As the FTC lays the groundwork for a possible challenge to Google’s purchase of AdMob, it is instructive to look at something else Google has already done to gain a strong foothold in the mobile ad business. Any advertiser that bids through the AdWords system gives Google complete authority over which devices its messages are seen [...]
In another validation of the suddenly hot collective buying trend, LivingSocial has landed $25m in Series B funding from a group of investors including US Venture Partners and Steve Case’s Revolution, LLC. But even with new money backing several similar companies, it is still unclear if the latest thing in e-commerce will last for long. LivingSocial [...]
Sony has every right to feel sore that Nintendo and Microsoft have stolen the limelight from it in adding motion-sensing to games. Sony had the EyeToy camera for sensing motion and putting players inside games on the PlayStation 2, long before Microsoft’s forthcoming Project Natal . Its six-axis controller has always had more motion capabilities than the [...]
We now have a date - June 17 - for the launch of OnLive, but uncertainties about the pricing and availability of the revolutionary cloud gaming service remain. Steve Perlman did tell us the service would cost $14.95 a month and would be available in the 48 contiguous US states in his presentation today at the [...]
Silicon Valley’s best-known CEO blogger now wants to become its best-known ex-CEO blogger (and yes, there may be a book in the works as well). Jonathan Schwartz, formerly of Sun Microsystems, has used his new pulpit to poke a stick at Steve Jobs. The Apple boss tried to bully Sun into submission back in 2003 [...]
I’m really pleased to announce that my little knol has been voted ‘Best Knol, June 2009″ by other key Knol authors. This is super-cool because the award is a form of quality benchmarking by users who are responsible for fostering the ethos and culture of Knol, and it’s also great to know that the content in the knol is helpful and appreciated. It beat the knol on ‘Twitter and Tweet from the Trenches’ — LOL!
In seriousness, hundreds of thousands of knols have been published — by highly regarded medical and academic experts as well as Joe / Jane Public with some life experiences to share — so to feature well enough in Google Knol’s metrics to be on those key users’ nomination radar and then to win it for June 2009 means something. The voters included those who’ve consistently been top viewed and top rated authors.
The Global Brain etc. is obviously a topic that matters to me. We’re at the extremely early stages of the conception and realization of it, and it’s important to recognize how far we still have to go in our journey ahead as well as the challenges we need to identify and figure out how to overcome.
I’m mindful that our intelligence, perspicacity and contextualization abilities evolve over time. For example, what and how I think and perceive now is more nuanced and reflective-refractive-re-engineered than as a child — although there are instances where I believe my thinking on certain topics was sharper aged 12-17 than they were at any other time to-date in my life.
‘The Global Brain’ knol is a continuous distillation and synapse between different discrete concepts that have fascinated me since childhood. I just decided to put it down in a written record so that this generation (and my children’s) will be able to trace developments of the Global Brain and its associations (the Semantic Web, Turing test, man-machine congruences as much as disconnect etc.) and challenge whether the various constructs are valid, cogent, consistent, democratic and also whether they’re including the appropriate elements which will result in us, collectively, solving the world’s major issues by harnessing man-machine hybrids.
It’s possible that my concepts, insights and vision of the Global Brain etc. are completely wrong. It may even be the case that I don’t complete the journey and my contributions don’t help crack it. Nevertheless, I am prepared to put it onto public record that in my early 30s — here and now and of sane mind, wholly uninfluenced / aided / abetted by drugs of any kind — this is how I was considering and perceiving the subject matter and doing my little Twaining of it.
My main hope is that the knol will help us move the GB’s realization towards a good direction and with good speed. Already, thanks to David Price’s efforts with the Debategraph interface, what I wrote about the Linking Open Data diagram means that the landscape of participants in the Semantic Web is being re-shaped and conceived anew. This is another of our small steps of progress.
The next re-shaping which is sorely needed will be the evolution from the Rubik cube form of the Semantic stack towards a series of protocols which are much more organic and more closely proxy how DNA and neuro-transmitters actually work.
