The Lamisphere

“I’d pretty much pissed away most of my Whuffie — all the savings from the symphonies and the first three theses — drinking myself stupid at the Gazoo, hogging library terminals, pestering profs, until I’d expended all the respect anyone had ever afforded me.” — Cory Doctorow, Down And Out in the Magic Kingdom, 2003

“There are perennial discussions of trust metrics for things like automatic sysopping and (a) general “reputation management” system.  It is rightly pointed out (by me and many others!) that such systems are difficult to design properly and often easy to “game”.  At the same time, the hope is that a well-designed system would be scalable and informative, while not oppressive or empowering of tyrants.”  — Jimmy Whales, 2004

In the not too distant future, trust and transparency will become incredibly important issues for the Web.  In a world where increasingly powerful virtual online agents begin to act as proxies for decision making that we humans currently perform, there will become myriad opportunities for disreputable firms to compromise these agents, influencing the decisions that they take against the will of the person they are acting on behalf of.

You might be surprised by how many purchasing decisions robots already make.  Black-box trading systems on Wall Street and across the financial markets accounted for over 1/3 of all stock trades in 2006, and will push 50% of volume in 2010 according to the consulting firm Aite Group.   Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) systems and other standards based protocols in manufacturing, logistics, and procurement frequently execute purchasing decisions with little or no human intervention.  You can event train Amazon.com to automatically send you items based on a schedule you teach it.

What all three of these systems have put in place is an automated system for buying things without having to have a human in the middle of the decision-making process.   While Amazon fulfillment might be a simple algorithm, the underlying models for some algorithmic trading systems are as complex as any logic process that you might execute to decide what stocks to buy and when.

In the next few years, we will see web-based services emerge that want to offer that level of “decision-making by proxy” for many of the tasks that you perform manually online today.  Things like booking airline flights, making dinner reservations, scheduling appointments and buying goods and services are being targeted for automation by this new class of intelligent agent technology (see the Do Button).

The challenge that emerges is figuring out a “trust model” that will allow these agents broad latitude to execute on your desire while maintaining a high level of transparency that they are acting in your best interest, rather than being unduly influenced by third parties (perhaps through favored relationships with the agent provider).

I’m reminded of the recent dust-up around Facebook data.  If you think that having a service like Facebook turn on you and not release your data is wrong, wait until your trusted execution service suddenly decides to change how it behaves because of a new partnership the provider put in place.

Obviously, this kind of conflict could damage the growth potential for intelligence agent technologies.  I’m worried that investors in these firms will look at all of the monetization strategies that such a powerful tool will bring in the near term, and make value judgments about the level of objectivity that such a system might require without considering the broader issues of trust and transparency.

I suspect that this problem will not be easily solved. Modeling trust for an intelligent agent will require an understanding of a great many variables:

1. Beliefs and biases of the user.
2. Beliefs and biases of the user’s trusted network of social relationships
3. Transparent knowledge of the biases of the intelligent agent provider
4. A model for trading degraded transparency for reward
5. A model for adjusting all of the above over time and circumstance

If I am right about how large an impact the Intelligent Agent industry will have on society in the decade ahead, it is incumbent upon interested parties today begin to address these issues in an open and collaborative format.

No Comments | In: Artificial Intelligence, Ethics, Intelligent Agents, Semantic Web | | #

Michael Sean Wright of Nice Fish Films recorded a podcast with me today. Billed as “a discussion with really big thinkers”, we talked about The Singularity Summit and some of my favorite emerging technologies. You can hear the podcast below.

No Comments | In: Accelerating Technologies, Artificial Intelligence, Brain Machine Interface, Futurism, Intelligent Agents, Robotics, SciVestor, Semantic Web, Singularity Summit, Siri, Twine, Twitter | | #

January 1st, 2008 was the first day for SciVestor, my research and consulting firm focused on understanding emerging technologies that might change the world. We’ve accomplished a lot in the last 9 months, but I am most excited about our first upcoming event.

