Hedy Lamarr

Hedy Lamarr was born Hedwig Eva Maria Kiesler in 1914 in Vienna, Austria.By the time she was a teenager, she had decided to drop out of school and seek fame as an actress.She first appeared in a German film in 1930.She was attractive and talented enough to be in three more films in 1931, but it was her controversial film "Ecstasy" that brought her worldwide fame as an actress.

In 1937, she fled from her country and secrectly moved to Hollywood, where she reinvented herself.She changed her name to Hedy Lamarr, with the nickname "The Most Beautiful Woman in Films".However, Lamarr defied the leading-lady stereotype by also pursuing an interest in mathematics and engineering.She soon took up inventing.Her earliest inventions included an improved traffic stoplight and a tablet that would dissolve in water to create a carbonated drink.

With the on-going World War, Lamarr was inspired to contribute to the war effort.She designed a radio guidance system for torpedoes.With the help of composer George Antheil, whom she met in 1940, she discovered a way to break up signals and transmit them over different frequencies.Using a method similar to the way player pianos work, they designed a frequency-hopping system that would continually change the radio signals sent to a torpedo.While others, including Nikola Tesla, had explored similar ideas of frequency hopping, Lamarr and Antheil obtained a patent for their invention in 1942 for what would become known as spread-spectrum technology.

Although the U.S. Navy did not adopt the technology during the war, it was used during the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962.For decades Lamarr's technology remained behind the scenes, but ultimately it led to the creation of today's spread-spectrum communication technology, such as Wi-Fi networks, mobile phones, GPS and Bluetooth technologies.Lamarr and Antheil eventually recieved several awards for their lifetime creative achievements that contributed so much to society.They were inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 2014, after her death in 2000.

The Challenge of AI

The internet and smartphones have changed the world and how we relate to each other. Instead of meeting in person, we increasingly interface through handheld devices. In a sense, real people are being removed, replaced by technology and virtual friends. Some people even say that they prefer to confide in their virtual friends rather than their real friends!

AI, or artificial intelligence, is another technology that is highly disruptive. With AI, smartphone and other devices will have even more capabilities. They will be able to converse with us and tell us jokes. They may even become personal tutors, and replace our online human tutors. They will be able to do this because they will have access to our life histories. They will know what kind of problems we have, our preferences, and any content we want to learn or practice, they will be able to adapt to our needs and be available at any time. And all this will be at less cost than using a human.

In fact, the substitution of AIs for human labor has the potential to transform our world. Experts warn that smart machines may cause widespread unemployment. Many workers will become redundant, replaced by machines that can perform cognitive tasks better than people. An even greater danger is that they will develop personalities and become more interesting than people. Work is already underway to produce AI companions for lonely people.

Are these development something to worry about or something to welcome? How are they different than developments in the past, such as the industrial revolution? Cars replaced horses; machines and industrial robots replaced factory workers.

Since the shift to AI is inevitable, the challenge for policy makers will be to help existing workers acquire new skills. Future generations must be prepared for a workplace populated by AIs that will continue to develop and take on new tasks. Are we up to the task?

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