(i) Human-centred design philosophy considers humans as users of technology, not humans and technologies as mutual extensions of one-another. Technology should improve our health and well-being by providing continuous sensing and feedback when we want. It should function as a Natural User-Interface. (ii) Technology is often opaque, closed-source, offering little feedback with regards to the handling of personal data we provide through use. This raises questions about the integrity of a device’s allegiance, security, and the true protection of our privacy, identity, and freedom. These concerns are amplified immensely as we integrate more closely with technology (immersive, wearable, implantable, etc.). Technology should, when we desire, be transparent by providing us with feedback on what happens to our data, how it is or was used, if and how it is breached, by who, etc., and technology should be subject to audit by us if we wish (ie. open source). —
Wearable AI, Embodied AI, and Humanistic Intelligence (HI) embody an information-processing apparatus inextricably intertwined with the natural capabilities of our human mind and body. Rather than trying to emulate human intelligence, HI recognizes that the human brain is perhaps the best neural network of its kind. Devices that embody HI are worn (or borne, or carried) continuously during all facets of ordinary day-to-day living. Through long-term adaptation they begin to function as true extensions of the mind and body.
Our initiative considers: (A) wearables and other human-extending technologies that become part of us; (B) the crucial relationship that exists between this human-machine entity (“cyborg”) and other “cyborgs” (“smart society”); and (C) the relationship between human-machine entities and the world around them (environment, i.e. “cyborgs” in “smart buildings” and “cyborgs” in “smart cities”). Concept: The Humanistic Intelligence Initiative will be an interdisciplinary and cross-divisional research and collaboration initiative intended to invent, design, develop, and deploy new technologies for the benefit of humanity and explore complex questions around the boundaries between people, technology and the environment in which they are situated. Housed within the Faculty of Applied Science and Engineering (ECE, IBBME) and in collaboration with the Faculties of Medicine, Business, Law, Information, and CAMH, the Initiative is intended to galvanize research and innovation clusters throughout the University by providing leadership, integrating opportunities for innovation and translation, reducing duplication, and elevating the national and international profile of the University of Toronto as the world’s epicentre for the ethical design, advocacy, and development of technologies and technology standards that benefit humanity. The Humanistic Intelligence Initiative is envisioned as a cross-divisional nexus for catalyzing ideas into innovations by supporting the following ideals: knowledge mobilization (effectively translate research to advance technology for humanity) and shared cross-divisional resources (to encourage collaboration and problem-based education); and transdisciplinary approaches to “wicked” problems.
Themes: The Initiative will support multidisciplinary and pan-institutional theme-driven clusters, partnerships and projects. Three initial themes include:
Each of the themes will involve critical invention, responsible deployment, and human-centred advocacy. The Initiative will accomplish this by creating new training programs and events, collaborations, outreach, and focusing on partner driven themes in collaboration with other Initiatives.
The team will first start by organizing brainstorming sessions where Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) from different Faculty share their current research, and opportunities that can be applied to humanistic technologies. The results of the conversations will lead to a series of related collaboration, training, and teaching programs, including:
Healthcare is undergoing a transformation from centralized monolithic databases to distributed healthcare. Individual patients take on a much more important role. We now wear our most up-to-date medical record! Moreover, we propose an educational framework where students are encouraged to invent the future of healthcare and bring new ventures to market, through translational research.
Cybersecurity has traditionally been centralized but new technologies like Internet of Things That Think (“smart technologies”) and wearables have made computing and security everyone’s business, and thus we must think more inclusively in terms of cybersecurity. Security in general has traditionally been done through surveillance and centralized monitoring, i.e. the powerful watching the vulnerable. Things like health records used to be centralized on “secure” servers, but today, with wearable technologies, our most up-to-date medical records are probably the recordings each of us make in our day-to-day life. So we need a new way to look at cybersecurity that is not simply more surveillance. We propose an inclusive cybersecurity network that empowers individuals to understand and audit their own personal safety. In many cities there is a camera in every streetlight (“smart cities”) and also many washroom fixtures have depth-cameras. Even the human eye itself can now act as a camera by recognizing brainwaves. The depth and breadth of cybersecurity has greatly expanded from centralization to computing now in everyday things, and on people (wearables), such as brain-scanning eyewear that captures what we see (rightmost above).
