My Name is Kate

TED2005: Pre-conference EDGE Lecture

This is a moved post.  I'm including the comments from the old site at the bottom.

On Wednesday, I attended the pre-TED EDGE Lecture: "SCIENCE AT THE EDGE: REBOOTING BIOLOGY -- Three of the World's Leading Scientists Ask Each Other the Questions They are Asking Themselves" The three scientists are: Rodney Brooks, Ray Kurzweil, J. Craig Venter; the panel was moderated by John Brockman. Overview, bios, etc. can be found on the EDGE website.

I don't want to simply regurgitate what these fellows said. Chances are I would get it not-quite-right. I'm interested rather in what *wasn't* talked about (or even dismissed out of hand by the moderator) and in some thoughts that occured to my while they were talking.

1. Scientific Drivers.
The personal (individual) fear of death drives a lot of scientific development, particularly in the Western world. And we all thought that scientists were doing this for the good of humankind. Some are. But some aren't. And that's OK, but we need to understand that personal agendas drive scientific ones.

2. Implications.
The technology and of course, ultimately, the PROMISE of the technology is incredible but no one is talking about the implications of the technology. There are HUGE social implications and environmental implications to us living for 20% longer (or more) as well as having extended fertility. WHO gets to live longer is a big question. I have a hard time believing that the technology will be exported to Africa or other third world countries. Mainly because the West will own these technologies and it will be Western values that are used to make judgment calls about whose quality of life is more deserving of extension. There are obviously environmental implications as well. Are we really meant to inhabit and take over the planet in this way? Our environmental technology and policies need to catch up before we are ready to deal with that.

3. Social Engineering.
An audience member asked a great question about social engineering as a priority -- why when a plane crashes do we send mechanical etc. engineers to swarm over the site and figure out what went wrong but when we have a Pol Pot or some other social situation, we invest very few resources in addressing the situation and trying to figure out how to prevent it from happening again. Great question (dismissed by the moderator). Relates to Bono?s comments about the relationship between poverty and terrorism. From a social point of view, we know these things are related ? with as much certainty as we know the physics of a plane in flight.

Random Observations
The arrogance of blogging is that we often record random observations, unfinished (and often unoriginal) thoughts with no care for the reader. That's what happens when we all are a publisher and a broadcaster :-)

- Biology as metaphor. Seems to be systems-thinking plus chaos theory. Everything is a pattern, but most are patterns larger than we can see. Hopefully not larger than we can imagine, though.

- "Telemeers"? Kurzweil mentioned this. Am not familiar, must look up.

- I think I am naive, but even if we can reduce everything to a mathematical equation (which means that we can model it) I still think there is an element of "magic" to life, to consciousness. Perhaps this is the quality of adaptability. Can we really put adaptability into a mathematical equation and then build it? In the same way that the flatworms that Brooks talked about adapt when their brains are cut out and reinserted in a different position?

- Identical twins ... are really identical in appearance only. Their brainwaves are different, their fingerprints are different. Longterm, how will these differences that are not naked-eye-visible change our perception of identity and ultimately, our perception of beauty?

- Kurzweil commented that ultimately biology is quite sloppy and inefficient. There is a lot of redundancy built into biology, perhaps in ways we don't need it. Is this a result of the material nature of our biology; that we are atoms (not bits) and that we are often involved in unpredictable circumstances? Does this redundancy enhance our adaptability?

- Brooks mentioned that the model for the brain has always been based on our most complex technology at the time, e.g. when the steam engine was the most complex tech, that is what the model for the brain was. Now, it's a computational model. But we need to get beyond that. Perhaps quantum?

COMMENTS ON ORIGINAL BLOG POST

Kate,
To aid in the lookup, he word from Kurzweil was Telomere (or Telomerase):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telomere
http://www.genlink.wustl.edu/teldb/tel.html

I think biology will drive the future of intelligence and information technology ? not literally, but figuratively and metaphorically and primarily through powerful abstractions.

Many of the interesting software challenges relate to growing resilient complex systems or they are inspired by other biological metaphors (e.g., artificial evolution, biomimetics, neural networks for pattern recognition, artificial immunology for virus and spam detection, genetic algorithms, A-life, emergence, IBM?s Autonomic Computing initiative, meshes and sensor nets, hives, and the subsumption architecture in robotics). Tackling the big unsolved problems in info tech will likely turn us to biology ? as our muse, and for an existence proof that solutions are possible.

some blog writings on the biological metaphor:
http://jurvetson.blogspot.com/2004/11/giving-thanks-to-our-libraries-bio.html

Posted by Steve Jurvetson at February 26, 2005 11:08 PM

TED2005: The Context of TED

TED2005 is my first TED experience.  Overall impressions ... the conference is very white and very male. Which I suppose I shouldn't be surprised by. But I am. My assumption is that the people that come to TED are some of the smartest, innovative, progressive people around. That doesn't mean, however, that they (necessarily) desire cultural diversity. Also, I think that coming from Canada, I have a higher expectation and baseline norm for cultural diversity. Out of the twenty speakers I have seen so far, only 5 have been women. These women are also doing double-duty as the non-white contingent. All the male speakers have been white. Three of the five women are non-white.

