at play to facilitate this coincidence.

This artificial luck is technologically mediated serendipity. The advantage we derive from the use of ubiquitous information is indistinguishable from what we would commonly simply consider luck. In essence, this enhancement of our everyday life is nothing particularly new. The human race has been cyborgs since the discovery of fire. In the beginning augmentation through technology was restricted to physical abilities; a lever increases muscle power and a spyglass enhances sight. Later the augmentation was expanded to mental capabilities. Writing allowed to store information externally and later mechanical calculators improved on the processing of information. Today interactions with technology reach much deeper. Artificial luck is only one of humanities new traits. New artificial capabilities and skills are emerging everyday. For example, the ability to communicate with other people instantaneously over unlimited distance, telephony, would have been called telepathy a mere century ago. And gadgets like Plant Sense can be rightfully considered the digital equivalent of a green thumb. Something that not long ago requires passion and determination to acquire.

In a world where technology becomes ubiquitous it also gets more and more difficult to differentiate between skills and cyborg powers. After all, any sufficiently advance technology is indistinguishable from magic.

Similarly today’s science fiction writers will give away their background by getting wrong another small detail: writing and reading.

I predict that reading and writing skills will peak around 2025 and decline slowly (or rapidly in some parts of the worlds/particular classes) but steadily. For some aspects of writing this trend is already visible today. Compared to the refined handwriting of an educated person in the 19th century most of us can only produce sad squiggles. Orthography skills are also on the decline since we can rely on auto-correction.

In the future computers will be able to understand and synthesize natural language. This will eliminate one major need for reading and writing. Also storage media are going to be so cheap that there won’t be any need for using elaborate data compression techniques, like written language is. Instead story will be again be told or reenacted as it used to be. I’m looking forward to going back to the future.

I believe this is only true for old technology. Conventional machines need an environment that is simple; fitted to their limited flexibility. Plant rows need to be straight and crops need to be weed free. In the future more autonomous machines will instead be able to adapt to the plant’s environment. Industrial organic growing thus does not have to be an oxymoron. Embracing and developing these technologies might make sustainable agriculture possible for the mass market. MIT’s gardening robot might well be seen as a first step in this direction.