Scott Adams' Blog

Computers That Design

Posted August 6th, 2012 @ 1:07pm in #General Nonsense

I wonder how near we are to the Technological Singularity. That’s the predicted point in human history, probably within the next fifty years, when machine intelligence will surpass humans. At that point, machines will start rapidly designing other machines that are even smarter, and things will accelerate beyond the point we can predict. That will be a scary time for humans. It’s sort of the same principle as your dog not knowing where you’re going when you get in the car. We’ll be the dog in that analogy.

I was thinking about this as I read yet another story of yet another windmill design that is potentially better than all the rest. I would think that windmill designs will someday be created by supercomputers crunching through simulations of every possible shape and mechanical possibility, much the way a computer plays chess by considering every possible move.

Humans would need to put some parameters on the windmill design program before setting it free, such as size limits of the windmills, types of materials that are practical to use, and that sort of thing. Perhaps the program could be seeded with a few dozen current windmill designs to focus its search. Then you let the computer chug away indefinitely, creating the best designs it can, and continually trying to top itself.

I chose windmill design for my example because there are relatively few parts in a windmill and none of them depends on human tastes and preferences. I wonder what other types of products are likely to be designed entirely by supercomputers in the first wave of the Technological Singularity. And more importantly, how can you and I make money by correctly predicting that sort of thing?

For you super-long-term investors, it seems important to know which types of product categories are likely to achieve light speed design improvements before others. I would think drug design would be last to benefit from supercomputers because there are too many unknown variables involved with drug interactions and you need to do animal and human drug trials to be sure anything works. I would expect mechanical devices such as engines and generators and gearboxes to get sucked into the singularity first. Perhaps chip design itself will be first to benefit.

So here’s the question: What aspects of human existence will change first, and dramatically, because of the Technological Singularity? And how would one invest to take advantage?

If windmills are the first, and that transformation happens in ten years, the technology for transporting power from remote and windy places will be in great demand. The components of electrical grids would be a good investment unless the Technological Singularity also produces local power generation concepts that are better than windmills.

Are there any good bets out there?

Immersive Experience

Posted July 25th, 2012 @ 1:40pm in #General Nonsense

Our dog and our cat - approximately the same size - like to lick each other’s face. It looks like they’re making out. It’s extraordinarily cute, except when they lay across my chest and do it. That’s only cute until one of them licks my chin as if to get me in on the threesome. That’s when things feel awkward. (So far I’ve declined the invitation.)

Anyway, it makes me wonder if my body has an easily measurable response to cuteness. I know I become instantly happier when I see animals doing adorable things, but is there a cheap and easy way to monitor my brain’s change in happiness? For the sake of today’s post, let’s say we can measure a person’s happiness, arousal, relaxation, and other positive physical reactions in real time. And let’s assume that while the cost of such monitoring equipment might be expensive today, the technology will eventually drop to a consumer level. You’ll put on a hat with sensitive brainwave sensors, connect the hat to your computer via Bluetooth, and you’re all set.

This is where things get interesting. Imagine software that monitors changes in brainwaves and learns by trial and error which kinds of images and videos work best for a given individual. Maybe your favorite “awwww” experience comes from videos of penguins shuffling around while I prefer waterfalls and rainbows. The software starts with a random slideshow of images on the Internet and records your brain’s reaction for each. You just relax and let it happen. Over time, the software learns what relaxes you, what arouses you, and what pumps you up for exercise.

Now let’s add a few layers. Sound is next. The software would experiment with music, engine noises, nature sounds, and more. Again, the software would measure and record how each sound influences you.

Next we do smells. I think the technology already exists to generate different odors. Imagine the software releasing a pumpkin pie scent, vanilla, perhaps some new car odor, and each time it measures your brain’s response.

Now let’s say you’re sitting in a high-end massage chair that has dozens of settings. The chair goes through each possible setting while the brainwave hat figures out which combinations of pulsing and vibrating and intensity works best for you.

Let’s assume the software only allows you to experience one sensation at a time during the learning phase. So the slideshow wouldn’t be happening at the same time as the massage chair or the smell or music. Once the software learns your response to each isolated stimulation, it can later intelligently combine them for a stronger total experience.

