The Washington Post published an eye-opening article examining the downside effects of popular navigation apps. Drivers armed with apps like Waze and Google Maps are able to very effectively thwart the ill effects of modern commuter hell: road closures, accidents, and traffic jams —all previously hidden obstacles prior to mobile networks. Sharing information with one another drivers can react to changing traffic conditions in real time finding the quickest route along their given commute.

The ruthless efficiency of waze for instance can be problematic for once tranquil neighbourhoods inundated with excessive traffic volume (and noise/pollution) on streets that were never designed to function as main thoroughfares. Residents are getting the short end of the stick. But the makers of these apps don’t seem to empathize with the homeowners predicament. Attempts among residents to divert traffic away from their streets by ‘gaming’ routes with false information are swiftly removed by the app developers. Other ‘wazers’ logged-in to the app and driving in the vicinity are also quick to debunk fake reports of traffic bottlenecks or closures. For homeowners seeking peace and quiet it’s a losing battle.

The other perhaps unintended consequence of these navigation apps is the growing incidence of distracted driving. There’s no denying the distraction inducing effects associated with using these apps while behind the wheel —and now apparently studies confirm talking on a hands-free phone is equally distracting as picking up a device. It’s incredible to think how many technological distractions already exist in the modern automobile, and now we’re adding to it with our phones.

As a motorcyclist who routinely commutes in to work most days I find this trend really concerning. Not a day goes by that I’m not either cut-off or nearly smashed by a driver with their head buried down in their phone texting away. Is it any wonder the number of traffic accidents involving distracted drivers, particularly Uber and Lyft drivers, is on the rise?

Nicholas Carr’s Theses in tweetform (fourth series) reads like an amusing, and also serious, indictment of the digital age. So much can be said of technology’s capacity to influence our lives —perhaps equal parts empowerment and disillusionment with a dash of the absurd.

Here are a few gems:

• In the material world, doing is knowing; in media, the opposite is often true.
• Facebook’s profitability is directly tied to the shallowness of its members: hence its strategy.
• The album cover turned out to be indispensable to popular music.
• The pursuit of followers on Twitter is an occupation of the bourgeoisie.
• Abundance of information breeds delusions of knowledge among the unwary.
• Instagram shows us what a world without art looks like.
• Personalized ads provide a running critique of artificial intelligence.
• YouTube fan videos are the living fossils of the original web.
• Tools extend us; technology confines us.

The New York Times published an intriguing quiz demonstrating how far computer algorithms have progressed, or failed depending on your POV, in the area of writing. You’re asked to read 8 separate passages of text and decide if each was written by a computer or a human. Sounds easy right? I did pretty good, scoring 7 out of 8 correct! Give it a try and see how you do.

It’s surprising, and perhaps a little disconcerting, to think more of what we’re reading online can and will be generated by algorithms rather than humans.
Type “robo-news” into your favorite search engine and you’ll quickly find The Associated Press among a growing number of big news organizations that have begun using robots to write stories.
But it’s not just texts being reproduced by computers. If you’ve been on Youtube lately you’ve probably come across the odd press release or news clip accompanied by a crude artificial sounding voice —robotic-like, hence the name robo-journalism or robo-news, created presumably without human intervention.

Kristian Hammond, co-founder of Narrative Science, a company producing software that translates data into “narratives”, estimates that 90 percent of news could be algorithmically generated (that is, automated) by the mid-2020s.

While this all sounds a tad dystopian let’s imagine disgraced new anchor Brian Williams as a candidate for algorithmic replacement in light of his foggy memory regarding details of the Iraq War. Curiously Mr. Williams hasn’t Tweeted anything in 5 years fueling speculation that he is not a real person but in fact a malfunctioning prototype created by NBC through a joint venture with ILM and Google’s Ray Kurzweil. Well I suppose the cat’s finally out of the bag and it’s back to the drawing board to fix Williams’ faulty memory chip.
But seriously, here’s an interesting question: would a robotic news anchor be more or less prone to making errors similar to Mr. Williams’ gross embellishment of the facts? Should Wolf Blitzer and Scott Pelley start looking for new gigs? Perhaps not just yet.

Though if this trend continues it’s not far-fetched to think journalists, and certainly many other professions, could be partially or completely displaced by advances in computer automation technology. Just as manufacturing jobs have been gradually eliminated over the years, so too writers performing repetitive work could be vulnerable to algorithms that will gladly churn out formulaic written pieces (e.g. think sports scores and financial earnings reports) faster and cheaper than most willing humans.

image credit: progue.co