Okay, so the above image is a little ridiculous if you think about it. That is a DJI Phantom quad-copter "carrying" or perhaps birthing an Amazon Echo smart speaker. While the form factor I have featured would never make it past R&D, I hope that it demonstrates the concept. For my purposes it will work just fine.
This post technically started when I first picked up the Golden Compass, by Philip Pullman years ago. While the focus of his work was more or less to show that you can have The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe style fantasy without all that God allusion, I tend to read things for myself and draw my own conclusions. Sorry Phil, I enjoyed your works but remain convinced of the existence of a personal and loving God. The reason I bring this up in relation to the above picture though is because of a very neat concept that Mr. Pullman introduced in his novels: the daemons. Today, we are hunting for daemons!
This post technically started when I first picked up the Golden Compass, by Philip Pullman years ago. While the focus of his work was more or less to show that you can have The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe style fantasy without all that God allusion, I tend to read things for myself and draw my own conclusions. Sorry Phil, I enjoyed your works but remain convinced of the existence of a personal and loving God. The reason I bring this up in relation to the above picture though is because of a very neat concept that Mr. Pullman introduced in his novels: the daemons. Today, we are hunting for daemons!
In the Golden Compass, the visible, physical manifestation of your soul is known as a daemon, and it can interact not just with you, but with those around you. As children, with lots of potential paths in their lives, the daemons change shape and form, often to fill an emotional or physical need of the moment. There is typically a preferred shape though, and as one gets older the daemon sort of "hardens" into a permanent shape. I liken this to the idea of people getting set in their ways (though I would argue that you're never too old to change). This is not a post about the soul (which would be a neat musing) but rather about the form factor that some of these daemons take: floating or flying over your shoulder.
I believe (or at least dream) that in the very near future we will see the combination of an Alexa style (or Google Home, or Apple Siri, or etc.) internet connected assistant embedded on a very small, ultra-lightweight, portable flying robot. There are some technological hurdles that come to mind almost immediately and I would like to briefly bring up what I think are the challenges (and the existing solutions) to some of these problems. Keep in mind that while I may think something is easy, I do not actually have the knowledge base, training, nor skills to solve these problems...just the imagination and hope that they can be solved.
For our silicon daemon to be effective, it needs to be able to last at least a full day. Battery technology is always improving, but we haven't seen the leaps one would hope for since Li-ion was invented. I am always reading about MIT or Rochester or some other higher learning institute coming up with demonstrable leaps in battery technology...but then never see any products incorporating those leaps. I have hope, but no evidence, that this will be solved soon. Anyway...the battery would need to drive a multi-rotored aircraft for at least 4-6 hours. Yes this is less than a day, assuming, when you're not moving, it could rest on your shoulder or a nearby surface would allow for efficient use of limited battery life. While it is resting though, the brain would still be keeping track of: voice commands issued, where you are in the world, where it is in the world, connectivity to the world, etc. Basically I picture a battery running a flying computer...where the computer stays on, and the flying can happen at any time if necessary. We aren't there yet, but I think it can happen. Oh...and the battery needs to be small.
The next piece I think we need is a very small form factor. This is probably the easiest piece to solve because ultra tiny quad-copters already exist. You can purchase pretty inexpensive quad-copters on Amazon that are smaller than 3 inches across. That's amazing. These are currently remote controlled, but...
A.I. way-finding and obstacle avoidance need to be integrated. The daemon should know where you are (either by sight or perhaps by something you wear) and be able to follow you at a predetermined distance, but also avoid obstacles such as ceilings, doorways, other daemons, etc. It needs to be able to do this naturally, without interference from you unless you tell it to go somewhere. Currently there are some great strides in automatic obstacle avoidance technologies for drones. Many of those systems, however, require fairly massive amounts of computing power. This needs to be miniaturized. The iPhone/iPad are good indications that humans are good at bringing large amounts of power into small packages.
Noise. Currently, these little buggers are noisy when they are flying. This is actually a pretty serious problem, as there are some solid physical reasons for the noise and it will be difficult to reduce the noise of a tiny flying daemon drone over your shoulder. It would be nice if you didn't have to sacrifice the hearing on one side of your head for the convenience of a flying companion. I'm really not sure how to begin solving this one, since all of my ideas either require making it bigger or adding physical limitations that make it less efficient to fly. This one is a puzzler.
