Robots and Humans (+Video)

Robots Exhibition at the Science Museum, London from Karen Andrews on Vimeo

Cute toys? Job thieves? Creepy threats to mankind? Robots, the Science Museum's latest exhibition, introduces many topical preoccupations.

As you stand in the lobby queue for your timed entry slot, you see two cute, toy-like robot ticket desks. One desk was initially unmanned on my arrival; the other had a long queue. 

You see a 3-tiered bank of robot eyes on your right as you wait. 

No-one paid much attention. 

Then, creepily... the eyeballs moved.



The first exhibit inside the entrance catches everyone by surprise. An animatronic baby raises a mix of emotions in visitors. So life-like. The eyes have the knowing look of an old soul seen in some new-borns. It moves like a baby. And yet, something is missing. 

Visitors stand back from the animatronic baby

The movements have a controlled pattern. No welling maternal instinct rushes to rescue the helpless creature from its stake on the wall. As blue lights change to pink and pink to blue, the urge is to step back and away instead.

Why? What makes a human baby such a unique creation? So utterly helpless at birth and yet a powerful learning machine. So determined without programming, yet some personality traits seem 'built in' from birth - or even before.

Close-up of animatronic baby in Robots Exhibition

The Science Museum's Robots Exhibition takes you on a journey: Man's 500-year quest to make robots human. It leaves you asking questions about the current direction of robotics. It leaves you marvelling at the unique creation that is every single human baby.

Single-shuttle loom

The exhibition is divided into 5 sections representing 5 different periods in the history of automation. 

The first section is called 'Marvel'. It shows Man's early attempts at automation. 

The second section 'Obey' presents the Industrial Revolution. It turned men into robots, servants of the machine.

The first recognisable robots appear in the 'Dream' section. Many are film creations of an imagined future. Some are cute; some are downright scary. Many are mere toys.

...And nothing can possibly go ... worng...

Scientists take over from the film-makers in the 'Build' section. The obsession to recreate ourselves as machines reaches new heights. Researchers' efforts demonstrate the complexity of our bodies and minds. 

Coordinating vision, recognition, reaction & movement - tough for a robot

The sophistication gradually increases. Many robots in this section are not complete. We see an arm or a hand.  They still cannot match smooth, instantaneous human movements. 

Sophisticated robotic hands are no match for human hands

The final section is entitled 'Imagine'. The robots on display are very recent productions for a museum. Robothespian dates from 2016. Science is moving so fast. AI's more recent and advanced developments are not on display. 

As children and adults interact with the robots, many of today's concerns become apparent. The UK's Robothespian is irritating; the Italian robot shows off; the Japanese news-reading robot is unnerving. Pepper, the French companion robot, is so popular that a crowd forms tightly around her.

UK's Robothespian of 2016

There are safety issues. Each robot is sectioned off from other robots and the public. Industrial robots can now work collaboratively with humans. Robots aren't toys any more.

Toyota's Human Support Robot

No single robot seems to combine all human activities and brain power as yet. It would need to be huge to do so. Remember the size of the original mainframe computers? Miniaturisation will come. 

It is proposed that robots should become care-providers for the young and elderly - i.e. the most vulnerable in society. Do we want or need that?

Young children and the elderly with dementia are unpredictable. The mobility, determination and unpredictability of  a news commentator's children went viral on Twitter this week. Are robots a match for this?

I also saw a video of children 'playing' with Alexa this week. They were running rings around her by proposing fake shopping list items. We would call it bullying, if Alexa were human.

How will we prevent artificial intelligence from learning how to bully? Do robots really need to take a human form?

Past Blogs on Robotics:

Robotics in the Media: Science Museum Lates – Part 1

Robotics and Ethics: Science Museum Lates – Part 2

Intelligent Robots: Science Museum Lates – Part 3

Karen Andrews is a freelance French to English translator, transcreator, content writer and editor. She has a strong background in global marketing.

Email Karen for further information via karenanglicityen@gmail.com in French, German or English.

Earth's Passengers: AI's Titanic

Not every film you see at the cinema is going to win Oscars. Sometimes you just want an evening out, some entertainment and pure escapism. Even if the reviews don’t appear that favorable in advance, you can usually trust Hollywood to provide an hour or so’s entertainment. It was with that in mind that my son and I headed for our local cinema on a cold winter evening. Passengers offered more than we bargained for. Sometimes a diverting tale can reveal serious undercurrents when you reflect afterwards.

