{"id":1896,"date":"2017-01-23T13:17:20","date_gmt":"2017-01-23T13:17:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chief-exec.com\/?p=1896"},"modified":"2017-02-23T17:51:22","modified_gmt":"2017-02-23T17:51:22","slug":"the-big-read-tech-world-faces-up-to-burning-issues","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chief-exec.com\/?p=1896","title":{"rendered":"The big read: Tech world faces up to burning issues"},"content":{"rendered":"

As we race towards a technological renaissance, we find ourselves more vulnerable than ever to a great cosmic power, writes James Fitzgerald.<\/em>
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Techies around the world would have been hard-wired for insights last week as the DLD17 conference in Munich and the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos ran concurrently. The former \u2013 populated by academics and innovators \u2013 was marked by a frisky anticipation over technological possibilities, while the latter \u2013 made up of politicians and business leaders \u2013 succumbed to fear and uncertainty over global events, even as the sun shone outside.<\/p>\n

Chinese President Xi Jinping delivers keynote speech at WEF opening ceremony<\/p><\/div>\n

Chinese premier, Xi Jinping, speaking in Davos, said: \u201cUnlike the industrial revolution, our fourth technological revolution is unfolding at an exponential, and not linear, pace\u201d.<\/p>\n

One statistic that came out of the meeting was how Hollywood box office takings have been outpaced by App revenues<\/a> \u2013 even though they didn\u2019t exist before 2008.<\/p>\n

Premier Xi opened his address with a quote from Charles Dickens: \u201cIt was the best of times, it was the worst of times\u201d, to highlight the many contradictions facing modern society.<\/p>\n

We stand poised to tip the technological scales between wisdom and foolishness, amid both belief and incredulity, to evoke Dickens once again.<\/p>\n

One of the aspirations alighted upon at DLD17 was how to \u201cdemocratise\u201d artificial intelligence (AI) for everyone. In what seems like the blink of an eye, learning machines have gone mainstream. \u201cThis is the year where AI is no longer just a computer science problem,\u201d Joi Ito, director of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology\u2019s (MIT) media lab, said at the WEF. \u201cIn a world where there becomes an abundance of AI, what might become scarce is common sense and empathy,\u201d Satya Nadella, the CEO of Microsoft, told the audience in Munich.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe fundamental need of every person is to be able to use their time more effectively, not to say, \u2018let us replace you\u2019,\u201d he said. \u201cThis year and the next will be the key to democratising AI. The most exciting thing to me is not just our own promise of AI as exhibited by these products, but to take that capability and put it in the hands of every developer and every organisation.\u201d<\/p>\n

In Japan, for every 10,000 workers, there are already 1,500 robots, warned Bill Gross, the founder of the Idealab incubator, while Sharon Weinbar, writing in the Huffington Post, claims there will be 1,000,000 unfilled software engineering jobs in the US by 2020. And yet McKinsey, the consultancy, says that the work of 1.1 billion people can already be automated.<\/p>\n

Some confusion and disruption is clearly ahead of us, but the question being asked now is, how organised and managed will it be?<\/p>\n

The United Kingdom government has just reiterated its desire to create \u201cwithout further delay\u201d a Robotics and Artificial Intelligence Leadership Council, which would formulate a national RAS strategy for \u201cthis great technology\u201d. It has asked the Royal Society and the Alan Turing Institute to look at \u201csocial, ethical and legal questions, to ensure the development of these technologies fully benefit society\u201d.<\/p>\n

In November last year, Prime Minister Theresa May announced an extra \u00a32bn for research and development (R&D) into \u201cpriority technologies\u201d, under a new Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis includes taking a leading role in high-growth areas, such as service robotics and robotics in hazardous environments, and supporting greater integration across hardware, software and cross-cutting technologies,\u201d said a report to the UK Parliament Science and Technology Committee.<\/p>\n

Professor Erik Brynjolfsson, of the MIT Center for Digital Business, advised the audience at Davos not \u201cto compete with machines \u2013 you want to complement them. Focus on creativity, empathy, leadership. Technology is a \u2018tool\u2019 we can use to change the world. We get to choose whether the outcome is good or bad.\u201d<\/p>\n

That sounds like good advice, if Professor Stuart Staniford of Cornell University is to be believed. He says robots may outnumber people within 15 years.<\/p>\n

As robot production continues on an exponential track \u2013 while population growth stays close to linear \u2013 a war is brewing between drones and robots. Ahti Heinla the founder of Starship Technologies, a UK start-up that builds delivery robots that can carry medium-size packages and grocery bags, claims that the efficiencies of online shopping stop at the delivery van.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe courier typically spends 15 minutes for each delivery, and they are not particularly enjoying that time \u2026 Their managers are looking at their P&L statements and they see that delivering last mile costs a lot. It is not easy to reduce that cost, because couriers are people, and they need to eat and sleep.\u201d<\/p>\n

He advocates his six-wheeled autonomous delivery bots, which can work round the clock, at 15 minutes\u2019 notice. Others are buying into his vision, as Daimler has just led a $17.2m funding round for the company, which began a small-scale delivery service in London late last year. \u201cWhile several companies are developing drones for last-mile deliveries, people just do not like them \u2026 and regulators and air traffic controllers don\u2019t like drones at all.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Technology is a \u2018tool\u2019 we can use to change the world. We get to choose whether the outcome is good or bad<\/span><\/h4>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Two of the main pioneers in air delivery are Google parent Alphabet Inc and Amazon, which are still testing drones. Even so, it is robots that rule the roost in Amazon warehouses, where the number in 2016 increased by 15,000 from the year before.<\/p>\n

Airbus\u2019s CEO, Tom Enders, told DLD17 that they had been developing an autonomous vertical take-off and landing concept \u2013 or flying car \u2013 to alleviate urban congestion. Nasa, the United States\u2019 space agency, has expressed its aspiration to have robots working safely beside humans in space \u2013 perhaps carrying out hazardous tasks. We are indeed boldly going where no man has gone before \u2013 and at warp drive.<\/p>\n

There may be an ideological schism developing in society, as in Dickens\u2019 time \u2013 between those who \u201cbelieve\u201d and those who remain \u201cincredulous\u201d. To some, the blistering pace of technological innovation provides a ray of hope in an otherwise uncertain world, but other technologists warn that a different kind of light can be shone on the subject.<\/p>\n

Sunna-Wedra has developed an early warning system that would increase the response time on damaging solar activity \u2013 what astrophysicists call coronal mass ejections (CME). These CMEs can travel at more than 2,000km\/sec and affect electrical grids on Earth, potentially short-circuiting power plants, machinery and aviation.<\/p>\n

The German start-up proposes to site eight space weather satellites in a V formation at a distance of between 2m to 8m kilometres from the planet in the Sun-Earth line, providing a time advantage of over 400 per cent compared with existing systems. Nasa currently has two satellites in the Sun\u2019s orbit, although the STEREO-B craft is offline. The second satellite, STEREO-A, continues to monitor the far side of the Sun.<\/p>\n