Why Knowledge Representation Matters

In CACM:   By Yoav Shoham   via David Geddes.

There is a big difference between the attention artificial intelligence (AI) is currently receiving and that of the 1990s. Twenty years ago, the focus was on logic-based AI, usually under the heading of knowledge representation, or KR, whereas today's focus is on machine learning and statistical algorithms. This shift has served AI well, since machine learning and stats provide effective algorithmic solutions to certain kinds of problems (such as image recognition), in a way that KR never did. However, I contend the pendulum has swung too far, and something valuable has been lost.

Knowledge representation is not a single thing. While I think an argument could be made about KR as a whole, I will be focusing on the "applied philosophy" aspect of it—the logical representation of commonsense notions, with an emphasis on clear semantical underpinnings.
I will make the case for the most part through a personal story. The story starts with a paper I published in 2009 in the Journal of Philosophical Logic, continues with a research project at Stanford and Duke, later with a company called Timeful, and concludes with Timeful being acquired by Google in 2015. The point of the story is there is a direct link between the original journal paper and the ultimate success of the company.  ... " 

Link to a longer article.

Mobile Beacons

In Adage: More updates on beacons.   They continue to expand.   " .... Mobile Beacons to Explode, but They Aren't a Silver Bullet for Tracking ... Macy's, McDonalds and Target Have Lately Signed New Beacon Contracts ... " 

Slack as Company of the Year

Can Slack replace Email?   Just recently was introduced to the growing social network, for a specific, but broadly defined topic.  Will it work to drive focus?   Unlike other social spaces, will it get things done  (Twitter?) , without a lot of deadening overhead (EMail?).  I like it so far.  But how much different is it?  Its new, so it can be focused, but for how long?  I was intrigued by Slack's statement of  " ... "teachable principles" he wants his people to internalize. They include "Don't make me think," "More clicks is OK," and "Data won't settle any interesting question."  ... ".     Will report back with a full impression after a few months.   True ... Data alone won't answer any interesting questions.   More in Inc.com which said Slack was their company of the year.

Checkout in the Aisle

Mashable writes:   An old idea, back again.  Have followed it and related tests for years. How relevant will it be in an online world?  Now from Diebold.

How Well Does Personalized Marketing Work?

In K@W:  How well does personalized marketing work?    " ...   “People Who Liked This Study Also Liked”: An Empirical Investigation of the Impact of Recommender Systems on Sales Volume and Diversity,” and “When Do Recommender Systems Work The Best? The Moderating Effects Of Product Attributes And Consumer Reviews On Recommender Performance,” were co-authored by Hosanagar and Carnegie Mellon business analytics professor Dokyun Lee.

Hosanagar recently sat down with Knowledge@Wharton to discuss what his research reveals about when we’re most likely to be influenced by those clever algorithms and how these systems are changing the way we discover new products.  ... " 

Microsoft R Server

A bit surprising  But a great way to make a strong connection to modern anaytics.   Available free for experimentation.   What are its advantages over open source R?

Microsoft R: One Big Data Tool To Rule Them All?
Microsoft  wants a slice of the big data analytics pie. Truth be told, it has already baked and served itself up a portion by acquiring the R-language and data crunching specialist Revolution Analytics, a purchase it completed in spring of 2015.

In non-developer-speak then, R is a popular open-source statistical computing language well suited to the ‘new’ world of enterprise class big data analytics. For the record, we used to call this stuff ‘data mining’ back in the 1990s (some people still do), so don’t believe ALL the big data hype you read — regardless, times have changed and we’re better at it now.

In Microsoft’s own words, the pitch here is as follows, “Microsoft R Server is your flexible choice for analyzing data at scale, building intelligent apps and discovering valuable insights across your business.” .... " 

Choosing Empathy

In the Edge on choosing empathy.  " ..... If you believe that you can harness empathy and make choices about when to experience it versus when not to, it adds a layer of responsibility to how you engage with other people. If you feel like you're powerless to control your empathy, you might be satisfied with whatever biases and limits you have on it. You might be okay with not caring about someone just because they're different from you. I want people to not feel safe empathizing in the way that they always have. I want them to understand that they're doing something deliberate when they connect with someone, and I want them to own that responsibility. ... " 

Psych and Economics in Hindsight

In Knowledge@Wharton: 
" .... In the new book Misbehaving: The Making of Behavioral Economics, Richard Thaler, coauthor of Nudge and a behavioral science and economics professor at the University of Chicago, recounts his struggle to change the way traditional economists look at the impact of human psychology on economics. Wharton operations, information and decisions professor Katherine Milkman recently spoke with Thaler about why he wrote the book, where behavioral economics has had the most impact, and which decision-making bias he would remove if he had a magic wand. ... "  ... “The evidence for hindsight bias is overwhelming, and this has huge managerial implications.”

Shopping in the Virtual Aisle

Another example of virtual aisle interaction.  See my previous writing on this approach.   The laboratory approach is useful for easily setting up experiments, but it also needs the right kind of behavioral expert to drive the experiment and leverage the data.

Re-using Analytics Models in the Enterprise

Just revisited the Knime open source analytics visualization capability. In particular for the ability to   re-use templates for analytics in the enterprise.   Anyone out there doing this today?  The visual workflow method is appealing, though still technically less that easy for a non developer.  Could such a system help to automate the design of analytics based on a business process model?  Provide off the shelf models for given process model segments?

Changing Future Supply Chain

In Gartner.  Excellent piece on transitions that will shape the future supply chain.  " ... Six transitions that will shape the future of Supply Chain ... ".   Worked this space for years. Worth a close look.

