The new look for the blog, for those 2 of you who sometimes stop by, is courtesy the new set of tools offered via blogger.com on their new tools test site. There are far more options in terms of design templates, layout and customizations of both. This helps eliminate the need to hack the CSS and HTML - which I had been doing earlier with somewhat limited success in terms of liking what I saw.
Don't get me wrong. I am happy to be able to take somewhat of a crack at stylesheets. But I will be the first to resort to WYSIWYG editors. Especially when it comes to layout and design. These new abilities are much overdue. Not sure if it's enough to catch up with Wordpress and its tools. But at least Blogger is showing some intent in doing so. Of course, Blogger does one thing better - it allows users the ability to modify HTML for free as opposed to Wordpress who only offer that ability for a fee.
Anyways, those few of you who still have a Blogger account and haven't already moved over to Wordpress, you can finally do a few cool things with your blog's look and feel.
Showing posts with label technology. Show all posts
Showing posts with label technology. Show all posts
Thursday, May 20, 2010
Monday, July 27, 2009
They're taking over!
In a world suffering from a severe recession (sounds like a movie trailer opening line that - "In a world where..." Ok. Ok. Moving on...), its probably not the thing you want to hear - that ultimately, one day, some machine is going to be doing your job. Thats because, as this this NYTimes articles says, the damn machines are going to become smarter than you. Knowing myself however, they don't have all that much of a distance to cover.
There's hardly anything new in the fear that machines will ultimately take over the world. They've taken over a lot of stuff anyways. Planes use computers to fly themselves between take offs and landings. Cars use an array of sensors managed by processors to ensure smooth running. The internet manages our money. And computers have abstracted the complexity of data communication from us to make everything appear as simple as possible. In fact, systems are increasingly designed to be as idiot-proof as possible. Which leaves us human users increasingly ignorant about how these things work in the first place. And since they're doing everything for you anyways, where's the incentive in learning what's really beneath the hood
The field of AI has dedicated considerable effort towards creating machines that behave and act autonomously like human beings supposedly do. One of the chief goals of such AI systems is successfully clearing the "Turing Test". In this test, a human judge has a conversation with another human and a computer, and the judge has to distinguish which of the two she's conversing with is the other human and which is the computer. If the judge can't tell who is which or which is what, then the computer has passed the "Turing Test".
Which brings us to this interesting video - also off the same NYTimes page - on Microsoft Research's attempt to make a more human-like expert system to guide human users who come to it in need of medical advice. In the video, we see two parents - one after another - coming up to a kiosk of some sort, with their child in tow, and talking to a computer-generated face on the computer screen about their children being sick, and we see the face then trying to help them diagnose their child's condition better and finally deliver some sort of advice.
The whole combination of expert system diagnosing capability, computer graphics, speech interface and natural language processing capabilities is mighty impressive. But, I did have one main problem with that video (and by extension the system being demonstrated). That is: at the end of the long conversation with the users - all the AI effectively does is it tells them to go see a doctor and schedules an appointment for them.
Now why would I waste my time conversing with it if that's all its going to do for me?
There's hardly anything new in the fear that machines will ultimately take over the world. They've taken over a lot of stuff anyways. Planes use computers to fly themselves between take offs and landings. Cars use an array of sensors managed by processors to ensure smooth running. The internet manages our money. And computers have abstracted the complexity of data communication from us to make everything appear as simple as possible. In fact, systems are increasingly designed to be as idiot-proof as possible. Which leaves us human users increasingly ignorant about how these things work in the first place. And since they're doing everything for you anyways, where's the incentive in learning what's really beneath the hood
The field of AI has dedicated considerable effort towards creating machines that behave and act autonomously like human beings supposedly do. One of the chief goals of such AI systems is successfully clearing the "Turing Test". In this test, a human judge has a conversation with another human and a computer, and the judge has to distinguish which of the two she's conversing with is the other human and which is the computer. If the judge can't tell who is which or which is what, then the computer has passed the "Turing Test".
Which brings us to this interesting video - also off the same NYTimes page - on Microsoft Research's attempt to make a more human-like expert system to guide human users who come to it in need of medical advice. In the video, we see two parents - one after another - coming up to a kiosk of some sort, with their child in tow, and talking to a computer-generated face on the computer screen about their children being sick, and we see the face then trying to help them diagnose their child's condition better and finally deliver some sort of advice.
The whole combination of expert system diagnosing capability, computer graphics, speech interface and natural language processing capabilities is mighty impressive. But, I did have one main problem with that video (and by extension the system being demonstrated). That is: at the end of the long conversation with the users - all the AI effectively does is it tells them to go see a doctor and schedules an appointment for them.
Now why would I waste my time conversing with it if that's all its going to do for me?
Monday, July 17, 2006
Hah! v/s Duh! (Hi-tek v/s Lo-Tek)
Venky initiated this discussion on "Would our kids label us as technology illiterate?" Sorta like how we label our parents and their "unsavviness" with regards to modern technology and its use.
