We are surrounded by valuable data and we don’t have a clue, here’s why…
Data wastage? You might’ve come across that term especially considering the fact that everybody compares data with oil or sunlight (Google CFO). Data is omnipresent in technology and seems to be extremely valuable. Artificial Intelligences needs as much data as it can possibly get; big data is everywhere, even being used to dictate state legislation in China, and yet we’re wasting data? The reason can be found deep within our nature, in the perception of our surroundings. Our senses.
The five senses as described by Aristoteles (and others)
Humans feature a multitude of senses but since the ancient times, we’ve categorized them into five traditional senses. We are able to see (vision), listen (audition), smell(olfaction), touch (tactile perception) and last but not least taste (gustation) our environment. Vision, hearing, and olfaction are our remote senses while touch and taste are near senses. Let’s discover those senses with a little experiment.
Take a look at the picture above, now concentrate on the visible aspects of this picture. You’re on a boat, you can see the bow wave crashing against the ship which means the boat is driving and in the far distance there’s the shore.
Now imagine what you are hearing. There’s the grumbling of the engines, you able to hear the waves and the screams of the seagulls — which in turn led you to deduct, you are sailing on a boat.
You feel the cold steel through the touch of your hands on the rail and through your feet, you feel the vibration of the engines and the rocking of the boat with the waves.
The smell of the fresh seawater fills your nostrils and if you inhale through your mouth you’ll taste a little bit of salt on your tongue.
Now, you have “used” all of your senses. High five (pun intended)!
VISION IS THE DOMINANT SENSE
Here’s the catch: we experiencing over 80% of our environment with our eyes. 25% of our brain is utilized to process this input. This is even coded within our language:
- “See what I mean?”
- “I see things differently”
- "Seeing is believing"
I’ve got a quick question for you: What came before? Photography or sound recording? Well, it’s photography. Even though it involved the development of a tedious chemical reaction, photography paper, an apparatus which is able to capture the light and a dark chamber to develop the final picture it, photography as we know it was invented at latest in 1827 (first picture, which is still in existence). The capturing of sound though a phonograph was developed in 1877 by Thomas Edison. 50.years.later — and all it took was to engrave sound waves on a coil.
OUR TECHNOLOGY REFLECTS HOW WE PERCEIVE THE WORLD
Vision was and is the most dominant sense, and this is also reflected in our technology. Everything that we develop, we create out of our view on the world. We’ve developed sensors to capture light with astounding accuracy. Based on those captured images, we’re now creating artificial intelligences which are able to detect objects in those pictures with astounding accuracy. Many of the highest-valued AI startups in the world are focusing on visual information. After all, this is what we know and how we perceive 80% of our world.
SMELLING PARKINSONS DISEASE
Joy Milne started to smell something new on her husband when he was about 35 to 36 years old. It was a musky odor and she said to her husband that he should shower properly or brush his teeth. Still, the smell didn’t go away. Years later, he was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease. When they visited a support group she immediately recognized this smell. So she asked a professor, what’s up with the smell of Parkinson patients. The doctor didn’t understand at first and said, that the sense of smell is also affected but she insisted.
Clinical trials were made where she was presented with 6 T-Shirts worn by Parkinson patients and 6 by healthy persons. She detected Parkinson's disease in 7 out of 12 t-shirts. Not a bad success rate, eh? Well, 3 months later one of the healthy persons was diagnosed with Parkinson's.
She can smell Parkinsons disease years before it actually breaks out and she may be able to detect cancer. With her help, scientists we’re able to single out the odor and can now maybe create sensors which will help with the diagnosis of Parkinson's.
The world is full of sensory information, yet we’re trying to model it with our technology only through vision.
SoundDetective is taking on acoustics
When I entered the Porsche Digital Lab in 2017 I was thrilled to work with an interdisciplinary team — and I had one vision. To understand production through the sounds and vibration it creates — I initiated the “Lampenputzer” (it’s a so-called “Berliner Original”). Back then we’ve only had a coffee machine in the lab but, in a way, it’s a perfect production machine (see: The SoundDetective). With this new angle, we’ve set out to disrupt the testing systems in the manufacturing sector.
The SoundDetective is all about sounds and vibrations, we’re currently developing our own wearable which will enable us to take the soundwaves directly from the source — the fingertips of the factory worker. We combine those vibrations with our algorithms based on machine learning & artificial neural networks — we are able to efficiently “investigate” sounds surrounding the (factory) worker. This combination enables us to quantify and qualify plug connections directly from the hand of the worker; we’re digitizing the worker through our product.
In the next blog posts, I want to give you insights into how we are achieving our goals. We’re going to look into the project management, the technology and the life of a corporate startup.
Finally, I would like to encourage you to perceive the world differently. Try to listen, feel and smell and maybe you’ll be able to discover new ways to improve our world.
The SoundDetective is a corporate StartUp within MHP — A Porsche Company. You can get more information at sounddetective.io.
