IBM Watson Dons An Indiana Jones Hat
December 13, 2019
Our knowledge on ancient civilizations is based on archeological evidence. Historians and scientists can only infer how ancient people lived, but often times the civilizations are shrouded more in mystery than answers. National Geographic España shares one mystery from Peru, “Descubiertos nuevos geoglifos en Nazca gracias a la Inteligencia Artificial.” If you do not speak Spanish, the article title translates as “New Geoglyphs Discovered in Nazca Thanks To Artificial Intelligence.”
One of Peru’s greatest treasures are the gigantic geoglyphs on the Nazca pampas. The geoglyphs are huge images of animals and humans drawn by the Nazcan people between 1 BC and eighth century AD. The geoglyphs are huge creations made from white sand set against large expanses of black rock. They were first discovered in 1927, then became UNESCO World Heritage sites in 1994.
There are many theories about why the Nazcan people drew the geoglyphs on the pampas encompassing an area of 75,000 hectares. Three hundred geoglyphs have been recorded, but Masato Sakai of Yamagata University, who specializes Andean culture and archaeology, used artificial intelligence to discover one hundred forty-three new geoglyphs. All of the new geoglyphs range between five to one hundred meters in size and are estimated to made between 100 BC and 300 AD. They are shared like animals and humans, similar to past discovered geoglyphs. Artificial intelligence built on an IBM Watson computer to find the geoglyphs:
“The new geoglyphs have been identified thanks to field work combined with artificial intelligence and high-resolution 3D data analysis, an investigation carried out between 2018 and 2019. In addition, the Japanese team discovered one of them when developing an artificial intelligence (AI) model on the IBM Power System AC922 artificial intelligence server, configured with the IBM Watson Machine Learning Community Edition deep learning platform. The study explored the feasibility of AI to discover new lines by introducing into the system the ability to process large volumes of data including high-resolution aerial photos at high speeds.”
Without AI these Nazcan geoglyphs might never have been discovered. New, more robust technology allows archeologists like Sakai to find, research, and preserve these wonders and learn more about an ancient society. The question still remains why the Nazcan people created such huge drawings only visible from the air. Watson will never be able to solve that mystery.
Whitney Grace, December 13, 2019
Googley Philanthropy
December 13, 2019
We are treated to more Google executive PR speak in the ABC News story, “Google’s Do-Good Arm Tries to Make Up for Everything Else.” AP Reporter Angela Charlton cites a Paris interview with Google VP Jacqueline Fuller, where she announced some grant awards. The winning projects aspire to teach digital literacy to the poor, the elderly, immigrants, and rural users. Other emphases of Fuller’s division include working to keep children safe online and using AI to increase access to health care, build better emergency services, and boost access to job opportunities. Charlton writes:
“The philanthropic arm she runs, Google.org, is like the company’s conscience, spending $100 million a year on non-profit groups that use technology to try to counteract problems the tech world is accused of creating, abetting or exacerbating. ‘Across the world we want to make sure we’re a responsible citizen,’ she said. But can Google’s do-good arm make up for everything else? At least it’s trying, she argues.”
So, they want an A for effort? That would take more than a measly $100 million per year. Fuller insists the company is having vigorous internal “conversations” around the topics of their controversies, for whatever that is worth. Issues like privacy and the misuse of user data, algorithmic bias, the perpetuation of hate speech, employee sexual misconduct allegations, weapons development (Project Maven, in cooperation with the Pentagon), and potential human rights violations are not so easily counteracted. There may be hope for change, however, due to external pressure. The article reminds us:
“Public outrage has grown over Google’s use of consumer data and domination of the online search market, with governments stepping up scrutiny of the company. … Former Google design ethicist Tristan Harris argues technology is shortening our attention spans and pushing people toward more extreme views. He couldn’t get Google to tackle these problems when he was there, so he quit and is pushing for change through his Center for Human Technologies. He says companies like Google won’t change voluntarily but that the tech world has undergone a ‘sea change’ in awareness of problems it’s caused, thanks in part to pressure from a frustrated public.”
We shall see where that awareness leads.
Cynthia Murrell, December 13, 2019
Vaporware? You Are Not Aware of Agile?
