Ethical Guidance for Pervasive and Autonomous IT

"What Fueled Twitter’s Success?"

2012-01-15T16:56:00.000-05:00

How did Twitter become so popular? The simple answer is that nothing succeeds like success - the same reason we still have the QWERTY keyboard.

A more sophisticated answer can be found in this article by Paul Hyman (ACM News, January 12, 2012), which is a report on a technical article (Modeling the adoption of innovations in the presence of geographic and media influences by Jameson L. Toole, Meeyoung Cha, and Marta C. González), but from me you're going to get a very minimal, two-part explanation.

Lots of people who lived near each other adopted Twitter early on. The service became available in late March of 2006, and by early August of 2009 "nearly 3.5 million people signed up for Twitter, mainly in cities with high concentrations of young, tech-savvy early adopters like San Francisco and Boston."
Celebrity praise of Twitter - Ashton Kutcher and Oprah Winfrey are mentioned - also boosted the number of users dramatically.

Together, these two forces pushed Twitter users to "a tipping point of 13.5% of the population." And the rest is history.

So if you want your product to "go viral," release it first in locations with lots of likely early adopters and induce celebrities to plug it. It would probably help to use Twitter or Facebook.

Ken Pimple, PAIT Project Director

Call for papers: Personal and Ubiquitous Computing

2012-01-05T14:51:00.000-05:00

Personal and Ubiquitous Computing
Special Issue on Security and trust in Context-Aware systems

Important dates

Manuscript submission: 28.02.2012
First round of reviews: 31.03.2012
Submission of revisions: 21.04.2012
Acceptance notification: 21.05.2012
Final manuscript due: 18.06.2012
Publication date: Summer2012

Scope
Over the last several years, studies considering impacts of security and trustin personal and ubiquitous computing have become an independent research fieldwithin the Pervasive Computing area. One strand has concentrated on usingcontext data to establish security or authentication, while a second strandconsiders trust in context and services provided by remote devices. A thirdstrand, motivated by corporate applications, focuses on resilience of aninstrumentation of distributed sources.

Research also considers the question how much information can be obfuscated toprotect the privacy of a user without preventing the correct operation of agiven application. Methodologically, new models for the specific attackscenarios, security threats and counter-effects in wireless sensor networks andcontext-aware mobile systems need to be developed.

Clearly, these strands intersect varied disciplines, including acquisition andclassification of context, cryptography and fuzzy authentication, sensornetworks, information theory and interface design.

The objective of this special issue is to provide a platform to bring togetherthe above strands and other emerging paradigms of research in this area andthereby provide further impetus to research on this class of problems.

We solicit original papers and tutorial surveys on the following list ofindicative topics.

Context-based mobile wireless authentication
Context-based device pairing
Securing context-aware applications
Sensor-, context-, and location-based authentication
Spontaneous secure context-based device interactions
Autonomic and dependable computing
Methods and techniques for self-configuration, self-healing, self-protectingsystems
Flexible and secure orchestration of ICT services
Establishing and managing trust in cyber-physical systems
Anonymous/pseudonymous context aware mobile computation
Legal and social issues of security and privacy for mobile devices
Perception of security and privacy in mobile computing
Resilient cryptography
Entropy of context based keys
Fuzzy cryptography
Security with noisy data
Usability aspects of secure and privacy-preserving context-aware systems
Mechanisms that improve a user's awareness of, and control over, privacy and security
Agent-based methods and architectures for trust and security in Ubiquitous Computing
Contextual reasoning methods for privacy and security in Ubiquitous Computing
Ontology-based and knowledge-based methods and architectures

As usual, the above is not an exhaustive list but an indicative one.

Submission Process
Prospective authors should submit a pdf of their manuscript via EasyChair at
https://www.easychair.org/account/signin.cgi?conf=stpuc2012.Formatting should follow the PUC-guidelines (see http://www.springer.com/computer/hci/journal/779for more details). Submissions should not exceed 8000 words.

Prior to submitting their papers for review, authors should make sure that theyunderstand and agree to adhere to the over-length page charge policy presentedin the PUC guidelines.

Guest editors

René Mayrhofer, Hedda R. Schmidtke, Stephan Sigg

Contact

SecurityAndTrust2012@easychair.org

(With thanks to Colin Allen for sharing this with me.)

Ken Pimple, PAIT Project Director

"Robotics: Morals and machines"

2012-01-04T15:18:00.000-05:00

This book review by Braden Allenby (Nature 481:26-27, January 5 2012) covers Robot Ethics: The Ethical and Social Implications of Robotics, ed. Patrick Lin, Keith Abney, and George A. Bekey (MIT Press: 2011). Allenby characterizes the book as "a timely round-up of sensible ethical and policy responses to advances in robot technology" and notes (among other good qualities) that the book "succeeds as a stand-alone text, with its varied contributors striving for objectivity and avoiding hyperbole."

I'll be ordering my copy soon.

Ken Pimple, PAIT Project Director

"The Future of Moral Machines"

2012-01-04T14:09:00.000-05:00

This article by Indiana University professor Colin Allen (New York Times, December 25, 2011) is a clearly-written and engaging short introduction to the controversies surrounding "moral" machines.

I made the mistake of reading a few of the comments written by Times readers, the majority of whom seem to have either misunderstood the article or not bothered to read beyond the title. One wonders why people so disdainful of the New York Times and/or philosophy would torment themselves by reading the Times' "forum for contemporary philosophers on issues both timely and timeless" known as "The Stone."

At any rate, I do recommend that you read and enjoy the article itself.

Ken Pimple, PAIT Project Director

"Using Google’s Data to Sell Thermometers to Mothers"

2011-12-23T09:47:00.000-05:00

I have been known to rant about advertising, which is intended to induce people to buy products they would not otherwise buy. In other words, advertising strives to manipulate behavior; it is (or wants to be) a kind of mind control. Perfect advertising would be perfect mind control. For this reason I deplore any advances in the art or science of advertising.

We learn in this New York Times article (Andrew Adam Newman, Dec. 22, 2011) of an advertising campaign for children's thermometers. The ads appear in "popular apps like Pandora," but only on devices used by mothers who live in areas experiencing a high rate of flu and who live "within two miles of retailers that carry the thermometer."

"Flu levels in your area are high," says the banner ad within an app. "Be prepared with [product name]."

This breakthrough in advertising is made possible by Google Flu Trends, a predictive model for flu outbreaks using Google's massive database of Internet searches. The model has "a reporting lag of only about a day, outdoing C.D.C. flu reports, which typically are published a week or two after breakouts."

Arguably, the thermometer advertisers are performing a public service. I know from experience that it can be hard to take the temperature of a baby or toddler, and easier methods are welcome. It's also important to know whether your child has a fever and, if so, how severe it is. Getting the word out could be useful to mothers and even life-saving for children.

So I don't really object to this campaign. But I do deplore the advance in mind control.

Ken Pimple, PAIT Project Director

"One Million Apps, and Counting"

2011-12-12T14:32:00.000-05:00

From "One Million Apps, and Counting" by Shelly Freierman (New York Times, December 11, 2011):

The pace of new app development dwarfs the release of other kinds of media. “Every week about 100 movies get released worldwide, along with about 250 books,” said Anindya Datta, the founder and chairman of Mobilewalla which helps users navigate the mobile app market. “That compares to the release of around 15,000 apps per week.”

That's a lot of apps. If 0.1% of them were defective in a way that would compromise a user's privacy or security, that would be just 15 dangerous apps per week, or about 1,000 so far. Good odds, or bad?

Ken Pimple, PAIT Project Director

"A Hearing Aid That Cuts Out All the Clatter"

2011-10-24T09:47:00.000-04:00

Here's a rarity: A story with good news and, as far as my imagination can stretch, no down side ("A Hearing Aid that Cuts Out All the Clatter," by John Tierney, New York Times, October 23,2011).

A relatively inexpensive "hearing loop" - "a thin strand of copper wire radiating electromagnetic signals that can be picked up by a tiny receiver already built into most hearing aids and cochlear implants" - installed in the floor around the edges of a room can transmit the signal from a microphone directly to the receiver, called a telecoil, or t-coil.

Hearing aids work best in relatively quiet places, where there are few sources of noise. In a subway or other crowded, busy place, hearing aids amplify all of the noise indiscriminately, creating a true cacophony from which it is difficult to distinguish the sounds that matter. The hearing loop / telecoil combination solves that problem, at least at events where microphones are used.

The technology "has been widely adopted in Northern Europe" and is catching on in the U.S.

Could it have a down side? I suppose so, but I don't see it.

Ken Pimple, PAIT Project Director

"Stuxnet Computer Worm’s Creators May Be Active Again"

2011-10-19T13:51:00.000-04:00

John Markoff of the New York Times reports that the Stuxnet Computer Worm’s Creators May Be Active Again (October 18, 2011). Can anyone tell me what's more scary than Stuxnet?

Maybe I don't want to know.

Ken Pimple, PAIT Project Director

"Killer apps" and "big data"

2011-10-17T09:42:00.000-04:00

Several years ago, I read an article - possibly a book review, probably in Science - that outlined the science underlying certain aspects of ancient and medieval warfare, including the mathematics of fortifications and catapults. Science and engineering have always been servants of war, for better and for worse, steadily producing more powerful and more accurate ways to kill and maim people, destroy property, and wreak havoc. My knowledge of military history is incomplete at best, and my knowledge of the history of diplomacy is probably even weaker, but I venture to guess that the "science" of negotiation and diplomacy - war by peaceful means - has not kept pace with the science of war, perhaps because it is so much easier to make better weapons than it is to make better men.*

This rumination was precipitated by two recent articles: A comment by P.W. Singer ("Military robotics and ethics: A world of killer apps," Nature 477:366-401, September 22, 2011) and a news article by John Markoff ("Government aims to build a 'data eye in the sky'," New York Times October 10, 2011).

Singer opens his piece by commenting on the unexpected consequences of the Manhattan Project, which "opened up entirely new areas of physics, revolutionized the energy industry and transformed world politics."

What is different today is the speed with which our technology can outpace our ethical and policy responses to it. Astounding advances grab the headlines so frequently that the public has become numb to their significance - whether it is robotic planes, directed-energy weapons such as high-energy lasers, or 'electric skin', tiny sensors that are applied to the body like tattoos.

We are "giants" when it comes to technology, but "ethical infants" when it comes to understanding its consequences, as US Army general Omar Bradley remarked in 1948. Bradley was referring to nuclear research, but as the pace of technologic change takes off, that gulf - between our sophisticated inventions and our crude grasp of the consequences - continues to widen. We need to start bridging it.

In light of this perspective, we should all be alarmed by news that both DARPA and IARPA (U.S. agencies that support cutting-edge research; the acronyms stand for Defense/Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Agency/Activity) are interested in using social science techniques to "mine the vast resources of the Internet" with automated systems that will provide a "data eye in the sky" to follow and, they hope, predict "political and economic events" as well as "pandemics and other types of widespread contagion."

There's not much point in demanding the cessation of such initiatives; they will be pursued by someone. There might be a chance to direct and control them, however. If we know how.

Ken Pimple, PAIT Project Director

*I use the word "men" in the old-fashioned sense of "human beings" because that usage, in spite of its sexist connotations, has a certain power and dignity, at least to my ear. Besides, until recently, war was pretty much a monopoly held by the males of the species, so I think we deserve the blame.

"Moods on Twitter Follow Biological Rhythms, Study Finds"

2011-09-30T10:16:00.000-04:00

I doubt that there are any surprises in this story from the New York Times. It's only worth mentioning insofar as it portends future, more sophisticated data mining from sites like Facebook and Twitter.

Ken Pimple, PAIT Project Director

"Secret memo reveals which telecoms store your data the longest"

2011-09-29T11:06:00.000-04:00

Francis Harvey, to whom my thanks, brought this item to my attention. In an article by David Kravets of wired.com describes "a newly released Justice Department internal memo that for the first time reveals the data retention policies of America’s largest telecoms." The article includes a link to the one-page memo. Apparently AT&T has the biggest appetite for keeping track of its user's movements:

The biggest difference in retention surrounds so-called cell-site data. That is information detailing a phone’s movement history via its connections to mobile phone towers while it's traveling.

Verizon keeps that data on a one-year rolling basis; T-Mobile for “a year or more;” Sprint up to two years, and AT&T indefinitely, from July 2008.

Also of interest: Verizon keeps "text message content" for 3-5 days, but T-Mobile, AT&T, and Sprint don't keep it at all.

This information could be useful to policy makers, as the article recognizes.

The document release comes two months before the Supreme Court hears a case testing the government’s argument that it may use GPS devices to monitor a suspect’s every movement without a warrant. And the disclosure comes a month ahead of the 25th anniversary of the Electronic Privacy Communications Act, an outdated law that the government has invoked to obtain, without a warrant, the data the Justice Department document describes.

Stay tuned for future developments.

Ken Pimple, PAIT Project Director

"New emotion detector can see when we're lying"

2011-09-16T16:03:00.001-04:00

BBC News reports that a research team from universities in England and Wales has developed a new computerized camera system that "successfully discriminates between truth and lies in about two-thirds of cases" when tested with volunteers (reported by Hamish Pritchard, September 13, 2011). The team spokesman, Hassan Ugail of Bradford University, is quoted as speculating that "In a real, high-stress situation, we might get an even higher success rate," even up to 90%, which is reportedly "similar to the performance of the polygraph."

The beauty of such a system for detecting terrorists at airports is obvious - just scan everyone and double-check anyone who seems to be lying. Employers will also be excited at the prospect of using it in job interviews. Private investigators will invest in a portable unit that they can hide in a potted plant at a restaurant where a woman can ask her husband, point blank, whether he's fooling around. The applications are endless.

The mischief that such a device could create is nearly endless. The last I heard, the polygraph was widely considered ineffective and of dubious worth in criminal cases. I am also given to believe that polygraphs and fingerprints have never been adequately tested for reliability, so if this system is given more rigorous screening, it might prove to be better than I expect it will be. No matter how (in)accurate it turns out to be, people tend to be so credulous about lie-detecting machines that it will probably be taken as infallible.

The kicker comes in the last paragraph: Like the polygraph, the new system detects "emotions, such as distress, fear or distrust, and not the act of lying itself. Fear can sometimes be the fear of not being believed rather than the fear of being caught." Or the fear of flying, or being water boarded.

Thanks to Colin Allen for drawing my attention to this.

Ken Pimple, PAIT Project Director

Mind-controlled robots, the Supreme Court on GPS, Wii without a wand, and computers that write

2011-09-12T10:43:00.000-04:00

A small avalanche of PAIT-related articles buried me this weekend; let me see whether I can dig my way out.

Disabled Patients Mind-Meld With Robots by Sara Reardon (ScienceNOW, September 6, 2011) - Using Skype and wearing "a cap of tiny electroencephalogram (EEG) electrodes," two people "whose lower bodies were paralyzed and who had been bed bound for 6 or 7 years" controlled the movements of a modified commercial robot - Robotino -100 kilometers away. They used only their brain waves - no moving eyes, no twitching fingers. The paralyzed subjects had been trained for 1 hour a week for 6 weeks. The system had been tested earlier with non-paralyzed people, and the paralyzed subjects "performed just as well as the healthy subjects." Think of what this would mean to paralyzed people and their friends and families - it would be a miracle.

My enthusiasm is, of course, always tempered by caution. The Hollywood version would have someone hack the system and take control of the robot to frame a paralyzed person for murder. My real concern, though, is accessibility. There's no mention in the article how much this rig would cost, and the manufacturer of Robotino, Festo Didactic, lists all of the prices associated with Robotino as "on request." I fear this is an instance of "if you have to ask the price, you can't afford it."

