December 30, 2017 | Read Online
These are published chapters from my book The real Internet of Things, published on January 1st, 2017.
Connecting algorithms to sensors is going to have a profound impact on how we parse reality, and this effect will be magnified exponentially as people start lifecasting.
Lifecasting, as I wrote about in 2008, is where a significant percentage of the population starts continuously broadcasting what they see and hear. They’ll do this to be social with their friends, they’ll do it to get famous, they’ll do it for practical reasons, and they’ll do it for money. It’ll simply happen.
What makes it interesting is the combination of these feeds with algorithms.
Humans don’t care about video feeds. What they care about are events. We want to see first kisses, love triangle fights, humans reacting to new media, car crashes, rescues, heroism, cowardice, and everything in between. We want to see life, and that’s precisely what the algorithms will provide us.
As someone goes about their busy day their feed will be monitored and streamed for all manner of events. Aggression, racism, humor, accidents, embarrassment, negligence, wrecks, fights, love, affection, compassion, etc.
When a fight happens in front of someone, for example, the algorithm will clip the video, tag it appropriately, and share it with the appropriate services according to the principal’s preferences.
Maybe your DA just sent it to your closest friends, or maybe it sent the clip to a service that pays people for the latest fight clips, passionate kisses, and kindness found in unlikely places.
As a bonus, it also sent a copy to the local law enforcement daemon, and it all happened with no human friction. No clipping, no editing, none of that. The algorithms know when the fight started (the trash-talking, body language, etc.), and it knows when it ended (when everyone fled). It packaged the whole thing up in a fraction of a second, and put a clip in your face and asked, “Should I send it out to these people?” A simple nod was enough.
The same will happen for car wrecks, physical assaults, freak accidents, and any other type of situation where it will be beneficial to have a clean clip of the incident that can be instantly sent to numerous places.
Summary
- Sensors + Algorithms is a potent combination, as they allow the algorithms to extract meaningful events from life in a continuous and intelligent way.
- Once those events are extracted they can be shared in countless ways with various services that specialize in or benefit from them.
Related posts:
- The Real Internet of Things: Details and Examples
- The Real Internet of Things: Getting Better at Getting Better
- AI-powered Visual Sensors Will be Wielded By Digital Assistants to Build us Custom UIs
- The Real Internet of Things: Omniscient Defender