Valley News – Column: Being Human and Improving Intelligence

I’m not a techno-romantic person. But I believe that technology could solve our most complex problems, although in the process it would sometimes raise legal, ethical and social questions. Climate change, reproductive freedoms, school safety, random gun violence, and other conundrums cry out for technologically innovative solutions. When policy experts and legislators disagree, technology can come to our rescue.

Human beings will not be replaced, but their capabilities could be enhanced in multiple ways by technologies with embedded intelligence systems. Just think how NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has given us a glimpse of the early universe with its sharp, deep infrared photos. We don’t know what impact, if any, it would have on our daily lives, but there is no question that more than the political dramas unfolding on Capitol Hill, our future is determined by technologies including information technology and communications (ICT), artificial intelligence (AI), nanotechnology, space technology, biotechnology and quantum computing.

There is no end to technology. Gunpowder, the printing press, the steam engine, the telegraph, the Internet, the mobile phone, for example, have been decisive in history.

The disruptive potential of technologies in societies should not be underestimated. In the early days of globalization, for example, technology pushed jobs offshore to take advantage of cheap skilled labor. Capitalism loves cheap labor. But jobs in the future will not be lost in countries with cheap skilled labour, but in networked systems with integrated human-machine intelligence, which will require a new type of skilled labour, people who can work with semi-autonomous intelligent systems.

And no one is more eager to develop smart intelligent systems than the US military’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to change the military’s first-response capabilities and keep the nation out of harm’s way. danger as much as possible. They call it the Early Warning System (EAS), which is different from the Early Warning System (EWS). In EAS, you imagine and calculate the probabilities of the developments that could occur, anticipating the events that could occur and taking the appropriate proactive measures. In EWS, on the other hand, it deals with developments that have already taken place. The concept of integrated intelligence-based first response capabilities and an early warning system is finding applications in business, law enforcement, and counterterrorism.

Technologies are rarely independent in this age of digital networks. They have recombinant potential and tend to converge with others to form newer technologies, which could be used in ways the original inventors never imagined. A new world of sensory environment is emerging in which nothing would be isolated. Based on the convergence of sensors and smart technologies, law enforcement and counterterrorism experts have been dealing with terrorism, among other problems, in entirely different ways and perhaps more effectively.

The interior of future aircraft would be embedded with sensors that record and transmit any unusual activity to a monitoring and control center for preventive action. Scientists at QinetiQ, a commercial arm of the UK Ministry of Defence, have developed a working model of an aircraft seat with a built-in sensor that is capable of capturing signals of physiological changes in a passenger and transmitting the information to the flight monitor. cabin. The signals could allow the system to analyze whether the person is a terrorist or someone suffering from a deep vein thrombosis, for example.

The smart seat could eventually record signs of any emotional stress a passenger feels during the flight. Hidden seat sensors would provide discreet in-flight surveillance and have the potential for actionable intelligence on activities, including the health status of passengers in flight. More importantly, the information would allow plainclothes air marshals to take preemptive action should there be a danger that terrorists contemplate flying or hijacking the plane. The cabin would become an anti-terrorist cell.

We have become accustomed to various kinds of intrusive searches at airports, banks, and other places. We are not opposed to data collection in an intelligent environment if the purpose is to improve security. We know that the security cameras are on us; but we don’t feel self-conscious about being spied on when we go to an ATM or bank teller to make a transaction. This is the price we pay for security, comfort and freedom. There can be no freedom without security. So maybe we wouldn’t mind sitting on a sensor-embedded train or bus if it gets us safely to our destination, where we can enjoy all the privacy we want.

oh! But here is the challenge. Could school buildings like airplanes become smart early-awareness systems with embedded intelligence? We have seen the horrific video of the Uvalde, Texas school shooting where the 18-year-old gunman walked free and gunned down 19 students and two teachers and wounded 17 others. If Robb Elementary School was equipped with an integrated networked early-aware intelligence system, the gunman would have been stopped long before he committed the carnage.

The Second Amendment, the right to bear arms, is sacred to most Americans, but it shouldn’t become a black hole that sucks in all of our other precious freedoms.

Batra teaches on the graduate faculty at Norwich University. He is the author of several books, including The First Freedoms and America’s Culture of Innovation, most recently India In A New Key: Nehru To Modi. He is working on a novel about the people of the Alto Valle.