Mind Your Language in front of the TV

1 Reply Jonny Hankins

Samsung-F8500-plasma-review-smart-tv

Privacy

I have a friend who puts tape over the webcam on his laptop while he is working, because he believes that people can hack into his computer and watch what he is doing. I must admit I thought it was a bit strange at first, but then hunting information I discovered that it was not only possible, but a well known crime involving organized gangs.

The UK recently took down a Russian website that was showing live webcam, taken without the knowledge of the people that were taking the footage. The incident not only involved security cameras, but all types of baby monitors and practically anything that has a camera and transmits data wirelessly.

Check out this article here.

Smart TV

But this is small fry really when you read this week’s news. A large TV manufacturer which has a product that recognizes voice controls seems to have been transmitting everything said in front of the TV to a third party.

They do this so that said third party can sieve through the words used to see if a command has been given. But there are many unanswered questions. Who is the third party? What are they doing with my data? Is it secure? The list goes on.

But said company are not trying to hide what they are doing:

Voice Recognition

You can control your SmartTV, and use many of its features, with voice commands.

If you enable Voice Recognition, you can interact with your Smart TV using your voice. To provide you the Voice Recognition feature, some voice commands may be transmitted (along with information about your device, including device identifiers) to a third-party service that converts speech to text or to the extent necessary to provide the Voice Recognition features to you. In addition, ******* may collect and your device may capture voice commands and associated texts so that we can provide you with Voice Recognition features and evaluate and improve the features. Please be aware that if your spoken words include personal or other sensitive information, that information will be among the data captured and transmitted to a third party through your use of Voice Recognition.

I am not sure that everyone who buys a TV of this type reads the Global Privacy Policy – SmartTV Supplement however, and they might be giving away a lot more than they would like to without knowing.

The BBC carries an article about this news with all of the names included. I think it is probably true though that if one company do it, then so do all the others.

Radar Searches of Private Houses

1 Reply Jonny Hankins

ranger-radar

Police Use

I think it is fair to say that the police force don’t have an easy job. News is coming out of the USA though of a new controversy. Many forces have apparently issued officers with hand held radars like the one in the picture above. These radars can be used to determine if a house is occupied or not.

Now as we might imagine this is military technology. No longer do you have to get your head blown off as you open a door to find the enemy inside with a weapon. No you can use your radar. You hold it against the outside off the building and it will tell you how many people are inside the building, where they are, and if they are moving, still, breathing, etc.

And this is great technology for fire fighters too. No longer will they have to risk sending people in to burning houses to see if anyone is inside, this machine will help them determine that the building is empty, or if the person inside is moving or even breathing.

And so certain police forces have started to use them. But things are a little different for the police. They have to have permission to search a house, and it is up for debate if the use of such a tool represents a search. There have been other similar instances, including determination that (in the USA) the use of heat imaging technology does constitute a search and even leading a police “sniffer” dog onto the front porch requires a warrant.

Privacy and Dual Use

So once again we reach a fine line, safety on the one side, and privacy on the other. And at the moment we are talking about government institutions using such devices. I am sure a certain section of my local community wouldn’t mind having one too, particularly those who like to steal computers from other people’s property while they are away.

But we should also remember that we live with military cast offs every day. The Internet itself is a military tool, both in terms of its development and current use. And even the search engine TOR and some of the things that are sometimes seen as unsavoury, benefit from their interactions with various secret service organizations. And nanotechnology development in the USA has greatly benefited from defense money.

There are plenty of articles available if you search this topic, some more technical than others, so I won’t attach any links and you can find your own.

The Edge of Knowledge

1 Reply Jonny Hankins

quote-life-is-a-travelling-to-the-edge-of-knowledge-then-a-leap-taken-david-herbert-lawrence-108885

What do you think about machines that think? Or should I say machines who think? That is the 2015 EDGE question.

Edge of Knowledge

Edge.org was launched in 1996 as the online version of “The Reality Club” and as a living document on the Web to display the activities of “The Third Culture”. What is the third culture? Oh to put it in their words.  ‘the third culture consists of those scientists and other thinkers in the empirical world who, through their work and expository writing, are taking the place of the traditional intellectual in rendering visible the deeper meanings of our lives, redefining who and what we are’.

And members (Edgies) have been responding to an annual question now for some time.

What should we be worried about? What is your favourite explanation? How is the Internet changing the way you think? What will change everything? You know, just regular questions. OK big questions.

And this group contains a lot of famous names. Well this group is made up of famous people is a better description, from many walks of life, and so the answers are extremely interesting. Go and check a few out on the website.

Artificial Intelligence

As is the preamble on the website:

“In recent years, the 1980s-era philosophical discussions about artificial intelligence (AI)—whether computers can “really” think, refer, be conscious, and so on—have led to new conversations about how we should deal with the forms that many argue actually are implemented. These “AIs”, if they achieve “Superintelligence” (Nick Bostrom), could pose “existential risks” that lead to “Our Final Hour” (Martin Rees). And Stephen Hawking recently made international headlines when he noted “The development of full artificial intelligence could spell the end of the human race.”

But wait! Should we also ask what machines that think, or, “AIs”, might be thinking about? Do they want, do they expect civil rights? Do they have feelings? What kind of government (for us) would an AI choose? What kind of society would they want to structure for themselves? Or is “their” society “our” society? Will we, and the AIs, include each other within our respective circles of empathy?”

So how close are we to these predictions, dreams and nightmares? There is plenty of stuff on the web to feed the interested, and surely enough developments will surely move in that direction. Last week we learned that a computer can work out aspects of your personality thanks to your social media use (see the post here). But intelligence? Computing variables is not intelligence.

And can we say that learning is intelligence? Computers can certainly learn, but can they think? Can they reason? What does it mean to think? To make a decision based on what? If the decision is based on experience then to some extent it is a calculation, or a computation, and if that is the case then a computer can think.

So back to the question. What Do You Think About Machines That Think?