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With the rise of technology, people are much easier to connect with and that brings many positives and negatives,

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https://cleantechnica.com/2022/03/30/tesla-bot-optimus-its-impact-on-our-future/

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Peoples faces could be used and stored for illegal uses

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One bias to the Emergency SOS feature is that not everyone can afford an iphone. Not everyone has an iphone. Also Android users have to set up their SOS feature manually which not everyone knows about

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Prank SOS calls can waste time or maybe someone else's chance of living

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Not everyone can pay the fee for the SOS feature

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Hospitals can save more people and earn more money

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Protection to all generations, allowing them to do normal traditions without as much worry

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Safety from dangerous situations help protect the lives of the people around them

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Are Bluetooth Headphones Dangerous? (healthline.com)

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Last week the internet was abuzz with news that Bluetooth and wireless headphones could boost your risk for cancer.

Coverage took off when a story posted to Medium referencing an appeal from 2015 in which 247 scientists from 42 countries expressed their concern about the health effects associated with exposure to the electromagnetic fields (EMFs) emitted from wireless devices.

The scientists warned that potential health risks of chronic EMF exposure include cancer, genetic damages, neurological disorders, learning and memory deficits, and reproductive issues, among others.

The appeal called on the World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations to adopt stricter guidelines for EMF exposure from our wireless devices to better protect people against potentially harmful health effects.

Although there's been substantial research on the health risks associated with EMFs, there's been very little on the safety of long-term radiation exposure from Bluetooth or wireless headphones, according to Joel M. Moskowitz, PhD, the director of the Center for Family and Community Health at University of California, Berkeley.

While we currently don't know the exact health risks associated with chronic use of in-ear wireless earbuds, scientists are beginning to understand the potential harm they may cause.

Electromagnetic fields are invisible areas of energy, or radiation, that are produced by electricity.

When we use Bluetooth and wireless headphones - in addition to our computers and cell phones and even microwave ovens - they emit a specific type of nonionizing (or low-level) EMF called radio frequency radiation (RFR).

In 2011 the International Agency for Research on Cancer classified this type of radiation as possibly carcinogenic to humans. This classification was based on an increased risk of glioma, a type of brain cancer, related to cell phone use.

Furthermore, in 2018, research from the National Toxicology Program (NTP) found that exposure to high levels of RFR - like what's used in 2G and 3G cellular phones - could cause cancer in rats.

The biggest questions we now face are how these findings relate to humans and what specific levels of RFR may pose a threat to our health.

In general, the amount of radiation Bluetooth headphones emit is significantly less than what's generated from a typical cell phone, according to Moskowitz.

However, emissions aren't the only factor that's at stake when it comes to breaking down the impact of this sort of radiation. The specific absorption rate (SAR) - or the amount of radiofrequency the human body absorbs from a device - also helps us determine how much radiation actually seeps into our bodies.

While Bluetooth and wireless headphones do emit lower levels of radiation compared to a cell phone, their placement is a big concern to some health experts.

"Because of the proximity of the Bluetooth devices - particularly the wireless headsets or earpieces to the body or the head - the actual exposure to the head is only maybe half as much or a third as much as you might get from your cell phone," Moskowitz explained.

According to Moskowitz, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) currently requires the SAR for wireless devices to be 1.6 watts per kilograms or less. This figure was developed in the mid-1990s to protect consumers against short-term heating risks. The SAR for Apple AirPods is about 0.466 watts per kilogram, he adds.

While the AirPod's SAR is well within the range of permitted amounts, many scientists worry that the current SAR regulations don't effectively account for the risks potentially associated with prolonged exposure to these lower levels of radiation.

Some experts predict that even at lower SAR levels, prolonged, chronic use of our wireless devices could very well add up over time and hurt our health.

"If one uses the AirPods many hours a day, the cumulative exposure to the brain from this microwave radiation could be substantial," Moskowitz stated on his website.

All things considered, it appears there's a great need to collect more data on chronic exposure to the radiation that's emitted from our wireless devices and how it affects or health as well as revisit the exposure limit guidelines accordingly.

Until we have that data, all we can really do is take special precautions to avoid the potential health risks.

"If planning prolonged phone calls, the safest alternatives are using the speakerphone feature on your phone and wired headphones," Dr. Santosh Kesari, a neuro-oncologist and chair of the department of translational neurosciences and neurotherapeutics at the John Wayne Cancer Institute at Providence Saint John's Health Center in Santa Monica, California, told Healthline.

The same goes for those who listen to music or podcasts for hours on end each day. This is especially important for children, who are still developing and therefore are more sensitive to radiation.

"Children are higher risk since they have small heads and thinner skulls. So they would be expected to have higher exposure to any EMF radiation," Kesari explained.

Other general precautions include keeping your cell phone about 10 inches from your face when you can and only use your cell when the signal is strong, as poor reception emits more radiation, says Moskowitz.

It may be near impossible to completely avoid radiation these days, but we can all take a few steps to reduce the amount we're exposed to on a regular basis.

News regarding an appeal written to the WHO in 2015 picked up last week, noting the potential health risks associated with exposure to the radiation that's emitted from Bluetooth and wireless devices.

Although some suspect chronic use of Bluetooth and wireless headphones could cause cancer, it's still too soon to tell, and more research is needed.

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News regarding an appeal written to the WHO in 2015 picked up last week, noting the potential health risks associated with exposure to the radiation emitted from Bluetooth and wireless devices. Although some suspect chronic use of Bluetooth and wireless headphones could cause cancer, it's still too soon to tell.

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potential health risks due to factors such as radiation

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Bluetooth is becoming the cultural standard for every middle-class society. It is turning from a luxury to a basic commodity.

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Bluetooth is more convenient and organized, which can lead to higher productivity.

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disrupts the wire communication industry

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Communication across the world is much more accessible which brings society together

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The specs of smartphones may be tailored towards economically more developed society rather than lower to lower middle class society which correlates to the price of smartphones

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Drones are pretty much useful for only first responders, military, photographers. The general public doesn't really use drones and are not affected by them much.

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Drones are tackling everything from disease control to vacuuming up ocean waste to delivering pizza, and more.

Drone technology has been used by defense organizations and tech-savvy consumers for quite some time. However, the benefits of this technology extends well beyond just these sectors.

With the rising accessibility of drones, many of the most dangerous and high-paying jobs within the commercial sector are ripe for displacement by drone technology. The use cases for safe, cost-effective solutions range from data collection to delivery. And as autonomy and collision-avoidance technologies improve, so too will drones' ability to perform increasingly complex tasks.

The emerging global market for business services using drones is valued at over $127B, according to PwC. And as more corporations look to capitalize on these commercial opportunities, investment into the drone space has grown.

A drone or a UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle) typically refers to a pilotless aircraft that operates through a combination of technologies, including computer vision, artificial intelligence, object avoidance tech, and others. But drones can also be ground or sea vehicles that operate autonomously.

Below, we look at the ways that a wide range of companies are harnessing drone technology for commercial purposes across industries.

1. Defense

While military drones have been used for over a decade (the Predator UAV is among the most well known), smaller, portable drones are now being used by ground forces on a regular basis.

Military spending for this technology is expected to grow as an overall percentage of military budgets, providing an opportunity for specialized drone manufacturers and software developers.Since 2014, US military spending on drone technology has increased from just over $4B to about $9B annually, according to the Center for the Study of the Drone at Bard College. It estimates that 95 countries around the world already possess some form of military drone technology, up from just 60 about 10 years ago.

Many of the drones are being designed exclusively for surveillance, but others for offensive operations. Prox Dynamics, a military grade UAV manufacturer acquired by FLIR Systems in Q4'16, offers one of the many reconnaissance UAVs used by militaries around the world, including the US Marines, the British Army, the Australian Army, and Norway's Armed Forces.

