The Big Nine

by Amy Webb

Locked out of GAIA, China finds its global influence waning. International collaboration doesn’t negatively financially impact China’s part of the Big Nine—Baidu, Tencent and Alibaba—which continue to provide lots of services to Chinese citizens. However, many of China’s longer-term plans—its Belt and Road Initiative included—are on shaky ground as partners drop out of pilots and recruiting new allies proves difficult.

  This isn’t to say that all of AI’s existing problems go away overnight. The AI community anticipates and expects artificial narrow intelligence to continue making errors due to the limited worldviews of AI’s original tribe members. We accept that political, gender, wealth, and race bias won’t disappear immediately. GAIA nations sign accords, explicitly agreeing to value safety over speed, and dedicate considerable resources to cleaning up all of our current systems: the databases and algorithms already in use, the frameworks they rely on, the enterprise-level products that incorporate AI (like those being used at banks and within law enforcements) and the consumer devices that harness AI for everyday tasks (our smart speakers, watches, and phones). GAIA invites—and rewards—public accountability.

  Within GAIA, a decision is made to treat our personal data records (PDRs) like we do the distributed ledgers of blockchains. Distributed ledgers use thousands of independent computers to record, share, and synchronize transactions. By design, they don’t keep data centralized under the umbrella of just one company or agency. Because the G-MAFIA Coalition adopts a set of standards and deploys unified AI technologies, our PDRs don’t really need a centrally coordinating company to manage transactions. As a result, individuals own their own PDRs, which are as private or as public as we want them to be and are fully interoperable—we can connect them to any or all of the G-MAFIA and to many other AI-powered services simultaneously, like our doctors’ offices, schools, and city infrastructure. The G-MAFIA are the custodians of AI and of our data, but they own neither. Our PDRs are heritable: we can pass down our data to our children with the ability to set permissions (for full, limited, or zero visibility) on different parts of our records.

  As AI matures from narrow applications to generally intelligent thinking machines, AI’s tribes and the G-MAFIA have earned our trust. These aren’t just companies making cool apps—Google, Microsoft, Apple, Facebook, IBM, and Amazon are as foundational to America and American values as baseball, free speech, and the Fourth of July. Communism is sidelined. Those nations who value their citizens’ rights to speech and property; support religious freedoms; are allies to people of all gender, ethnic, sexual, and racial expressions; agree that a government exists to serve the people; govern through elected representatives; and balance individual liberties with public safety are aligned and working together on the future of AI and humanity.

  2029: Comfortably Nudged

  With the G-MAFIA collaborating and GAIA leading to lots of new trade agreements, citizens around the world have better, cheaper access to ANI-powered products and services. GAIA meets regularly, making all of its work transparent, while its multinational working groups are comfortably keeping pace with technological advancement.

  Middle-class homes rely on AI to make life a little bit easier. Devices, platforms, and other services are interoperable even between countries, where decades earlier licensing and data restrictions prevented access across borders. Smart washers and driers use less energy, are more efficient, and synch up to our smart city systems to share data. With consent, we allow our laundry to be done when it causes the least amount of strain on our public water and electric utilities.

  ANI supports sensory computation, which means that we can collect and query the real world using sensory data: sight, smell, hearing, taste, and touch. You use handheld scanners, outfitted with smart cameras and computer vision, in your kitchen. The spectrometer embedded on an ANI wand in the kitchen captures and reads the light from an avocado to tell you that it probably won’t be ripe until the weekend—while the discount olive oil you just bought isn’t pure, but a mixture of three different oils. Another sensor in the kitchen has detected that the chicken roasting in the oven is about to go bone dry. Upstairs, a haptic sensor lets you know that your toddler has managed to escape (yet again) from her crib.

  The G-MAFIA has partnered with other companies on mixed reality, which has dramatically improved the lives of people suffering from dementia and Alzheimer’s disease. Smart glasses instantly recognize people, objects, and places, helping our loved ones remember and live more fulfilled lives.

