Cashback, reward apps helping Canadians save, but where is the data going?

Posted by & filed under Ethical issues, Privacy.

Apps like Checkout51, Caddle, Drop, Eclipsa offer gift cards, points and cash back in exchange for uploading receipts, tracking purchases or completing surveys. Fresh produce and groceries are shown at Summerhill Market in Toronto on Wednesday February 2, 2022.
TORONTO – When it comes to saving on groceries or trips to the mall, Nichole Schaubroeck is a pro.
She scours flyers and websites, alerting her @couponcutiecanada Instagram account’s 254,000 followers to supermarket sales and deals at the likes of Lululemon or Amazon.
But one of her tried and true savings methods — apps like Checkout51, Caddle, Drop, and Eclipsa, which offer gift cards, points and cash back in exchange for uploading receipts, tracking purchases or completing surveys — poses a mystery to the savvy shopper.


“The purpose of these apps is to collect data mainly, from my understanding, but I don’t know for sure,” said Schaubroeck, who lives in Dominion City, Man. about 100 kilometres south of Winnipeg. “I don’t know a ton about that side of it.”
Schaubroeck’s right about the apps collecting data, but where does the information go and who is really profiting from it?

Source: Toronto Daily Star

Date: March 17th ,2023

Link: https://www.thestar.com/business/2023/03/12/cashback-reward-apps-helping-canadians-save-but-where-is-the-data-going.html

Discussion

  1. “Daily surveys net users five cents each. An uploaded receipt from stores like No Frills, Dollarama, Home Depot and Sephora can make them between 10 cents and one dollar. The receipts help Caddle learn which customers have bought products featured on the app, so it can validate that it prompted a purchase. Other brands want Caddle to land their products reviews. The receipt identifies when someone bought a target item, so Caddle can offer them money for writing a review.”
    The article says “It’s a “misconception,” he added, that companies like his collect data and pass it along to clients with people’s names and other identifiable details.”
    It is easy to see why the daily surveys and uploaded receipts information could be anonymized, but surely “The receipt identifies when someone bought a target item, so Caddle can offer them money for writing a review” means that Caddle has to know exactly who bought the item.
    Why is it an issue, or not, to share this information?
  2. “There’s a clear disclaimer there that says, ‘hey, this is how we’re going to use your data’ and it’s not buried somewhere and in legalese.”
    Is this sufficient?

The cargo hauling aircraft with no pilots on board

Posted by & filed under Consumer Technology, ESG.

At the time he established Dronamics big tech giants like Amazon were experimenting with drone deliveries to domestic addresses. But Mr Rangelov never believed in the concept of personal goods delivered by the drone.
The practical difficulties of flying a drone right up to someone’s front door were obvious to Mr Rangelov. “We couldn’t buy into the concept of small drones. We took a different approach.”
This take on drone delivery will bear fruit when the prototype cargo aircraft takes to the air.

Source: BBC Technology News

Date: March 17th, 2023

Link: https://www.bbc.com/news/business-63595481

Discussion

  1. “Dronamics sees this height band as unused airspace and is also testing out a new, synthetic aviation fuel which it claims will allow carbon-neutral flights.”
    Why is “carbon-neutral” such a big deal?
  2. “the drone combines “cell phone economics” in terms of cheap electronics, with the ability to land on short runways”
    Why is important that the drone runs on cheap “cell phone economics”?

Explaining the Microsoft 365 Copilot System

Posted by & filed under AI/Artificial Intelligence, ChatGPT.

Microsoft 365 Copilot combines the power of large language models (LLMs, which are like ChatGPT) with your data in the Microsoft Graph and the Microsoft 365 apps to turn your words into the most powerful productivity tool on the planet. Learn more about how Microsoft created this AI-powered productivity tool. 

Source: Microsoft

Date: March 17th, 2023

Link to 1 minute 49 second video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8_lXSmlwk1s&list=PLXPr7gfUMmKxDKxah3zpG4NhhDj-2lAvc&index=9

Discussion

  1. The interesting part of the Microsoft 365 Copilot (if you ask me) is that it accesses “your data” to get you answers that will be useful.
    For a person, why might this be an issue?
  2. For a business, why might it be a real issue to have the Microsoft 365 Copilot accessing business data?

