TECHNOLOGY: CHANGING THE WORLD WE LIVE

 

Google Robot



The talk today on Bloomberg during Street Smart, was about how technology is in the process of COMPLETELY CHANGING the world we live in.

Again I want to mention Peter's Law:

 "THE BEST WAY TO PREDICT THE FUTURE IS TO CREATE IT YOURSELF".

 

 This is what Joseph Sitt (Thor Equities Founder & CEO) had to say about the transitional era of technology that we are living in right now:

 

"We are about to hit technology 3.0.  We are now in the second or third age of technology.  Until now it was about technology changing the physical, and physical processing, and automating it.  So in things like manufacturing making it much more efficient and lowering the cost of production. P.S. (he said) that does hurt the jobs.  We are about to go through the MEGA CHANGE. It is going to be about robotics.  It is going be about mental technology.  And part of all that wealth that THE FAT CATS, the Googles, etc., are going to have BILLIONS AND BILLIONS of DOLLARS to invest and will invest it by buying robotic companies."

"Google buys 8 robotics companies in 6 months"  MoneyWatchDecember 16, 2013.

Robotics, of course, is not the only interest of the planning your future scenario.  Google acquired the well known futurist, Ray Kurzweil, a year ago to engineer their AI projects.  This is what was said about Kurzweil's project with Google:

"It’s all part of a rapidly evolving integration of human and artificial intelligence, which the author, scientist and inventor refers to as the Singularity. “We’re going to expand who we are. We’re going to become more non-biological,” Mr. Kurzweil said. The biological capabilities of the human mind are improving at a linear rate, while the non-biological capabilities of technology are increasing at an exponential rate. He predicts that by 2029, artificial intelligence will have human-like capabilities, which he refers to as the Singularity. Mr. Kurzweil says he doesn’t believe this will lead to a dystopian future, because those capabilities will be widely distributed among a wide variety of actors, rather than a small group of “evil corporations.”  BUT HE ADDS:

"Technology, Mr. Kurzweil conceded, always has been a double-edged sword. “Fire kept us warm … and fire burned down our villages!”

Ray Kurzweil believes that innovations in biogenetics and nanotechnology are creating a new future for humanity, leading toward a future event he calls the Singularity, in which man and machine finally merge.

More on Google's Kurzweil and "predicting the future!" http://www.ryot.org/googles-ray-kurzweil-predicts-future-believe/527265  and just a note from the webpage that hosts this piece:

"RYOT NOTE: It’s mind-boggling to imagine these actually becoming reality. One of the ways to ensure that technology continues to advance in the future is by educating younger generations. Youth For Technology marries education and technology, by partnering with low-income communities in the U.S. and with rural communities in developing nations to teach the youth how to use technology to solve problems."

And then there is Google's latest acquisition, DeepMind.  We aren't sure what this is yet.  But it sounds intriguing to say the least.  This is what the Economist had to say:

"As machine learning leaves the lab and goes into practice, it will threaten white-collar, knowledge-worker jobs just as machines, automation and assembly lines destroyed factory jobs in the 19th and 20th centuries. For example, the technique has been applied by researchers at Stanford University to tell whether a biopsy of breast cells is highly cancerous, something that until now has required a human expert to assess."

But one of the founders of DeepMind had some DEEP CONCERNS over possible misuses of this technology:

"Another of DeepMind’s founders, Shane Legg, has predicted that artificial intelligence running amok will be the biggest existential risk to humans in this century. Its founders have asked Google to set up an “ethics board” to consider the appropriate use of machine learning in its products. The creator of “Evil Genius” is ensuring that his new overlord sticks to its motto, “Don’t be evil”.

This is more examples of what is called DISRUPTIVE INNOVATION as explained in my last post, Disruptive Technologies could be coming for your job.  Also see who are the "Fat Cats" are that have billions and billions of dollars for investment in designing our future and their Brave New World in my post called Davos World Economic Forum: the times they are a changing.  

 



DISRUPTIVE TECHNOLOGIES could be coming for your job



As I have been watching Bloomberg LP, for the past few months there have been a lot of talk of disruption.  I think they held an entire conference or seminar on it.  The odd thing was that they kept using the word disruption as if it meant something GOOD.  So I thought I would do some research on disruption to understand how it meshes with something good.  For me, disruption means a break or creating a new way of doing things. 

The buzz word is actually disruptive innovation which has evolved from disruptive technology.  Disruptive is to break apart or rupture, to throw into disorder.  Or to be more specific, disruption is to interrupt the normal course.  And innovation is to introduce something new, either an idea or method or device.  So as you can guess, disruptive innovation is new technologies which will interrupt the old way of doing things for a completely new way.  For instance: the eight track is gone and we have I-tunes.  Your floppy drive is gone (or at least sitting in a box) and you use a flash drive. 

