Immunotherapy, Autonomous Boats, more Facial Recognition and Can we change the past?

August 6

This week we will examine a breakthrough in Immunotherapy that may benefit us all in the near future. We will also find out how Stadiums will use Facial Recognition for contactless entry when crowds are again allowed to attend sporting matches. We discover a new range of autonomous boats and an AI that will improve our sales calls. Finally we ask and answer the question “if we travel back in time and make small changes to the past will we change the future”? In other words, is the theme of nearly every time travel movie factually correct?

Immunotherapy Breakthrough

Immunotherapy is where the patients own blood is drawn and used to grow more of their own T-cells in a lab. T-cells are a critical part of the body’s immune response system (first proven in 1973 by Australian Researcher Peter Doherty, he jointly received the 1996 Nobel Prize for the discovery). A type of white blood cell, T-cells kill any virus ridden cells if they recognize the virus and certain substances from the body’s own cells.

T-cells have trouble detecting cancer cells, however it has been discovered that lab grown T-cells can be “taught” to detect and fight some specific cancer cells in the patient’s body. This is done by adding a receptor to the T-cells that can recognize the cancer cells. Called CAR-T cells, millions of the cells are grown and then injected back into the patient. The initial success for certain types of blood cancer has approached 80% when historically a remission rate of 20% was expected. A 2019 Johnson & Johnson study yielded a 100% remission rate (25 complete remissions to date). A single treatment however costs over AU$500,000.

Given the early success of this approach there has been a push to develop platforms that will allow clinicians to fight a wider range of cancers in hopefully a more cost effective way.

ASX listed company Prescient Therapeutics recently announced a next generation universal CAR-T platform, called OmniCAR. The platform is based upon the original research from Oxford University and University of Pennsylvania. OmniCAR is an enabling platform that brings together CAR-T therapy and other mechanisms as a collaborative play in developing therapies for a wider range of cancers.

Many thanks to one of my avid readers for bringing this development to my attention.

Facial Recognition for Stadium Entry

During these times of heightened security and the desire for contactless encounters a number of stadiums around the world are implementing (or investigating) Facial Recognition Systems for entry into stadiums and concert venues.

Universal Studios in Singapore has just implemented the system. To enter the park you must have bought your tickets online in advance. When you enter the park a facial recognition system scans your face and provides entry. You can then enter and exit using your face as the reentry ticket. Annual pass holders and Season ticket holders no longer need a pass as the facial recognition system provides automatic entry.

Most NFL and NBA teams are investigating these systems for use during the next season that they are allowed to have fans in the stands. As these systems become cheaper and easier to implement, more and more venues will implement facial recognition systems for entry. Restaurants, pubs, nightclubs, casinos and other similar venues will jump on board. If you are a regular at the venue the system will know who you are, how much you usually spend, how much you tip and your preferences.

(here is a sample system being shown at the Global Mobile Internet Conference in Beijing in 2018)

The biggest concern with these systems is going to be privacy. Who owns the data and what can they do with it? Governments are way behind in understanding these developments and legislating for privacy.

Autonomous Boating

US company Sea Machines, has launched a range of Autonomous Boats. Their TALOS technology connects to the vessel’s propulsion machinery and navigation sensors to allow for autonomous or remote control of your boat. The system also acts as a data recorder for later analysis.

The TALOS technology can be installed on nearly any type of boat. This includes workboats for hydrographic and seismic surveys, security craft, spill response, aquaculture and dredging applications.

The boat above is a concept design for an Autonomous Guard Vessel. The boat is designed to protect offshore installations such as wind farms, substation platforms and cable installations. Nearby traffic can be continuously monitored visually as well as via radar. When a vessel approaches measures can be taken to secure the area to prevent collisions with the offshore infrastructure.

Solar panels combined with batteries power the vessel. Charging stations are also available to recharge the batteries when required. As there is no crew, substantial space savings can be made thus reducing operational costs.

