The Internet of Everything

i had an idea the other day

uh it was a bit of a kind of light bulb

moment that actually

started with a light bulb and i was

thinking about light bulbs

and they’ve kind of changed over the

years haven’t they we’ve gone from the

nice little filaments

they’ve gone through different sizes and

shapes

gases went to those weird eco-friendly

ones didn’t we a while back and now we

use leds

but through all of that they’ve just

remained a single purpose item they just

produce light

and kind of our homes are just full of

single purpose

little items and products we have a

speaker that makes sound

and a little sensor for detecting smoke

and a kettle for boiling water

in kind of evolutionary terms these are

almost like little microorganisms

floating in a little pool at the dawn of

life

just alone in the darkness isolated

but life finds a way yes

and recently our devices they’ve started

to wake up

they’ve become smart and they’ve started

to reach out into the darkness and

become connected

by a digital ai brain we call this

the internet of things and it’s going to

change our digital lives

and how we engage with our digital

services and the products in our home

forever we’re never going back

i need for literary terms again we’re

having kind of cambrian explosion of

life with the internet of things there’s

our dark pools spawns

all these little organisms some just a

couple of sensors connected

others far more complex but the most

interesting and exciting things right

now are happening

inside that digital ai brain now even

though this is powered by some of the

most advanced machine learning that we

can code right now

they’re still relatively basic only just

starting to understand the data that

they’re starting to receive

somewhere out there a nest camera is

trying to differentiate the difference

between a human

and a dog and definitely somewhere out

there

right now an amazon echo is trying in

vain

to understand the geordie accent and

failing

but soon the cameras will understand the

context of what it’s seeing like we do

and those amazon echoes will understand

geordie accents finally

and those brains will get smarter and

they’ll start moving beyond even our

comprehension of the world see there’s a

bit of a sort of a symbiotic

relationship that’s happening right now

with ai

and the internet of things one getting

smarter as the other one gets more

powerful

and so on and so on so as the ai brain

can start understanding

more the products realize that hey we

can provide more data so a camera goes

from just high definition to 4k to hdk

to sort of 360 vr and then so there’s so

much data that ai brain has to catch up

and so on and so on and we’re having

this exciting

boom of activity with the evolutions

happening almost on a daily basis it’s

really exciting

all these new innovations happening but

the products in our home have just

started to do

one better and they’re breaking free of

that single purpose

origin and they’re becoming

multi-purpose

now we’re already starting to see this

happening with products starting to ship

as default

as being smart and they come with

microphones and speakers

now this has led to a little bit of

confusion as people start to wonder why

there is a microphone

in their thermostat and obviously

leading to the conclusion it’s a

conspiracy theory by amazon to listening

and

understand us more and even though i

can’t vouch that it isn’t a conspiracy

theory

it’s probably more likely something a

little bit more commercial

because the reason is if everything in

your room can pick you up wherever you

walk through your house and you’ve got

all these little microphones and

speakers

it creates a kind of interconnectivity

matrix around you

so wherever i am i can just ask out loud

and i can connect to that digital ai

brain

this is really powerful for a few

reasons the most obvious

is that with a single voice command i

can turn on lights i can change the

temperature of the room i can play music

i can play tv shows

or i can string whole sequences together

turning everything off in my house with

one command and that’s great

but it’s not just about controlling

light switches because most people here

are probably thinking well i can just do

that myself i don’t know why this big

fuss is all about the internet of things

the real power is in connecting to the

hive mind

of the human race so with a little voice

command

i can suddenly ask out loud any question

that could possibly come into my head

because the human race has become more

connected than ever before

by the internet and we have become

smarter than ever before because we can

access that

unless you read the comments on youtube

and then it feels like an alarming step

backwards

so any moment i can just pop on top of

my head and i can ask when was the

battle of waterloo

and i’ll find the answer or what was the

name of canadian pop punk band

some 41’s first album which was all

killer no filler if you’re interested

and what the ai won’t be able to tell

you is they lied they did lie it was a

terrible album

but it’s not just about answering any

question that could possibly come into

your head it also connects us to the

digital services that we’re already used

to using

so just from speaking out loud i can

order a taxi and it also means that in

the not too distant future ordering a

pizza off your dishwasher won’t be as

crazy as that originally sounds

and it’s important to remember as well

that we’re not just doing this with us

just on the outside and this whole

ecosystem happening

we’re baking ourselves into that

internet of things with our wearable

devices

providing health data even the

computer’s learning how we like our

temperatures in different rooms

we are baking ourselves into that

ecosystem

so again as that curve goes up we get

smarter we get more integrated

we all collectively get more powerful

from it so as i thought about our homes

and these products within them

i thought what would be the next step

for those little organisms floating

in evolutionary terms again that would

be probably growing a skin

and a sense of touch now just for our

kettles and our lights that doesn’t

really seem like there’s going to be

much benefit in that but i thought why

don’t we go one further

and we think about not just the items

but the countertops

and the floors and the walls and the

pipes and the walls and the radiators

and the tiles

what if they all were smart what if we