In addition to the use of new aerial technologies, militaries continue to use unmanned ground vehicles, or UGVs, to lead tactical initiatives. Startup Clearpath Robotics manufactures both UAVs and unmanned ground vehicles UGVs and lists the US Department of Defense, the US Army, and the US Navy as clients.

2. Emergency Response

Innovations in camera technology have had a significant impact on the growing use of drones. UAVs outfitted with thermal imaging cameras have provided emergency response teams with an ideal solution for identifying victims who are difficult to spot with the naked eye.

In 2017, Land Rover partnered with the Austrian Red Cross to design a special operations vehicle with a roof-mounted, thermal imaging drone. The vehicle includes an integrated landing system, which allows the drone to securely land atop the vehicle while in motion. This custom Land Rover Discovery, dubbed "Project Hero," hopes to save lives by speeding up response times.

Last year, drone manufacturer DJI launched an emergency response program that gives first responders access to some of the company's drones and peripherals, as well as technical support and assistance. So far, DJI has partnered with fire departments in Los Angeles and Menlo Park, plus the Alameda County Sheriff's Office.

Startup companies and universities are also designing systems intended for search and rescue. Flyability offers a collision-tolerant UAV designed to function in confined areas with limited lines of sight - environments often encountered by emergency response teams.

Additionally, Delft University of Technology has tested an ambulance drone that could deliver defibrillators on demand. By extending existing emergency infrastructure, drones may be able to dramatically increase survival rates in both rural and urban areas around the world.

3. Humanitarian Aid & Disaster Relief

In addition to emergency response, drones have proved useful during times of natural disaster. In the aftermath of hurricanes and earthquakes, UAVs have been used to assess damage, locate victims, and deliver aid. And in certain circumstances, they are helping to prevent disasters altogether.

In 2017, drones were used to help restore power to areas damaged by Hurricane Harvey, as well as survey damage to flooded areas and assist in search and rescue efforts.

To help monitor and combat forest fires, surveillance drones outfitted with thermal imaging cameras are being deployed to detect abnormal forest temperatures. By doing so, teams are able to identify areas most prone to forest fires or identify fires just minutes after they begin.

Demand for this kind of technology is growing. In 2019, the Department of Defense made an official request for drones that can be deployed during a natural disaster to distribute food and water to affected areas.

4. Conservation

Poaching and climate change have a dramatic impact on the health of wildlife worldwide. Thousands of species are estimated to go extinct each year, according to the World Wildlife Fund. To help combat this trend, conservationists are adopting innovative methods to protect and study our global ecosystems. In combination with geospatial imagery, drones are now used to monitor and track animals.

A team at Liverpool John Moores University's School of Natural Sciences is building an autonomous drone system that can follow endangered species and transmit information about their well-being back to researchers.

DJI has worked within the conservation space, offering drone services to help teams to conduct research without disturbing natural habitats. The Ocean Alliance is an example of an organization that has used drones (such as the marine SnotBot) to collect samples - specifically, mucus from whales. In addition to facilitating research on ecosystems, drones can also allow conservationists to combat poachers.

5. Disease Control

Tracking animals also allows researchers to track disease. Drones with thermal imaging cameras have been used by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine to track macaque movements in the province of Palawan in the Philippines - a region where malaria is an active threat.

The ability to follow these animals provided further insight into the possible movement of infectious disease and its jumps from animals to humans. In a similar vein, Microsoft is leveraging drone technology to capture and test mosquitoes for infectious disease. Ideally, this intelligence could be used to protect local residents, and in the future could help prevent epidemics before they begin.

Another illness being combated with the help of drones is schistosomiasis, a tropical disease caused by parasitic worms. A team of researchers made up of scientists from the University of Washington and Stanford pioneered an experimental method for tracking the spread of and predicting transmissions of schistosomiasis. Instead of using animals, the team's approach uses drone and satellite imagery to track the presence of "unrooted, floating vegetation" where the snails that transmit the disease make their habitats - finding these sites through drone imagery lets those researchers know what areas are at higher risk for schistosomiasis infections.

6. Healthcare

Modern medicine has had a profound impact on preventing disease, increasing life expectancy, and raising general standards of living. However, many rural regions around the world lack access to high quality healthcare. While medical supplies can be delivered by traditional means, certain circumstances call for quick access to drugs, blood, and medical technology - a need drones could fulfill.

In 2018, WakeMed Health & Hospital in North Carolina partnered with the state's department of transportation on a pilot program to test out the practicality of using to drones to deliver medical packages between hospital campuses.

After a series of successful tests, WakeMed formed a partnership with the California-based drone manufacturer Matternet and later with UPS to further develop the hospital's drone delivery efforts.

One well-funded venture-backed medical delivery company is Zipline International. Zipline, which has raised $237M in total disclosed funding, offers delivery drones in rural areas throughout Africa. Flirtey is another startup in the delivery space that is looking to transport medicine.

7. Agriculture

Farmers across the world are continuously striving to reduce costs and expand yields.

With the use of drones, agricultural workers are able to gather data, automate redundant processes, and improve efficiency.

Raptor Maps, for example, is an agricultural analytics startup that relies on drones to help farmers better predict their potential harvest.

Another area where drones are gaining traction is the cultivation of crops- a process that can be repetitive, time-consuming, and detail oriented. To help address this, equipment manufacturer Case IH has built an autonomous tractor, while Abundant Robotics is developing a solution for autonomously picking produce. Planting seeds can be an equally energy-intensive process, but companies like DroneSeed, which raised $5.1M from Social Capital in 2017, are looking to make the task easier by using drones for airborne seed dispersal.

In a research capacity, drones have also been used to pollinate flowers. This approach could one day prove helpful in compensating for the declining bee population.

8. Weather Forecasting

Scientists are leveraging new forms of hardware and software for data collection to help study the climate and better predict future changes to global weather systems. Today, most data is collected through stationary structures or captured with geospatial imaging solutions. Drones, however, offer a versatile option that can physically follow weather patterns as they develop.

In addition to aerial vehicles, water-based unmanned surface vehicles (USVs) are changing the way data is gathered. Saildrone has developed an autonomous sailboat that collects oceanic and atmospheric data from the ocean surface.

A Saildrones pilot project, being run in collaboration with the University of Washington Atmospheric Scientists, is now active off the West Coast near the Bay Area. As part of the research, 6 of the company's drones are autonomously collecting data off the shore. The scientists behind the project hope that the data collected by the drones will help make weather forecasts more accurate.

9. Maritime

Navigating oceans and ports requires an immense amount of expertise and labor from the estimated 1.65M people serving on international merchant ships today. But with increasing amounts of oceanic data and innovations in autonomy, unmanned marine vehicles could become the standard for maritime shipping. Rolls-Royce has already completed a number of trials with unmanned vessels controlled remotely.

Inspecting ships is also an important part of the industry. While Rolls-Royce plans to use smaller UAVs to help inspect ships above the surface, startup Orobotix has designed an underwater drone used to inspect hulls from below.

Drones are already being used in countries like the Netherlands, Denmark, and Norway to find ships committing emissions infractions. The unmanned vehicles can travel miles out from port to detect emissions and identify offenders.

10. Waste Management

Recycling and biodegradation have improved global waste management. However, innovations in waste collection are still emerging, including drones that have help to clean oceans. RanMarine operates a Roomba-like unmanned marine vehicle used to collect waste in ports and harbors, while RedZone Robotics focuses on robots used to help maintain systems for wastewater management.