The difference between disruptive innovation (technology) and sustainable innovation is the later is static or on its way out.  Sustaining innovation doesn't create new markets but disruptive innovations does.  Here is a chart to easily show the difference:
                             

Sustaining:

An innovation that does not affect existing markets.

Evolutionary:

An innovation that improves a product in an existing market in ways that customers are expecting.

Revolutionary: (discontinuous, radical)

An innovation that is unexpected, but nevertheless does not affect existing markets.

Disruptive

An innovation that creates a new market by applying a different set of values, which ultimately (and unexpectedly) overtakes an existing market.

In many ways we all have purchased a disruptive innovation (technology) such as our mobile phones.  It is disruptive in that the mobile phone is replacing the landline.  And many of the apps on your cell phone will replace the brick and mortal stores.  (Sears is in trouble, JC Penney is in trouble..)  Another example is the e-books that everyone is buying for their Kindle or tablet.  (Libraries are beginning to go digital, bookstores are disappearing and tablets are on their way to replacing the PC).  There are many, many, many more disruptive innovations (technologies) that are well on their way to being the new revolutionary, must have "thing or device." 

So what is the big deal.  We like most of the disruptive innovations.  While these new devices are awesome and time saving they are continually causing us to spend and spend to get the new stuff and throw away our old stuff.  So we keep the wheel of the market ever turning which again is good, I guess.  Our economy counts on us spending to stay afloat.  So new, disruptive technologies and innovations fills the bill.  And another plus for the market is that not only do we pay for all the new devices but we usually have a monthly fee as well. 

But there may be some very large drawbacks to this disruptive innovation in that it is now coming after your jobs.  "Jobs such as factory and warehouse workers, paralegals, payroll administrators, office assistants and retail salespeople are but a few of the repetitive jobs that developers can write code for." 

But that's not all.  No, disruptive innovation, (as they like to call it) is also coming after upper-middle class jobs that require more thinking, reasoning, or remembering.  Through cloud technology many of the most skilled employees in sales, marketing and HR will slowly fad away.  All this will eventually affect many other aspects such as the University that students spend 4 years and a lot of dollars to get educations to get these jobs. 

So let me see if I have this...disruptive innovation will throw my life into disorder due to the introduction of new technology that can do my job instead of me.  Uhmm!  Then how will I have the money to buy the next, latest and best disruptive technology?

TOM PERKINS DEMONIZED FOR WARNING AMERICA OF TROUBLED TIMES AHEAD



 



Tom Perkins is not the 1% but he is a multi-billionaire.  And boy, did he ever step into a heap-load of trouble and controversy for expressing his concerns about OUR TROUBLED AMERICAN FUTURE. The problem was that everyone jumped on the twitter bandwagon without truly reading Tom Perkins Op Ed in the Wall St. Journal. To truly understand what Tom Perkins was saying I advise you to listen to his explanation on Bloomberg West:

http://www.bloomberg.com/video/tom-perkins-exclusive-bloomberg-west-01-27-1vKKrgehRYeW7MvypL53ZQ.html



And make your own "educated" opinion.  Marc Andreessen called Perkins an ___hole for what he said.  Andreessen is also a multi-millionaire making his money in Silicon Valley...with Netscape and many other web related ventures.  Paul Krugman, an economist and professor at Princeton, said Perkins was crazy.  Every news media picked up on this story and ran with it. 

So what was it that Tom Perkins said to cause such an uproar?  He made a comparison of Kristallnacht to the persecution of the rich today: “parallels of fascist Nazi Germany to its war on its ‘one percent,’ namely its Jews, to the progressive war on the American one percent, namely the ‘rich.’ ”  He regrets using the word Kristallnacht but does not regret the message of his letter.  His message is that anytime the majority starts to DEMONIZE a minority, no matter what it is, it is wrong and dangerous and no good will ever come of it. 

He said he was presenting a warning: the warning is that there is DANGEROUS DRIFT IN OUR AMERICAN POLITICS.  Perkins co-founder Kleiner, in Kleiner-Perkins-Caufield and Byers had fled Hitler's Germany and he told Tom what he had learned from his experience "NEVER IMAGINE THAT THE UNIMAGINABLE CAN'T BECOME REAL."  Well, Perkins has taken this to heart and as a conservative felt that he needed to sound a warning against the Drift of National politics demonizing the rich.

