The Internet of Things: The Next Big Thing or the Next Big Mistake?

The Next Step Forward?

              The Internet of Things (IoT) can have many different meanings. It is the connection of all devices together, the collection of every tiny bit of data, and the process of making our entire world smart. The potential of the internet is growing at an immense pace. It is estimated by 2020 that over 21 billion devices will be connected to the internet. Companies have been utilizing this fact to build connected “smart” devices to make all of life’s tasks a little easier. Eventually, cities will become “smart” meaning they will become automated and many processes will utilize the internet to run more efficiently. Nearly every possible thing a person does will be recorded and turned into data. This data will be valuable to developing artificially intelligent devices that use machine learning. This data will also be used by companies to target ads and well target pretty much everything. So what implication does this have on society?

How Much Connectivity is too much?

              With the expansion of IoT has comes the expansion of data collection. The more “smart” devices being developed the more data entities are collecting. If nearly every device is connected to the internet almost every action a person makes will be recorded as data. This data can be extremely valuable for a multitude of remarkable things, but can also be used for negative things. If society begins to automate and record everything it is crucial this data is used for the greater good. With few laws in place for the regulation of data collection, society is behind the curve on the growth of IoT and opens itself up to vulnerabilities in many areas. What are these areas and what are the major concerns?

Smart World?

              Privacy is and always has been a major concern for people. As we begin to collect massive amounts of data it is crucial to regulate who is collecting this data and who is utilizing this data. Currently, companies can collect data on pretty much any internet connected device with no fear of breaking the law. Most companies only must worry about backlash from consumers. Additionally, companies can sell this data to other parties to make a profit off their customers’ information. Sometimes even the government gathers or gains access to all this recorded information. It is clear this data is valuable to many parties. This means that is also valuable to hackers. Recently, there has been tons of hacks on people’s information by hackers to earn a profit. Many of the companies collecting this data do not have the proper security measures in place to properly protect their customers’ information. These hacks can lead to damage to individuals and cost the companies tons of money. Is connecting everything smart or just leading to major vulnerabilities?

1.       How much information do you feel comfortable sharing with companies? Are you willing to share more information with government agencies or less?

2.       With all the recent hacks do you feel the information being collected about you is secure?

3.       Do you think connected everything to enhance the world is overall beneficial? Or do you believe IoT may lead to more problems than it will solve?

Works Cited

https://www.networkworld.com/article/3198657/internet-of-things/the-future-of-iot-where-its-heading-what-to-expect.html

http://www.cnn.com/2017/10/14/opinions/internet-of-things-future-surman-thorne-opinion/index.html

https://us.norton.com/internetsecurity-iot-5-predictions-for-the-future-of-iot.html

Will Technological Growth Take Away Our Jobs?

We are seeing a revolutionary change in the world of technology and more frequently than ever before, new inventions in the field of technology are making it easier to replace human beings. A popular study published by Oxford University in 2013 predicted that in 20 years, 47 percent of the jobs will be automated in the United States. Automation can threaten to eliminate factory workers, retail employees, cashiers etc.

But there isn’t any reason to panic because according to some experts a lot of these apocalyptic reports are overblown. And quite often these reports can slow the process of innovation. To clear any further doubts, two economists(Robert Atkinson and John Wu) from the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation published a report titled “False Alarmism: Technological Disruption and the U.S. Labor Market, 1850–2015.” 

According to Atkinson and Wu’s methodology, they focused their research on identifying increases or decreases in occupations that could be attributed to technological innovations. For example, the number of household workers decreased with the invention of the washing machine but at the same time many more workers were hired as mechanics by Ford to produce the Model T. Therefore, Atkinson and Wu reached three conclusions based on this methodology: -

1: Total number of jobs has changed very little over the past 20 years.

2: Growth in existing industries has made up for jobs lost to automation. For example, a factory replaced workers with machines on the production side but invested the money it saved into new jobs in sales and marketing.

3: U.S. lost the fewest jobs to automation between 2010 to 2015.

“The fact is that there are waves of historical change in technology; they come, they go, there is nothing inevitable about them,” Robert Friedel, professor of the history of technology and science at the University of Maryland, said in an interview with MeriTalk, a website geared towards government IT experts. “We have absolutely no reason, I would argue, to suggest that that pattern is somehow permanently broken.”

The fear that robots will take over all the jobs from humans is bad for technological progress itself. The anti-tech attitude is not new. Luddites destroyed machines in England from 1811 to 1813, to protest against textile automation. In 2014, taxi drivers in Paris slashed the tires of Uber driver because they were losing business to their new tech-enabled competition. Some governments around the world have banned Uber altogether so that the traditional taxi drivers don’t lose their jobs.

Possible Solutions 

The government has to initiate the change for the coming future. Legislators have to consider new policies that will best mitigate the disruption caused by robots in all the industries affected. The government should also spend money to bolster education programs that train workers for the jobs that are more likely to exist in the future. Bill Gates has suggested taxing Robots.

Article Link: https://futurism.com/technology-destroy-jobs/

How many blocks could a blockchain block if a blockchain could chain blocks?

