Inspire

Chris Anderson on The End of Theory (Wired/Edge) and the Petabyte Age and Its Impact on Scientific Evolution

Chris Anderson recently wrote a thought-provoking piece in Wired and Edge called The End of Theory in which he focuses on the rise of massive datasets, computational algorithms and correlations (instead of causation) for the next step in scientific evolution. Highly recommended reading.

More importantly, different leading thinkers like Kevin Kelly, Bruce Sterling, Daniel Hillis, George Dyson, Douglas Rushkoff, Jaron Lanier, Stewart Brand and John Horgan respond to the Anderson view in this post on Edge analyzing the pros and cons of The End of Theory article. Below some quotes by Anderson and his critics.

In my view, correlation might boost useful science in the sense of working or realistic correlations. Nonetheless, in most disciplines intuition, creativity, asking good questions (perspectives/frames !), understanding, models and theory still have a clear value add, albeit for social / sharing reasons on top of a deeper understanding of the why of natural or social phenomena. Additionally, the reasoning of Chris Anderson is relevant for the rise of the mobile internet and its ubiquitous computing role in the near future. All these real-time mobile sensors might boost correlations and predictive capabilities to a certain degree while still acknowledging the power of Black Swans. Furthermore, Andersons' view seems to resonate with the Internet Scenario and Digital Gaia Scenario within the Singularity according to Vernor Vinge in which the continuing profileration and advancement of the internet will give rise to posthuman sense of consciousness as its too complex to contemplate. Finally, the role of the Semantic Web/Web 3.0 is interesting in the light of Andersons' reasoning. He seems to disagree with the benefits of the meaning and top-down structures of the Semantic Web. It would be great to see the responses of Tim Berners Lee and Nova Spivack to the Anderson piece. 

"All models are wrong, but some are useful. So proclaimed statistician George Box 30 years ago, and he was right. But what choice did we have? Only models, from cosmological equations to theories of human behavior, seemed to be able to consistently, if imperfectly, explain the world around us. Until now. Today companies like Google, which have grown up in an era of massively abundant data, don't have to settle for wrong models. Indeed, they don't have to settle for models at all.

Sixty years ago, digital computers made information readable. Twenty years ago, the Internet made it reachable. Ten years ago, the first search engine crawlers made it a single database. Now Google and like-minded companies are sifting through the most measured age in history, treating this massive corpus as a laboratory of the human condition. They are the children of the Petabyte Age.

Chris Anderson seems to think computers will reduce science to pure induction, predicting the future based on the past. This method of course can't predict black swans, anomalous, truly novel events. Theory-laden human experts can't foresee black swans either, but for the foreseeable future, human experts will know how to handle black swans more adeptly when they appear.

Just because we remove the limits and biases of human narrativity from science, does not mean other biases don't rush in to fill the vacuum.

It is clear to me that while numerical simulation and computation are welcome tools, they are helpful only when they are used by good scientists to enhance their powers of creative reasoning. One rarely succeeds by “throwing a problem onto a computer”, instead it takes years and even decades of careful development and tuning of a simulation to get it to the point where it yields useful output, and in every case where it has done so it was because of sustained, creative theoretical work of the kind that has been traditionally at the heart of scientific progress."

Our Technological Future: Special on the Singularity by Vernor Vinge

IEEE Spectrum has a fantastic special edition on the Singularity just released in June 2008.
In this post on the many faces of the Singularity and our human and technological future are some remarkable quotes by Vernor Venge. For all readers who are into deep future, Metaverse, Multiverse and Augmented Reality. Highly recommended as this is in my view mind-expanding and blowing material !

"I expect the singularity will come as some combination of the following:   
1. The AI Scenario: We create superhuman artificial intelligence (AI) in computers.
2. The IA Scenario: We enhance human intelligence through human-to-computer interfaces—that is, we  achieve intelligence amplification (IA).
3. The Biomedical Scenario: We directly increase our intelligence by improving the neurological operation of our brains.
4. The Internet Scenario: Humanity, its networks, computers, and databases become sufficiently effective to be considered a superhuman being.
5. The Digital Gaia Scenario: The network of embedded microprocessors becomes sufficiently effective to be considered a superhuman being.

Several of the essays discuss the plausibility of mind uploads and consequent immortality for “our digitized psyches,” ideas that have recently appeared in serious  nonfiction, most notably Ray Kurzweil's The Singularity Is Near. As with nanotechnology, such developments aren't prerequisites for the singularity. On the other hand, the goal of enhancing human intelligence through human-computer interfaces (the IA Scenario) is both relevant and in view. Today a well-trained person with a suitably provisioned computer can look very smart indeed. Consider just a slightly more advanced setup, in which an Internet search capability plus math and modeling systems are integrated with a head‑up display. The resulting overlays could give the user a kind of synthetic intuition about his or her surroundings. At a more intimate but still noninvasive level, DARPA's Cognitive Technology Threat Warning System is based on the idea of monitoring the user's mental activities and feeding the resulting analysis back to the user as a supplement to his or her own attention. And of course there are the researchers working with direct neural connections to machines. Larger numbers of implanted connections may allow selection for effective subsets of connections. The human and the machine sides can train to accommodate each other.