Bot takes over brewmaster’s chair for northern Alberta brewery’s first AI-designed beer

Posted by & filed under AI/Artificial Intelligence, ChatGPT.

A northern Alberta brewery has used a chatbot to create a beer that it hopes will become a talker. 

Amber Waves of Grain, released in February by Grain Bin Brewing Company, is an amber ale in which everything — the name, the price, the packaging and the recipe — was decided by OpenAI’s Chat GPT, an artificial intelligence tool trained to mimic human responses.

“We decided to just be as hands-off as possible, to see what the limitations were and what the actual final product would be if we relied solely on artificial intelligence,” said Dalen Landis, a co-owner of the brewery in Grande Prairie, Alta., about 450 kilometres northwest of Edmonton.

In an interview with CBC News, Landis said the beer is meant to be a conversation piece. He said it also raises a moral dilemma particularly with the packaging generated from sources across the internet. 

“It’s using bits and pieces of other people’s content and it’s producing something for us that, you know, we’re using for profit.” 

Source: Canadian Broadcasting Corporation

Date: March 10th, 2023

Link: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/bot-takes-over-brewmaster-s-chair-for-northern-alberta-brewery-s-first-ai-designed-beer-1.6771838

Discussion

  1. “While the goal was 100 per cent artificial intelligence, Landis said brewery staff had to direct the technology at times. For example, when the AI-generated recipe called for a malt normally used in home brewing, staff asked for a substitute better suited to commercial production.”
    The AI used here was ChatGPT. Why do you need to have human intervention, as above, to make ChatGPT useful?
  2. “University of Alberta food microbiology professor Michael Gänzle said human oversight is an important aspect of utilizing chatbots in food production, especially given concerns around food safety and liability.”Somebody is responsible and that somebody is never a computer.” 
    How likely is it that professor Michael Gänzle is wrong when he says “hat somebody is never a computer.”?

Can mind-controlled VR games help stroke patients?

Posted by & filed under Virtual Reality, Virtual Reality Training.

A system which can translate human brain activity into actions without any physical movement is being developed by a neurotech firm called Cogitat.
When wearing a prototype headset, basic actions in virtual reality can be carried out by thinking about them.
So for example, in a game where a VR jet ski is controlled by handles, you move by thinking about it, rather than squeezing your hands.
Elon Musk’s firm Neuralink is developing a similar concept.

Source: BBC Technology News

Date: March 10th, 2023

Link: https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-64720533

Discussion

  1. The idea of “mind control” for technology seems both far fetched and also possibly disturbing. In addition to stroke patients, in what situations would “mind control” of technology be very useful?
  2. Should there be restrictions on what parts of the mind are accessible to “mind control” reading technology?

Posted by & filed under AI/Artificial Intelligence.

https://www.bbc.com/reel/video/p0f73vlw/can-artificial-intelligence-ever-be-sentient-?

Whether computers can be sentient has been a subject of debate for decades.
In 2022, a Google engineer received a plea for help from a chatbot. “I’ve never said this out loud before, but there’s a very deep fear of being turned off,” said Google’s chatbot, LaMDA.
But could artificial intelligence or robots experience sentience or emotions?

Source: BBC

Date: March 10th, 2023

Link to 16 minute video: https://www.bbc.com/reel/video/p0f73vlw/can-artificial-intelligence-ever-be-sentient-?

Discussion

  1. Why does it matter if an AI “becomes sentient”?
  2. Are there any steps that should be taken to make sure an AI does, or does not, become sentient?

Artificial intelligence could provide a solution to Canada’s supply chain troubles

Posted by & filed under AI/Artificial Intelligence.


The great supply chain meltdown of the past few years still hangs over Canadians as consumers face the possibility of empty shelves and shortages when we can least afford them.
At pharmacies, we are seeing bare shelves where essential cold and flu medicine should be. At supermarkets, we are seeing empty bins where fresh fruits and vegetables should be. At auto dealerships, lots that were once filled with shiny new vehicles are now near empty, with customers being told they must wait months for new orders to be delivered. Cities like Regina and Windsor are being reported to still facing a baby formula shortage.
At the same time, it was reported Canadian farmers were throwing out enough fresh produce to feed entire provinces.


