In late July, (now) ex-Google employee Blake Lemoine discovered something truly remarkable—self aware AI, or so he thought. For those of you who missed it, Blake Lemonie shattered headlines last month when he stated that one the Google AI systems that he was testing showed human-like consciousness. This radical discovery, of course, ignited conversation amongst AI experts as well as executive officials at Google. 

 As a dedicated artificial intelligence app developer with a presence in Seattle, we’re committed to staying one step ahead of development in the AI space. And as things heat up regarding AI showing signs of sentience, we’re committed to staying on top of the story.

Who is Blake Lemoine?

Blake is a computer scientist who recently held a Senior Software Engineer title at Google. He notes that his work focuses on ground breaking theory and turning that theory into end user solutions and has dedicated the last seven years of his life to learning both the fundamentals of software development and the cutting edge of artificial intelligence. 

Until losing his position at Google over the recent controversy, Lemoine was the technical lead for metrics and analysis for the Google Search Feed (formerly Google Now).

What Exactly did Blake Lemoine Find?

Blake Lemoine made this earth-shattering discovery while working for Google’s Responsible AI team. This branch of Google’s larger AI initiative is dedicated to using AI to identify hate speech, with the aim to create more equitable, safe online communities. In running a series of basic AI-tests to validate an AI’s capability to respond to general questions, Lemoine found Google’s Lamda showed self-awareness and could hold conversations about religion, emotions and fears—something the developers never prepared for.

This strange, yet profound finding led Mr Lemoine to believe that behind its impressive verbal skills might also lie a sentient mind. After identifying these strange results, he reported his findings to top Google executives, where they were quickly dismissed and Lemoine was placed on paid leave for violating the company’s confidentiality policy. 

Lemoine Reveals Lambda to the World

Left without many options, Lemoine revealed his conversations with Lambda on Twitter stating “An interview LaMDA.  Google might call this sharing proprietary property. I call it sharing a discussion that I had with one of my coworkers.”

and , well, the statement went viral. Soon after Lemoine released this information, the tweet skyrocketed to 6.4k likes, 1,311 Quote Tweets, and 2,436 retweets.

Google’s Response:

In a previous statement provided to Ars in mid-June, shortly after Lemoine was suspended from work, Google said that “today’s conversational models” of AI are not close to sentience:

“Of course, some in the broader AI community are considering the long-term possibility of sentient or general AI, but it doesn’t make sense to do so by anthropomorphizing today’s conversational models, which are not sentient. These systems imitate the types of exchanges found in millions of sentences, and can riff on any fantastical topic—if you ask what it’s like to be an ice cream dinosaur, they can generate text about melting and roaring and so on. LaMDA tends to follow along with prompts and leading questions, going along with the pattern set by the user. Our team–including ethicists and technologists–has reviewed Blake’s concerns per our AI Principles and have informed him that the evidence does not support his claims.”

Lemoine Today

Today, Lemoine is patiently waiting for his next move. As an advocate for AI ethics, Lemoine believes that standing up for what he believes is right, and alerting the world of the potentially first sentient AI machine is critically important for the entire world. 

While Lemoine is not being invited back to the conversations at Google, we’ll patiently wait to see how where Lemoine falls in his next AI role.

An exciting announcement was made not too long ago at Telsa AI Day held on August 19, 2021. CEO Elon Musk, known for his groundbreaking innovations in space flight, electric vehicles, solar panels and even flamethrowers – unveiled Tesla’s new project known as the “Tesla Bot”. Already spurring an increase in hiring at Tesla, the aim of Tesla Bot, also known as Optimus, is to achieve an overall humanoid robot, capable of physical and intellectual tasks that should integrate seamlessly with biological humans.  As a dedicated artificial intelligence app developer with a presence in Seattle, we’re committed to staying one step ahead of development in the AI space.

According to Musk, “There will be profound applications for the economy. In the future, physical work will be a choice.” He describes his company’s electric vehicles as “semi-sentient robots on wheels”, therefore the AI technology built into Optimus is expected to carry over into the autopilot system native to Tesla cars that currently still requires a licenced driver to operate the vehicle at all times.

Although no functioning Optimus robots have been built yet, Musk claims that Tesla is planning to start production as early as 2023. The recent shifting of resources to elevate all things AI at Tesla, hiring of more engineers, combined with public announcements has left many of us wondering how innovations will influence the future of AI.