Brooks suggests that the singularity might happen—and yet we might not notice. Of the scenarios I mentioned at the beginning of this essay, I think a pure Internet Scenario—where humanity plus its networks and databases become a superhuman being—is the most likely to leave room to argue about whether the singularity has happened or not. In this future, there might be all-but-magical scientific breakthroughs. The will of the people might manifest itself as a seamless transformation of demand and imagination into products and policy, with environmental and geopolitical disasters routinely finessed. And yet there might be no explicit evidence of a superhuman player.

A singularity arising from networks of embedded microprocessors—the Digital Gaia Scenario—would probably be less deniable, if only because of the palpable strangeness of the everyday world: reality itself would wake up. Though physical objects need not be individually sapient, most would know what they are, where they are, and be able to communicate with their neighbors (and so potentially with the world). Depending on the mood of the network, the average person might notice a level of convenience that simply looks like marvelously good luck. The Digital Gaia would be something beyond human intelligence, but nothing like human. In general, I suspect that machine/network life-forms will be faster, more labile, and more varied than what we see in biology. Digital Gaia is a hint of how alien the possibilities are."

Whrrl: Mobile Social Networking Using LBS, Reviews and Recommendations

A great new app for mobile social networking, LBS and recommendations in this post on Technology Review (MIT). I love Magitti even more than Whrrl as it is a more integrated and holistic way to give more relevant recommendations using social network analysis more elaborately.

Furthermore, the below quotes touch upon the importance of lifelogging using mobile phones as a way to authenticity, self awareness and filtering. In my view clearly the way forward, followed up by tight integration of key life goals and aspirations in the long run.

"The idea of community-generated reviews is, of course, not new. The popular recommendation service Yelp, for example, is already integrated into Google Maps. And the concept of locating friends using a mobile phone has also been around for years; Loopt, a service that runs on Sprint and Boost Mobile phones, is one of the most common examples. Whrrl, which can also be downloaded onto BlackBerry Pearl, Curve, and Nokia N95 smart phones, is commonly compared to both types of service. But it differs from either in that it combines aspects of both. In addition, Vengroff explains, Whrrl has collected details on establishments in 17 cities, which allows the service to provide fine-tuned local search, letting the user narrow down the hunt for, say, a café to one that has outdoor seating and vegetarian options and is recommended by at least one friend.

In the future, she suspects, location-based services will include more predictive features. For instance, instead of explicitly requiring you to write a review, the software might recognize how often you visit a restaurant and infer that it is a favorite. "Eventually, I think that a whole lot of exciting technology will emerge that figures out how to reduce the burden on the user," Choudhury says. "There will always be the case where user input will be important, but when we find the sweet spot, that's when I think it will take off."

My Personal Vision on Mobile Phones, Mobile Internet and Authenticity

Connectivity breeds positive outcomes.

I would like to extend this idea a little to a possible logical (positive conclusion). At first for the rich countries, later on for underdeveloped countries as well. Here goes:

The overarching theme of our times in my view is authenticity and self realisation. The mobile phone and mobile internet in this respect is a key driver and enabler/facilitator. Why ?

1) The more we share (the more open we are), the more transparent we are. Open APIs, GPS data, photos, videos, blog posts, tweets, clickstream data and increasingly attention data concerning what we read and watch (see APML) are examples. This sharing (increasingly using our mobile phones) stimulates authenticity and honesty as inconsistenties and lies are exposed to ourselves, our family, our social network, our peers and even the market/public as a whole.

2) Information overload begets us the question of what is important to us ? Choices… Choices are based on your identity (who am I ? what are my values ? what is core to me ?). Filtering (using our mobile phones) based increasing identity awareness stimulates authenticity. If we are overwhelmed with options, possibilities and choices, we are drawn to ourselves.

3) Change is everywhere and seems to speeding up. This creates stress in people. In most cases, people can find their core personality in these circumstances as it makes us naked in our needs and wants. As a result, authenticity comes to the fore. As a mobile phones is present with us almost all the time, it seems likely this will be a key gateway to learn about ourselves in these circumstances.

4) Increasingly, (mobile) technologies are on the market for the automated detection of deception and lies. Examples are Facial Coding techniques integrated into and applied to videos and presentations. If you lie, certain particular facial expressions are salient. These expressions can be logged and analyzed using technology. Increasingly, these techniques will be incorporated into mobile phones. As a result, authenticity becomes not only a valuable choice (see point 1, 2 and 3) but also a necessity in certain instances.

5) Mobile phones transform conversational techniques due to ‘presence’ capabilities. If my loves ones and social network can follow all my updates and actions on Twitter, my blog, Facebook etc…this transforms my real-life interactions. The basic questions are skipped as they are already clear using mobile phones and mobile internet. In the past, the basic questions were a necessity due to the lack of the mentioned apps. As a result, real-life conversations focus on more deep questions related to emotions, feelings and intimacy. Shallow, factual questions are more unnecessary. All of this might stimulate authentic conversations and authenticity.

