Author: admin

Today, as external examiner for the once-every-four-years INRIA self-assessment in France, I watched 16 research presentations. The presentations represented, collectively, the scientific advances of a very large and diverse scientific research community funded by the French government.

The total yearly budget for this endeavor, as I understand it, is about 480 million euros. Thousands of scientists participate, there are major research collaborations with leading scientists around the world, and the entire enterprise is completely awesome in its sheer ambition and scale.

Needless to say, I was overwhelmed and delighted by many of the things I learned, new technologies that will improve education, health care, research and much more. The concept of a government of a major Western country believing in science, and in its ability to help make the world a better place, was a beautiful thing to behold.

In the U.S. we used to think that way. Sigh.

Today I am attending a conference near Paris together with a number of fellow researchers from many different countries. It’s fascinating to engage in dinner table conversation with them.

Everyone, no matter where they are from, seems to identity completely with the recent reaction at the U.N. when you-know-who claimed that he was leading one of the greatest American administrations of all time. That reaction, as you probably kmnow was a spontaneous explosion of laughter by a large number of delegates.

This pretty much describes the way my colleagues around the world think of our nation’s current situation. Although of course they are also worried. After all, if the U.S. goes completely nuts, it will not bode well for the world’s economy.

My colleague from Italy, at least, had an appropriate sense of humility. She acknowledged that the political leaders in her own country are as crazy as ours.

I’m not sure that counts as reassuring.

I’ve been running around so much recently, flying here and there, racing for deadlines, that I had forgotten what it was like just to have a pleasant day not doing much of anything. Today I went to the market with my friends in Paris, took the Metro, wandered around a bit, and simply enjoyed the sheer beauty of the City of Lights in Autumn.

This evening we enjoyed a wonderful dinner at 42 degrés in the 9e arrondissement, one of my favorite restaurants in the world. The food and the wine, like the company, were simply perfect.

With so much constant running around, frantically trying to get things done, sometimes I forget to simply stop and enjoy the day. Today I remembered.

Today in a talk in Paris about the future of technology I quoted Melvin Kranzberg. That quote may have been the most important part of my talk.

Kranzberg’s first law of technology states: “Technology is neither good nor bad; nor is it neutral.” I think this statement is key to any sensible policy that aims to deal with the effects of advancements in technology.

In a way, it is the same statement that William Shakespeare makes in Julius Caesar when he has Cassius say: “”The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, But in ourselves.”

Simply put, we don’t get to palm off responsibility onto our creations. It is Dr. Frankenstein, not his poor creature, who bears responsibility for the consequences of invention without ethical insight.

Similarly, when Skynet goes rogue, Miles Bennett Dyson and his team don’t just get to say “oops”. And Dr. Jekyll can’t simply undrink the potion.

Those of us who create new technologies have a particular responsibility to be aware of what we are doing. Rather than shy away from this responsibility, or to pretend that it is someone else’s problem, we should embrace it.

Either way, history will surely judge us. When that day of reckoning comes, we can only hope that our good judgement, the decisions we made which led to a more ethical future, will be deemed to be an even greater contribution than whatever it is we happened to invent.

First night in Paris
Taxi headlights shining through
The fog of jet lag

Over the last few days I’ve been mulling over in my mind Brett Kavanaugh’s fiery and emotional expression of innocence. In reality, his story and Dr. Blasey’s story are actually in total agreement.

The sort of behavior she describes is perfectly consistent with that of a young man who is black-out drunk — and at this point, based on the evidence, I don’t think anybody seriously doubts that Mr. Kavanaugh drank to that level of excess in his youth. So in fact he is being completely honest and sincere when he says he has no recollection of the event in question.

But what struck me was the tone of his declaration of innocence. He was loudly combative, openly hostile and dismissive in response to reasonable questions of fact — particularly if the Senator asking the question was female. He was also prone to angrily shouting about accusations of political witch hunts, and at points becoming emotional to the point of crying.

Imagine if a woman had put on such a show. Of course you cannot. No woman would dare enact such a public display of unbridled emotion unless she were insane.

If a woman were foolish enough to attempt such a thing, the court of public opinion would immediately hang her from the highest tree. You can probably already hear the invective in your head: Shrill, shrewish, pushy, hysterical, “too bad she’s on her period”. Or just plain Bitch (as well as other words that are considerably less polite).

But it’s ok if a guy does it.

So what Brett Kavanaugh was really communicating, whether he intended to or not, was that male privilege is alive and well in the USA. Sure, it’s all well and good to pay lip service to equality between the sexes. But when it comes right down to it, in case there was any doubt, the U.S. Republican party is very much about maintaining the power of the patriarchy.

It is a world view in which only men are allowed to throw their weight around, because only men really count. In this world view, a woman simply isn’t important — other than as a meek and ever loyal supporter of her man.

It’s amazing to me that any woman at all continues to vote for these people.

Watching Maniac,
No idea what’s going on
I give it ten stars

Yesterday I said that I felt that Oculus Connect didn’t really speak to me and the things I care about. It turns out that I missed an interesting part of Mark Zuckerberg’s opening talk yesterday morning.

Because I had arrived a few minutes late, I didn’t see his very first visual. Fortunately a friend sent it to me. You can see it for yourself below.

At the very start of his keynote, Mark apparently gave a shout out to the future of education and other topics that are dear to my heart. And looming behind him on his very first slide was a familiar face, drawing in the air, giving a math lecture in the future.

I stand corrected.

I just attended the first day of the two day annual Oculus Connect conference. I am here because Facebook Oculus is a sponsor of our educational work that brings Chalktalk into shared VR.

The morning started with Mark Zuckerberg giving an inspirational talk about the future of Virtual Reality. After that, there were lots of talks describing specific features Facebook Oculus have added to their platform, and how all of this will help to advance VR for the computer game industry.

It’s clear that the folks at Facebook Oculus have made tremendous strides this last year in VR technology for gaming. In particular, their newly announced standalone Oculus Quest system generated a lot of excitement, and rightly so.

Alas, I felt a little like a misplaced person. Every time there was a new announcement, the audience erupted into loud cheers, and I felt more and more like a fish out of water. I am not, after all, really in the culture of gaming, and my interest in VR is entirely in how it can help to bring people together to tell each other stories.

I was very appreciative of the enthusiasm around me, and the excitement in the air. Yet I also felt disconnected from it. I supposed this might be what it might feel like to be a Baptist at a Bar Mitzvah.

I had a really strange dream last night. Not sure why I would have dreamt such a crazy thing.

In my dream, the President of the United States decided to use his time at an important United Nations summit to make an even more important public statement about teenage ethics.

In his public statement, within my very strange dream, the President described a scenario in which a teenage girl is drunk, and a young man decides to shove his penis in her face without her consent. Were such a thing to happen, the President explained to the world, it would be entirely her fault, not his, because she was drunk.

I pondered how weird it was that I would have such a dream, in which the leader of our nation would choose an assembly of all of the world’s leaders to make such a surreal public statement.

Fortunately I woke up, and realized that it had all been a dream.