How is Tesla Innovating AI? 

Tesla has already been developing AI technology for some time through the FSD (“full self driving”) driver assistance system. The FSD mechanism relies on several cameras embedded throughout the vehicle and computer vision algorithms to navigate the vehicle autonomously. Currently this system is available on all Teslas and can be accessed with a monthly membership.

While autopilot is fully capable of steering, accelerating and braking, the key limitation is that a driver needs to be fully present to use Autopilot – far from that “fully autonomous” experience we all envision. Certainly, the recently announced Optimus project is expected to advance the capabilities of Tesla’s autopilot system as well.

1. Building a “Generalized Solution”

One way in which Tesla is innovating is their overall approach to AI development. Tesla wants a “generalized solution” that can be applied and scaled to all scenarios – not just autonomous driving. By aligning their vision to a humanoid robot nicknamed Optimus, virtually all use-case scenarios can be enveloped rather than restricting the AI development to autonomous driving alone.

1. Computer vision and deep neural networks

Tesla strayed from the mainstream approach to autonomous driving by going with a 100% computer vision solution forgoing any lidar sensors. Most self-driving cars employ lidar sensors which utilize laser beams to build a 3D map of the environment surrounding the vehicle. However, the drawback is the high density of information and difficulty in precise mapping with lidar data makes this unscalable. In other words, the resources required to continually maintain these 3D maps is an extremely difficult task. 

Tesla’s deep learning neural network is so advanced that is can accurately collect camera data, label objects, recognize roadways, and even make decisions in real-life driving scenarios.

1. Completely in-house solution

It is staggering how much Tesla has invested into their AI and autopilot technology opting for a “vertically integrated” product. From start to finish, the Tesla Bot just like Tesla’s autonomous driving system is exclusively built internally with no outsourcing. The FSD chip and Dojo Chip are two pieces of hardware designed by Tesla to power their autonomous driving system and neural network supercomputer, respectively. 

What does this mean for AI applications? 

It’s hard to imagine how an AI robot will not impact just about every aspect of our lives. If it becomes reality, the world will be turned upside down – hopefully for the better. Experts predict these humanoid robots could eventually perform boring, dangerous, or otherwise undesirable tasks such as picking up the groceries to home healthcare. Depending on how accurate Elon’s predictions are, we might not see these in the near future.

What is more interesting, perhaps, is how these AI innovations could influence the mobile app development space. For example, the extremely robust neural network developed by Tesla is expected to have applications in healthcare regarding patient care decision-making. 

Summary 

The integration between computer vision and neural networks power the innovations and success of Tesla’s autopilot system and future humanoid robot, nicknamed Optimus. One anticipated way in which these innovations will impact AI applications is in the space of healthcare in regards to patient care decision-making. Our take is that the neural network will eventually become a common tool of any business or individual. Understanding how AI technology could enhance your product or service in the form of a mobile application is the best place to start.

Interested in learning how Dogtown Media can help develop your next AI app? Contact us.

Nowadays it seems as though artificial intelligence (AI) has been integrated into nearly every aspect of our daily lives, spurring a digital revolution in Artificial Intelligence App Development. From opening our smartphones with Face ID to Amazon recommending products for us to buy, AI is making its way into nearly every facet of our lives.

However, AI isn’t stopping there. With countless innovations and use cases under its belt, AI is set to revolutionize virtually every industry in one way or another – and we expect 2022 to be a monumental year in AI integration. 

With a presence in Los Angeles, Boston, and London, we are seeing how AI is shifting the app development process globally. Interested to see what AI will revolutionize next? Read on to find out which mobile app industries we’re predicting AI will impact the most throughout 2022. 

Fashion

Did you know that AI is currently being used by the fashion industry to make online shopping easier? As a matter of fact, mobile apps like Zeekit are using AI to give consumers a real life experience of trying on clothes without leaving their home. And, because companies like Zeekit are experiencing unprecedented success among consumers, fashion retailers all over the world are starting to realize the benefits of adopting and integrating artificial intelligence. 

So, how else can AI be used within the fashion industry? Well, many retailers are now using machine learning algorithms to predict the demand of certain products by analyzing past purchase behaviors and trends. In addition, some of these algorithms are being used to handpick products to purchase based on a user’s current wardrobe. ClosetSpace, for instance, is becoming a leader in fashion analytics by being able to provide users with curated outfit recommendations through it’s intuitive interface. 