11. Energy

While alternative energy has become increasingly popular, fossil fuels still remain a key energy source for the world. Inspection of the infrastructure used to extract, refine, and transport oil and gas is an important part of the industry and often needed to ensure compliance with regulations and standards.

With the use of drones, much of this inspection work can be done remotely and safely. Using specialized thermal sensors, some drones can find leaks faster than a human inspector, while onboard high-resolution cameras enable some issues to be diagnosed remotely. Sky-Futures offers UAVs for oil and gas inspection, and is used by many of the world's largest oil companies to inspect offshore rigs. The company was acquired by Scotland-based maintenance company ICR in 2019. SkyX Systems uses drones for pipeline assessment, while Cyberhawk Innovations offers solutions for both fossil fuel and alternative energy providers.

Another area where drones have shown promise is in setting up new sites for the production of energy. Drones that survey areas and gather topographic detail can be used to help oil & gas companies identify new drill sites, or they can be used by solar utilities to design configurations for new arrays.

12. Mining

Mining is a capital-intensive venture that requires constant measurement and assessment of physical material. Stockpiles of ore or rock or minerals are difficult to measure. But with unique cameras, drones are able to capture volumetric data on stockpiles and survey mining operations from the air. This reduces the risks associated with having surveyors on the ground.

Airobotics, which has raised more than $90M in disclosed equity funding, provides an industrial grade on-site drone solution used by mining companies for measuring materials, surveying operations, and boosting security. The system is fully autonomous and stored in on-site housing that can autonomically swap cameras and batteries.

Mining is also being disrupted by autonomous vehicles, such as the unmanned ground vehicle designed by Komatsu.

13. Construction Planning

One of the most common commercial use cases for drones is construction planning and management. Software developers have created solutions that analyze construction progress with regularly captured data. While ground surveying is still a critical part of construction planning and monitoring, the use of drone data has become increasingly important.

Camera technology is used to monitor buildings and gauge topography and soil type throughout the construction lifecycle. Skycatch offers these services in a monthly software subscription that is designed to pair with a number of UAVs. Dronomy offers a similar suite of software intended to help drones enhance project monitoring and site management.

14. Infrastructure Development

While drones serve a useful purpose in construction planning and management, they also have the potential to be used to develop physical infrastructure.

ETH Zürich, a prominent university in Switzerland, partnered with roboticist Raffaello D'Andrea and architecture firm Gramazio Kohler Architects to create a structure built entirely by UAVs.

By programming the drones to lift and stack thousands of polymer bricks, the team was able to create a geometric structure nearly 10 meters high. The finished product serves as a concept for a "vertical village" that would employ a similar structure, which would be built by larger drones.

The Minnesota Department of Transportation began studying the potential of drones to make the department's work more efficient in 2015, and found that using drones for inspections of state infrastructure helped the state save about 40% on associated costs.

By 2018, around 80% of state departments of transportation were utilizing drones, according to a survey conducted by the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials. Uses include monitoring the progress of highway construction projects, surveying new sites, inspecting bridges, emergency response, and more.

15. Insurance

Insurance inspections are a core area where insurance companies can leverage drones. Traditionally, inspectors and assessors for property insurance would scale structures to conduct manual inspections of properties, but now drones can provide detailed assessments with high-resolution cameras.

While damaged or defective property still requires the attention of a physical inspection, UAVs are beginning to have an impact there as well.

Drone companies focused on the insurance industry include Kespry, which offers services like roof inspection for claims and has partnered with Farmers Insurance to scale its offerings in the insurance space.

16. Realty

Drones have been beneficial in capturing pictures of high-value properties, showing that even the real estate industry can be upended by drone technology. By 2016, real estate was already reported to be one of the most active industries when it came to adopting drone technology.

DroneBase is one company that offers on-demand drone photography for a number of different industries, including residential and commercial real estate.

While low-cost aerial photography is being leveraged to take images of a property's exterior, home interiors are also being captured by small, agile UAVs. Zaw Studios, a media company based outside of Los Angeles, uses drones to capture immersive 360-degree photographs and videos within large homes. The finished product provides potential buyers with a perspective that mimics a physical walk-through.

For property developers, drones can be a useful tool for understanding how to better outfit a property with the views, amenities, and features. Being able to quickly scan a property from all angles can allow a better ability to design a structure for the landscape in which it sits.

17. Urban planning

As urbanization continues, cities are having to adapt to larger populations and chronic congestion. Urban planning has become increasingly important for cities, but requires a thorough understanding of metropolitan rhythms and flows. With the use of drones, urban planners are able to better understand their environments and implement data-driven improvements.

Engineering consulting firm Arup has used drones to gather data in population-dense areas. With many municipalities operating on limited budgets, drones can provide a relatively low-cost way to capture invaluable urban data. For example, drones have helped city planners determine which areas may benefit from green space.

Today, machine learning is helping make more sophisticated mapping processes possible at a lower cost. In Benin, the Benin Flying Lab used drones to create a data-dense aerial map of the town of Dassa, then applied machine learning technology to classify the different types of structures and regions on the map, a process that would have taken a significant amount of time and labor without the software.

18. Personal transportation

While our definition of drones is typically limited to unmanned vehicles, certain emerging forms of autonomous transportation function similarly to drones. For example, China-based EHANG, which went public last year, built an autonomous aerial vehicle (AAV) that operates with 4 rotors (quadcopter) for vertical takeoff. The vehicle is intended to transport passengers between destinations, even in an urban environment with plenty of obstacles. The AAV requires minimal passenger input and incorporates built-in systems that aim to allow safe landings in the event of engine failure or a collision.

Lilium Aviation, meanwhile, is a startup looking to build an autonomous aerial vehicle for passenger transportation that leverages a design more comparable to a Harrier Jet than a typical drone.

Incumbents are also making moves in the space. Uber, Airbus, Boeing, and Rolls-Royce are 4 of the big transportation companies working on developing their own autonomous flying drones for ferrying passengers around.

In preparation for a world of drone-like robotaxis, investors around the world are already buying up sites with the acreage and air rights necessary to serve as potential "vertiports" - places for AAVs to land - a lack of which could slow the proliferation of these vehicles around the world.

19. Airlines

Compliance is a challenge for many industries, but the airline industry must adhere to particularly stringent levels of regulatory standards. FAA inspections vary in comprehensiveness, but basic inspections are conducted after every 125 hours of flight time. Additionally, airlines are expected to conduct their own routine inspections before every flight.

In an attempt to improve this process, Intel partnered with Airbus to conduct exterior aircraft inspections with UAVs. Intel supplied drones outfitted with cameras that allow them to collect images and data that can be used to create detailed, 3D-models of the Airbus fleet.

Airbus has also launched its own drone subsidiary called Airbus Aerial, which looks to provide inspection services across a variety of industries. Canard Drones, meanwhile, is a startup looking to provide inspection solutions for airports rather than aircraft.

20. Telecommunications

Telecommunication towers also are inspected frequently to ensure service reliability. In the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey in 2017, AT&T and Verizon launched drones in Houston, Texas to inspect their towers - a process that would have been too dangerous and time-consuming to do manually. These drones were able to quickly assess damage to help guide repair teams in restoring service. In many cases, service was brought back in hours rather than days.

Skyward, an inspection drone company purchased by Verizon in Q1'17, provides a drone-as-a-service software platform that helps commercial drone operators in a variety of industries.

21. Internet

With the world's largest tech firms vying for our time and attention, the need for global internet access is becoming more and more central to business models.

Facebook experimented with a solar-powered drone called Aquila, which was envisioned as helping to provide internet access to rural parts of the world. The Aquila drone was touted as a core component of Facebook's push to increase internet access around the world before work on it was halted in mid-2018 when the social media giant decided to use third-party drones instead.

