WEBVTT 00:00:00.512 --> 00:00:03.068 I'd like to tell you about two games of chess. 00:00:03.068 --> 00:00:06.932 The first happened in 1997, in which Garry Kasparov, 00:00:06.932 --> 00:00:10.648 a human, lost to Deep Blue, a machine. 00:00:10.648 --> 00:00:12.888 To many, this was the dawn of a new era, 00:00:12.888 --> 00:00:15.667 one where man would be dominated by machine. 00:00:15.667 --> 00:00:19.001 But here we are, 20 years on, and the greatest change 00:00:19.001 --> 00:00:21.691 in how we relate to computers is the iPad, 00:00:21.691 --> 00:00:23.736 not HAL. NOTE Paragraph 00:00:23.736 --> 00:00:26.384 The second game was a freestyle chess tournament 00:00:26.384 --> 00:00:29.353 in 2005, in which man and machine could enter together 00:00:29.353 --> 00:00:34.019 as partners, rather than adversaries, if they so chose. 00:00:34.019 --> 00:00:35.870 At first, the results were predictable. 00:00:35.870 --> 00:00:38.367 Even a supercomputer was beaten by a grandmaster 00:00:38.367 --> 00:00:40.679 with a relatively weak laptop. 00:00:40.679 --> 00:00:43.664 The surprise came at the end. Who won? 00:00:43.664 --> 00:00:46.440 Not a grandmaster with a supercomputer, 00:00:46.440 --> 00:00:47.933 but actually two American amateurs 00:00:47.933 --> 00:00:51.755 using three relatively weak laptops. 00:00:51.755 --> 00:00:54.351 Their ability to coach and manipulate their computers 00:00:54.351 --> 00:00:56.786 to deeply explore specific positions 00:00:56.786 --> 00:00:59.176 effectively counteracted the superior chess knowledge 00:00:59.176 --> 00:01:01.785 of the grandmasters and the superior computational power 00:01:01.785 --> 00:01:03.694 of other adversaries. 00:01:03.694 --> 00:01:06.599 This is an astonishing result: average men, 00:01:06.599 --> 00:01:10.680 average machines beating the best man, the best machine. 00:01:10.680 --> 00:01:13.879 And anyways, isn't it supposed to be man versus machine? 00:01:13.879 --> 00:01:18.031 Instead, it's about cooperation, and the right type of cooperation. NOTE Paragraph 00:01:18.031 --> 00:01:20.888 We've been paying a lot of attention to Marvin Minsky's 00:01:20.888 --> 00:01:24.130 vision for artificial intelligence over the last 50 years. 00:01:24.130 --> 00:01:26.392 It's a sexy vision, for sure. Many have embraced it. 00:01:26.392 --> 00:01:29.145 It's become the dominant school of thought in computer science. 00:01:29.145 --> 00:01:32.217 But as we enter the era of big data, of network systems, 00:01:32.217 --> 00:01:34.915 of open platforms, and embedded technology, 00:01:34.915 --> 00:01:38.307 I'd like to suggest it's time to reevaluate an alternative vision 00:01:38.307 --> 00:01:41.377 that was actually developed around the same time. 00:01:41.377 --> 00:01:44.709 I'm talking about J.C.R. Licklider's human-computer symbiosis, 00:01:44.709 --> 00:01:48.517 perhaps better termed "intelligence augmentation," I.A. NOTE Paragraph 00:01:48.517 --> 00:01:51.157 Licklider was a computer science titan who had a profound 00:01:51.157 --> 00:01:54.163 effect on the development of technology and the Internet. 00:01:54.163 --> 00:01:57.031 His vision was to enable man and machine to cooperate 00:01:57.031 --> 00:02:00.621 in making decisions, controlling complex situations 00:02:00.621 --> 00:02:02.391 without the inflexible dependence 00:02:02.391 --> 00:02:04.924 on predetermined programs. 00:02:04.924 --> 00:02:07.422 Note that word "cooperate." 00:02:07.422 --> 00:02:10.169 Licklider encourages us not to take a toaster 00:02:10.169 --> 00:02:12.453 and make it Data from "Star Trek," 00:02:12.453 --> 00:02:15.988 but to take a human and make her more capable. 