1. Creating a Humane Society through Computational Social Science
Raj Reddy
Carnegie Mellon University
Aug 25, 2017
Keynote Speech at Web Intelligence Conf Leipzig Germany, Aug 25, 2017
Good Morning,
The theme of the symposium today is on how to create a truly humane civilization and to review and explore solutions on the issues facing modern society from a Web Intelligence perspective.
Technological innovation in the past has been largely responsible for improvement in the quality of life. My talk today is about recent technological innovations that enable the creation of a truly humane society for every man, woman and child on the planet by developing “Computational Social Science”, i.e., to develop intelligent systems and solutions capable of monitoring, analyzing, diagnosing the critical problems of the society such as poverty and hunger, slavery and torture, disease and suffering, and create tools that enable an illiterate person to be as productive as an educated person. Specifically, we present a design for creating information-technology-enabled Guardian Angels that provide early warning on calamities and abuses to every human being.

2. A Humane Society Would Ensure Universal Human Rights of United Nations
1 Right to Equality 2 Freedom from Discrimination
3 Right to Life Liberty Happiness 4 Freedom from Slavery
5 Freedom from Torture 6 Right to Recognition as Person
7 Right to Equality before Law 8 Right to a Competent Tribunal
9 Freedom from Arbitrary Arrest 10 Right to Fair Public Hearing
11 Innocent until Proven Guilty 12 Right to Privacy and Home
13 Right to Free Movement 14 Right to Asylum
15 Right to a Nationality 16 Right to Marriage and Family
17 Right to Own Property 18 Freedom of Religion
19 Freedom of Opinion 20 Right of Peaceful Assembly
21 Right to Free Elections 22 Right to Social Security
23 Right to Join Trade Unions 24 Right to Rest and Leisure
25 Adequate Living Standard 26 Right to Education
27 Right to Cultural Life 28 Right to a Social Order
29 Free and Full Development 30 Freedom from Interference
Of the 30 or so human rights of the United Nations Declaration, I have highlighted two which I consider most inhumane: slavery and torture. It is unfortunate that even in the 21st century there are still instances of slavery and torture around the world. The definition of modern slavery includes slavery, debt bondage, forced marriage, sale or exploitation of children, human trafficking and forced labor.
The Global Slavery Index estimates that nearly 30 million people are still enslaved around the world, with countries like Mauritania, Haiti, Pakistan, India and Nepal leading the list.

3. Constitution of The World: Universal Human Rights
Global Bill of Rights: Life, Liberty and Pursuit of Happiness for Everyone on the Planet
A Humane Civilization would create Scalable Sustainable Affordable Solutions that
Provide Basic Needs of All Humanity, e.g.,Food, Energy, Water, Transportation, Education, Communication, and Healthcare
Ensure Basic Human Rights
Life, Liberty and Pursuit of Happiness
Freedom from slavery and torture etc.
Ensure Safety and Security of Society from Natural and Man- made Disasters
The Honda Foundation’s Vision of helping to create a truly humane civilization is as important today as it was 35 years ago. However, given the rapid pace of technology innovation over the last five decades, it may be desirable to reexamine the strategy and tactics needed for achieving this vision.
It is inspiring and commendable that the Honda Foundation is exploring how it can fulfill the original vision and define future directions by reviewing the current activities of Honda Foundation within the 21st Century context.
To create a truly humane society, we must aspire to create Scalable, Sustainable, Affordable Solutions to provide for the basic needs of all human beings on the planet. These needs include topics such as Food Security, Energy Security, and Water Security as well as basic human rights such as freedom from slavery and torture. The basic thesis of this talk is that, no matter what the basic need of society is, a proactive approach can lead to technological innovations that can continuously improve the attributes of a Truly Humane Society.

4. Creating a Humane Civilization
Creating a Truly Humane Society Requires Creating Solutions for
Basic Needs of All Humanity, e.g.,
Food, Energy, Water, Transportation, Education, Communication, and Healthcare
Basic Human Rights
Life, Liberty and Pursuit of Happiness
Freedom from Slavery and Torture
Safety and Security of Society
from Natural and Man-made Disasters
And Development of Computational Social Science
In general, Guardian Angel concepts, systems and/or solutions can be applied to all aspects of creating a humane society. It can be used to identify potential violations of basic rights and to ensure the basic needs/rights of the individual within a humane society.

