Tech’s Ethical ‘Dark Side’: Harvard, Stanford and Others Want to Address It
This semester, Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology are jointly offering a new course on the ethics and regulation of artificial intelligence. The University of Texas at Austin just introduced a course titled “Ethical Foundations of Computer Science” — with the idea of eventually requiring it for all computer science majors.
And at Stanford University, the academic heart of the industry, three professors and a research fellow are developing a computer science ethics course for next year. They hope several hundred students will enroll.
The idea is to train the next generation of technologists and policymakers to consider the ramifications of innovations — like autonomous weapons or self-driving cars — before those products go on sale.
“Technology is not neutral,” said Professor Sahami, who formerly worked at Google as a senior research scientist. “The choices that get made in building technology then have social ramifications.”
“It was really focused on trying to help them understand what in their everyday practice as a data scientist they are likely to confront, and to help them think through those challenges more systematically,” said Solon Barocas, an assistant professor in information science who taught the course.
The curriculum also covers the spread of algorithmic risk scores that use data — like whether a person was ever suspended from school, or how many of his or her friends have arrest records — to forecast whether someone is likely to commit a crime.
See the full story here: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/12/business/computer-science-ethics-courses.html
Information Apocalypse
technologist Aviv Ovadya
Today Ovadya and a cohort of loosely affiliated researchers and academics are anxiously looking ahead — toward a future that is alarmingly dystopian.
For Ovadya — now the chief technologist for the University of Michigan’s Center for Social Media Responsibility and a Knight News innovation fellow at the Tow Center for Digital Journalism at Columbia — the shock and ongoing anxiety over Russian Facebook ads and Twitter bots pales in comparison to the greater threat: Technologies that can be used to enhance and distort what is real are evolving faster than our ability to understand and control or mitigate it.
Then there’s automated laser phishing, a tactic Ovadya notes security researchers are already whispering about. Essentially, it's using AI to scan things, like our social media presences, and craft false but believable messages from people we know. The game changer, according to Ovadya, is that something like laser phishing would allow bad actors to target anyone and to create a believable imitation of them using publicly available data.
“Previously one would have needed to have a human to mimic a voice or come up with an authentic fake conversation — in this version you could just press a button using open source software,” Ovadya said.
That can lead to something Ovadya calls “reality apathy”: Beset by a torrent of constant misinformation, people simply start to give up. “People stop paying attention to news and that fundamental level of informedness required for functional democracy becomes unstable.”
Ovadya (and other researchers) see laser phishing as an inevitability. “It’s a threat for sure, but even worse — I don't think there's a solution right now,” he said. “There's internet scale infrastructure stuff that needs to be built to stop this if it starts.”
Ovadya’s premonitions are particularly terrifying given the ease with which our democracy has already been manipulated by the most rudimentary, blunt-force misinformation techniques.
For those paying close attention to developments in artificial intelligence and machine learning, none of this feels like much of a stretch. Software currently in development at the chip manufacturer Nvidia can already convincingly generate hyperrealistic photos of objects, people, and even some landscapes by scouring tens of thousands of images. Adobe also recently piloted two projects — Voco and Cloak — the first a "Photoshop for audio," the second a tool that can seamlessly remove objects (and people!) from video in a matter of clicks.
... “generative adversarial network” (GAN), which is a neural network capable of learning without human supervision...GANs have both “imagination and introspection” and “can tell how well the generator is doing without relying on human feedback.”...
“Whether it’s AI, peculiar Amazon manipulation hacks, or fake political activism — these technological underpinnings [lead] to the increasing erosion of trust,” computational propaganda researcher Renee DiResta said of the future threat. “It makes it possible to cast aspersions on whether videos — or advocacy for that matter — are real.” DiResta pointed out Donald Trump’s recent denial that it was his voice on the infamous Access Hollywood tape, citing experts who told him it’s possible it was digitally faked. “You don't need to create the fake video for this tech to have a serious impact. You just point to the fact that the tech exists and you can impugn the integrity of the stuff that’s real.”
Last week, the NYC Media Lab, which helps the city’s companies and academics collaborate, announced a plan to bring together technologists and researchers in June to “explore worst case scenarios” for the future of news and tech. The event, which they’ve named Fake News Horror Show, is billed as “a science fair of terrifying propaganda tools — some real and some imagined, but all based on plausible technologies.”
...the first step for researchers like Ovadya is a daunting one: Convince the greater public, as well as lawmakers, university technologists, and tech companies, that a reality-distorting information apocalypse is not only plausible, but close at hand.
“I think what you’re seeing now is an attack on the enlightenment — and enlightenment documents like the Constitution — by adversaries trying to create a post-truth society. And that’s a direct threat to the foundations of our current civilization."
