The Black Box of Knowledge.

 

Wow, it is been quite the week for my little blog. Great to see all the traffic.

Here it is Thursday night and I'm quickly writing a little note because the way Friday is shaping up I may not have time to post a decent article or video....

Well, as it turns out time was available to do a video😀 and while I was doing it, it brought up a few more thoughts.

A few articles ago I mentioned that I was doing a piece on how the advent of AI is going to affect how society perceives and uses knowledge. This is the first attempt at such article. What I find fascinating is that we are quickly reaching a point where people will not be able to understand how artificial intelligence solved a certain problem. For the simple reason that the AI is capable of going through so much more information. Google's Gemini for example can churn through hundreds of thousands of document in an hour. We must also be aware that we are only at the very beginning of this evolution in technology. Regardless however I think it's here to stay in one form or another. Then there was the announcement of AI starting to be phased into digital assistances in late 2024 by YouTuber  "Automate Your Life "in this video blog.

So our relationship to knowledge is going to change and I think verily rapidly. Will knowledge become more of a, for lack of a better term, "black box", where we trusted by default simply because we cannot hold to comprehend all of the details.

Now project this down the road a bit into the future. How will this affect learning? Look at how dependent we are on our devices not only to store information but for basic mathematics or even arithmetic. When was the last time you sat down and divided more than a few numbers in your head or even on paper?

Remember when you could do basic math in your head or remember a phone number. How quickly those skills became obsolete and yet that little bit of mental exercise really did have an impact, which was far-reaching. The very basic exercise of doing math in your head I believe helps keep one grounded in reality and overall helps keeps a person more awake and less on autopilot.

Just how automatic do we want the world to become? This and other questions are important to answer. Too much automation is not good for society. It is through effort and collaboration that the human spirit grows.

Depending upon how my Friday goes I will add a video. Most certainly at some point over the weekend one will be added. For now however I just wanted to touch base and let everyone know I am still cooking up this idea in regards to artificial intelligence and the future of knowledge. 

Take care Patrick

Ten Years from Now, 2023...?

 Right now, on this very day, it's Labor Day 2023 in Canada...  How will we use and relate to technology in 10 years, 2034 (it's in the latter half of 2023, so for the sake of discussion will just call it 10 years ahead.)?

This question has been asked in various forms throughout the years but this time around both technology and the society are evolving extremely rapidly. Knowledge itself has changed fundamentally. It used to be you would learn of fact, some tidbit of information and that data was considered for the most part permanent and useful for a long time. Now the platforms and ways of doing things are completely in flux. You may learn something on Tuesday and a month down the road an update to some system you use has completely changed and made that knowledge you gained previously completely moot.

This must drive those in charge of archiving material completely nuts. I mean do you store the data on? What do you know for certain will be around in 10 years. If you store it in the cloud will that service be around. Will the protocols that run the Internet changes vastly. I believe this was one of the problems NASA faced with the Voyager 1 spacecraft years later. They were faced with the old age in computer system which he coded the data and no one knew how to repair it or the language it used was no longer taught. In this situation they had a machine out there in space which was sending information which soon could not be decoded. They were losing their Rosetta Stone. Ultimately I think and I'll put a link to a Wikipedia or NASA article right here for more up-to-date information, they just decided to turn the spacecraft off.

Indeed I have seen the "Compact Disc" be developed, hit the market, and it disappear in about 20 years. Pretty much in 1/5 of a lifetime something existing and then it did not. So how "permanent" will permanent be. Events like this redefine what we society perceived as a long time. Of course I rambled up a video. People seem to like them. Here you go:

I am most interested in how people will change. We have seen remarkable adjustments and also to aspects of what we collectively call "being human". I don't think I'm overstating this, these are fundamental changes and change the very fabric of the individual, especially when you look at it from a societal point of view. My hope is that ultimately when we've gotten over the technology and begin to use it as a tool we will begin to see just how interconnected things are over the long run. Maybe then societies will start to drop the artificial boundaries the human race has erected over centuries and intermingled their creativity and knowledge. It would be a society most foreign to you and I because hopefully they will find this part of human history a bit of an enigma. Considering people of the time creating most of their own problems because we had a mistaken belief in the power of division.

I wonder how intelligent life on other planets has dealt with these issues. As we explore space we are continually surprised by discoveries we never thought of. It shows that the human mind has a lot to expand for and that we are still for the most part wearing blinkers.