00:02:15.988 --> 00:02:17.899 Humans are so amazing -- how we think, 00:02:17.899 --> 00:02:20.517 our non-linear approaches, our creativity, 00:02:20.517 --> 00:02:22.648 iterative hypotheses, all very difficult if possible at all 00:02:22.648 --> 00:02:23.993 for computers to do. 00:02:23.993 --> 00:02:26.445 Licklider intuitively realized this, contemplating humans 00:02:26.445 --> 00:02:28.772 setting the goals, formulating the hypotheses, 00:02:28.772 --> 00:02:32.148 determining the criteria, and performing the evaluation. 00:02:32.148 --> 00:02:33.923 Of course, in other ways, humans are so limited. 00:02:33.923 --> 00:02:37.158 We're terrible at scale, computation and volume. 00:02:37.158 --> 00:02:38.994 We require high-end talent management 00:02:38.994 --> 00:02:41.058 to keep the rock band together and playing. 00:02:41.058 --> 00:02:43.262 Licklider foresaw computers doing all the routinizable work 00:02:43.262 --> 00:02:46.538 that was required to prepare the way for insights and decision making. NOTE Paragraph 00:02:46.538 --> 00:02:48.762 Silently, without much fanfare, 00:02:48.762 --> 00:02:52.116 this approach has been compiling victories beyond chess. 00:02:52.116 --> 00:02:55.472 Protein folding, a topic that shares the incredible expansiveness of chess — 00:02:55.472 --> 00:02:58.514 there are more ways of folding a protein than there are atoms in the universe. 00:02:58.514 --> 00:03:00.867 This is a world-changing problem with huge implications 00:03:00.867 --> 00:03:03.175 for our ability to understand and treat disease. 00:03:03.175 --> 00:03:07.423 And for this task, supercomputer field brute force simply isn't enough. 00:03:07.423 --> 00:03:09.807 Foldit, a game created by computer scientists, 00:03:09.807 --> 00:03:12.309 illustrates the value of the approach. 00:03:12.309 --> 00:03:15.350 Non-technical, non-biologist amateurs play a video game 00:03:15.350 --> 00:03:18.423 in which they visually rearrange the structure of the protein, 00:03:18.423 --> 00:03:19.922 allowing the computer to manage the atomic forces 00:03:19.922 --> 00:03:22.879 and interactions and identify structural issues. 00:03:22.879 --> 00:03:25.902 This approach beat supercomputers 50 percent of the time 00:03:25.902 --> 00:03:28.486 and tied 30 percent of the time. 00:03:28.486 --> 00:03:31.623 Foldit recently made a notable and major scientific discovery 00:03:31.623 --> 00:03:34.783 by deciphering the structure of the Mason-Pfizer monkey virus. 00:03:34.783 --> 00:03:37.798 A protease that had eluded determination for over 10 years 00:03:37.798 --> 00:03:40.424 was solved was by three players in a matter of days, 00:03:40.424 --> 00:03:42.449 perhaps the first major scientific advance 00:03:42.449 --> 00:03:44.772 to come from playing a video game. NOTE Paragraph 00:03:44.772 --> 00:03:46.953 Last year, on the site of the Twin Towers, 00:03:46.953 --> 00:03:48.426 the 9/11 memorial opened. 00:03:48.426 --> 00:03:51.147 It displays the names of the thousands of victims 00:03:51.147 --> 00:03:54.210 using a beautiful concept called "meaningful adjacency." 00:03:54.210 --> 00:03:56.376 It places the names next to each other based on their 00:03:56.376 --> 00:03:58.589 relationships to one another: friends, families, coworkers. 00:03:58.589 --> 00:04:01.617 When you put it all together, it's quite a computational 00:04:01.617 --> 00:04:05.840 challenge: 3,500 victims, 1,800 adjacency requests, 00:04:05.840 --> 00:04:08.932 the importance of the overall physical specifications 00:04:08.932 --> 00:04:11.069 and the final aesthetics. 