There are 7 levels of Marine Autonomy (v 5 levels for cars). No doubt more operations will be moved up to Level 6 autonomy over time.

AI for Sales Calls

Chorus.ai has developed an AI that analyses sales calls. Chorus uses a proprietary natural language processing (NLP) algorithm to extract insights from recorded sales calls. The system will act as an autonomous secretary, joining sales phone and video calls, recording and transcribing the calls in real time. The system figures out who is saying what and is able to build a bespoke library of conversations, repetitions, jargon and key phrases. At the end of the call, Chorus provides summary notes which highlight useful information and juicy tidbits (e.g. upsell opportunities).

Chorus has also rolled out smart playlists that enable managers to curate a collection of the most important call moments to train and onboard reps. Their Coaching Initiative and Scorecards allow supervisors to quickly score skills so sales professionals receive actionable feedback.

Update to avoiding Online Facial Recognition

On July 9 we mentioned a National University of Singapore program that would help you avoid recognition online. There have been several competing programs released in the few weeks since that post. If you are interested in this type of software have a look at Fawkes which was developed at the University of Chicago. It is now available for download and use.

If we change the past, do we change the future?

This next piece will be a bit esoteric so apologies if my explanation is not that clear. It is a very conceptual subject and probably, a vague explanation.

We all remember the time travel movies from our youth where the main character travels back in time, interacts with the past, changes the time line with catastrophic consequences for the future. For example in “Back to the Future”, Marty caused his parents to not initially fall in love and thus imperiled his future existence.

This phenomenon is known as the Butterfly Effect. If a Butterfly flaps its’ wings does it set in place a chain of events that in totality, affect global weather? It is a metaphor for one principle of chaos theory. The idea is, “do insignificant events have profound and divergent effects on larger systems”.

We can’t yet travel back in time but can we simulate traveling back in time? A team from Los Alamos National Laboratory recently conducted a time travel simulation on IBS’s Quantum Computer. What they did was simulate how systems react to pertrubances with the benefit of hindsight.

As we have previously discussed the advantage of Quantum Computers is that they are capable of producing all outcomes simultaneously. A classical computer will produce one answer at a time. We have to run a simulation multiple times in a classical computer to get different results. We can therefore use a quantum computer to see how things would have unfolded in a system had something different happened. We can’t go back and find out who actually killed JFK, that is a closed system to which we don’t have access but we can create an open system and simulate all the different ways things can play out over time.

Still with me? I know, at least 50% of you are thinking, “why is he telling me this”. Keep reading, it will all become clear as mud.

Classical systems suffer from the Butterfly Effect. Go and change a line of code in a computer program and see how your program works next time you run it. Quantum Systems are different. The researchers used the IBM quantum computer to show how a circuit could evolve a system by applying quantum gates (equivalent to the on/off bits in a classic computer) with forwards and backwards cause and effect.

The result obtained by the research was that there was no effect on the systems from the Butterfly effect. They were able to scramble information in a highly correlated system and find that the information is essentially restored by the end of the simulation (essentially meaning very very similar but not necessarily exactly the same).

If you want to try and understand the methodology and math behind the simulation the paper is here. For the rest of us, just remember that the movies are made up stories. They are not real.

There will be one or two of you now asking “but what if we are living in a simulation? Are you saying that no matter what I do, it doesn’t affect the outcome of the simulation?” If we are actually in a simulation (rather than living in real life) the answer is probably yes (here is an explanation of the “simulation” for the curious). However if we are living in a simulation, neither you or I are real in the first place so the question is moot. Just relax and enjoy the simulation whilst it lasts.

Paying it Forward

If you have a start-up or know of a start-up that has a product ready for market please let me know. I would be happy to have a look and feature the startup in this newsletter. Also if any startups need introductions please get in touch and I will help where I can.

If you have any questions or comments please email me via my website craigcarlyon.com or comment below. 

I would also appreciate it if you could forward this newsletter to anyone that you think might be interested.