Looking Ahead:
The Age of Convergence
and Convenience
December 4, 2014
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Convenience is the
new normal.
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Major Questions
 Is it possible to make good predictions?
 “It is inconceivable,”
 The convergence of “search, location, and
social” is the next big narrative. Eric Schmidt
– Google Chairman
 Who is responsible for autonomous
robots’ actions?
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On Predictions
Arthur C. Clarke's Three Laws
When a distinguished but elderly scientist
states that something is possible, he is
almost certainly right. When he states that
something is impossible, he is very
probably wrong.
The only way of discovering the limits of
the possible is to venture a little way past
them into the impossible.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is
indistinguishable from magic.
(Clarke suggested the Geosynchronous
Orbit in 1945.)
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Commercial Drones
Federal Aviation Administration passed a road
map and regulation to have commercial
drones by September 2015.
Expected to approve 7500 drones by
September 2015.
Huge potential for economic growth.
Expected problems are:
Training of ground based pilots;
Drone safety;
Communication between commercial airline
and drones.
Privacy
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FAA
Safety is central to the FAA’s existence.
The agency was established in 1958 when
Congress enacted the Federal Aviation Act,
which tasked the agency with
“develop[ing] plans and policy for the use of
the navigable airspace and assign by
regulation or order the use of the airspace
necessary to ensure the safety of aircraft and
the efficient use of airspace.”
The 1958 Act was passed in the aftermath of a
tragic midair collision between a Trans World
Airlines Super Constellation and a United Air
Lines DC-7 over the Grand Canyon, which
killed all 128 people on board the planes.
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Predictions of the Future
Predictions of the Future (backwards).
See Nicolas Negroponte
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Example of Convenience
 Corning
Glass – everything on my finger tips
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@2020
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A global, low cost network infrastructure.
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Autonomous technology is a problem.
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Transparency builds a better world; even
at the expense of privacy.
People will be lost to virtual realities.
Thomas Friedman’s “The World is Flat”
becomes even more flat.
Refusenicks will self segregate to form
communities.
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Robot Education/Socialization
Who is responsible for
teaching machines about
how to live with us?
Is the Rightness of Action
Determined Solely by the
Value of Consequences?
Utilitarian ethics will be
critical.
Regulatory and privacy issues
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Ethics and Moral Machines
Isaac Asimov’s Three Laws of Robots
A robot may not injure a human being, or
through inaction, allow a human being to
come to harm;
A robot must obey orders given it by
human beings except where such orders
would conflict with the first law;
A robot must protect its own existence as
long as such protection does not conflict
with the first and second laws.
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Digital Divide and
Globalization
Changes in policies toward
aging workers and technology
A child born today with a life
expectancy of 90 will live to
2104
Other digital divide factors like
education,
economics, and
access
Development of mutually
agreed standards of conduct
across the globe.
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Business Models
Today computer science is really about
consumers and information.
In the future it will be about “claimed
places”, which would allow businesses to
take advantage of location-based search
and smartphones as part of their advertising,
service delivery and safety.
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Business Models
Intelligence is expensive now, but will be free in the
future, just as we thought computing power would
remain expensive.
The future will bring (artificial) intelligence to the masses,
the same way we now have high speed internet.
Thus individuals will be able to develop any service without the
need of a company to back them up.
http://liveops.com/
Creative ideas will become the source of success. Today
we have plenty of ideas but not enough people to turn
them into reality, so the doers have the advantage.
The doers will no longer be needed in the future though, as the
doing will be done by the cloud.
Talk about a revolution!