00:04:11.069 --> 00:04:13.684 When first reported by the media, full credit for such a feat 00:04:13.684 --> 00:04:15.576 was given to an algorithm from the New York City 00:04:15.576 --> 00:04:19.577 design firm Local Projects. The truth is a bit more nuanced. 00:04:19.577 --> 00:04:22.448 While an algorithm was used to develop the underlying framework, 00:04:22.448 --> 00:04:25.456 humans used that framework to design the final result. 00:04:25.456 --> 00:04:27.681 So in this case, a computer had evaluated millions 00:04:27.681 --> 00:04:31.016 of possible layouts, managed a complex relational system, 00:04:31.016 --> 00:04:33.430 and kept track of a very large set of measurements 00:04:33.430 --> 00:04:35.840 and variables, allowing the humans to focus 00:04:35.840 --> 00:04:38.642 on design and compositional choices. 00:04:38.642 --> 00:04:39.678 So the more you look around you, 00:04:39.678 --> 00:04:41.640 the more you see Licklider's vision everywhere. 00:04:41.640 --> 00:04:44.944 Whether it's augmented reality in your iPhone or GPS in your car, 00:04:44.944 --> 00:04:47.914 human-computer symbiosis is making us more capable. NOTE Paragraph 00:04:47.914 --> 00:04:49.569 So if you want to improve human-computer symbiosis, 00:04:49.569 --> 00:04:50.998 what can you do? 00:04:50.998 --> 00:04:53.450 You can start by designing the human into the process. 00:04:53.450 --> 00:04:55.654 Instead of thinking about what a computer will do to solve the problem, 00:04:55.654 --> 00:04:59.523 design the solution around what the human will do as well. 00:04:59.523 --> 00:05:01.460 When you do this, you'll quickly realize that you spent 00:05:01.460 --> 00:05:04.339 all of your time on the interface between man and machine, 00:05:04.339 --> 00:05:07.438 specifically on designing away the friction in the interaction. 00:05:07.438 --> 00:05:10.204 In fact, this friction is more important than the power 00:05:10.204 --> 00:05:12.256 of the man or the power of the machine 00:05:12.256 --> 00:05:14.187 in determining overall capability. 00:05:14.187 --> 00:05:16.164 That's why two amateurs with a few laptops 00:05:16.164 --> 00:05:18.620 handily beat a supercomputer and a grandmaster. 00:05:18.620 --> 00:05:21.625 What Kasparov calls process is a byproduct of friction. 00:05:21.625 --> 00:05:24.026 The better the process, the less the friction. 00:05:24.026 --> 00:05:28.282 And minimizing friction turns out to be the decisive variable. NOTE Paragraph 00:05:28.282 --> 00:05:30.525 Or take another example: big data. 00:05:30.525 --> 00:05:32.431 Every interaction we have in the world is recorded 00:05:32.431 --> 00:05:35.490 by an ever growing array of sensors: your phone, 00:05:35.490 --> 00:05:37.863 your credit card, your computer. The result is big data, 00:05:37.863 --> 00:05:39.605 and it actually presents us with an opportunity 00:05:39.605 --> 00:05:42.267 to more deeply understand the human condition. 00:05:42.267 --> 00:05:44.572 The major emphasis of most approaches to big data 00:05:44.572 --> 00:05:46.787 focus on, "How do I store this data? How do I search 00:05:46.787 --> 00:05:49.063 this data? How do I process this data?" 00:05:49.063 --> 00:05:51.267 These are necessary but insufficient questions. 00:05:51.267 --> 00:05:53.738 The imperative is not to figure out how to compute, 00:05:53.738 --> 00:05:55.922 but what to compute. How do you impose human intuition 00:05:55.922 --> 00:05:57.713 on data at this scale? NOTE Paragraph 00:05:57.713 --> 00:06:01.212 Again, we start by designing the human into the process. 