Big tech will spy on people to train AI, says futurist – 03/11/2024 – Tech

Stores and e-commerce sites will be full of all sorts of new smart devices, according to futurist Amy Webb. On Saturday (9), she presented the 17th edition of her technology trends compilation at SXSW (South by Southwest), in Austin, Texas — the talk is available on YouTube.

These devices will further capture data about human behavior to train even more capable artificial intelligence models.

The companies’ goal is to move beyond language models like ChatGPT, capable of creating text, to creating action models, capable of performing diverse tasks, according to Webb, whose day job at FTI (Instituto Futuro Hoje, in free translation) involves talking to business leaders.

For this, texts on the internet are not enough; spatial, visual and sensory data are necessary. Wearable and connectable devices meet this demand.

As an example of this market trend, she cites Apple’s augmented reality glasses, the Vision Pro.

The device has 14 cameras, follows the movement of the retina, maps everything around the user, which provides useful data to train different artificial intelligence perceptions.

“As the wife of an ophthalmologist, I can tell you that a person’s pupils constrict when they are nervous and this information can be helpful in understanding the consumer’s state of mind,” Webb said.

Examples of wearable devices empowered with action models are the Rabbit, a small device that receives voice commands and is capable, for example, of playing a song on Spotify or sending an email, and the AI ​​Pin, a brooch with similar capabilities.

Both devices have training customization options, in which the device adapts responses to the user based on previous instructions. “These technologies will be able to record us all the time and know where we are,” said Webb.

Companies from different sectors must adopt smart devices to collect data from their customers. As a more bizarre example, Webb cited a Taser brand stun gun, capable of playing music.

Connected devices allow data to be captured around the clock and everywhere to train artificial intelligence models, unlike social networks or search engines that depend on user access — this is one of the main summaries of Webb’s report.

Companies are in a race to win this market and whoever has the best quality data will have the advantage

Webb assessed that society will be completely reshaped by a new economic supercycle — a concept that refers to a long period of explosive demand and rising prices caused by the invention of a technology applicable in different sectors, such as the steam engine in the industrial revolution, the electricity and more recently the internet.

At the heart of this new supercycle are artificial intelligence, smart devices and biotechnology. “These three areas began to converge in a way where one allowed qualitative leaps in the other,” said Webb.

An example of this is the link between wearable devices, surveillance and artificial intelligence training; another, new chip architectures more similar to the human nervous system to improve computer performance and energy efficiency.

This scenario not only creates business opportunities, but also changes consumer trends.

In the near future, it would be possible, for example, to apply dynamic tariffs, like Uber’s, to all products, in order to encourage unrestrained consumption, which would culminate in inflation, said Webb.

It would also be possible to offer discount coupons through advertising, Webb said. “As smart glasses track the movement of the retina, they will be able to assess whether the customer paid attention to the ad or not.” This would be another class marker, since the rich would not need advertising.

As much will change, according to Webb’s analysis, people are in a state of fear, uncertainty and doubt (FUD), which puts them in a vulnerable situation. The FUD was a strategy by the tobacco industry to postpone the imposition of tougher rules against legal drugs.

At the same time, this is the time to have an ethical debate about these technologies, said the futurist.

“A school will be able to use connectivity and artificial intelligence to understand when a student pays attention and how they learn, but a bank will be able to use similar technology to estimate when a person will die and decide whether or not to grant financing or insurance,” he said. the specialist.

According to Webb, the technology market now has the wrong incentives as companies profit from incremental product improvements. “Thus, developers focus on speed of project implementation and scale, not security; there are no prizes for the application that guarantees more privacy or pollutes less.”

This market condition also inhibits the emergence of new competitors, since large companies have the infrastructure to meet already established demand.

The futurist expressed concern about the concentration of power and influence of large technology companies at this sensitive time. “If there are no interventions, we could end up in catastrophic scenarios.”

“The technology economic supercycle concentrates money and power in the hands of a small group of people because they concentrate our technological resources and how we communicate,” Webb said.

For Webb, the wait for a technological messiah paves the way for authoritarian thinking based on the dominance of technology, called “free market techno-authoritarianism”. “We don’t need saviors, we need better planning.”