On Friday, October 24th, SciVestor and The Singularity Institute present the Emerging Technologies Workshop. This event is sold out, and is being held at The Tech Museum of Innovation in San Jose, CA. The day’s agenda follows:

Schedule

8:30am Doors open
9:00am Registration – coffee and breakfast bar available
9:30am Opening Keynote – Jonas Lamis, SciVestor
10:00am Semantic Web panel + Q&A
11:00am Break
11:15am Introducing CLIMOS
11:40am Introducing m2mi
12:00pm Lunch (offsite)
1:15pm Nanotechnology Panel + Q&A
2:15pm Break
2:30pm Introducing Piryx
2:50pm Robotics panel + Q&A
3:50pm Closing Keynote – Jamais Cascio, IFTF

Event concludes at 4:30pm.

Speakers

Keynotes

Jonas Lamis Exec Director SciVestor
Jamias Cascio Analyst Institute for the Future

Semantic Web Panel

Josh Dilworth Manager Porter Novelli
Chris Morrison Editor Venturebeat
Thomas Dietterich Professor University of Oregon
Dag Kittlaus CEO stealth-company.com

Nanotechnology Panel

Andrew Braswell Director of Research iNano Capital
Christine Peterson President Foresight Institute Nano panelist
Jamais Cascio Director Center for Responsible Nanotechnology
Douglas Jamison President Harris & Harris Group
Christopher Anazalone President & CEO Arrowhead Research Corp

Robotics Panel

Jonas Lamis Exec Director SciVestor
Dan Kara CEO Robotics Trends
Bruce Hall President Velodyne LIDAR
Chetan Kapoor CEO AgilePlanet
Trevor Blackwell CEO Anybots

Company Presentations

Dan Whaley CEO Climos
Geoff Brown CEO m2mi
Tom Serres CEO Piryx

I hope you are planning to attend.  If you’d like to get into this event but don’t have a ticket, email me at jlamis@scivestor.com to see what we can do.

No Comments | In: Nanotechnology, Robotics, SciVestor, Semantic Web, Singularity Summit | | #

When I think about the future of the internet and “Web 3.0″, I generally don’t dwell on haptic displays or fully-immersive virtual worlds. Rather I think about the Do Button.  I’ve given a series of talks this year on emerging technologies that will change the world, and one of the main topics covered has been looking at how semantic tools will morph into stronger AI as they become process oriented.

In my world of 2012, the Google home page of the future looks amazingly similar to the home page of today.  The Google search button is relabeled “Do It”, and the logo now sports a techno-color “Agent” appendage.  While the number of pixels changed is relatively small, the implications to a web-engaged society is enormous.

Behind the “Do It” click is a semantic processor that takes the natural language command (e.g. Schedule a date with Kathryn for tomorrow night) and determines the context of the sentence:

• Who is Kathryn?
• What is a “date”?
• When is tomorrow night?
• Is Kathryn available?
• Where is this request to take place?
• What kinds of dates do Jonas and Kathryn like to conduct?
• What needs to be scheduled in order for them to have a date?
• Is a baby sitter available?
• Is a table available?

From there, the process engine goes into action.  Each task is executed through the complex decision-tree of “date scheduling”, ultimately resulting in a text message to my iPhone “Date with Kathryn scheduled, click here for details”.

How the tasks occur may be based on training done to the system on a per user basis, but more likely is based on a collaborative training scheme where you can have your agent execute tasks that were learned by someone elses’ agent in your trusted network.

I’ve pegged the emergence of the Do Button at 2012.  But recent events make me think I have over shot by 3 years.  I’m keeping an eye on a certain Stealth Company that might be scheduling dates for my wife and I within the next 12 months.

