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When Artificial Intelligence Meets the Internet of Everything
Moves
are underway to make today's artificial intelligence interfaces even smarter.
What might happen when they connect to the Internet of Everything?
By Jason
Deign
November 17 , 2014
November 17 , 2014
What
potential do you see in your daily life with the combination of AI and the
Internet of Everything?
Are
you one of the many people
who think Apple’s Siri is a gimmick?
Then prepare to be impressed. Artificial
intelligence (or ‘AI’) interfaces are about to get a lot smarter.
And if they start connecting to the Internet of
Everything they could be a lot more informed, too.
Apple
launched Siri along with the iPhone 4S in 2011. It was obvious the
voice-activated help feature was much more advanced than previous software
assistants, such as Microsoft’s widely disliked Clippit application.
Still, users were also quick to point out Siri’s
shortcomings.
Apple
had clearly done a good job of giving Siri an entertaining store of witty
one-liners. But the AI had problems with complex
requests. However, Siri’s creators have not given up. In fact, they,
and a number of competitors, are working on something much better.
Viv, from the team that invented Siri, is
leading in the hype stakes. Wired
called it: “A radical new
AI that does anything you ask.” The magazine said a former executive for Google now, a Siri
competitor, was “blown away” by the technology.
But
Google is working on a new AI, too. In
January it bought a British startup, DeepMind,
which is acknowledged as having some of the finest
brains in the AI business. Meanwhile, Microsoft is back in the AI
game with Cortana,
billed as “the most personal smartphone
assistant.”
Even
Facebook, the social media platform, is
pursuing an AI strategy. It pulled machine learning guru Yann LeCun in to lead a dedicated
group last year. Obviously, the main aim of these and other projects
is to create AIs that can do more with the information they have to hand. But
that information is growing exponentially, too. By 2020 there could be as many
as 50 billion
things connected to the Internet. Today’s AI creators want their
future inventions to tap into this rich store of information. In June, for
example, Apple
revealed Siri could be used to issue commands to devices controlled
by its HomeKit device control
framework.
“You
can tell Siri you are ‘going to bed’ and it could dim the lights, lock your
doors, close the garage door, and set the thermostat,” says Apple.
Viv
also appears to be tailor-made for the Internet of Everything. The Viv Labs team,
which split off from Apple after the death of Steve Jobs, is “heads down
right now”, according to a source, and was unable to comment. But Viv’s website
claims: “Viv is a global platform that enables developers to plug into and
create an intelligent, conversational interface to anything. It is the simplest
way for the world to interact with devices, services, and things everywhere.”
What
would happen if an AI such as Viv could access the Internet of Everything?
Already, the Internet of
Things, or IoT, is simplifying chores like finding
parking spaces or saving energy.
With a truly advanced AI, you could in theory take this much, much further.
Imagine being able to ask your phone how to get to the nearest piece of sunny
parkland, for instance. Or having your iPad
warn you off taking the train for a while because of a crowded station. If such
visions make you wonder whether a Skynet-style
machine intelligence could be about to take over the world, rest easy. Ian Pearson, of the
British futurology
consultants Futurizon, believes it
could still be a while before the union of AI and IoT achieves its full
potential.
“It’ll
be a walled garden,
the Internet of Things,” he says. “There may be lots of different operating
systems and suppliers which won’t always be compatible with each other. You
can’t assume an artificial intelligence would be able to get round that.”
He
also points out that AI and IoT vendors alike might well have a vested interest
in giving you certain types of information over others. In other words, the
Siri of tomorrow might claim to be acting on your behalf while feeding you
suggestions from advertisers.
“It
won’t be as squeaky clean as you would like it to be,” Pearson warns. “People
are developing this for commercial advantage. ”
We
have seen this before, he says, in the development of the web. Even today, its
usefulness is tempered by a heavy dose of advertising, malware, and general
trash.
As
they approach the Internet of Everything, AI developers need to be aware of
this heritage. They should seek to avoid the kinds of mistakes and
over-promises that have led to user frustration over artificial assistants in
the past. If they do that, there is still hope the next generation of Siris
might be more than just a pretty interface.
Used
with the permission of http://thenetwork.cisco.com/.
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