Author: admin

Virtual assistants

I wonder whether, after VR and AR really take off as part of everyday life, we will have virtual assistants. I have my doubts, because virtual assistants have failed spectacularly in the past.

Some of us remember Microsoft’s “Clippy”, introduced in Windows 97. Clippy was a cute little animated paper clip that would pop up from time to time to offer helpful advice. Most people found it annoying, and Microsoft removed the feature a few years later.

There are indeed invisible assistants like Apple’s Siri, Amazon’s Alexa and Samsung’s Bixby. But they are voice only — you never see them.

So I am somehow doubtful that visible assistants will gain a lot of traction in a forthcoming virtual and mixed reality world. Somehow I think the issue is not so much about technology, but rather about human nature.

Rules and tools

Rule based systems on computers have an interesting connection with the tools you might find in a machine shop. Superficially they look different, but they have a lot in common.

A router, lathe, planer, saw, grinder and milling machine each serves a particular purpose. And each is an evolution of years or even centuries of invention and refinement.

The same is true of a rule in a computer software system. Whether the rule is to align two objects, detect similarities or differences, enforce symmetries, or combine properties in new ways, each tool has been refined and made easy to use over many iterations.

More importantly, the individual tools are meant to work together with each other. You wouldn’t have a rule system that did nothing but align two objects, any more than you would have a machine shop that contained nothing but a milling machine. It is the ability to go back and forth between different tools that gives the system its power.

I suspect there is a semantics of tools — and sets of tools — that transcends the question of what problem domain you are working in.

BPD and ACE

A psychologist I know pointed out to me the ill effects of long term contact with someone with a borderline personality disorder (BPD). People with a BPD tend to destabilize others by fostering a mood of crisis and anger wherever they go.

We are just now coming out of four years in which millions of people have been bombarded by messages from an individual with BPD. This might not have been so bad if everyone else were completely stable to begin with.

Alas, we live in a society in which many people suffer the effects of adverse childhood experiences (ACE). People who were often beaten or otherwise mistreated in childhood often grow up with unresolved feelings of rage that can easily be triggered.

To an individual with ACE, a call to expression of hatred, violence or xenophobia can feel pleasurable. Hopping in a truck and looking for violent encounters with people they don’t agree with can be a form of self-administered therapy.

Add the veneer of authority to the dysfunctional person who is making that call to violence, and things can quickly veer out of control. People can and will get hurt.

In the long term, we need to reduce ACE by systematically combatting childhood abuse. Meanwhile, we’ve already gone a long way toward solving the short term problem by voting the disturbed BPD individual out of power.

Future Zoom

In the early days of movies, a “movie” was a silent movie. Over the course of several decades, elaborate protocols were developed around silent movies.

Actors used pantomime to communicate meaning. Dialog was mainly in the form of intertitle cards.

Audiences came to accept these limitations, and pretty much to take them for granted. Cinema was a visual medium without sound, and that was that.

All of that changed in the late 1920s. As soon as talkies came upon the scene, silent film started to die a rapid death. In a few short years, all films were talkies.

I wonder whether something similar will happen with the evolution of tools like Zoom, Google Meet, etc. They all have serious limitations that we simply take for granted — such as the inability to maintain proper eye contact with different people in a meeting.

Yet as soon as those limitations go away, we may look back on these early versions of the medium the way we now look back on silent movies. There may be a fond appreciation for the early pioneers who helped pave the way, but I suspect that very few people will want to turn back the clock to the way things are now.

My new favorite number

There were 13 original colonies that got together to form the United States. And nowadays, if you are at least 21 years old you can vote in those United States.

As of today, my new favorite number is the product of 13 and 21. Another great thing about this number is that it is greater than or equal to 270.

On the other hand, today I would like any number greater than or equal to 270. 🙂

In the balance

It seems odd to be going through each day this week while so much hangs in the balance. It is as though a giant Sword of Damocles is hanging over our heads.

I suspect that things will go well, just going by the numbers, the uncertainty is unnerving. It’s kind of like driving along a cliff at night, knowing you will probably make it home safely without going over the edge, but not being 100% certain.

Let’s just hope we manage to stay on the road.