December 9, 2019
I spotted an item of Slashdot which referred to documents filed in a court. It is possible— maybe, perhaps, sort of — that these documents contain a suggestion of an anomalous situation. Slashdot’s post “Former Oracle Product Manager Claims He Was Forced Out For Refusing to Sell Vaporware” decribes what may be viewed by some as unifornication. Unlike a regular unicorn, the approach is presented in this way:
The problem, according to the complaint, is that Oracle was asking Daramola to sell vaporware — a charge the company denies. “Daramola gradually became aware that a large percentage of the major projects to which he was assigned were in ‘escalation’ status with customers because Oracle had sold his customers software products it could not deliver, and that were not functional,” the complaint says. Daramola realized that his job “was to ratify and promote Oracle’s repeated misrepresentations to customers” about the capabilities of its software, “under the premise of managing the customer’s expectations.” The ostensible purpose of stringing customers along in this manner was to buy time so Oracle could actually implement the capabilities it was selling, the court filing states.
Is the idea worthy of a new word, unifornication? DarkCyber is not sure. What may be hypothesized is that this rare and unusual tactic of selling illusory software is the physical interaction of a marketer and a customer who bought a solution. Hence, unifornication may capture the spirit of such interaction. One promises; another pays. The back and forth without a fully functioning system is one facet of unifornication.
There may be other techniques available. Those may be discussed in the mellow glow of the afterwords.
Stephen E Arnold, December 9, 2019
WWAD: What Will Amazon Do?
December 4, 2019
Silicon Angle published “Commentary: Andy Jassy Aims to Reinvent Amazon Web Services for the Cloud’s Next Generation.” The story carries the subtitle “In an exclusive one-on-one conversation, Amazon’s cloud chief reveals how he views the future of the cloud, the competition, market shifts, customer demands and controversies.”
Several statements in the write up warranted an orange highlight:
- It’s time to embrace the next cloud wave or get crushed by it.
- The cloud has completely “flipped the business and startup model on its head.”
- “Enterprises realize that if they want to be successful, sustainable companies over time, they can’t just make small, incremental changes,” he said.
- The “vast majority” of organizations pursuing a multicloud strategy tend to pick a predominant provider and then, if they feel like they want another one, either because there’s a group that really is passionate about them or they want to know they can use a second cloud provider in case they fall out of sorts with the initial cloud provider, they will. Jassy went on to say that for customers implementing multiple clouds the workloads are split between a primary and secondary cloud more like 70/30 or 80/20 or 90/10, not 50/50.
- “Companies are going to want to eliminate network hops and find a way to have the compute and the storage much more local to the 5G network edge.”
- Next year roughly 82% of all new workloads will run Linux.
Net net: Crushing is part of the game plan. The interview is a component of the AWS re:Invent PR push. Prime stuff, not Grade A, but okay for consumption by Amazon shoppers.
Stephen E Arnold, December 4, 2019
Medical Data: A Google Focus for More Than a Decade
November 12, 2019
Medical data. Google has a bit of history. In 2008, Google made a play for personal health records. Don’t remember. Here’s what the interface looked like:
In 2011, this bold play went away. Doesn’t that sound familiar? A discontinued Google service.
Then Google bought DeepMind, the black hole of investment in the UK. DarkCyber noted this story: “Revealed: Google AI Has Access to Huge Haul of NHS Patient Data.” The write up stated:
A data-sharing agreement obtained by New Scientist shows that Google DeepMind’s collaboration with the NHS goes far beyond what it has publicly announced.
There was a dust up, but The Register reported: “Five NHS Trusts Do DeepMind Data Deal with Google. One Says No.”
DarkCyber noted the flurry of reports about Google’s tie up with Ascension, the second largest health care outfit in the US. You can read the paywalled Wall Street Journal story or you can look at one of the dozens of posts recycling this deal.
A few comments, perhaps? Why not?
First, Google has been beavering away at personal health data, including the famous CDC flue report, for more than a decade. Why? That’s a good question.
Second, Google needs new revenue. I know it sounds crazy, but the ad biz is not the same old money machine it was because the cost of “being Google” is rising more rapidly than Google’s old money machine can handle. That’s why YouTube will cuts costs by trimming un-commercial videos. Plus, there are other problems; for example, Google’s famous management style. Health data may open some revenue opportunities? Yep, a handful.
Third, Google’s information is asymmetric. There is a lot of data from Web sites, books, and other open sources. But Google is a laggard when it comes to juicy, useful, easily exploitable fine grained personal data in the hands of Amazon and Facebook. Health data is a useful goodie. Health data is proprietary and quite person centric.
What can Google do with health data? Many things. But those applications are secondary in this blog post. The point today, gentle reader, is that Google is not doing anything new. Health data has been a focal point for a relatively long time.
Oh, would you buy Google insurance? No. Would your would be employer buy information revealing a person was addicted to something? No. You might want to think about your answer. What about personalized ads to the parents of a child with an “issue”? No. Okay. No.
