@T: ALWAYS THE TWAIN

This w/e there’s a NYT article on how scientists are concerned machines will outsmart Man, and the article links to the interesting Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence:

* http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/26/science/26robot.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

* http://www.aaai.org/AITopics/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/AITopics/Ethics

Whilst I read the NYT article, I kept thinking of three things:

(1.) Computers can currently beat us in chess (please see Deep Blue vs. Kasparov), but in poker the dynamics are different because they can’t yet read our expressions and therefore intentions (including random and irrational risky plays).

(2.) In Aasimov’s I, Robot short story series, he implies that whilst a machine may be able to calculate the probability of occurrence and survival, it cannot yet comprehend the moral/ethics or value of human life.

Therefore, by Twain extension, humans will remain smarter than machines as long as we DO and can apply moral/ethics-based considerations to the value of human life whilst they can’t.

(3.) Human intelligence increases by random gene mutation, conscious assimilation or hereditary bias. Our intelligence code or DNA is, potentially, boundless. At the moment, machine code is bounded by whatever logic and probability path is pre-programmed and the code cannot mutate beyond core link references or those probability paths.

In any case, as I wrote in a blog post before, AI applications would need to figure out a way of at the very least incorporating the EMOTION DIMENSION into semantic ontologies before we can even think of truly intelligent machines!

TEDGLOBAL 2009

Meanwhile, at Henry Markham’s presentation at TedGlobal 2009, it was said that a fully functional artificial brain will be built within the next decade:

* http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-10294201-1.html

* http://bluebrain.epfl.ch/Jahia/site/bluebrain/op/edit/pid/18699

Okay…………………………………here’s a Twain observation. You know how I mentioned the development from Eliza to Elbot in my Google knol on the Global Brain?

* http://knol.google.com/k/twain/the-global-brain-the-semantic-web-the/31fjy9fjsu1x2/19#

Well, if not that much progress was achieved between the two iterations of machines designed to pass the Turing test over three decades, what’s the probability of a fully artificial brain being built in 10 years?

Right after I wrote my “Connecting the Dots” post, I read this on the Newsweek site:

* http://www.newsweek.com/id/208633

The article by Daniel Gross notes:

A year ago, NEWSWEEK dubbed this a new kind of recession—one caused by turmoil in housing and finance rather than manufacturing or weak consumer spending. Now that it’s over, we’ll need a new kind of recovery. For 60 years, policymakers have relied on a series of simple tools for combating slowdowns and promoting growth: the Fed cuts interest rates, government slashes taxes, and a deregulated Wall Street provides easy money. All of which spurs debt-fueled consumption and the movement of goods and services around the globe.

No more. The Fed literally can’t cut interest rates further—the overnight interest rate it controls is at zero. Given the deficits and Democratic control of Washington, the prospect of broad-based tax cuts are slim. Americans are still stuffing cash under the mattress. “The last several recoveries were not sustained because they were based on bubbles, they were led by consumption, and they enhanced inequality,” says Summers. “The president’s emphasis is on having a different kind of expansion.”

Interestingly, nowhere in this otherwise well-written article is there any mention of how technology can be harnessed to shape that recovery or prevent future occurrences of the recession we’ve all experienced over the last 18 months and continue to be affected by. Nowhere does it say that technology should be developed so that — instead of the rudimentary way economists currently forecast Mundell-Fleming’s ISLM constituents which can help determine monetary and fiscal policies — forecasting technology incorporates elements of Flex, real-time feeds and something like Google’s MapReduce.

There’s some analysis in the Newsweek article on the need for stimulus packages into renewable technologies and infrastructure investment like building highways etc. However, nowhere is there any commentary about some sort of government investment in early-risk electronic detection systems, built in consortia with the banks and the regulators.

THAT’S THE CRUX OF WHAT’S NEEDED.

Here’s our problem, Houston: few politicians and journalists are technologically proficient enough to figure out how technology can be applied (aka they can’t code), and technologists’ insights on electronic risk monitoring, management and prevention systems are simply not being tapped into where it matters.

Oh well, maybe we’re just destined to be slaves to the tyranny of missing the dots and then going, “What happened?! Let’s blame XYZ!” when actually it’s because we only applied 10 percent of our brains and 1 percent of our sense.

Why connect the dots? Well, because we can — if we really want to apply more than 10 percent of our intelligence and find solutions to major issues like these: global economic stability, education equivalence, climate change, gender contribution, etc. etc. etc.

If we don’t do it now, we and our children will simply find ourselves in the same situation (global financial crisis and absence of sense).

CONNECTING THE DOTS: THE TECH CONTEXT

Here are some articles on how technology could be applied to prevent a future global financial crisis:

· http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/c25e1008-f93e-11dd-90c1-000077b07658.html

· http://www.tmcnet.com/usubmit/2008/09/24/3669282.htm

· http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?sid=a1Yy1SLxmCwo&pid=20601103

· http://www.tonybates.ca/2008/11/16/world-economic-forum-global-advisory-council-on-technology-and-education/

Worryingly, it’s notable that even in the 2009 World Economic Forum’s Global Advisory Council on Technology and Education, whilst participants recognized that everyone was being impacted upon by the banking crisis, very little discussion took place on how technology can help us learn from our mistakes of the value-destroying experience.

GAC on Technology and Education was very much a pimple on the flea of the dog. Technology and education was seen as one of many areas that impact on economic development, but which in reality has little direct or immediate relevance to the current world financial crisis. Thus you will see that in the final summary reports of the global summit, technology and education was not even mentioned, it being considered a subsidiary area of technological innovation.

