Behavior Generation Method

I see that BJ Fogg, who we worked with at Stanford, always full of good ideas,  is giving a free training session on his wanding behavioral method,  I plan to attend.

BJ Fogg, PhD  Adjunct Professor at Stanford | Research Lab Director | Author of Tiny Habits (a New York Times Bestseller)

Use Behavior Design in your business projects right away. I invite you to learn the "magicwanding" method. I will teach you, and it's free.

With this method, you can take your team (even a remote team) from abstractions to specific actions that will help your project and your team progress.

Register here for the May 13 session at 11am PDT pacific:      https://lnkd.in/gH3AHc2s

or see  https: bg-fogg/magic-wanding

Can AI Help Casinos Cut Down on Problem Gambling?

Other kinds of related detection of behaviors?

AI Technology Aimed at Gambling Addiction

By The New York Times, March 11, 2022

Researchers are looking to artificial intelligence (AI) as a way to potentially identify and predict problem gambling.

One program from Mindway AI, a company with ties to Denmark's Aarhus University, relies on psychologists to train AI algorithms to detect behaviors associated with problem gambling.

The program scores 14 risk factors from 1 to 100 and generates a risk assessment for each player.However, there are concerns about how to explain such data to players.   While some online gaming companies use pop-up messaging, texts, or emails, Mindway's Rasmus Kjærgaard said the data could be used to personalize phone calls to players...

Artificial intelligence as a solution to problem gambling “raised far more questions than it did answers,” said Alan Feldman, a distinguished fellow in responsible gambling at the International Gaming Institute at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas ... 

From The New York Times  

Simulating 3D cells

 Simulating cell behavior with Nvidia GPUs

Researchers Simulate Behavior of Living 'Minimal Cell' in Three Dimensions

University of Illinois News Bureau, Diana Yates, January 20, 2022

Scientists at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) and California non-profit J. Craig Venter Institute (JCVI) have assembled a living "minimal cell" and a three-dimensional (3D) computer simulation that replicates its behavior. UIUC's Zaida Luthey-Schulten said minimal cells feature genomes stripped of nonessential genes, containing mainly those required to perform most life-defining functions. The model maps out the location and chemical properties of thousands of cellular elements in atomic-level 3D space. The JCVI team built the minimal cell the model was based on, then the UIUC researchers used Nvidia graphics processing units to run the simulation. Said Luthey-Schulten, "Our model opens a window on the inner workings of the cell, showing us how all of the components interact and change in response to internal and external cues."  .... ' 

Clip Detects COVID

Intriguing concept, Complete  capabilities and how it is meant to integrate with consumer's behavior and status is unclear.

Yale researcher teams develops wearable clip to detect COVID

The clip is intended to complement at-home test kits

Researchers at the Yale School of Public Health have developed a wearable clip that can detect if a person may have been exposed to COVID-19.  

The device captures virus-laden aerosols that deposit on a polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) surface, according to a study published earlier this month in the peer-reviewed journal, Environmental Science and Technology Letters.  

Krystal Godri Pollitt, who led the team of researchers who developed the clip, told Fox News it came about through her research measuring a person’s exposure to environmental factors.   

"Through that work, I developed wearable tools that we can measure our exposure to lots of different chemicals within the air and other airborne factors," Godri Pollitt said.   ....'

Hint at Dystopian Futures

Expected direction?

‘Dystopian world’: Singapore patrol robots stoke fears of surveillance state

Trial of robots to police ‘undesirable’ behaviour such as smoking or breaching social-distancing rules   in The Guardian

Singapore has trialled patrol robots that blast warnings at people engaging in “undesirable social behaviour”, adding to an arsenal of surveillance technology in the tightly controlled city-state that is fuelling privacy concerns.

From vast numbers of CCTV cameras to trials of lampposts kitted out with facial recognition tech, Singapore is seeing an explosion of tools to track its inhabitants.

That includes a three-week trial in September, in which two robots were deployed to patrol a housing estate and a shopping centre. Officials have long pushed a vision of a hyper-efficient, tech-driven “smart nation”, but activists say privacy is being sacrificed and people have little control over what happens to their data.

Singapore is frequently criticised for curbing civil liberties and people are accustomed to tight controls, but there is still growing unease at intrusive tech. The government’s latest surveillance devices are robots on wheels, with seven cameras, that issue warnings to the public and detect “undesirable social behaviour”. .....' 

Security and Human Behavior

 Currently much more involved in security issues of late.  I see that Bruce Schneier is blogging and talking about the Security and Human Behavior conference in Cambridge, much more about it below, , with many more links.  I like the title of the conference, it is mostly all about human behavior. 

