Self and the Robot

I recently returned from a trip to the west coast with Havas and the Orange Institute for 'Siliwood'- from Silicon Valley to Hollywood.  It was a great experience and quite enlightening as I started to think about more than just me and my connected self (to technology) but also about my environment and the objects around me becoming smarter. That may sound strange and a bit confusing, and on multiple levels perhaps it is, but ultimately it comes down to the basics. Me (or rather you) and the Robots.First, I want to recap what I saw in California because it was quite interesting to listen to Jeremy Howard of Kaggle talk about a community of data scientists of 100,000 creating machine learning algorithms. And when asked will the machines take over, he did say yes, only question is when.Then I was especially enthralled by Peter Platzer founder of Nanosatisfi talk about crowd sourcing satellites . . . so its not just Elon Musk leading the charge. It was also quite inspiring to hear from a few start up proposals to the Organge Fab lab, particularly around the internet of things - such as Re:char’s new venture Soil IQ which is a connected soil fertilizer gadget to stream data about dirt and weather conditions to help farmers or local gardeners.

We also visited Autodesk, a company focused on 3-D design software. Our presentation there was called 'AI is the new UI. Artificial intelligence and machine learning'. They had a showroom with a bunch of cool objects like a larger than life size lego and a 3-D printed motorcycle

I also had a photo taken and a software rendition recreated my face in 3-D - which was quite scary to see my decapitated head floating around. And I thought - this is not about me  - this is about the machine trying to humanize itself.Before we headed to LA, we met the old schoolers at this point -You Tube (a bit boring as I felt like we were visiting the US govt - everything protected and a speech that was status quo) and Twitter (more interesting and a bit more open despite the brink of IPO).In LA, we went to the studios like Fox and Warner which was fun to roam around parking lots and see storefronts for TV shows. But the most interesting was our visit to the General Assembly, where we heard from VC Mark Suster and Peter Pham.  My thinking is that the money is going to 3 areas: 1) extracting value from data via visualization and integration of systems 2) content creation + distribution/engagement + monetization via models like Full Screen or Hello Society and 3) the Internet of Things - where sensor-equipped objects can transfer data between themselves and communicate  with one another in meaningful, actionable ways.The 'Internet of Things' is a term that has been around for a while, but it is increasing in traction as more products and appliances are built embedded with sensors and become available to the mainstream public. At General Assembly, Jamie Siminoff talked about Doorbot, a Wi-Fi enabled, video doorbell that allows you to see and talk with visitors through your smartphone from anywhere in the world.So, I started to ask myself - Is the 'Internet of things' the same concept as 'Wearable Technology and Gadgets'? Are these smart connected devices that surround me and others on the streets, at home, at work - do they exist in the same construct as the wired accessories and gadgets that I own (my iphone, my Nike Fuel band watch, my soon to be Google Glasses). In the last year I have been so transfixed by these personal life-tracking devices, that I was not thinking with the same degree of intensity about the objects around me becoming smarter.Although more and more we see marketers fueling basic objects with technology to make them interactive.  Robotic cars that drive themselves, beer bottles that light up when you cheer or click, outdoor billboards that change messaging based upon facial recognition. In many of these situations, the object has value even without the individual present.For instance, my car doesn't need to talk to me - it will speak to my garage and open up when we enter the driveway. I could be asleep.  This is a bit of a different approach to technology than the more proactive quantified self movement which incorporates technology as a means of tracking, monitoring, comparing and actively enhancing a person's daily life  (through fitness and health, social networking, finances, navigation, and more )After a bit of online searching, I read that ‘Wearable Technology will fuel the Internet of things’. Damn, that sounds complicated. But dissecting it down as I tried to do above, it's a statement that makes sense. Once consumers become more comfortable using personal technology to enhance their lives, they will start to expect the objects around them to respond accordingly.Basically, as we robotify ourselves, we start becoming more receptive to the objects around us becoming robots.  And are souls will exist no longer in body, but in our personal ‘cloud’ to store and share all of our rich data.