Category: Public safety

AI, spooks, and red poppies…

Posted on by The Information Badger in AI & Robotics, Ethics & Regulation, Information Technology, Life, Online Safety, Public safety, Risk, Security, Technology

The UK weather at this time of year is often variable, and this year is no exception. Rain last night decimated Halloween’s ‘trick-or-treating’ and sightings of ghostly spirits, at least in the Badger’s locality. However, those at this week’s global AI Safety Summit at Bletchley Park will no doubt have some fun ‘spotting the spook’ because there’ll inevitably be ‘spooks’ from shadowy organisations in their midst! The summit brings together governments, leading AI companies, and many others to consider the risks associated with rapidly advancing AI technologies, and how these can be mitigated via international coordination and regulation.

Given that it’s barely a year since ChatGPT was launched, the fact that this summit is taking place is encouraging. But will something tangible emerge from it? The Badger’s quietly hopeful, even though governments and regulators have historically been glacial and have only acted once a technology is already well-established. The UK government, for example, has taken almost 20 years to establish an online safety law to limit the harms caused by social media. AI pioneers have themselves voiced concern about the threats, and it will be a catastrophe if it takes another 20 years to limit the potential harms from this field of  technology!

With Halloween a damp squib, the Badger’s thoughts about the AI Safety Summit roamed fancifully influenced by November’s Guy Fawkes Night and Remembrance Sunday which are just days away. ‘Spooks’ from the shadowy organisations providing intelligence to governments will certainly push for more sophisticated AI capabilities in their operational kitbag to ensure, for example, that the chance of a repeat of Guy Fawkes’ 1605 attempt to blow up Parliament is infinitesimally small! Militaries will also want to develop and use ever more advanced AI capabilities to enhance their physical, informational, and cyber operational defensive and offensive capabilities. Inevitably, lessons learned from current conflicts will fuel further military AI development, but whatever any future with AI looks like, the Badger thinks that red poppies and  Remembrance Sunday will remain an annual constant.

The Badger’s grandfathers, and his father and father-in-law, served in the British Army in the two World Wars of the 20th Century. They rarely spoke about their experiences, but they were proud to have fought for the freedoms and way of life we take for granted today. Now all passed away, what would they think about the threat that AI poses to our future? Just two things; that an identified threat should always be dealt with sooner rather than later, and that we must never allow Remembrance Sunday to wither on the vine of time because it’s a reminder to everyone that it’s man who makes sacrifices to protect freedoms, not machines.

‘They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:

Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.

At the going down of the sun and in the morning

We will remember them.’

EVs, Fire, and the demise of the garage…

Posted on by The Information Badger in Electric cars, Property, Public safety, Technology, Transport

What do you use your garage at home for, that is if you have one? According to the UK’s RAC Foundation, it’s not housing your car! In 2002, 22% of private cars in England were housed overnight in a garage. Most, 50%, were parked outside overnight on your driveway, and the rest were parked on the street. In 2022, the equivalent numbers were 10% and 62%, respectively. It’s pretty clear, therefore, that the relationship between your garage and your car has become much more tenuous over the last 20 years. Rather than a place to house a car, today’s garage has become a general storage space for things like DIY tools and materials, garden equipment, pedal bicycles, and diverse items of unused home paraphernalia. That is, of course, if it hasn’t already been converted into extra living space, a home office, or a home gym or recreation area.

Garages associated with residential property emerged in the early days of motoring. Their popularity grew through the mid-20th century as cars became more affordable. They were high on a home-buyer’s wish-list because, at least until the 1970s, they protected the family car from the weather and rust, and they made it easier to start the engine in cold weather. Since the 1970s, and over the last two decades in particular, garages have become a victim of advances in automotive technology. Today’s cars, for example, are made of corrosion resistant materials and are packed with technology that means difficulty starting in cold weather is rare. They’re also significantly larger than their earlier counterparts due to the introduction of progressive stringent safety regulations. BMWs Mini Cooper, for example, is ~61% larger than the original from the 1960s. Most of today’s popular petrol, diesel, or electric cars, therefore, are simply too big for the garages of the UK’s residential housing stock.

Interestingly, with a future dominated by battery powered EVs, this might actually be a good thing! How so? Well, while EV manufacturers have put lots of effort into ensuring that charging your car in your garage using a properly installed charging point is safe, the fact is that if a fire starts due to battery damage or defective charging then the fire brigade are unlikely to be able to put it out. If this happens in your garage, then you can say good-bye to your car, the garage, and potentially your home. However, the risk of this happening is low, of course, because it seems from the RAC data noted above that few EVs will, in practice, be housed or charged inside a residential garage.

Given that ‘progress’ and battery EVs have made the link between our garage and our car increasingly tenuous, perhaps the time has come to start building all new homes without a garage? Now there’s a meaty thought to grapple with…

The Uk cellular national emergency alert test…

Posted on by The Information Badger in Information Technology, Public safety, Risk, Security, Technology, Telecommunications

The Badger was untangling a tape strangling a vintage cassette player when last weekend’s first cellular UK national emergency alert test happened. When the alert sounded on his smartphone, it made him jump because he thought he’d broken something in the cassette player! Within a second or so, however, the Badger realised it was the alert test.

The merits or otherwise of the new emergency alert system has had extensive coverage in UK media and on social media, but the Badger thinks it’s a useful public safety facility, if used wisely, given the dynamics and tensions of today’s world. The Badger learned during his IT career that for systems like this to be truly successful, the discipline, processes, and motives of the people controlling its use are as important as the system’s capabilities, engineering, and robustness. Will those in charge use it wisely? Time will tell, but if there’s a false alarm event like that in Hawaii in 2018 then public distrust of systems and those who control them will reach levels that are off the scale!

The alert test was also a reminder that communication networks are the unseen plumbing of today’s digital world. As the Badger cogitated on this point, his landline phone warbled. He automatically picked up the handset without looking at the caller display showing a UK landline number that’s not in his address book. ‘Hello, are you the homeowner and responsible for the computer at your address?’, an Indian lady asked. Scam, the Badger thought before answering with ‘Who are you, who do you work for, and how did you get this number?’ The lady just repeated her question, and the Badger terminated the call. The phone immediately rang again, this time the caller display showed a UK mobile phone number that isn’t in his address book. It was the same lady who cheekily asked, ‘Why did you put the phone down?’ The Badger answered, ‘This call is being recorded’, and the lady terminated the call. Checking the two caller numbers using Who Called Me confirmed that the calls were not from a reputable telemarketing source.

So, here’s the thing. Public suspicion and distrust of emails, social media content, and telephone calls continues to grow. We are relentlessly bombarded with spurious contact and content, and so it’s unsurprising that many are rather dubious about a cellular National Emergency Alert System. Other countries already have similar systems, and the Badger feels the new system is ‘technology for good’ and has a role in the UK public safety landscape. If the first real National Alert to his smartphone, however, is to warn of a nuclear attack, then the Badger’s realistic enough to know that by the time he’s read the message and decided whether its real or the result of hacking by bad actors, it’ll be too late…