Security and Human Behavior (SHB) 2021

Today is the second day of the fourteenth Workshop on Security and Human Behavior. The University of Cambridge is the host, but we’re all on Zoom.

SHB is a small, annual, invitational workshop of people studying various aspects of the human side of security, organized each year by Alessandro Acquisti, Ross Anderson, and myself. The forty or so attendees include psychologists, economists, computer security researchers, sociologists, political scientists, criminologists, neuroscientists, designers, lawyers, philosophers, anthropologists, business school professors, and a smattering of others. It’s not just an interdisciplinary event; most of the people here are individually interdisciplinary.  ... " 

Looking for, testing for, Behaviors.

Can this be taken beyond automated driving systems?  We were always looking for behaviors we could predict.  And might be fundamental enough to simulate for broader purpose?  Its what simulations, properly constrained, can do well.   Thinking that.  Do like the fact that this seems to be 'creative' in its direction.

Automated Technique to Discover Simulation Configurations for Behaviors Hard to Test  By National Institute of Informatics (Japan)

Researchers at Japan's National Institute of Informatics (NII) have designed a technique to search automatically for simulation models that evaluate specific behaviors of automated driving systems.

The method iterates trials on simulations using evolutionary computation, in order to identify configurations that lead to specific features of driving behaviors like high acceleration, deceleration, and steering operation.

The technique avoids generating configurations that solely lead to dangerous situations, revealing features of driving behaviors not constrained to emergency situations.

In applying and assessing the method on a path-planning program offered by car manufacturer Mazda, the team learned the technique could produce specific behaviors that were rarely generated randomly.

NII's Fuyuki Ishikawa said the team established a holistic series of testing and debugging methods by adapting techniques for conventional program code, with the goal of finding solutions like "desirable tests" and "desirable fix actions."

From National Institute of Informatics (Japan)  ... 

Detecting Flu-Like Illness with Behavior

Quite a considerable idea, depending on accuracy.    It appears the data from  is anonymous and thus private,  Similar to a proposal we outlined, never implemented, which aimed to determined the 'mode'  (searching, seeking, examining, considering, reconsidering, buying ... ) of a shopper while walking around in a store.

 Anonymous Cellphone Data Can Quantify Behavioral Changes for Flu-Like Illnesses

Emory University, Carol Clark, January 26, 2021

A study by Emory University computer scientists found cellphone data routinely collected by telecommunications providers can expose behavioral changes in people diagnosed with flu-like illnesses, while also shielding their anonymity. In partnership with an Icelandic cellphone service provider and public health officials, the Emory team analyzed data for more than 90,000 encrypted phone numbers, constituting about 25% of Iceland's population. The researchers were allowed to link the encrypted cellphone metadata to 1,400 anonymous individuals diagnosed with a flu-like illness during the 2009 H1N1 outbreak. Individuals receiving a flu-like diagnosis changed their cellphone usage behavior an average of one day pre-diagnosis and two to four days afterward, making fewer calls from fewer unique locations and spending more time than usual on calls made the day following diagnosis. Emory's Ymir Vigfusson said, "Our work contributes to the discussion of what kinds of anonymous data lineages might be useful for public health monitoring purposes."

Spotting Risky Behavior

 I was struck by this.   What is high risk behavior?  How is it defined, tested, updated?   OK, depression, anxiety or suicide. But at any one time it might be one or another set of beliefs.  Where (obviously) the other is wrong?  Novel, creative, unique can be risky.  Will it get me cancelled?

Spotting High-Risk Behavior Online, By Sandrine Ceurstemont,  Commissioned by CACM Staff, January 21, 2021

Posts on social media could conceal clues about mental health problems or high-risk behaviors.

Social media is used widely to share experiences with friends, or to join like-minded communities to discuss common interests. Yet people's posts also could conceal clues about mental health problems or high-risk behaviors that, if recognized early enough, could help save lives.

"Depression, anxiety, suicidal behaviors and some disordered eating behaviors are difficult to detect in person and it's unlikely that people are going to go to a clinic because of how stigmatized these conditions are," says Stevie Chancellor, a researcher at Northwestern University in Evanston, IL. "If we could use social media data as a way to understand these behaviors, perhaps we could use that information to assist them."

Chancellor and other researchers are investigating how machine learning could be harnessed to identify signs of dangerous behavior on social media. Around half of the world's population, roughly three billion people, now use social media platforms including Facebook, Twitter, and Reddit, so there is lots of data available. "It allows us to target a lot more people at a greater level than we've ever been able to before to understand these populations," says Benjamin Ricard, a Ph.D. student at the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth College in Hanover, NH.