In short, the mobile phone is not only a fantastic connectivity and thus productivity, growth and empowerment tool but also increasingly IMO a tool for higher levels of trust, authenticity, self realization, transparency and honesty.

This is not a sure scenario, just a likely scenario IMO. It is evenly possible to construct an opposite case/scenario with fear (instead of hope and trust) as a key theme as a result of using a mobile phone and mobile internet (including Internet of Things/UbiComp). Fear due to increasing control by classic institutions and even ordinary people. Fear -> more closed systems -> negative outcomes across the board including Less authenticity. Yet again, I am an optimist :-)

Mobile Augmented Reality (MARA) with a Nokia N95: A New Video and Some New Questions

I have posted on Augmented Reality as a key trend since February 2005 when I started blogging. It still one of the topics I really enjoy. Below you can watch a short demonstration video on how our mobile phones (already using an old Nokia N95 !) will be the most important (and seventh) mass medium around from now on.

In my view Augmented Reality is the logical evolutionary endpoint of normal barcodes, shot codes, QR codes, RFID and SkuAir latest (branded) barcode. Mobile Augmented Reality seems to be the most intuitive technology. However, all mentioned technologies will co-exist. Mobile Augmented Reality is in my view relevant for more classic, static, long term, social, historical and nonprofit information on large object/subjects from large distances, the different (bar)code technologies are relevant for commercial, ecological, short-distance, timely, dynamic and ad hoc purposes while RFID has a very broad range of possible applications (medical, logistical, short range).

Some questions I have are:
- What will be the impact on the classic (mobile) search engines in terms of reach, usage and relevancy when Mobile Augmented Reality really starts taking off ? Search engines are indirect, take a few clicks and centralized. In my view, the decentralized, direct search capabilities of Mobile Augmented Reality apps are more consumer centric and will lower the impact of search engines over time. How will Google respond to Nokia in this respect ? Interestingly, yesterday Google announced a a new precision image search technology based on content analysis of the image at hand (a PageRank technology for images !)
- When we consider the four segmentation levels of our digital and physical world (me, my social network, my peers and the market/the public as a whole), how will Mobile Augmented Reality apps and information be structured and presented to the end user while he is coping with information overload, physical targets, spam, irrelevancy and shorter time spans/concentration bursts ? In my view the augmented digital information layer will be primarily be fed with tags/information/alerts from my own past (personal) usage (me -> emomapping for example based on GPS data combined with the AR layer) and my social network (e.g., TripIt, Dopplr, Twitter, Hyves LBS, Jaiku, Facebook etc.). In some cases a digital AR layer with tags, comments, ratings and recommendeded flags from my peer group or even the market as whole will still be useful but its impact will be lower relative to the current situation. Its emotional distance is larger relative to me and my social network with all its lifestreams/lifelogging boosting the notion of living parallel lives. This is an intensified way to explore the physical world.
- Will the usage of mobile augmented reality apps boost serendipity on the local, physical level or will it boost planned behaviour in advance with people optimizing/maximizing their lives (e.g., planning all highlights of best rated objects on my peer- and market/public at large-levels while consuming the bottom-up my social network and personal information on objects while physically near). I believe it will be the former scenario: more ad hoc, bottom up, exploratory search behavior using mobile AR. Go with the flow, spontaneity, Power of Now flocking and exploration. Smart Mobs realized.

What do you think about these questions ?

Tim O'Reilly on The Future of Web 2.0 during the Web 2.0 Expo 2008

Within two weeks my new startup company will be announced. It is about mobile internet. Why ? Tim O'Reilly shows some reasons in his presentation below. Web 2.0 will extend its life on mobile and will include all mobile sensors. Great presentation with new case studies, passion, drive and enthousiasm.

New Innovations from Japan: Japanese Super Creators

Below a video from Google TechTalk. Some highly innovative applications are highlighted related to mobile LBS visualization apps, OCR software with automated integration into Google Docs and Spreadsheet, edgy video/movie editing software, a HTML PC doc to Flash Mobile doc conversion tool and a push-delivery system for real-time web content with scheduling features.

Highly recommended !

LIFT Conference 2008 Highlights Part 4: Nokia Shows Great Ideas for New Mobile Phones

If you like mobile phones/internet, you will definitely like the following creative presentation from LIFT conference 2008 by Nokia with extensive anthropological research around the globe. Inspiring !

Paul Saffo on Effective Forecasting

Below one of my favorite presentations from the LongNow Foundation on Fora.tv. Paul Saffo - one of the most experienced and high-impact forecasters around the world - talks about tips for effective forecasting, the evolution of the web, robotics, the singularity, climate change, uncertainty, inflection points, the S-curve, the importance of history and psychology. Highly recommended, especially the second half and the Q&A at the end.

Video on Augmented Reality Using a Mobile Phone

Below a demonstration of Augmented Reality using a mobile phone. Opens up new possibilities for eMarketing and branding.