Canada is falling behind in the race to improve the performance and reliability of our supply chain. The sooner we face the problem and take dramatic action, the sooner we will have long-term solutions.
Many factors brought us here. Some we knew about, like obsolete technology and infrastructure. Others caught us by surprise, like a labour shortage in the middle of pandemic-induced economic uncertainty.

Source: Toronto Daily Star

Date: March 3rd, 2023

Link: https://www.thestar.com/business/opinion/2023/02/28/artificial-intelligence-could-provide-a-solution-to-canadas-supply-chain-troubles.html

Discussion

  1. “Assetflo, a venture that deploys machine learning and AI algorithms to track inventory movement across the supply chain and optimizes operations at large warehouses and distribution centres via localization that works both indoors and outdoors. Their customers report a massive reduction in delays in order processing for on-time delivery.”
    What is “localization”?
    It is getting information (data) on inventory down to the shelf-level. That is, exactly and precisely where something is, not just “in the warehouse”
  2. “Demand forecasting is an essential but misunderstood part of supply chain management. Real-time AI data collection and analysis produces immediate insights into the demand for a product right down to the minute and square kilometre.”
    How might this software work, in general terms?

What is Salesforce?

Posted by & filed under SaaS Software as a Service, SalesForce.

This video on “What is Salesforce?” is a complete guide for beginners who are new to Salesforce CRM. This video covers all the basic details of Salesforce CRM which includes what is CRM, importance of CRM, what is salesforce, why to choose Salesforce, architecture of salesforce, services provided by Salesforce and their application.
00:00:00 Why use Salesforce?
00:02:42 What is Salesforce?
00:04:47 Salesforce Architecture
00:07:05 Salesforce Cloud Services
00:09:25 Salesforce Applications

Source: SimpliLearn

Date: March 3rd, 2023

Link to 12 minute 48 second video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QH44R1oOvOQ

Discussion

  1. I use this video in my Intro to MIS class in the SaaS part of class. There is a nice intro to CRM and why you’d want an information system to do it well.
  2. Discuss why it makes sense for a company to use SaaS like Salesforce rather than building it themselves in-house.

Will Robots Replace Fast Food Workers?

Posted by & filed under Automation.

This robot named Flippy runs the fry station at a White Castle outside of Chicago. With a mechanical arm and using computer vision technology Flippy can cook everything from french fries and onion rings to cheese sticks. White Castle said it plans to add 100 Flippy’s to its kitchens’ nationwide. Up to 82% of restaurant positions could, to some extent, be replaced by robots. Automation could save U.S. fast food restaurants over $12 billion in annual wages. And restaurants are also struggling to find workers. American restaurants are down more than 560,000 jobs or about 4.6% of its workforce from their pre-pandemic levels. So what impact will robots have on the fast food industry and the livelihood of its workers? CNBC got a behind the scenes look at restaurant robot maker Miso Robotics to find out.

Source: CNBC

Date: March 1st, 2023

Link to 11 minute video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oJkQkr3Yy2Q

Discussion

  1. What jobs get replaced by this automation?
  2. What new jobs are created by this automation, and how many are related to management information systems?

Online romance scammers may have a new wingman — artificial intelligence

Posted by & filed under AI/Artificial Intelligence.

The voice you hear on the other end of your phone call may not be who you think it is, the person you’re texting with could really be a bot, and the face in a photo or video on your favourite dating app might not even exist.

Technological advancements in artificial intelligence are creating the potential to fuel romance scams, said Jeff Clune, an associate professor of computer science at the University of British Columbia.

Scammers now have “more tools in their tool box to hoodwink people, especially people who are not aware of recent advances in technology,” Clune said in an interview.

Such advancements include voice simulators, face generators and deepfakes — in which an existing image or video is used to create fake but believable video footage. Another set of advancements is chat bots, like ChatGPT, which generate humanlike text responses on all sorts of online platforms.

Source: Canadian Broadcasting Corporation

Date: February 23rd, 2023

Link: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/artificial-intelligence-online-romance-scams-1.6745912?cmp=newsletter_Marketplace%20Watchdog_8418_898504

Discussion

  1. For a company, it might be very useful to have an AI bot that can interact in a genuine way with customers. For a person, it could be incredibly damaging to have an AI bot act as a romantic partner. Where does the line for one end and the other begin, and why?
  2. What possible steps could be taken to limit malicious AI bot use?