Some research is using social media to examine what people write, attempting to predict risky behavior from language used. Another approach involves looking at information related to posts, such as how much information a person shares, at what time of day, and whether that individual's  posting habits have changed. "A common symptom of depression is insomnia, so if your posting history over time starts shifting later, that might indicate that you are struggling with insomnia, which could relate to depression," says Chancellor.  ... "

Many Shoppers Want Zero in Store Human Interaction?

Not sure I fully agree,  some shoppers, for some goods.  But now they have now been well trained in the prospect.  Having actual quality interaction may be a big plus.  What really occurs in practice remains to be seen.    Links to some consumer polls here.

Many Shoppers Now Want Zero In-Store Human Interaction  By Jack M. Germain in ECommerceTimes

The rise in consumer adoption of e-commerce in the wake of the pandemic is pushing the rebirth of brick-and-mortar stores as potential bastions of interactionless in-store shopping that resembles an e-commerce experience. But these redesigns are not for all shoppers. Some prefer no brick-and-mortar shopping at all.

That consumer reaction is pushing retailers to redesign physical stores. Harris Poll research recently found that 70 percent of people want zero interaction with store personnel while shopping. Plus, 35 percent are totally fine never shopping in person again.

An online survey of more than 2,000 U.S. adults ages 18+ conducted by 3D vision system company Sense Photonics further drives home this sharp directional turn by consumers. The survey disclosed that shoppers willing to return to physical storefronts want a completely human-free, contactless, shopping experience. .... " 

Companies Trying to Predict Post Pandemic

Can Retail predict post pandemic?  In the car today we discussed how drive through fast food will exist after pandemic.  Two effects. Very large increase of drive-through during.   But also a large number of new customers being trained in this new kind of shopping/eating.  Our own experience: we had only very very rarely in many years, done drive through food,  but then in pandemic had done it often.    And would likely continue.  Behaviors like this will persist.  Delivery? 

Whole Foods CEO does not think online grocery will remain the norm post-pandemic: 'Food is different'

Daniel Roberts, Editor-at-Large, Yahoo Finance, September 17, 2020

Amid the pandemic, big retail names like Walmart, Target, Dick’s Sporting Goods, Best Buy, and Chipotle have all highlighted the surge they’ve seen in online shopping (or in the case of food chains, mobile ordering) and curbside pickup. Online grocery ordering and fulfillment has seen the same trend: Coresight Research in May predicted online grocery sales will surge more than 40% in 2020, after growing 22% in 2019. (Online grocery was already big for Walmart before the pandemic: Walmart U.S. president Greg Foran told Yahoo Finance in June 2019 that online grocery was creating a “halo effect” on the rest of Walmart’s business.)

The question now is whether these trends will continue on the same breakneck pace once the pandemic is behind us.

Many analysts think it will, including McKinsey retail partner Sajal Kohli, who told Yahoo Finance that BOPIS (buy online, pick up in store) is “exceptionally sticky” and that consumers have “discovered this newfound convenience and they will actually stick to curbside.”

Whole Foods CEO John Mackey isn’t convinced that will be the case for grocery specifically. ... "

Coordinating Complex Behaviors Between Hundreds of Robots

Back to the control of swarms.  Intelligence is good, but collective intelligence is better?  The process described here is very interesting.

Coordinating Complex Behaviors Among Hundreds of Robots
Duke University Pratt School of Engineering
Ken Kingery
July 1, 2020

Duke University researchers have proposed a new approach for coordinating complex tasks between hundreds of robots while satisfying logic-based rules. The method, called STyLuS* (large-Scale optimal Temporal Logic Synthesis), bypasses the traditional requirement of building incredibly large graphs of each robot's locations or nodes by producing smaller approximations with a tree structure. At each step of the process, the algorithm randomly chooses one node from the large graph, adds it to the tree, and rewires the existing paths between tree nodes to find more direct paths from start to finish. STyLuS* also selects the next node to add based on data about the task at hand, allowing the tree to quickly approximate a good solution to the problem. The algorithm solves problems exponentially: it answered the challenge of 10 robots searching through a 50-by-50 grid space in about 20 seconds, while state-of-the-art algorithms would take 30 minutes.  ... " 

Bad Habit or Addiction to Technology?