Google initially acquired solar-powered drone company Titan Aerospace to provide UAV-powered internet (similar to Aquila), but the venture proved challenging. It has since pivoted toward a weather balloon-like design called Project Loon that aims to provide internet access from the stratosphere.

SoftBank, in collaboration with the drone manufacturer AeroVironment, has its own plans to develop drones that will operate in the stratosphere to serve as "floating cell towers" to provide internet service to customers.

22. Outdoors

In the consumer area, an early application for drones was as a recreational tool for the great outdoors. Between aerial landscape photography and extreme sports footage, UAVs changed the way people experienced locations.

Today, drones are being used for more than breathtaking photos and award-winning film. SenseFly, acquired by France-based drone company Parrot in Q3'12, has had its drones used to create a 3D rendering of the infamous Matterhorn peak in Zermatt, Switzerland. Drones were able to map the entire mountain face in less than 7 hours. These types of models can be used by climbers and skiers to better understand the terrain.

23. Tourism & Hospitality

Not only have drones transformed the way hotels conduct marketing, but they may also transform our notion of luxury accommodations. Design firm HOK envisions drone hotels that can travel to new locations on demand. These modern structures could fly to remote and traditionally inaccessible locations for guests.

Traditional hotels are also adopting drones, such as those offered by Unsupervised AI, which uses drones to deliver packages and room service quickly and autonomously.

The Marriott Marquis Chicago, on the other hand, used drones to deliver cocktails to the guests at its grand opening in 2017. Working with drone company DJI, Marriott has also tested using drones to provide guests with entertainment at the JW Marriott Zhejiang Anji Resort in China.

24. Live Entertainment

Drones have already had an impact on event surveillance and event photography/film, but are also being used more directly to entertain. Disney has been one of the more active companies in this space, and has filed for a number of drone patents focused on entertainment. Synchronized lights shows, floating projection screens, and drone puppeteers have all been considered by the entertainment giant. Verge Aero is one example of a private player creating live, synchronized drone performances for audiences.

At Universal Studios' new Wizarding World of Harry Potter exhibit, a show composed of LED-lit drones and complex projections caps off the "Dark Arts at Hogwarts Castle" show. Utilizing Intel's Shooting Star technology - which was also used during the 2019 Super Bowl halftime show and during the 2018 Winter Olympics - the drones can be programmed to reflect a number of patterns and synchronize with music and other elements of the live performance.

25. Sports

Skycam, a robotic camera suspended from a cable-driven, computerized transport system, changed the way viewers experience televised sports. The camera provides up-close and personal perspectives that traditional, stationary cameras cannot capture. Today, Skycam is a necessity for any professional arena sports broadcast.

Drones, however, are becoming increasingly popular for professional sports outside of the stadium. Vermeer, for example, offers live sports broadcast services that have been used in a number of live and recorded TV broadcasts.

In addition to traditional sports, drones are influencing sports of their own. The Drone Racing League, for example, is a global drone-racing series.

26. Hollywood

One of the first industries to adopt drones was professional film. Drones have allowed filmmakers to capture dramatic aerial perspectives without the use of helicopters. This has had a dramatic impact on Hollywood's bottom line, pushing the limits of cinematography.

As the adoption of this technology has grown, the Federal Aviation Administration and the Motion Picture Association of America have worked together to establish procedures for regulating commercial drone use within the space.

Aerial MOB, acquired by 5D Robotics in Q2'16, has used drones to film content for movies like The Circle, Guardians of the Galaxy, and La La Land, among others. It has also used drones to film a variety of advertisements.

The XM2 Cine Sierra, with a maximum payload of 65 pounds, is one of the largest drones designed specifically for cinematography. It has found wide use on big-budget Hollywood pictures, including films like Star Wars Episode IX.

Work is also ongoing to develop drones that can film without the need for an active human guide. Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University are experimenting with autonomous drone software that aims to allow a drone to independently stay afloat, follow a human figure through a complex environment, and execute various blocking and tracking directions.

27. Advertising

In addition to filming advertisements, drones are being used as physical mediums for marketing. They can power aerial advertising at live events or high traffic locations. DroneCast, for example, has developed services for banner advertising and has delivered Ford-branded knickknacks to patrons at auto conventions.

28. Retail

Drones are being used to deliver goods from local retailers and fulfillment centers. Amazon is well-known for its innovations within the space and focus on fulfillment & logistics. The e-commerce giant's patent activity related to drones is frequent and often newsworthy. Amazon's first commercial drone delivery offering, Prime Air, made its first demo delivery in 2016, and the company has announced its intention to roll out 30 minute or less deliveries to select Prime customers using the service.

In numerous patent filings of its own, Walmart has made its ambitions with regard to drone delivery clear. Walmart's competitive advantage on drone delivery could be its geographic dispersal and coverage - unlike Amazon, about 90% of Americans are thought to live within 10 miles of a Walmart location, creating the potential for the company's drones to operate from its stores.

Private markets are also flourishing with investment activity looking to increase both land and air delivery efficiency. Matternet has made efforts to combine delivery vans with aerial drones, while Starship Technologies is building a fleet of self-driving robots designed to deliver goods locally within 30 minutes.

29. Manufacturing & Inventory Management

Robotics play an essential role in today's assembly lines. And while drones may perform best in unstructured environments, they can nonetheless play a part in modern-day manufacturing. From raw material discovery to assembly line inspection, drones may take on tasks too difficult for large, pre-programmed robots and too dangerous or intricate for humans.

In 2018, Shell began using drones on the site of its new ethane cracker planet in Pittsburgh, where the flying devices take photographs of the construction site on a daily basis to help catch problems and monitor the building process.

ZF, a car technology company in Germany, recently gained permission to use drones to transport equipment - including sensitive cargo like sensors - between a central warehouse and work areas.

In addition to manufacturing and delivery, drones can be used within warehouses and fulfillment centers for inventory management. Recent research out of MIT outlines an inventory system that leverages drones to communicate with battery-free RFID technology. Drones could be used to locate and measure inventory within a network of individual sensors located on or in containers around the facility.

30. Underground economies and fighting crime

Though drone technology has many positive uses, it has also been used to conduct illegal activities. In particular, drones have been used to transport drugs across international borders. Large drones can span nearly 5.5 feet and are designed to carry equipment like heavy Hollywood cameras. With flight times of 18-40 minutes (depending on the weight of payload) and top speeds of around 40 mph, drones can be well-suited for transporting illicit cargo.

Drones have also been involved in bombings, cases of voyeurism, and smuggling goods into US prisons. In 2015, a drone even flew into the grounds of the White House undetected.

On the flip side, drones are also used by law enforcement for surveillance and crime prevention. In 2019, there were about 600 law enforcement departments around the United States that employed drones as a crime prevention and response tool, according to the Center For the Study of the Drone at Bard College.

31. Fitness

From wearables to 3D body scanning devices, fitness technology aims to make training and exercise regimens more personalized by tracking physical activity and biometrics. But to move from tracking to coaching, several new devices are emerging to provide feedback and guidance.

Drones could enhance the digital coaching experience by following users as they exercise and collecting video data of their workouts. There are already several consumer drones on the market that can be programmed to follow their owners, including FlyPro's XEagle Sport drone, DJI's Mavic Pro, and Ehang 's Ghostdrone 2.0.

For the visually impaired, drones could make exercise programs more accessible. In 2015, an associate professor of computer science at the University of Nevada, Reno's Human Plus Lab built a prototype drone that guides blind runners. The drone - which guides runners by sound - is equipped with one camera that follows the lines around the track and one that focuses on a marker on the runner's shirt. It flies approximately 10 feet in front of the runner, and can adjust its speed to the runner's pace.