Perception and problem-solving is not about systematic processing alone or even semantic categorization. It’s about synergizing sense-making with sensory emotions, imo.
As I mentioned in a previous post (thanks to a flag by Rick “fish-head”), Forbes.com released their special report on Artificial Intelligence in June:
One article comments about how computers are no more intelligent or semantically-capable of understanding what we mean even in searches than they were 40 years ago. This may be because some of our definitions to date about what thinking is has overly concentrated on the PROCESS of thinking which then affects the way we convert this into computer algorithms. Perhaps the way to approach creating smarter systems is to assess how smart people make sense of and synergize the inputs their senses are subject to and also how those smart people randomly apply humor / relativity / emotion perception / experience-based prioritization rather than risk-based prioritization, and more in the ecosystem of their brains to generate innovative and creative solutions which may appear “off-the-wall” / “avant garde” but end up as the orthodoxy.
A few years ago I did suggest to a well-known tech entrepreneur that what would be seriously interesting is if we could continuously MRI the brains of the top 1000 talents in the world (Nobel Prize / Academy Award / Turner Prize / Pulitzer Prize / etc. nominees) and discover patterns in their brain activity when working at their optimal and at their troughs. Then we might gain better insights into how to improve collective and connective intelligence.
Unfortunately, MRI scans at the moment tend to focus on those with medical conditions: typically, brain cancer, depression or trauma to the head. Instead of unhealthy brains alone we should also be tracking healthy brains operating at top functioning capability, imo.
Of course, the logistics of that study would be fairly challenging so it’s not surprising the tech entrepreneur and I didn’t take it any further than merely a random idea I had! Who knows, now with the development of the EmotivEPOC we may actually have some form of tracking human thoughts and electronically converting them:
There’s another interesting Twaining of discrete concepts: MRI scanning smart people to track their brain activity and a headset which is used in virtual reality games. Hmmn…..
The Global Brain…………collective work-in-progress…………Here’s to its future, :*).
This blog tells how a person quest led me to thinking about President-elect Obama’s prospective international agenda and how it can fit into Debategraph, a wiki debate visualization tool provided under Creative Commons.
(1.)GLOBAL FINANCIAL CRISIS, 16 September 2008:
(2.) INTERNATIONAL ISSUES, Iraq War opposition (2002 to election campaign):
(3.) CLIMATE CHANGE, 18 November 2008:
The domestic issues I’ll omit here but they are readily available at the Barack Obama site.
A JOURNEY BEGINS
Earlier this month I went in online search of a dear man called Giorgio Bertini, with whom I’d been swapping notes about the current financial crisis as well as much mirth. Giorgio, for the uninitiated, is the Chile-based Administrador for “Conversaciones Locales” - Comunidad Agentes Locales de Desarrollo, and has previously worked for the UN. He’s very interested in fostering net communities to educate and to collaborate as well as to solve serious major world issues, and has a terrific joie de vivre (in addition to personal kindness).
Finding Giorgio led me to the Global Sense-Making (GSM) Ning and opened my online life up even more.
From this week until President-elect Obama’s inauguration on 20th January 2009, David Price, the creator of the GSM Ning and the co-founder of debategraph, is collaborating with the Independent newspaper online to produce some visual tools to stimulate participation in and interaction with.
The project’s objective is to model what should be on Obama’s agenda and can provisionally be viewed here:
This is a fantastic way to present visual data for the Independent readers online!