A thing to look at again .... ever since gaming started we have been examining, but now its everywhere, all the time.   Examining addiction vs negative behavior.   I think with the integration of a stronger social component, amplified by social pressure, its harder yet to distinguish

Are We Addicted to Technology?   By Logan KuglerCommunications of the ACM, August 2020, Vol. 63 No. 8, Pages 15-16
10.1145/3403966

It's easy to think the world is suffering from full-blown technology addiction.

We read daily headlines about how social media platforms threaten our mental health, our relationships, and even democratic society itself. We hear smartphone addiction is the latest scourge sweeping the nation's youth, and we even see tech leaders like Chris Hughes, who co-founded Facebook, publicly call for the break-up of the firm he created because of its addictive content and features.

It certainly seems like "technology addiction" is a real condition and that it is everywhere. But the truth is a little less black and white.

Technology addiction is a broad term that isn't always well defined. It can mean any type of negative behavior across video gaming, smartphone usage, and use of social media platforms like Facebook. It is medically unclear if these negative behaviors are actually addictive, and it is difficult to tell if these behaviors are due to the way the technology in question works or because we have a hard time controlling our own use of individual technologies.

Video game addiction was added by the World Health Organization (WHO) in 2018 to its International Classification of Diseases, which the organization describes as the international standard for disease reporting. The move was welcomed by some who see video game addiction as a real disease, but it was contested by others who argued that video game addictions—and other types of technology addiction—do not meet clinical standards of addiction.

While everybody seems to agree video gaming in excess can cause harm, there is less consensus on whether or not smartphones and consumer technology have negative effects on our behavior and, if so, how to classify these effects.

Bad Habit or Actual Addiction?
WHO says video game addiction occurs when gaming interferes with life, and the individual is unable to stop gaming despite this interference. It also says this severity of behavior must occur for a year or more to classify as an addiction.

Clearly, some people experience real physical and mental harm from overusing video games.

"For gamers who struggle with video game addiction, it's a real condition that impacts many areas of life, including school, employment, mental and physical health, and relationships," says Cam Adair, founder of Game Quitters, a video game addiction support group. Adair describes himself as a video game addict who was hooked for 10 years, playing up to 16 hours a day, until the habit caused problems in his life, including forcing him to drop out of school. Today, he speaks and writes about his recovery, and helps other video game addicts kick the habit. He sees validation for video game addiction as a harmful condition worth treating in the 75,000 people in 95 countries looking for help on Game Quitters every month.

Adair sees clear negative effects from excessive video gaming every day in the people he helps. Extreme video game addicts, he says, may neglect to eat, sleep, or to perform work or school duties. "The most common case I see is a college student, usually male, who is now beginning to fail school and can't seem to get themselves away from games," says Adair.   ... "

Pandemic Shopping Habits

An interesting peek into corporate bahavior.

Our pandemic shopping habits are here to stay. Brands are racing to adapt  By Hanna Ziady CNN Business 

Three days a week at 7:00 am, senior Procter & Gamble executives check in with each other about their customers: what they're buying, how their needs are changing and whether the company's products are hitting the mark.  .. "

How Have People Responded to Pandemic?

Fascinating piece, recall using data from 'discovered' cameras to determine  city walking traffic patterns.   Also using data from public cameras, with scrubbed facial images, could be acquired for similar analysis.  Today with a increased attention to privacy,  much of this data would have to be further scrubbed of signs of identity.   Still very useful patterns of  usage and behavior of people over time in the pandemic could be derived.   Note the use of 120K cameras here to generate data worldwide.

How Have People Have Responded to Covid-19 Restrictions Around the World?
Purdue University News
By Kayla Wiles

Purdue University engineers have built a website that pools live public videos and images from about 30,000 network cameras in more than 100 countries, to make it easier to analyze responses to Covid-19 restriction policies. The system automatically discovers cameras in public spaces, then an algorithm saves image data and downloads videos every 10 minutes or so, to be sent to cloud data centers for processing. The discovered cameras are part of a system called the Continuous Analysis of Many CAMeras, which taps roughly 120,000 cameras worldwide. The data also is helping to construct models for human interactions and disease proliferation.  ... ' 

McDonald's Adapts Menus to Consumers

Been observing McDonald's operational marketing for some years, after making a short analysis of their data and how it interacted with how they did in-store, real-time marketing.   Noted that Dynamic Yield was acquired by McDonald's last year.

McDonald's Just Made a Truly Stunning Change to Its Menu. (There's Only 1 Little Problem)Is this going to be an issue?    By Bill Murphy Jr. in Inc.

A few months ago, McDonald's spent $300 million to make its biggest acquisition in years, a tech company called Dynamic Yield.  

Company executives described its "personalization and decision logic technology" as a key part of their vision for the McDonald's of tomorrow.

