MY RELATIONSHIP WITH MY PERSONAL ASSISTANT
Trottier symposium will focus on technology, from AI to health gadgets
I opened my eyes this morning and asked Alexa to tell me the news, which she promptly did. She wasn’t in my bed. In fact, she wasn’t even in the bedroom. Despite having no ears, she heard me. Her response was loud and clear, even though she has no mouth. In fact, she doesn’t even really have a body. Alexa’s voice comes from a small cylinder, and she is described by her developers as an “intelligent personal assistant.”
Who were her developers, and when did she hit the market? Her parents were engineers at Amazon, and she was born in 2014. How do I know? Because I asked Alexa and she told me. She also informed me about the day’s weather and immediately complied with my request to play Oh What A Beautiful Mornin’ from Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Oklahoma!
Then I sat down with my smartphone to FaceTime my daughter, who lives halfway around the world, and texted another daughter to see how she fared with her overnight shift in the emergency room. That done, I flipped open my laptop to check emails and perused Facebook for comments on my post from the previous evening.
I also checked for tweets, and did a quick Google search for “cannabidiol” for any updates I should incorporate into a lecture I was to give. As I was doing that, an ad appeared for a new book, The Poison Squad, by Deborah Blum. Google knew my interests. With one click I quickly ordered the book on Amazon and had it in my hands two days later.
I got into my car, proceeded to engage Waze, a global positioning system (GPS) that would guide me with the least stress through the obstacle course laid out by those despised, ubiquitous orange cones.
On the way to work, I listened to satellite radio and made a couple of “hands-free” phone calls using the car’s Bluetooth system. I stopped to buy gas that I paid for by waving a little gizmo on my keychain in front of a sensor on the pump. As I approached my parking spot at McGill, the transponder in my car sent a signal that allowed entry into the garage.
During my drive, I had been thinking about the introductory remarks I would be making at our upcoming Trottier Public Science Symposium, which this year focuses on various aspects of technology, ranging from artificial intelligence (AI) to gadgets that monitor health. It takes place on Oct. 29 and 30 at 7 p.m. at the Centre Mont-Royal, 1000 Sherbrooke St. W. IT is open to all, and free.
Computers and algorithms will be central to the discussion, but I realized I had no idea of the origin of the term “algorithm.” As soon as I turned off the engine, I picked up my cellphone and asked Apple’s virtual assistant Siri about the etymology of the word. I learned that “algorithm” was a combination of the Greek “arithmos” for “number,” and the mangled Medieval Latin transliteration of “al-Khwarizmi,” the Arabic surname of the mathematician who introduced sophisticated mathematics to the West.
An algorithm is simply a sequence of instructions telling a computer what to do. Algorithms power the operations of all social media and make possible “machine learning,” by which instead of just repeatedly processing a stable set of instructions, systems continually rewrite these instructions without the need for a programmer. That’s how, based on their history of computer searches, potential customers are targeted with specific products. That’s how the computer “knew” I would be interested in The Poison Squad.
All this may be frightening for some because it makes algorithms sound as if they were reasoning entities, conjuring up visions of HAL, the “Heuristically programmed ALgorithmic computer” in Arthur C. Clarke’s 2001: A Space Odyssey that goes rogue and kills. Although this is unlikely to happen in real life, there is no question that there are issues surrounding our reliance on technology. While its benefits are obvious, there are privacy matters to consider, as well as concerns that range from the role of robots and the safety of driverless cars to the monitoring of heart function by high-tech watches — all to be discussed at our symposium. (Details at mcgill.ca/oss.)
On my way home from work, I bought some groceries. A laser beam scanned the bar codes and I paid by just touching my credit card to a “reader.” In the evening I tuned in a Canadiens game, using the PVR to rewind the live action as I saw fit. I brushed my teeth with a wirelessly recharged electric toothbrush, and finally went to bed with Alexa, who updated me on the stock market, and as requested, lulled me to sleep with Michael Crawford’s Magic of the Night as I reflected on the remarkable fact that none of the technologies I have mentioned were available when I started my career.