The Mystery Machine
I originally ran into this a few years ago, Hu.ma.ne was a mysterious company founded by two former Apple employees. Imran Chaudhri and Bethany Bongiorno. Chaudri was senior design manager on the Iphone and iPad teams. Bongiorno was senior engineering manager on the iOS platform team. Hu.ma.ne was founded in 2018 with the mission of building a new kind of computing platform that is human centric and less invasive.
They managed to build a team of many other former Apple employees as well as many other talented engineers. Up until recently their actual product has been mysterious. All there was to go on were some Patents that were filed back in 2018, 2019, 2019, 2021, and 2022.
- Wearable multimedia device and cloud computing platform with laser projection system (filed May 10, 2018, granted September 13, 2022)
- System and apparatus for fertility and hormonal cycle awareness (filed May 10, 2018, granted September 13, 2022)
- Super resolution/super field of view (FOV) digital photography (filed May 28, 2021, granted December 6, 2022)
- Method and system for providing personalized notifications (filed January 29, 2018, granted August 1, 2019)
- System and method for automated sign language translation and communication (filed February 12, 2018, granted November 26, 2019)
- System and method for automated gesture identification using neural networks (filed February 12, 2018, granted May 28, 2019)
- System and method for generating personalized content summaries for users (filed April 20, 2018, granted March 30, 2021)
- Systems and methods for deriving platform feedback data for dynamic retrieval by downstream subsystems (filed June 18, 2019, granted December 24, 2020)
- Portable battery pack for wirelessly charging body-worn devices through clothing (filed June 18, 2019, granted December 24, 2020)
- Spatial and context aware computing platform (filed July 31, 2020, granted April 26, 2023)
These sound like a smart device or something, but when you see a laser projection system on a wearable multimedia device it becomes clear this is something different. It’s hard to tell what it is going to be with all these various patents that cover a range of technology, including AI and AR. A few years ago the scope of this technology was in an uncertain state, but it seems their vision is coming to fruition. There have been a number of rumors that seemed crazy just a few years ago, that seem a lot more likely with the advent of other neural networks and large language models.
The Demo
According to their website, good ai is Trustworthy, ethical, transparent, innovative, useful, efficient, human-centered, accessible, inclusive and timeless.
Imagine a world where our technology is invisible. The possibility of speaking to someone in a foreign language in real time without breaking stride. Where women are in total control of their fertility awareness and all this is done without ever pulling out a phone or device. This is what Hu.ma.ne imagined and finally at a T.E.D in early May they gave us a sneak preview of the mystery device. In Vancouver, BC Imran Chaudhri unveiled the mysterious device. Though, notably still in development, what was showcased was nothing less than spectacular.
In a live demonstration Chaudhri showed off some of what the device is capable of. It’s a small light-weight clothing based wearable device that can be worn in many different ways. It uses sensors and microphones that allow the device to pick up ambient information and compute interactions without prompt or a screen.
It displayed a laser projected hud onto his hand as he took a call from his wife seamlessly transitioning to a real time vocal translator that translated not only what he said, but his voice into french from english. It recommended to him not to eat a certain type of food because of stomach problems in which he proclaimed would eat it anyway and the device told him to “enjoy it”.
Human AI relations
It seems that Imran and Bethany’s goal is to utilize the breadth of AI to bring us closer to technology and closer to each other at the same time.
The potential impact this could have for society could be profound. Translating in real time in person could break down language barriers and lead to increased international cooperation. This could potentially help establish and further trade networks and prevent future conflicts. This would potentially increase access to education and healthcare breaking barriers to entry where language is concerned. Having better quality and more spontaneous interactions can increase cultural understanding just by being able to communicate with one another.
Just like with any communication there are potential risks of spreading misinformation or propaganda. It’s likely that the benefits would outweigh the risks and help mitigate many of the problems that could stem from misinformation.
Ethical implications
As AI continues to enhance our experience it also becomes more invasive. In order for them to operate effectively they have to collect a lot of data about us, this can help track our fitness, monitor our health and predict behaviors, which raises concerns about surveillance. Ai systems can also become biased based on the inputs they are exposed to. It’s difficult to hold AI accountable for their actions especially as systems become more complex and opaque.
As these systems become more complex it becomes more important that we have transparency about their operations. We need to develop accountability or have mechanisms in place holding AI systems accountable for their actions. We also need AI to have systems in place to manage bias and always be fair. There are ways to mitigate bias through data scrubbing and advanced algorithms able to spot discriminating behavior.
Most importantly of all, we need to always be able to maintain control of AI or we will have to send John Conner back in time to stop it from taking over the world.
The Future of AI and Humanity
The future is ultimately uncertain, AI can of course be a tool used for the benefit of humanity. We will be able to make staggering discoveries in medicine, transportations and education among many other benefits. It could evolve into a partnership with humanity and help us to solve the greatest problems that we face today.
AI can of course be a threat to humanity especially when weaponized. It could also be a catalyst aiding humans in creating weapons of mass destruction or autonomous weapons that could kill without human intervention. Large language models could become very effective at spreading propaganda and other forms of misinformation.
In conclusion
We can only hope that companies like Hu.ma.ne mean what they say, and will maintain their stewardship of Artificial Intelligence in a meaningful and ethical way. They are unfortunately not the only horse in the race and it does seem to be turning into a race.
Let me know what you think about this interesting new technology.
Best Chris