5. A Humane Civilization Needs Technologies for Creating Personal Guardian Angels
To Get The Right Information
Information about natural and man-made emergencies
tsunami, hurricanes, earthquakes, severe weather, etc.
and hazmat, nuclear, biological
Information about disruption of water, electricity, food, and transportation
Information about traffic, strikes, school closings, stock markets, etc.
To The Right People
Every person on the planet that may be impacted
At The Right Time
Just-in-time, not too soon and not too late
In The Right Language
Messages in English (or other languages) to be translated into the preferred language of the recipient
In The Right Medium of Text or Multimedia
and spoken out using text to speech
With The Right Level Of Detail (Granularity)
Provide summaries of the text as precisely and quickly as an expert
A grand challenge for Computer Science is to get the right information to the right people at the right time in the right language in the right medium with the right level of detail. When fully implemented globally, this vision could transform living in the 21st century digital world, touching all the people on the planet, literate and non-literate alike. My talk today is about creating a new technology, The Guardian Angel Technology, to accomplish the vision on a global scale!
While the vision of getting the right information to the right people in the right time etc. is clear, the statement by itself does not shed any light on how these goals may be achieved. Before we can create an implementation plan, we must first agree on what is meant by each term. What do we mean by Right Information? What do we mean by Right People? What do we mean by Right Time? The Right Language may require translation of information to the language of the recipient; the Right Medium may require conversion of information to speech or video and the right level of detail may require summarization of information. We have made some progress in translation among different languages, text to speech technologies and in summarization.

6. A Case Study in Protecting Humanity From Natural Disasters
Every Person Should Get Location Specific Personalized Warnings About Potential Calamities Like Typhoons And Tsunamis as soon as known
In the future, every person on the planet should have a better chance of survival from natural disasters
Create Guardian Angel Technologies
Every Person on The Planet Has A Personal Guardian Angel Embedded in a Smart Phone
Guardian Angels Perform Future-aware Computation
and whisper that a tornado is heading your way
A social network of Guardian Angels can learn and predict what events are likely to impact their owner
By sharing anonymized knowledge using publish/subscribe mechanisms of social networking
Facebook of Guardian Angels?
The main thesis of this talk is that mobile technology is sufficiently advanced that it is now possible to envision that every person should get location specific personalized warnings about potential calamities like typhoons and tsunamis as soon as they are known. It assumes that we can create and deliver a Personal Guardian Angel to every person on the planet embedded in a smart phone. Guardian Angels perform future-aware computation and whisper personalized warnings about potential problems. It assumes that a social network of Guardian Angels, a Facebook of Guardian Angels, can learn and predict what events are likely to impact their owner by sharing anonymized knowledge using publish/subscribe mechanisms of social networking.

7. 2004 Tsunami
The 2004 Indian Ocean Earthquake Occurred at 00:58:53 UTC on 26 Dec 2004
With the Epicentre Off The West Coast Of Sumatra, Indonesia.
The Shock Had a Moment Magnitude of 9.1–9.3 And a Maximum Mercalli Intensity of IX (Violent).
Caused When The Indian Plate was Subducted by The Burma Plate
Triggered A Series Of Devastating Tsunamis Along The Coasts Of Most Landmasses Bordering The Indian Ocean,
Killing 230,000–280,000 People in Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Thailand etc.
Inundating Coastal Communities With Waves Up To 30 Metres (100 Ft) High.
It Was One Of The Deadliest Natural Disasters In Recorded History

8. Tsunami 2004: Right Information to the Right People
Right Information to the Right People at the Right Time in the Right Language in the Right Medium (Voice, Video and/or Text) in the Right Level of Detail
Step 0: Determine the Implications of Tsunami 2004
Step 1: Right People: Find the affected people on the Coast and their Smart Phone info. Wake up if Needed
Step 2: Right Time: In enough time to get out of Harms Way
Step 3: Right Language Synthesize a message in the his/her local Dialect
Step 4: Send Text, Audio or Video Message
Step 5: Only that “30 meter waves will hit in 15 minutes. Get to High Ground”. Suppress other details

9. Access to Right Information: Determine the Implications of Tsunami 2004
Find and Filter the Sources of Information
Global Experts notify
National Experts who Notify
State Experts who Notify
Local Experts who Notify all the Local Guardian Angels
Publish/Subscribe Model
Identify Impacted Regions, Expected Time of Arrival
Send Only Notifications that are Actionable by GAs
Include all information that is needed by GA
e.g.100 Foot Waves
Relevant Information
Many events do not affect you
Your GA needs to analyze all the relevant (local) Published Notifications to see which are of immediate threat