00:06:01.212 --> 00:06:04.024 When PayPal was first starting as a business, their biggest 00:06:04.024 --> 00:06:06.828 challenge was not, "How do I send money back and forth online?" 00:06:06.828 --> 00:06:10.700 It was, "How do I do that without being defrauded by organized crime?" 00:06:10.700 --> 00:06:12.788 Why so challenging? Because while computers can learn 00:06:12.788 --> 00:06:15.932 to detect and identify fraud based on patterns, 00:06:15.932 --> 00:06:17.411 they can't learn to do that based on patterns 00:06:17.411 --> 00:06:19.527 they've never seen before, and organized crime 00:06:19.527 --> 00:06:22.236 has a lot in common with this audience: brilliant people, 00:06:22.236 --> 00:06:25.876 relentlessly resourceful, entrepreneurial spirit — (Laughter) — 00:06:25.876 --> 00:06:28.588 and one huge and important difference: purpose. 00:06:28.588 --> 00:06:31.420 And so while computers alone can catch all but the cleverest 00:06:31.420 --> 00:06:33.673 fraudsters, catching the cleverest is the difference 00:06:33.673 --> 00:06:36.218 between success and failure. NOTE Paragraph 00:06:36.218 --> 00:06:38.439 There's a whole class of problems like this, ones with 00:06:38.439 --> 00:06:41.014 adaptive adversaries. They rarely if ever present with a 00:06:41.014 --> 00:06:43.750 repeatable pattern that's discernable to computers. 00:06:43.750 --> 00:06:47.743 Instead, there's some inherent component of innovation or disruption, 00:06:47.743 --> 00:06:50.478 and increasingly these problems are buried in big data. NOTE Paragraph 00:06:50.478 --> 00:06:52.978 For example, terrorism. Terrorists are always adapting 00:06:52.978 --> 00:06:55.030 in minor and major ways to new circumstances, and despite 00:06:55.030 --> 00:06:58.124 what you might see on TV, these adaptations, 00:06:58.124 --> 00:07:00.417 and the detection of them, are fundamentally human. 00:07:00.417 --> 00:07:03.534 Computers don't detect novel patterns and new behaviors, 00:07:03.534 --> 00:07:06.769 but humans do. Humans, using technology, testing hypotheses, 00:07:06.769 --> 00:07:11.389 searching for insight by asking machines to do things for them. 00:07:11.389 --> 00:07:13.709 Osama bin Laden was not caught by artificial intelligence. 00:07:13.709 --> 00:07:16.262 He was caught by dedicated, resourceful, brilliant people 00:07:16.262 --> 00:07:20.531 in partnerships with various technologies. NOTE Paragraph 00:07:20.531 --> 00:07:23.349 As appealing as it might sound, you cannot algorithmically 00:07:23.349 --> 00:07:24.950 data mine your way to the answer. 00:07:24.950 --> 00:07:27.805 There is no "Find Terrorist" button, and the more data 00:07:27.805 --> 00:07:30.107 we integrate from a vast variety of sources 00:07:30.107 --> 00:07:32.240 across a wide variety of data formats from very 00:07:32.240 --> 00:07:35.549 disparate systems, the less effective data mining can be. 00:07:35.549 --> 00:07:37.573 Instead, people will have to look at data 00:07:37.573 --> 00:07:41.029 and search for insight, and as Licklider foresaw long ago, 00:07:41.029 --> 00:07:43.714 the key to great results here is the right type of cooperation, 00:07:43.714 --> 00:07:45.238 and as Kasparov realized, 00:07:45.238 --> 00:07:48.269 that means minimizing friction at the interface. NOTE Paragraph 00:07:48.269 --> 00:07:51.027 Now this approach makes possible things like combing 00:07:51.027 --> 00:07:54.413 through all available data from very different sources, 00:07:54.413 --> 00:07:57.205 identifying key relationships and putting them in one place, 00:07:57.205 --> 00:08:00.133 something that's been nearly impossible to do before. 