Court Case Asks if ‘Big Brother’ Is Spelled GPS by Adam Liptak (New York Times, September 10, 2011) - At least three federal judges have compared the use of global positioning system (GPS) devices by police to George Orwell's novel, 1984. In November, the Supreme Count "will address a question that has divided the lower courts: Do the police need a warrant to attach a GPS device to a suspect’s car and track its movements for weeks at a time?"

The answer seems obvious to me (hint: it begins with a "y"), but with the current court I'm not making any bets.

Remote Control, With a Wave of a Hand by Anne Eisenberg (New York Times, September 10, 2011) - "Scientists at Microsoft Research and the University of Washington have come up with a new system that uses the human body as an antenna. The technology could one day be used to turn on lights, buy a ticket at a train station kiosk, or interact with a world of other computer applications. And no elaborate instruments would be required." No need for a Wii wand or the Kinect's cameras that track motion.

Nothing is said about whether this technology could be used to identify and track specific individuals (is your repertoire of everyday gestures as distinctive as your face or fingerprints?).

In Case You Wondered, a Real Human Wrote This Column, allegedly by Steve Lohr (New York Times, September 10, 2011) - I had heard some time ago about the effort to make computers write newspaper-style sports articles based solely on the statistics of the game. That such writing would soon be indistinguishable from prose written by a human sports writer I did not doubt. The time seems to be near.

Somehow I can't get excited by this one.

Ken Pimple, PAIT Project Director

"To Catch a Quake"

2011-08-26T16:38:00.001-04:00

Science, the flagship journal of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), has a weekly roundup of some of the most interesting recent science publications called "Editors' Choice." In this week's issue (v. 333, n. 6046, Aug. 26, 2011), one of the seven featured publications is described in a paragraph entitled "To Catch a Quake" by Nicholas S. Wigginton (p. 1072). If you or your institution doesn't have a subscription to Science, the link probably won't work.

Wigginton's synopsis of the article describes the Quake-Catcher Network, "a volunteer-based seismic network that employs personal computers as low-cost seismic stations by sending seismic data collected with a small USB accelerometer through the user's Internet connection." After Chile's huge earthquake in 2010, "volunteers rapidly installed nearly 100 accelerometers within weeks in and around the mainshock [sic] area."

The study showed that this network was able accurately to collect aftershock data. Such networks could be inexpensively deployed in high-risk areas to provide first responders real-time information on the areas most likely to need help.

The citation of the original article, by "Chung et al.," provided by Science is "Seismol. Res. Lett. 82, 526 (2011)." (The cryptic, telegraphic style of citation is typical of the sciences.)

Don't let it be said that I only share bad news on this blog.

Ken Pimple, PAIT Project Director

The ubiquity of surveillance

2011-08-25T10:40:00.000-04:00

Arlo and Janis, one of my favorite newspaper comic strips, featured a PAIT-related subject yesterday. The strip is subtle and funny, and the subject is scary or annoying, depending on your point of view. To me it's both. Read the strip and let me know what you think (use the comment feature below).

Ken Pimple, PAIT Project Director

In the news: Privacy, security, hacking

2011-08-22T09:56:00.001-04:00

Six tidbits in the news - some a bit late in being posted, others quite recent - in three categories:

Privacy a: The Week in Privacy (Just Between You and Me) Peter Catapano (New York Times, June 17, 2011) reviews the "the theory of the insidious plot to flood the minds and bodies of the American public with ever-more-mesmerizing and shinier technological gadgets and distractions so that those who already mostly control the world can for their own benefit further monitor and control the behaviors of the powerless masses, and that said powerless masses will be too busy operating or figuring out how to operate their new personal devices to even know what happened"
Privacy b: Just Give Me the Right to Be Forgotten Natasha Singer (New York Times, August 20, 2011) wishes that people in the United States had something like "the data protection directive of the European Union," under which "people who have contracted with a company generally have a right to withdraw their permission for it to keep their personal data. Under this 'right to be forgotten,' Europeans who terminate frequent-flier memberships, for example, can demand that airlines delete their flight and mileage records."
Security: Federal Push for ‘Cloud’ Technology Faces Skepticism Sean Collins Walsh (New York Times, August 21, 2011) reports on security concerns raised in the light of enthusiasm in some corners for using cloud hosts for some Federal agencies. The "selling points" include "lower cost [and] greater flexibility, because agencies can change the size of a project without having to add or subtract from their computing infrastructure." The unpromising history (so far) of deficits in Internet-linked computing some people worried.
Hackers a: Deploying New Tools to Stop the Hackers Christopher Drew and Verne G. Kopytoff (New York Times, June 17, 2011) describe some of the threats to the security of Internet-accessible computers, as well as some of new approaches to fighting back.
Hackers b: Web Site Ranks Hacks and Bestows Bragging Rights Riva Richmond (New York Times, August 21, 2011) reports an "upstart" Web site which "offers a way to separate the skilled [hackers] from the so-called script kiddies by verifying hacks using codes that participants must plant somewhere on sites they have compromised."
Hackers c: Master Hacker Kevin Mitnick Shares His 'Addiction' "Famed hacker" Kevin Mitnick is interviewed (All Things Considered, August 21, 2011) about his new book, Ghost in the Wires: My Adventures as the World's Most Wanted Hacker.

Arms races are alive and well.

Ken Pimple, PAIT Project Director

Skintight monitoring

2011-08-12T15:27:00.000-04:00

A research article in the August 12, 2011 issue of Science, "Epidermal Electronics," describes a bandage-like "electronic skin" (as it's called in a commentary, "An Electronic Second Skin," in the same issue). According to the abstract of the research article, the material can incorporate "electrophysiological, temperature, and strain sensors, as well as transistors, light-emitting diodes, photodetectors, radio frequency inductors, capacitors, oscillators, and rectifying diodes."

The potential uses in medical applications alone are impressive. Zhenqiang Ma, author of the commentary, describes one current technology that this material may replace one day: "a patient who may have heart disease is usually required to wear a bulky monitor for a prolonged period (typically a month) in order to capture the abnormal yet rare cardiac events." Skintight monitors would eliminate the bulk and weight and have other benefits.

In addition to "physiological status monitoring," the authors of the research article say that the material could be used for "wound measurement/treatment, biological/chemical sensing, human-machine interfaces, covert communications, and others."

Naturally it's the last two examples that catch my attention. Human-machine interfaces? A cool and no doubt really useful application, but vaguely scary, too. And of course covert communications always seem nefarious.

Ken Pimple, PAIT Project Director

The allure of robots

2011-07-29T11:23:00.004-04:00

It's been a long time since my last post, and it might be a long time before my next, due to time and deadline crunches. Just to let you know I'm still around, I'm sharing a link to a PAIT-related comic of PartiallyClips. My first thought on reading it: "One danger of advanced technology is that people expect too much from it."

Ken Pimple, PAIT Project Director

More on personalization; loving our devices; censor-proof Internet

2011-06-13T11:04:00.000-04:00

Three interesting articles, two that have languished for weeks awaiting my attention, and one more recent.

The Trouble With the Echo Chamber Online by Natasha Singer (New York Times, May 28, 2011) draws on Eli Pariser's recent book, The Filter Bubble: What the Internet is Hiding From You (see my earlier post) and an interview with Pariser, among other sources, to explore the downside of personalized Web searches and other online experiences: Increasing isolation.

Liking Is for Cowards. Go for What Hurts. (New York Times, May 28, 2011) is an op-ed piece by John Franzen and drawn from his May 21 commencement address at Kenyon College, in which Franzen contrasts "the narcissistic tendencies of technology and the problem of actual love." It's a better than average commencement address, but, to my taste, the profundity mandate implicit in the genre gives the talk a sophomoric tone.

U.S. Underwrites Internet Detour Around Censors by James Glanz and John Markoff (New York Times, June 12, 2011) describes a "global effort" to develop technologies that will be able to do an end-run around Internet censorship, such as an Internet server that can fit in a suitcase. The goal is to empower groups struggling against "repressive governments."

It's one of those ideas that give me a momentary thrill followed by a longer-lasting chill. I'm all for providing non-violent support to dissident groups, but it seems likely that these technologies could also be used for nefarious purposes. Once a technology is deployed, it will be imitated and re-deployed, and not necessarily for democracy-loving purposes. Would it be a boon for terrorists? For rogue governments?

The only answer I have is that if the U.S. can develop these technologies with good intentions, others with bad intentions could develop them, too. Perhaps it's best to be ahead of the curve.

Ken Pimple, PAIT Project Director

"When the Internet Thinks It Knows You"

2011-05-23T15:01:00.000-04:00

In this opinion piece from the New York Times (May 22, 2011) is written by Eli Pariser, one of the founders of and current president of the board of MoveOn.org. Pariser expresses concern about the "Internet giants - Google, Facebook, Yahoo and Microsoft -" who are so good at mining our browsing habits to customize advertising to the reader.

It isn't the advertising practices of these giants that bother Pariser; its the search filtering. To Pariser, some of the democratization that the Internet has fostered is a risk.

[W]hen personalization affects not just what you buy but how you think, different issues arise. Democracy depends on the citizen’s ability to engage with multiple viewpoints; the Internet limits such engagement when it offers up only information that reflects your already established point of view. While it’s sometimes convenient to see only what you want to see, it’s critical at other times that you see things that you don’t.

Insofar as this is a threat (and I think it is), I would say that Facebook has the potential to do the most harm. Doesn't it seem likely that the more time a person spends living in Facebook-land, talking only to chosen friends, the more likely her or his worldview will narrow?

Parsier believes that companies that use this kind of technology should "give us control over what we see - making it clear when they are personalizing, and allowing us to shape and adjust our own filters."

Will they heed his call? I doubt it. Would it do any good if they did? Not much, I'd guess. Most people wouldn't take the time to shape their own filters. It's so easy and pleasant to let someone else filter for me and categorize my behaviors so I don't have to - it's like Shangri-La.

But I'd use the "search filter off" option sometimes.

Ken Pimple, PAIT Project Director

"Why Privacy Matters Even if You Have 'Nothing to Hide'"

2011-05-16T14:53:00.000-04:00

The May 15 2011 issue of The Chronicle of Higher Education includes an excerpt from Daniel J. Solove's new book, Nothing to Hide: The False Tradeoff Between Privacy and Security (Yale University Press), tackling a common response governmental gathering of personal information:

"I've got nothing to hide," they declare. "Only if you're doing something wrong should you worry, and then you don't deserve to keep it private."

He points out that even people who have nothing to hide - because they have not committed any crimes, or done anything they are ashamed of - still would not care to have all of their private information made public. The nothing-to-hide argument is based on "the underlying assumption that privacy is about hiding bad things." It's about hiding bad things, but that's only one aspect. It's also about privacy - the ability to have a life that is not entirely on public view.

Solove identifies several harms that can arise from invasions of privacy.

When not-particularly-revealing data from multiple sources are combined, the aggregation can reveal more than the bits reveal on their own.
Exclusion is characteristic of much data gathering; individuals are excluded from when they are "prevented from having knowledge about how information about them is being used, and when they are barred from accessing and correcting errors in that data."
Related to exclusion is secondary use (sometimes called "re-purposing"), in which data gathered with one object in mind are used for another purpose. In the context of government surveillance, secondary use "can paint a distorted picture, especially since records are reductive—they often capture information in a standardized format with many details omitted."

Almost everything he says in this short, readable, and useful essay can also be applied to commercial data collection. I'm guessing his book is a good one.

Ken Pimple, PAIT Project Director

"Now, to Find a Parking Spot, Drivers Look on Their Phones"

2011-05-08T09:44:00.000-04:00

Those lucky people in San Francisco now have an iPhone app to help them find empty parking spaces, according to the New York Times (May 7, 2011, by Matt Richtel). This could be a good thing; it will probably reduce stress and frustration (and perhaps road rage) and alleviate downtown congestion, some 30% of which is estimated by city officials to be caused by drivers looking for a place to park.

The city installed sensors in nearly 20,000 parking spaces that alert a computer system when those spots are filled (or emptied) as part of a $20 million parking initiative. (Unless the initiative covered other projects, that's $1,000 per parking spot.)

As the article notes, San Francisco isn't the first city to try this out, but it is the most widespread (so far). Can anyone doubt that it will lead to more distracted drivers and more collisions - including automobile/pedestrian collisions?

When Google perfects its self-driving cars and hooks in this system, San Francisco will be driving paradise.

Ken Pimple, PAIT Project Director

"Preventing the Next Flash Crash"

2011-05-06T09:37:00.000-04:00

In this editorial (New York Times, May 6, 2011), Edward E. Kaufman Jr., a former U.S. Senator (D-Delaware) and current Senator and chairman of the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations Carl M. Levin (D-Michigan) decry the lack of regulatory reform on high-speed automated trading. They recall the 2010 flash crash:

One year ago, the stock market took a brief and terrifying nose-dive. Almost a trillion dollars in wealth momentarily vanished. Shares in blue-chip companies were traded at absurdly low prices. High-frequency traders, who use computers to look for microscopic price differences in stocks on different exchanges and other trading venues, stopped trading, while others immediately sold whatever they bought, mainly to each other, in what has been called “hot potato” trading.

Their tale of inaction and obstacles to action is depressing, and all too familiar. Here's an example of a practice with a demonstrated capacity to do tremendous harm to the world economy, balanced only by dubious claims of benefits and the religion of profit. The federal government clearly has the power and authority to remove the enormous risk but can't - or won't - take action.

It doesn't bode well for our cultural ability to deal with far less dramatic and harmful, but still serious, ethical issues raised by other pervasive and autonomous information technologies whose risk has not yet been demonstrated (shall we always wait for disaster, or could we once in a while prevent it?) and for which no single entity with the capacity to control them can be found.

For more on the flash crash, see my earlier post.

Ken Pimple, PAIT Project Director

Online privacy; military gets hip; caterpillar robot; intelligent pricing

2011-05-02T10:39:00.000-04:00

Four interesting items came to my attention yesterday and today:

In the New York Times, Randall Stross supports opt-in rules for online data (Opt-In Rules Are a Good Start), meaning that no one should be allowed to gather or use your digital information without your consent. For too many sites, the best we can get is an opt-out option, which requires us to say, "Hey, don't do this;" or, more typically, "Hey, stop doing this." Not surprisingly, the proposed Commercial Privacy Bill of Rights Act of 2011 is supports an opt-out approach (we wouldn't want industry to be hampered by privacy concerns). Surprisingly, the article's poster child for opt-in is Facebook, which must have cleaned up its act while I wasn't looking.
Also in the Times, Andrew Martin and Thomas Lin write that some senior officials in the United States military are pushing to start using, or increase the use of, smartphones, iPads, video games, and virtual worlds in military training (Keyboards First. Then Grenades). Other senior officials are opposed. But some of these technologies are already being used and have proven effective, and they are appealing to young recruits. The smart money is on increased use.
ScienceNOW, a publication of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), has a wonderful video of a 10-centimeter/4-inch robot that mimics the escape behavior of some caterpillars (Video: Caterpillar-Inspired Robots Rock 'n' Roll). You've got to see it to believe it. From the video it appears the robot is still on wires (presumably for power or control), but it's only a matter of time before the military develops it for intelligence gathering or assassination.
Finally, ScienceInsider, also a AAAS publication, reports that an out-of-print 1992 book on developmental biology available on Amazon.com recently offered "15 used from $35.54, and 2 new from $1,730,045.91 (+$3.99 shipping)" (The $23 Million Textbook). The biologist who noticed the outlandish price tracked changes for a while and noticed a pattern: "Whenever one seller changed the price of the book, the other seller reacted by offering the book at 99.83% of that price. In response, the first seller automatically started asking 127% of the other seller's new price - and so on. The price peaked on 18 April before a human being intervened and the prices came back to earth." The culprit was "algorithmic pricing." Thank goodness it wasn't used to order drone strikes.