Anyway the adventure continues. Let's see if we can make it work shall we? :-)

May you have a great day!
Patrick

The Smart Phone Market Is the Definition of Insanity

It's the 21st century and people are beginning to take recycling and conservation very seriously. So why do we allow and indeed participate in the throwaway mentality of current smart phones?

They should be built to last not expire in two or three years. People behave like they're involved in an arms race; constantly upgrading for the latest and best technology. Think about the number of resources that go into the short life cycle of a phone. Rare materials many of which are toxic and some almost impossible to recycle.

So what's going on here and why are people buying into this? My phone is barely 3 years old and has begun to fall apart. I investigated and found that the entire phone is glued together. I don't think there's a screw or a clip in the whole thing. $600 is what it cost me when it was new because I bought it out right, wanting to avoid getting locked into a plan because one never knows what my income is going to be in the years moving forward. In other words I was looking to keep my life simple.

My needs in regards to this technology are very straightforward:

1. A clean un-bloated operating system android like operating system.
2. I'm willing to pay extra for good hardware as I do use quite a few apps for work.
3. I couldn't care less about the camera as long as it is sufficient to grab the occasional QR code.

Sounds like a pretty simple shopping list doesn't? Yet the way phones are marketed makes finding out that information rather challenging. As a matter of fact the last online at will I checked out for a phone spoke about everything except those basic points. The entire 10 page manual was more of an advertisement and the last thing we talked about was the actual phone functionality. In other words it was a camera first and the phone was almost an afterthought.

The other issue that really gets me going is updates to the software, or lack thereof, two years in and you're pretty much out of luck as far as patches go from some suppliers. Can we at least begin to turn this around by insisting that the batteries are replaceable and recyclable?

TVs are now beginning to go this way as well. My first Smart TV it took two years to get all the bugs out of the OS and then the manufacturer started shutting features down. Boy I was not impressed.

The thinking should be the other way around and go something like this:

1. If the hardware and software are capable of keeping the device secure and safe, then in order to maximize its useful life manufacturers must maintain it. They can offer new products but the consumer must be able to use their device to the fullest extent. This keeps things out of the recycling and saves the new amount in energy and resources.
   
   
2. The idea of building something to last is a concept that I think many people would welcome back. True there would be a reeducation going on because many people have never thought in that way.
   
   
3. This would have the effect of freeing people up to choose when to upgrade.
   
   
4. If the consumer new that the device was created to last and be serviceable in its lifetime then it is likely they would see the price as an investment. This would build loyalty which is something that every manufacturer needs.

Okay gang that's the end of my rant. What do you think. Let me know in the comments or by sending a note.

Take care Patrick

There simply must be a better way to set up smart devices.

Photo by Jernej Furman on Flickr
Creative Commons CC BY 2.0  license

Like everybody else who even touches technology I have many accounts with a fair number of companies just so that all my smart devices work. I get worried though, most of the time, when I investigate the following two things:

1. Terms of service and privacy. Why the heck would a smart power plug need access to so much in my device? Some of this is really concerning because it becomes apparent that there doing something with all that data and for me this is a dealbreaker. When a product requires so much material that is unrelated to its operation a red flag really goes up
   
   
2.  Incredibly poorly written apps and overall design. I was just helping a friend and the majority of the apps interface is bright white with small bright green lettering. It doesn't even look aesthetically good, mainly because you can barely see anything.

Taken together if the company hits on the above two points, I run away had full speed because in my book it also means that the likelihood of them being around in five years is dubious. Making the very nice power bar into a "dumb" power bar with the added complication of the fact that it still transmits its Wi-Fi signal.

Pardon me but I just had the vent.

 All my friend wants to do is have a timer to turn off and on the charging on their backup electric chair. With critical equipment you don't want to leave it on charge all the time because some batteries will deteriorate even if it's a small amount of continuous charge and by the same token you don't want to leave them unplugged for too long either. Ideally you want your chair to be ready to go when you need it. 

But set ups like this are just ridiculous. And as I said I am not impressed with the app itself. It just looks janky. It will work but I expect better from companies.

Take care Patrick

Voice assistances and disability

 

Voice assistance whether it be Google or Amazon: are they sufficiently useful now for the disabled?

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January 22, 2023 update

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 The person who was to be the key focal point of this project has gone silent. Now it could be that they are dealing with other more pressing issues. Life as everyone knows can get very complicated awfully quickly.

So for now this project is on the back burner although my curiosity has been aroused, so I will keep investigating as time permits. That way if they do make contact again we will be able to hit the ground running.