We know people need lots of variety in stimulation to avoid getting bored, so after the software learns your preferences it continuously seeks out different versions of the same general stimulation by data mining other people’s preferences across its database. The software might learn that people who get aroused at the sound of a Ferrari engine noise also like images of skiing. A simpler example is that people who like one baby picture will probably like another.

So far, this all sounds feasible, if not today, certainly in your lifetime. The real question is how much control could the software exert over a typical person? I think you’d be surprised.

Visual images alone would have only a limited impact on a person, but adding the massage chair, smell, and sound at the same time would be an immersive sensory experience. I think the total package would have an impact comparable to a powerful narcotic, and it might be just as addictive.

In today’s world, finding pleasure is a somewhat random process guided by a little bit of planning. If you know you like nature, you can plan a hike, but sometimes the weather is bad and a rattlesnake ruins your happy-go-lucky mood. In the future, technology will be able to figure out what you like best and provide it in a setting with no offsetting negatives.

That’s something to look forward to.

The Vacation Country

Posted July 23rd, 2012 @ 1:37pm in #General Nonsense

A friend of mine who travels extensively recently returned from a trip to France with his wife. His review of Paris is that everything is smoky, run-down, and falling apart. The citizens are rude and unhelpful, and the Eiffel tower looks just like the pictures. He was underwhelmed.

People who have both the time and the money to travel - call them the top 1% - are running out of great places to visit. Most visitors to Paris probably love it, but by definition, once you’ve visited your personal top ten destinations, everything else is either less interesting or seems like a repeat (Look honey, it’s another beach!). I realize it’s a high class problem, boo-hoo. But that’s not the point that I’m staggering toward.

My point is that no matter how bad the economy gets for the bottom 80% of the world, there will likely be a surging population of rich people and retired people with resources who need more interesting places to visit. Things will only get worse when robots start doing all the hard jobs, say in twenty years, which I hope is your lifetime. The poor will get poorer while the rich will own stock in the robot factories and get richer.

My proposed solution is to start now and turn the United States into the world’s most awesome vacation destination, not just for the rich, but for anyone who has the means to travel. Sure, the United States has some good vacation areas already. But it’s all sort of random and spaced out. Las Vegas is far from Miami which is far from Washington D.C.

I propose building a vacation-oriented high speed train loop around the country that connects all of the existing tourist destinations and creates lots of new ones along the line. The sleeper cars would be large and handle huge amounts of luggage so a traveler can easily pack for skiing in Aspen plus swimming in San Diego on the same extended trip. Think of it as an ocean cruise experience but on land. The train itself would be packed with fun for the ride and the stops would be frequent and interesting. Visitors could book trips for any portion of the loop they wanted. And let’s assume the trains have both deluxe cars for the rich and more ordinary accommodations for everyone else.

The great thing about vacation industries is that they employ lots of people, starting with the construction phase. The United States has an advantage over other countries if it can keep the air clean and the destinations safe and convenient. I’ll emphasize convenience in this concept. It would be nice if a rich Swede, for example, could buy one ticket that included airfare, train travel, shipping excess luggage, and meals. Planning a trip to Europe requires a lot of research and work. Planning a trip to the United States should be reduced to which segment of “loop” you want to see and how much you want to spend on luxury.

Costa Rica is following a version of this plan, but without the train. Their national strategy is to become a vacation destination. If you want to be a bartender or a guide in that country, it requires serious college-like training, including languages, safety courses and more. And they’re so serious about protecting the environment that they say no to oil drilling. Their strategy seems to be working. I think the United States could take it up a notch. All of those future rich Chinese entrepreneurs will need someplace to visit that isn’t polluted. I also think that for the rich, the gating factor is planning, not money. If a vacation plan can be made easy, people will flock to it the way they flock to ocean cruises.

Larry Page’s Voice Problem

Posted July 17th, 2012 @ 2:23pm in #General Nonsense

I saw some speculation in the news that Google’s Larry Page might have the same “voice problem” that I had, called spasmodic dysphonia. I will add to that speculation because it fits what little we know about his situation. I’m not saying he has spasmodic dysphonia, but it fits the few facts I know.