10. Determining the Right (Impacted) People
Right People: Find the affected people on the Coast and
Their Smart Phone info.
Wake up if Needed

11. At the Right Time
Right Time: In enough time to get out of Harms Way

12. What Language? Text or Audio? How Much Detail?
Step 3: Right Language Synthesize a message in the his/her local Dialect
Step 4: Send Text, Audio or Video Message
Step 5: Only that “a 35 foot wave will hit in 15 minutes. Get to High Ground”. Suppress other details

13. Structure of a Personal Guardian Angel
A Personal Guardian Angel is a Mobile App (like a shadow) for Each Person on the Planet
Always-On, Always-Present and Always Working
Enduring (life-long)
Autonomic and Nonintrusive
Always-Learning
Ubiquitous: Device Independent (cloud resident or local)
PGAs Monitor, Analyze and Learn From Experience;
Learn From Own Experience And Experience of Others
And share knowledge with a community of Guardian Angels
Automated Discovery of Data and Information Sources
Data, Suitably Anonymized, can be Used to Learn Appropriate Responses For Every Possible Situation by
learning preferences by observing user choices,
learning by task similarity and user similarity,
learning by error correction and simply learning thru clarification dialog
(Does that mean yes? Would you care to define it?).
A Personal Guardian Angel is a virtual avatar which is assigned to protect and guide a specific person. It knows everything about her, except possibly her deep dark secrets that she has not whispered to anyone else. From a technical perspective, think of a Personal Guardian Angel as an intelligent agent, an APP on steroids. It would not reside on your smart phone but on your personal cloud space. It is always-on 24x7, autonomic and non-intrusive. It is always-learning and self-adapting to user’s habits, preferences, and commands of the user.
A Personal Guardian Angel is expected to monitor, analyze and learn from experience; share knowledge with a community of Guardian Angels. It is capable of automated discovery of data and information sources. PGAs must communicate with human users. The Publish/Subscribe model of social networks is adequate if you know what you want from whom. Who do you ask when you don’t know who to ask? What if you don’t know who to Friend? Data, suitably anonymized, can be used to learn appropriate responses for every possible situation. The system non-intrusively learns user preferences by observing user choices, learning by task similarity and user similarity, learning by error correction and simply by learning thru clarification dialog (e.g. does that mean yes? Would you care to define it?).

14. Technologies of Gats Gats Publish and Subscribe
Service Agents are created by service providers using agent templates included in the platform
Download and Pay just as for Apps and Personalization
Guardian Angels Can request and manage services on behalf of their masters.
Every organization that wants to enable access to their services by Guardian Angels will create a Service Agent for this purpose.
Opt-in “Waze” like Models
Privacy
Individual
Other participants
Legal
Can be subpoena-ed
Security
Information falling into wrong hands

15. Publish/Subscribe Eco System of
Guardian Angel Global Infrastructure Platform
Activity Monitoring and Intention Awareness
User
Guardian Angels
Cloud Based
User Infrastructure
Platform
Knowledge Source Publishers
Global, National and Local
Knowledge Source Distributors
ReTweet Model
Global DataBase of Humankind

16. Personalization and Customization of
Guardian Angels Cloud Based Guardian Angel Platform Linked to User Smart Phone
Learning
Learn by Watching
Learn by being taught
Learn by doing
Learn by asking others
Learn by discovery
Security
Multimodal authentication
Continuous authentication
Encryption
Big Data Management
Process, index, story and retrieve data
Mine, Cluster, and Summarize relevant experience
Dialog
With humans
With other agents
Self Healing
Detect errors
Resolve errors
Power Mgmt
Activity Monitoring
Multi-Sensor Integration
Autonomic Systems
Etc.
Family of Personalized Guardian Angels
Subscribe to National and Global Sources and Act on Relevant Information

17. Scalable Sustainable Affordable Personal Guardian Angels
By 2020, Everyone on The Planet Has Access to a Smart Phone with Global Connectivity
A Smart Phone is Expected to Cost $50
Every Man, Woman And Child will have Access to 16GB+ of Space on The Cloud from Facebook, Google And Microsoft
Everyone on The Planet Has Access to
Unlimited Computation, Memory and Bandwidth
Language divide and literacy divide limits access to the internet-enabled solutions to many people in the world.
Providing the right information in the right language and right medium enables scalability to all the people on the planet.
Sustainability and Affordability are natural consequences of exponential reduction in size and cost of Information Technology.
By 2020, a smart phone is expected to cost $20. Every Man, Woman and Child will have Access to 16GB+ of Space on The Cloud from Facebook, Google and Microsoft, enough to host all personal information in your own secure privacy protected area accessible only to you and your Guardian Angel.
Language divide and literacy divide limits access to the Internet enabled solutions to many people in the world. Providing the right information in the right language and right medium enables scalability to all the people on the planet..
Sustainability and Affordability are natural consequences of exponential reduction in size and cost of Information Technology.