Ken Pimple, PAIT Project Director

"What You Should Know About the EU's New 'Internet of Things' Privacy Framework"

2011-04-13T12:34:00.000-04:00

In this entry on the Glen Gilmore and Social Media blog, Gilmore describes “the Internet of Things” as

a predicted, transformative moment in time when nearly all “things” in the physical world will be interconnected, wirelessly, with communication capabilities linking the physical and virtual worlds for a variety of cooperative applications

Much of the linking and cooperation will be facilitated by RFID smart tags, over which the European Union (EU) “has expressed grave concerns about the privacy implications of an unregulated internet and unchecked technology.” Gilmore provides an outline of the “EU’s 2009 Internet of Things: 14-point Strategic Action Plan” and links to the EU’s 24-page Privacy and Data Protection Impact Assessment Framework for RFID Applications and a two-page press release describing the voluntary agreement between the EU, industry, and privacy protection groups.

Specifically, the framework establishes “guidelines for all companies in Europe to address the data protection implications of smart tags (Radio Frequency Identification Devices – RFID) prior to placing them on the market.”

Gilmore’s critique of the framework is to the point, but perhaps a bit understated.

Despite the fanfare of many signatures, the framework is voluntary, with no express auditing mechanisms, though record-keeping procedures are outlined, and no defined penalties for non-compliance.

Coincidentally, the announcement of the EU’s voluntary framework came within one week of the release of a report by Carnegie Mellon University showing “lagging compliance” with U.S. industry self-regulation in online behavioral advertising.

...

[T]he framework gives private stakeholders the green light to continue full-steam ahead with their already massive investment in RFID technologies and the “internet of things” it heralds. [Emphasis and link in original]

I take it that Gilmore thinks the voluntary agreement is unacceptably weak and that the United States, “ever lagging behind the EU’s privacy initiatives,” is even worse.

Thanks to Francis Harvey for bringing this to my attention.

Ken Pimple, PAIT Project Director

"3-D Avatars Could Put You in Two Places at Once"

2011-04-12T11:54:00.000-04:00

Wouldn't you like to have a 3-D avatar bearing your own face that could attend 3-D virtual meetings with other talking heads on blocky bodies with pencil-thin limbs? I know I wouldn't.

John Tierney of the New York Times tells us (3-D Avatars Could Put You in Two Places at Once, April 11, 2011) that this will probably be available in the next five years.

Other selling points:

No more travel to meetings.
Your avatar can attend and participate in the meeting while you sleep.
You can alter your avatar's face to make the other meeting participants like you more.

Although the title puts you in two places at once, if the avatar can function without your direction (because you're asleep), why couldn't you be in three, four, five places (in two, three, four meetings) at once? Think of the increased productivity (and the increased expectations for productivity).

I can't wait.

Ken Pimple, PAIT Project Director

"Poker Bots Invade Online Gambling"

2011-03-15T13:48:00.000-04:00

This article from the New York Times by Gabriel Dance (March 13, 2011) describes the use of AI poker bots in online gambling. The bots apparently can win tens of thousands of dollars for the humans who deploy them. Professor Tuomas W. Sandholm of Carnegie Mellon University is quoted as saying that poker bots "can rival good players, but not the the best - yet."

Naturally the use of the poker bots is defended by some, condemned by others. Those of us who don't play poker online are safe from them. But then again:

The poker bots’ arrival may be just another sign of an emerging world where humans, knowingly or unknowingly, encounter robots on an everyday basis. People already talk with computers when they call customer service centers or drive their cars.

Ken Pimple, PAIT Project Director

Book event: World Wide Mind: The Coming Integration of Humanity, Machines and the Internet

2011-03-08T15:01:00.000-05:00

I received this meeting notice from Jason Borenstein, to whom my thanks. - Ken

Book event: World Wide Mind: The Coming Integration of Humanity, Machines and the Internet

Monday, March 21, 2011
12:15 p.m. - 1:30 p.m.

New America Foundation
1899 L St NW, Suite 400
Washington, DC 20036

What if digital communication felt as real as being touched? This question led acclaimed science writer Michael Chorost to explore profound new ideas triggered by lab research around the world, and has resulted in World Wide Mind: The Coming Integration of Humanity, Machines and the Internet (Free Press; February 2011) - the first book to explain exactly how humans and computers could be merged and the risks, implications, and amazing possibilities that await us in the future. World Wide Mind takes mind-to-mind communication out of the realm of science fiction and reveals how we are on the verge of a radical new understanding of human interaction.

Please join us for a conversation with writer Michael Chorost on how we communicate, how we can connect more fully with one another in a hyper technological age, and how our addiction to email and texting can be countered with technologies that put us-literally-in each other's minds.

Featured Speaker

Dr. Michael Chorost

Author, World Wide Mind

Moderator

Andrés Martinez

Director, Bernard L. Schwartz Fellows Program

New America Foundation

To RSVP for the event, go to the event page:
http://www.newamerica.net/events/2011/world_wide_mind

For questions, contact Stephanie Gunter at (202) 596-3367 or gunter@newamerica.net.

"Surrounded by Machines"

2011-02-28T16:38:00.001-05:00

This article, published in the March 2011 edition of Communications of the ACM (pp. 29-31).

Although the article was authored by yours truly, it owes its title to Keith Miller and its publication to Rachelle Hollander, editor of CACM's ethics column, to both of whom my thanks. It briefly describes three of the presentations at the 2010 PAIT workshop.
The funding period for the project officially ends tomorrow (March 1, 2011).

In the same issue, "Catch me if you can" by Gregory Benford (pp. 112-111)¹ traces the evolution of computer viruses and other malware, including Stuxnet. Benford claims that he wrote the first virus. I thank him for the article, but not for his invention.

Ken Pimple, PAIT Project Director

¹This isn't a typo; the article begins on page 112 and ends on 111.

"Location Privacy: Is Privacy in Public a Contradiction in Terms?"

2011-02-23T09:40:00.000-05:00

This entry by Robert Gellman on the GeoData Policy blog (Feb. 21, 2011) is an intelligent, but far from exhaustive, discussion of issues related to privacy in public places and changing technologies. I learned a number of things from it; the one that surprised me the most was Gellman's summary of a Supreme Court finding.

In United States v. Knotts, a 1983 Supreme Court decision, the police surreptitiously attached an electronic beeper to an item purchased by a suspect. They used the beeper to track the movements of the suspect’s car. The Court held that a person traveling in a car on public streets has no reasonable expectation of privacy in his movements. The Court didn’t care if the police watched or used technology. It found no Fourth Amendment violation either way.

I hadn't known about this decision, and it gave me food for thought. Gellman doesn't say whether the police had a warrant; if they did, the decision is in line with my understanding of police procedures. If they didn't, the decision strikes me as a serious escalation of police powers and degradation of civil rights. Furthermore, since the beeper was attached to an "item" and not to the car, it could have been used to track the suspect in relatively private spaces.

I found this a worthwhile read; you might also. Thanks to Francis Harvey for bringing it to my attention.

Ken Pimple, PAIT Project Director

Watson, Facebook, and IP numbers

2011-02-17T12:08:00.000-05:00

I go out of town for a couple of days and one of my favorite sources, the New York Times, publishes four articles relevant to this blog. Rather than wait until I have time to summarize and comment on each of them (which won't be soon), I'm going the cheap-and-easy way - three bullet points for four articles.

Watson, IBM's Jeopardy!-playing computer, gets two articles, both by John Markoff: A Fight to Win the Future: Computers vs. Humans (Feb. 14, 2011), a thoughtful, wide-ranging reflection on how Watson's language facility might (and might not) change economies and cultures; and Computer Wins on 'Jeopardy!;" Trivial, it's Not (Feb. 16) is more narrowly focused on describing Watson's performance on the TV show.
Facebook Officials Keep Quiet on Its Role in Revolts by Jennifer Preston (Feb. 14) highlights the critical role Facebook and other technologies have played in the recent (and ongoing) uprisings in Egypt and elsewhere. Facebook and Twitter, at least, take the stand that they are providers of social and communication services, not king-makers (the only safe stand they can take, of course).
I suppose it calls my nerd credentials into question that I didn't know that we were running out of IP numbers until I read Drumming Up More Addresses on the Internet by Laurie J. Flynn (Feb. 14). The 4.3 billion numbers that were created in 1977 are almost all used up; but a fix, IPv6, is in the bag, but like Y2K, there are a lot of entities that need to be fixed individually. Some people scoff at the Y2K problem - "The world didn't end!" - but only because they don't realize that the problems were averted by thousands of people working hard to make it a triumph rather than a disaster. Let's hope we do as well with this transition.

Ken Pimple, PAIT Project Director

"Malware Aimed at Iran Hit Five Sites, Report Says"

2011-02-14T14:10:00.000-05:00

This article from the New York Times by John Markoff (February 11, 2011) summarizes a report from computer security software firm Symantec analyzing the Stuxnet worm. They found that there were "three waves of attacks."

Liam O Murchu, a security researcher at the firm, said his team was able to chart the path of the infection because of an unusual feature of the malware: Stuxnet recorded information on the location and type of each computer it infected.

Symantec analyzed samples of the worm from "various" computers and "determined that 12,000 infections could be traced back to just five initial infection points."

The tracking information was apparently intended to allow the attackers to learn whether the target computers became infected.

Sophisticated malware meets sophisticated analysis.

Ken Pimple, PAIT Project Director

Robots on stage

2011-02-11T08:44:00.000-05:00

The New York Times reports that "Heddatron," a play by Elizabeth Meriwether, will open in Chicago today. The cast includes ten robots.

Five large robots are controlled remotely by cast members sitting offstage, and the remaining five are very small, autonomous "critter-bots," which basically just zip around the stage for the last five minutes of the play.

I'd love to see this play and write a review for this blog. Anyone want to give me a travel grant?

Ken Pimple, PAIT Project Director

Call for papers: Fourth Workshop on Roboethics

2011-02-10T16:45:00.000-05:00

Fourth Workshop on Roboethics

May 13, 2011

CALL FOR PAPERS

Important dates:

February 28, 2011: Paper submission deadline
March 7, 2011: Notification of Acceptance/Rejection
March 14, 2011: Camera-Ready Submission Deadline

Organizers: IEEE RAS Technical Committee on Roboethics

Gianmarco Veruggio, CNR-¬‐IEIIT, Italy (corresponding co-chair)
Jorge Solis, Waseda University, Japan (co-chair)
Matthias Scheutz, Indiana University, USA (co-chair)

Scope: The proposed Full Day Workshop on Roboethics is the fourth biennial event, organized by the Technical Committee on Roboethics as part of the ICRA conference (previous workshops took place in 2005, 2007 and 2009). Roboethics is ethics applied to robotics, i.e., the human-centered ethics guiding the design, construction and use of robots. It deals with the study of the ethical, legal and social aspects of the introduction and use of robots in our daily lives. Progress in the field of computer science and telecommunications allows us to endow machines with enough intelligence so that they already can act autonomously (to some degree). However, as the application domains for robots are increasing and robots are coming out of the factory halls, robotics research is increasingly raising ethical implications, related to the emerging interactions between robots and human beings.

Roboethics shares many "sensitive areas" with computer ethics, information ethics, bioethics and not only roboticists, but also sociologists, psychologists and philosophers are discussing the potentialities and limits of robotics to help building a better human society.

This workshop will increase robotics researchers' ethical awareness, in the context of the ever growing interdisciplinarity that characterizes the new generation of robotics research.

Goal: The theme of the ICRA 2011 conference is "Better Robots, Better Life", an expectation that robot technology will help build a better human society. But achieving this goal is not only a technical problem. Robotics applications raise ethical questions, related to emerging interactions between robots and humans. The application of ethics to machines, including robots and computer programs, has been typically limited the questions of whether designers and operators should take full responsibility of machines' actions. However, in the near future, the robotics is already developing machines with more open-ended behaviors and the ability to acquire new behaviors as a results of online learning during task execution. This kind of adaptation will likely limit the predictability of robot behaviors. Moreover, the types of interactions and the physical integrations of humans and robots are increasing rapidly. The social, economic, psychological, philosophical, and emotional impacts of this research are still unclear, however, and require careful analysis and attention by the research community. Among the objectives of the workshop is the opportunity of developing rules for roboethical quality insurance, aimed at preventing unethical uses of robotics research products. Long-term objectives include the increase of robotics researchers' ethical awareness, in the context of the ever growing interdisciplinarity that will characterize the new generation of robotics research.

Topics: Contributions are welcome on (but not limited to) the ethical, legal and societal aspects of the following topics:

robot ethics (decision procedures/algorithms for moral behavior)
technical dependability (availability; reliability; safety; security)
military application of robotics (acceptability, advantages and risks, codes)
health (robotics in surgery; robotics in health care, assistance, prosthetics and therapy)
service (social robotics, personal assistants, companions)
economy (replacing humans in the workplace; robotics and the job market)
psychology (position of humans in the control hierarchy; robots and children)
law (robots and liability; deployment of autonomously acting robots)
environment (sustainable exploitation of resources; cleaning nuclear and toxic waste)

For more information, please see the web page at http://www.roboethics.org/icra2011/

Interested authors are encouraged to send their original contributions in the above or related areas to the organizers at info@roboethics.org

Extended abstracts (of two pages) or full papers of up to 6 pages (using the ICRA conference publication format) are welcome.

"'Death by GPS' in desert"

2011-02-04T12:18:00.000-05:00

I've written about the unintended downside of relying too heavily on GPS, mobile telephones, and similar locational technologies in two earlier posts, the first about simply getting lost and the second describing several ways people visiting U.S. national parks have managed to get themselves into trouble using these devices.

This article by Tom Knudsen, published in The Sacramento Bee (Jan 30, 2011) describes the grim stories of people who have died in Death Valley National Park and Joshua Tree National Park after they entered these rugged areas unprepared for 120 degree (F) temperatures and wound up on impassable roads.

These are not just stories of unimaginable suffering. They are reminders that even with a growing suite of digital devices at our side, technology cannot guarantee survival in the wild. Worse, it is giving many a false sense of security and luring some into danger and death.

According to Charlie Callagan, Death Valley wilderness coordinator, "Some of the databases on the GPS units are showing old roads that haven't been open in 40 years." He's been "working with technology companies to remove closed and hazardous roads from their navigation databases – but with only partial success."

There has been a huge increase in summertime visitors to Death Valley, "from 97,000 in 1985 to 257,500 in 2009," an increase of 165%. It would be interesting to know the causes of the increase and whether locational technologies have played a large role. There's no way to tell from the article whether the per-visitor death rate has increased proportional to, slower than, or faster than the rate of increase in visitors. Whatever the case, clearly the providers of GPS services have a heavy responsibility to make their devices safer, at least by removing abandoned roads in dangerous areas, perhaps by removing places like Death Valley from their systems entirely.

Thanks to Don Searing for bringing this article to my attention.

