That Space Cadet Glow #118
Issue 118 - 27th April 2021
In this issue, watch a monkey play Pong with its brain, marvel at the possibility of a fifth force of nature, worry about how AI is being used to measure our emotions, and snigger at a casino that was hacked through its fish tank thermometer.
King Pong
Probably the best showman on the planet right now is Elon Musk. Which is one reason I've generally tried to not write too much about his various companies' various exploits, but, as on this occasion, he is difficult to avoid. The event in question is the release of a video from one of his businesses, Neuralink, which claims to show a monkey playing pong by using only the thoughts from his mind (or, to be more precise, the neural activity in its brain). The monkey has a brain implant that reads the neural activity; this was originally used to train an AI by matching the electrical impulses with his motor activity (i.e. moving a joystick). After training, and when the joystick has been unplugged from the game, the AI moves the cursor on the screen according to the received brain activity. The monkey still moves the joystick but, because the cursor is going where he wants it to, it is unaware that there is no direct connection. The monkey is constantly rewarded for getting the game correct through a tube of banana smoothie. The eventual practical uses of this technology would, of course, be profound for people with paralysis. But, as always, there are caveats. None of the science in the video has been presented in a peer-reviewed paper yet, so there is plenty of scope for smoke-and-mirrors. And, if you ask other scientists, they will tell you that a lot of this has been done before, as long ago as 2002. There are apparent significant technological advances though, particularly in terms of the wireless system and a number of electrodes that seem to have been successfully implanted. It's clear that behind the scenes there are some very clever scientists doing some very exciting things - let's just hope that Mr Musk doesn't spoil his own party by promising more than he can deliver.
Harvest Muon
Meanwhile, in stark contrast to Musk's claims, scientists from the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory have been tentatively claiming to have discovered evidence for a fifth force of nature. Their experiments have shown that their results could be a 1 in 40,000 chance of being a statistical fluke, but they won't be satisfied until they get to 1 in 3.5 million. If the findings can be confirmed they could be fundamental to our understanding of physics and the world, challenging the accepted Standard Model, which provides for four forces of nature (graivity, the weak force, electromagnetism and the strong force). The suspected fifth force, they theorise, is responsible for making muons (elementary particles similar to electrons) wobble more than expected while whizzing around a very large magnetised ring. Meanwhile, some other scientists are saying that the original muon calculations were incorrect and the wobble is to be expected (meaning that the Fermi scientists have potentially spent 10 years of their life for nothing). Most people seem to be siding with Fermi though, which would mean being able to take physics beyond the Standard Model into a whole new realm, potentially seeking answers for dark matter and dark energy. The 7th of April, when the announcement was made, could have been the moment when everything changed.
No Laughing Matter
In Hong Kong there is an AI system called 4 Little Trees which claims to assess children’s emotions while they do classwork. As this article in Nature states, "it maps facial features to assign each pupil’s emotional state into a category such as happiness, sadness, anger, disgust, surprise and fear. It also gauges ‘motivation’ and forecasts grades". There are a lot of things to worry about in the world right now, but this should definitely be one of them. Emotion detection systems are also used in job hiring (even more now as so much recruitment is done online) and, as I reported in Issue 116, Microsoft has developed a (frankly pointless) system to work out how well your colleagues are enjoying your Teams presentation. What we do know is that AI is notoriously bad at detecting emotions in humans - just have a go at this online tool to see how easy they are to fool - mainly because they are looking for explicit physical characteristics and assume that everyone expresses their emotions in the same way. Not only does this bring in inherent racial biases but also disadvantages those with even minor disabilities. Regulation is required urgently before all our children learn that all you have to do is fake a smile to succeed in life (although politicians have been doing that for years).
Beware Phishing Attacks
The headline from this Entrepenur article reads: "A Casino Gets Hacked Through a Fish-Tank Thermometer", which is exactly the sort of headline that I love. According to Nicole Eagan from Darktrace, "The attackers used [a fish-tank thermometer] to get a foothold in the network. They then found the high-roller database and then pulled that back across the network, out the thermostat, and up to the cloud.". The thermostat was, of course, a 'smart thermostat' which means it was probably sending temperature data to the internet for monitoring purposes. But anything that is connected to the internet is a potential back door to other systems that are on the same network. With the proliferation of Internet of Things (IoT) devices, these opportunities will only get more and more common.
Sly5thAve - What It Is
I was surprised to discover that I haven't mentioned Sly5thAve to you before. His last LP, What It Is, released on the fabulous Tru Thoughts label, is a real gem of hip hop, soul and jazz, all mixed to perfection. Sly5thAve is a multi-instrumentalist, producer and composer, who played saxophone in Prince's New Power Generation, before creating his own music, including an orchestral tribute to Dr Dre. He has just released an EP of live tracks recorded just before lockdown, most of which are reworkings of tracks from What It Is. Of particular beauty is this version of Right Here with Denitia providing sublime vocals. You can watch the video below, and buy the record on Bandcamp.
Afterword
In the last issue I wrote about the hype surrounding NFTs. This Guardian article looks at some of the uncertainty around the technology, and particularly how it might impact musicians.
I'm sure you've seen this on the news, but it is still an amazing feat, and worth talking about - NASA makes the first powered flight on another planet with the Ingenuity drone on Mars.
I love a good DIY AI hack. This guy created a system that automatically praises people's dogs as they walk past his house. Useless but amazing.
Under His Eye
A few snippets from the world of facial recognition technology (FRT).
Facebook, who constantly claim to be champions of privacy, are considering putting FRT into their upcoming 'Facebook glasses' product. Go figure that.
A forward-thinking bill is being introduced in the US that would, amongst a range of measures, put severe restrictions on any organisation deploying FRT that has used images scraped from social media. This would effectively put an end to the controversial FRT firm, Clearview AI, whose product does exactly that for many law enforcement organisations.
But, sensing danger, Clearview AI are already looking at other revenue streams for their product - they have submitted patent applications to use FRT for dating, identifying drug users and homeless people. I guess when once you've crossed one red line, then the rest become easier and easier...
Meanwhile, in Europe, the EU's sweeping regulatory proposal that was published last week contains some tough new restrictions for FRT. In particular, "AI systems intended to be used for the ‘real-time’ and ‘post’ remote biometric identification of natural persons are considered a high-level risk system and would require an ex-ante evaluation of the technology provider to attest its compliance before getting access to the EU market, and an ex-post evaluation of the technology provider". Also, "...'real-time' remote biometric identification systems in publicly accessible spaces for the purpose of law enforcement are mostly prohibited unless they serve very limited exceptions related to public safety such as the targeted search of missing persons or the prevention of imminent terrorist threats.". These proposals, IMHO, are very welcome, and cannot come soon enough. Sure, innovation will be stifled somewhat, but we have to think carefully about what societal compromises we want to make for the sake of some quite useful technology.
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