So far, so good. The technology is about offering customers exactly the food items McDonald's wants to push at any given moment, literally changing the menu in real time from one customer to the next.

Except that as The Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday, some customers at McDonald's and elsewhere say they're bothered by the kinds of digital menus that come with the technology: too many choices, and not enough time to read and absorb them.

One former McDonald's manager said that before he left McDonald's last November, "one of the most common complaints was that the menu was confusing because these big sweeping animations would show up over the menu advertising new sandwiches."  .... ' 

Control of Genetic Behavior

Interesting linking to specific group behavior.  What behavior would you want to influence?  Then, thinking about if further, looks rather dangerous.

Genetic Control of Collective Behavior
The Harvard Gazette     By Jessica Lau

Researchers at Harvard University and the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior in Germany have developed a computer vision-reliant method to study how genes influence collective behavior. The team tested 90 different genes to see if they affect zebrafish social behavior, using gene editing to mutate one gene at a time. The researchers used computer vision to track individual fish and analyze their interactions, finding several genetic mutations that had a significant effect on fish group behavior. Said Institute director Iain Couzin, "We developed new computational tools for tracking and analyzing behavior among animals, which provide a powerful means to investigate how genetic factors influence collective behaviors."

Full Article at link.

Smart Meters not Influencing Electric Usage

Have always been interested in the influence of measurements, and the presentation of those measurements to influence behavior.   Many of our smart home experiments have tried to include that aspect of delivery.   Our home is fitted with a 'smart meter'.  Yet in this case Smart Meters are not doing the job:

Smart meters have little impact on people's energy usage habits, research finds  by Keele University in TechExplore

When the Smart Meter Rollout Programme launched a decade ago, it was touted as a way of helping consumers cut down on their energy usage, but new research has found that environmental concerns have little impact on reducing energy consumption.


Smart meters were introduced to allow customers to manage their energy use and it was hoped they would save money on bills and lessen their environmental impact by reducing energy demand, as well as changing their attitudes towards their energy use.

But new research by Keele University using focus groups has found that 10 years after the programme was rolled out, people's awareness around strategies for improving our energy efficiency is still only limited.

The findings also showed that environmental concerns are not a key driver in promoting energy reduction behaviours, not because participants don't care about the environment but because they felt a reduction in their energy consumption would have very little impact on the environment.  ... "

Increasing complexity of Retail Interaction

Am now a more careful observer of store behavior.

What should retailers do about social distancing renegades?

by Tom Ryan in Retailwire   with expert commentary.

Last week, a security guard at a Family Dollar in Michigan was fatally shot after telling a customer to wear a face mask.

Other high-profile incidents involving rebellion against social distancing mandates:

On May 6, a women shot a McDonald’s employee in Oklahoma City after being told the dining room was closed;
On May 2, a man wiped his nose and face on a Dollar Tree worker’s shirt after being told in-store customers must wear a mask;
On May 2, a man wore a Ku Klux Klan hood while shopping at a Vons a day after health officials in San Diego ordered face coverings to be worn in public;
On May 2, an employee and customers at a Stop and Shop in Massachusetts tackled a man who coughed and spit on produce.
More common are the minor confrontations on selling floors between customers and associates or between customers over social distancing requirements.

“I think what you’re seeing in this situation is really what you’re seeing in a variety of situations across the country, which is this tension about opening and people’s concern about it,” said Chris Kempczinski, McDonald’s CEO, in an interview on Good Morning America following the Oklahoma City incident.

In store aisles, it’s fairly common to see customers sidestepping workers restocking shelves or brushing by customers in violation of the six-feet apart rule. Incidents of shoppers openly or mistakenly disregarding one-way aisles have also been reported.   ... " 

Can Personality Determine How we Interact with Future AI?

Very thoughtful piece in DSC.  I am suspicious of using the Myers-Briggs model here.  Read the complete article there, and join DSC for much more.

Could your personality decide how you can collaborate with AI in future jobs?
Posted by ajit jaokar in DSC

I am currently exploring this idea in a paper
Could your personality decide how you can collaborate with AI in future jobs?
I am a strong believer in a mode where humans and AI work together and collaborate 

I also believe that if we can master this skill, we can bring manufacturing jobs back from offshore destinations

In the book "Humans + Machines – Reinventing work in the age of AI": by Daugherty and Wilson (2018) propose a model for humans and AI working together based on the idea of identifying the ‘missing middle'. The missing middle represents areas where humans and AI collaborate and comprises of two sections:   Where humans complement machines and  where AI gives humans superpowers.   (Complete article at link)