Category: "Future Meanderings"
An AI Powered 4D Printed Facial Tissue Drone
By JAdP on March 27th, 2018
In General Thoughts, Internet of Things, Connected Data, Future Meanderings
Imagine that you are in a future, augmented city. The sensors around you, through machine learning scoring and artificial narrow intelligence realize that you are about to sneeze…even before you do. In response, a nearby 4D printer makes a handkerchief that feels as though it is made of the softest cotton-linen blend, and indeed those materials are part of the weave, but only a part. A variety of nano-materials make up the rest, incorporating soft sensors, and various mechanical properties that allow the handkerchief to fly to you from the 4D printer. And indeed, this is 4D, as the material properties change from a flying bird shape with powerful wings, to a soft facial tissue, landing in your hand, just in time to capture your sneeze. Now whether the sneeze was caused by some errant dust – this is, after all, an augmented city with integrated agriculture and green spaces – or an allergen, the handkerchief's sensors now analyze the sputum and mucous that you sneezed into it, just as secondary assurance that you aren't about to spread cold, flu, or more serious viral or bacterial contamination around you. The handkerchief is fully reusable and recyclable and repurporseable, to be sterilized and become a face mask fro you, to protect you from the dust or allergens, or to protects others from your disease vector, or to become something else all together.
Machine learning scoring at the sensor package level – that is being done today by companies such as Simularity.
Machine learning and deep learning being incorporated into software to help guide augmented human decisions and autonomous machine decisions – a variety of companies, such as the ones we wrote about in our Data Grok posts over the past few years.
Artificial narrow Intelligence – is appearing in everything from chatbots to surgical robots, and is being investigated by more companies than we can add to this post.
Soft sensors – are currently being researched mostly in the textile and fashion industries.
IoT Architecture that includes hardware, firmware and software from the sensor to the Fog and Edge, through multiple intermediate aggregation points into a distributed Core of on-premises and multi-Cloud infrastructures and services – not implemented anywhere that I know of, and our own development of this architecture is still nascent.
Completion of the 5Cs IoT Maturity Model that we help to develop in 2014, and are still working on today – again, not that I know of.
Fully augmented smart cities – there are projects and megaprojects and conferences everywhere, but all silo'd and incomplete to date.
A sensor analytics ecosystem that would allow this to occur, with proper provisioning of privacy, transparency, security and convenience while building trust through two-way accountability – not yet, and perhaps never, but something that we are working toward.
And finally, the framework of an ethical core, along with the cultural, regulatory, economic, political and environmental factors[in draft, coming soon] to bring such a sensor analytics ecosystem and augmented city into existence, need to be understood.
