Thinking hurts...

Critical Thinking, I don't know what it is, but I just know I gotta have some.
http://www.criticalthinking.org/resources/news/index.cfm

I really enjoyed finding this website, and wanted to share it with all who may wander upon this blog site. This is a "must have" skill that I wish I had been forced to assimilate somewhere in my academic process. Tragically, I have had to rely on my failure path analysis being developed through chess, competitive martial arts (Judo), military intelligence and the deceptive trade craft developed as part of my US Army Special Forces training and background in thinking way outside the box and other slight-of-hand tricks. I hope you enjoy the site.

What to do with Technology's Promise

Please see basic information about “Technology's Promise” by William E. Halal at:TechCast url

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In the book, Technology's Promise, by Halal (2008), the author provides us with a perceived prelude to the near future. Any attempt at this type of work requires some knowledge, opinion, fortitude, and audacity  to accomplish a task such as this. It is only possible to ponder the future with some argumentation such as this being put before us.

This being said, in respect to the efforts of the author, I am left with a some degree of skepticism as to how seriously I would believe much of the content of this book.

I was given a mission to analyze any given forecast presented in the end of this book. Well, I only found one forecast that the author felt deserved the merit of a specifically identified forecast.  The only prominent "forecast" that I found presented in this book, as a defined section (page 142), was

"Forecast: An Age of Consciousness about 2020-3030 (An awful lot of time to get Conscious! Maybe, it could really take this long...) In fairness, the accompanying context indicates that this is probably a typographical error, and should really encompass 2020-2030.  Other "forecasts" presented are on pg 148, and given the name of "Scenarios". But I wonder, are these really forecasts without serious commitment on the author's part?  (get off the fence! It's OK to be wrong.)

The closing chapters speak to spiritual  aspects. Is this really the most important idea that the author wants to develop? Up to this point, the author has talked about real technology, and has provided the main categories (pg 142)  as: 

Artificial Intelligence (AI),

Biogenetics,

Nanotech.

Suddenly,  we are asked to consider Buddha Tech (pg 139), in the form of human consciousness.  I somehow have this notion that "technology" is meant to augment human capability via external mechanical constructs, to include potentially human consciousness as well. So, how do we get from essential (intrinsic, but maybe dormant) human qualities and potentials, to the external "promise" of technology? As presented by the author, "We should regard [Buddhism] as a refined technology." (from Eric Lander of MIT) But should we? How does this really qualify as technology? The author throws this out to the readers with what appears to be the expectation that it will be accepted at face value. However, this assertion carries with it no evidence, warrant, or context for this assertion, just an appeal to authority.

This is not the only example of playing loose and fast with information that I have found in this book.  A reference to an AI system in the Department of Energy that "can infer intent" (pg 51) of potential attackers is provided, but with no reference to back it up or follow through on research. If I were a movie critic (or book critic) given to a subjective school-like grading system, I would give this book a "C-" due to disappointment in presented areas that were of interest to me and my research.

Finally, the authors prediction about the coming age of consciousness provides an opinion that through global interconnectedness we can stop muddling through life with the time-tested tools of "ignorance, dogma, denial, and superstition" which has been favorites of humankind forever. Instead, we will embrace the "mysterious power" of "a higher state of mind", and somehow be better off in the end. Coming upheavals for the global social, moral, legal, ethical, and dare we say, the political? I think not. 

Reference.

Halal, W.E. (2008). Technology's Promise: Expert Knowledge on the Transformation of Business and Society. Hampshire, Great Britain: Palgrave McMillan. 

Nano Innovations

Some thoughts, and cheesy video, that highlight our advances in Nanomedicine.


Create your own video slideshow at animoto.com.

Nano, Nano. (Apologies to Mork, and his "Nanu, Nanu.")

OK, so my first thought of "In-body nanobots that will construct microprocessors inside your body as needed" for our futuring exercise may be a little further out than I first thought (probably 20+ years). However, upon researching one possible thought along this line (microprocessors to supplement cognitive abilities when Alzheimer's sets in), I have found that NanoMedicine has a lot of activity and possibilities. Funding by organizations like the US National Institute of Health is backing a concerted effort to bring this technology to address selected medical problems in the way of micro engineering.

Our friend, Wikipedia, has an interesting entry for Nanomedicine, which can be seen at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanomedicine. Drug delivery using nano technologies, as well as cancer elimination are two leading uses being perfected at this time. A very interesting technique of welding protein together during surgery using nano particles is presented as a way to stop blood leaks.  A discussion of neuro-electronic interfaces is provided, which discusses the issues in creating microprocessor-like object 'in vivo’, which talks to my original thought of my original point.

In all, it looks like Nanomedicine is here to stay. Some of the Nanomedicine technologies are very imminent, while others are in the 20+ years category. While beneficial in concept, the deliverable part still needs to be sorted.

Gabcast! Evil Innovation

More Evil Info:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_population

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_internet

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_pool

Scientific American: Future projections:

http://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/post.cfm?id=the-good-and-bad-future-of-the-inte-2010-02-22

DoD Flash drive attack:

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5it0nGC2bWSH2MznAagcSPjsyg_JQD9HQNIK04

I have not had much luck finding a Web 2.0 tool that I think is cool. However, I did find a web-based product for scanning your computers for vulnerabilities. The product is called Nessus, which can be downloaded for free, to use at home. Using it in any other venue is a little pricey. ($1,200/yr subscription) Nessus has a local install component that allows for launching scanning actions against other PCs. (Hopefully, your PCs) Vulnerability tests are updated daily at a central Nessus server, and made available automatically to your Nessus client. The tool is very configurable, and can even look at network exposed database servers for problems. A short demo of this product can be seen on YouTube. The product download page is http://www.nessus.org/download/ .