I’ll start by giving Larry Page, and Google, my trust when they say it’s a voice problem and not something more serious. I wouldn’t have trusted Steve Jobs on that sort of question because of his reality distortion field. But I think Google is genetically disinclined to lie about something so important to investors. I think they mean it when they say they try to avoid evil.

The mystery is that if Page has a simple voice problem, why not give more details and be done with it? That’s a fair question and one that I have seen being asked in the press. Here’s where my experience with my own voice problems can give you some insight. I think there might be a very good reason he’s not providing details.

For starters, even the best doctors in the world would have trouble diagnosing spasmodic dysphonia. It’s sufficiently rare that most doctors have never seen it, and most have probably never heard of it. It can present in a few different ways, and because it’s rare, doctors would look for more pedestrian causes first and try to treat what they know how to treat just to see what happens. A patient with not-yet-confirmed spasmodic dysphonia might receive treatment for bronchitis and even get a brain scan to look for tumors. A sudden loss of your voice can come from several sources. Doctors start with the easy guesses and eliminate possibilities as they go. Page might not have a definitive diagnosis yet.

Here’s the insight I’ll add to this speculation: Spasmodic dysphonia usually presents itself in a way that appears to be a mental/emotional problem brought on by stress. One of the oddities of the condition is that you can often speak normally to your pet but you can’t speak to humans. Sometimes you can sing or recite a poem but you can’t answer a question. For many years the medical community classified spasmodic dysphonia as a mental problem. At one point in my search for a cure, I ended up in a psychologist’s office turning down her offer for Valium. Her best guess what that stress had rendered me unable to speak in certain situations. I’ve heard from other people who have spasmodic dysphonia that they too got the “crazy” diagnosis before figuring out the real problem.

So if you’re the head of a major corporation, and doctors haven’t yet ruled out “crazy,” you would be wise to keep it to yourself, especially if you don’t feel especially crazy, and it isn’t affecting other parts of your behavior. But I know from experience that loved ones, friends, and even doctors will tell a person with spasmodic dysphonia to simply relax, as if that is enough to make the voice problem go away. The implication is that you’re emotionally unbalanced and everyone knows it but you. It’s a living hell when you lose your voice and everyone around you treats you like a mental patient. Trust me on that.

I have no idea what Larry Page’s actual voice problem is. I hope it’s something simple and that he’s already on the path to fixing it. But if the problem happens to be spasmodic dysphonia, I’d be happy to help him figure out what works and what doesn’t. A brilliant doctor cured my spasmodic dysphonia with a relatively simple surgery on the nerves in my neck. But it took me three years to find the one doctor (at the time) who had pioneered the surgery: Dr. Gerald Berke at UCLA.

Interestingly, I diagnosed my own voice problem as spasmodic dysphonia by using Google. And Google Alert later provided me with the trail of breadcrumbs that allowed me to find the doctor with a cure. So, Larry, if your voice problem turns out to be spasmodic dysphonia, send me an email (dilbertcartoonist@gmail.com) and I’ll shortcut your research for a cure. I owe you one.

Stickiopolies

Posted July 15th, 2012 @ 1:31pm in #General Nonsense

Some Random Guy Saves the Planet

Posted July 13th, 2012 @ 2:34pm in #General Nonsense

One of the tricks I use to motivate myself is to have at least one project going at all times with the potential to change the world. Realistically, the odds of one person changing the world are miniscule, but for some reason that doesn’t make the thought of it less motivating. People buy lottery tickets with near-zero odds of winning because the act of buying the ticket apparently triggers the production of some feel-good chemistry in the body. I use a similar technique, except that I think in terms of saving the planet because that sort of thought does a better job of hacking my body chemistry compared to buying lottery tickets.

I like to think that the bad ideas I describe in this blog might someday inspire one of you to come up with actual good ideas. That’s how ideas evolve; you start with bad ones then tweak them. If I may borrow and modify a quote from Isaac Newton: If you can see further it is only because you’re standing on the pile of manure I so generously provided. Bad ideas are the raw materials for good ideas.

