Instead of gloom and doom, how about some AI-based visions of a better world. As always, these are my opinions based on my life experiences — your views may, and should, differ.
I love Sci-fi. ATM I am reading Octavia E Butler’s Xenogenesis. The books are incredible and a little disturbing. This got me to thinking about dystopic societies. And then, Geoff Hinton’s recent retirement and interviews certainly made me think of AI and dystopias together. However, lately I have been feeling like, “What we imagine, is what we get.” Creating something new means imagining it first, even in product management. So in that vein, I want to share how I imagine the world could use AI to make more positive outcomes instead of negative.
Something to stop excess consumerism. What? Wait? A product manager that is not endorsing more purchases. Huh? I think there are opportunities to purchase products and services to make our world better. But I don’t think we should just blindly go on buying stuff, even if it makes us personally feel good. Our oceans and landfills are full already. How about an App that rewards you when you spend less in those categories that you deem frivolous? Gamification as it were, so that you can get endorphins when you don’t buy. Or, maybe its an AI that reads your physical cues and provides you with positive feedback when you stay within your own defined limits? I think that there’s as opportunity here with a system that is uniquely trained to you with your objectives. Like an AI buddy system. Before anyone gets too excited about the dystopia potential of AI behavioral control, I suggest you look at social media — its already here.
Foodbank supply chain support. How about an optimized way to capture food that would be wasted and instead deliver it to foodbanks for distribution? Yes, of course the better option is to make sure that no one needs a food bank to begin with but this is a tech blog and that problem requires way more than tech IMHO. So here’s one idea: AI controlled drones that captures food that would become waste and diverts it to a local distribution station. If we can have drone-based delivery for on-line purchases, why not to feed people? It would certainly be better than the non-optimized resource constrained systems in use now.
Electric personal vehicles. While you may see lots of mopeds, e-bikes and other small electric vehicles in warm countries; not so much in Canada. And, there are micro EV cars but they have micro-tires. Can we have a small covered e-vehicle that is suited for cold cities with snow? I am thinking single seater micro cars with fat winter tires for that commuter who just won’t (or can’t) use public transit. Where’s the AI? Why driving in the year’s first snow storm of course, we all do it badly. Seriously though, we would need some AI assistance to drive a re-designed personal vehicle.
Medical Assistant. I am not talking about a Star Trek medical tricorder here but rather some basic diagnostic tools. We have so much data collected about us and yet medical systems seem to be an area that is challenged by using it well. Wouldn’t it be fabulous to answer those questions just once when you land in the clinic and have it linked to all the tests and diagnosis that you ever had? Oh, and how about the corresponding probability scores for likely ailments that you are presenting with. I am not talking about robo-doc here, rather a tool to help reduce the variability and human error. It sometimes seems that our feeds have a more comprehensive view of us than our health care provider.
Fair HR screening. AI is all over the hiring process, let’s make it better. How about pre-processing the resume and other documents to anonymize the applicant? This would remove gender and race information that influence decision making, at least in the early stage. And what about an AI analysis of bias in the hiring process and compensation offered? Like a continual self analysis of the system. We use AI to assess individuals, think risk in giving credit, so why not assess the systems that are assessing the individuals? There is so much opportunity here, if a company truly wants to hire better.
Those are the big ones that came quickly to my mind. Here are also a few less revolutionary but still in the theme of “making life better”:
- Lie detection that works on video — catch the politician or others in the act of telling that big one.
- True cost App — enter in the product information, country of origin and brand and get the number of lbs. of CO2 and the % of living wage that the worker likely earned in making the product. Its hard to make better buying choices without the data.
- Body scanner plus AI — imagine online purchased clothes that are never the wrong size again. Think about it, accurate measurements and enough smarts to be able to show you how it fits you in a 3d rendering.
What do you think? Are these good or lame? What would you imagine that we could create with AI to make the world better?
There is so much opportunity to create a better world and AI is just one of the tools that we have at our disposal. We need everyone’s ideas on how to use AI for good, because its not going away and no one is planning to stop research. No matter who says we should.