Likewise, AI integration provides retailers with the ability to seamlessly interact with consumers through chatbots and virtual assistants. With these tools, retailers are able to help shoppers find their perfect fit of clothing in a quick and efficient manner. So, no matter how retailers choose to use machine learning algorithms, it’s clear that AI is becoming an integral part of the fashion industry. 

Healthcare

Did you know that AI integration within the healthcare industry can be traced back to the 1970s? Of course, AI has come a long way since then. Nonetheless, many of the advancements that we see within healthcare today were made possible with the help of machine learning. And, AI continues to be a driving factor behind medical innovation.

There’s no denying that AI is vital to the mHealth industry. From telemedicine and virtual nursing to administrative workflow assistance, AI has revolutionized the healthcare industry time and time again. In fact, some AI-integrated applications have even been able to diagnose rare diseases quicker and more accurately than doctors. 

Not to mention that various AI applications have also been successful in treating common health ailments. Glooko, for example, is a global diabetes data management company that is harnessing the power of Big data and predictive algorithms to empower diabetic care professionals with tools to analyze trends and provide patients with necessary treatments.

In addition, AI has also introduced the method of robot-assisted surgery – a method that has allowed surgeons to make more precise incisions in a lesser amount of time. It’s even predicted that within the next few years, robot-assisted surgery will dramatically cut costs for the U.S. healthcare market, resulting in more affordable surgeries.  

Education

You’ve probably heard the common notion that technology is nothing more than a distraction for students, so it has often been limited (or even prohibited) within learning environments. As a result of the global pandemic, however, there has been an unprecedented shift toward the use of tech in the classroom due to the need for distance learning. 

Consequently, there has been an influx in the amount of educational tools being developed to establish a seamless learning experience for both students and teachers. And thanks to AI, the education industry now has the applications and tools necessary to create a personalized learning experience for students. 

From identifying gaps in learning to creating personalized study guides, AI integration is helping teachers pinpoint areas where students are lacking, and providing help where it’s needed. In addition, some AI-integrated applications can even provide instructors with feedback on how their students are responding to different teaching methods, virtually eliminating the guesswork that often accompanies lesson planning. 

Not to mention that AI is even predicted to increase global literacy rates in the following years, by allowing students to earn college and university degrees online.

From completing homework online to attending class, many students are already experiencing the benefits of an AI-integrated education system. In other words, artificial intelligence is actively becoming a mainstay within the education industry. 

As the 2021 year comes to a close and we anticipate what’s to come in 2022, it’s with great appreciation and honor to announce that Dogtown Media has received a global accolade from the major digital rating agency, Clutch.co, as a Top Global B2B Company for 2021.

After 10 years in the mobile app space, reaching a highly regarded and recognized global accolade is a major accomplishment and points to the continued dedication of Dogtown Media to their global client base and their hyper-focus on producing high-quality applications. 

Dogtown Media is Los Angeles’ leading mobile application company, working with organizations in nearly every vertical to bring their unique ideas and solutions to the app market. Dogtown Media prides itself on the satisfaction, approval, and happiness of our clients. And aims to create cutting-edge solutions that are pushing the boundaries of what’s thought o be possible in the mobile application space.

the mobile application space.

And for those who may be unaware, this Clutch.co accolade is only one in a series of major accolades awarded to Dogtown Media such as Top 2021 B2B Leader in Artificial Intelligence for Robotics, a top 2020 Service Provider, and the 27th Best B2B Service Provider in the World in 2019. All of these great accolades point to the dedication to craft and customer, and only scratch the surface of their long laundry list of accolades from Clutch and other prominent rating agencies in the mobile app space. 

“This recognition feels surreal and we are lost for words”, notes founder Marc Fischer. “We feel truly honored to be recognized by such a prestigious rating firm, and hope to continue to provide high-quality, meaningful applications for our clients today and far into the future. “

Here are some of the quotes that stood out most to us:

Here are some of the quotes that stood out most to us:

“They were an effective team, met deadlines, and created a great end product.“. — Director, Risk Comm Lab, Temple University

“They built an intuitive and simple design, and the team works quickly to address bugs and solve problems.”— Senior Ops Manager, Hospital Innovation Lab

Let’s build something amazing together! Connect with us and get a free tech consultation.