  Originally we’d thought that the G-MAFIA’s products and services would cause social isolationism—that we’d all be sitting alone in our homes, interacting via digital avatars as we completely lost touch with the outside world. We were completely wrong. Instead, the G-MAFIA’s platforms and hardware gave us new ways to socialize in person. We’re spending more time in mixed-reality movie theaters, which offer immersive entertainment. There are now mixed-reality arcades everywhere. It’s the 1980s all over again, but with a twist: mixed-reality games, experiences, and meeting rooms are affordable, and they’re also accessible for those with hearing and visual impairments. We’re going to silent discos, where we wear color-coded wireless headsets connected to our favorite DJ’s spinning all night long. Now everyone can dance together, in one shared experience, even if they hate each other’s taste in music. Thanks to the G-MAFIA, we’re more connected to each other—and to the real world—than we ever imagined.

  For wealthier households, ANI applications offer even more features. Outside in the garden, sensors continually measure moisture levels and compare that data to microclimate forecasts. Simple irrigation systems automatically water plants, but only as needed. AIs predict optimal levels of hydration, which means the end of timers—and dead begonias.

  Inside those wealthier homes, Amazon’s Akira system (whose voice sounds neither male nor female) works in many languages, regardless of accent, and easily communicates with Apple smart glasses and Google-managed personal data records alike. Washers and driers come equipped with small, articulated drones and a new feature called Kondo mode, named after Marie Kondo, the Japanese decluttering expert. Laundry is washed and dried according to the supply-and-demand cycles of the city grid, and then clothes are handed off to a small drone for folding, sorting, and tidying up by color.

  In the United States, grocery shopping and delivery is fully automated. You never run out of tampons or toothpaste again. AI powers predictive buying systems that link to your past purchases and to your PDRs and know, before you do, when to refresh supplies. Through Amazon, you have access to fresh, local produce and meat, as well as to all the usual household staples, like breakfast cereal, toilet paper, and potato chips. Meal kit services, which got their start a decade earlier as Blue Apron and HelloFresh, are linked to a household PDR. For a bit of extra money each week, your groceries will include ingredients for all the dishes you typically make, as well as the makings of three new meals—recipes that automatically align with the likes, dislikes, allergies, and nutritional needs of each family member.

  You still shop in the real world, of course, but like many of us you choose to leave your wallet at home. The underlying technology powering Amazon Go’s retail and point of service systems have become the backbone of quick service stores where most inventory is already on display or can be easily replenished. Smart cameras continually surveil shoppers, recognizing their unique faceprints and noting what they put into their bags and carts. We’re able to spend up to $100 without needing to interact with a human staff member. In stores with bigger footprints (e.g., department, furniture, and home improvement stores) or stores selling merchandise that’s more expensive (e.g., jewelry, handbags, and electronics), we have the option to pay with our faces.

  Some kids play with flesh-and-bone pets, while busier families opt for lifelike robotic companions. Small dogs and cats—cute containers for AI—use sensory computing and deep learning as they get house trained. With advanced cameras in their eye socke
ts, haptic fur, and the ability to recognize subtle changes in our voices, robotic pets are significantly more empathetic than our organic ones, even if they are less warm and fuzzy.

  Everyone, regardless of income level, is glad to be nudged into better health. The G-MAFIA reminds us during the day to make healthier choices. As you head into work and wait for the elevator, your watch vibrates a tiny bit to make you look down: it’s showing a simple map of the office building with an arrow pointing to the stairs. It’s a feature you can certainly turn off, but most people choose to leave it on. Your workouts are more optimized, too. Using your personal data record, your medical records, and the sensor data collected from many other sources—the wireless earphones you use to listen to music, the smart fabric used to make your sports bra—gym equipment guides you through personalized exercises. After you’re done, those sensors help you to cool down, monitoring your heart and metabolic rates. Because of the G-MAFIA, our communities are healthier, and we’re living longer lives.

