South by Southwest Interactive gets underway today in Austin, Texas, and a broad swath of the technology community will be headed there to check out the bands, barbecue, and, oh yeah, the startups. Ever since Twitter had its breakout moment at the 2007 festival, SXSW has been considered a king-maker of sorts. Yet no startup has [...]
Judging bytrending topics on Twitter, I was not alone in reserving an iPad today as pre-orders began for the April 3 launch. The experience was un-Apple-like in the bugs I encountered. Ordering did not work at all on the Apple site in Google’s Chrome browser, but was possible with the odd error page in Internet Explorer. In Chrome, it [...]
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 [...]
I woke up this morning with the thought, “I have to explain to non-Brit readers that “GUNK” is an ironic funny ha-ha acronym.”
In mereology, it’s the philosophical term for any whole whose parts all have further proper parts. In hair care, it’s a British colloquialism and denigration fired at teenagers when they put too much product on their hair which makes it look greasy, sticky or OTT. The product is referred to as “gunk”. It’s also a wordplay compound on “junk” and “goo”.
So now that I’ve used it as an acronym to cover Great Universal Neural Kinesis, we have to LOL — particularly since some of us believe humans have too much junk in our heads (from tennis scores to family memories to recipes), our brains are nothing but goo-ey matter, and yet that so-called “junk” and “goo” can be kinetically converted into the “gunk” of the mereological variety.
In other words, silo pieces of data can be and is naturally connected and cross-pollinated in our brains. Our own responsibility is to drive its frequency and velocity (direction and speed) so that we’re utilizing more than 10 percent of our brainpower and become more Enlightened.
Another thought I had as I awoke was, “No machine wakes up and is conscious of what they need to do to satisfy the curiosity and knowledge of another party when that other party may not even have provided input that they don’t know how ironic the word “gunk” is.”
This then led me to a stream of thoughts on whether Semantic technologies and their AI have progressed as much as we suppose and how much closer they are to consciousness than machines like Deep Blue which beat Kasparov in chess in 1997.
Now, over a decade ago, I worked with a leading authority on Neural Networks in an asset allocation company whose clients included the largest investment fund in the world. We developed 5 different smart AI systems to generate analysis that would enable us to apply human judgment and sense-making to decide where to put the money. The system was programmed to run overnight and first thing in the morning it generated results and printed tables of numbers out for us to discuss.
No machine I’m aware of activates itself in the morning and has either random, spontaneous or consideration towards others’ thoughts. Machines switch on and they churn through, according to a pre-set program and routine created by their developers. They don’t wake up and get any attacks of consciousness. This is how I know I’m human and not a cyborg or intelligent agent machine, even if it is a running joke with some of my friends. LOL.
Ten plus years on from those 5 AI machines I read about and experience the structures being implemented in the nascent Semantic Web, and I realize there are clues that some human contributors are not as consciously aware of how to connect or shape the nodes in semantic filtering or ontological classifications as we need. Yes, I mean something as simple as the LOD diagram:
It was a spore which did not follow Great Universal Neural Kinesis (GUNK) principles:
Of course, I mean gunk of the mereology definition and I genuinely do not mean to offend anyone involved in Linking Open Data. My objective is to highlight that with some GUNK we can help the velocity of the Global Brain. This is not and should not be an ego mission for anyone.
It’s about finding solutions to our universal problems: economic stability, educational provision, climate change, etc.
Part of human consciousness and the reason I reflect-refract within myself and my experiences as much as receiving reflection- refraction from others, is the consideration component. As I wrote late last night, at present machines connect and compute. They don’t consider. Consideration carries with it emotions towards others in our thinking as well as some form of catalysis between what we know and what we imagine.
In my case, the consideration that it wouldn’t be fair to non-Brit readers if there wasn’t some directed guidance on the word “gunk”. Additionally, for example, catalyzing what I know from the fields of organic chemistry with computing and imagining how debategraph would improve the LOD diagram.
So there it is…………..my GUNK first thing in the morning. LOL!
Ok now I have to go to this tech event and listen and learn some more about “The Cloud”. I hope it shapes up to be cumulus rather than cirrus or clogged up with fuzzy logic…………….ha ha.
that the Linked Data community should consider tidying up their LOD diagram and cross-pollinating it with the debategraph visualization tools, David Price has produced this initial version (please click on the image and you’ll be directed to the debategraph site):
Anyone committed to the advancement of the Global Brain, the Semantic Web and collective sense-making, please visit the debategraph site and help to populate and sanity-check the above graphic.
In seriousness, the debategraph’s systematic and dynamic wiki is a step in the right direction compared with LOD’s current static messy spore:
and definitely the Semantic Technology 2009 organizers should consider inviting the debategraph team to their event (14-18 June 2009, San Jose, http://www.semantic-conference.com/) to swap notes and move collective sense-making and semantic discern forward!
Oh and you may all like to know that my ‘The Global Brain’ knol has just been awarded the “Top Viewed Knol Award” (my first) to add to its “Top Pick Knol” designation. I’m really proud of this because “Top Pick Knol” is given for knols of the highest quality and it’s good to know that its quantity dimension is doing well too!
to take into account the latest iteration of the Linking Open Data diagram which in its current form looks like this:
I’ve updated my version of it from March 2008 and this now looks like so:
Personally, I’d like to see the Linking Open Data contributors utilize Debategraph’s tools to generate a diagram with flow- connections that look like these:
Strategically, it will be a lot better for the Linked Data crowd if they do adopt debategraph’s approach to representing the LOD universe in more visually appealing and easy-to-navigate clusters rather than its present shapeless and confusing spore model.
In any case, I’ve written about it at length on my knol because it does concern me a wee bit that those at the bleeding edge of the formation of the Semantic Web (which will lead to, hopefully, the Global Brain) are showing signs of ad hoc, unstructured and not necessarily clear thinking — which is manifesting in their own LOD diagram, btw.
Maybe I should simply pretend not to notice these things and let the LOD spore grow and grow, more and more shapeless and more and more confusing…………….sort of akin to knowing there are neural deficiencies in a third party and letting them descend into Alzheimers, Parkinsons, manic depression, schizophrenia etc. and not intervening because it’s not “politically correct” to intervene and “Who asked you, anyway?!”.
Then again……If we do mean to build a HEALTHY and high-functioning Global Brain then maybe the honorable and altruistic thing to do is point out the Linked Data crew should structure their LOD diagram by cross-pollinating with debategraph?
Right? Ah well, I’ve now incorporated it into my knol in any case!
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.
