The Machine Way!

Elementary, my dear Watson!

We are waking up into a new world everyday. A world of intelligent machines whose intelligence keeps growing on an upward spiral. And human beings are gradually becoming the being with actual 'elementary' knowledge and skills. Let us take a moment and understand what is happening and where we are heading. 

Today, we take it very casually when the printer in our office displays the message - Printer Cartridge is low on ink. It is the machine which understands that the ink is getting low and needs a replacement, before we realize this. We know this but we have not taken notice. The case is true with many other devices - AC temperature sensors which automatically sense when you are present in the room and when you are not, Fuel indicators which blink red when gas is low in the car, and lifts which sense when a screw is getting loose and send alert to their manufacturer so that a team can be quickly sent before even the lift breaks down. Futuristic fuel indicators in cars might even be integrated with Google maps which locate the gas stations on the way and tell you to fill up as you get near the gas station saying - Next nearest gas station in 20 miles; Current fuel level exhausts in 14 miles. Fill up now! Not a very far-fetched functionality to achieve. 

The memory capacity of the human brain has been estimated at between one and ten terabytes, with a most likely value of 3 TB. Consumer hard drives are already available at this size. By 2050, we will be using devices of the size of current day micro-SD card which will have storage equivalent to three times the brain capacity of the entire human race. Link

We are progressing fast and trying to ensure that we become greater idiots with time while we empower the machines to get faster. I am not saying it is a good or bad thing - that is for you to decide. Dean Pomerleau and his research teammates from Intel, Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Pittsburgh, are currently working on decoding human brain activity. Their thoughts are we will soon be tired of using these zillion user-interfaces to access the internet and then we will access it via a chip which is implanted in our brains. Link.

We're trying to prove you can do interesting things with brain waves. Eventually people may be willing to be more committed ... to brain implants. Imagine being able to surf the Web with the power of your thoughts." - Dean Pomerleau, Research Scientist, Intel.

What are we doing with Big data? We are trying to build intelligence in the system which can help us in heavy number crunching and processing speeds. The systems are already much faster that any of our human brains - We take pride in creating the system while system does the mechanical analysis. Perfect. 

It is interesting to observe what is going on around us and then only we can adapt - We humans are good at adapting anything and everything. Know that frog in the story which sat in the kettle which gradually started heating? The frog adapted with the increasing temperature and died eventually. In another instance, when suddenly the temperature was increased, frog jumped out. Ironically, if these changes we are talking about would be big bang, everyone will take notice. But like I said, we are in the other mode, adapting. 

Current intelligence, reaction time and efficiency of the machines around us are far higher than what humans can do.  The only thing lacking in them right now is the emotion. And we are moving towards that as well. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe wants to stage a "Robot Olympics" in 2020. Japan recently unveiled a chatty humanoid robot that its makers say can understand people's emotions. They said claimed the robot, called EMIEW2, was capable of knowing when its jokes had fallen flat. And I am sure by 2020 or 10 more years, we would have robots who will laugh at our jokes and sit by our side and console us when we are sad. And I am not saying that is bad either. 

All I am saying is that we should sit up and take notice.

It is not just the Internet of Things which is evolving. It is actually the THINGS themselves which are undergoing the transformation. As we proceed, we will have to decide traffic rules for our drones, code of conduct for our robots, separate laws for robots and many other things. The future is changing and will continue to change. And this is Elementary, My dear Watson.