I use bad ideas as the basis for writing comics too. Every Dilbert comic that made someone chortle started out as a bad idea that I tweaked and poked and molded into something that I wouldn’t have expected at the start. Sometimes the end product retains the germ of the original idea, sometimes it drifts into something entirely different. One of the big secrets to creativity is that you have to start walking before you decide where you’re going. It’s opposite of how you’re raised to think.

This morning, as always, I sat down at my computer at 6 am with my cup of coffee and started browsing the Internet. Sometimes I start with a question and just keep clicking links until I learn something. (Another one of my self-motivational tricks is that I try to learn something new every day.) This morning my click-path to nowhere turned up a random guy on the Internet who is promoting a craptastic idea for building huge towers in desert areas to generate clean energy, bring water to arid climates, and regulate global climate change at the same time. I don’t know who this guy is, but I like his style. Here’s his page.

http://www.superchimney.org/

The idea for a super chimney isn’t new. In fact, Spain successfully tested one such tower years ago. We know high towers with sun-heated bases can generate airflow that powers turbines. But obviously there are lots of economic, legal, engineering, and political obstacles. And no one has tested towers that cool the atmosphere and produce rain clouds at the same time. But the idea seems reasonable to my untrained brain.

What I like best about this random guy is that he’s thinking big. I’ll bet he enjoys waking up in the morning and feeling a sense of larger purpose.

Also check out the awesome idea for a so-called SuperGrid that might involve a combination of superconducting cables, maglev trains, and a liquid hydrogen pipeline all in one tunnel. Perhaps that’s how the super chimneys will one day distribute energy from remote deserts to the rest of the world.

The Religion War

Posted July 11th, 2012 @ 2:33pm in #General Nonsense

About ten years ago I wrote a short novel called The Religion War, a follow-up to God’s Debris. The plot was set in the not-too-distant future, which would be approximately now, and I made some predictions about how terrorism and anti-terrorism would evolve. Let’s see how I did.

The main plot element involved the idea that Islamic terrorists would regularly bomb targets in the United States using small “suicide” drones equipped with explosives and GPS guidance. I figured it was an obvious application of technology and there wouldn’t be any way to stop it. Right on schedule, an American born Al-Qaeda sympathizer recently got arrested for planning multiple attacks on Washington DC that would have used GPS-guided model planes.

Another plot device in The Religion War involved what we now call Big Data. The idea is that someday there would be so much data available about individual behavior that skilled programmers could mine it to make freakishly accurate predictions. In the book, one character accesses Big Data to search for the most influential person in the world. The so-called Prime Influencer is at the seed end of a vast social network that ultimately connects all of civilization. For plot purposes, the Prime Influencer isn’t aware of his or her power. The Prime Influencer is thought to have a way with words and a small circle of acquaintances that are moved by his or her opinions. But those people know more people, and so on. Any catchy idea from the Prime Influencer has the potential to quickly travel through the social fabric of civilization and change the world. But that’s fiction.

In the real world of today, corporations use Big Data to predict individual behavior with freakish accuracy. And we’ve also seen that one influential guy with a Facebook account can organize a revolution and take down a government. For story reasons, I needed my Prime Influencer to be one person. It’s unlikely the real world only has one such influential person. But I predict that someday the world will be controlled, in effect, by a small group of unelected people who have vast social networks and a knack for forming viral ideas. (Imagine a Rush Limbaugh talent with no radio show but a lot of Facebook friends.)

The provocative part of The Religion War involves what happens to democracy and freedom when terrorism becomes unstoppable and intolerable. It’s premature to see how well the book predicts that situation, but if terrorists keep trying to build their own drones, we’ll find out the hard way.

Note: If you decide to read The Religion War, make sure you read God’s Debris first. God’s Debris is available on Amazon and also free for download on the Internet. Unlike God’s Debris, The Religion War is written with movie pacing in mind, meaning I left out the filler descriptions of how the leaves are shimmering in the cool morning light. It keeps the book short, and the style is not for everyone.]