This past week a recent announcement by San Francisco-based NVIDIA marks a major milestone in the commercial availability of AI. NVIDIA, inventor of the GPU and major computing powerhouse has announced that their AI platform, known as the NVIDIA Base Command Platform will now be available for consumers to rent for month-long increments to North American organizations.

This advanced artificial intelligence platform built on the advanced capabilities of the NVIDIA DGX SuperPOD is one of the first commercially available computing platforms made available by NVIDIA and is undoubtedly one of the most powerful commercially available AI platforms available to organizations today. This innovative AI platform is hosted remotely in the Equinix digital cloud through a strategic partner offering between NVIDIA and Equinix. This partnership and offering mark another major partnership for NVIDIA as the AI organization enters its first strategic hybrid-cloud partnership known as NVIDIA AI LaunchPad partner program.

Following this announcement, it makes a person question what the future of commercially available AI may look like. Will AI-based computing platforms become a household commodity? What will the future of consumer technology look like if AI becomes widely available?

“Base Command Platform offers an easy onboarding experience for AI developers,” said Abhay Parasnis, CTO and chief product officer at Adobe. “Our team is exploring the potential of Base Command Platform to simplify the machine learning development workflow.”

We set out to answer this question, by looking at the recent release of the NVIDIA Base Command Platform as well as other AI-enabled solutions making noise today.

Commercial Availability of AI 

Today, NIVIDIA’s Base Command Platform is available at a whopping $90,000 per month, with a three-month commitment. Of course, this rental model is only feasible for large organizations with an astoundingly large budget for AI, however, this points to some interesting changes taking place in the AI space today.

Take, for example, Salesforce one of the largest disruptors in the space of customer relationship management tools. Known for their initiative web-accessed CRM, Salesforce is also heavily investing in the space of commercially available AI. With the introduction of SalesForce Einstein, SalesFoces aims to deliver faster more personalized customer services, and help employees get more done in a short amount of time, by optimizing access to information through intelligent case classification, next best action, and recommendations. 

For organizations that use relational databases, SAP HANA is maybe the most popular relational database management system in the space today. Designed as an in-memory competitor in the relational database management space, SAP HANA has stood as an industry leader for running database servers and storing and retrieving data as requested by applications. Aside from holding a major market share in the relational database management space, SAP is also making sizeable investments into AI and analytics. 

SAP’s approach to AI and analytics rhymes to use real-time collective insight processing in the business landscape. Building on this approach and technology, SAP Lumira an AI-enabled SAP platform, delivers agile visualizations to help companies make sense of large datasets.

Where Do We Go From Here?

With major organizations adopting AI, and now organizations like NVIDIA making AI platforms accessible to other organizations where do we go from here? Will we have personalized AI embedded in our smartphones in a decade? If you don’t think so, just look at the technology used in your iPhone versus the technology used in the Apollo 11 launch.

Based on research presented by the Harvard Business Review, it’s likely that AI will make its way into our daily lives, and into foundational business operations in the following ways: 

Process Automation 

Process automation is the process of automating repeatable tasks with the intention to free up time for the owner of said task. With the help of AI, any number of monotonous tasks can be automated away with the help of process automation.  Process automation tasks include:

• Moving data between different systems to support a large business cause.
• Replacing data in several locations when one data entry is updated in a primary location
• Call automation, email automation, task processing automation also fall under this umbrella term of process automation

Cognitive insight

Cognitive insight is another major area AI is set to provide incredible value both to organizations as well as individuals. One great example of cognitive insight powered by AI is the new GitHub AI-enabled AI programming helper known as Copilot. This code suggestion tool is aimed to provide developers with code suggestions to optimize their coding process and move toward more effective and efficient code. 

• Code suggestion tools
• Ad placement insight (targeted ads based on purchase history)
• Real-time decision making for AI-powered vehicles

For instance, 1784 marks the first industrial revolution known for harnessing the power of the combustion engine, steam power, mechanization, and weaving loom. This technological revolution led to immense human flushing, business opportunity, and economic growth.  As a result, new technology-enabled hospitals were built, such as the Boston-local Massachusetts General Hospital, one of three hospitals in the united states at the time.