GE to Move HQ to Boston

Surprising somewhat.  Historically from Schenectady to NYC to Fairfield CT.  Now GE moves global HQ to Boston MA.   And in the WSJ.   Innovation, technology and university connections are touted.

Digital Watermarks

A method we experimented with:

Tech Partnership Looks Beyond the Bar Code With Digital Watermarks
Backers say watermark technology on product packaging can speed up supply chains and retail transactions   ... " 

Conversational Sensemaking

Dear Professors, Students, IBMers and others, 

Just a reminder about our Cognitive Systems Institute Group Speaker Series call this week, on Thursday,  ... will be Alun Preece from Cardiff University and Dave Braines from IBM  who will be presenting:  "Conversational Sensemaking."        .... Slides here.
   
We encourage those who join the calls to add questions and comments to the https://www.linkedin.com/groups/Cognitive-Systems-Institute-6729452on LinkedIn and we ask that you ask questions at the end of the call. ... " 

Digital Value in Customer Journey

 In McKinsey,  on becoming digital.   Journeys and digital destinies. Scale and speed is good too.

Speed and scale: Unlocking digital value in customer journeys
Even as organizations assemble digital building blocks for the long term, they also need short-term, pragmatic moves that meet customer expectations and protect core businesses today.

Digitization is a profound transformation.1 When a global bank reinvented its onboarding process for commercial clients, the results included dramatically reduced costs, a market-beating customer experience—and an exhausted organization wondering how ambitious it should be. Could it repeat what it just went through for the rest of its business? How could it possibly do more than one of these at the same time? Would it take years?

Companies that are achieving digitization at scale have found a better way. They have developed a distinct structure that enables them to digitize their most important customer experiences at scale and at speed—in a consistent way, with consistent resources, to produce consistent results. In doing so they transform much of the rest of their organizations, from product and process design through to technology and culture, becoming truly digital businesses. .... "  

More on Project Tango

I remember hearing about Google Tango as a means for augmented reality overlays of product and purchasing decisions.  And also as a means of modeling 3D spaces.   But Google sees it further in Robots and Drones.

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(Update on 9/30/2019)

We recently published an article that explains What Happened to Google's Tango?. The article covers the birth and death of Tango, how it has influenced the AR Technology, and a lot more.Although Tango is replaced by ARCore now, I still think it's worth being remembered, and the story of it could be useful to your readers.

Here's the article if you want to take a look: https://www.dailywireless.org/mobile/what-happened-to-google-tango/
It’d be wonderful if you can consider swapping out the broken link for our article.
Please let me know if you have any questions and thank you for your time.
Regards,

Luke Pensworth
Manager
Email: luke.ps@dailywireless.org
Web  : https://www.dailywireless.org/

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Towards an AI Health Care Boom

In FastCompany:  Good overview of the nearby AI possibilities.   During the first AI boom, it was the biggest surge research area, but quickly faded, primarily because even a narrow focus would not be useful enough.   " ... More than six billion dollars: That’s how much health care providers and consumers will be spending every year on artificial intelligence tools by 2021—a tenfold increase from today—according to a new report from research firm Frost & Sullivan. (Specifically, it will be a growth from $633.8 million in 2014 to $6,662.2 million in 2021.) ... " 

Open Innovation in CPG

Interview with my colleague Wayne Fisher

" ... For more than 25 years, Wayne Fisher worked for Procter & Gamble in a variety of Corporate R&D and Business Unit roles. 

He was an Upstream Product Development Manager, an Innovation Guide and a Technology Entrepreneur for P&G’s widely lauded Connect and Develop program. Wayne also introduced TRIZ and other innovation methodologies into the multinational, training thousands of engineers and scientists around the globe. He led the early discovery work on water soluble pouches, including Ariel laundry detergent Liquitabs and Cascade dishwashing detergent Action Pacs. Today, he is President of Rockdale Innovation and continues to work with P&G on a consultancy basis, as well as helping other multinationals install innovation best practices to drive revenue and profit growth. 

In this interview with IdeaConnection, Wayne shares his thinking about open innovation, the importance of effective problem definition, and the power and potential of creative problem solving. ... " 

Strategy vs Execution

Short,  interesting piece in the HBR, by Roger L. Martin:  " .... In a recent article, Paul Leinwand, Cesare Mainardi, and Art Kleiner presented some survey findings underscoring the well-established fact that few leaders (only 8%, according to their study) are good at both creating good strategies and putting them into practice. But they seemed to almost completely ignore a really interesting finding from their research, which is that leaders who are good at strategy are nearly always also good at execution — to the extent that making a distinction between the two is futile. ... " 

January February Analytics Magazine

" ... The cover story of the January/February issue of Analytics focuses on the relatively new management method of big data, it is all about what’s driving all the excitement concerning data lakes. But dive and swim at your own risk. You can also read about investments in the human element of analytics, leveraging predictive analytics, and the power of smart technologies. .... 

Analytics Magazine Digital Copy
Features

Deep Dive into Data Lakes
The premise, the promise, the potential of a new method for managing big data.
By Sean Martin

Get Smart: Digital Business Innovation
Smart technologies, services, processes and people add up to smart systems for every sector.
By Haluk Demirkan and Bulent Dal

Customer Lifetime Value
Leveraging predictive analytics adds key new insights for estimating familiar marketing metric.
By Matthew Lulay

Corporate Profile: BNSF Railway
Operations research and advanced analytics team helps power rail giant’s success now and in the future.
By Amy Casas

Changing the Game
How analytics and village stability operations can help defeat violent extremism around the world.
By Doug Samuelson  ..... "