To my mind there are 5 main agenda items which President-elect Obama needs to focus on and I wonder whether the map can designate prioritization (e.g., each subsidiary electron is numbered)? The items are:
(1.) Cabinet Appointments:
— Secretary of State (Bill Richardson cf. Hillary Clinton — which represents real change? International diplomatic experience vs international recognition. Dove versus hawk. Who has endorsed each potential candidate and what are the implications? Henry Kissinger has publicly come out in favor of Clinton)
— Treasury Secretary (potential candidates being speculated upon range from Larry Summers, formerly Principal of Harvard and Treasury Secretary during the Clinton Administration, to Paul Volcker, former Chairman of the Federal Reserve)
— Secretary of Defense (speculation is between present incumbent Bob Gates or Gen. Wesley Clarke)
— support for non-financial sector businesses affected
— support for homeowners
— international frameworks for financial stability
(3.) International policy, principally focused on:
— Iraq + Afghanistan issues
— Middle East Peace Roadmap
— Russian hegemony
— China + trade relations
— EU ties compared with “special relationship” with the UK
(4.) Domestic policy:
— Healthcare
— Education
— Green economy that can be exported as a business model in replacement of Wall St model
(5.) US reputation abroad:
— Guantanamo Bay
— Flights of rendition
— ‘Walk the Talk” and lead the way in a GREEN future
In addition to referring to direct source material from Obama’s campaign and the Independent’s digital assets, it may be worthwhile to cross-refer to these sites:
RESPONDING TO GIORGIO BERTINI + MARK SZPAKOWSKI’s COMMENTS
Following on from what Giorgio and Mark wrote, I’d like to pick up on three points:
(1.) Green employment policy
(2.) Complexity of interconnectedness
(3.) Future modeling and tech tools
On the first point, previously I shared with Mark a report from the PERI Institute which covers in some detail how, potentially, 2 million new jobs in the green sector could be created within 2 years with a change in economic and labor policy:
My contention has always been that the green movement needs to move upstream from campaigning about recycling marketing materials and packaging to these areas:
* significant job creation in the sector, particularly in the MANUFACTURE of green technologies;
* consumer influence at the product design stage as a form of green quality control; and
* more appropriate inventory systems to meet GENUINE demand with supply and thereby reduce the surplus (that wastes electricity to produce, resources to refrigerate and / or house, etc.)
On the second point, I agree with Giorgio and Mark that the global system is much more complexly connected than current technology tools will actually allow us to model. The closest I’ve seen of any technology which offers us more insight into what can potentially be done is Quantum4D:
Nonetheless, even with Quantum4D there are limitations and I’ll cover this in my final point.
As an associated sub-strand to (2.), Mark’s insight on the STYLE of leadership (responsive, listening, and empathetic) is an important and — to my mind — a critical one. No one of a rational and democratic intelligence likes or wants a dictator, bully, megalomaniac or tyrant as a Head of State. We reject these types in our daily lives and they command almost negligible trust or respect as leaders of men.
In corporate life, this is also true. The narcissists and the egomaniacs (aka the hubris oriented) have proven to be the cause of long-term value destruction rather than value nurturing. By comparison, leaders who can combine strong technical skills (i.e., work their ways around a balance sheet and understand the appropriate drivers and levers to exercise in order to foster sustainable growth and profit generation) with nuanced EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE are often successful in both innovating and implementing 360-2020 win-win sustainable solutions.
I make the distinction between value nurturing as opposed to value creation because it would be relatively easy for President-elect Obama to seemingly create value but if it’s not nurtured, it won’t develop or become self-sustaining and strategic — merely tactical point-scoring.
On the final point, what technology should we be looking to build? Well, personally, I believe Alan Kay has absolutely led the way in this with the Squeak and Tweak languages (current iterations of smalltalk-80). In his writings, Alan often refers to how this OOP is an attempt to more closely proxy in computer language how the biochemical world works.
Why and how is it relevant to politics and policy-making?
Well, both are complex organic systems which are not bound by linear cause and effect impetus alone. In an ideal scenario, the technology tools would allow us to map a policy in the same way that we can map the pharmacology of a drug at a particular point and its subsequent effects throughout the body.
In the same way, we would then be able to track all the moving parts of a policy and how it permeates domestically and internationally — as well as how it interacts with other countries’ policies and changes form and shape as a result.
When we can model policy like biochemical reactions is when we’ll be able to capture the full complexity of international connectedness.
2ND ITERATION OF THE DEBATEGRAPH
The Climate Change and Response to Financial Crisis spheres are shaping up really well.