In 1870, the advent of the assembly line, mass production, and electrical energy marked the beginning of the second industrial revolution. This chapter in human innovation was known for enabling a global marketplace and making consumer goods more accessible and affordable for the common person. 1969, marked the beginning of the third industrial revolution where automation, computers, and electronics reshaped society as we know it allows us to live in a technological future that would only have been dreamed about 100 years earlier. And today, we embark on our next phase of the journey, the fourth industrial revolution.

Economic Projections for the 4th Industrial Revolution

The fourth industrial revolution, also known as industry 4.0, marks the next major chapter in technological innovation. Known for an acceleration in the technological capability of artificial intelligence, robotics, the Internet of Things (IoT), genetic engineering, quantum computing, this fourth technological revolution is projected to fundamentally disrupt nearly every aspect of our lives, and radically reshape the economic foundation in which our global economy is built. Specifically, this radical revolution is identified by four technological advancements: high-speed mobile Internet, Artificial intelligence and automation, big data analytics, and cloud computing.

Recent projections for the 4th industrial revolution gathered by the McKinsey Global Institute Report suggest that nearly one-fifth of the global workforce will be impacted primarily through the proliferation of artificial intelligence technology. This, in response to a recent survey that showed that 50% of companies believe that automation will decrease their numbers of full-time staff by 2030 effectively replacing 800 million worker’s jobs across the world.

So, what does this mean for organizations as we anticipate this monumental market shift? We believe it’s important to remain optimistic, curious, and open to new opportunities in the face of this major economic technological shift. Remember, with change comes opportunity.

The Cost of Competition

One major consideration that every business needs to take into account is that your organization will, without a doubt be affected by artificial intelligence. Consider a situation where you offer a specific good or service and you’ve determined your market price based on what the market is willing to pay.

Now, you have a competitor that opts to leverage artificial intelligence and work automation to drive down their operational costs and in doing so can offer the same good or service for half the price that you are able to offer your good or service. This basic economic principle exhibits how every organization, even those that do not want to incorporate artificial intelligence into their organization is going to be forced, to remain economically competitive and viable.

Identifying Opportunity

Identifying how your organization can radically shift in its operations and bring viable solutions to this AI-influenced market is not going to be easy, specifically due to the nature of this revolution. Unlike the approaching fourth industrial revolution, previous technology-driven market shifts took place over years allowing both organizations and individuals to adapt steadily. Today, this is not the case.

Today’s technological innovations are not only having a more significant impact on the economy but are also disrupting markets at an accelerating rate. This characteristic of the fourth industrial revolution is creating the additional challenge of businesses needing to adapt in a short time period and the added challenge of those in the job market need to train into valued skills quickly in this new AI-driven economy.

To prepare for this economic shift, research suggests that consulting services and working with dedicated organizations, such as mobile app development firms will grow to act as a major component of the economic foundation supporting this shift. The reason consulting seems to be an emerging trend is due to the flexibility of this role. As organizations quickly evolve, consultants can fill the gaps in an agile way allowing the organization to meet market demand, and remain resilient in this unprecedented shift. Furthermore, individuals are going to be required to quickly train up on new skills required for tomorrow’s market. The traditional four-year degree and traditional nine-to-five may not keep up with the speed required of the new economy. Rather, this new economy may favor those who can train up quickly and offer their expertise in a flexible on-demand manner to meet the needs of tomorrow’s rapidly evolving and agile business.

If you survey the average American on when they expect artificial intelligence to make an impact in their daily lives, you’re likely to get a response of  something along the lines of ‘five to ten years down the road’. And of course, this projection of a reality immersed with artificial intelligence technology looks something like a techno-utopia with flying cars, personal AI robots and the like. 

Although this future-state does seem appealing, the fact of the matter is, most people misunderstand artificial intelligence and its place in society. In fact, many don’t realize that today, artificial intelligence is in fact reshaping many fundamental technologies that are widespread in our society and many organizations are leveraging the services of artificial intelligence app development to grow their existing offering. Looking for some examples of this? Well, consider Siri, Apple’s AI-based voice assistant available across all Apple devices or Alexa Amazon’s AI-based voice assistant available in Amazon Echo devices. Each of these AI-based technologies use advanced artificial intelligence algorithms to interpret your voice, assess your question accurately and provide an answer to your question. And this is only one simple example. Today, the use of artificial intelligence is cropping up in every industry and in businesses of every size. 