Monetizing the Who-You-Know Asset

Posted July 9th, 2012 @ 2:37pm in #General Nonsense

If you’re looking for a job, the best asset at your disposal is who you know. Your personal network of friends, families, alumni, and past work associates is extraordinarily valuable. Those are the people you turn to for your job leads, career advice, and sometimes even start-up funding. Most careers grow out of personal connections. But once you get the career you want, your personal network instantly becomes a semi-stranded asset. It’s nice to have it waiting for you if you need it later, but during the dormant time it does you little good. My idea for today involves a way to monetize your personal network and reduce unemployment at the same time.

My key assumption is that the long-term unemployed have relatively ineffective personal networks. This is obviously a gross generalization, but I think it is close enough for my purposes. Stated simply, rich people usually have valuable friends (in economic terms) and unemployed people often don’t.

Suppose the federal government creates a plan in which any citizen in a high tax bracket can volunteer to mentor a person who has been unemployed for one year or more. To start, the government would randomly assign a local unemployed person to each mentor. The deal would be that if the mentor can find a job for the unemployed person, the mentor’s own taxes would be reduced by the amount of taxes paid by the newly hired person over five years. I’ll include payroll taxes in the calculation because many employed people don’t pay federal income taxes. Serial mentoring would be allowed too, so one mentor could help find work for multiple unemployed people, one at a time.

We want to keep the government bureaucracy to a minimum, and keep freedom to a maximum, so let’s assume the entire program is optional for all participants, and the mentors fill out simple tax forms once a year that list the Social Security number of the unemployed person, a log of what steps were taken to help him/her find work, and the date of employment. It’s about the same amount of paperwork you might do to claim a home office deduction. And it would carry the same penalties for lying to the IRS. All the government needs is the Social Security numbers of both the mentor and the newly employed person in order to keep track of taxes paid and tax credits given.

In theory, getting more people working will stimulate the economy enough to compensate the national treasury many times over for the tax benefits given to the mentors. The newly employed will be buying more goods and services and they won’t be a drain on unemployment insurance and social services. Everyone wins.

To make this plan work - and this is probably the most important part - you also need some sort of online system where mentors can “trade” their randomly assigned unemployed people with mentors more suited for the task. For example, one mentor might have better contacts in the technology industry and another mentor might have better contacts in the construction industry. The government should also make it legal for mentors to trade unemployed people for cash, the same way major league baseball players are traded. If I’m a mentor with extraordinary contacts in the technology field, I might be willing to buy from another mentor an unemployed person who has technology skills. I’ll make my money back plus more through tax credits.

Let’s also assume that mentors have no restrictions on how they can prepare their unemployed people for work. For example, a mentor might find a training program and offer to fund it personally if the potential tax credits down the road are tempting enough. Another mentor might fly an unemployed person to North Dakota for an interview in the oil industry. A generous mentor might even cosign on an apartment lease and pay the first month’s rent to make relocation feasible for the unemployed. For the mentor, anything that is legal is fair game. I think you’d see a lot of creative schemes emerge.

Obviously this concept needs a lot of work to tweak the math, plug loopholes, deal with exceptions, and reduce the potential for cheating. All tax policies are imperfect, and this would be no exception. The best you can hope for is that the benefits outweigh the new problems.

A major assumption at the core of this idea is that enough jobs exist to accommodate far more of the unemployed if only we had a better way to match candidates with openings. If you look only at published job openings, you might think the real problem is that the unemployed have the wrong skills. That’s certainly an important part of the larger story. But I think you could still take a big bite out of unemployment by doing a better job matching candidates with openings. Keep in mind that your personal network has invisible, i.e. not published, openings that are exactly the sort you would fill if you were looking for a job yourself. The job you get is usually the job that no one else knew about.

You may now shred this idea.

[Note to Gawker, Salon, Huffington Post, and Jezebel: The best way to take this idea out of context and turn it into fake news is to claim I am advocating that rich people should buy and sell the unemployed just like modern day slave traders.]