Venky's point of view (in his own words) is: "I strongly believe that we (our generation) would bridge the gap between generations as far as using technology is concerned. I’m sure we will NEVER be as up-to-date as our teenage kids (whenever that happens) but we will at least be in the same ballpark – and that is to say that we will be a few steps ahead of our parents’ generation.".
You can read more about his views and his justifications/ reasoning on that earlier link. And as per Brij's request to help further the discussion, I am "copy-pasting" the comment I made earlier to that discussion as a regular post here:
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(July 17, 2006):
Nice discussion there Venky. And although you made some good arguments there, I'd have to say as far as tech-savviness is concerned - the NextGen will be superior.
However, I guess it's important that you separete medium from content in your argument. My firm feeling is (just as Pranav and Soumya) that the average person only picks up so much tech kno-how (essentially knowledge) as much as is of use to that person. Anything more is purely incidental.
In other words, soon you may be using the latest phones and gadgets (as you are so inclined ;) ) but there will be menu items, tabs and mechanisms for which you will have no use for - but the next gen might. For instance rating bars, hangouts, bands, even popular classmates, etc. instantly, or as some of my PhD friends suggested, obtaining a GPS location of the nearest cool joint where the highest number of hip and popular are currently hanging out. Or consider next generation VR games for which there will be better tactile tools for social interaction in virtual communities. How much of use would we have for it once we sink further into our settled mode of social interaction? But would that prevent the next gen from adapting to it? I don't think so. We'd never know how to use next gen virtual interaction equipment by and large, simply because we'd have no use for it.
Not compelling examples those, but just to demonstrate that there'll be tons of stuff around for which we when we grow older - will have no use for. But these things will be developed keeping the NextGen in mind.
Again, as I said medium and content need separation in any discussion on future tech. The reason is that as long as the media which is available to us is supplying us with all the content that we need, there will be very little impetus to move on to something else. Unless and until, we are convinced that the an alternative exists thats atleast as good if not better than our current options, and/or else is being used widely by others.
Those who stay ahead of the curve will have a better chance of adapting to the new tech world. And being tech-savvy could be a powerful tool for the coming future. But, those persons would be more of the few exceptions than the significant majority obeying the rule.
To sum up the sentiment, here's a quote from more than 100 years ago:
"Everything that can be invented has been invented."
-Charles H. Duell, Commissioner, U.S. Office of Patents, 1899.
---------
Venky's point of view (in his own words) is: "I strongly believe that we (our generation) would bridge the gap between generations as far as using technology is concerned. I’m sure we will NEVER be as up-to-date as our teenage kids (whenever that happens) but we will at least be in the same ballpark – and that is to say that we will be a few steps ahead of our parents’ generation.".
You can read more about his views and his justifications/ reasoning on that earlier link. And as per Brij's request to help further the discussion, I am "copy-pasting" the comment I made earlier to that discussion as a regular post here:
---------
(July 17, 2006):
Nice discussion there Venky. And although you made some good arguments there, I'd have to say as far as tech-savviness is concerned - the NextGen will be superior.
However, I guess it's important that you separete medium from content in your argument. My firm feeling is (just as Pranav and Soumya) that the average person only picks up so much tech kno-how (essentially knowledge) as much as is of use to that person. Anything more is purely incidental.
In other words, soon you may be using the latest phones and gadgets (as you are so inclined ;) ) but there will be menu items, tabs and mechanisms for which you will have no use for - but the next gen might. For instance rating bars, hangouts, bands, even popular classmates, etc. instantly, or as some of my PhD friends suggested, obtaining a GPS location of the nearest cool joint where the highest number of hip and popular are currently hanging out. Or consider next generation VR games for which there will be better tactile tools for social interaction in virtual communities. How much of use would we have for it once we sink further into our settled mode of social interaction? But would that prevent the next gen from adapting to it? I don't think so. We'd never know how to use next gen virtual interaction equipment by and large, simply because we'd have no use for it.
Not compelling examples those, but just to demonstrate that there'll be tons of stuff around for which we when we grow older - will have no use for. But these things will be developed keeping the NextGen in mind.
Again, as I said medium and content need separation in any discussion on future tech. The reason is that as long as the media which is available to us is supplying us with all the content that we need, there will be very little impetus to move on to something else. Unless and until, we are convinced that the an alternative exists thats atleast as good if not better than our current options, and/or else is being used widely by others.
Those who stay ahead of the curve will have a better chance of adapting to the new tech world. And being tech-savvy could be a powerful tool for the coming future. But, those persons would be more of the few exceptions than the significant majority obeying the rule.
To sum up the sentiment, here's a quote from more than 100 years ago:
"Everything that can be invented has been invented."
-Charles H. Duell, Commissioner, U.S. Office of Patents, 1899.
---------
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