  The G-MAFIA coalescing around a single standard for personal data records ushered in a set of standardized electronic medical record formats, protocols, frameworks, and user interfaces. As a result, the health care system is far more efficient. Capitol Hill spent decades arguing about health care in America, and the G-MAFIA’s insistence on standardized data and algorithms for health care turned out to be the best medicine.

  Regardless of which doctor sees a patient, or which hospital she’s admitted to, her information is easily accessible by everyone overseeing her care. It’s also available to anyone to whom she’s given permission. The data from most lab tests, screenings, and scans are crunched by AIs rather than by people, leading to greater accuracy and faster results. IBM’s system can detect cellular anomalies in order to spot the earliest signs of cancer—as well as which cells in the body are affected. Google’s system helps doctors predict the likely outcomes of different medicines and treatments, as well as to forecast when a patient will die, helping caregivers make better decisions about how to treat each individual patient. In the hospital, Amazon’s pharmacy API synchs with a patient’s personal data record and delivers any needed medications before the patient returns home. Even if a patient’s medical history includes pages of hand-scrawled doctor’s notes—and even if those notes are light on details—the G-MAFIA’s computer vision and pattern analysis fills in the blanks, converting those records into structured, usable data that can be mined just for the patient or anonymized and combined with other patient data to help the medical community (human and AIs alike) expand its knowledge and experience.

  Diagnosis, treatment, and care are no longer offered in brick-and-mortar hospitals alone, which means that far more people in the US now have better access to care. Some providers offer connected, though relatively new, home and telemedicine services. TOTO toilets, outfitted with collection receptacles and a spectrophotometer, use pattern recognition to diagnose elevated or depleted levels of glucose or protein, as well as bacteria and blood cells. Within seconds, your PDR reflects a possible urinary infection or early signs of kidney stones. Simple treatments—such as antibiotics for the infection—are checked against your PDR, recommended to your primary doctor, and if she approves, automatically delivered to you at home, work, or while you’re out at dinner. Toothbrushes, which come with tiny oral fluid sensors, use your saliva as a mirror reflecting your overall health. With each routine brushing, AIs are monitoring your hormones, electrolytes, and antibodies, checking for changes over time. The G-MAFIA has changed the standard of care: basic diagnostic tests aren’t just for sick patients; they’re part of maintaining a healthy lifestyle. This, in turn, has changed the very nature of medicine from reactionary to predictive and preventative care.

  Other aspects of everyday life—including dating and sex—are better because of AI. Evolutionary algorithms turned out to be a smarter solution for online daters than basic apps and websites. Researchers determined that humans are simply too complex to reduce down to a handful of data points covered by a single matching algorithm. Plus, we tend to fill out online profiles using aspirational—rather than factual—answers about ourselves. Instead, evolutionary algorithms pull data from our PDRs and test us against all the other profiles within the dating database. We select a goal—from “just looking to have casual fun” to “ready to get married”—along with any constraints (must be Jewish, must live with 50 miles of Cleveland), and the evolutionary algorithm produces a list of the people with whom we have the best odds of achieving that goal. If we want, the system will consult our calendars and activity preferences and automatically schedule a time and place to get together. After a few dates (or maybe if that first date didn’t go so well), we might be interested in using a generative algorithm to create personalized porn. Depending on our preference, the AI creates scenes that excite, inspire, or instruct us, using characters whose voices, physiques, and styles are modulated to our personal desires.

