I seem to remember reading once that the band Talking Heads took their name from a movie, a book or perhaps a US government scenario where a highly secret group got together and those individuals that couldn’t make it in person were ‘represented’ by animated heads (i.e. a person’s voice was replicated via a 3-D machine in the form of a human head).

I’ve tried to find a reference to this but I have failed.

Does this ring a bell with anyone? David Byrne – are you out there?

😉

Apple’s iPhone 4S offers a tantalising glimpse of the future in the form of SIRI, which allows users to use normal conversation to send messages or ask questions.

But this is a very basic technology.

In a decade or so, probably less, you will be able to have a personal digital or avatar-based assistant available in a variety of forms (human, aliens, animals, fantasy characters, Jeremy Clarkson?) that are animated and have personalities. We will use them as secretaries, assistants, playthings and occasionally partners to help us navigate the world and get things done. Basic versions of this technology might also be called synthetic personalities, digital humans or digital ‘bots and some forms of this technology already exist in customer services roles or on websites, usually to save money or to deal with frequency asked questions or boring tasks.

In the future they will also be used in as assistants in education, especially younger years schooling where they will teach repetitive rules based tasks such as language or mathematics. They will also appear in aged care, reminding elderly people to take their medicine or simply acting as digital companions. It is also likely that they will form the interface – or just the face – between humans and robots in the future.

Avatars assistants will also be highly personalisable in the sense regional accents could be chosen or personality flaws and moods added. There may even be the option of getting the personality of an avatar assistant to mirror that of its ‘owner’ or an owner starting to adapt their own personality in line with that of their avatar – something referred to as the Proteus effect.

And don’t forget that they will be connected to the internet, which will itself be connected to virtually everything else. Therefore you will, be able to ask you avatar assistant to turn the oven on, run a bath, dim the lights or play computer games with you.

Click here to watch Dave Evans, Chief Futurist, Digital Assistants, from Cisco talk about some aspects of this.

Moore’s Law says computers double their processing ability every 18-24 months, but imagine if this sped up exponentially to every two hours. That is one potential consequence of machines with AGI (Artificial General Intelligence). If computers continue to advance at their current rate, this could be a mere 20-30 years away.

Intel is already reinventing the transistor by harnessing photons and quantum properties to increase processing power. Whether it happens suddenly, or over time, it appears that machines will become increasingly sophisticated and able to do the work of humans.

Any true AGI would need at least four capabilities to be like us: to recognise objects, handle complex dialogue, be manually dextrous, and understand social situations from someone else’s point of view. Children come to learn each of these slowly until the age of eight, when all are present. There is no reason why robots could not be made to deal with whatever tasks they are required to do, whether it is to put groceries away or to babysit a child. But will they be able to fall in love or mourn someone’s death?

Some say that the agricultural and industrial revolutions were parallels, because of the rapid pace of change compared to what had gone before. Over the past 7,000 years, output doubled every 900 years. Now output doubles about every 15 years, about 60 times as fast as in the previous seven millennia.

The next radical jump will come from two shortages in our economy: human time and human attention. If robots are able to take over what people do (and two-thirds of a nation’s income is paid directly for wages), then there will be a massive jump in output, freeing humans to do other things. But what?

It is cheaper to build robots than it is to pay someone over a lifetime. But perhaps the value of human work would rise, with some people (perhaps robots?) paying to be served by humans rather than robots.

Robots that do solely cognitive work may live in virtual environments, or even be tiny, while others will exist in human environments and be more lifelike. Whatever the outcome, it seems certain that on on level that there will be a merger of biological and non-biological intelligence.

So here’s the thing. A while ago I had a big birthday bash at a fancy restaurant, one which I had been to and thoroughly enjoyed a few years earlier. The first problem was jeans. I thought I should check to see whether I could wear jeans along with a white shirt and dark blue jacket. After, all this is England, not laid back Australia.. “No” came the response. Fair enough I thought, so I dressed up like Mr Toad.

Arrival was fine, although I am always somewhat suspicious of a hotel/restaurant with electric gates.

Inside my suspicions were confirmed. Gone was the smokey and rather eccentric entrance hall and in its place was what can only be described as a Travel Lodge Luxe aesthetic.

No matter.

So we went into the bar, looked at the women wearing jeans (!) and then devoured the menu (too much dead stuff, nothing I really wanted). Then the wine list.

“Have you got anything really old?” I asked.

“Oh no sir, all our wine is new”

At this point I knew we were in serious trouble.

I was right.

In the main room, the waiters were all wearing white gloves. Oh please. Most of them also spoke like the art gallery assistant in Beverly Hills Cop.

“We avvv sisss, or you can avvve theeese” “Vitch voood you prefffer siiiiir”

But that was just for starters. The best was yet to come.

The main courses didn’t arrive on plates. It arrived on flat bits of black slate (i.e. floor tiles). Maybe they’d had a run on plates? As a result the sauce went all over the table. “Set me cleeenzzzz sis up for yooou siiiiir.”

The cheese was good and Michael, the man behind the cheese, was a laugh in the nicest possible sense. Diamond geezer. All in all though, pretentious nonsense with everything drenched in buttock clenching service.

And £600 for five people. Ouch!

So what to do?

If this (“siiisss”) has been a great meal I would have thought to myself, that this was a great meal. I wouldn’t have blogged or gone anywhere near Trip Advisor. But it was bad. Really bad (did I mention that my dad got food poisoning from a prawn that had tried unsuccessfully to walk overland back to Asia but was caught somewhere in Eastern Europe?).

So, yes, I went straight on to trip Advisor and said pretty much what I’ve told you here. Now what’s interesting to me here is two things. First, I wouldn’t have posted comments if the experience was a good one. So does this mean that sites like these are naturally biased towards poor experiences and negative feelings?

Two (“tahwoo”), I wouldn’t have posted a comment in my own name. Anonymity created a feeling of cyber courage that warps relations between people.

Fortunately, when I was posting my comments it was very late at night and I managed to use an incorrect email address, so none of this actually made it onto the site.

“Di yow avve an exccccccelent naught siiiiir?”

“Yeeeseeeessss. It vaz veeeeeery enjoyabbbbbbbble except fooor sa fowd powsioingggg?”.