(source: http://www.tonybates.ca/2008/11/16/world-economic-forum-global-advisory-council-on-technology-and-education/)

There is no trace on the WEF site itself of any session even covering the harnessing of technology towards future risk prevention. Moreover, I’ve watched countless interviews with heads of regulatory agencies, CEOs of banks, tech CEOs and government officials and, with the exception of Geithner’s proposals on an integrated OTC information platform, almost no one seems to have given this any serious consideration.

…………………………………………………………………………….AND THEY SHOULD!

* http://www.weforum.org/en/index.htm

CONNECTING THE DOTS: THE CHINESE CONTEXT

In July there was news that China and Singapore are recovering from the global recession:

· http://www.economist.com/world/asia/displayStory.cfm?story_id=14045372

· http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124753152552435965.html

· http://aric.adb.org/pdf/aem/jul09/Jul_AEM_complete.pdf

Interestingly, China (including HK) and Singapore have a higher proportion of women in senior management positions than their Western peers, according to Grant Thornton analysis.

· www.gthk.com.hk/cmstree.GetCmsAsset.do?…IBR%202009%20- %20Women%20in%20management

Moreover, the Chinese attitude and cultural observances towards savings and avoidance of debt+consumption may also explain why it’s likely to lead the global recovery. Unfortunately, certain economists have attributed the cause of the financial crisis on the Chinese propensity to save, without understanding anything about Chinese rationale or acknowledged that the root of the crisis lay in the US mortgage market and incompetent bankers creating complex SPVs which they themselves had no idea of how the over-leveraging would later cause the unravelling of!

(source: Merrill Lynch, 2009 Global Macro Year Ahead)

· http://www.suomenpankki.fi/NR/rdonlyres/436385A1-4A51-4061-814F-8D90D91B97BD/0/dp0209.pdf

· http://norris.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/06/22/why-do-chinese-save-boys-want-to-marry/

· http://ablog.typepad.com/keytrendsinglobalisation/2009/06/sense-on-chinas-savings.html

· http://mpettis.com/2009/05/why-do-chinese-save/

· http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/26/world/asia/26addiction.html?_r=1

· http://economistsview.typepad.com/economistsview/2006/08/differences_in_.html

· http://www.rgemonitor.com/roubini-monitor/256331/chinas_economy_in_2009_and_beyond

· http://chinadaily.cn/bizchina/2009-01/07/content_7375620.htm

CONNECTING THE DOTS: THE FEMALE CONTEXT

There’s an article in this weekend’s Observer which says the Treasury select committee is now investigating the role and contribution of women in the City (aka the British Wall Street) and whether having more senior women would have and can prevent the type of meltdown we’ve experienced over the last 18 months.

· http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2009/jul/26/discrimination-financial-institutions-banking-women

This topic of how male testosterone may have caused the global financial crisis versus how female oestrogen could potentially prevent it has been covered on sites ranging from the UN to Scientific America to Management Today.

Some articles like Michel Ferrary’s (Professor of Management at Ceram Business School, France) in the FT even present the case that French companies with more senior women in the boardroom are faring better:

Last year, Hermès was the only large company whose share price rose (16.8 per cent) and it has the second largest feminised management (55 per cent). Companies with a highly feminised management, such as Sanofi (44.8 per cent female managers and a 27.3 per cent share price decrease), Sodexo (43.39 per cent female managers and an 8.3 per cent decrease) or Danone (38 per cent female managers and a 29.6 per cent decrease), declined less than the CAC 40 (a fall of 42.7 per cent).

Conversely, stocks of companies with mainly male management have decreased more than the CAC 40. For example, Alcatel-Lucent (8.6 per cent female managers) saw a 69.3 per cent decrease, Renault (21.7 per cent female managers) an 81.3 per cent fall and Arcelor Mittal (12.3 per cent female managers) a 67.4 per cent decline.

(source: FT, Why Women Shine in a Downturn — Michel Ferrary)

· http://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/60-second-science/post.cfm?id=is-testosterone-to-blame-for-the-fi-2008-09-30

· http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2009/wom1721.doc.htm

· http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/d1f00a08-9ade-11dd-a653-000077b07658.html?nclick_check=1

· http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/10/AR2009071002358.html

· http://blogs.harvardbusiness.org/hbr/hewlett/2009/01/too_much_testosterone_on_wall.html

· http://women.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/women/the_way_we_live/article4848188.ece

· http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1871066,00.html

· http://www.managementtoday.co.uk/channel/HumanCapital/news/865053/let-women-tame-macho-excess/

· http://www.ceram.edu/index.php/Latest-News/Latest/Financail-Crisis-Are-Women-the-Antidote-CERAM-Research.html

· http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/27836d74-04e4-11de-8166-000077b07658,dwp_uuid=1d22aad4-0732-11de-9294-000077b07658.html?nclick_check=1

· http://www.20-first.com/1056-0-womens-role-in-the-financial-crisis.html

· http://worldhaveyoursay.wordpress.com/2009/03/04/would-women-have-avoided-the-current-finanical-crisis/

· http://armila.gaia.com/blog/2009/2/global_financial_crisis_are_women_the_antidote

· http://www.europeanbusiness.gr/SiteResources/Data/Templates/article.asp?DocID=1061&parentDocID=

· http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2009/05/03/the_female_advantage/

· http://www.mckinseyquarterly.com/A_business_case_for_women_2192

· http://www.catalyst.org/publication/200/the-bottom-line-corporate-performance-and-womens-representation-on-boards

· http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2008-04/uoc-tlp041008.php

· http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/16/weekinreview/16dobrzynski.html

CONNECTING THE DOTS: THE TWAIN CONCLUSION

We need to wise up instead of dumb down.

The sooner we can build a coherent and robust Global Brain platform that can make sense of the better practices from different cultures and which takes into account male AND female contributions to decision making, risk taking, value-risk-reward paradigms and problem solving, the more we’ll advance as a species.