Stephen E Arnold, November 12, 2019
Buzzword Originator: Bits from LinkedIn
November 11, 2019
DarkCyber spotted “What on Earth Is a Data Scientist? The Buzzword’s Inventor DJ Patil Spills All.” The write up contained an interesting factoid:
The term “data scientist,” virtually unheard of just a few years ago, now returns over 25,000 results on LinkedIn’s Jobs page—that’s a solid 2,000 more than the search results of the universally trendy “financial analyst” (at least to us New Yorkers).
How valid is the phrase? We noted this statement from DJ Patel, a former LinkedIn professional and adviser to President Obama:
“But because I was working at LinkedIn, I just tested all the job titles we could think of to see which one would get the most interest from job applicants. Turns out that everybody wanted to be a data scientist, so we’re like, OK, that is what we will call ourselves.”
The hot title? Just marketing it seems.
Stephen E Arnold, November 12, 2019
IBM Watson to the Rescue of Truth: Facts? Not Necessary
November 7, 2019
“Could IBM Watson Fix Facebook’s ‘Truth Problem’?” stopped me in my daily quest for truth, justice, and the American way of technology. The write up dangles some clickbait in front of the Web indexing crawlers. Once stopped by IBM Watson, Facebook, and Truth, the indexers indexed but I read the story.
I printed it out and grabbed by trusty yellow highlighter. I like yellow because it reminds me of an approach which combines some sensational hooks with a bit of American marketing.
For instance this passage warranted a small checkmark:
Facebook is between a rock and a hard place because “the truth” is often subjective, where what is true to one party is equally false to the other.
I like the word subjective, and I marveled at the turn of phrase in this fresh wordsmithing: “between a rock and a hard place.” Okay, a dilemma or a situation created when a company does what it can to generate revenue while fending off those who would probe into its ethical depths.
This statement warranted a yellow rectangle:
Since Facebook itself is perceived as being biased (or perhaps the news sources it hosts are), a solution from them would be suspect regardless of whether it was AI-based or, assuming such a thing was financially viable (which I doubt it is), human-driven. But IBM may have a solution that could work here.
Yes, a hypothetical: IBM Watson, a somewhat disappointing display of the once proud giant’s Big Blueness, is a collection of software, methods, training processes, and unfulfilled promises by avid IBM marketers. I grant that a bright person or perhaps a legion of wizards laboring under the pressures of an academic overlord or a government COTAR possibly, maybe, or ought to be able to build a system to recognize content which is “false.” Defining the truth certainly seems possible with time, money, and the “right” people. But can IBM Watson or any of today’s smart software and wizards pull off this modest task? If the solution were available, wouldn’t it be in demand, deployed, and detailed. TV programs, streaming video, tweets, and other information objects could be identified, classified, and filtered. Easy, right?
I then used my yellow marker to underline words, place a rectangle around the following text, and I added an exclamation point for good measure. Here’s the passage:
IBM also has the most advanced, scalable, deployable AI in the market with Watson. They recognized the opportunity to have an enterprise-class AI long before anyone else, and they have demonstrated human-like competence both with Jeopardy and with a debate against a live professional debater a few years ago. I attended that debate and was impressed that Watson not only was better with the facts, it was better with humor. It lost the debate, but it was arguably the audience’s favorite.
Yes, assertions without facts, no data, no outputs, no nothing. Just “has the most advanced, scalable, deployable AI in the market.” The only hitch in this somewhat over-the-top generalization is, “It [Watson] lost the debate.”
But what warranted the exclamation mark was “it [IBM Watson] was better with humor.” Yep, smart software has a sense of humor at IBM.
This write up raises several questions. I will bring these up with my team at lunch today:
- Why are publications like Datamation running ads in the form of text? Perhaps, like Google Ads, a tiny label could be affixed so I can avoid blatant PR.
- Why is IBM insisting it has technology that “could” do something. I had a grade school teacher named Miss Bray who repeated endlessly, “Avoid woulda, coulda, shoulda.” What IBM could do is irrelevant. What IBM is doing is more important. Talking about technology is not the same as applying it and generating revenue growth, sustainable revenue, and customers who cannot stop yammering about how wonder a product or service is. For example, I hear a great deal about Amazon. I don’t here much about IBM.
- What is the “truth” in this write up. IBM Watson won Jeopardy. (TV shows do post production.) I am not convinced that the investment IBM made in setting up Watson to “win” returned more than plain old fashioned advertising. The reality is that the “truth” of this write up is very Facebook like.