  Because of the G-MAFIA, artificial intelligence doesn’t feel like a replacement for human creativity, but rather a complement—a tool to augment and enhance our intelligence. Within architecture firms, AIs generate thousands of possible buildings based on a client’s design exemplars and constraints as well as select and rank winning plans based on predictions for the project’s feasibility given a timeline, available materials, and budget; how hard it will be to earn the necessary permits and certifications; and whether it negatively impacts the flow of foot traffic. Real estate investors use AIs to simulate long-term durability given a particular area’s climate and other environmental factors. Skilled craftspeople—carpenters, electricians, and plumbers—use mixed-reality glasses from Google, Microsoft, and a company called Magic Leap to see through walls, match their work with blueprints, and detect potential problems in advance.

  Creative uses for AI have filtered into the arts, including filmmaking. It’s the 20-year anniversary of Avatar, the movie from James Cameron that in 2009 looked otherworldly because of its hyper-realistic, computer-generated special effects. To celebrate, Cameron unveils an AI skunkworks project: the sixth Avatar film, which combines the underwater motion capture technology he developed earlier along with a new special computing environment and an over-the-ear retinal projection system. The experience was built using generative algorithms to design entirely new worlds for human avatars to explore, evolutionary algorithms for rendering, and deep learning to make all the necessary computations. The result is a first-of-its-kind film shown inside a special theatrical set, one that (along with the retinal projection system) produces a completely original—and entirely immersive—

  storytelling experience.

  AI is helping organizations of all stripes be more creative in their approach to management. The G-MAFIA powers predictive models for business intelligence, helping to find efficiencies, cost savings, and areas for improvement. Human resources departments use pattern recognition to evaluate productivity and morale—and to effectively solve for bias in hiring and promotions. We no longer use resumes; our PDRs show our strengths and weaknesses, and AI programs scan our records before recommending us to human hiring managers.

  Within many large companies, human workers have been released from low-level cognitive tasks, while AIs assist staff in certain knowledge fields. The tasks performed by receptionists, customer service staff, schedulers, and reservationists are now automated. In meetings, smart speakers listen in, applying voiceprint and machine reading comprehension algorithms to parse our conversations. An AI assistant synthesizes notes automatically, highlighting the names of speakers, any important concepts, areas of convergence and divergence, contextual information from previous meetings, and other relevant company data. The system determines follow-up items and creates to-dos for those in the meeting.

  Because we acknowledged well in advance that automation would disrupt portions of our workforce, we aren’t suffering from widespread unemployment and our economy is on sure footing. In the United States, the fe
deral government now runs new social safety nets to ensure our resiliency. Using the G-MAFIA’s tools, companies and individuals alike have long been retraining for entirely new kinds of jobs.

  The G-MAFIA has empowered and enabled public, private, elementary, and postsecondary schools to harness AI to enhance learning. Adaptive learning systems, overseen by teachers, challenge students to learn at their own paces, especially in early reading, logic, math, and foreign language skills. In classrooms and homes, IBM has brought Socrates back to life as an AI agent, which engages us in argumentative dialogue and rigorous question-and-answer sessions to help stimulate critical thinking. The Socratic AI system, which evolved out of Watson, quizzes students on what they’ve learned, debating and discussing ideas. (Socratic AI has uses outside of school as well and is a cherished member of every medical, legal, law enforcement, strategy, and policy team. It’s also used to help prepare political candidates for public debates.)

  IBM’s Socratic AI is a useful ally within newsrooms, helping journalists further investigate their reporting as they discuss a story’s possible angles. It’s also used to assist with fact-checking and with editorial quality assurance: stories are reviewed for unintentional bias and to ensure that a broad mixture of sources and voices are included. (Long gone are the lists published by magazines and newspapers ranking all-male lists of thought leaders, business leaders, and the like.) Generative algorithms are used to make complete videos out of still images, create 3D models of landscapes and buildings from just a few photos, and listen for individual voices obscured in crowds. This results in far more video news content that takes fewer resources to produce.

  AI is used to spot patterns and anomalies in data, leading journalists to surface new stories in the public interest. Rather than aiding and abetting misinformation bots, AI can ferret out propaganda, misleading claims, and disinformation campaigns. Our democracies are stronger as a result.