Chemistry and asteroids

If the onscreen chemistry between Jennifer Lawrence and Chris Pratt didn’t remind you of Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio in Titanic, Hollywood seemed be dropping other hints. Hibernation pods that couldn’t possibly go wrong? Think unsinkable Titanic on her maiden voyage - just replace the iceberg with an asteroid.

Implausible v. plausible

Yes, the plot is probably full of holes. No doubt, any knowledgeable scientist would tear it apart. We don’t have the science to make 5,000 people hibernate for 90 years until they reach a distant new colony on a remote planet. I hope that we would possess the technology to communicate with Earth in real-time by the time we can make people hibernate.

References to the Homestead company sent shivers down my spine. The idea that the safety of thousands of lives would be placed in the care of a private timeshare company with greedy shareholders was unnerving. It seemed so plausible.

Chris Pratt, initially the only human awake on board, is reminded of the astronomical bills that he is running up. The Titanic similarity is further underlined when he discovers the nutritional difference between a third-class and first-class breakfast. By that time, he’d been eating the former for a year with all the other 5,000 passengers asleep. Their lives end up depending on the out-of-the-box thinking of this third-class engineer.

AI's Limitations

Our hero engineer also spends a year trying to break into the hibernating crew’s quarters. All the spaceship’s controls are designed to keep passengers out. The ship is designed to repair itself. It’s a warning for the direction that artificial intelligence (AI) is currently taking. The Internet of Things is already poised to take control. Humans design machines to deal with any risk or worst case scenario that they can dream up. How they are supposed to design spaceships to go into the Unknown beats me.

We still can’t get cinema/train ticket machines, Wi-Fi, computers or printers to work 100% reliably without human intervention. There’s a risk that we will stop training basic engineering skills or out-of-the-box thinkers and dispense with capable human standbys.

The robot barman highlights the serious issue with AI. He’s programmed to handle cheerily all the normal human soul-searching associated with the role. He’s happy endlessly polishing glasses even in a life or death crisis. His inability to handle the complexity of human ethics puts the only two humans awake on the spaceship in near-murderous conflict. He isn’t programmed to deal with the complex set of circumstances before him. It isn’t supposed to happen – like the Titanic sinking.

Pure Hollywood fiction?

This is just a Hollywood film. I wonder. If you worked in total secrecy at NASA and were uneasy about some of the ethical decisions and directions being taken, how would you handle it? Get the US President to speak to the people like they do in the alien and apocalypse movies? It always causes widespread panic and rioting.

Gracious. The President-elect is causing enough worldwide consternation by his very appointment. If I were in NASA, I would get Hollywood to explore scenarios. Come to think of it, there’s quite a glut of space movies of late.

The New World

Space exploration is exciting. It’s the new frontier, the New World all over again. Leaving planet Earth even with thousands of first-class passengers would mean leaving billions of ‘second- and third-class’ human beings behind.

We still don’t know enough about the long-term health effects on astronauts - usually the fittest among us. I noted that an astronaut died of cancer at Christmas. We do know that the best international scientific expertise and resources are devoted to exploring how we could live and survive in space.

Space colonies sound like a Kennedy PR exercise given that the world’s problems are piling up. Why are the world’s best brains working on them?

Priorities?

What about making global warming solutions and feeding an ever-growing world population on Earth the major international priorities? The World’s population is estimated at between 7.4 and 7.5 billion as I type. The United Nations predicts that it could reach 9.7 billion by 2050 and over 11 billion by 2100. In a March 2016 article for the BBC, David Satterthwaite of the International Institute for Environment and Development in London said:

“It is not the number of people on the planet that is the issue – 

but the number of consumers and

 the scale and nature of their consumption’.

What about sorting out the United Nations or creating a new global body so that no rogue nation can threaten global security with the technology that we have already got?

I know, I know. I’m daydreaming. Passengers is just a Hollywood movie. 

Still, it’s alarming to be a Passenger on Planet Earth in Third Class locked out of the cockpit. People are questioning the new Captain’s suitability and motives to handle the dark times ahead. Artificial Intelligence may end up rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic*.

*rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic
Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary and Thesaurus definition: used for saying that someone is wasting time dealing with things that are not important, and is ignoring a much more serious problem.

