cs 575 spring 2010 2010-05-8 k.v. bapa rao. outline administrative review of previous class...
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Outline
• Administrative• Review of previous class• Discussion of Engelbart’s Paper (contd)• Student Presentations• Licklider’s papers• General Discussion• Summary• Agenda for next meeting
Student Presentations
• Deirdre Foster: Convergence• Michael Dahl: Brain-computer integration• Aspet Golestanian: History
REMINDER: A [flexible] structure for our study
• ‘Human issues’ is all-encompassing• Many interlocking dimensions• Human roles vis-à-vis the computer
– User– Inventor / researcher– Visionary– Content creator– Hacker– Criminal– Business person– Wealth generator– …
• Human-computer coupling– Symbiosis, tool, …
A [flexible] structure for our study (contd)
• Domains of human activity– Education, Entertainment, Play, Family, Reproduction, Art ,Wealth generation,
Government, consumption, religion, philosophy, …• Values
– Many values depend on role, domain, …– Absolute values?– Creativity, aesthetics, access, opportunity, freedom, spirituality, rationality,
peace, brotherhood, prosperity, …• Vision, potentials, realities
– Babbage’s Analytical Engine, Bush’s Memex, …• Pragmatics
– Is it possible? How to get there?– Techniques, Design, Technology,
• Scaling and emergent phenomena– Will a whole new thing emerge if huge numbers of humans interact with
computers in a certain way? How do we understand that ‘thing’?• Other aspects, dimensions?
Augmenting the Human Intellect• 1962 Engelbart’s report/proposal to Air Force Ofc. Of
Scientific Research– http://www.dougengelbart.org/pubs/augment-3906.html
• Capability to obtain better solutions to complex problems• New conceptual framework
– Not small tricks• Example scenario: an architect’s workday
– Design alternatives– Operational environments– Functional specifications– Detailed design– Tools
• Synthesis, analysis, verification, debugging
Engelbart Overview• Conceptual framework is needed to know
– What to augment• artifacts• language• methodology• Training
– Goal: problem solving process• Process is what we actually do, and are trying to do more effectively
– Structure or organization across the board• Little steps, organized as a process hierarchy
– Versus objects?• Process repertoire or toolkit• Basic capabilities (‘hardware’) to higher-level capabilities
– Synergy, emergent capabilities, …• Which subprocess to choose?
– Executive Capability: planning, selecting, and supervising – Augmentation impact
• Suppose you had a better writing tool…– Hardware, software, dictionary, spell checker, fact researcher, …– Pencil to word processor
» Benefits?» Break down old process, come up with new process» New capabilities!
Engelbart (contd)• Capability repertoire hierarchy– Basic capabilities (human and artifact) are the raw
materials– Mental structuring (cognitive structures)
• Development Models: garden, basketball team, machine building– Concept structuring– Symbol structuring– Process structuring
• ‘M’ in H-LAM/T– Physical structuring
• A in H-LAM/T– Interdependence among all these structures
Engelbart (contd)• How did humans get ‘augmented’ during our
development?– 1. concept manipulation– 2. symbol manipulation– 3. Manual, External, Symbol Manipulation
• Whorf’s hypothesis: Language affects our thinking and capabilities– 4. Automated external symbol manipulation (neo-
whorfian: technology affects language and capabilities)• Language can also evolve to meet conceptual and task needs
(counterargument to whorfian hypothesis)
Engelbart (contd)• Brick-pencil expt (de-augmentation)– Typewriter: 7 sec– Pencil: 20 secs– Brick, small letters: 65+ secs– Brick, large letters: 42 secs
• Impacts on effectiveness of culture– Too hard too few people doing it– Different concepts for work, record-keeping, etc.
• What about known impacts of actual augmentation, 46 years after Engelbart wrote this proposal?
Engelbart (contd)
• Concept structuring– concepts are tools– concepts have handles--representations– concept structures map to mental structures– some concept structures are better than others– language (natural lang esp) is the grand concept
structuring tool
Engelbart (contd)
• Symbol structuring– some symbols work better than others • depends on the purpose
– need flexibility, translatability– view generation capability (rather than physical
linear ordering)
Engelbart (contd)
• Interdependence among hierarchies– Cyclic– Regenerative• Improvement in one category feeds improvement in
other categories
Engelbart (contd)• Roles and levels– executive– direct-contributive
• model of executive superstructure– Bureaucratic hierarchy is onerous– contractor-subcontractor model
• Flexibility in the Executive Role– executive tasks are complex– orderly flexibility requirement on symbol etc. structures is
costly– disorderly process of change must be supported
• ‘agile methodologies’
Engelbart (contd)
• Who will benefit– Every person who does his thinking with
symbolized concepts • Human language, pictographs, formal logic,
mathematics, …
– Architects, engineers, lawyers, writers, …– ‘information workers’
Human-computer symbiosis
• Issues– Speed mismatch– System requirements (hardware, memory, …)– Organizational mismatch: Memory organization
(Information structuring and retrieval)– Language mismatch• What versus how
– I/O mismatch• Voice, mobile, touch, …
Computer as communication device
• “In a few years, men will be able to communicate more effectively through a machine than face to face”
• What is communication?– Two tape recorders exchanging data– Two humans having a meeting– Collaborative Modeling
Licklider Contd--Economics
• Models are complex• Simplification is risky and dangerous– Oversimplification– Premature simplification
• Communicating models is expensive– Cost of not doing it?
Licklider Contd
• Computer as switch vs. interactor• Distributed intellectual resources– ‘critical creative mass’
• Vision of internet– Store-and-forward technology
• Economics: billing models
Vision of internet
• Node• Mediator for online life: OLIVER• Social groups• Better for individual• Better for society
Summary
• Human Augmentation & Man-Computer symbiosis studied systematically very early on
• Licklider’s vision of internet was based on communication
Led to TCP/IP