The Curiosity Seduction Hypothesis

Posted July 6th, 2012 @ 1:13pm in #General Nonsense

When your brain registers happiness, it often sends a message to the muscles around your mouth to form a smile. But interestingly, it works both ways. Researchers have shown that forcing yourself to smile can make your brain feel happier. In humans, our cause and effect circuitry often works in both directions.

Another example is music. If you hear a new song at about the same time you’re falling in love, that song can later become a trigger for your emotions. Your feelings of being in love probably helped the song sound better than normal when you first heard it, and years later the song can summon those same feelings in you.

There are lots of ways we can take advantage of these little triggers in our lives. My favorite example is that if I don’t feel like exercising, I can often change that feeling simply by putting on my workout clothes and running shoes. My brain associates the feel-good chemistry of sports and exercise with the physical sensation that my athletic shoes have on my feet.

This leads me to today’s topic: The Curiosity Seduction Hypothesis. We know that when two people are attracted they become intensely curious about the life and happenings of the other. In fact, the best way to know if someone has romantic interest in you is by paying attention to the questions that person asks. If someone asks you only a few typical questions, it’s probably just polite conversation and nothing more. But if the curiosity starts extending to deeper questions, and more of them, that’s a “tell” that something else is happening.

My hypothesis is that you can induce romantic or sexual interest in another person by exhibiting curiosity, even if the curiosity is faked. Since we know romantic interest generates curiosity, I would expect it to work in reverse as well. Pretending to be curious about the details of another person’s feelings should cause that person to automatically form a positive feeling about you, including perhaps feelings of lust and romance.

Obviously this only works if the two people involved have some potential for chemistry in the first place. I wouldn’t worry about falling in love with a banker who asks for your mother’s maiden name to verify your password.

Do me a favor and try this method over the weekend to seduce someone new or to generate some action with your existing partner. If it doesn’t work, the worst that can happen is that you will appear to be an interested and caring conversationalist.

If you report back on Monday that the technique worked, you will have earned your Moist Robot Reprogramming Certification, Level 1.

Fact Bubbler

Posted July 4th, 2012 @ 2:40pm in #General Nonsense

In my prior post I asked for ideas on making political debates more fact-based. A reader of this blog, aaror2, made an interesting suggestion that I will now borrow, tweak, and present.

Let me start by saying that had anyone asked me prior to the launch of Wikipedia if it would be a good idea I would have laughed and scoffed and maybe mocked whoever asked the question. It would have seemed obvious to me that you can’t trust the public to sort out facts from fiction. But I would have been wrong about that. In my opinion, Wikipedia is one of the great accomplishments of civilization. But what makes it work?

For starters, Wikipedia insists that you show your sources and do so publicly. That’s a powerful concept. We know that pundits and politicians will lie through their teeth when they don’t need to show sources. A politician can look straight into a camera and make claims that contradict all known science. Politicians can get away with it because they know their lies will be separated by time and space from any fact checking. But on Wikipedia, any claim without a credible source is eventually removed or labeled as iffy. It’s not instant and it’s not perfect, but it evolves in the right direction.

A second powerful thing that Wikipedia gets right is letting everyone participate. A Wikipedia page never feels like an enemy opinion that must be rejected by reflex. If you don’t like what you see, you are literally invited to correct it and show your sources.

Wikipedia is a great way to capture and organize information. But I think public policy debate needs a simpler model that borrows the proven concepts from Wikipedia.

I’ll call this idea a Fact Bubbler. The basic idea is a web page for any policy debate in which short statements of fact are submitted by citizens and organized in a list. The rules for submitting facts might look like this:

1. All facts must be brief, preferably one line.
2. All facts must include a source.
3. Sources from obviously political organizations would be removed.
4. A trail of edits would always be publicly available for viewing.
5. Facts in the list would be organized by category, e.g. economics, morality, safety.
6. Users would vote for the facts that are most important. Facts with the most votes would “bubble” to the top of their categories. For example, the most important fact about the economics of a policy debate would show at the top of that category.
7. Moderators might choose to make some facts “sticky” with others that are closely related, so some facts would stay together as they bubble up. For example, the fact that a tax will cost $1 billion would be sticky with the fact that it only applies to leprechauns.