Ken Pimple, PAIT Project Director

"Smart Meters Draw Fire From Left and Right in California"

2011-02-01T12:19:00.000-05:00

According to a January 31, 2011, article in the New York Times,

Pacific Gas and Electric’s campaign to introduce wireless smart meters in Northern California is facing fierce opposition from an eclectic mix of Tea Party conservatives and left-leaning individualists who say the meters threaten their liberties and their health.

I discussed the "liberties" angle in an earlier post, but the "health" concern caught me by surprise. The key is not the meters themselves, but the wireless technology they use to transmit data to power plants. It turns out that some people believe they are sensitive to radiation from mobile devices, WiFi, and smart meters, causing "dizziness, fatigue, headaches, sleeplessness or heart palpitations." It's called “electromagnetic hypersensitivity,” or E.H.S.

The article mentions that no health risks from such radiation have been confirmed. My impulse is to be skeptical of unconfirmed exotic conditions brought on by new technology, but lack of evidence is not proof that there's no effect. At any rate, the power company in question - Pacific Gas & Electric - is exploring the possibility of offering the option of hard-wiring the smart grids.

Ken Pimple, PAIT Project Director

More on Stuxnet

2011-01-27T12:26:00.000-05:00

In an earlier post, I wrote about the theory that Stuxnet was created and deployed by the U.S. and Israel. I deplored the deed because it also unleashed a powerful and - to my knowledge - unprecedented form of malicious software that will certainly be copied and re-used for all sorts of mischief.

The January 26, 2010, edition of the New York Times includes two op-ed pieces on Stuxnet. In "25 Years of Vandalism," William Gibson (author of Neuromancer and coiner of the word "cyberspace") traces the history of hacking to 1986. He also claims that it is less likely that Stuxnet is "a cyberweapon purpose-built by one state actor to strategically interfere with the business of another" than "a piece of hobbyist 'street' technology." If he's right, this is probably even worse news than I thought. It seems likely that hobbyist crackers - who are probably more numerous and even less discerning than governments - can adapt each others' code more readily than the kind of sophisticated worm Stuxnet has been described as elsewhere.

Indeed, the other op-ed, "From Bullets to Megabytes" by Richard A. Falkenrath, former "deputy homeland security adviser to President George W. Bush," describes Stuxnet as a "sophisticated half-megabyte of computer code." Falkenrath's analysis of the fallout from Stuxnet is also more sophisticated on mine, touching on the likely effect on relationships between governments and the global information technology industry as well as raising questions about the legality of the authorization of the use of such malware by the U.S. President.

It's a scary place out there.

Ken Pimple, PAIT Project Director

"Attention Turns to the Dangers of Distracted Pedestrians"

2011-01-26T11:10:00.000-05:00

Fresh on the heals of news that T-Mobile and other mobile phone carriers are serious about providing protection against distracted driving (see my earlier post), the New York Times (January 25, 2011) reports that several states - New York, Oregon, Virginia, California, and Arkansas are named - have passed, tried to pass, or are thinking of passing laws to ban pedestrians and bicyclists from using mobile phones and media players with headphones or ear buds.

A surprising number of people walk or run right in front of a moving car when entranced by their music, often with fatal consequences. The curmudgeon in me just wants to nominate such people for the Darwin Award, but death is an awfully steep penalty for a moment's distraction, and the innocent drivers involved in such collisions must be seriously traumatized.

Before legislation started popping up banning texting while driving, I wondered whether it would be possible or effective simply to define distracted driving as reckless driving. That legal move, plus a good deal of public education, might be a good deterrent. There's probably an analog for bicyclists, but is there for pedestrians?

At any rate, no matter how much we love our devices, and how much actual value they add to our lives, we really shouldn't let them eradicate our good sense.

Ken Pimple, PAIT Project Director

"Google and Mozilla Announce New Privacy Features"

2011-01-25T14:45:00.000-05:00

According to this New York Times article, Google's browser (Chrome) and Mozilla's (Firefox) will soon have the capability to send a "do not track" signal to Web sites they visit. Although they take different approaches, the opt-out feature of both browsers will, in essence, ask each Web site visited not to track the user. The new features will have no effect at sites that are not so configured.

These features do not seem as robust as Microsoft's (which I mentioned in an earlier post), which will allow the user to block Web sites based on a do-not-track list that users will be able to import to their browsers or create themselves. (See Microsoft's announcement for details.)

The comments posted by readers to the article about Google and Mozilla are generally disdainful of their approach - relying on industry to voluntarily implement the software that will make the privacy features work. Probably safe and legitimate sites will do so, but predatory sites will certainly not.

The comments also offer a few suggestions for dealing with this problem, including already available plug-ins (extensions).

Ken Pimple, PAIT Project Director

"Cell Carriers Explore Ways to Limit Distracted Driving"

2011-01-21T11:28:00.000-05:00

This article in the January 20, 2011, New York Times, describes the announcement by T-Mobile of a service that "for $4.99 a month, automatically disables rings and alerts and sends calls to voice mail when the phone is in a moving car." The feature can be disabled by passengers or foolhardy drivers. Other carriers are exploring the same idea.

I think that using a mobile phone while driving - whether texting or talking, hands-free or hands-on - should be illegal. Distracted driving is dangerous. But until we pass laws or change our culture, this kind of feature is welcome.

Ken Pimple, PAIT Project Director

"Israel Tests on Worm Called Crucial in Iran Nuclear Delay"

2011-01-21T11:16:00.000-05:00

This article, published January 15, 2011, in the New York Times, lays out a case to show that the United States and Israel created and used the Stuxnet computer worm to delay Iran's nuclear program.

By the accounts of a number of computer scientists, nuclear enrichment experts and former officials, the covert race to create Stuxnet was a joint project between the Americans and the Israelis, with some help, knowing or unknowing, from the Germans and the British.

Stuxnet does its damage by taking over a specific controller, the Siemens P.C.S.-7, which is used to run all kinds of industrial machinery. In particular, Stuxnet targeted the controllers of the centrifuges used by Iran to enrich uranium into a form that can be used to fuel a power plant or create a nuclear weapon. The P.C.S.-7 is widely used, and it seems likely that Stuxnet could be adapted to attack other nuclear refineries or even other kinds of plants - water treatment facilities, power plants, and so forth.

It seems to be widely agreed that Stuxnet is too sophisticated to have been created by your run-of-the-mill, or even stand-out, cracker, meaning that it was most likely created by one or more governments or corporations. The claim that it was crafted by the United States with Israeli help strikes me as credible, and I am glad that Iran's nuclear ambitions have been delayed.

However, the origin and results of this (apparently) first use of Stuxnet are not my concern here. To me, the biggest issue is that this sophisticated software is out there, available for study. I find this to be the most disturbing paragraph in the article:

“It’s like a playbook,” said Ralph Langner, an independent computer security expert in Hamburg, Germany, who was among the first to decode Stuxnet. “Anyone who looks at it carefully can build something like it.” Mr. Langner is among the experts who expressed fear that the attack had legitimized a new form of industrial warfare, one to which the United States is also highly vulnerable.

Someone, whether the U.S. or someone else, carefully crafted a genie, and then let it out of the bottle. The world may be a bit more safe from Iran's nuclear program for the moment, but I can't help wondering whether it's a net gain in security.

Ken Pimple, PAIT Project Director

Update: "A Faustian Exchange"

2011-01-04T12:00:00.000-05:00

This appears to be an update of an earlier post. My thanks to Jason Borenstein for sending this my way. - Ken

AI & SOCIETY: Celebrating the 25th birthday anniversary

Call for Papers

Theme: ‘A Faustian Exchange: What is to be human in the era of Ubiquitous Technology?’

As part of the celebration of the 25th birthday anniversary of AI&Society in 2012, we are planning three inter-linked activities: a Special Birthday volume; Academic Workshop/Conference in Cambridge, and a Public installation event at the Dana Centre, Science Museum, London. In the age of pervasive and streaming technologies, we get a deep sense that the more we get caught up in a process of self-commodification, the more we are threatened with the loss of our existential autonomy. We have become accustomed to perceiving and thinking in singularities and individualism, rooted deeply into the techno-industrial culture of competitiveness and the possibilities inherent in technology. Since its inception, the theme of Judgment to Calculation has been central to the ongoing debates in the journal. In the early days of AI, Prof. Weizenbaum in his seminal book, Computer Power and Human Reason (1976), warned us against instrumental reason and giving machines the responsibility for making genuinely human choices.

There is a legitimate concern that further advances in pervasive technology could create profound social disruptions and even have dangerous consequences, forcing humans to learn to live with machines which increasingly copy human behaviours. But how is it possible to reconcile the widening gaps between constructed reality and the basic reality of the human condition? The challenge is to recalibrate the spiral of Judgment to Calculation, moving forwards from Calculation to Judgment. We feel that the time has now come to square the circle and provide a forum for a debate on the theme of ‘Faustian Exchange: what it is to be human in Ubiquitous Technology’, reflecting the complex, uncertain, multicultural and interconnected world we live in.

Issues and Concerns
Pervasive technology has great potential and possibilities in many realms of human society, including medicine, healthcare, agriculture, transportation, education, commerce, arts and culture, scientific research and discovery. However, we should remain vigilant about the profound implications of the mediating technologies on human life.

What are the consequences of man’s reliance on technology in deciding and pursuing what is truly valuable?
What is it to be human when being mediated by technology in contrast to how we are in the presence of others?
How do we make our presence felt in the wilderness of the post-human and the extended mind?
How does this new pervasive technology affect society? How do we interact with the technologies embedded in our world? Have we gone beyond the frontiers of control?
How do we deal with the dilemma that singularity represents not simply the passing of humankind from center stage, but that it contradicts our most deeply held notions of being?
A robot for granny – Is there a technocratic fix for every social “problem”?
What would it be like designing technological systems for nurturing the well-being of human kind?
What can arts, literature, music and culture contribute to the debate on Faustian Exchange?
Can the sorcerer’s apprentice shed some light on increasing preoccupation of technologising the academy and turning universities into theme parks of extended websites?
How do we transcend the ‘bipolar tendency’ of the market culture, and ‘deal with the swings between prophesies of doom that serve only to paralyze us further, and the unbridled consumerism that makes things worse’?
Does the recent financial crisis at last make us see through the myth of the culture of ‘anti-intellectualism’ and the ‘end of history’?
What have we gained and what have we lost in the Faustian Exchange? Have we already bargained our soul for the seductive power of instrumental technology?

This special 25th anniversary issue of AI&Society will explore ways to optimize technology for society beyond the question of could we and should we. We welcome contributions for this special volume, and look forward to receiving expressions of interest, position papers/ abstracts, full papers:

Call for papers: 5 October 2010
Abstracts: 25 January 2011 (approx 500 words)
Full articles (upto 6000 words): 15 July 2011
Publication: July/August 2012

Karamjit S Gill
Editor, AI&Society: journal of knowledge, culture ad communication
kgillbton@yahoo.co.uk

"When Computers Keep Watch"

2011-01-04T11:47:00.000-05:00

This article from the New York Times (January 1, 2011) describes advances and uses of computerized analysis of visual images of people, including face recognition. The first example is of a system that monitors a prison yard in an annual training exercise for correctional officers.

Perched above the prison yard, five cameras tracked the play-acting prisoners, and artificial-intelligence software analyzed the images to recognize faces, gestures and patterns of group behavior. When two groups of inmates moved toward each other, the experimental computer system sent an alert - a text message - to a corrections officer that warned of a potential incident and gave the location.

Other examples include a computer-vision system that reminds hospital personnel to wash their hands when they are supposed to; another mounted behind a mirror that can "read a man's face to detect his heart rate and other vital signs;" a third can "analyze a woman’s expressions as she watches a movie trailer or shops online, and help marketers tailor their offerings accordingly."

Like most pervasive technologies, these computer-vision systems clearly have the potential to be beneficial in many ways, but also could easily be misused to violate privacy and cause other kinds of harms. As I read the article, the possibility of abuse by employers occurred to me before I reached this passage:

At work or school, the technology opens the door to a computerized supervisor that is always watching. Are you paying attention, goofing off or daydreaming?

Some people will argue that such a use would be justified because it would lead to great productivity and a thriving economy. Others, such as myself, would call it tyrannical; and I'd go on to say that there may be problems with ever-growing economies.

The examples above of the mirror that reads vital signs and the computer that monitors the reactions of shoppers or movie watchers are made possible by the research of Rosalind W. Picard and Rana el-Kaliouby at M.I.T. They have worked "for years" to apply "facial-expression analysis software to help young people with autism better recognize the emotional signals from others that they have such a hard time understanding" and co-founded a company, Affectiva, to market the software.

I am most alarmed by the use of these technologies to improve marketing and advertising, the practical science(s) of behavior control. Big business has the money and the incentive to propel the use of this software far and fast. What if the marketers actually perfect their art? Perfect marketing is perfect behavior control, and it might be reached under the flag of economic development with the blessing of our dominant paradigm. I find the fact that this may be made possible by the work of people who wanted to help people with autism bitterly ironic.

Ken Pimple, PAIT Project Director

"Cheaters Find an Adversary in Technology"

2010-12-28T11:37:00.000-05:00

This article, published in the New York Times on December 27, 2010, describes Caveon Test Security, a company that finds cheating in standardized tests by using "data forensics." The description of the tug-of-war between test designers/givers and test takers (especially would-be cheats) is intriguing on its own, but what does this have to do with pervasive information technology? Consider a case of state-wide testing:

With more than 100,000 students tested, proctors could not watch everyone - not when some teenagers can text with their phones in their pockets.

One of Caveon's clients is the Law School Admission Council. One of the challenges for the LSAT is that students who have recently completed the exam discuss the test online. Caveon "patrols the Internet for leaked questions." (The article doesn't say what it does with what it finds.)

Two pervasive technologies - texting and the World Wide Web - are cited as tools for cheating. Another technology (or bundle of technologies) is used to detect and prevent cheating. Is this an arms race, or will an equilibrium be achieved? You tell me.

Ken Pimple, PAIT Project Director

"Microsoft Introduces Tracking Protection to Its Browser"

2010-12-08T10:04:00.001-05:00

An article published in the New York Times on December 7, 2010, reports that Microsoft has announced that the next version of Internet Explorer ("available next year") will include a feature "that would permit users to stop certain Web sites from tracking them."

The announcement comes shortly after the Federal Trade Commission advocated such features (see my earlier posts "Stage Set for Showdown on Online Privacy" and Update: FTC and online privacy).

Since I made at least one snarky remark about Microsoft on this blog ("New Web Code Draws Concern Over Privacy Risks"), feel obliged to praise Microsoft for this decision, which I assume has been in the works for some time.

My favorite sentence in the above-mentioned Times article: "Microsoft’s announcement comes at a time when some in the online advertising community fear that a government-mandated do-not-track system could have severe ramifications for their business models."

It's no surprise that online advertisers would be worried about this development, but their business model is not as important as the civil right to privacy.

Ken Pimple, PAIT Project Director

Update: FTC and online privacy

2010-12-02T10:28:00.000-05:00

An earlier post on this blog concerns a potential clash between the United States Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and Commerce Department on regulating online privacy. At the time, the New York Times reported that the FTC was "exploring" a "do not track" policy, similar to the "do not call" lists that are now popular across the United States, allowing many of us to enjoy dinner without interruption from telemarketers.

The "do not track" policy would allow consumers to opt out of being tracked by Web sites.

Yesterday's New York Times reports that the FTC has "advocated" such a plan. Good for the FTC.

