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The ACM '97 Conference

by Jeff Johnson
President and Principal Consultant, UI Wizards, Inc.
Former Chair of CPSR

CPSR News Volume 15, Number 2: Spring 1997

Bob Metcalf, Chair of ACM '97, brought in interesting speakers and stayed in the background. Many of the speakers expressed social concerns that I didn't expect from such "captains of industry". TV emcee James Burke, the moderator, pointedly questioned speakers after each talk. The main topic of most talks was predictions about the next 50 years of computer technology, but many speakers talked about the social effects of computing.

The conference exhibition of advanced computer technologies was open to the public. The exhibit layout was clever-resembling an archaeological dig where all of today's advanced technology had just been excavated in the year 2047. Other interesting exhibits included-a giant screen projection of the world that let you zoom down to street maps; a medical station where you could get video consultation with a doctor on the East Coast.; an interactive video of Albert Einstein (played by an actor) who would answer (some) spoken questions; and lots of virtual reality demos.

Some notes from the talks:

Gordon Bell, Senior Researcher, Microsoft, general networking guru

• On predicting: "When all else fails, bet against the optimists".
• Quoting Bob Lucky, head of Bellcore:
  "If we couldn't predict the Web, what good are we?"
  "Anything that can be cyberized will be in cyberspace."-but, is this our goal or our fate?"
  "ACM 2047 won't be in physical space-it will be in cyberspace."

• Prediction: "Three new computing technologies by 2047: quantum computing, DNA computing, and optical computing."
• Speculation: "Could we build auxiliary brains? Could we use them to change how we think?"
• "Technology advances by replacing old technologies with 'X less Y', e.g. horseless carriage, wireless phone."
• "At the time of Eniac (1947), predictions of the future of computing were very conservative compared to what has happened. If transistors and integrated circuits had not been developed and we were still using tubes, the predictions might have been closer to correct. Transistors and integrated circuits were 'disruptive" technologies, meaning that they changed the future tremendously."

• "Software Agents are the Significant Other of the 21st Century".
• Artificial intelligence (AI) hasn't really paid off. Maybe we should work on intelligence augmentation (IA) instead, i.e., computational/mental prosthesis."
• Why we need mental prosthesis: "Because people have poor memory, limited attention, can only be in one place at a time, are bad at logic and probability, and generally because life is getting too complex for our brains."
• Maes' graduate students now all live with a "wearable computer": a computer that is on them at all times, records most of what they do and say, and where they go, and acts as an augmented memory and reminder. This computer has a global positioning system, so that if the wearer walks past a bank, it knows where they are and can remind them that they need to get a money order. If they want to know who told them something, they can search the record.
• The Future:
  • An automated "yenta" who watches you and learns your interests, the talks to other online "yentas" to try to match you up with people who have similar interests-not just for romantic relationships, but for relationships of all kinds, e.g. interest groups.
  • Software agents that buy and sell on your behalf. You describe what you want to buy or sell and they go out on the net, negotiate with similar agents and then report back to you what deals are possible. The design challenge in all of this is to build agents that people trust and that preserve privacy.
  • Question from the moderator: "Won't people's memory wane if they use remembrance agents?" Answer: "We should try not to replace what people are good at."

• The big steps in the history of information are:
  1. The invention of writing
  2. Gutenberg's movable-type printing press
  3. The first electronic computer
  4. The microprocessor
  5. The networks.
• "Nathan's Laws of Software:
  1. Software is a gas-it expands to fit the size of its container
  2. Software grows until it hits the memory and processing limits of the current computer technology.
  3. Software growth drives hardware growth. People buy new models because their old ones are bogging down.
  4. Software is limited only by human ambition and expectations.

• "The danger of cyberspace isn't and won't be the technology, just as the main danger of driving isn't the car itself. It's the other people who are out there."
• On evolving visions of the future:
  • 1960's: ""The Jetsons' was the vision of the future. Artificial was considered better."
  • 1970's and 80's: "A greener future: A little house in the country. Low-tech."
  • 1990's: "A little house in the country that's wired discreetly, e.g., the picket fence is a phased-array antenna that tracks satellites."
• "Entertainment is becoming a bad word. Why? Why shouldn't education be entertaining?"
• "Computers are storytelling devices. Engineers work from requirements; storytellers from 'big ideas'-intuitions about what people like. Both are creative and problem-solvers, but the language is different. Storytelling requires a professional to do it well. Professionals know how to reach people and how to get around technological limitations. Stories told by amateurs will always be amateur quality."

