CS 575 Spring K.V. Bapa Rao

Outline Administrative Review of previous class Douglas Engelbart’s demo video Student Presentations Discussion of Engelbart’s Paper on Augmenting Human Intellect General Discussion Summary Agenda for next meeting

Administrative

Review of previous meeting Discussion of Berners-Lee semantic web slides from video Unable to view Engelbart demo video Reminder of “framework” for discussion Student presentations: – Web mining (Manthan) – Programming paradigms (Jigar)

Engelbart’s “Mother of all demos” video

Student Presentations Yuri Muradyan: Human Enhancement Ethics Gaurang Jadia: Crowdsourcing Abhishek Sharma: Security, Privacy, Crime Armen Galstyan: Gaming & Entertainment

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 report/proposal to Air Force Ofc. Of Scientific Research 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 Paper Overview Capability to obtain better solutions to complex problems Benefit ‘information workers’ New conceptual framework What to augment – Artifacts, language, methodology, training – Whorf’s hypothesis & the weighted pencil expt – Problem-solving process – Structure: bureaucratic to more distributed – Executive capability—choosing from repertoire What is the impact of augmentation?

Engelbart: Two-domain system H-LAM/T

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) 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) Who will benefit – Every person who does his thinking with symbolized concepts Human language, pictographs, formal logic, mathematics, … – Architects, engineers, lawyers, writers, … – ‘information workers’

Engelbart (contd) 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) 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 experiment

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) 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’

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?

Summary Human Augmentation & Man-Computer symbiosis studied systematically very early on Today’s developments flowed from early conceptual research as well as engineering

Agenda for next week