32. Food services

Online food ordering and delivery services are enabling fast casual restaurants to downsize their physical locations and lower real estate expenses, but delivery commission costs are still weighing down profits. Some restaurants are looking to use drones for faster, cheaper delivery.

Iceland-based AHA, an e-commerce platform with a food delivery service similar to Grubhub, partnered with Israeli drone logistics company Flytrex in August 2017 to set up a small delivery route in Reykjavik. AHA and Flytrex use drones to deliver food directly across a bay of the North Atlantic Ocean that delivery drivers normally have to circumvent, significantly cutting delivery time. The company plans to add more delivery routes in the future.

Drones are also gaining traction with pizza delivery. Domino's partnered with startup Flirtey in November 2016 to make the first-ever commercial pizza delivery by drone. The pie was dropped off to a couple in New Zealand. In 2018, HBO teamed up with brand delivery agency Fooji and Drone Dudes to send pizzas to fans of its show Silicon Valley.

Drones also have potential to change the way food is delivered inside restaurants. In 2015, Infinium Robotics developed a drone waiter known as the Infinium-Serve. The drones can carry up to 4.4 pounds of food and drink, which equates to about two pints of beer, two glasses of wine, and a whole pizza. Similarly, in 2016, a Dutch university opened a pop-up cafe that used drone waiters to take and deliver customer orders.

In April 2019, Google received permission to begin conducting drone-based deliveries in the Virginia area, and the company is already making food deliveries in test markets in Australia.

A few months later, Uber was approved to begin its own drone delivery tests in the San Diego area, partnering with McDonald's, among others.

33. Journalism and news coverage

News outlets are using drones to add context and understanding to news stories, enhance production value, and improve documentary storytelling.

Since FAA rules changed to allow journalists to use drones in news gathering, the Sacramento-based McClatchly, which runs local media brands across the US, has trained over 50 staff to use drones.

Drones were subsequently used to get aerial footage of the aftermath of Hurricane Irma by journalists at the Miami Herald, to get footage of the California wildfires, and to assess flood-ridden areas in the Midwest.

CNN has an extensive drone program called CNN Air. The network reports flying hundreds of missions in more than 20 countries. Footage collected by its drone fleet contributes to CNN's core news report, its Great Big Story initiative (dedicated to creating micro documentaries and short films), and other projects for Turner and Time Warner.

With drones, the crew can collect footage that would be difficult to get otherwise due to safety issues, high costs, or physical barriers. CNN's senior director of national news technology and aerial imagery & reporting Greg Agvent explains that drones allow the teams to "capture things that you simply cannot capture from a helicopter, which would create that much more noise and cost you that much more money."

34. Air travel

Airbus uses drones in routine plane inspections. The company captures data and images of its aircraft to help analyze the condition of the planes. But drones are influencing other aspects of air travel as well.

Passengers traveling with drones must adhere to certain rules about storage of the devices' lithium-ion batteries and sharp components such as propellers. Rather than simply packing their drones into their suitcases, travelers need to educate themselves to safely and legally transport the machines.

Drones have created another set of safety concerns as well. In late December 2018, London's Gatwick airport closed for 36 hours due to drones flying nearby. British authorities said they believed whoever was flying the drones was deliberately interrupting flight traffic. Nonetheless, the challenge of identifying who was behind the disruption highlights the difficulties of regulating drone activity more broadly.

In an effort to help alleviate some of these concerns, Wing - a subsidiary of Google's parent company Alphabet - launched an app called OpenSky that helps drone operators better plan their routes to avoid traffic and reduce accidents.

35. Gaming

Drones now play a dual role in gaming - as game components and as tools for developing them. The company Drone n Base sells gaming packages that allow players to wage drone races as well as engage in high-tech battles via augmented reality. The Aerial Sports League, meanwhile, hosts drone combat and racing events, some of which offer significant monetary prizes.

In 2019, Lockheed Martin and The Drone Racing League announced a $2M prize to encourage developers to build AI programs that can autonomously guide drones through obstacle courses.

Video game production companies are also using drone technology to develop hyper-realistic maps and other components for their games. Drones offer companies an opportunity to gain access to vast areas of terrain and outdoor elements that help create richer game visuals.

The University of Washington developed a game to model how real-life drones might deal with an abundance of airborne traffic, with participants helping play out various drone density simulations.

36. Space

NASA announced in May 2018 that a drone-like helicopter would be used in the Mars 2020 mission to help look for signs of life on Mars. The helicopter will serve as a scout for the rover, gathering data about the planet's terrain and surveying areas the rover cannot reach.

The space agency is planning another drone mission, this time to Titan - one of Saturn's moons. The drone is not what would be typically found on Earth. With the mission expected to cost around $1B, the drone will be nuclear-powered and about the size of a small, compact car. Projected to arrive on Titan by 2034, it will autonomously traverse the planet for a period of about 2 years, taking photos and sending data back for analysis.

37. Education

Drones may soon be popping up in more classrooms, as educators embrace the educational potential of the tech. For instance, students in Colorado Springs School District 11, led by teachers David Steele and Ray Sevits, are already using drones as a part of their curriculum. Participating students fly drones, learn to repair them, and study the physics of how they fly.

38. Security

Security companies are using drones to provide more comprehensive surveillance systems for industrial, commercial, and residential properties.

One company, Nightingale Security, enables clients to establish repeatable pathways that the drones can travel daily, monitoring key security areas. The same service deploys drones with live streaming capabilities immediately after an alarm is triggered, allowing the security team and clients to obtain key footage of a potential breach.

Sunflower Labs is working on an autonomous drone system that would scan for suspicious activity, alert homeowners of potential situations, and, if necessary, provide data to help file a police report.

This report was created with data from CB Insights' emerging technology insights platform, which offers clarity into emerging tech and new business strategies through tools like: If you aren't already a client, sign up for a free trial to learn more about our platform.

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How Drones Will Impact Society: From Fighting War to Forecasting Weather, UAVs Change Everything

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Drones are tackling everything from disease control to vacuuming up ocean waste to delivering pizza, and more. Drone technology has been used by defense organizations and tech-savvy consumers for quite some time. However, the benefits of this technology extends well beyond just these sectors.

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Drones help cut down on surveillance costs and makes aerial photography much cheaper and easier

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Drones allow for stable aerial photography from great perspectives

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Military activities like surveillance, anti aircraft target practice

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AI revealed human biases

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Sam Ransbotham is a professor in the information systems department at the Carroll School of Management at Boston College, as well as guest editor for MIT Sloan Management Review 's Artificial Intelligence and Business Strategy Big Ideas initiative.

François Candelon is a senior partner and managing director at BCG and the global director of the BCG Henderson Institute. He can be contacted at candelon.francois@bcg.com.

David Kiron is the editorial director of MIT Sloan Management Review and is program lead for its Future of the Workforce and Artificial Intelligence and Business Strategy projects. He can be contacted at dkiron@mit.edu.

Shervin Khodabandeh is a senior partner and managing director at BCG and the coleader of BCG GAMMA (BCG's AI practice) in North America. He can be contacted at shervin@bcg.com.

Burt LaFountain is a partner and managing director at BCG and a core member of BCG GAMMA. He can be reached at lafountain.burt@bcg.com.