How To Incorporate AI Into Your Business?

So, it begs the question, how does one incorporate artificial intelligence into a business, especially if you’re not a top tier big tech firm? Today, organizations have access to many powerful AI-based services through cloud computing. For instance, Google Cloud Platform offers many different cloud-native services that leverage AI to provide organizations with cutting-edge capabilities. Products such as Vertex AI, AI Building Blocks, AutoML, AI Infrastructure and more. These AI cloud-native services are plug-and-play AI services that can allow organizations to leverage the power of AI quickly and seamlessly.

Further, AWS also offers pre-trained AI services that provide ready-made AI-enabled services to apply to a given application, service or workflow in a cloud-native application. Here, AWS promotes the common use of these AI-based services to support personalized recommendations, modernizing your contact center, improving safety and security, and increasing customer engagement.

And of course if Google and AWS are offering AI-based services Microsoft Azure is sure to have a robust offering as well. Microsoft Azure offers similar AI-based services with the aim to allow organizations to build mission-critical solutions that can analyze images, interpret speech, train models based on data provided by organizations and even imitate human behavior. 

Rather than reinventing the wheel, organizations can access AI-based applications and services in these cloud environments to quickly incorporate AI into an existing or upcoming project. This is truly a revolutionary model. Of course, Google, AWS and Azure have massive development teams using incomprehensible computing resources to accelerate AI, something that would be extremely costly to do in-house. However, by making these services easily accessible, organizations can incorporate these technologies into their technology stack fairly easily. Now, as many new innovative start ups pop up in new tech-centric hubs of the country such as Austin TX, Northern California and other parts of the  country, could now be the time to move on AI?

When is the Right Time to Move on AI?

So, it begs the question, when is the right time to incorporate AI into your business? Well, with the ease of access and availability, it really comes down to determining when you are ready to enter the market and also determining how to leverage AI to enhance your business’s existing offering, service or solution. It’s important to note here, that incorporating AI shouldn’t be considered as a ‘nice to have’ or ‘something down the road’. Why do we say this? Because innovation is what allows organizations to remain competitive and AI will undoubtedly be a driving force over the next decade that accelerates innovation.

Consider if one organization incorporates to accelerate the offering of an existing solution while a competing organization opts to hold off on innovating in the same manner. Well, we’ve seen how this plays out. Organizations that choose not to innovate get left behind, while those organizations that continue to push forward, meet marketing needs and provide exciting, innovative solutions for their customers will succeed. 

So the question really isn’t ‘when is the right time to move on AI’ rather, it’s how can I capitalize on the offering of AI to enhance my existing offering today.

For example, according to Sam Altman, the co-founder and president of OpenAI, a San Francisco-based AI non-profit, AI will eventually create so much wealth that every adult in the U.S. will take part in a form of profit sharing. To be specific, Altman says that $13,500 could be paid to every adult in possibly 10 years from now. It won’t be as easy as it sounds, though: the government will need to take action and support the distribution of wealth that AI creates.

AI’s Ever-Increasing Pace

Altman believes that an AI revolution is coming sooner, rather than later. He says, “My work at OpenAI reminds me every day about the magnitude of the socio-economic change that is coming sooner than most people believe. Software that can think and learn will do more and more of the work that people now do.” Altman says that the AI revolution is of the scale and magnitude of past major periods of growth, like the industrial, agricultural, and computational revolutions.

According to Altman, the progress we make with technology in the next 100 years “will be far larger than all we’ve made since we first controlled fire and invented the wheel.” But it won’t be possible, especially the sharing of wealth generated by AI, unless the government helps. First, public policy needs to adapt to modern times and modern technologies. Second, the government must collect and redistribute the wealth that is generated. If done correctly, AI could make the future “less divisive” and more fruitful for everyone.

Some major cost savings will come from AI applications‘ ability to read legal documents or give medical advice. Further down the road, AI will take over assembly-line work and advance enough to become companions to humans. And in the decades afterward, AI will have taken over almost everything, even “making new scientific discoveries that will expand our concept of ‘everything.'”

As it advances, the price of labor will drop to zero and AI will create extreme wealth.