00:08:00.133 --> 00:08:02.075 To some, this has terrifying privacy and civil liberties 00:08:02.075 --> 00:08:05.485 implications. To others it foretells of an era of greater 00:08:05.485 --> 00:08:07.394 privacy and civil liberties protections, 00:08:07.394 --> 00:08:10.330 but privacy and civil liberties are of fundamental importance. 00:08:10.330 --> 00:08:12.523 That must be acknowledged, and they can't be swept aside, 00:08:12.523 --> 00:08:15.053 even with the best of intents. NOTE Paragraph 00:08:15.053 --> 00:08:17.571 So let's explore, through a couple of examples, the impact 00:08:17.571 --> 00:08:19.977 that technologies built to drive human-computer symbiosis 00:08:19.977 --> 00:08:22.896 have had in recent time. NOTE Paragraph 00:08:22.896 --> 00:08:26.312 In October, 2007, U.S. and coalition forces raided 00:08:26.312 --> 00:08:28.728 an al Qaeda safe house in the city of Sinjar 00:08:28.728 --> 00:08:30.662 on the Syrian border of Iraq. 00:08:30.662 --> 00:08:33.038 They found a treasure trove of documents: 00:08:33.038 --> 00:08:35.373 700 biographical sketches of foreign fighters. 00:08:35.373 --> 00:08:37.957 These foreign fighters had left their families in the Gulf, 00:08:37.957 --> 00:08:41.103 the Levant and North Africa to join al Qaeda in Iraq. 00:08:41.103 --> 00:08:42.719 These records were human resource forms. 00:08:42.719 --> 00:08:45.574 The foreign fighters filled them out as they joined the organization. 00:08:45.574 --> 00:08:46.785 It turns out that al Qaeda, too, 00:08:46.785 --> 00:08:49.382 is not without its bureaucracy. (Laughter) 00:08:49.382 --> 00:08:51.480 They answered questions like, "Who recruited you?" 00:08:51.480 --> 00:08:54.334 "What's your hometown?" "What occupation do you seek?" NOTE Paragraph 00:08:54.334 --> 00:08:57.503 In that last question, a surprising insight was revealed. 00:08:57.503 --> 00:08:59.903 The vast majority of foreign fighters 00:08:59.903 --> 00:09:02.303 were seeking to become suicide bombers for martyrdom -- 00:09:02.303 --> 00:09:06.641 hugely important, since between 2003 and 2007, Iraq 00:09:06.641 --> 00:09:10.885 had 1,382 suicide bombings, a major source of instability. 00:09:10.885 --> 00:09:12.943 Analyzing this data was hard. The originals were sheets 00:09:12.943 --> 00:09:15.685 of paper in Arabic that had to be scanned and translated. 00:09:15.685 --> 00:09:17.877 The friction in the process did not allow for meaningful 00:09:17.877 --> 00:09:21.227 results in an operational time frame using humans, PDFs 00:09:21.227 --> 00:09:23.445 and tenacity alone. 00:09:23.445 --> 00:09:25.398 The researchers had to lever up their human minds 00:09:25.398 --> 00:09:27.743 with technology to dive deeper, to explore non-obvious 00:09:27.743 --> 00:09:30.961 hypotheses, and in fact, insights emerged. 00:09:30.961 --> 00:09:33.605 Twenty percent of the foreign fighters were from Libya, 00:09:33.605 --> 00:09:36.573 50 percent of those from a single town in Libya, 00:09:36.573 --> 00:09:39.023 hugely important since prior statistics put that figure at 00:09:39.023 --> 00:09:41.406 three percent. It also helped to hone in on a figure 00:09:41.406 --> 00:09:44.383 of rising importance in al Qaeda, Abu Yahya al-Libi, 00:09:44.383 --> 00:09:47.014 a senior cleric in the Libyan Islamic fighting group. 