"I’m from the free and open source culture — the goal isn't to stop technology but ensure we're in an equilibria that's positive for people. So I’m not just shouting ‘this is going to happen,' but instead saying, ‘consider it seriously, examine the implications," Ovadya told BuzzFeed News.
That said, Ovadya does admit to a bit of optimism. ... "But the last few months have been really promising. Some of the checks and balances are beginning to fall into place." Similarly, there are solutions to be found — like cryptographic verification of images and audio, which could help distinguish what's real and what's manipulated.
See the full story here: https://www.buzzfeed.com/charliewarzel/the-terrifying-future-of-fake-news?utm_term=.ml601wWXG#.xeJwJnD82
Why is Occlusion in Augmented Reality So Hard?
The main problem with all the above systems is that in terms of depth sensing, they have:
- Poor range (<4m): The size and power limitations of mobile devices restrict the range of IR and Stereo depth sensors.
- Low resolution: Smaller objects in the scene are not discernible in the point cloud and it’s really hard to achieve crisp and reliable occlusion surfaces.
- Slow mesh reconstruction: Current methods of generating meshes from point clouds are too slow for real-time occlusion on these devices.
How can you hack occlusion today ?
Perfect occlusion is an elusive target, but we can get close to it in some situations, especially when we can relax the real-time constraint.
If the application allows pre-mapping the environment, it’s possible to use a pre-built mesh as an occlusion mask for the larger prominent objects in the scene, provided they don’t move.
This means that you’re not limited to the 4m range of the depth sensor, at least for occlusion behind static objects.
Moving objects are still a problem and the only solution right now it to use the depth map masking method for close range moving objects like your hands.
In fact, centimeter-level position tracking indoors and outdoors is a critical component of occlusion and through our work with Placenote, we’re working towards a cloud-based visual positioning system that can solve some of these problems.
See the full, long article here: https://hackernoon.com/why-is-occlusion-in-augmented-reality-so-hard-7bc8041607f9
We’re a long way from virtual reality’s Citizen Kane
VR film is failing to give audiences a reason to put on their headsets
Discussions about the role of perspective, embodiment and camera movements are all well and good, but these can be forgiven in the face of well-written and well-acted performances. Ctrl and Lucid are ambitious but their biggest fault is that they are ultimately middling. The dialogue is uneven. The characters are rough sketches. The emotional climaxes aren’t properly earned.
It’s telling that VR documentary is succeeding where scripted VR is failing. Transporting someone to the frontline of an actual warzone is a concept that, as fetishistic as it is, is easy to understand as something that can’t be got through a TV screen.
You either need a very good reason for your story to be told with a viewer-controlled perspective, or you need a shit-hot script.
See the full story here: http://www.alphr.com/virtual-reality/1008470/virtual-reality-film-vr-storytelling
7 of the best augmented reality apps for iPhone you should download right now
Running with a $1,000 glass smartphone in your hand might not be for everyone, but AR Runner is a fun use of AR nonetheless —and it gets you to go outside.
Stack already exists as a simple but attractive and addictive tower-building game. Now, the new AR version lets you build towers in the augmented world around you.
On a very similar theme, Paper Bin AR is a game where you throw scrunched up balls of paper into an office trash can. Place the bin further away to increase the difficulty level and pick from either a set of virtual settings, or use AR to place the basket on your desk, floor, or on a table across the room.
Another fun but practical use of AR is with tattoo app InkHunter, which lets you try on tattoos virtually before committing to the real thing. The app requires you to draw a straight-lined face on your skin with a pen; this helps the app work out where to put the tattoos.
See the full story here: https://www.gearbrain.com/best-ios-augmented-reality-apps-2534028587.html
Virtual reality training could create risk-averse behavior
The use of virtual reality safety training can help create artificial memories of accidents, which could encourage users to avoid such risks in the future. It may encourage risk-averse behavior, potentially helping workers to avoid risky situations that lead to falls.
See the full story here: https://www.smartbrief.com/s/2018/02/virtual-reality-training-could-create-risk-averse-behavior
Speed skater Ted-Jan Bloemen gets paid in cryptocurrency
Canadian speed skater Ted-Jan Bloemen recently became the first athlete to be paid in virtual money when he struck a one-year sponsorship deal with ONG Social, a social network and crypto community, and CEEK VR, a developer of virtual reality experiences.The double world record-holder plans to share his Olympic journey on the ONG Social network and star in a 360° virtual reality experience on CEEK VR. In return, he will earn cryptocurrency rewards.
See the full story here: https://edition.cnn.com/2018/02/10/sport/crypto-speedskater-ted-jan-bloemen-winter-olympics-intl/index.html