Tom Perkins warns:

"I feel America faces a very, very, very troubled future---I sometimes feel we have gone past the point of no return."

This letter came to pass due to all the upheaval that has been occurring in San Francisco over the techies getting their own buses with WiFi so they can work on their way to work.  The 99% (as they call themselves) can't afford to live in San Fran.  They went around busting up banks and luxury car dealerships breaking windows in all the cars.  So Tom Perkins had a glimpse of the future and was brave enough to say something.  And for that Tom Perkins was demonized. 

 



THE GODS of the COPYBOOK HEADINGS

 

THE GODS of the COPYBOOK HEADINGS

As I Pass through my incarnations in every age and race,

I make my proper prostrations to the Gods of the Market Place.
Peering through reverent fingers I watch them flourish and fall.
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings, I notice, outlast them all.

We were living in trees when they met us.  They showed us each in turn
That WATER WOULD CERTAINLY WET US, AS FIRE WOULD CERTAINLY BURN:
But we Found them lacking in UPLIFT, VISION, and BREADTH of MIND,
So we left them to teach the Gorillas while we followed the March of Mankind.

We moved as the Spirit listed.  They never altered their pace,
Being neither cloud nor wind-borne like the Gods of the Market Place,
But they always caught up with our progress, and presently word would come
That a tribe had been wiped off its icefield, or the lights had gone out in Rome.

With the Hopes that our World is built on they were utterly out of touch,
They denied that the Moon is Stilton; they denied she was even Dutch;
They denied the Wishes were horses; they denied that a Pig had Wings;
So we worshipped the Gods of the Market Who promised these beautiful things.

When the Cambrian measures were forming, They promised perpetual peace.
They swore, if we gave them our weapons, that the wars of the tribes would cease.
But when we disarmed They sold us and delivered us bound to our foe,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "Stick to the Devil you know."

On the first Feminian Sandstones we were promised the Fuller Life
(Which started by loving our neighbour and ended by loving his wife)
Till our women had no more children and the men lost reason and faith,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "The Wages of Sin is Death."

In the Carboniferous Epoch we were promised abundance for all,
By robbing selected Peter to pay for collective Paul;
But, though we had plenty of money, there was nothing our money could buy,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "If you don't work you die."

The the Gods of the Market tumbled, and their smooth-tongued wizards withdrew
And the hearts of the meanest were humbled and began to believe it was true
That All is not Gold that Glitters, and Two and Two make Four
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings limped up to explain it once more.

As it will be in the future, it was at the birth of Man
There are only four things certain since Social Progress began.
That the Dog returns to his Vomit and the Sow returns to her Mire,
And the burnt Fool's bandaged finger goes wabbling back to the Fire;

AND THAT AFTER THIS IS ACCOMPLISHED AND THE BRAVE NEW WORLD BEGINS
WHEN ALL MEN ARE PAID FOR EXISTING AND NO MAN MUST PAY FOR HIS SINS
AS SURELY AS WATER WILL WET US, AS SURELY AS FIRE WILL BURN,
THE GODS OF THE COPYBOOK HEADINGS WITH TERROR AND SLAUGHTER RETURN!

"The Gods of the Copybook Headings" is a poem published by Rudyard Kipling in 1919, which, editor Andrew Rutherford said, contained "age-old, unfashionable wisdom" that Kipling saw as having been forgotten by society and replaced by "habits of wishful thinking."

 "The copybook headings to which the title refers, were proverbs or maxims printed at the top of 19th century British schoolboys' notebook pages. The students had to write them by hand repeatedly down the page."

incarnation: the embodiment of a deity or spirit in some earthly form.
The Cambrian Period marks an important point in the history of life on Earth; it is the time when most of the major groups of animals first appear in the fossil record. This event is sometimes called the "Cambrian Explosion," because of the relatively short time over which this diversity of forms appears.

There are many interpretations of this poem.  Personally, I think it boils down to secular humanism salvation vs. good, old-fashion common sense. 

 

STAND FOR SOMETHING and keep standing...

It is important to stand up for true principles.  It is easier to have reasons to be wobbly and soft.  It seems all of a sudden people are appearing to agree and meet in the middle of the compromise.  The odd thing is that that is where each wants to be.  Sides that have been at opposites ends of the political spectrum are now meeting up.  Although, I am not sure that the political left has actually moved.  Nevertheless, it does seem the political right has embraced so much toleration as of late, and are moving left for comfort, popularity and ease.  Oh I am sure they are still holding tight to the right poll when it comes to BIG GOVERNMENT and ENTITLEMENTS but when it comes to social issues they are stretching left....some a little, some a lot.  I guess it is the new emphases on Libertarianism.  It is intended to stand for individual liberty and free will.  But now it seems to mean freedom from restraints which is not really freedom at all.  TO STAND FOR EVERYTHING IS TO STAND FOR NOTHING. 