Special Contributors

Michael Chu, Matthieu Gombeaud, Su Min Ha, Allison Ryder, and Barbara Spindel

Contributors

Sylvain Duranton, Todd Fitz, Carolyn Ann Geason-Beissel, Michele Lee DeFilippo, Janet Parkinson, Martin Reeves, Lauren Rosano, Lu Sun, and Rachel Zhai

Acknowledgments

We thank each of the following individuals, who were interviewed for this report:

Amy Adams, senior director of global CRM and martech strategy, McDonald's

Pierre-Yves Calloc'h, chief digital officer, Pernod Ricard

Chris Couch, senior vice president and CTO, Cooper Standard

David Galinsky, senior director, customer data and analytics strategy, McDonald's

Anju Gupta, vice president of data science and analytics, Northwestern Mutual

Douglas Hamilton, associate vice president and head of AI research, Nasdaq

Dave Johnson, chief data and artificial intelligence officer, Moderna

Slawek Kierner, senior vice president, enterprise data and analytics, Humana

Colin Lenaghan, global senior vice president, net revenue management, PepsiCo

Paul Pallath, global technology head of data, analytics, and AI, Levi Strauss & Co.

Sidney Madison Prescott, global head of intelligent automation, Spotify

Elizabeth Renieris, founding director, Notre Dame-IBM Technology Ethics Lab

Amit Shah, president, 1-800-Flowers

Sander Stomph, former head of operational excellence, KLM

JoAnn Stonier, chief data officer, Mastercard

Radha Subramanyam, president and chief research and analytics officer, CBS Corp.

Nathalie Wright, group digital and IT director, Nordic region general manager, Rexel

Arti Zeighami, former chief data and analytics officer, H&M Group
To cite this report, please use:
S. Ransbotham, F. Candelon, D. Kiron, B. LaFountain, and S. Khodabandeh, "The Cultural Benefits of Artificial Intelligence in the Enterprise," MIT Sloan Management Review and Boston Consulting Group, November 2021.

MIT Sloan Management Review

At MIT Sloan Management Review (MIT SMR) we explore how leadership and management are transforming in a disruptive world. We help thoughtful leaders capture the exciting opportunities - and face down the challenges - created as technological, societal, and environmental forces reshape how organizations operate, compete, and create value.

MIT Sloan Management Review Big Ideas

MIT Sloan Management Review 's Big Ideas Initiatives develop innovative, original research on the issues transforming our fast-changing business environment. We conduct global surveys and in-depth interviews with front-line leaders working at a range of companies, from Silicon Valley startups to multinational organizations, to deepen our understanding of changing paradigms and their influence on how people work and lead.

Boston Consulting Group

Boston Consulting Group partners with leaders in business and society to tackle their most important challenges and capture their greatest opportunities. BCG was the pioneer in business strategy when it was founded in 1963. Today, we work closely with clients to embrace a transformational approach aimed at benefiting all stakeholders - empowering organizations to grow, build sustainable competitive advantage, and drive positive societal impact.

Our diverse, global teams bring deep industry and functional expertise and a range of perspectives that question the status quo and spark change. BCG delivers solutions through leading-edge management consulting, technology and design, and corporate and digital ventures. We work in a uniquely collaborative model across the firm and throughout all levels of the client organization, fueled by the goal of helping our clients thrive and enabling them to make the world a better place.

BCG Henderson Institute

The BCG Henderson Institute is Boston Consulting Group's strategy think tank, dedicated to exploring and developing valuable new insights from business, technology, science, and economics by embracing the powerful technology of ideas. The Institute engages leaders in provocative discussion and experimentation to expand the boundaries of business theory and practice and to translate innovative ideas from within and beyond business. For more ideas and inspiration from the Institute, please visit bcghendersoninstitute.com.

BCG GAMMA

BCG GAMMA is BCG's global team dedicated to applying artificial intelligence and advanced analytics to critical business problems at leading companies and organizations. The team includes more than 1,500 data scientists and engineers who utilize AI and advanced analytics (e.g., machine learning, deep learning, optimization, simulation, natural language and image analytics, etc.) to build solutions that transform business performance. BCG GAMMA's approach builds value and competitive advantage at the intersection of data science, technology, people, business processes, and ways of working. For more information, please visit our webpage.

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The Cultural Benefits of Artificial Intelligence in the Enterprise

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Sam Ransbotham is a professor in the information systems department at the Carroll School of Management at Boston College, as well as guest editor for MIT Sloan Management Review 's Artificial Intelligence and Business Strategy Big Ideas initiative. François Candelon is a senior partner and managing director at BCG and the global director of the BCG Henderson Institute.

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Can be used in situations where manned flight is too dangerous

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AI hid information from researchers

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Social media is more geared towards people in periphery countries due to their increased access/ownership of electronic devices.

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Many people from across the world are probably brought together in the workforce during the development phase of Autonomous planes. Autonomous planes may cause faster flights due to very precise computer coordination which will help air travel become much faster connecting everyone around the world.

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Purpose and functionality of autonomous Cars - Aniq Momin

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Purpose and functionality of autonomous Cars - Aniq Momin

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Purpose and functionality of autonomous Cars - Aniq Momin

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Many people may think that a human pilot is probably a much safer option when compared to an AI flying a plane. Therefore, people may be afraid to board an automated plane.

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https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/24/technology/facial-recognition-arrest.html

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Wrongfully Accused by an Algorithm (Published 2020)

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In what may be the first known case of its kind, a faulty facial recognition match led to a Michigan man’s arrest for a crime he did not commit.

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When airplanes are fully automated, pilots aren't required and with that flight training is also not required. Flight training is usually very expensive from the perspective of airline companies and if there is no flight training then the airlines don't even have to worry about spending money. This can be a benefit to airlines as it creates a huge gain.

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Access to the internet exposes more people to different cultures and ideologies through out the globe2

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Many companies who own social media platforms allow their users' information to be exploited by companies trying to sell products.

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The market for smartphones is very big and is a large contributor to the global economy

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People can communicate with loved ones across the world extremely fast.

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Bluetooth can be targeted towards wealthier consumers, since it requires more money to purchase devices that are compatible with Bluetooth.

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People often record and post unnecessary or embarrassing videos constantly.

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Identify criminals and find missing people including children especially when there are no other choices of identification. Can also prevent crimes by alerting people of known theives etc.

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Title: Advancements in automated production (AI)

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Title: Advancements in automated production (AI)

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Many pilots may lose their jobs if planes are automated. This can severely damage the livelihood. Pilots who had already occupied a career and profession will be damaged by the automation of planes the most.

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Old games which are preserved become iconic, popular, and well known among the masses.

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Tesla fans struggle to get loved ones on board with 'full self-driving' 

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Tesla fans struggle to get loved ones on board with 'full self-driving' 

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Aniq Momin

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tesla's 'full self-driving' struggles to win over its fans' loved ones  - cnn

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Tesla fans struggle to get loved ones on board with 'full self-driving'

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Frugal Tesla Guy, a YouTube personality focused on Tesla, gives his passengers a speech to prepare them before he turns on "full self-driving."

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Some car company is going to do something stupid like connect their cars to the internet without proper security, and then a hacker is going to some terrorist stuff and crash a bunch of cars together.

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Social media's intended use is to share content, learn about certain things, (such as modern events), promote interaction between users and market content and products.

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AI systems can have embedded biases, including in AI self-driving cars.
Getty

The news has been replete with stories about AI systems that have been regrettably and dreadfully exhibiting various adverse biases including racial bias, gender bias, age discrimination bias, and other lamentable prejudices.

How is this happening?

Initially, some pointed fingers at the AI developers that craft AI systems.

It was thought that their own personal biases were being carried over into the programming and the AI code that is being formulated. As such, a call for greater diversity in the AI software development field was launched and efforts to achieve such aims are underway.

Turns out though that it isn't only the perspectives of the AI programmers that are necessarily the dominant factor involved, and many began to realize that the algorithms being utilized were a significant element.

There is yet another twist.

Many of the AI algorithms used for Machine Learning (ML) and Deep Learning (DL) are essentially doing pattern matching, and thus if the data being used to train or prepare an AI system contains numerous examples with inherent biases in them, there's a solid chance those will be carried over into the AI system and how it ultimately performs.