If I may, a few minor edits and adds?
* Typo — there are two L’s in HiLLary Clinton.
* The 4th person in the cornerstone being considered for Sec. of State is Chuck Hagel.
* Another person being considered for Treasury Secretary is Robert Rubin.
* Under Response tFC:
(i.) Identify and ring-fence off problem financial institutions.
(ii.) Compile and communicate information on companies not affected by the toxic assets — this is a more immediate measure that can help restore confidence. At the moment, people are selling “blind” otherwise solid stock due to lack of information from authorities.
(iii.) Implement timely bans on short-selling.
(iv.) It’s capital injection in exchange for stock rather than stock injection plan. Stock injection has a result of diluting earnings per share (EPS) which would cause further loss of confidence in the company.
(v.) Wrt Resolution Trust Corp, I think “apply the more effective measures learnt from the RTC” is better than wholesale re-creation of it. As far as I can recall from articles it wasn’t profitable and if US govt. is going to use US$700 billion of taxpayers’ money it needs to have a respectable ROI.
(vi.) Increase transparency of hedge funds and bring them under closer SEC/FSA etc regulation
(vii.) Re-work Basel II and international GAAP (accounting frameworks)
* Under Policy Measures on Climate Change:
(i.) Severe fines and other punishments for companies which violate green principles — ordinarily, I wouldn’t advocate the stick, but in the case of Climate Change and the urgency of the challenge it may be necessary.
(ii.) Develop an independent kitemark standard to award green companies — just like the Blue flag in the UK indicates which beach is clean, so there should be a universal Green Kite.
TECHNOLOGY + the INTERNET
This should also be added as a key sphere of President-elect Obama’s agenda. He is the first President to be elected by the deployment of Internet campaigning (his eponymous website, YouTube, Facebook and MySpace).
Eric Schmidt, the CEO of Google, has been discussing the role the Internet played in this election:
There’s also material in the blogosphere and business technology sites on what an Obama presidency may mean for the sector.
I’m looking forward to the next iteration of the graph!
ADDING MORE DIMENSIONS TO THE DEBATE
hi David,
This debategraph’s becoming quite brilliant! Thanks for incorporating my suggestions.
A few more quick ones.
(1.) Triggers to the global financial crisis include:
* American banks sought better revenue streams with high-yielding, risky and complex securities (since yields on long-term US bonds had been depressed by heavy international demand).
* relaxed US monetary policies until 2004 (Fed rate, July 2003 — July 2004: 1%). As a comparison between Jan — July 2007 it was at 5.25%.
* crisis of confidence dislocated the money markets where ordinary investors are involved; they withdrew their savings (as in the case of Northern Rock and in the States forced the US govt to intervene with financial support to mutual funds).
Prior to this triggered contagion the confidence issue was purely institutional, so banks were reluctant to lend to each other. When it affected the money markets was when the crisis became acute.
(2.) In the Political Implications of the global financial crisis, one of the key debates is about the demise of exported American capitalism of the Wall Street variety:
(3.) In International Economy as well as facilitating the devaluation of the Yen, the Americans need to consider their policies re. the Chinese renminbi. There was a great article in capital.fr (in French about this; I’ll try to re-find it).
(5.) Under International Policy, with the appointment of Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State there’s some more material on what some of the topics may be:
Debategraph is a wiki visualization debate tool provided under Creative Commons. It was co-founded by David Price,a Cambridge University graduate has worked in diverse roles with a wide range of organisations including: the BBC, the European Commission, the UK Prime Minister’
s Office, H. M. Treasury, and Virgin TV; and Peter Baldwin, a former Australian cabinet minister who has leveraged his programming experiences to develop the debategraph software.
Some of the debate topics covered so far include:
·Can computers think?
·Whose identity is it anyway?
·Flash versus Ajax
·Sport and Genetic Enhancement
·To be or not to be? (a light-hearted take on Shakespeare)
What they’re attempting to do is interesting and I wish them success with it.