Karen Andrews is a freelance French to English translator, transcreator, content writer and editor. She has a strong background in marketing and project management.

Email Karen for further information via karenanglicityen@gmail.com in French, German or English.

Big Data with UKTI in France

UKTI event at the Residence of the British Ambassador in Paris

On 19^th March, I attended a very informative event at the Residence of the British Ambassador in Paris entitled:

 "How Big Data and Analytics are Energising Economic Growth - Accelerating Innovation, Building Trust, Powering Performance".

UKTI's Lyon-based team planned the programme to explore the business, social and technical challenges created by Big Data and analytics.

Sir Peter Ricketts, the British Ambassador to France, opened the day's proceedings and underlined how both Britain and France are at the forefront in the field.

The day comprised of 4 panel discussions in the morning and a series of roundtables in the afternoon. The event was very successfully chaired by David Reed of DataIQ and involved a well-selected blend of knowledgeable UK and French panel speakers and roundtable hosts.

The 4V's

In his introduction, David Reed referred to the 4V's of Big Data:

·      Velocity

·      Volume

·      Variety

·      Veracity

He stressed the pace of change and the importance of unlocking the value in data. Unstructured data is of no value whatsoever. We need to work out how to structure it. A new skillset will be required.

Female caution

There were many knowledgeable female panellists. It was generally the women who raised the main notes of caution and ethics in this new Big Data "gold rush".

The event covered so much ground that it is impossible to do the subject justice in a single blog. My main takeaways are summarised below:

1. Infrastructure will be key

Structuring huge amounts of data will be power-hungry. 

2. Doubts over ability of mature cities to expand

Global Switch datacenters commented that most mature cities are struggling with ageing infrastructures. No additional capacity in London; tough situation in Paris. You need a window of 3-5 years to get a reliable new electricity supply. (Major financial centres cannot afford to lose even a day's trading or want to risk resorting to back-up systems).

3. Structuring data

Data needs to be structured and segmented to unlock value for different demographics, locations and requirements.

4. Right "TechCity" location

Four key factors:

(i) TechCities need to be sited near universities producing graduates with the right skills from data science courses with very current industry relevance.

(ii) Access to local staff with technical know-how (examples of Barcelona, Toulouse and Montpellier given).

(iii) A supportive local Government

(iv) Must meet demanding bandwidth requirements (rural areas should not be excluded. Reverse of UK trend to live in countryside in France).

4. Verifiable identity and privacy

The ability currently exists to identify more than 50% of the world's population. It was suggested that identifying the remaining 50% could be achieved within 5 years. Accessed via worldwide agreements, but dangers and concerns exist over privacy.

5. Consumer at the heart of regulation 

Concern for the consumer needs to be at the heart of regulation. Only the right people should have access to given data. Access rights need careful segmentation.

6. Standards and good governance

Standards are important - ISO/IEC 27001: Information security management.

Significant numbers of organisations are simply not doing enough on security protocols.

7. Data security breaches

US requires that data security breaches are reported within 72 hours. Most companies do not realise that they have been attacked for 200 days. The average cybercriminal only needs one day to succeed. In 69% of cases, a cyberattack is detected by third parties - usually the customer with a fraud on his account.

8. Hacking of health and medical data

Major and powerful pharmaceutical companies are very keen to access data relating to medicines. There is a major concern about the security of medical data. Credit card details can be changed. Medical data cannot be changed if hacked. French example given of hacked blood tests with extortion demands. 

9. Potential role of innovation centres

Example of TUBA in Lyon to capture local ideas. Aim for a bottom-up rather than top-down approach. Success of the Lyon scheme should be unveiled in October 2015.

10. SMEs for innovation

There is concern over private sector involvement in research. Often findings do not make it into the public domain. Innovation needs to happen with SMEs. Is FrenchTech competitive approach one to be copied? Tech clusters already exist around the UK.

What next?

UKTI hopes to build a UK/French collaborative business campaign around the Information Economy. Plans are already afoot in Big Data and IoT. The new Eurostars scheme may offer French and British SMEs opportunities to collaborate.

If you would appreciate help with your technical communications, email karen@anglicity.com or call Karen on +44 (0)20 8581 9369.

Karen Andrews runs
Anglicity Ltd. She is a

technical writer and 

translator with over

15 years' marketing

experience. Anglicity offers

marketing consultancy and

content marketing with a 

particular focus on innovation.