In a previous enFact, we highlighted how 50% of what we say to each other in English is limited to only 135 words. That’s a small number of words to capture a universe of things to talk about. Which got us thinking about what happens when humans attempt to communicate with other species.
Over the years, we’ve grown accustomed to communicating with a few other species, including one in particular: man’s best friend. The average dog can understand about 165 words. The known maximum is 1,022 words recognized by Chaser, a Border Collie. About 42% of U.S. homes have a dog, most of whom choose the worst possible moment to forget the words they know.
As a follow-up to our “Data trackers are watching your every (digital) move” article, we’re sharing 7 more instances where your sensitive private information and personally identifiable data are trackable, in many cases without your opt-in approval.
Why does it matter? Because once data is created, it lives on indefinitely and becomes a commodity that companies like data brokers convert into revenue streams. “These companies share just about everything. ‘It’s what Web pages we visit, where we’re shopping, who we’re interfacing with on social media — all of that information is available to be collected by entities that park themselves on the various websites,’” said one former Federal Trade Commission commissioner.
Another area where personal data is being monetized is referred to as “Telecom Data as a Service” or TDaaS, in which mobile service providers capture, bundle, and sell aggregate customer data to advertisers and other third-parties. This data “is seen as potentially more valuable than some other consumer data because it directly connects mobile phone interactions to individuals through actual billing information.”
Given the threshold is so low for turning a few data points into a personally identifiable profile, the best defense may be simply limiting the data collection in the first place. With that in mind, here are some data tracking technologies to watch for:
1. Your ambient conversations aren’t believed to be recorded, but Alexa and Google Home listen to everything you say in order to activate each system. You can restore privacy by using the physical mute button on each device.
2. Uber is collecting location information for up to 5 minutes after rides end. Unless you opt out, Uber collects a rider’s location even after closing the app.
3. Some types of wearable devices record the movements of users’ hands. These devices can be hacked in real time to reveal ATM PIN numbers and other key-based security codes.
4. The conversations kids have with these cute toys through an app are being sent to a third-party server in the U.S. without asking for permission first.
5. Android apps that are downloaded outside of Google Play are not always secure. Hackers create lookalike apps that, when downloaded, can take over a device, spread ransomware, and steal data.
7. Even when Shazam is turned off on a Mac, the microphone remains active. The stated purpose is to create a better user experience, but it leaves the app vulnerable to hacking.
Getting to Yes is a very old idea. We’ve all said something like, “Let’s find some common ground where we can both be successful.” This social inclination to collaborate is a shared strength, but it comes with all sorts of potential challenges. Just as the Internet has flooded us with information, constant connectedness has opened us up to over-scheduling and over-commitment. We want to participate—but when and how should we be involved?
Think about daily life 25 years ago: Wake up, make coffee, drive to work, talk to your boss, call a customer, grab lunch, meet a colleague, make some notes, file some papers, drive home, dinner with family, watch a sitcom, go to bed. In the morning, rinse and repeat.
Think about daily life today: Wake up, make coffee, check email, delete some emails, respond to other emails, check texts, scan your social feeds, like a post or two… or 30, read your news feeds, open an app, close an app, share a selfie of you and your cat, message your family abroad… And that’s just the first hour of the day in this hyper-connected world.
Demands on our time are, for practical purposes, infinite. Yet time is limited. No is your front-line weapon in the constant struggle against overload. No lets you set boundaries and define your limits. No is how you can maintain focus in the moment, and conserve the time you need to keep moving forward towards your personal goals.
This helps explain why we don’t say No more often. There are risks and costs associated with saying No. Partnerships threatened, colleagues frustrated, plans undermined, bosses puzzled, customers disappointed. Saying Yes is instantly rewarding but can have a long-term cost. Saying No has an instant cost but can have long-term benefits.
The discipline of constructively saying No is rarely taught in people’s lives and careers. Sometimes you pick it up from mentors, sometimes you can observe and mimic the behavior in individuals you admire, occasionally you come across a book or article. Saying No is an important skill, and it is worth calling attention to it much more explicitly than we usually do.
We’ve all experienced times when saying No was difficult. No closes the door in the requester’s face, and they’re unlikely to appreciate that. Steeling yourself for a No can take practice and preparation. There’s the fear of conflict. Not wanting to disappoint. Then there’s the desire to please. Because rarely does No lead to smiles and thanks. Research shows that processing No responses requires more effort than Yes responses, reflecting a fundamental human bias towards cooperation.
Integrity requires us to say No when a Yes would lead to over-complication, overload, and the potential to under-deliver on commitments. So the next time you’re invited to two events on the same day and think “maybe I can make that work,” remember that the power of No is on your side.
Research confirms the findings of the 19th century psychologist Hermann Ebbinghaus, which describe a predictable rate of forgetting after learning something new. The so-called Ebbinghaus curve maps a person’s decline of memory retention after learning new information.