 

 



DAVOS WORLD ECONOMIC FORUM: "The Times they are a Changing"

 

 

 

News out of the NPR reports the results from Oxfam (an international confederation of 17 organizations in 90 countries) that the 1% richest now control half of the planet's wealth.  WOW! That is staggering results.  That equates to $110 TRILLION DOLLARS, which amounts to 65 times the total wealth of the poorest 3.5 billion people.  Thus the World's RICHEST 85 PEOPLE CONTROL HALF OF THE PLANETS WEALTH.  Well, who are the richest 85....Some you might guess.

 

Carlos Slim Helu.....Mexico

Bill Gates.........DUH!

Ortega....Spain

WARREN BUFFET.....DUH!

LARRY ELLISON..ORACLE

WALTON FAMILY .....WALMART

MICHAEL BLOOMBERG....ex-Major of NY....Bloomberg

Sheldon Adelson.....Casinos

JEFF BEZOS....AMAZON

LARRY PAGE....GOOGLE

SERGEY BRIN.....GOOGLE

Ferrero.......Chocolates

Carl Ichan.....BUYOUTS

GEORGE SOROS.....Hedge Funds

MICHAEL DELL......DELL

STEVE BALLMER....MICROSOFT

MARK ZUCKERBERG....FACEBOOK

 

Okay, I didn't list all 85 but I think you get a pretty good idea who is in control.  Today (January 21) Gates and Bloomberg were interviewed on Bloomberg (financial News Network) and they reassured us that by 2035 there would be no POOR NATIONS left in the world.  That's staggering as well.  So the richest 85...or the 1 % are busy raising these poor nations up to equality with the rich nations.  They do this through their foundations of the projects that they choose.

 

Okay, one last point I would like to leave you with tonight.  And that is the themes for the World Economic Forum for the last 4 years.  Remember the last 5 years have been looming crisis of one sort or any other. 

 

2011: Shared Norms for THE NEW REALITY

2012: OUR WORLD. YOUR MONEY.

2013: BIG IDEAS. BIG SOLUTIONS.

2014: THE RESHAPING OF THE WORLD: consequences for society, politics and business.

 

So in sum: the richest people are working on a new reality, with your money, by big ideas that will reshape the world. 





WHERE HAVE THE JOBS GONE?

Speaking of the future and usually that is what we do for we are never content with the here and now but only with tomorrow.  What does the future hold for us as Americans?  Well, Google, Apple, Facebook, and Amazon are striving very hard to define that for all of us.  And aren't we all so eager for the next innovation to come out of these companies?  I agree that each new advancement is fun and brings so many new capabilities to make our life ever more consumed and connected. 

But I have this tick which makes me always look down the road and to try to envision what the future could become with all the technology on steroids.  And beyond that I like to listen to the latest claims made by the digital gods.  One of the very best sites to keep abreast on all things new in science and technology (besides Wired) is kurzweilAI.net.  One of Ray Kurzweil's colleagues is Peter Diamandis.  Peter (and Ray) are brilliant men.  Peter has created what is knows as "Peter's Laws."  I will include those in a future post as they are GREAT.  Tonight I would like to mention his law on the future: "THE BEST WAY TO PREDICT THE FUTURE IS TO CREATE IT YOURSELF."  And that is exactly what all the above CONGLOMERATES (made up of parts from various sources or of various kinds) are working on...continually.  They predict and then they create and it becomes reality.  But do we ever UNPLUG LONG ENOUGH to think about where their predictive future is taking us and what it means for jobs? 

I think this weeks cover of The Economist sums it up nicely:

 

 

It bluntly states "the effect of today's technology on tomorrow's jobs will be immense--and no country is ready for it."  There can be no doubt that we are in a TECHNOLOGICAL REVOLUTION.  And whenever a REVOLUTION occurs it changes EVERYTHING FOREVER.  That is the meaning of revolution to turn over and make anew.  Of course jobs will be disruptive on all levels.  Everything we know today socially, politically, economically, personally, have changed and will be changing more.  The Economist reports that TECHNOLOGICAL DISRUPTION is a large tidal wave that is coming to shore and will wipe out much in its path changing the landscape forever.  It's not just jobs that will be changed but our very existence as we know it today.  We can't really change it.  We can't really prepare for it.  So I suggest that you grab a surf board and pray to ride the wave.  And if that's not an option.....?