Of course if I find anything of mutely interesting in either hardware or software. There's a high probability that I will post news of the device or application to this blog.

Take care Patrick.

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Pretty much everything now at least in the technology sector seems to be voice assistant capable at least in some degree. With the new Matter standard being talked about all over the Internet it seems that things are slowly improving. However at the same time a lot of companies are having difficulties because everyone has jumped on the bandwagon. The prime example of this is the smart lights market.  I bought into the LIFX lighting ecosystem verily early on because the hardware and colour accuracy appeared to be the best, even though the product line is expensive, upwards of $50 Canadian for a single smart light. Now it is hard to say with the huge amount of competition whether anyone company will survive.

So if you are looking toward the smart device to help in some way improve your life the first question that comes to my mind is which of the companies are going to be around long enough? It has only been about four years since I bought my first LIFX device and now I have over 25 of them mainly focused on lighting but because they require an Internet connection back to a LIFX server, things could get very dicey if the company collapses. Fortunately lighting is not a critical issue. One can get a light pretty much anywhere now days :-).

Let's say however I used to smart device to open or close a door, or automate a phone call. Or even a program on a computer like initiating a Zoom session or Microsoft Teams for that matter. The Matter Standard is supposed to be able to alleviate some of the issue by making control of the devices local and not dependent on a remote server. But the standard itself is new and although backed by many companies may or may not fly.

So how does a person with a disability proceed in enabling high tech features in their homes?

In the coming days I hope to have a few answers for you, as I personally dig into this issue. Stay tuned.
Patrick

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January 11, 2023 update

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I was eagerly awaiting meeting this person today in order to dig into their issues and solve or at least get clarification on where they were with technology and smart assistance.

I didn't meet them yet as they only use a single platform for communication and it became clear that before we could proceed that they had to agree to meet with me. Rather than just their representative. I know this sounds a little bizarre. But I also understand the concerns put forward.

So the standby. I have indicated my willingness to work with them and I am very curious as to what solutions I will come up with or what things will be discovered.

Apologies for being a little on the vague side but until we get the ball rolling any more concrete fashion, patients will have to be a virtue that is relied upon.

More in the next day or two.
Patrick

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January 13, 2023 update

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Sorry folks. Still awaiting a reply from this person as to whether they want to proceed with the project. These kind of delays are not uncommon when you are dealing with many layers of bureaucracy. Personally though the suspense is killing me.

I really want to get into this to see what needs to be done. What kind of limitations and/or parameters were dealing with. If funding is needed how to brainstorm on getting the required resources. I have been on this planet for 63 years and I know where there's a will there's a way. This may sound a little odd, but I truly hope that this situation is not to simple to fix. When I was young I was the kid who would take apart all their Christmas presents. This undoubtedly drove my parents nuts.

Stay tuned. The minute I know something. You will to.
Take care Patrick

"Hey Google Park the wheelchair."

 

New Year's and Christmas have passed, and so I found myself thinking: "You know, I really should get my self something novel but yet useful." (The word useful can be applied very loosely here in this context.)

I am a geek, and am always fascinated by creativity combined with technology. So I set my sights on finding something out of the ordinary in the truly gizmo range. I had no idea my quest would be so difficult...

When it comes to wireless technology it seems that everything relates to one of the following, it is either, smart lighting,-including thermostats and switches etc., smart cameras, smart speakers, smart assistance. While the list of devices goes on and on there doesn't appear to be any real innovation. Every year it appears to be a rehash of the same narrow products. With all the companies out there involved you would think there would be at the very least a plethora of good, for example smart coffeemakers that could grind your beans, so that when one staggers out of the bedroom you have an excellent cup of coffee waiting. The point is there there are a wide variety of potential products it uses that could benefit from automation but we seem to be stuck on a fairly narrow range.

So I have a question for you: Have you heard of any unusual devices that are part of the burgeoning smart technology? Something that really adds functionality or convenience to one's life.

Personally since I use an electric wheelchair, I would love to have a self parking chair. Thereby relieving the staff from having to drive it into its parking spot every night. (For new staff driving a expensive highly sensitive motorized wheelchair can be a little terrifying for both them and myself. 😄)
 

To put it another way, which might make the question clearer:
In regards to the "Internet of Things". Do you find the range of products diversifying into new uses and abilities or is it more of a rehash of a limited range of categories?

 
Leave your comments if you have any thoughts on this.