Museum of the Future

Self driving cars- how does the algorithm work?

Well today we skipped the tour to Salzburg to spend the day in The Museum of the Future , the Ars Electronica centre in Linz.
That’s how we came to be “ performing” in front of a camera where our actions were captured on camera, fed into a computer using  machine learning and artificial intelligence in order to train an algorithm for self driving cars( hope you are still following this).

And this is before we even start on the tricky subject of training computers on ethics and morals. If a self driving car is faced with the choice in an accident of killing an old person or young one which does it choose?


A more immediate problem are those apps we use everyday. Did you know  the data collected is stored and can be bought ?  All  this came to light after a  New York Times investigation bought some data and had analysed. It revealed intimate details about the life of a middle aged teacher even down to her dog walking routine and visits to her doctor.

I liked Ailia though , an open source app that stops Alexa listening by introducing white noise once given a key word.
And yes all those digital devices we are encouraged to use around the home to help us are listening, storing and selling our data.

 The unspoken fear is that one day a  government could use it all to control and manipulate its population.

I would like to give a special thanks to all the info trainers we met and had long conversations with today.
www.ars.electronica.art