Ken Pimple, PAIT Project Director

"Context Awareness is Future of Experience-Driven Design"

2010-12-01T12:30:00.001-05:00

Francis Harvey brought this article from Outlook Series to my attention. It describes the keynote address delivered at the Intel Developer Forum on September 16, 2010, delivered by Intel Vice President, Director of Intel Labs, and Intel Chief Technology Officer and Senior Fellow Justin Rattner.

Context awareness covers a wide range of ways that computing devices, including smart phones, can be "aware" of the preferences, needs, and expectations of the device's user. A smart phone "knows" a great deal about its owner/user because it has access to her or his address book, calendar, e-mail, social networking information, pattern of outgoing and ingoing telephone calls, real-time physical location, and more. In the near future, Rattner claims (and demonstrates in a short video) that our smart phones give us directions to the nearest restaurant of the kind we best like and can afford, plus suggest the entree that we'd like best.

The article gives a nod to security and privacy concerns. I've got to say that if I were in charge of U.S. espionage, I'd be working to get these devices into the hands of all sorts of people. Think of the ways access to this kind of information about a person's habits and past behavior would enhance blackmail, intelligence gathering, kidnapping, and assassination.

For the ordinary citizen, the technology might be useful and even attractive. The biggest selling point seems to be that it will save people time - the time it takes to ask the concierge about good restaurants, for example. But my observation has been that the more time I save, the busier I turn out to be; all that free time gets filled up very fast, and not typically with refreshing and rewarding experiences

Besides, I don't want my smart phone to morph into a combination backseat driver and nag.

Ken Pimple, PAIT Project Director

Facebook "privacy," smart cars, and personal drones

2010-11-15T16:03:00.000-05:00

Four links on three unrelated topics:

1. Privacy on Facebook (not):

(a) The New York Times reported on October 22 that the capacity of Facebook to allow marketers to connect with very specific groups of people ("say, golf players in Illinois who make more than $150,000 a year and vacation in Hawaii") can inadvertently allow those marketers to learn sensitive personal information that Facebook claims it keeps confidential.

(b) Francis Harvey (to whom my thanks) sent me a link to a November 4 article about Air Force efforts to warn "Facebook users of a new location-based application that may pose a security risk because it publicises users' locations without their specific consent." As usual, the application is on by default, meaning that Facebook users must adjust their privacy settings manually.

2. Better software in cars. Francis Harvey (thanks again!) also alerted me to an October 15 press release from McMaster University announcing a major initiative to develop advanced software for use in automobiles. Cars already have multiple computer chips running thousands of lines of code, and the possibility of errors or malfunctions to cause trouble - including fatal trouble - is growing. New approaches to developing software are needed to address these challenges.

3. Military software for the masses. A breezy article brought to my attention by Don Searing (again, thanks!) entitled "Celebs beware! New Pandora's box of 'personal' drones that could stalk anyone from Brangelina to your own child" touches on potentially serious developments. Small flying drones (measuring about 3 feet from tip-to-tip of its helicopter-like blades) are being used by U.K. police who pilot the drones using software developed by the U.S. military. If the past is prologue, we can expect ever-cheaper drones over the next few years becoming affordable to corporations, then small businesses, then to merely well-off individuals, who will be able to use them to spy on - anyone. Presumably it will be rare for inexpensive drones outfitted with weapons to be sold to the general public, but the cunning people who brought us the Improvised Explosive Devices that have killed and maimed so many people in Afghanistan and Iraq must be salivating over the possibilities already.

Ken Pimple, PAIT Project Director

"Stage Set for Showdown on Online Privacy"

2010-11-10T10:46:00.000-05:00

This New York Times article (November 9, 2010) describes a potential clash between the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and Commerce Department over regulating online privacy.

Apparently the FTC's stance is pro-privacy (a.k.a., pro-consumer, pro-individual, pro-people) while the Commerce Department's stance is pro-business.

The FTC is thinking about requiring a "do not track" feature, much like the "do not call" lists that many Americans gratefully started using a few years ago to cut down - nearly eliminate, in my experience - telemarketing calls. The Internet equivalent would allow users to opt out of being tracked, presumably either one Web site at a time or globally. I'd like to see this implemented. There are sites where I appreciate being tracked; Amazon.com, for example, gives me useful suggestions by tracking my preferences over time, and wisely or foolishly I trust Amazon with that information.

The argument from business and the Commerce Department will be that such protections are too costly and will slow economic expansion. Some would characterize this as a battle between individual rights and commercial greed. I don't attribute greed to corporations; they are intended to make money and are generally well-designed to do so. It would be foolish of them not to argue their point. But I hope privacy wins out.

Ken Pimple, PAIT Project Director

Robot hands, robot guards

2010-11-08T11:40:00.000-05:00

Two snippets on robots:

An article in ScienceNOW (Oct. 25, 2010) describes a new robotic "hand" that can pour the contents of a glass into a mug and draw a square with a pen. The hand has no fingers. It's a "thin rubber sack filed with coffee grains or small glass spheres." When its flexible surface is pushed onto an object, a pipe in the hand's "wrist" sucks out some air, and voilà! the sack contracts and can lift the object. There's a nice video to illustrating its use. This hand is another example of how imitating humans might not be the best way to design robots - mimicking the human hand has not been very successful so far.

An article in the New York Times (Nov. 3, 2010) describes the increasing appeal (and decreasing cost) of using toy robots that can be remotely controlled via the Internet to keep an eye on one's home. The robots are relatively inexpensive and typically can move around the house and send sights and sounds to the remote user. The Times article mentions the entertainment value of these robots, but emphasizes their use as a security system. To me, they look more like an insecurity system; our family, at least, would feel more anxious going out of town leaving a robot behind that we could use to check on our house. We can't check it now, so we don't think about it. Make it possible to check for trouble and we'll frequently think about trouble. I'll pass.

Ken Pimple, PAIT Project Director

"Privacy vs. Profits"

2010-10-21T16:27:00.001-04:00

In this blog entry (New York Times, October 19, 2010), journalist Robert Wright describes the benefits he hopes to reap from HTML 5, about which I posted an entry on October 15. Specifically, Wright opines that the personal information of users that HTML 5 will soon be broadcasting for all who care to find it will allow journalists to earn an honest living on the Internet. With HTML 5, they'll be able to create a detailed profile of their readers, sell targeted advertising, and rake in the dough.

His discussion is more nuanced than my synopsis, of course, but the whole point can be found in his title. In the battle of privacy vs. profits, I suspect that profits is likely to win, at least in the United States.

Thanks to Francis Harvey for alerting me to this.

Ken Pimple, PAIT Project Director

"New Web Code Draws Concern Over Privacy Risks"

2010-10-15T16:26:00.000-04:00

The "Web code" described in this article (New York Times, October 10, 2010) is HTML 5. Why is it that "improvements" are so often hamstrung by major flaws? Hasn't anyone learned anything from Microsoft?

Ken Pimple, PAIT Project Director

"Aiming to Learn as We Do, A Machine Teaches Itself"

2010-10-15T16:20:00.000-04:00

The machine mentioned in this article (New York Times, Oct 4, 2010) is, of course, a computer, and it is designed to teach itself semantics by trolling the Internet, primed with a few basic linguistic categories. To this non-expert, it looks inventive and promising. I'd like to see someone pursue a similar project to enable a computer to teach itself how to make moral judgments.

One problem with using the Internet is the heavy emphasis on pornography and celebrities. Perhaps there's a way to adjust for that.

Ken Pimple, PAIT Project Director

"Google Cars Drive Themselves, in Traffic"

2010-10-15T16:04:00.000-04:00

Similar stories to this one from the New York Times appeared elsewhere. The last I had heard, self-driving cars would require a retrofit of roads. (I don't remember when or where I read that; it might have been 30 years ago in one of my father's issues of Popular Mechanics.) Google's approach seems more feasible, though how feasible that makes it in absolute terms I couldn't say.

The obvious concerns about this technology include safety and reliability, as well as hacking (imagine kidnapping, or killing, someone by taking over her or his car; in fact, it might be an effective way to frame someone).

Perhaps less obvious: Will self-driven cars get better gas mileage? Will Americans put up with them, even if they prove safer than human-driving cars? Will they be the end of the designated driver?

Ken Pimple, PAIT Project Director

Securing Emerging Technologies: Medical Devices, Robots, Cars, and More

2010-10-08T11:28:00.000-04:00

Securing Emerging Technologies:
Medical Devices, Robots, Cars, and More

Tadayoshi (Yoshi) Kohno
Assistant Professor
Department of Computer Science and Engineering (CSE)
University of Washington

Today’s and tomorrow’s emerging technologies have the potential to greatly improve the quality of our lives. Without the appropriate checks and balances, however, these emerging technologies also have the potential to compromise our digital (and physical) security and privacy. A key goal of the University of Washington CSE Computer Security Lab is to help us achieve the best of both worlds: The wonderful promises offered by the new technologies without the associated security and privacy risks. This talk will examine several strands of our research, including our discoveries of security vulnerabilities in emerging technologies ranging from wireless implantable defibrillators to cars, and our development of defenses to mitigate these vulnerabilities.

This lecture is free and open to the public.

Wednesday, October 20, 2010
4:00-5:30 pm
State Room East (IMU, 2nd floor)

Indiana University Bloomington

Tadayoshi Kohno is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at the University of Washington. His research focuses on computer security and privacy, broadly defined. In fact, he believes that almost every topic in computer science can have an exciting security-related twist. Originally trained in applied and theoretical cryptography, his current research thrusts span from secure cyber-physical systems (including wireless medical devices and automobiles) to private cloud computing. Kohno is the recipient of a National Science Foundation CAREER Award, an Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship, an MIT Technology Review TR-35 Young Innovator Award, and multiple best paper awards. He received his PhD in computer science from the University of California at San Diego.

Financial support for this lecture comes from the New Frontiers in the Arts and Humanities program (Office of the Vice Provost for Research) and the Poynter Center’s project on Ethical Guidance for Research and Application of Pervasive and Autonomous Information Technology (PAIT), made possible by the National Science Foundation (grant number SES-0848097).

A .PDF of this announcement is available at https://oncourse.iu.edu/access/content/user/pimple/Kohno-Oct20.pdf.

Ken Pimple, PAIT Project Director

A Faustian Exchange: What is to be human in the era of Ubiquitous Technology?

2010-10-06T14:17:00.000-04:00

A Faustian Exchange: What is to be human in the era of Ubiquitous Technology?

25^th Birthday Issue of AI & Society

We would like to invite you to submit a provisional title and abstract of your paper for the special 25th birthday issue of AI & Society. Please confirm by 15 November 2010 whether you will be submitting a paper.

We have had a very enthusiastic response to our discussions and contacts regarding the proposal to publish the special Birthday issue of AI & Society. The theme of the birthday issue, "A Faustian Exchange: What is to be human in the era of Ubiquitous Technology?," has been warmly welcomed. We very much appreciate the many useful suggestions that have been made.

What we are seeking articles that would review and reflect on developments over the recent past and do so in a more general manner than the usual theoretical and highly structured papers appearing in the journal. We are hoping the resultant articles can be wide ranging, visionary, reflective and opinionated in the best sense of the word, challenging and even provocative, and critically journalistic in form. This is not to suggest a dilution of academic rigour, but rather a way of presenting the important ideas in a form that is accessible not only to our current academic readership but also to those whose area of work is less highly specialised.

Timeline

15 November 2010: Confirmation of the submission of papers
15 December 2010: Title and Abstract (approx 500 words)
15 July 2011: Full articles (up to 6000 words)
January-March 2012: Review process and submission to the publishers
Publication: July/August 2012
AI & Society 25th Birthday Conference/Workshop: Cambridge, UK Autumn 2012

Please pass this information to your colleagues and networks who may be interested in this call for papers.

[Thanks to Jason Borenstein for sending this to me - Ken Pimple, PAIT Project Director]

Call for papers: Geographic Information Ethics

2010-10-04T11:01:00.000-04:00

This Call for Papers comes from Francis Harvey, University of Minnesota:

After two years of engaging sessions, Dawn Wright and I have moved ahead with a call for papers in a 2011 Geographic Information Ethics session at the AAG conference in Seattle, WA. The general theme is still the breadth of interactions with ethical issues and geographic information. The list of sample topics points to this breadth.
case studies, curriculum development, or the pedagogy of teaching GIS ethical issues;
issues of privacy, surveillance, inequity, erroneous or inappropriate data concerning geographic technologies;
codes of ethics and conduct of professional organizations;
GIS professional development;
reflections on the changing nature of ethical issues in GIS&T
ethics of data publication and peer review
This breadth has been advantageous in developing important discussions and creating a forum for work that engages ethical dimensions of geographic information technologies. Following last year's presentations and discussions, we have added the topic of data publication and peer review to the list.

At this point we write to bring this session to your attention and see if you may be interested in presenting. Also, if you could pass this notice about the call to colleagues working on ethics and geographic information, we'd appreciate your help in identifying other participants for the session.

The full call is online at: http://web.me.com/fhap13/AAG_GIS-Ethics_Sessions/GIS_Ethics_Sessions.html

I'm always happy to post relevant announcements.

Ken Pimple, PAIT Project Director

"Code Known as Flash Cookies Raises Privacy Concerns"

2010-09-21T15:42:00.000-04:00

This article in today's New York Times concerns the perennial problem of online privacy. The cookies used by Adobe's Flash player are different from those with which most of us are familiar, and are not deleted by the methods available in most browsers to manage cookies. The purpose of Flash cookies is also worrisome:

“The core function of the cookie is to link what you do on Web site A to what you do on Web site B,” said Peter Eckersley, a technologist at the Electronic Frontier Foundation. “The Flash cookie makes it harder for people to stop that from happening.”

Many people appreciate the same-site services that ordinary cookies can provide - showing content based on what I have already read on that site, for example. But sharing that information with a different site is another issue altogether. No doubt it can be used to great advantage for consumers, but it is also an order of magnitude more intrusive than ordinary cookies.

The article touches on several issues that arise across many pervasive technologies. Flash cookies, being unfamiliar and "transparent to the user," are covert. They compile information without our consent or knowledge. And although they can be useful and welcome to users, in the end they are implemented in the pursuit of profit, whether by making our Web experience better (the benign purpose) or by manipulating us - or worse - by exploiting our personal interests.

Giving businesses and organizations who use these technologies the benefit of the doubt, I have to say that this practice is rude at best. Imagine shopping malls studying their security camera footage to analyze which stores individual consumers visited and used the information to send them targeted advertising. Wouldn't that be obviously intrusive? Why can't Internet-based businesses understand that we don't like to be stalked? Why do so many people assume profit automatically justifies a practice? Shouldn't we decide first whether a practice is acceptable at all, and then determine whether it is suitable to be used for profit?

Ken Pimple, PAIT Project Director

"How to Train Your Robot (to Lie)"

2010-09-13T15:15:00.000-04:00

In an earlier entry I expressed my discontent with our current terminology about robots - specifically, that we use the word "robot" to cover too many distinct types of artifacts. This article from ScienceNow illustrates another problem with how we talk about robots, somewhat reminiscent of Jaron Lanier's concerns over The First Church of Robotics.

The claim in the article's title is that a robot has been taught how to lie, but it has only learned how to lay a false trail. This can be seen as deception, or misdirection, or perhaps even camouflage - all of which can be seen in non-human animals and even plants - but hardly lying. No doubt the work represents a breakthrough, but is the hyped-up language necessary or productive? Am I the only one who thinks longingly of the days when science news was a bit more sober and restrained?