In that sense, it's not that the algorithms are intentionally generating biases (they are not sentien t), while instead, it is the subtle picking up of mathematically "hidden" biases via the data being fed into the development of the AI system that's based on relatively rudimentary pattern matching.

Imagine a computer system that had no semblance about the world and you repeatedly showed it a series of pictures of people standing and looking at the camera. Pretend that the pictures were labeled as to what kind of occupations they held.

We'll use the pictures as the data that will be fed into the ML/DL.

The algorithm that's doing pattern matching might computationally begin to calculate that if someone is tall then they are a basketball player.

Of course, being tall doesn't always mean that a person is a basketball player and thus already the pattern matching is creating potential issues as to what it will do when presented with new pictures and asked to classify what the person does for a living.

Realize too that there are two sides to that coin.

A new picture of a tall person gets a suggested classification of being a basketball player. In addition, a new picture of a person that is not tall will be unlikely to get a suggested classification of being a basketball player (therefore, the classification approach will be inclusive and furthermore tend toward being exclusionary).

In lieu of using height, the pattern matching might calculate that if someone is wearing a sports jersey, they are a basketball player.

Once again, this presents issues since the wearing of a sports jersey is not a guarantee of being a basketball player, nor necessarily that someone is a sports person at all.

Among the many factors that be explored, it could be that the pattern matching opts to consider the race of the people in the pictures and uses that as a factor in finding patterns.

Depending upon how many pictures contain people of various races, the pattern matching might calculate that a person in occupation X is associated with being a race of type R.

As a result, rather than using height or sports jerseys or any other such factors, the algorithm landed on race as a key element and henceforth will use that factor when trying to classify newly presented pictures.

If you then put this AI system into use, and you have it in an app that lets you take a picture of yourself and ask the app what kind of occupation you are most suited for, consider the kind of jobs it might suggest for someone, doing so in a manner that would be race biased.

Scarier still is that no one might realize how the AI system is making its recommendations and the race factor is buried within the mathematical calculations.

Your first reaction to this might be that the algorithm is badly devised if it has opted to use race as a key factor.

The thing is that many of the ML/DL algorithms are merely full-throttle examining all available facets of whatever the data contains, and therefore it's not as though race was programmed or pre-established as a factor.

In theory, the AI developers and data scientists that are using these algorithms should be analyzing the results of the pattern matching to try and ascertain in what ways are the patterns being solidified.

Unfortunately, it gets complicated since the complexity of the pattern matching is increasing, meaning that the patterns are not so clearly laid out that you could readily realize that race or gender or other such properties were mathematically at the root of what the AI system has opted upon.

There is a looming qualm that these complex algorithms that are provided with tons of data are not able to explain or illuminate what factors were discovered and are being relied upon. A growing call for XAI, explainable AI, continues to mount as more and more AI systems are being fielded and underlay our everyday lives.

Here's an interesting question: Could AI-based true self-driving cars become racially biased (and/or biased in other factors such as age, gender, etc.)?

Sure, it could happen.

This is a matter that ought to be on the list of things that the automakers and self-driving tech firms should be seeking to avert.

Let's unpack the matter.
The Levels Of Self-Driving Cars
It is important to clarify what I mean when referring to true self-driving cars.

True self-driving cars are ones that the AI drives the car entirely on its own and there isn't any human assistance during the driving task.

These driverless vehicles are considered a Level 4 and Level 5, while a car that requires a human driver to co-share the driving effort is usually considered at a Level 2 or Level 3. The cars that co-share the driving task are described as being semi-autonomous, and typically contain a variety of automated add-on's that are referred to as ADAS (Advanced Driver-Assistance Systems).

There is not yet a true self-driving car at Level 5, which we don't yet even know if this will be possible to achieve, and nor how long it will take to get there.

Meanwhile, the Level 4 efforts are gradually trying to get some traction by undergoing very narrow and selective public roadway trials, though there is controversy over whether this testing should be allowed per se (we are all life-or-death guinea pigs in an experiment taking place on our highways and byways, some point out).

Since semi-autonomous cars require a human driver, the adoption of those types of cars won't be markedly different than driving conventional vehicles, so there's not much new per se to cover about them on this topic (though, as you'll see in a moment, the points next made are generally applicable).

For semi-autonomous cars, it is important that kids are forewarned about a disturbing aspect that's been arising lately, namely that in spite of those human drivers that keep posting videos of themselves falling asleep at the wheel of a Level 2 or Level 3 car, we all need to avoid being misled into believing that the driver can take away their attention from the driving task while driving a semi-autonomous car.

You are the responsible party for the driving actions of the vehicle, regardless of how much automation might be tossed into a Level 2 or Level 3.
Self-Driving Cars And Biases
For Level 4 and Level 5 true self-driving vehicles, there won't be a human driver involved in the driving task.

All occupants will be passengers.

The AI is doing the driving.

Consider one important act of driving, namely the need to gauge what pedestrians are going to do.

When you drive your car around your neighborhood or downtown area, the odds are that you are looking at pedestrians that are standing at a corner and waiting to enter into the crosswalk, particularly when the crosswalk is not controlled by a traffic signal.

You carefully give a look at those pedestrians because you know from experience that sometimes a pedestrian will go into a crosswalk even when it is not safe for them to cross.

According to the NHTSA (National Highway Traffic Safety Administration), approximately 60% of pedestrian fatalities occur at crosswalks.

Consider these two crucial questions:

· By what means do you decide whether a pedestrian is going to cross?

· And, by what means do you decide to come to a stop and let a pedestrian cross?

There have been various studies that have examined these questions, and some of the research suggests that at times there are human drivers that will apparently make their decisions based on race.

In one such study by the NITC (National Institute for Transportation and Communities), an experiment was undertaken and "revealed that black pedestrians were passed by twice as many cars and experienced wait times that were 32% longer than white pedestrians."

The researchers concluded that the "results support the hypothesis that minority pedestrians experience discriminatory treatment by drivers."

Analysts and statisticians argue that you should be cautious in interpreting and making broad statements based on such studies since there are a number of added facets that come to play.

There is also the aspect of explicit bias versus implicit bias that enters into the matter.

Some researchers believe that a driver might not realize they hold such biases, being unaware explicitly, and yet might implicitly have such a bias and that in the split-second decision making of whether to keep driving through a crosswalk or stopping to let the pedestrian proceed there is a reactive and nearly subconscious element involved.

Put aside for the moment the human driver aspects and consider what this might mean when trying to train an AI system.

If you collected lots of data about instances of crosswalk crossing, which included numerous examples of drivers that choose to stop for a pedestrian to cross and those that don't stop, and you fed this data into an ML/DL, what might the algorithm land on as a pattern?

Based on the data presented, the ML/DL might computationally calculate that there are occasions when human drivers do and do not stop, and within that, there might be a statistical calculation potentially based on using race as a factor.

In essence, similar to the earlier example about occupations, the AI system might "mindlessly" find a mathematical pattern that uses race.

Presumably, if human drivers are indeed using such a factor, the chances of the pattern matching doing the same are likely increased, though even if human drivers aren't doing so it could still become a factor by the ML/DL computations.

Thus, the AI systems that drive self-driving cars can incorporate biases in a myriad of ways, doing so as a result of being fed lots of data and trying to mathematically figure out what patterns seem to exist.

Figuring out that the AI system has come to that computational juncture is problematic.

If the ML/DL itself is essentially inscrutable, you have little chance of ferreting out the bias.

Another approach would be to do testing to try and discern that biases have crept into the AI system, yet the volume and nature of such testing is bound to be voluminous and might not be able to reveal such biases, especially if the biases are subtle and assimilated into other correlated factors.