The audience seems to be a similar split, though quite possibly a larger ratio. The pre-TED session I was in, for each row of 12 to 16 attendees, on average one was a woman.

This is also a very heterosexual conference (full of "het drama" as I like to say). Day 1 the sessions were titled "Foreplay" and "Intimacy". Between speakers, video montages were shown, either a collection of film clips, commercials or a scene from Saturday Night Live. All of them depicted heterosexual (and white) "ideals" or "norms" of sexuality. Granted, they were meant to be humourous; however, I believe that it is quite telling when the only context for what is humourous is cast as sexual relations between a white man and a white woman.

As the TED guide says, knowing the context of the speakers (and presumably the audience) is important for understanding where they are coming from. And so the context for TED has been set for me. Individual speakers had incredible things to say, and it is important to focus on those things ... but still, I don't believe that TED will get the best of what the world has to offer until its own context is expanded.

TED: Sacred Space, Brand and Customer Experience - Starbucks Rules!

Starbucks is here at TED, providing a much needed and much appreciated caffeination service. But more than I love the Chi Lattes, I love that Starbucks excercises absolute control over its brand experience.

Here in the lobby of the Monterey Conference Center (which is a lovely yet generic conference center, as you would expect), Starbucks has defined and created sacred space. There *is* a Starbucks in the lobby. There are no constructed walls (though they did hang two of their green logo lit signs). There is a rug that defines the lounge area and a steel counter that defines the service area. Ther baristas are as friendly as I've ever had, all wearing that bright Kelly green. There are coffee brand posters lining the two walls that define the corner were this temporary Starbucks is tucked. In the lounge area there are couches and comfy chairs, as you would expect. There are also a few wooden chairs and hard tables for the serious workers. And I swear these are the same chairs and tables that are in the Yonge and Wellesley Starbucks in Toronto.

Stepping into the Starbucks space, you know that you are in differentiated space. Sure, it's the same people all wearing the same large colourful TED badges, but we behave differently. When the line gets too long (and TEDsters get ansy), one of the barista's comes out and starts taking drink orders in line. They they go into the same tried and true process that has been honed and perfected at Starbucks across the world.

Starbucks knows that brand is so much more than logo or visual design. It is even more than a great product (we could just ave self-serve urns that have Starbucks coffee in them and lables on them if we needed). Brand IS customer experience. They OWN that.

Wow.

If you're reading this at TED, make sure you tip the baristas. Employees are the ambassadors of the brand. They make the "Starbucks at TED" experience a complete one.

Fake Newscasts: Is it just me?

But doesn't the following statement seem self evident ...

The comptroller general has told federal agencies that they may not produce fake newscasts without clearly stating that the government itself is the source.

Taken from the New York Times

The US is getting more and more like "Wag the Dog" all the time.

Only 2% of Women Think They're Beautiful

Dove recently completed a study, "Dove Global Study: The Truth About Beauty" [PDF]. They interviewed 3,000 women globally and only 2% of them consider themselves beautiful.

Only 2%.

That breaks my heart.

Dove has a new TV commercial running, in conjunction with the launch of the Dove Self-Esteem Fund and as part of their "Campaign for Real Beauty". The ad is wonderful ... you can see it online. If you send it to a friend, they will donate $.25 cents to their fund.

The diversity of human beauty has been strained through a sieve of culture, status, power and money and what has emerged is a narrow sliver of the full panorama of human visual splendor. Beauty is diverse and the human eye thrills to new pleasures and fresh sources of inspiration. Ethereal weightlessness and Nordic features are not its only incarnation.

... Let the discussions and debates begin and let us reclaim and rejoice in authentic, diverse human beauty once again.

I don't use Dove and I don't know that I would start, but this campaign puts them well on the way to becoming a Lovemark, in my mind. So don't (necessarily) go out and buy Dove; instead, today (and tomorrow and the next day) tell a woman (or 2) in your life that she is beautiful.

What women in this study tell us is that a sense of legitimacy and respect is wrapped up with beauty in today?s world. Whether this sentiment dismays or delights us, it poses a serious challenge. And it is this in the first instance: For the idea of beauty to become truly democratic and inclusive, then beauty itself must be revitalized to reflect women in their beauty as they really are rather than as portrayed in the current fictions that dominate our visual culture.

With such fictions removed, the many hours of anguish, spent in self criticism, or in the attempt to reshape themselves so that they do in some ways resemble the ideal, have a chance to be freed up and find expression in the many other desires and ambitions that women hold.