Ken Pimple, PAIT Project Director

Surveillance for preschoolers; when algos takes over

2010-09-08T09:21:00.001-04:00

Two tidbits today.

(1) An editorial in today's New York Times, Keeping Track of the Kids, expresses a "worry that we are all becoming a little too blasé about our scrutinized lives" in which we accept security cameras, mobile telephones that allow us to be tracked minute-by-minute, and RFID chips on preschool children. The editorial's final sentence: "Though it may seem innocuous to attach a chip to our preschoolers’ clothes, do we really want to raise a generation of kids that are accustomed to being tracked, like cattle or warehouse inventory?"

It's a nicely phrased question. There are, of course, other ways to put it, like, "do we really want to raise a generation of kids who are accustomed to being protected from predation, not to mention simply being lost?"

What, indeed, would be lost - or gained - by this generation's getting accustomed to being tracked? Their elders apparently became so accustomed with very little fanfare.

(2) Colin Allen, to whom my thanks, brought this ABC program, The flash crash (August 29), to my attention. The program is summarized as follows:

A few months ago the US share market plunged l000 points in a few minutes, and trillions were traded both up and down. What caused it, and can it happen again? Tiny high frequency computer algorithms - or algos - roam the markets, buying and selling in a parallel universe more or less uncontrolled by anyone. Did they go feral, or was it the fat finger of a coked out trader? In September US regulators bring out their findings.

One has to be more interested in stock markets than I am to listen to the entire program, or read the entire transcript, but you can find the good stuff easily enough at the very end - about the last 2 minutes in the audio. That's when Colin Allen himself sums up the underlying problems. Enjoy.

Ken Pimple, PAIT Project Director

"The Boss Is Robotic, and Rolling Up Behind You"

2010-09-07T10:43:00.000-04:00

This article from the New York Times (September 4) is worth a look, if only for the graphic of 5 similar robots and a couple of useful videos of the robots in action. These robots are essentially video conferencing tools on wheels, remotely operated by one person (whose face typically appears on the robot's screen) from an ordinary desktop computer.

The appeal of this technology in certain settings is obvious: An entrepreneur with offices and staff in two or more cities can meet with his staff daily without having to travel; a physician can assist in a health clinic hundreds of miles away. I don't think these robots will become ubiquitous, though.

The terminology bothers me a bit, though. I wish that we had widely-used terminology that could distinguish between, for example, factory robots that are bolted in place and perform well-defined and highly patterned movements; mobile robots with some choice-making capacity but very few functions (the Roomba^® is a good example); remote-controlled mobile devices like the ones described in this article; and fully mobile machines with good deal of choice-making capacity. There might be other categories of which I am unaware (or not bringing to mind just now. I also think it would be useful to distinguish between human-shaped (humanoid) robots, robots so human-like that they could be mistaken for a person (think C3PO vs Data), and non-humanoid robots (R2D2).

If you know of such terminology, please post a comment sharing it with me and the readers of this blog.

Ken Pimple, PAIT Project Director

2nd World Congress on Computer Science and Information Engineering (CSIE 2011)

2010-09-06T14:38:00.000-04:00

Call for Papers and Exhibits

17-19 June 2011, Changchun, China

http://world-research-institute.org/conferences/CSIE/2011

CSIE 2011 intends to be a global forum for researchers and engineers to present and discuss recent advances and new techniques in computer science and information engineering. Topics of interests include, but are not limited to, data mining & data engineering, intelligent systems, software engineering, computer applications, communications & networking, computer hardware, VLSI, & embedded systems, multimedia & signal processing, computer control, robotics, and automation.

All papers in the CSIE 2011 conference proceedings will be indexed in Ei Compendex and ISTP, as well as included in the IEEE Xplore (The previous conference CSIE 2009 has already been indexed in Ei Compendex and included in the IEEE Xplore). IEEE Catalog Number: CFP1160F-PRT. ISBN: 978-1-4244-8361-7.

Changchun is the capital city of Jilin province, situated in the central section of China's northeast region. There are many natural attractions to entertain residents and visitors around Changchun. The grand Changbai Mountain renowned for its spectacular landscape, charming scenery, glamorous legends, as well as rich resources and products, has been praised as the first mountain in the northeast, outstanding as one of the China’s top-ten famous mountains. Other attractions in or around Changchun include Songhua lake (Songhuahu), Jingyue Lake (Jingyuetan), Changchun Movie Wonderland, Changchun Puppet Palace (Weihuanggong), Changchun World Sculpture Park, and Changchun World Landscape Park, etc.

Important Dates

Paper Submission Deadline: 20 September 2010
Review Notification: 15 November 2010
Final Paper and Author Registration Deadline: 6 January 2011

Contact Information
If you have any inquiries, please email us at CSIE2011@cust.edu.cn.

"A Strong Password Isn’t the Strongest Security"

2010-09-06T14:33:00.000-04:00

This article from the New York Times (September 4, 2010) points out that strong passwords, on their own, are useless against keylogging software (the kind that captures your keystrokes and sends them to a bad guy somewhere who then has your username and password, no matter how strong). Cormac Herley, a Microsoft security expert, is quoted as saying, “Keeping a keylogger off your machine is about a trillion times more important than the strength of any one of your passwords."

Furthermore, requiring strong passwords encourages users to write them down, usually in places they can easily be found. So much for security.

What I find most interesting about this article, though, is the emphasis on the responsibility of system administrators for security. All the rules for strong passwords shifts an unreasonable - and possibly counter-productive - burden onto end users, who might be able to guard against keyloggers, but certainly not as well as sysadmins. As Mr. Herley says, "It is not users who need to be better educated on the risks of various attacks, but the security community. ... Security advice simply offers a bad cost-benefit tradeoff to users."

We're all in this together, to be sure, but lets delegate responsibility appropriately.

Ken Pimple, PAIT Project Director

"Technology Leads More Park Visitors Into Trouble"

2010-09-03T14:22:00.002-04:00

This article, published on August 21 in the New York Times, describes some of the ways in which technology - cell phones, cell phone cameras, satellite location devices - have been used to dangerous or costly effect in U.S. national parks. The stories recounted all strike me as caused by a lack of common sense, or by simple stupidity, abetted by technology. A more generous interpretation is that, at least in some cases, the technology leads some people to take greater risks, confident that they can be saved by dialing 911.

Do such events indict technology, individual boneheads, a society of boneheads, or the nanny state?

Thanks to Don Searing for bringing this article to my attention.

Ken Pimple, PAIT Project Director

"Moral responsibility and autonomous media"

2010-08-31T09:52:00.000-04:00

In this short article, PAIT participant Bo Brinkman argues that we can't shift the blame for bad results from the use of advanced technologies to the technologies themselves. No matter how smart our robots, bots, software, etc., become, the people who design, manufacture, sell, and use them share moral responsibility.

Ken Pimple, PAIT Project Director

Call for papers: Ethics and Affective Computing

2010-08-30T09:45:00.000-04:00

Call for Papers

IEEE Transactions on Affective Computing

Special Issue on Ethics and Affective Computing

The pervasive presence of automated and autonomous systems necessitates the rapid growth of a relatively new area of inquiry called machine ethics. If machines are going to be turned loose on their own to kill and heal, explore and decide, the need for designing them to be moral becomes pressing. This need, in turn, penetrates to the very foundations of ethics as robot designers strive to build systems that comply. Fuzzy intuitions will not do when computational clarity is required. So, machine ethics also asks the discipline of ethics to make itself clear. The truth is that at present we do not know how to make it so. Rule-based approaches are being tried even in light of an acknowledged difficulty to formalize moral behavior, and it is already common to hear that introducing affects into machines may be necessary in order to make machines behave morally. From this perspective, affective computing may be morally required by machine ethics.

On the other hand, building machines with artificial affects might carry with it negative ethical consequences. In order to make humans more willing to accept robots and other automated computational devices, creating them to display emotion will be a help, since if we like them, we will, no doubt, be more willing to welcome them. We might even pay dearly to have them. But do artificial affects deceive? Will they catch us with our defenses down, and do we have to worry about Plato's caveat in the Republic that one of the best ways to be unjust is to appear just? Automated agents that seem like persons might appear congenial, even as any moral regard is ignored, making them dangerous culprits indistinguishable from automated "friends." In this light, machine ethics might demand that we exercise great caution in using affective computing. In radical cases, it might even demand that we not use it at all.

We would seem to have here a quandary. No doubt there are others. The purpose of this volume is to explore the range of ethical issues related to affective computing. Is affective computing necessary for making artificial agents moral? If so, why and how? Where does affective computing require moral caution? In what cases do benefits outweigh the moral risks? Etc.

Invited Authors:

Roddy Cowie (Queen's University, Belfast)
Luciano Floridi (University of Hertfordshire and University of Oxford)
Matthias Scheutz (Tufts University)

Papers must not have been previously published, with the exception that substantial extensions of conference papers can be considered. The authors will be required to follow the Author’s Guide for manuscript submission to the IEEE Transactions on Affective Computing at http://www.computer.org/portal/web/tac/author. Papers are due by March 1st, 2011, and should be submitted electronically at https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/taffc-cs. Please select the "SI - Ethics 2011" manuscript type upon submission. For further information, please contact guest editor, Anthony Beavers at afbeavers@gmail.com.

Uberveillance and the Social Implications of Microchip Implants

2010-08-20T10:23:00.000-04:00

Professor Katina Michael and Dr M.G. Michael, University of Wollongong, Australia, have issued a call for chapter details to be published in a book entitled Uberveillance and the Social Implications of Microchip Implants: Emerging Technologies.

Professor and Dr. Michael define Uberveillance as "an omnipresent electronic surveillance facilitated by technology that makes it possible to embed surveillance devices in the human body. These embedded technologies can take the form of traditional pacemakers, radio-frequency identification (RFID) tag and transponder implants, biomems and nanotechnology devices."

From the call:

Submission Procedure
Researchers, practitioners and members of the general public are invited to submit on or before September 15, 2010, a 2 page chapter proposal clearly explaining the mission and concerns of his or her proposed chapter. Authors of accepted proposals will be notified by November 10, 2010 about the status of their proposals and sent chapter guidelines. Full chapters are expected to be submitted by January 30, 2011. All submitted chapters will be reviewed on a double-blind review basis. Contributors may also be requested to serve as reviewers for this project.

* * *

Important Dates
September 15, 2010: Proposal Submission Deadline
November 10, 2010: Notification of Acceptance
January 30, 2011: Full Chapter Submission
March 1, 2011: Review Results Returned
May 1, 2011: Final Chapter Submission

Please see the unusually detailed and helpful call for more details.

Disclosure: I am one of the 29 members of the Editorial Advisory Board.

Ken Pimple, PAIT Project Director

A grab-bag of goodies

2010-08-16T16:17:00.000-04:00

Here are a few tidbits of possible interest that I have gathered over the last few months without managing to post them here. If only I had an autonomous agent to help me keep up with things.

October 2009 - Mark Guzdial - How We Teach Introductory Computer Science is Wrong - Communications of the ACM blog
April 2010 - Catharine Smith - Man Claims Google Street View Led Burglars to Target His Home - Huffington Post
May 2010 - Michael Durbin - Fixing Wall Street’s Autopilot - The New York Times
May 2010 - Hack Attacks Mounted on Car Control Systems - BBC News
May 2010 - Jan Beyea - The Smart Electricity Grid and Scientific Research - Science

Ken Pimple, PAIT Project Director

"A high-tech solution to an older-age issue"

2010-08-13T10:26:00.000-04:00

This story from yesterday's Marketplace Morning Report describes an alternative to renovating your home to make a welcoming space for your elderly parent. The "med-cottage" (or "medcottage;" it's spelled both ways in the transcript) is a "little prefab house that sits in the backyard. It leases for $2,000 a month. Behind that vinyl exterior there are motion sensors."

The sensors detect when the cottage's inhabitant gets out of bed, uses the bathroom, and more. "All that information feeds realtime to a website you can check like email. An iPod app is in the works."

A team of researchers at Indiana University is examining ethical issues raised in this kind of high-tech elder monitoring. The project is called Ethical Technology in the Homes of Seniors, or E.T.H.O.S. It would be interesting to know how much effort the designers of the medcottage put into considering the ethical issues raised by their product.

Ken Pimple, PAIT Project Director

"The First Church of Robotics"

2010-08-09T13:27:00.001-04:00

Today's New York Times includes an op-ed piece by Jaron Lanier bemoaning what I'd call the metaphysical pretensions of artificial intelligence - including the term itself, how it is used to make technologies seem more impressive than they are, and, most importantly, how the combination changes the way we think about ourselves. As Lanier writes, "by allowing artificial intelligence to reshape our concept of personhood, we are leaving ourselves open to the flipside: we think of people more and more as computers, just as we think of computers as people."

Lanier compares Ray Kurzweil's idea of "the Singularity" to a religion, observing that "a great deal of the confusion and rancor in the world today concerns tension at the boundary between religion and modernity,"and wondering whether these tensions would be eased a bit if technologists were less messianic.

I think Lanier's ideas are valid and worth contemplating, but I'll take the general train of thought on a slight detour. One of the objectives of AI research has been to make machines think like people. This has often driven researchers to try to understand how people actually think - how our brain, mind, emotions, and body interact to form thoughts, premises, conclusions, convictions, beliefs, and all the rest; even how we recognize a person's identity from her or his face.

The more I learn about AI and human psychology - and I have learned only a very small amount about either - the more convinced I am that AI research not only mystifies our understanding of human nature (as Lanier recognizes), but has potential to clarify it.

Lanier writes:

In fact, the nuts and bolts of A.I. research can often be more usefully interpreted without the concept of A.I. at all. For example, I.B.M. scientists recently unveiled a “question answering” machine that is designed to play the TV quiz show “Jeopardy.” Suppose I.B.M. had dispensed with the theatrics, declared it had done Google one better and come up with a new phrase-based search engine. This framing of exactly the same technology would have gained I.B.M.’s team as much (deserved) recognition as the claim of an artificial intelligence, but would also have educated the public about how such a technology might actually be used most effectively.

To me, this is also an example of how computers do not think like human beings, and that trying to make them think like us might be useful heuristically, but isn't really a desirable goal in and of itself. Why spend so much money trying to make more things that think like people when we already have several billion people who are already experts?

Perhaps we should recognize, and emphasize, that "artificial intelligence" only resembles human intelligence insofar as it can solve some problems only humans have been able to solve heretofore. For the moment, I have yet to be convinced that AI is more than a really sophisticated hand-held calculator. We aren't metaphysically threatened by machines that can do arithmetic thousands of times faster and more accurately than ourselves; why should we be threatened by a handful of machines that seem to be able to hold a semi-coherent conversation with us under very narrow circumstances?

Ken Pimple, PAIT Program Director

"Computing Ethics: Work Life in the Robotic Age"

2010-06-28T10:46:00.000-04:00

In this column, published in the July 2010 issue of Communications of the ACM, Jason Borenstein warns of the economic displacement that advances in robotics might entail and urges the robotics community to "be diligent in dealing with emerging ethical issues."

Ken Pimple, PAIT Project Director

"Computers Learn to Listen, and Some Talk Back"

2010-06-25T14:38:00.001-04:00

One occupational hazard of being an ethicist is a tendency to dwell on the unethical, dangerous, and otherwise undesirable features of any given phenomenon. This story published on the New York Times Web site reminds me why advances in robotics, artificial intelligence, and computing are exciting as well as (sometimes) scary. I found the accompanying time line, "Building Smarter Machines," ranging from 1936 to 2009, particularly compelling. Both are a part of the "Smarter Than You Think" series.

