Revisiting Talking Robots
Robert Munro
AWS
Amazon AI
“Talking Robots are 5 years away”
… and have been for 50 years
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“I’m sorry, Frank, I think you missed it …”
“Where’s My Talking Robot?”
Take “AI” out of your pitch deck … it sounds
too academic
Prominent Venture Capitalist, 2012
In 2012, I gave a series of talks about how AI
is already shaping our lives.
AI is the best or worst thing to happen to
humanity
Stephen Hawking, 2017
Where’s your talking robot?
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Making you smarter
Choosing your friends
Selecting your news
Aiding your health
Moving you around
Protecting your security
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Making you smarter
Graduate Record Examination (GRE)
1,000,000+ educational futures determined
by automated grading of writing
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Choosing your friends
The majority of many people’s interactions
with friends are mediated by AI
5,6
Filtering your news
“… the trends are algorithmic,
not chosen by us …”
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Aiding your health
La Gloria, Mexico (pop 3,000), 2009
Short, obscure news article:
“strange flu outbreak”
GPHIN reads this and alerts health
professionals:
H1N1 (Swine Flu)
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Moving you around
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Protecting your security
9/11 Mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed
Interview with al-Jazeera allows speaker
identification
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What has changed?
Revisiting these predictions
… and making some more
Education
Prediction:
The brightest minds in AI went to Education:
Andrew Ng, Daphne Koller, Sebastian Thrun
Something amazing will happen!!
5 years later:
… nothing amazing happened
Friends and News
Prediction:
Social networks & News aggregators will merge
5 years later:
They merged!
Now difficult to distinguish news from opinion
AI feeds you the “news” it thinks you will like
… uh oh, fake news! Send in “anti-fake news” AI
Health
Prediction:
AI will surpass humans
5 years later:
“AI Predicts Heart Attacks and Strokes More
Accurately Than Standard Doctor's Method”
IEEE Spectrum, May 2017
Transport
Prediction:
Your car will be the first ‘talking robot’ you own
5 years later:
… it will be another five years.
It’s a race between:
Your car becoming truly autonomous, and
Your vacuum merging with your smart speaker
Security
Prediction:
More sophisticated identification of people
through speech
5 years later:
More sophisticated identification of people
through images
“Build a talking, face-recognizing doorbell for
about $100”, Lukas Biewald, O’Reilly.
What changed?
Enterprise / Abstract
Consumer / Personal
Global Health
Point-of-Care
Autonomous R&D
Self-Driving Cars
National Security
Home Security
News Aggregation
News Personalization
Artificial Intelligence at Amazon
Ar/ficialIntelligenceAtAmazon
ThousandsOfEmployeesAcrossTheCompanyFocusedonAI
Discovery&
Discovery &
Search
Search
Fulfilment&
Fulfilment &
Logis/cs
Logistics
Enhance
Enhance
Exis/ngProducts
Existing
Products
Define New
Categories Of
Products
BringMachine
Bringing AI
LearningToAll
to All
Thank you, robots:
(and their creators and owners)
1 HAL 9000, 2001 A Space Odyssey, MGM
2 Dalek, Dr Who, BBC
3 Robot, Lost in Space, CBS
4 Data, Star Trek, Paramount
5 Motoko Kusanagi Ghost in the Shell,
Manga Entertainment
6 Batou, Ghost in the Shell, Manga
Entertainment
7 Astro Boy, Astro Boy, Mushi Entertainment
8 Rosie, The Jetsons, Hanna-Barbera
9 Kitt, Knight Rider, NBC
10 Deckard, Blade Runner, Warner Bros.
11 Bender, Futurama, 20th Century Fox
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