00:09:47.014 --> 00:09:49.678 In March of 2007, he gave a speech, after which there was 00:09:49.678 --> 00:09:53.144 a surge in participation amongst Libyan foreign fighters. NOTE Paragraph 00:09:53.144 --> 00:09:56.250 Perhaps most clever of all, though, and least obvious, 00:09:56.250 --> 00:09:58.323 by flipping the data on its head, the researchers were 00:09:58.323 --> 00:10:01.223 able to deeply explore the coordination networks in Syria 00:10:01.223 --> 00:10:03.740 that were ultimately responsible for receiving and 00:10:03.740 --> 00:10:06.204 transporting the foreign fighters to the border. 00:10:06.204 --> 00:10:08.837 These were networks of mercenaries, not ideologues, 00:10:08.837 --> 00:10:11.235 who were in the coordination business for profit. 00:10:11.235 --> 00:10:13.139 For example, they charged Saudi foreign fighters 00:10:13.139 --> 00:10:15.338 substantially more than Libyans, money that would have 00:10:15.338 --> 00:10:17.658 otherwise gone to al Qaeda. 00:10:17.658 --> 00:10:19.703 Perhaps the adversary would disrupt their own network 00:10:19.703 --> 00:10:22.738 if they knew they cheating would-be jihadists. NOTE Paragraph 00:10:22.738 --> 00:10:26.483 In January, 2010, a devastating 7.0 earthquake struck Haiti, 00:10:26.483 --> 00:10:29.399 third deadliest earthquake of all time, left one million people, 00:10:29.399 --> 00:10:31.983 10 percent of the population, homeless. 00:10:31.983 --> 00:10:35.120 One seemingly small aspect of the overall relief effort 00:10:35.120 --> 00:10:37.296 became increasingly important as the delivery of food 00:10:37.296 --> 00:10:39.456 and water started rolling. 00:10:39.456 --> 00:10:40.914 January and February are the dry months in Haiti, 00:10:40.914 --> 00:10:43.856 yet many of the camps had developed standing water. 00:10:43.856 --> 00:10:45.978 The only institution with detailed knowledge of Haiti's 00:10:45.978 --> 00:10:47.275 floodplains had been leveled 00:10:47.275 --> 00:10:50.283 in the earthquake, leadership inside. 00:10:50.283 --> 00:10:52.858 So the question is, which camps are at risk, 00:10:52.858 --> 00:10:54.779 how many people are in these camps, what's the 00:10:54.779 --> 00:10:57.090 timeline for flooding, and given very limited resources 00:10:57.090 --> 00:11:00.474 and infrastructure, how do we prioritize the relocation? 00:11:00.474 --> 00:11:02.818 The data was incredibly disparate. The U.S. Army had 00:11:02.818 --> 00:11:05.747 detailed knowledge for only a small section of the country. 00:11:05.747 --> 00:11:08.258 There was data online from a 2006 environmental risk 00:11:08.258 --> 00:11:10.922 conference, other geospatial data, none of it integrated. 00:11:10.922 --> 00:11:13.880 The human goal here was to identify camps for relocation 00:11:13.880 --> 00:11:16.275 based on priority need. 00:11:16.275 --> 00:11:18.715 The computer had to integrate a vast amount of geospacial 00:11:18.715 --> 00:11:21.299 information, social media data and relief organization 00:11:21.299 --> 00:11:24.779 information to answer this question. 00:11:24.779 --> 00:11:27.194 By implementing a superior process, what was otherwise 00:11:27.194 --> 00:11:29.802 a task for 40 people over three months became 00:11:29.802 --> 00:11:32.978 a simple job for three people in 40 hours, NOTE Paragraph 00:11:32.978 --> 00:11:35.606 all victories for human-computer symbiosis. NOTE Paragraph 00:11:35.606 --> 00:11:37.660 We're more than 50 years into Licklider's vision 00:11:37.660 --> 00:11:39.902 for the future, and the data suggests that we should be 00:11:39.902 --> 00:11:42.932 quite excited about tackling this century's hardest problems, 00:11:42.932 --> 00:11:45.879 man and machine in cooperation together. 00:11:45.879 --> 00:11:48.076 Thank you. (Applause) 00:11:48.076 --> 00:11:50.581 (Applause)