Hello all- If you have not heard of blockchain yet it is only a matter of time until you do. In my opinion I think that artificial intelligence and blockchain technology are going to cause disruption in almost every industry within the next 5 years. Today I want to talk about blockchain specifically.  Blockchain is the underlying technology behind cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum. There are some words that describe this technology that I think help boil everything down. 

1. Distributed- On the blockchain, information is shared by all parties that participate through a distributed network of computers or devices (aka peer-to-peer). 
2. Secure- The blockchain is a secure transaction ledger due to the consensus achieved by all the parties that participate. 
3. Trust-less- The blockchain records and stores all transactions/exchanges of information, therefore removing the need for a trusted(centralized) intermediary.

Here is a video that is very good introduction to Blockchain by Don Tapscott (18:49).  Some of you may have heard about this at the IT Summit talk.  It offers many examples.



There is some speculation over the cryptocurrencies and their legitimacy. JP Morgan Chase's CEO, Jamie Dimon, called Bitcoin a fraud, but you also have people like Oliver Bussmann (former CIO of UBS) who left UBS to pursue blockchain related endeavors. Whether you think the coins are a scam or not, the technology behind the tokens are truly groundbreaking.

To continue the discussion here is a PDF from PWC on how blockchain & smart contracts will change the mortgage industry: http://www.pwc.com/us/en/financial-services/publications/assets/pwc-financial-services-qa-blockchain-in-mortgage.pdf   

Do you have any questions about blockchain?
  

Rise of Artificial Intelligence

Artificial Intelligence also known as A.I. The textbook definition of A.I. is to enable computers to do things that are done by people. Many tech giants now are willing to invest a lot in A.I. because of all the possibility of things it can do ranging from face-scanning smartphones to self driving vehicles. These tech giants are willing to pay high salaries for people with A.I. talent.

A.I. is the future and these tech companies knows it too. According to the New York Times, people with any type of A.I. knowledge depending on Ph. Ds are less can be paid from $300,000 to $500,000 and get company stock. There is a huge shortage of talent and all the companies are competing for the talents. This doesn't just include tech companies like Facebook, Google, or etc, but companies in the auto industry are also interested in building the first self-driving car.

Artificial intelligence is more than just building the next big smart phone app. A.I. is based on mathematical techniques called deep neural networks. These networks are made up of mathematical algorithms that can learn on their own by analyzing data. For example, if given a couple thousands of photos of dogs, neural networks can find patterns and learn how to recognize a dog. Tech companies are trying to implement this technique into phones for face recognition. There are already a couple of A.I. examples in real life. The Amazon Echo, for example can identify commands spoken to it.

Amazon, the online mega-retailer, is investing $1.5 million dollars to improving A.I. With online shopping algorithms and the creation of Alexa, Amazon's A.I. personal assistant used in the Amazon Echo, A.I. is becoming an integral part of their business. Amazon plans to build a new Amazon Research Center near Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems in Germany. The new research center will focus on machine learning and machine vision. Amazon named two directors to its center. The first is Professor Bernhard Schölkopf and Professor Michael J. Black. Amazon goal is to help increase the international importance of A.I. learning. 

A.I. can be used way more than just tech companies. NVIDIA, chipmaker, has announced that it will start training developers in computer learning for healthcare and cancer research. They currently use its Tesla K80 GPU to train computers to detect breast cancer. Training more developers will allow NVIDIA to improve and deploy more of its GPU chips. 

In my opinion, I think this is all inevitable and it's good to start early. As technology continue to evolve, adopting A.I. inevitable for many companies. There are a couple of companies right now already implementing a small form of A.I. such as Amazon's Echo. In order to keep up with its competition, other retailers must also start implementing their own version of A.I. I think that when companies are training, developing new centers, and investing in A.I. is a good start. They want people aware that A.I. is the next big thing and want to raise awareness. This will not only affect technology people, but everybody too because the use of A.I. is limitless. Every industry in the near future will probably start using some sort of A.I.

1. What do you guys think are the possible consequences of relying too much on Artificial Intelligence?

2. Does this make you want to learn/study more about Artificial Intelligence for future jobs?

3. Do you have any further questions?

Chauhan, H. (2017, October 23). Why Artificial Intelligence Could Be NVIDIA's Golden Goose. 

         Retrieved October 24, 2017, from https://www.fool.com


Crist, R. (2017, October 23). Amazon's new research center seeks to improve AI vision. Retrieved                  
            October 24, 2017, from https://www.cnet.com

Metz, C. (2017, October 22). Tech Giants Are Paying Huge Salaries for Scarce A.I. Talent. Retrieved October 24, 2017, from https://www.nytimes.com

Blockchain (continued)

I posted some videos and links on my Tech Briefing blog related to Blockchain.  I direct your inquiry there.   http://techbriefmis441.blogspot.com/2017/10/blockchain.html.   Thanks for attending the talk at the IT Summit.

If you don't know much about Blockchain, or even if you do, I hope you find the links helpful in extending your knowledge.  Please comment or ask questions on the blog.  We can try to talk about this in class, too.  But there is a lot to cover.   I suggest you start with the videos and articles/videos from the MIT Media Lab event.  I hope the talk gave you some idea of how blockchain works, but I find words don't really explain all you need to know about the field.  Okay to post your own links, too.