Ken Pimple, PAIT Project Director

2011 Conference of the Society for Philosophy and Technology: Technology and Security

2010-06-16T10:18:00.001-04:00

From the conference Web site:

The University of North Texas is proud to host the 17th international biennial conference of the Society for Philosophy and Technology. SPT is the leading international organization devoted to the philosophical examination of technology. The 2011 conference theme is Technology and Security. We encourage contributions that examine the role of technology in fostering and sustaining security as well as creating or exacerbating insecurities. The theme of security suggests a wide range of issues such as national security, social security (poverty, age, disability), cyber security, food security, environmental security, energy security, etc. SPT 2011 will, of course, welcome contributions on any philosophical dimension of technology -- from the perspective of any academic discipline as well as perspectives outside of the academy.

Thanks to Colin Allen for bringing this to my attention.

Ken Pimple, PAIT Project Director

"Skipping Class? Sensors Now Take the Roll"

2010-06-15T14:25:00.002-04:00

An article in the May 7, 2010 issue of The Chronicle of Higher Education (page A11) tells us that Northern Arizona University "is installing an electronic system that measures student attendance."

The system will be installed "using $75,000 in federal stimulus money," and will "detect the ID cards students are carrying as they enter large classrooms."

The opinions of exactly three people are mentioned in the article: The Vice Provost for Academic Affairs, who favors the initiative, and two students who do not. The students, one of whom created a Facebook group resisting proximity cards, express the opinion that class attendance is a matter of free choice and individual responsibility.

I suspect that some students are in favor of the initiative, too - namely those who responsibly attend class and resent slackers who get a free pass.

Ken Pimple, PAIT Project Director

Google's accidental snooping

2010-05-17T15:31:00.000-04:00

On May 14, the New York Times, the Huffington Post, and no doubt other sources, reported that Google's Street View cars had unintentionally collected snippets of information from unsecured WiFi routers. These two sources seem to be quoting from Google's own blog post on the topic. As I write, Google's post lists some 48 links in several languages back to the post, including one entitled "We No Longer Trust Google." (But they do trust Google enough to include a button allowing readers to add the post's URL to Google Bookmarks.)

Google has explained how it happened, outlined steps it is taking to dispose of the inadvertently collected data and make sure this doesn't happen again, and apologized: "We are profoundly sorry for this error and are determined to learn all the lessons we can from our mistake."

I am not well informed of Google's other misdeeds, real or imagined, and I am not qualified to evaluate the ramifications of this incident, but standing on its own, it does not seem to me to carry the hallmarks of malicious activity. It is always a matter of alarm when the powerful make mistakes, though, because even innocent mistakes can have serious consequences. Let's hear it for vigilance.

But how many people do you suppose added security to their WiFi routers when they learned of this?

My thanks to Colin Allen for providing me with the links to the Huffington Post and Google blog posts.

Ken Pimple, PAIT Project Director

Call for Papers: Ethical and social aspects of mobiles/ubiquitous computing

2010-05-11T15:06:00.000-04:00

The Nordic Journal of Applied Ethics is seeking papers for a thematic issue on ethical and social aspects of mobiles/ubiquitous computing. I have this announcement from Colin Allen, to whom my thanks.

Guest editors: Charles Ess, May Thorseth and Johnny Hartz Søraker

Twenty-five years ago, William Gibson presented a futuristic account of “cyberspace:” This space contained a complete virtual world so rich and complex as to be capable of replacing a real world and embodied existence. What was once clearly science fiction now becomes ever more the reality of our lives as increasingly intertwined with the multiple interactions made possible by computer-based communication networks. We invite papers that help us explore the various ethical and social dimensions of the contemporary world of ubiquitous computing. We are interested in the transformative powers of various technologies like mobiles, computer games and social networking services. Possible topics include: changing senses of selves, social interactions, privacy, intellectual property; the blurring of borderlines of virtual and real social interaction, online and offline presence and interactions among humans. Papers should include examples of contemporary technologies, although speculative thought experiments are also encouraged.

Submit your paper to: redaktor@etikkipraksis.org
Deadline: July 1, 2010

Geographic Information Ethics and GIScience

2010-05-06T11:02:00.000-04:00

The 2010 meeting of the Association of American Geographers included a session on "Geographic Information Ethics and GIScience." The full results from the session can be found at

http://dusk.geo.orst.edu/aag_ethics10.html.

Thanks to Dawn ("Deepsea Dawn") Wright, Department of Geosciences, Oregon State University, for sharing this information.

Ken Pimple, PAIT Project Director

PAIT Workshop - A success

2010-03-25T10:24:00.000-04:00

I'm back after a long hiatus. The PAIT workshop ended three weeks ago today and I'm still trying to catch up on the many tasks that I let languish as I prepared for the workshop. I'm also just starting on the next phase of the PAIT project; more on that later.

For now I'll just say that the workshop went well. We had 36 participants who brought a wide scope and variety of expertise and interests to the workshop. We learned from each other and made connections.

In the final session we asked participants to write what they plan to do next to further the cause. Although only 26 people (of perhaps 30 remaining at the very end) submitted their plans, I count 32 separate courses of action. The plans could be categorized differently, of course, but this is heartening. Some plans are general, others more concrete and specific. Nine of them are obviously shared by two or more people, and I know for certain of several that will be team projects.

I will be trying to update this blog fairly regularly, but my workload is pretty heavy until mid-June. Please feel free to ask questions or post comments.

Ken Pimple, PAIT Project Director

Taking a break

2009-11-06T10:47:00.000-05:00

The PAIT workshop is now four months away and we have not had any new registrants for two weeks. This week we launched a LISTSERV e-mail lists for current (and future) registrants for pre-workshop conversations in the hope of making our face time as productive as possible.

My focus for the next few months will be on working with the people who will be at the workshop, rather than recruiting more. Thus I will be taking a break from updating this blog, probably until after the workshop.

Ken Pimple, PAIT Project Director

"What will talking power meters say about you?"

2009-10-12T09:59:00.002-04:00

The October 9 entry on Bob Sullivan's MSNBC blog, "The Red Tape Chronicles," asks:

Would you sign up for a discount with your power company in exchange for surrendering control of your thermostat? What if it means that, one day, your auto insurance company will know that you regularly arrive home on weekends at 2:15 a.m., just after the bars close?

The potential benefits of Smart Grid technology are many, including more efficient use of energy, fewer blackouts and brownouts, and lower energy costs. But utility companies will collect enormous amounts of data on consumers hooked up to the Smart Grid. Utility companies might sell that data to companies that will use it to protect themselves - like the hypothetical auto insurance company that might raise your premium or cancel your policy (or notify the police?) based on thin evidence that you drink and drive most weekends.

Strong data privacy laws in Europe may protect EU consumers, but the U.S. does not have such laws. Utility companies have financial incentives to adopt Smart Grid technology, and also to sell the data. Is there any force in the United States stronger than money, a force that can get laws implemented to protect consumers at some financial cost to business? If there is, it isn't Congress.

Thanks to Donald Searing of Syncere Systems for drawing my attention to this story.

Ken Pimple, PAIT Project Director

Noel Sharkey to speak at PAIT workshop

2009-09-28T15:25:00.001-04:00

Noel Sharkey, Professor of Artificial Intelligence and Robotics, Professor of Public Engagement, and EPSRC Senior Media Fellow at the University of Sheffield, is the third speaker to be added to the roster of the PAIT workshop. He joins Fred H. Cate, Distinguished Professor and C. Ben Dutton Professor of Law, IU School of Law, and Director of the Center for Applied Cybersecurity Research at Indiana University Bloomington, and Helen Nissenbaum, Professor of Media, Culture, and Communication and Senior Fellow of the Information Law Institute at New York University.

In addition to formal presentations by these three distinguished scholars, the workshop will feature panel presentations and small-group breakout discussions. We already have an outstanding group of registrants and look forward to welcoming more.

Two quick notes:

Today (September 28, 2009) is the deadline for travel subsidy applications.
We have added a link on our Web site for reserving hotel rooms at the workshop.

Ken Pimple, PAIT Project Director

"Nationwide Warnings of Faulty Transit Sensor"

2009-09-23T15:56:00.001-04:00

This news story from the New York Times (September 22, 2009) cites a recent report from the National Transportation Safety Board about the June 22, 2009, Metro crash in Washington, D.C., in which nine people died and dozens were injured. The NTSB has not yet come to a conclusion about the cause of the crash, the report notes that "a critical part of the sensing system was replaced days before the accident and that the subway’s managers did not respond aggressively to earlier system failures that did not result in death or injury."

Whatever the cause of this deadly accident, it stands as yet another reminder that technology is only as safe as the people who use and maintain it, the people who oversee them, the policies that guide the overseers (when they follow the policies), and numerous other links in an all-too frail system.

Ken Pimple, PAIT Project Director

"Gadget Makers Can Find Thief, but Don’t Ask"

2009-09-07T11:23:00.001-04:00

This New York Times story focuses on the frustration of some owners whose Kindle reader was lost or stolen. According to the article, Amazon won't work with customers to locate missing or stolen Kindles unless the owner can get a subpoena from the police. Owners are understandably irked that Amazon won't even deactivate the device, which would make it useless because the thief could not register it and get new e-books. It seems like a self-serving move because if a thief, or an honest person who finds a lost Kindle, registers the device, Amazon can continue to sell through that device.

I'm a Kindle owner and this news makes me wary. I'm probably not the only person who has a sense of loyalty and even gratitude to the companies that make and support my favorite devices, and I do associate the pleasure I derive from my Kindle with Amazon. Being reminded that Amazon is a business, and that customer service is important to most businesses only insofar as it helps the bottom line, is distasteful. But then, real life is often distasteful.

Be that as it may, as portable and pervasive IT devices become more common, and we grow more dependent upon them, we are likely to see more of this kind of problem. Amazon has one good argument for its stance: They don't want to deactivate any Kindle's by mistake. How can they know how the device changed hands? If it's too easy to get a device disabled, pranksters will have a field day.

With a reading device, this is a nuisance. With future technologies, it might be a life-or-death matter. Wouldn't it be nice to forestall problems like this?

Ken Pimple, PAIT Project Director

"Why AI is a dangerous dream"

2009-09-04T09:33:00.001-04:00

The September1, 2009, edition of New Scientist includes an interview with Noel Sharkey. The interview is accompanied by 194 comments from readers as of this writing, so it is with some temerity that I venture to summarize Dr. Sharkey's main contention - but here goes.

As I read it, Sharkey sees a pervasive acceptance of the view that artificial intelligence can now, or will soon be able to, emulate human intelligence in ways that will be useful and benign in everyday life, including, for example, robots that can sympathetically care for the sick. Sharkey believes that this view overstates the capacities of AI. At the risk of putting words into his mouth, I believe that Sharkey is concerned that if we build health care robots using actual available technology (or near-future technology) but are led by this erroneous view of AI, we are bound to run into serious problems, not because AI will soon be superior to human intelligence, but because actual AI will fall short of our hopes and, more importantly, expectations. I think of the many apparently well-intentioned projects of the past that failed disastrously in part because we expected and wanted them to succeed - urban renewal, the institutionalization of people believed to be mentally ill or mentally retarded, prohibition, the war on drugs.

Whether my summation is accurate or not, one question and answer stand out as relevant to the PAIT project:

Is this why you are calling for ethical guidelines and laws to govern the use of robots?

In the areas of robot ethics that I have written about - childcare, policing, military, eldercare and medical - I have spent a lot of time looking at current legislation around the world and found it wanting. I think there is a need for urgent discussions among the various professional bodies, the citizens and the policy makers to decide while there is still time. These developments could be upon us as fast as the internet was, and we are not prepared. My fear is that once the technological genie is out of the bottle it will be too late to put it back.

What do you think? Feel free to share your comments below.

Ken Pimple, PAIT Project Director

"A Casualty of the Technology Revolution: ‘Locational Privacy’"

2009-09-01T09:54:00.002-04:00

A commentary in today's New York Times, citing the Electronic Frontier Foundation, outlines and raises concerns about widely-used technologies that make it easy to record our every movement - probably not news to readers of this blog, but possibly an eye-opener to many people.

Here are the recommendations from near the end of the commentary.

What can be done? As much as possible, location-specific information should not be collected in the first place, or not in personally identifiable form. There are many ways, as the Electronic Frontier Foundation notes, to use cryptography and anonymization to protect locational privacy. To tell you about nearby coffee shops, a cellphone application needs to know where you are. It does not need to know who you are.

When locational information is collected, people should be given advance notice and a chance to opt out. Data should be erased as soon as its main purpose is met. After you pay your E-ZPass bill, there is no reason for the government to keep records of your travel.

Are these measures adequate? How can they be implemented? Please share your thoughts and comments.

Ken Pimple, PAIT Project Director

Case study: The Presence Clock

2009-08-24T15:34:00.006-04:00

Comments on and discussion of this case study are welcome; please use the Comment function. - Ken Pimple

Sensing Presence and Privacy: The Presence Clock

Kalpana Shankar, Ph.D.,
Assistant Professor of Informatics and Computing,
Indiana University Bloomington

Oliver McGraw, B.S.

Tom lives about two hours away from his 89 year-old mother, Judy. He has been quite worried about her since she fell last year. Since she is otherwise healthy, she insists that she does not need a medical alert bracelet. So Tom purchased a pair of Presence Clocks for her birthday.

The two analog Presence Clocks (see picture) are equipped with motion sensors and lights to record motion and presence. The clocks are connected to each other via the Internet. In this way, a family member does not need to be present at the time of remote activity in order to “see” it. Each of the owners of the clocks can sense at a glance the remote activity of the other.

Tom put one of the clocks in Judy’s kitchen and the other in his own. When the new clock at Judy’s house detects movement in her living room a green light (near the 3) begins blinking on Tom’s clock. It also indicates when the last time Judy was in her kitchen; the intensity of the blue light at the hour markers on the clock face shows how much time in that hour someone has spent near the clock; for example, the bright light at 4 and the dull light at 12 indicate that someone spent quite a bit of time near the clock in the 4:00 hour, and not as much time in the 12:00 hour. Similarly, Judy’s clock lets her know when Tom is in his kitchen or when he was last there. Through these clocks, Judy and Tom can both feel as though they have had contact with the other during the day and he can be reassured daily that she has not had an accident.

After a week Judy began to feel uncomfortable, like the Presence Clock is an invasion of her privacy. Tom has started to ask her specific questions: Where did you go this afternoon? Why did you not get up until nine? She knows that she is not as healthy as she used to be, but she wants to stay independent. It was all she could do after her fall last year to persuade him that she did not need to move into an assisted living facility. So, she keeps the clock and does not complain. If it makes Tom feel better maybe he won’t make her move. She decides the clock is better than having to move, but she is worried about what Tom will think of next.

Although Tom certainly seems to be a loving, caring son who means well by his purchase of the Presence Clocks what is clearly troubling in this scenario is the way in which the clock, combined with the use Tom makes of it, invades the mother’s privacy, paternalizes her and ultimately is used to disrespect her autonomy (i.e. her ability to run her affairs as she chooses).

Commentary

Sandra Shapshay, Ph.D.,
Assistant Professor of Philosophy,
Indiana University-Bloomington

Upon first hearing about this new technology, and having young children, my first thought was: that’s kind of a like a baby monitor, but for checking in on seniors. How similar are these technologies?

