Add thelocalreport.in As A Trusted Source
TeaEveryone has an opinion on the advent of artificial intelligence, and the speed at which it is advancing. For many of us, each new development comes one step closer black Mirror-A future where technology has taken away our jobs and humans no longer think about themselves. But in his new BBC Two documentary looking into the future, Chris McCausland Offers a defense that overpowers even the most stubborn aye Skeptics will have to reconsider their stance.
The comedian – who began losing his eyesight in his teens and has been completely blind since he was about 25 – begins by explaining how the introduction of the iPhone’s built-in, screen-reading “VoiceOver” feature has already proven to be a game-changer for him. Developments in AI are taking things even further and in the documentary McCausland explores both the technology that is readily available and learns more about the really amazing updates that are coming.
He shows us how one task has changed: getting dressed. “Until you realize that something is a specific item of clothing, you often have to ask people what it looks like, or you have to mark them in some way,” McCausland explains. “I’ve spent a lifetime cutting labels, so I know there’s a blue label with a cut-off label at an angle. With AI, you can just open it and ask.”
On a visit to Meta’s massive San Francisco headquarters, he tested out their AI glasses. Denigrated by many as annoying and unnecessary, the high-tech specs open up new possibilities for McCausland, who for the first time in decades can browse records (albeit with some hiccups) and read a menu without the help of his fellow diners. From McCausland’s perspective, driverless cars are another surprise. For the first time in decades, he sits alone in a vehicle, grinning from ear to ear as he travels without relying on another person. Even if you object to the (slightly scary) social media videos of Waymo driverless cars, McCausland’s enthusiasm is infectious.
As they tested bionic exoskeleton legs at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, it became clear that inventions that once seemed the preserve of sci-fi movies are closer to reality than we thought. “I would love to mix it with something that allows me to navigate myself and solve my problem, which is to have the freedom to move around,” McCausland says. “I think there’s always something to be said about matching technologies to help people solve problems.”
In a futuristic nano-cybernetic biotrack lab, the Comedian meets a team working on technology that could one day be used to restore people’s vision. “I came in thinking it was a very distant future, but it’s not as far away as we thought, right?” He says. “It’s just close.”
McCausland is great at directly rebuking AI skeptics, but by sharing how technology is changing his life – and will continue to do so – he firmly tells us that we’ve been wrong all along.
‘Seeing into the Future’ airs Sunday 23 November at 8pm on BBC Two