18. Affordability
Free Sensor Intensive Smart Phone to Every Person on the Planet: Current cost of $200/Unit
Estimated 2020 Cost per Unit of $50
Assuming 8B population
One per Family of 4? One per Person?
Expected Global Cost $100 to $400 Billion
0.1% to 0.4% of the Gross World Product
Funding from Government and Other Stakeholders
Smart Phone Manufacturers
Telecom Service Providers
IT Product and Service Companies
Increase in Economic Activity and Productivity
Expected Payback Time: Less than 1 year
The big elephant in the room is the cost of enabling the global reach of Guardian Angels, getting the right information to every person on the planet! We begin with the assumption that every person on the planet will have access to a free sensor intensive smart phone which in 2014 might cost $200. Assuming a global population of 8 billion and assuming the cost of a feature rich smart phone is about $50, the cost of providing a smart phone to everyone on the planet is about $400 billion. If each family has one smart phone initially then the startup cost can be under $100 billion. These numbers represent 0.1% to 0.4% of gross world product.
Like other essential infrastructures such as water, electricity and roads, a smart phone for everyone on the planet should be treated as necessary infrastructure. In addition to partial funding from governments, other stakeholders should bear some of the initial costs such as smart phone manufacturers, telecom service providers, and IT product and service companies. The resulting increase in economic activity and productivity can be expected to result in the recovery of the entire cost in less than one year.

19. …and Privacy
A Facebook of Guardian Angels Are Able To Share Anonymized Knowledge Using Publish/Subscribe Mechanisms Of Social Networking, and
Enabling Each Guardian Angel to Learn and Predict What Events Are Likely To Impact their Protégé
A Guardian Angel Knows the Location Information of The Protégé at All Times so as to Provide an Alert and/or a Detailed Notification. If Needed, It Must Be Able to Turn-on The Smart Phone.
No Privacy Breach Since Each Guardian Angel only Shares Information Already Known to the Service Provider
A Facebook of Guardian Angels are able to share anonymized knowledge using publish/subscribe mechanisms of social networking and enabling each Guardian Angel to learn and predict what events are likely to impact their owner. No breach of privacy is expected since each Guardian Angel only shares information already known to the service provider suitably anonymized. A Guardian Angel knows the location information of the owner at all times so as to provide alerts and/or a detailed notification. If needed, it must be able to turn-on the smart phone of the owner to deliver urgent information.

20. Technology Challenge In Conclusion
Creation of Guardian Angel Technologies for providing the right information to every man, woman and child on the planet can lead to a Humane Society
While the cost appears to be prohibitive, on a per capita basis it represents less than 0.1% of GWP.
A Social Network Of Guardian Angels that can anticipate and share potential disaster scenarios can save 50% to 80% of all accidental deaths in the world
and save millions of lives and hundreds of billions of dollars of property damage every year
In conclusion, the creation of Guardian Angel Technologies for providing the right information to every man, woman and child on the planet in a timely manner can eliminate surprise and reduce human suffering and misery. While the cost appears to be prohibitive, on a per capita basis it represents less than 0.1% of the Gross World Product. A social network of Guardian Angels that can anticipate potential disastrous incidents in the life of each person on the planet, and warn and take protective actions may be able to save 50% to 80% of all accidental deaths in the world. This would result in saving over millions of lives and hundreds of billions of dollars of damage to property every year. That is certainly the most important research computer scientists could be doing in the 21st century. And it is certainly the most influential research project that the Honda Foundation could undertake.

21. Action Item for Creating a Humane Civilization
Sponsor Annual Competitions and Prizes to Promote Best Practices in Sustainable Scalable Affordable Solutions in the areas of
Basic Needs of All Humanity, e.g.,
Food, Energy, Water, Transportation, Education, Communication, and Healthcare
Basic Human Rights
Life, Liberty and Pursuit of Happiness
Freedom from Slavery and Torture
Safety and Security of Society
from Natural and Man-made Disasters
In general, Guardian Angel concepts, systems and/or solutions can be applied to all aspects of creating a humane society. It can be used to identify potential violations of basic rights and to ensure the basic needs/rights of the individual within a humane society.