could produce

like a nano film like graphene that

coats everything

and instantly everything comes smart as

default

the ai brain suddenly understanding

everything that is happening in the home

at once

now how would that ai brain interpret

all of those electrical signals

coming up would it be like how we

interpret those electrical signals

coming to our brain

would it feel a soft touch as

pleasurable or the slamming of a door is

painful

if something starts to go wrong like a

pipe in the loft

maybe it will know about that weeks in

advance like we feel aches or an achy

joint

and it will alert us to it and say you

need to go and have a look at this

something’s not quite right

maybe in time as well it will understand

the limitations of what we as the humans

aside can provide for it

in my instance being terrible at diy

that would be pretty quickly

maybe in time as well it will start to

self-serve so knowing the limitations of

what i can do for it

it will contact a specialist already so

one day i’ll open the door to a plumber

who’s come to fix a pipe in the loft

that i didn’t even know was broken

maybe in time as well i won’t even have

to open the door it will just happen

while i’m out with the ai

seeing the plumber arrive unlocking the

door informing him of the problem and

monitoring the whole situation

and then in time again maybe the house

doesn’t even need people and it can just

repair itself

with micro robots or nanobots healing

the walls itself or fixing leaking pipes

and again we’re not just separate from

all of this we’re not just outside

watching this

terrifying house moving around us we are

part of it

with our super smart wearables going now

into our clothing

augmented reality glasses or even

contact lenses we’ll be able to see this

digital layer around us and interact

with it with gestures and touch

or with brain machine interfacing being

able to do all of that

but with our mind and again connecting

to that hive mind

not asking a question out loud but

simply knowing

that the battle of waterloo was the 15th

of june 1815

and that some 41’s album was all killer

no filler

and that they did lie they did lie it’s

important to remember that

and like that pipe in the loft that was

starting to burst

maybe it too will look after us as the

inhabitants of the house

making sure we’re fed and cared for

monitoring our medical data

making sure we are mentally active and

socially active

less big brother more big mother

and this is gonna take a lot of power to

run a house like this so maybe the house

itself generates its own power

maybe these smart surfaces can also draw

power from light and heat

maybe through the footfall or through

the water coursing through those pipes

generating it to actually create a zero

emission home that we can live in

and as i looked at this home i thought

this doesn’t actually have to be the end

of this story

this isn’t the end of it at all what if

this was the start of it what if this is

actually a blueprint for growth

and like those internet of things items

that started reaching out to the

darkness maybe our homes too

could reach out into the darkness and

start connecting together

to create a smart neighborhood or street

pulling together their security systems

to create one

surveillance system that can monitor the

street or maybe extending that smart

material out

to curb traffic by connecting to the

cars internal ais

we’ll build micro grids of power to

self-sustain our little communities no

longer

we’re crying on a national grid but able

to grow and monitor ourselves

but all of this will just be a first

step

this will just be a vein in a bigger

organism

and human beings will be as blood

coursing through the veins of the

colossus

as we move to super smart cities

we’ve already seen the emergence of

smart cities but built from super smart

homes up we could see the dawn of a new

type of civilization

traffic will be calmed and monitored the

roads powering the cars as well as

drawing energy themselves

waste and water and flooding will all be

taken care of

and if we can build zero emission homes

and zero emission neighborhoods

maybe this is how we lead to purely zero

emission cities

and if we have zero emission cities

maybe that would lead to unprecedented

growth

leading to interconnected mega cities

and from there we could just move to

smart countries

where the ai now being proven that it

can

look after us and care for us in our

homes our neighborhoods our cities our

mega cities

now it’s caring for economies and

electricity distribution

and farming freight and human locomotion

and if we can do a smart country then

why not move to a smart world

what would a world feel like under the

rule of an ai would we abandon wealth

in the face of no longer needing to

worry about the future because we are

cared for and provided for as default

what would happen to religion in the

face of an entity that is

omniscient omnipotent omnipresent and

you can engage with while brushing your

teeth

and get answers to the biggest questions

you could think of as to why things are

happening in the world

instantly what happened to government

and politics we

need them anymore no longer requiring on

people and petty biases and arguments

and politicians own agendas but actually

now just

farming off our thinking to a higher

power you could just keep going and

going couldn’t you

just keep going and going let’s keep

going and going

smart solar systems where the ais now is

mining planets

and asteroids to create dyson spheres to

power the energies

of an ai that needs enormous

computational power

but can is now so smart that it can

understand the physics to build

wormholes between planets

and as i sat there thinking about this i

thought maybe this is actually the only

way we can grow as a species

and keep growing and keep growing

the power of that ai doing everything we

could possibly imagine

understanding the world at a nano

particle level

transforming like rubbish into food

and plastic into pure water

and as i thought about this crazy

idea and as i thought about us

exploring our own solar system and

finally breaking free

and going off into the galaxy and doing

all the things we’ve seen in movies and

reading books and comics and talked

about and got excited about

exploring those planets and

civilizations i had to remind myself

that ultimately

this really was just an idea i had

it was a light bulb moment that started

with a light bulb

thanks