Speaking of companion, it should have personality. I like Siri's quips, Alexa's speech patterns, and Google's information (privacy costs aside for now). But what I really love and think would add an enormous amount to this idea is personality. There are a lot of people working on this problem right now. My favourite so far is Jibo, (update: Cozmo has a ton of personality without speech). He's cute, his mannerisms are natural and intuitive, and his personality (while artificial and pre-set) is adorable and helpful. There is a lot of potential for natural language response/understanding and for interaction in a more "human" way with technology.
I think a solid counter argument to the utility of a personal daemon is that a wearable can do all of what you're asking it to do (besides fly somewhere else to get you coffee or a picture) already. The big difference for me is that I'm a pet owner and love the companionship that comes from that activity. Technology is not supposed to be sterile or just functional but should actually cause you joy. Having a daemon as your personal companion that you can converse with, play games with, and go through life with is a pretty neat concept and I hope my dream becomes a reality someday.
Also, I'm not saying that you should have a "demon" as your companion...that would be less than joyful and requiring of a neck brace due to spinning. Note the spelling.
I believe (or at least dream) that in the very near future we will see the combination of an Alexa style (or Google Home, or Apple Siri, or etc.) internet connected assistant embedded on a very small, ultra-lightweight, portable flying robot. There are some technological hurdles that come to mind almost immediately and I would like to briefly bring up what I think are the challenges (and the existing solutions) to some of these problems. Keep in mind that while I may think something is easy, I do not actually have the knowledge base, training, nor skills to solve these problems...just the imagination and hope that they can be solved.
For our silicon daemon to be effective, it needs to be able to last at least a full day. Battery technology is always improving, but we haven't seen the leaps one would hope for since Li-ion was invented. I am always reading about MIT or Rochester or some other higher learning institute coming up with demonstrable leaps in battery technology...but then never see any products incorporating those leaps. I have hope, but no evidence, that this will be solved soon. Anyway...the battery would need to drive a multi-rotored aircraft for at least 4-6 hours. Yes this is less than a day, assuming, when you're not moving, it could rest on your shoulder or a nearby surface would allow for efficient use of limited battery life. While it is resting though, the brain would still be keeping track of: voice commands issued, where you are in the world, where it is in the world, connectivity to the world, etc. Basically I picture a battery running a flying computer...where the computer stays on, and the flying can happen at any time if necessary. We aren't there yet, but I think it can happen. Oh...and the battery needs to be small.
The next piece I think we need is a very small form factor. This is probably the easiest piece to solve because ultra tiny quad-copters already exist. You can purchase pretty inexpensive quad-copters on Amazon that are smaller than 3 inches across. That's amazing. These are currently remote controlled, but...
A.I. way-finding and obstacle avoidance need to be integrated. The daemon should know where you are (either by sight or perhaps by something you wear) and be able to follow you at a predetermined distance, but also avoid obstacles such as ceilings, doorways, other daemons, etc. It needs to be able to do this naturally, without interference from you unless you tell it to go somewhere. Currently there are some great strides in automatic obstacle avoidance technologies for drones. Many of those systems, however, require fairly massive amounts of computing power. This needs to be miniaturized. The iPhone/iPad are good indications that humans are good at bringing large amounts of power into small packages.
Noise. Currently, these little buggers are noisy when they are flying. This is actually a pretty serious problem, as there are some solid physical reasons for the noise and it will be difficult to reduce the noise of a tiny flying daemon drone over your shoulder. It would be nice if you didn't have to sacrifice the hearing on one side of your head for the convenience of a flying companion. I'm really not sure how to begin solving this one, since all of my ideas either require making it bigger or adding physical limitations that make it less efficient to fly. This one is a puzzler.
Speaking of companion, it should have personality. I like Siri's quips, Alexa's speech patterns, and Google's information (privacy costs aside for now). But what I really love and think would add an enormous amount to this idea is personality. There are a lot of people working on this problem right now. My favourite so far is Jibo, (update: Cozmo has a ton of personality without speech). He's cute, his mannerisms are natural and intuitive, and his personality (while artificial and pre-set) is adorable and helpful. There is a lot of potential for natural language response/understanding and for interaction in a more "human" way with technology.
I think a solid counter argument to the utility of a personal daemon is that a wearable can do all of what you're asking it to do (besides fly somewhere else to get you coffee or a picture) already. The big difference for me is that I'm a pet owner and love the companionship that comes from that activity. Technology is not supposed to be sterile or just functional but should actually cause you joy. Having a daemon as your personal companion that you can converse with, play games with, and go through life with is a pretty neat concept and I hope my dream becomes a reality someday.
Also, I'm not saying that you should have a "demon" as your companion...that would be less than joyful and requiring of a neck brace due to spinning. Note the spelling.
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