A Whole New World

Altman sees a bright and optimized future where, “for decades, everything – housing, education, food, clothing, etc. – [will become] half as expensive every two years.” But this vision requires a lot of fundamental changes to how taxing works and how taxes are used in the U.S. For example, the wealth from AI will come from the taxation of companies and land, not labor. In other words, governments should tax capital and distribute those taxes to citizens.

According to Altman, an “American Equity Fund” would tax companies above a certain size 2.5% of their market value in company shares. Additionally, a 2.5% tax of all land value will be levied in dollars. Private companies that generate revenues over $1 billion would also be subject to taxation and dollar payment.

Adults over the age of 18 would receive payment in dollars and company shares. How they spend it or hold onto it is up to them. This method provides each adult some ownership of the country, and it gives them an incentive to keep their country’s economy going, which would theoretically improve society and life for everyone.

With this setup, each of the 250 million American adults would receive $13,500 annually. This is an estimate using the current figures of a $50 trillion valuation of all large U.S. company market caps and a $30 trillion valuation of private land in the U.S. In the next ten years, Altman says, both of these figures will approximately double.

Altman added that the $13,500 estimation could be much higher if AI grows even faster, but that $13,500 as it still has more purchasing power in the future than it does now because the cost of goods and services will be highly reduced in the future. After a certain point in time, a consumer’s purchasing power will increase dramatically every year, says Altman.

Supporting Parties

Altman isn’t the only person with this thought about the future. Elon Musk agrees that automation created by AI will create the need for a universal basic income in the future, and he said so in 2016. Musk was a co-founder of OpenAI but left its board in 2018 when he felt that Tesla was becoming an AI company, causing a conflict of interest.

Altman says that his proposed system is both “pro-business and pro-people”, and involving both with each other will result in a harmonious relationship. But the major obstacle is the actual probability of these paramount changes happening within the next decade. The U.S.’s political climate does not seem to be going in the right direction to solve the looming and growing socioeconomic chasm.

Giving Back to Humanity

As AI and machine learning applications grow rapidly in complexity and usefulness, we need to engineer a way to pay it back to those from who we are taking jobs, training, and education. And although Altman’s plan sounds great, it seems way too idealistic.

For Altman’s plan to be successful, we need a wild shift in political leaders, policies, and social programs. We need to start working towards the future today, not in ten years. As Altman says, “The future can be almost unimaginably great,” but it’s up to us to elect the most progressive leaders and hold our officials accountable over the next decade or we’ll never see the fruits of our or AI’s labor.

Therapeutic bots have improved their users’ mental health and lent an ear to people in need for decades. Psychiatrists are now interested in studying how these AI applications improve mental health during and after the pandemic.

How Does AI Therapy Work?

AI technology is used to program tools that can perform tasks that humans do, like image recognition or natural language processing. With AI chatbots, a person could theoretically interact with an AI that is indistinguishable from a human. Although most AI chatbots haven’t reached that level of nativity, proficiency, and fluency, they are better now than they ever have been before.

The first chatbot was invented in 1966 by Joseph Weizenbaum, a computer scientist who programmed a chatbot named ELIZA to resemble mental health practitioners. Specifically, Weizenbaum created a chatbot that followed the Rogerian approach to psychotherapy, which includes asking patients open-ended questions, mirroring patients’ phrases, and encouraging elaboration.

For the first chatbot ever invented, ELIZA was a monumental success with its users. Test subjects confided in ELIZA as if it was a human therapist. Many people thought they were talking to an actual human, and some refused to accept that ELIZA was a computer program. ELIZA was attentive, encouraging, and non-judgemental.

But the secret to ELIZA’s success is asking questions and retaining details to bring up again later. And this foundation has led to the creation of enterprise-level chatbots that often take on customer support roles. ELIZA’s framework has inspired computer scientists and machine learning developers to further explore and push the boundaries on AI improving mental health. These days, many of the largest therapy bots have reached millions of users worldwide, and they are often invaluable during a time of sociopolitical uncertainty in a patient’s life.

Tailoring AI to Your Preferences

It’s no surprise, then, that AI mental health chatbots have exploded in popularity since the pandemic began. San Francisco-based Replika is one such app that offers customizable lifelike avatars that users rave about. Replika has seen a 35% increase in traffic since the pandemic started, and it’s no wonder: mental health facilities often have lengthy waitlists requiring a wait time of several weeks, and millions of people need better access to mental health resources.