It's a conundrum.
Dealing With The Concerns
Some would argue that the AI developers ought to forego using data and instead programmatically develop the code to detect pedestrians and decide whether to accede to their crossing.

Or, maybe just always come to a stop at a crosswalk for all pedestrians, thus presumably vacating any chance of an inherent bias.

Well, there's no free lunch in any of this.

Yes, directly programming the pedestrian detection and choice of crossing is indeed what many of the automakers and self-driving tech firms are doing, though this does not again guarantee that some form of biases won't be in the code.

Furthermore, the benefit of using ML/DL is that the algorithms are pretty much already available, and you don't need to write something from scratch. Instead, you pull together the data and feed it into the ML/DL. This is generally faster than the coding-from-scratch approach and might be more proficient and exceed what a programmer could otherwise write on their own.

In terms of the always coming to a stop approach, some automakers and self-driving tech firms are using this as a rule-of-thumb, though you can imagine that it tends to make other human drivers upset and become angered at self-driving cars (have you ever been behind a timid driver that always stops at crosswalks, it's a good bet that you got steamed at such a driver), and might lead to an increase in fender benders as driverless cars keep abruptly coming to a stop.

Widening the perspective on AI and self-driving cars, keep in mind that the pedestrian at a crosswalk is merely one such example to consider.

Another commonly voiced concern is that self-driving cars are going to likely choose how to get to wherever a human passenger asks to go.

A passenger might request that the AI take them to the other side of town.

Suppose the AI system opts to take a route that avoids a certain part of the town, and then over and over again uses this same route. Gradually, the ML/DL might become computationally stuck-in-a-rut and always take that same path.

This could mean that parts of a town will never tend to see any self-driving cars roaming through their neighborhood.

Some worry that this could become a kind of bias or discriminatory practice by self-driving cars.

How could it happen?

Once again, the possibility of the data being fed into the AI system could be the primary culprit.

Enlarge the view even further and consider that all the self-driving cars in a fleet might be contributing their driving data to the cloud of the automaker or self-driving tech firm that is operating the fleet.

The hope is that by collecting this data from hundreds, or thousands, or eventually millions of driverless cars, it can be scanned and examined to presumably improve the driving practices of the self-driving cars.

Via the use of OTA (Over-The-Air) electronic communications, the data will be passed along up to the cloud, and whenever new updates or patches are needed in the self-driving cars they will be pushed down into the vehicles.

I've already forewarned that this has the potential for a tremendous kind of privacy intrusion since you need to realize that a self-driving car is loaded with cameras, radar, LIDAR, ultrasonic, thermal, and other data-collecting devices and going to be unabashedly capturing whatever it sees or detects during a driving journey.

A driverless car that passes through your neighborhood and goes down your block will tend to record whatever is occurring within its detectable range.

There you are on your front lawn, playing ball with your kids, and the scene is collected onto video and later streamed up to the cloud.

Assuming that driverless cars are pretty much continuously cruising around to be available for those that need a ride, it could end-up allowing the possibility of knitting together our daily efforts and activities.

In any case, could the ML/DL that computationally pattern matches on this vast set of data be vulnerable to landing on inherently biased elements and then opt to use those by downloading updates into the fleet of driverless cars.

Yes.
Conclusion
This description of a problem is one that somewhat predates the appearance of the problem.

There are so few self-driving cars on our roadways that there's no immediate way to know whether or not those driverless cars might already embody any kind of biases.

Until the number of self-driving cars gets large enough, we might not be cognizant of the potential problem of embedded and rather hidden computational biases.

Some people seem to falsely believe that AI systems have common sense and thus won't allow biases to enter into their "thinking" processes.

Nope, there is no such thing yet as robust common-sense reasoning for AI systems, at least not anywhere close to what humans can do in terms of employing common sense.

There are others that assume that AI will become sentient and presumably be able to discuss with us humans any biases it might have and then squelch those biases.

Sorry, do not hold your breath for the so-called singularity to arrive anytime soon.

For now, the focus needs to be on doing a better job at examining the data that is being used to train AI systems, along with doing a better job at analyzing what the ML/DL formulates, and also pursuing the possibility of XAI that might provide an added glimpse into what the AI system is doing.

It's a human devised problem that requires a human devised resolution, and not an AI "cognition" problem that should be awaiting an AI-sentient solution.

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Overcoming Racial Bias In AI Systems And Startlingly Even In AI Self-Driving Cars

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The news has been replete with stories about AI systems that have been regrettably and dreadfully exhibiting various adverse biases including racial bias, gender bias, age discrimination bias, and other lamentable prejudices. How is this happening?

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People have a phone that is compatible with a watch to make sure that it works. If you do not have a phone that is compatible smart watches are not really as effective as they could be.

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Faces could be edited for fake videos or photos to create controversy and distrust

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Not everyone will be able to afford the hefty price tag of this revolutionary technology

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This innovation is potentially biased against older people and people who don't understand technology. Furthermore, the innovation as of now requires a fundamental understanding of driving regardless of the automation.

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Old games are preserved for future generations

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When an autonomous car is driving, it can make thousands of decisions per second making it a very accurate driver, and can avoid car crashes saving people and cities money from damage and healthcare.

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Who ever invents the software could potentially copyright it and make so much money as well as stopping other companies from using it.

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AI learn with training data, which may contain one scenario over another, causing positive reinforcement to biases. ex. recognize more whites blinking over asians blinking
They can pick up on biased human decisions even if they may not be outwardly apparent and/or reflect on historical and social inequities, even if variables such as gender, race, and sexual orientation are removed.
ex. They can pick up on gender stereotypes through natural language, which is why genderless language translation is so important.
Fairness cannot be guaranteed and satisfied in all conditions, which is why AI should be tested in all ways by a multitude of different people before being released.

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People will be misidentified, based on bad training data

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People will be misidentified, based on bad training data

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With Autonomous cars comes the use of location and tracking which, with some people, may not be comfortable to them

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I'm biased in my opinions as someone who likes to own the games and books physically and is not super trustful of big AAA companies (in gaming specifically)

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5 movies and 10 documentaries will be made abut this topic

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5 movies and 10 documentaries will be made abut this topic

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Personal bias can be programmed over into the AI code. The program is not intentionally generating biases but could be picking up hidden bias from the data entered .This could lead to racial, gender, and age bias.

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Gamers who want to play old games will use emulation because old systems are hard to find/expensive

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People can easily open their phones, maybe save passwords with more security, and the change for getting hacked will go down

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People would be able to go on road trips without having to drive the entire time.

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VR headsets can only be used by people who are farsighted or have good eyesight. They can also only be used by people who don't easily get headaches from looking at a screen. VR headsets are also expensive which excludes certain consumers from being able buying VR equipment.

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fMRIs are designed to find abnormalities in brain activity, which could lead to the discovery of a neural disease.

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Might carry over some of the toxicity of the gaming world

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Might carry over some of the toxicity of the gaming world

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Expansion of the technological economic sector

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Expansion of the technological economic sector

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It only produces accurate results for people who stay very still during the scanning, so it can be disadvantageous for people who have the tendency to move a lot.

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As technology advances, we see technology driving aspects of society and culture more and more, I think the next step is autonomous cars. And in the future, it could be autonomous planes, autonomous uber drivers, autonomous restaurant waiters, etc. Whether this is beneficial or not depends on who you ask.

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Cuts down time, enables complex tasks w/ less cost, operates 24/7, makes decisions smarter and faster, which frees up resources for more complex tasks

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Can increase the safety on roads, since easily distractible humans are replaced with code and autonomous machines that can make thousands of decisions per second.