• Prediction: "VCRs won't blink 12, because they will get time off the 'net'".
• Hope: "My pager, cell phone, laptop, haring aid, etc., will all get coalesced into one device."
• Prediction: "There will be more devices than people on the net."
• Observation: "If we went back in time 50 years, we'd bang our noses on certain things because they wouldn't do what we would expect them to do. What would people from 2047 bang their noses on if they came back to 1997? They would expect objects to accommodate them and to help them run their lives."
• Observation: "The Third World is now getting cellular phone-bypassing wires. By 2025, most of the world will have telephone connection."

• "The computer is used in cultural mythology as a projection surface for our hopes."
• "Stories are content; storytelling is relationship."
• On values: "The way you change people's values and/or behavior is by building those values into games, TV shows, movies, storybooks, so on. People are more aware of values in story-telling games and books than they are of values in action games and TV shows. Story telling raises red flags with parents because it seen as promotion values. Whose values? But, in fact, values are in everything."
• Pessimism about the future: The future will be "intolerance, poverty, pollution, consumerism....to avoid bleak futures you need interventions. But, most interventions fail. You need interventions at the level of popular culture, but you have to avoid activating the 'immune system'-the immune system is everyone's natural reaction against change or being told what to do."

• Prediction: "What will happen when the 'Barney' generation grows up? They will think a house comes with a computer."
• "The old pedagogy educated only the top 20 percent and trained the rest to be obedient and punctual. That's what the manufacturing economy needed. Now, we need to educate everyone, because that's what the information economy needs."
• "We need to stop didactic instruction and teach sustained inquiry. We need computer technology to do it. Not the Web-that is just a replacement for the old copying things out of the encyclopedia."
• On Education: There are four elements: "school, community, learning, and teaching. We need to define how the computer can or can't help with each element." He doesn't think computers will replace teachers, because of they provide interpersonal relationships-a very important factor in learning.

• "The number of people who tried the Internet and gave up is equal to the number of Internet users."
• Question for technologists: "Most kids in the U.S. don't have computers. When will we have an Internet-capable computer for under $500? When will we have larger, better shaped monitors? When will computers be easy to use?"
• "I am willing to put up with some information push if it makes it easier to find things."
• "Bandwidth should be orderable, as needed, but it is difficult to convince infrastructure providers of this need."
• "The FCC will vote in May on whether they will tax telecom revenue to set up infrastructure for schools. Telecom providers oppose this provision." Hundt feels this must be done.
• "Questions from the moderator:
  • "Is the Internet spreading around the world like a virus?" Answer: "I think of it as an antibiotic".
  • "How do we bring the rest of the world into the 21st century?" Answer: "It isn't acceptable in today's small world to be in a world where two-thirds of the people have never made a phone call."

• " Technology has destroyed the privacy of the rich and famous."
• "The computer revolution turned out OK because we've never known what we were doing."
• "Computation isn't thinking. We don't even know what thinking is. And we don't do much of it, compared to feeling and emoting. We need to stop trying to get computers to think and get serious about computing, which is different from thinking, but interesting anyway. Computation is simulation and toy worlds, not intelligence."
• "Some people say the net doesn't make business sense. Well, the net is happening, so maybe that means the business models and assumptions are wrong."
• "Instead of designing tools, let's evolve them in computer simulations. For example, we could throw modern day car jacks as seeds into a computer simulation, cross-breed them, try them out on billions and billions of cars, and evolve a new kind of car-jack. It might not look like today's car jacks, but it'll hold up a car like nobody's business!"

• Prediction: "Accident avoiding cars."
• Prediction: "The glut of information will prompt development of summarization and editing technologies."
• Prediction: "People will record interactive videos or holographs of themselves for use by future generations."
• Question from the moderator: "How do we get this out to the Third World?" Answer: "Cell phones are growing there faster than here. I come from the Third World. It's not so different from here. They have many of the same concerns-health care, education."

• "Rewards in science tend to go to narrow research rather than to synthesis and summaries of information."
• "Misconceptions are widely propagated by media, especially computer media."
• "How do we extract wisdom and knowledge from all the data?"
• "We have a greater need than ever for skilled intermediaries to filter and summarize information. The marketplace won't do it."

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