Well, unlike the baby monitor, the Presence Clock does not pick up actual sounds (or in fancier models images and sound). Another dissimilarity is that the Presence Clocks pick up and transmit presence on both ends, whereas the baby-monitor is a one-way surveillance device. The original intention of these devices is also different: The designers of the presence-clock saw it largely as a kind of gentle “social networking device”—to allow people to feel more present in each others’ lives; whereas the baby monitor obviously has no real “social networking side.” So, there are significant differences between the Presence Clock and the baby monitor, but in the use that Tom is making of the clocks in this case, there is something similar going on and it is unsettling.

Like almost any technology, the Presence Clock can be used in an ethically responsible or troubling manner. A hammer can be used by a carpenter to build a chair, or by a robber to break into someone’s house. I’m sure the Presence Clock could be used in a completely innocuous fashion, to help people feel better connected to each other, to make seniors and their children all feel safer. But in the case at hand, we see one way in which the technology can be abused.

Judy is an apparently competent 89 year old woman. But the case suggests that since Judy’s fall, Tom has been treating her as less than competent to make her own decisions – note “It was all she could do after her fall last year to persuade him that she did not need to move into an assisted living facility.” Indeed, one can detect a subtle threat behind the use of the Presence Clock: Keep it, or else you’ll have to move out of your home. Judy is understandably disturbed. Imagine if you had a bout of depression, recovered, but then were told by a paternalizing adult child: You need to use this device or I’ll do what I can to have you committed to a psychiatric facility. Imagine if your son has a good rapport with your psychologist, so that he could probably make good on his threat to have you committed. It is not much of a stretch to see that Judy is in an analogous position. If she refuses to use the Presence Clocks, Tom might take more aggressive measures to have Judy moved to an assisted living facility, something she really doesn’t want.

Now in both the case of the formerly depressed parent and the case of Judy, it might be that the clock could actually be a benefit to all parties. Say, if I should have a relapse of my depression, and stay in bed for the entire day, while my clock is in the kitchen, then my son might have an early warning about the situation. If Judy should have another fall and would not be able to get to her kitchen all day, she might very well be thankful that Tom was minding his Presence Clock.

Nonetheless, if this expected benefit for me did not outweigh the burdensome invasion of my privacy, then I think in such a situation I would object that my autonomy – that is, my ability to run my affairs as I see fit – as a currently competent adult was being disrespected. I’m being treated as less than fully autonomous – to be asked to give up some of my privacy, which I cherish – through the pressure to use the Presence Clock. It is the hallmark of a liberal society, such as ours, that competent adults be allowed to make decisions for themselves, so long as they don’t hurt anyone else in the process. Judy may be putting herself at greater risk without the Presence Clock, but indeed, as a competent adult, that is her prerogative.

So this leads to my first ethical worry about this technology: It may be used even by well-meaning relatives and friends to treat adults with less respect for their autonomy than they deserve, especially if adults are vulnerable in some way. It is worrisome that their vulnerability may be used to leverage the relinquishing of some personal privacy with this device.

Does this ethical worry about this potential use of the Presence Clock mean that its sale or use should be restricted by law? Not really; a baby monitor might be used in a similar fashion as a surveillance device on adults, but I don’t think that the possibility of the technology’s abuse is a bona fide reason to restrict its sale, singling it out among many other technologies that may be thus abused, e.g. hammers, baseball bats, household bleach, etc. Notwithstanding, it would be a good idea to raise awareness among seniors about this technology, and to empower them to say “no” to its use if this should represent an unwelcome invasion of their privacy, and one that is not outweighed by potential benefits, all things considered.

There is another ethical worry I have with this technology, which is much more diffuse and part of a wider cultural phenomenon in the United States: The substitution of technological connectedness for actual presence of adult children in their parents’ lives. It is not uncommon for grown children to move rather far away from their parents. A recent New York Times article described that the average distance of adult children from their parents in the U.S. today is 2 hours driving time. For better or for worse, ageing parents are being cared for less and less by their adult children and more and more in assisted living facilities and nursing homes. It seems inherent in the logic of the Presence Clock, as applied to relations between seniors and their adult children, to substitute virtual for actual presence of adult children in their ageing parents’ lives.

Insofar as this is the case, does the Presence Clock merely rationalize a troubling situation, put a circular band-aid on the problem? Does the Presence Clock make it easier for adult children to feel a bit better about not living up to their filial obligations? Or is the Presence Clock a technological support to seniors and their adult children – making a potentially bad situation a lot better given these sociological realities? Do adult children fulfill their obligations better with technologies such as the Presence Clock? Do seniors find the Presence Clock comforting or a second-rate form of connectedness? Obviously, there are large and difficult questions here dealing with the nature of filial obligations, and whether the current state of care for seniors is right or good.

It is likely that some seniors prefer lesser involvement of their children in their daily lives and that some would prefer more. Each family dynamic is individual and highly complex. But I would like to voice this more ephemeral worry that the Presence Clock may be part of a larger, worrisome trend in relationships between adult children and seniors that does not conduce to the flourishing of seniors or the flourishing of the relationship between seniors and their adult children.

In sum, the Presence Clock might very well fill a safety and connectedness need for seniors and their adult children. However, like any technology, it may be deployed even with the best of intentions in a manner that diminishes the privacy of seniors and disrespects their status as competent adults.

This case and commentary were prepared for and presented at the annual meeting of the Association for Practical and Professional Ethics, Cincinnati, Ohio, March 2009.

Copyright © 2009, Kalpana Shankar, Oliver McGraw, and Sandra Shapshay. All rights reserved.

Permission is hereby granted to reproduce and distribute copies of this work for nonprofit educational purposes, provided that copies are distributed at or below cost, and that the authors, source, and copyright notice are included on each copy. This permission is in addition to rights of reproduction granted under Sections 107, 108, and other provisions of the U.S. Copyright Act.

“Engineering Towards a More Just and Sustainable World”

2009-08-20T16:28:00.005-04:00

As if you needed any additional reasons to attend the PAIT workshop, you might also be interested in attending a mini conference at the APPE annual meeting. The following is from the APPE Web site:

A mini conference, “Engineering Towards a More Just and Sustainable World” will be held Saturday afternoon, March 6 through Sunday Noon March 7, 2010. Registration is $40 for those registered for the preconference workshop, “Ethical Guidance for Research and Application of Pervasive and Autonomous Information Technology (PAIT)” or for the Annual Meeting. Registration for the Mini Conference alone is $70.

Ken Pimple, PAIT Project Director

Marc Rotenberg in Cincinnati March 5, 2010

2009-08-20T13:50:00.005-04:00

Here's another good reason to participate in the PAIT workshop: Marc Rotenberg, Executive Director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), will deliver the keynote address at the APPE annual meeting the day after and in the same hotel as the PAIT workshop. The following is from the APPE Web site:

The keynote speaker for the Nineteenth Annual Meeting will be Marc Rotenberg, the Executive Director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) in Washington, DC.

Marc Rotenberg teaches information privacy law at Georgetown University Law Center and has testified before Congress on many issues, including access to information, encryption policy, consumer protection, computer security, and communications privacy. He testified before the 9-11 Commission on “Security and Liberty: Protecting Privacy, Preventing Terrorism.”

Dr. Rotenberg has served on several national and international advisory panels, including the expert panels on Cryptography Policy and Computer Security for the OECD, the Legal Experts on Cyberspace Law for UNESCO, and the Countering Spam program of the ITU. He currently chairs the ABA Committee on Privacy and Information Protection and is the former Chair of the Public Interest Registry, which manages the .ORG domain. He is editor of Privacy and Human Rights and The Privacy Law Sourcebook, and co-editor (with Daniel J. Solove and Paul Schwartz) of Information Privacy Law (Aspen Publishing 2007).
He is a graduate of Harvard College and Stanford Law School and served as Counsel to Senator Patrick J. Leahy on the Senate Judiciary Committee after graduation from law school. He is a Fellow of the American Bar Foundation and the recipient of several awards including the World Technology Award in Law.

Ken Pimple, PAIT Project Director

Call for Participation

2009-08-12T15:36:00.004-04:00

We've issued a Call for Participation for the PAIT workshop. It's available from the PAIT home page, as are our registration form, travel subsidy policy and application, and working definition. Stay tuned for more to come.

Ken Pimple, PAIT Project Director

Ethics and Assistive Technology Survey

2009-08-07T13:24:00.005-04:00

Researchers at the University of British Columbia recently posted a survey on Ethics and Assistive Technology Survey. The group's early survey on robot ethics appears still to be open.

From their Web site: "The purpose of the surveys is to facilitate well-informed discussion and explore attitudes about complex issues related to ethics (including animal welfare) and scientific and technological developments."

Thanks to Colin Allen (a member of the PAIT Planning Committee) for bringing these surveys to my attention.

Ken Pimple, PAIT Project Director

Working definition

2009-08-03T16:50:00.005-04:00

Comments on and discussion of this working definition are welcome; please use the Comment function. Slight changes made 10/30/2009. - Ken Pimple

The PAIT Planning Committee developed these working definitions to help guide our efforts. They are intended to be useful rather than conclusive.

For the purposes of this workshop, we consider terms such as “pervasive computing,” “ubiquitous computing,” “ubicomp,” “everyware,” “ambient intelligence,” and “ambient computing” to be roughly synonymous. We use the term “information technology” to highlight the important role of hardware not usually associated with computers, such as advanced sensing and communication devices, involved in most pervasive IT. Our shorthand for these technologies and their application is PAIT.

Definition: Pervasive IT devices are small and/or unobtrusive (compared to a desktop computer, for example) and can be embedded in everyday objects (e.g., carpets, clothing, doorways, toys) to collect and/or act upon data generated by or important to human activity. Often the data collected can be wirelessly transmitted, stored, and shared on the Internet. In some instances, several devices will share data and work together toward a common goal. Some will be unobtrusive and generally unnoticed while others will interact perceptibly with people (asking questions, giving reminders).

Some pervasive technologies are also autonomous, or self-directing.

Definition: Autonomous systems are typically computer-based devices augmented with sensing devices beyond those found on a typical desktop computer, including analogues to vision and hearing. An autonomous system can operate for extended periods of time without direct human intervention and alter the way it performs by learning from its own experience. Some autonomous systems can also adapt to particular environments (e.g., by moving safely through a particular house) and some can perform based on non-linear calculations (e.g., Bayesian inference) such that performance cannot be completely predicted or characterized from the system’s programming. Many autonomous systems act only on and through data (as do most desktop computers), but others also act on the physical world (e.g., by welding joints). The latter are considered robots without regard to their physical shape or mobility status (they need not be humanoid and they can be bolted to a factory floor).

Registration, travel subsidies, people links

2009-07-31T16:12:00.004-04:00

The PAIT Planning Committee has made substantial progress in preparing for the workshop. At our main Web site, you can now find

The workshop registration form (PDF format)
The policy and application form (the latter in PDF) for travel subsidies to make it a bit easier for members of underrepresented groups in science and engineering to participate in the workshop
Links to many people with an interest in ethical issues associated with pervasive computing, autonomous systems, ubicomp, ambient intelligence, and the like

If you'd like your name added to the list, please let me know. I'm also interested in adding to the list of meetings and educational efforts on that same page; please send along any relevant links.

Keep posted for more updates!

Ken Pimple, PAIT Project Director

"Swedish tourists miss island due to GPS typo"

2009-07-30T09:00:00.003-04:00

A July 28 story from the Associated Press relates how a couple wanting to drive to the island of Capri misspelled the name in their GPS and wound up "some 400 miles (660 kilometers) away in the northern industrial town of Carpi."

Sometimes technology is only as smart as its users. How sophsticated would an AI have to be to have prevented this mishap?

Ken Pimple, PAIT Project Director

Robots in Wired

2009-07-29T11:13:00.005-04:00

The July 22 issue of Wired has an article on robot ethics - "Robo-Ethicists Want to Revamp Asimov's 3 Laws." As robots become more common in everyday settings and more people interact with them, there will certainly be more problems; it's just a fact of scale. But as robots get more sophisticated, as well as more common, novel problems are likely to arise, too.

One of the intriguing issues raised in this article concerns liability. Right now, if a product fails to perform as it should (automobile tires that fall apart at high speeds, for example), the manufacturer is liable for the damage. But at some point robots will be able to take actions that their designers and manufacturers have not foreseen and could not have predicted. Will the robot itself be liable for damages? Will the manufacturer? Or will there be some kind of shared liability? What would be the best approach?

Thanks to Colin Allen (a member of the PAIT Planning Committee) for bringing this article to my attention.

Ken Pimple, PAIT Project Director

AI on Wall Street

2009-07-29T10:46:00.004-04:00

A recent article in the New York Times describes "high-frequency trading," a new system for trading stocks that depends on high-powered computers that "execute millions of orders a second and scan dozens of public and private marketplaces simultaneously. They can spot trends before other investors can blink, changing orders and strategies within milliseconds."

According to the article, only a handful of traders currently have access to these tools, giving them an edge in electronic trading. They are able to spot trends and act on them so quickly and in such large scale that it's possible for a trader (that is, and AI trader) to buy in-demand shares and almost immediately sell them to slower traders at a profit.

This use of artificial intelligence is not as glamorous as warrior robots, but it may have the potential to change the behavior of markets, not to mention create an uneven playing field based on access to this technology. The immediate changes are obviously welcomed by the traders who can indulge in high-frequency trading, but what are the ramifications down the road?

Thanks to Colin Allen (a member of the PAIT Planning Committee) for bringing this article to my attention.

Ken Pimple, PAIT project director.

"Scientists Worry Machines May Outsmart Man"

2009-07-27T16:17:00.009-04:00

A recent article in the New York Times concerns "leading computer scientists, artificial intelligence researchers and roboticists who met at the Asilomar Conference Grounds" to debate "whether there should be limits on research that might lead to loss of human control over computer-based systems that carry a growing share of society’s workload."

According to the article, the scholars expressed concerns about how advances in AI might be used by criminals, whether smart machines might take jobs away from people, and the likelihood that emerging technologies will "force humans to learn to live with machines that increasingly copy human behaviors."

These worries sound very familiar to me. What useful technology cannot be used by criminals (think robbers and pantyhose)? Major technological changes have always taken jobs from people, and many also create new jobs. And although we don't encounter many machines today that copy human behaviors, we have adapted to more social changes than I can hope to name.

I don't know how well this article reflects the actual meeting, but I suspect (and hope) that the actual conversations were more than cliches. I suppose that the devil is in the details, and the New York Times probably isn't the place to look for a detailed discussion of complex social and technological issues. But this is the kind of coverage that advances in AI and pervasive technologies tends to get in the popular media, which suggests that it shapes public understanding of these issues. One challenge facing this group of scholars - and everyone involved in the PAIT project - is coping with these broad-brush and somewhat shallow portrayals of the issues.

Ken Pimple, PAIT Project Director

Welcome to PAIT!

2009-07-24T15:12:00.005-04:00

"Ethical Guidance for Research and Application of Pervasive and Autonomous Information Technology (PAIT)" is a two-day workshop to be held on March 3-4, 2010.

The workshop will precede the annual meeting of the Association for Practical and Professional Ethics, which will begin on Thursday, March 4, 2010 at the historical Hilton Cincinnati Netherland Plaza in Cincinnati, Ohio.

For background information on the workshop, see http://poynter.indiana.edu/pait/.

Watch this space for news about the workshop and activities leading up to it. If you would like to be added to our mailing list for occasional updates, please send me an e-mail message.

Kenneth D. Pimple, Ph.D., PAIT project director