Southern Ontario (Toronto, Hamiliton, Waterloo) has been, since the 1960s and 1970s, and continues to be, the world’s epicenter of wearable computing and wearable technologies (“wearables”), and this will remain one of the themes. Rotman CDL (Creative Destruction Lab) helped Thalmic Labs raise $120 million US, and now as North, valued at $199.6 million . Toronto is also home of InteraXon, makers of the “Muse” brain-sensing headband, known widely as “The #1 in wearables”. The proposed Rotman Wearables Stream would work synergistically with other themes.
The Initiative will generate numerous collaborative cross-faculty project topics. For example:
HI Technologies are optimized to make the most of human differences, e.g. they often help the visually impaired and others with unique needs . Whereas AI-based surveillance can often discriminate, HI-based sousveillance (inverse surveillance) helps under-represented minorities have a voice and retain control of their personal data. We will continue this work to assist vulnerable populations, including Indigenous communities and enhancing accessibility technology. Consider, for example, a blind or visually impaired user wearing a camera-based vision system being prohibited from entering a “no photography” building. We need a way to guarantee “cyborg rights” to those who depend on technological prostheses. Our Initiative must therefore directly address such issues as an always-on recording and memory aid and how it relates to human rights, access rights, and how the rights of multiple “cyborgs” interplay with building owners, and others . Wearables tend to “flatten” social hierarchy, and this flattening creates new legal and ethical frameworks .
Many people suffer from short-term memory impairments or from prosopagnosia (inability to see and understand faces). To compensate for these disabilities, they (sometimes secretly) use technology to record and interpret their surroundings (or to get help from others to do so). Should they keep this secret so they’re not physically assaulted by police, security guards, and others for recording without permission (which is sometimes against rules, laws, or social norms)? Or should they “come out” and get these rules, laws, and social norms re-written?
A blind man wears a camera transmitting live video to his wife who speaks to him in his ear over a remote connection to provide visual guidance. What washroom should he use (since his body is male but his sight is female)? Should he hide his condition to avoid getting assaulted by guards or others? Or should he speak out and fight for stalled gender-neutral washrooms, a social movement that already exists as part of the transgender movement.
Your “Blueberry” eyeglass can sense if you’re sick, and also whether those around you are sick, by using wearable miniature cameras and radar to remotely “read” their vital signs. Should you need to tell them you’re scanning their health? Smart People: Smart buildings already “wear” hidden cameras to fight crime, and sometimes these are keep secret so that criminals don’t circumvent them. Cars often have dashcams for investigative purposes. Now that technology is getting miniaturized, it is only natural that people will get the same “rights” to wear sensing apparatus just like buildings and cars do.
The Smartwatch was invented in 1998 at University of Toronto, and originally used for health and fitness tracking. Today many companies are advancing the state-of-the art in smartwatches to track health and well-being. Can we make an ultra low-cost health monitor cheap enough that nobody’s left behind?
We have a right and responsibility to see and understand the technologies around us. Whereas manufacturers want to keep the inner workings of their technology secret, there is a public and social interest in understanding how the things around us work, such as the numerous hidden cameras in televisions, computers, thermostats, light switches, toilets, and handwash faucets.
With the Muse brain-sensing headband we are now able to “read” a person’s mind and see what they are looking at. Therefore we can construct photographic images with “No Camera”, i.e. with the human eye itself as the sensing device. As a form of social commentary and art intervention in favour of Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion, we have been keeping a collection of “No Cameras” signs recorded using “No Camera”.