World Economic Forum: A high-tech walk at this year's forum
Updated 16:59, 09-Jul-2019
The Summer Davos in China's northeastern city of Dalian, is not only about discussion sessions but also a platform for high-tech display. CGTN's Cui Hui'ao checked out some of the coolest displays at the venue.
Standing in front of the camera to get my face scanned for a few seconds, here it comes all the data about me. Gender, age, race, and even mood.
FRANK VETERE, DEPUTY DEAN OF ENGAGEMENT MELBOURNE SCHOOL OF ENGINEERING "The system scans your face and compares your face to a large database of faces that have been tagged according to a set of personality attributes and makes a correlation to see how much your face looks like all the other faces."
CUI HUI'AO DALIAN "The computation results of the biometric mirror are quite disappointing. For instance, it says I have low kindness and high aggressiveness. Definitely not the way I feel about myself."
Professor Vetere says these wrong outcomes are a cautionary tale that technologies like AI and machine learning are far from being perfect. And wrong data can be abused for bad purposes.
FRANK VETERE, DEPUTY DEAN OF ENGAGEMENT MELBOURNE SCHOOL OF ENGINEERING "If you are matched to a terrorist face, then you are ascribed attributes of being a terrorist. That has consequences."
And this is what the future hospital looks like - surgeries being performed by doctors and robots! The four robotic arms are executing orders from the surgeon. This surgical robot is now applied to extracting tumors and killing cancer cells.
DING YINING VOLUNTEER "The biggest advantage of the system is that it assists surgeons to perform minimally invasive surgery. Patents only have four holes on their body so they can have less blood loss and shorter recovery period."
Finally, this booth gives those who aspire to be celebrities a chance. Your face can be changed to Bruce Lee, Neil Armstrong, Audrey Hepburn, you name it.
KYLE NICHOLAS SAN SOFT ENGINEER, PINSCREEN "Basically we take one single input image, create expressions so that we can put someone else's face onto someone else. With this technology, you can fake news and fake video that look realistic."
These tech-displays are not just stunts of the show. They are trying to encourage participants to think deeper about technology, how it is shaping our lives, and what ramifications it may have for our future. Cui Hui'ao, CGTN, Dalian, Liaoning Province.