To sum up, clicks and PR are more important than data, verifiable case examples, and financial reports. IBM, are you listening? Right, IBM is busy in court and working to put lipstick on its financials. IBM marketers, are you listening? Right, you don’t listen, but you send invoices I assume. Datamation, are there real stories you will cover which are not recycled collateral and unsupported assertions? Right, you don’t care either it seems. You ran this story which darn near exhausted by yellow marker’s ink.
Stephen E Arnold, November 7, 2019
Facebook: Following the Credge of Innovation
November 5, 2019
Cue the music. There’s nothing like a logo. Nothing in this world. DarkCyber noted the Credge logo innovation. Not to be outdone, Facebook, a very popular and profitable company, has added a logo. It looks like this.
See the innovation. The logo changes colors depending upon what a happy and possibly insecure Facebook user is doing at a particular time. A context aware logo! And DarkCyber thought Einstein was insightful and semi-creative. Al, you are not in Facebook’s league.
Why? Well that answer appears in a Facebook post called “Introducing Our New Company Brand.” DarkCyber learned:
The new branding was designed for clarity, and uses custom typography and capitalization to create visual distinction between the company and app.
Facebook is quite expert at clarity.
Is DarkCyber Confused?
No, DarkCyber understands. A new logo takes companies to the credge of innovation.
Stephen E Arnold, November 4, 2019
Security Industry Blind Spot: Homogeneity
October 24, 2019
Push aside the mewlings about Facebook. Ignore Google’s efforts to quash employee meetings about unionization. Sidestep the phrase “intelligent cloud revenue.”
An possibly more significant item appeared in “Information Security Industry at Risk from Lack of Diversity.” The write up states:
The Chartered Institute of Information Security (CIISec) finds that 89 percent of respondents to its survey are male, and 89 percent over 35, suggesting the profession is still very much in the hands of older men.
Furthermore, the security industry is wallowing in venture funding. That easy money has translated into a welter of security solutions. At cyber security conferences, one can license smart monitoring, intelligent and proactive systems, and automated responses.
The problem is that this security country club may be fooling itself and its customers.
The write up quotes from the CIISec report, presenting this segment:
“If the industry starts to attract a more diverse range of people whilst spreading awareness of the opportunity available, we could be well on the way to truly modernizing the industry,” adds Finch. “Key to all this will be both organizations and individuals having a framework that can show exactly what skills are necessary to fulfill what roles. This will not only help hire the right people. It will also mean that it the routes to progress through an individual’s career are clearly marked, ensuring that individuals who enthusiastically join the industry don’t over time become jaded or burn out due to a lack of opportunity.”
Partially correct opines DarkCyber. The security offered is a me-too approach. Companies find themselves struggling to implement and make use of today’s solutions. The result? Less security and vendors who talk security but deliver confusion.
Meanwhile those bad actors continue to diversify, gain state support, and exploit what are at the end of a long day, vulnerable organizational systems.
Stephen E Arnold, October 24, 2019
The Google: We Are Supreme Because We Say So
October 23, 2019
The quantum supremacy PR stunt is aloft. Navigate to “What Our Quantum Computing Milestone Means.” The write up does not mention self-serving public relations. Nope. Here’s an example:
While we’re excited for what’s ahead, we are also very humbled by the journey it took to get here. And we’re mindful of the wisdom left to us by the great Nobel Laureate Richard Feynman: “If you think you understand quantum mechanics, you don’t understand quantum mechanics.”
Aw, shucks. Google is just plain folk.
And the write up has a reminder to IBM, an outfit somewhat troubled by the supremacy thing:
As we scale up the computational possibilities, we unlock new computations. To demonstrate supremacy, our quantum machine successfully performed a test computation in just 200 seconds that would have taken the best known algorithms in the most powerful supercomputers thousands of years to accomplish. We are able to achieve these enormous speeds only because of the quality of control we have over the qubits. Quantum computers are prone to errors, yet our experiment showed the ability to perform a computation with few enough errors at a large enough scale to outperform a classical computer.
And Google sees an upside too:
Quantum computing will be a great complement to the work we do (and will continue to do) on classical computers. In many ways quantum brings computing full circle, giving us another way to speak the language of the universe and understand the world and humanity not just in 1s and 0s but in all of its states: beautiful, complex, and with limitless possibility.
Yep, our work. Let’s see. That includes:
- Online advertising
- Me too mobile phones
- Hiring Microsoft executives
- Implementing interesting management methods related to personnel- executive interaction
- Employees sleeping in their vehicles.
Great stuff. Quantum PR.
Stephen E Arnold, October 23, 2019
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