I can see where a tool such as this could be used to audit newly developed or purchased internet-based programs and websites. I found two issues on my PC that I had not found before with other security tools that I have tested. The only drawback to security scanning tools like Nessus is that the operator needs to know networking and security concepts to get the best value from this class of product.

I am looking forward to feedback on this tool from others, whether it is pro or con.

SDP Case study review

The Structured Design Process (SDP) as presented by (Christakis, 2006) in his book "How People Harness Their Collective Wisdom and Power to Construct the Future in Co-Laboratories of Democracy" is an interesting approach as to how to better define and solve complex problems. Christakis presents and describes the SDP methodology and recounts how it has been successfully used in the past. Three key roles of stakeholders, facilitators, and inquiry design team are identified. The inquiry design team frames "triggering question" which is the "right question" (Levi-Strauss) to get the stakeholders engaged in delivering answers (Christakis' "content") that addresses the problem under examination.

One of the case studies presented by Christakis in his book was "Wisdom of the People Forum", in chapter 16. This was a forum of representatives of selected indigenous peoples from around the world, to consider the effects and issues of globalization. The first day session had a trigger question that asked for their insight as to the barriers to worldwide cooperation. Next they were asked to consider what action plan would help address the barriers. Finally, they constructed a consensus action scenario.

The interesting thing about this case study is how well this forum reflected the title of the book. ("How People Harness Their Collective Wisdom and Power to Construct the Future in Co-Laboratories of Democracy") Possibly, this was the source of inspiration for the title of the book.

One outcome in the conclusion of this case study was that several of the parent groups of indigenous peoples formed formal on-going alliances and communications with each other.

Dimensions of "-al" words for this case study:
Cultural - the perspectives of very old indigenous cultures are regarded  in the effects of advancing globalization.
Social - how barriers between peoples might be overcome, from the perspective of long established cultures.

Automating Invention?

Invention, a human creative process, is often thought of as a problem for strong artificial Intelligence (AI), and is therefore more elusive in practice. An article in The Futurist [1]  magazine by Robert Plotkin considers the approach of computer programs that can take specific product requirements from humans, and in turn produce an optimized product design, as a result of an AI invention process.

While the benefits of this new technology seem very promising, the author also points out that considerable compute power, existing human subject matter expert knowledge, and skilled human operators are still needed to make this approach work, for now. Plotkin, an attorney specializing in high technology patent law, also brings the point of who owns the design from such AI-produced systems.

If in the near future these types of systems become prevalent, could they not make human programmers and designers, etc. obsolete? Could these same systems be used to make a better cyber-criminal? (faster and more prevalent day zero attacks) So, impacts in legal, moral, ethical, and social areas will be a result of this looming future of AI-inspired invention and creation.

Ref:
[1] Plotkin, R. (2009). The automation of invention: cybernetic genies are designing and engineering new products and creating technological breakthroughs. THE FUTURIST    July-August 2009, 22-27.

To obtain a copy of the article by Robert Plotkin

SO, an interesting Web tool that caught my attention is YOTIFY, (first part of name pronounced like Yoda, from Star Wars) at yotigy.com. The YouTube demo is provided below.

Have you ever wanted a bot to crawl the web to find something you wanted more info on, but you did not want to do the programming or spend too much time to pull it off? Well, this could be the cool tool for you. Yotify is easy to configure and use. Select the search category and keywords to create a scout (bot), and then turn it loose. It will send you feedback either hourly or daily, as a digest of results to your email account. This can be great for more than just e-shopping. I have set it up to scan for articles in artificial intelligence, which relates to my research project. I will let you know how it fares after several days activity.

This could be the next best thing to having an army of minions.

Things to come, maybe... - A few thoughts on the 2010 Horizon Report

Mission: "Discuss one technology and one key trend from the Horizon Report 2010." (as per Dr. Calongne)

After reviewing the table of contents of the Horizon Report 2010 for any technology that might appear personally interesting, the subject of Augmented Reality caught my interest, as it aligns with my area of research, which is personalized artificial intelligence. The article examined mainly how a few organizations are delivering real-time content as a visual overlay for example, via camera-capable cell phones, which know your location and what you have in the view of the cell phone camera. Other uses and delivery technologies are discussed as well. I could see this as being expanded to the extent of Wikipedia, such that we may have access to point delivery of knowledge about whatever we are looking at, in the moment, as though we were in a virtual museum.

A capability such as briefly described above would also help to deliver one of the key trends described in the Horizon Report 2010: "People  expect  to  be  able  to  work,  learn,  and
study whenever and wherever they want to." I would expect that the advancement of augmented reality would well serve the goal anytime learning. However, we may well find that we need more reliable and immediate technology access, which could lead us to choose a more Borg-like arrangement with technology.

International Organized Crime and it's Impact.


http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/misha_glenny_investigates_global_crime_networks.html


A very Taoist situation: bright future and dark future seem to advance in balance with one another.
Are we getting further away from Utopia everyday? (Like we could even agree on what Utopia would be.) I suspect that our crime is increasing in line with our global population (consumers/victums), and it would be interesting to know if there is a recent study to validate or invalidate this hunch.It appears that crime is doing as well as it ever has done, and knows how to find it's own silver lining with every major shift in human events and technology.