Meaning of Life without Work

The Singularity University Asks:   What Is the Meaning of Life If Society Doesn’t Need You to Work Anymore?    by David J. Hill   With several people involved that I have worked with on related topics.   " ... Paul Saffo, Jeremy Howard, Neil Jacobstein, and Kathryn Myronuk — explored these topics during the Future of Work panel. The issue at hand: What are people going to do in the face of these disruptive changes? ... " 

Discern Analytics

Just brought to my attention, with some former colleagues in its management:  Discern Analytics. They write:

" ... We love data. Massive amounts of it.

Our cloud-based data analytics platform allows us to collect and organize data of all types – structured and unstructured, public and partner, human and machine, business and consumer, internal and external.

Data without context is noise. Data in context leads to insight and knowledge. DISCERN puts data into context for decision-makers through the application of DISCERN “sector” models, heuristics, machine-learning processes and ongoing customer interactions. The DISCERN Aperture enables our customers to further refine and personalize the DISCERN platform for their own unique, proprietary views. ... " 

Visionaries Spot the Future

In Wired:   Several notable visionaries describe how they spot the future.  Including several we worked with.  It is always about a context.  Notably Paul Saffo:  " ... A longtime technology forecaster, Saffo is a managing director at the Silicon Valley investment research firm Discern. Formerly the director of the Institute for the Future, he is also a consulting professor in Stanford University’s engineering department.
There are four indicators I look for: contradictions, inversions, oddities, and coincidences. In 2007 stock prices and gold prices were both soaring. Usually you don’t see those prices high at the same time. When you see a contradiction like that, it means more fundamental change is ahead.... " .   The other comments are good also.

Hype and Other Cycles

Where are we in the Hype Cycle? From Eric Grant in FutureCommons. See also his Future of Education blog. Update: Paul Saffo comments on three kinds of 'curves':

" ... One needs all three [kinds of curves] because they are all different aspects of the same underlying phenomenon, namely the human approach/aversion to novelty. Just as one uses different map projections for different classes of mapping tasks, one should always have multiple models to apply as needed to different kinds of innovation questions. Thus, the Hype Cycle is Gartner's original and creative application of Ev Rogers' diffusion theory to understanding market behaviors. The Long Tail is Chris Anderson's elegant reminder that there is plenty of life (and profit) in the old and invisible as well as in the shiny and new.

By the way, there is a fine book on the Hype Cycle due out from Harvard Business School Press in the near future. Having read the draft of a portion of it, I can recommend it with enthusiasm... "

Mobility and Nomadism

Steve King writes to FutureCommons, in the Economist:

" ... Great special section on mobility and nomadism featuring quotes and insights from 3 august members of this group - Paul Saffo, Anthony Townsend and Jim Ware .... ".

Contains some excellent stats on the use of wireless communications changing our culture. Saffo follows with a taxonomy of nomadism.

Group Brains

Paul Saffo sends along a note about Harvard's Group Brain project:

" ...The Group Brain Project
Our project is focused on developing a model of how analysis and problem-solving occurs in groups of professionals, and how the complementarities of cognitive processes among team members can affect team performance. A lot of the existing work in the psychology of problem-solving focuses on the cognitions of *individuals*; however, what is less well understood is what takes place when the "analysts" need to confer with one another, share information, and come to a consensus on what the answer is.Brains work effectively only when the various specialized areas operate in concert. And groups work effectively only when they are structured and led in ways that enable them to exploit the complementarities of their members. Given that we can now assess the kinds of cognitive and emotional activities for which different individuals are especially adept, might it be possible to adapt such assessment devices for use in composing teams that perform analytic work? And might it further be possible to identify the specific conditions that would increase the chances that such teams would be able to draw upon the full complement of member talents in the interest of excellent collective performance?

Saffo on Intelligent Enslavement

" ... Fear of enslavement by our creation is an old fear, and a literary tritism. But I fear something worse and much more likely -- that sometime after 2020 our machines will become intelligent, evolve rapidly and end up treating us as pets. We can at least take comfort that there is one worse fate -- becoming food -- that is mercifully highly unlikely ..."

Paul Saffo, director of the Institute for the Future, on the evolution of smart machines in the 12/06 Communications of the ACM.
Paul, who we have connected with since the late 70s, as a practitioner, I disagree here. I don't think the type of intelligence he suggests will be here sometime shortly after 2020, if ever. There are still very fundamental problems with cracking the problem of intelligence. Its not about faster machines, or more memory, or more connected networks .. but about understanding how to make things smart. Its not about knocking down straw men like playing chess, but its about very deep forms of pattern recognition that allow us to abstractly understand our world. The most common computing intelligence we use today is still simple search. I think the old question of whether a dog could make a machine smarter than itself has still not been shown to not apply to us as well.

A Trail of DNA and Data

Paul Saffo article: A Trail of DNA and Data