4 Comments | In: Artificial Intelligence, Google, Just Plain Cool, Semantic Web, Siri | | #

Press release from Lamar University

Technology innovation in the coming decade will be unlike anything the world has seen, and corporations, small businesses and individuals will have to paddle hard to catch this wave — or they might just be ripped asunder. So says Jonas Lamis, executive director of SciVestor (www.scivestor.com ), a research and advisory firm focused on understanding how future technologies will disrupt the business, economic and social frameworks of society.

Lamis will speak as a part of the IES Entrepreneurship Lecture series at 11 a.m. Thursday, Oct. 2, in the Landes Auditorium of the Galloway Business Building.

At the lecture, Lamis will cover understanding the law of accelerating returns; how semantic technologies and Artificial Intelligence will change the future of the Web; Green autonomy – how robotics and AI are redesigning the automobile and changing the climate-crisis debate; the emerging science of longevity medicine and what it might mean to people; and a framework for thinking about the potential value of new concepts and companies.

Lamis is also the director of partnerships at the Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence (www.singinst.org), a consortium focused on developing a framework for safe advanced artificial intelligence, primarily through research and software development. He manages partnerships between the business and investment communities, and SIAI.

Lamis is an active contributor on topics of futurism and business at several blogs, including Singularity University (www.singularityu.org), Robot Central (robotcentral.com) and SIAI Blog (www.singinst.org/blog/).

Lamis also is the founder and editor of Architecture & Governance magazine, a publication focused on helping large IT organizations plan and manage major transformation initiatives. The quarterly magazine is circulated to approximately 15,000 key IT decision-makers.

In the last decade, Lamis has held executive and managerial roles in several venture-backed software companies.  Prior to founding SciVestor, he was the vice president of alliances and vice president of corporate marketing at Troux Technologies. He holds a master of business administration from the University of Texas, a master of science from Georgia Institute of Technology and a bachelor of science in industrial engineering from Purdue University.

Lamar’s Institute for Entrepreneurial Studies, headed by Russ Waddill, entrepreneur-in-residence of the College for Business, stimulates economic development and diversification in Southeast Texas by addressing the needs of current entrepreneurs and small businesses while simultaneously enhancing the education of tomorrow’s entrepreneurs. Since its founding in 2001, the institute has engaged in research to benefit the region, working closely with local chambers of commerce, economic development agencies and city and county leaders.

Within the College of Business, students can major in entrepreneurship receiving a bachelor in business administration — general business entrepreneurship. New curriculum has also led to the creation of a minor in entrepreneurship for non-business majors, which is open to all disciplines on campus. Courses offered to the public to assist in developing business ideas, networking and finding venture capital help put wings to inspiration for students, entrepreneurs and small businesses alike.

The Institute for Entrepreneurial Studies presents lectures twice each year that adhere to the institution’s mission statement: “to stimulate economic development and diversification in Southeast Texas by addressing the needs of current entrepreneurs and small businesses, while simultaneously enhancing the education of tomorrow’s entrepreneurs.”

No Comments | In: Anti-Aging, Artificial Intelligence, Events, Futurism, Robotics, Semantic Web | | #

SciVestor sat down with Dewey Gaedcke, Founder and CEO of Minggl.com.  He discusses the future of the social grid, how Moore’s Law is powering Web 2.0, and why companies and investors should care about Minggl.

No Comments | In: Artificial Intelligence, SciVestor, Semantic Web, Video | | #

Recently, SciVestor was quoted in a piece on the emergence of Semantic Web technologies in InfoWorld.

With the Semantic Web’s ability to hone in on just the information a user needs, companies based on a Web search advertising model such as Google may have to reconsider their plans, said analyst Jonas Lamis, executive director of SciVestor.

“They may need to rethink their business model because if I have an agent that acts on my behalf and finds things that are interesting for me, it’s not necessarily going to be reading Google ads to do that,” Lamis said.

You can read the full piece here: http://www.infoworld.com/article/08/01/15/sparql-semantic-web_1.html

 

No Comments | In: Articles, SciVestor, Semantic Web | | #