Would you want to be resurrected?

11

October

2019

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Today, an estimated amount of 2.8 billion people are making use of social media networks worldwide, a number that is expected to increase to around 3.1 billion in 2021 (Statistica, 2019). All these people have created a personal profile, established their online presence, and are basically generating an online archive of their lives.

 

We, humans, are creating a staggering amount of data that is still increasing exponentially. Furthermore, the ability of humans to analyse this data is growing exponentially as well (Brynjolfsson and McAfee, 2017). What if artificial intelligence could analyse this data in such way that it could predict the way that we are interacting right now. Imagine an AI system analysing the data of a very active social media user; learning and understanding the way they interact with their online peers. In the near future, this machine might be able to predict how someone would interact with their peers or their loved ones. The children from now will have created such a vast in amount of data available for this analysis, that once they die artificial intelligence might be able to create a computer personality that is just like them (Ostrow, 2011). Furthermore, with the current advances in technology, a robot or hologram could even be created that would be able to replace that person once they die (Ostrow, 2011). This robot or hologram could even have the same voice, by for example using Google’s data on voice recognition. As can be seen in the videoclip below, robots or holograms that act as humans are already a common theme in movies.

Important questions arise concerning ethicality, privacy and whether we would even want this. Due to the enormous amounts of data we currently produce, people could decide to ‘resurrect’ us, even without our permission. We should start considering this possibility, and what we could do to prevent this. We must come up with new and easier ways to delete all your data when you die, from that Twitter entry from the year 2000, to a recording of your voice.

 

 

 

 

Brynjolfsson, E. and McAfee, A. (2017). The Business Of Artificial Intelligence: What it can – and cannot – do for your organization. Harvard Business Review.

 

Ostrow, A. (2011) After your final status update. TedTalks, https://www.ted.com/talks/adam_ostrow_after_your_final_status_update?referrer=playlist-our_digital_lives

 

Statista. (2019). Number of social media users worldwide 2010-2021. [online] Available at: https://www.statista.com/statistics/278414/number-of-worldwide-social-network-users/ [Accessed 10 Oct. 2019].

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Could AI prevent suicide?

9

October

2019

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Is your phone spying on you? This question runs through the heads of many cell phone users today. For example, when you are checking out a new bag on the internet, all by yourself. The next thing you know, this bag follows you everywhere on the internet, like Facebook, online retailers and even LinkedIn. It is like this bag is stalking you. This is phenomenon is commonly known as targeted advertising (The Goodwill Community Foundation, 2019). What if the same principles of artificial intelligence and neural networks that are used for targeted advertising, could be used for recognizing patterns in the behaviour of millions of suicidal people.

 

As Brynjolfsson and McAfee (2017) state: artificial intelligence is changing the way we interact with data. Machines are really good in finding patterns in very large data sets, and they can make sense of those patterns much better and easier than humans can (Brynjolfsson and McAfee, 2017). Today, there is still a lot of stigma associated with mental illnesses, and this might be the reason for people to hesitate if they should consult others if they are struggling. The suicide rates are still increasing each year in the United States, even though there is a good way to recognize and reach the people who are struggling (Howard, 2019). There are a few common suicide warning signs, as Howard (2019) discusses in the video below.

The problem is that humans are not very good at detecting these patterns, like changes in someone’s sleep, exercise levels and public interaction. Artificial intelligence and deep learning can learn how to recognize these patterns (Brynjolfsson and McAfee, 2017). By, for example, tracking your social media habits, google searches and sleep data, artificial intelligence can recognize these warning signs and direct you to suicide prevention hotlines and websites. Would that not be amazing?

 

 

 

References 

Brynjolfsson, E. and McAfee, A. (2017). The Business Of Artificial Intelligence: What it can – and cannot – do for your organization. Harvard Business Review.

Howard, J. (2019). The US suicide rate is up 33% since 1999. [online] CNN. Available at: https://edition.cnn.com/2019/06/20/health/suicide-rates-nchs-study/index.html [Accessed 9 Oct. 2019].

The Goodwill Community Foundation. (2019). The Now: What is Targeted Advertising?. [online] Available at: https://edu.gcfglobal.org/en/thenow/what-is-targeted-advertising/1/ [Accessed 8 Oct. 2019].

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