Silverchair Strategies

Some Context for Thinking
About the Future

Tim O’Reilly
O’Reilly Media
Silverchair Strategies
October 28, 2011

Wednesday, November 2, 11

You may know me as a computer book publisher


“The skill of writing is to
create a context in which
other people can think.”
-Edwin Schlossberg


The Internet as Platform


How can you call it an operating system?
• No kernel
• No memory
management
• No processor

Photo: Patrick Tufts http://www.flickr.com/photos/zippy/50537423/sizes/o/


The Internet Operating System Controls Access to Data

An application that depends on
cooperating cloud data services:

- Location
- Search
- Speech recognition
- Live Traffic
- Imagery


Intelligence Augmentation

“One cannot hope thus to equal the speed and
flexibility with which the mind follows an associative
trail, but it should be possible to beat the mind
decisively in regard to the permanence and clarity of
the items resurrected from storage.
Consider a future device for individual use, which is a
sort of mechanized private file and library. It needs a
name, and, to coin one at random, "memex" will do.”
-Vannevar Bush, As We May Think, 1945


What’s Next?


3.0?
The Semantic Web?


A device that augments our senses
as well as our ability to retrieve
information.


A device that augments our senses
as well as our ability to retrieve
information.
And a device that maps sensory
data onto a semantic database.


Getting Beyond “Information Retrieval”

Sensors + Semantics = Services


Artificial Intelligence

“the science and engineering
of making intelligent machines”
-John McCarthy, 1956


The Google Autonomous Vehicle


2005: Stanley Wins the DARPA Grand Challenge


The “intelligent” devices of the future are cloud-connected
“We don’t have better algorithms. We just have more
data.” - Peter Norvig, Chief Scientist, Google


Human-Computer Symbiosis

“The hope is that, in not too many years, human brains
and computing machines will be coupled together very
tightly, and that the resulting partnership will think as no
human brain has ever thought and process data in a
way not approached by the information-handling
machines we know today.”

– Licklider, J.C.R., "Man-Computer Symbiosis", IRE Transactions on Human
Factors in Electronics, vol. HFE-1, 4-11, Mar 1960. Eprint


Towards a global brain


A few key assertions
• We are building a network-mediated global mind
• It is not skynet
• It is us, augmented


Harnessing Collective Intelligence

“global consciousness is
that thing responsible for
deciding that pots
containing decaffeinated
coffee should be orange”

– Danny Hillis (via Jeff Bezos)


“Would you be willing to cross the street
with information that was five minutes old?”
-Jeff Jonas


“Half the money I spend on
advertising is wasted; the
trouble is I don't know
which half.”

- John Wanamaker
(1838-1922)


“Only 1% of healthcare spend now goes to diagnosis.
We need to shift from the idea that you do diagnosis at
the start, followed by treatment, to a cycle of diagnosis,
treatment, diagnosis...as we explore what works.”
-Pascale Witz, GE Medical Diagnostics


for profit colleges


• strata


“How can applications be
better when they are
social?”
-Mark Zuckerberg


The Web Has an “Architecture of Participation”
• Small, modular pieces
• Joined by open communications protocols
• An open, standard data format
• Extensibility by design


The Web Has an “Architecture of Participation”
• Small, modular pieces
• Joined by open communications protocols
• An open, standard data format
• Extensibility by design

This is also true of open source software projects
like Linux and Apache
This is what makes emergent behavior possible,
with no prior agreement between the parties


wikipedia


“Wikipedia is not an
encyclopedia. It is a
virtual city, a city whose
main export to the world
is its encyclopedia
articles, but with an
internal life of its own.”


“The architecture of
attention”


Kasparov vs. The World (1999)

“The greatest game in
the history of chess.”
-Gary Kasparov

“Although Krush was
inferior to Kasparov in
nearly all areas of chess,
in this particular area of
microexpertise, she
surpassed even him”



Don’t forget about the community
that creates your content


Software as a Service

Von Kempelen's Mechanical Turk


Software Above The Level of A Single Device


The spread of sensors
• sensor platform slide



Is there an opportunity for a standard data and
connectivity platform for these UI-less devices?


The power of platforms: Create value for others


The power of platforms: Create value for others

4

Steve Jobs on Design

“In most people’s vocabularies,
design means veneer. It’s interior
decorating. It’s the fabric of the
curtains and the sofa. But to
me...design is the fundamental
soul of a man-made creation that
ends up expressing itself in
successive outer layers of the
product or service."

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/08/business/how-steve-jobs-infused-passion-into-a-
commodity.html?hp=&pagewanted=all


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