While the absolute percentages can vary by individual and the circumstances of how something was learned, the forgetting curve follows the form: You can remember about 60% of memorized items the same day, 33% after a day, 25% after a week, and 20% after a month.
Morse code enabled humans to communicate over great distances. All those dots and dashes told stories across miles, mountains, deserts, and oceans.
But nature had already invented a Morse-like communication standard, the flash of a firefly. Fireflies are full of surprises: they are actually beetles and there are 2,000 distinct species of them. Each species has its own distinct flash fingerprint. The combinations of number of flashes, the timing and sequencing, and the pattern of flight differ uniquely among the 2,000 varieties. A trained entomologist can count the number of species in a field at nightfall, simply from the pattern of flashes.
Would you trust AI to predict the next election? Perhaps you should. The AI system that accurately predicted Trump’s win well before the U.S. 2016 general election has correctly picked the winners of the last four presidential races. Developed by Sanjiv Rai, MoglA evaluates 20 million data points from popular social media platforms to generate its predictions.
From 2013 to 2020, the digital universe will grow by a factor of 10, from 4.4 trillion gigabytes to 44 trillion. Information available online more than doubles every two years. If you stored all of that information on ordinary data DVD’s and then stacked up all those DVD’s, the stack would reach to the moon and back nearly fifteen times. Or wrap around the earth 280 times.
Finding what you need right when you need it is increasingly like finding a needle in a haystack. Entefy’s AI magic gives you tools to shrink the digital universe to just the information that you find valuable, making accessing your data easy and instantaneous.
It takes the average person at least 600 milliseconds to call a word from memory and prepare to say it. If you came across a snake, however, and needed to shout a warning, 600 milliseconds won’t do you much good because it only takes a snake 100 milliseconds to strike. Human evolution has made special adaptations to keep us safe from snakes. On average we’ll accurately spot a snake 90% of the time even when there is only 40% visibility.
Now, how fast is Entefy’s communication platform? Faster than the human’s 600 milliseconds and faster even than the snake’s 100 millisecond strike. Faster than the blink of an eye. Our speed is your added productivity and effectiveness.
ENTEFYERS WANTED for a journey through uncharted terrain to reach the top of technology’s Mount Everest, the AI interaction platform for everyone and everything. Only the bold need apply.
It takes tenacity, grit, and unswerving focus to climb towards the world’s first universal communicator. The trek isn’t easy. What keeps Entefyers going is the possibility of accomplishing something so audacious that only few have the stamina to even try.
Which means we plan every step forward carefully, knowing we have just one shot to leave our mark. It means relentlessly creating, iterating, revising, repairing, redeploying. Again and again until it’s perfect. Whatever problem we’re solving we solve before we move on to the next. Because when we do get it right, the way the world communicates and interacts digitally will change forever.
This trek is not for everyone. We’re dedicating blood, sweat, and tears to build core technology that gives people precious hours back in their days. As people, we’ve been handed a world defined by digital chaos and complexity. Trillions of messages. Billions of smart machines. Millions of apps. Zillions of pings and dings. Noise so loud it can at times drown out what’s important in our lives. For us Entefyers, this trek is not a job but a mission. A mission to redefine digital interaction.
Entefyers are becoming better and stronger every day because we’re pushing ourselves to do the best work we’ve done in our careers. To us, craftsmanship is not a luxury, it’s a necessity. We strive for excellence, courageous innovation, and magic. That’s right: magic.
Got your climbing gear ready? Because we’re hiring.
The Sixth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution guarantees “the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury.” It cannot, however, guarantee a perfectly fair trial, or an effective jury, or an infallible judge. Humans make mistakes, and the courtroom is no exception: juries make the wrong decision approximately 1 in 8 times. Those mistakes have a tremendous impact on defendants’ lives, made explicit by data that suggests 1 in every 25 people sentenced to death in the United States are innocent of the crime they were found guilty of committing.
In the abstract, a trial involves the evaluation of a set of facts, the comparison of those facts to a set of rules, and a decision on whether a violation has occurred. Which sounds like a system that an intelligent machine could manage. A properly designed artificial intelligence could in theory speed up trials and increase consistency in court decisions, which in turn could lead to increased accuracy and fairness. This is not entirely speculative. Meet ROSS: an artificially intelligent attorney hired by one of the largest law firms in the U.S. In the UK, researchers are working on an AI that can replace the need for a judge by examining evidence and deciding right and wrong to predict the outcome of trials. “The AI ‘judge’ has reached the same verdicts as judges at the European court of human rights in almost four in five cases.”
Forming an opinion on whether AI should have a role in the justice process can be complex. A defendant’s right to a trial by a jury of their peers is a cornerstone of American jurisprudence. Yet humans are fallible, and swayed by emotion. Artificial intelligence agents could conceivably provide accuracy and impartially, but the jury is still out on whether they can become capable of moral and ethical reasoning.
If you stood accused of a crime, would you want an AI to be your judge, jury, or lawyer?
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