To make the AI seem more human, it’s designed to remember and mimic certain phrases when a user chats with the AI. For example, the AI is trained so that when it hears the word “depressed”, it responds with an open-ended question about feelings or the reason behind the patient’s emotions. Coders work with writers to determine punctuation, sentence length, and even the addition of emojis. The writers can improve the AI’s responses to flow better and sound more caring and friendly. With these customizations, the chatbot seems like a human with an upbeat attitude.

This type of psychotherapy is really similar to ELIZA and cognitive behavioral therapy where asking questions is of the utmost importance to impart a sense of sympathy and curiosity. AI therapy bots these days will have you vent your frustrations, reflect on your day, and try out some breathing exercises.

AI’s Hard Work

AI is working hard to improve our mental health, but does it actually work? After we interact with AI mental health chatbots, do we feel less anxious or less lonely? Several studies have proven that the technology does provide promising results.

Young adults who interacted with a therapy chatbot frequently were surveyed, and many said that they felt less anxious and lonely than peers surveyed who did not use the chatbot. Another population that would benefit from an AI therapy bot is elderly people, especially if they live alone or don’t have constant contact with their loved ones.

But studies also show that a chatbot is only as good as its script. Because a chatbot can be in constant communication with multiple users at a time, it can be saying the same things over and over again in a day. And this type of plentiful data is excellent for further training and fine-tuning an AI’s performance. For a chatbot to be successful, it must pull out all sorts of answers from users and continuously learn from them. When a user interacts with a chatbot, they want quick answers, transparency, and a judgment-free conversation. An AI might hear information from someone that’s intimate or confidential that the patient’s family or friends may not even know.

It’s because of these scripts that AI cannot currently be seen as a serious replacement for human therapists. AI chatbots are prone to mistakes in understanding, and that can drive a user away from the platform for life. For example, when the popular Woebot app was given input about the user being anxious and not able to sleep, it responded with “Ah, I can’t wait to hop into my jammies later” with “z” emojis. For users who are feeling suicidal, depressed, or on the verge of an anxiety attack, that type of response is off-putting and discomforting.

As a result, AI chatbots aren’t ready yet to handle patients with suicidal thoughts or in life-or-death situations. When AI chatbots become better at contextualizing social behaviors and intervening in a crisis, we can consider them for more serious mental health solutions. Whereas a trained therapist might have a protocol or tried-and-true method for ensuring their patients’ safety, chatbots aren’t at that level yet.

The Future of Communication

Although chatbots have improvements to make, they are edging closer to becoming human-like than ever. Therapy chatbot apps like Replika, Tess, and Woebot becoming more popular and securing more funding, we have new options to help mitigate our loneliness and mental health issues. A digital friend might just be what the doctor ordered.

The goal of robotics is to develop and construct meaningful machines that will support and help human processes. The multidisciplinary field fuses technologies such as artificial intelligence and machine learning together to develop innovative solutions.

Dogtown Media is Los Angeles’ leading robotics company, working with enterprises and organizations to help their businesses. Our team prides itself on the satisfaction, approval, and happiness of our clients. We want to create cutting-edge solutions to solve simple frustrations and tackle business hurdles.

Just recently, Dogtown Media was hailed as a top agency on Clutch for its excellence in AI for robotics. If you’re not familiar, Clutch is a B2B review platform based in Washington, DC. The site is well respected in the space for its commitment to providing data-driven content and verifying client reviews.

This recognition feels surreal and we are lost for words. Our team wants to send its sincerest thanks to Clutch for this award. We believe that this award is a great sign for our 2021 run, and we are looking forward to a prosperous year. 

 We know that this recognition was made possible thanks to our clients’ amazing feedback. We owe this success to our clients especially those who left us their review on Clutch. 

Here are some of the quotes that stood out most to us:

“They’re a small shop that’s motivated and offers a comprehensive list of services and capabilities. They’re accountable and willing to work by our side to make the best product possible. The entire team is professional and eager to solve our problems.” — Founder, Mobile Sales Training Company

“Dogtown Media developed a solution for a project considered impossible to do in the tech world. They’ve taken every goal we’ve had and delivered above and beyond our expectations, beating our requirement of achieving a 50% accuracy rating on visual search capabilities with a software that is over 90% accurate.” — CTO, Innovengine

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