Arts and Decision Making; Machine Behavior; Need for (Re-)Imagination; The First Flying Car Sports Program; Antithesis of an Innovation Lab
Massimo Portincaso
Founder & CEO at Arsenale, Industrial Romantic and Antidisciplinarian Stoic
It is not widely known, but in December 1933, in the middle of the Great Depression and as part of the New Deal, the Public Works of Art Project (PWAP) was launched. It was a form of relief for artists and its goal was to give work to artists and at the same time raise the awareness around American art. The program lasted only 6 months and employed 3.749 Artists and produced 15.663 works. The PWAP was the precursor of the Federal Art Project, which lasted from 1935 till 1943 and commissioned as many as 10.000 artists. Among the beneficiaries of the two projects were, among others Jackson Pollock and his wife Lee Krasner, the young Mark Rothko, Willem de Kooning, Philip Guston e Alice Neel.
Hans UIrich Obrist, artistic director at the Serpentine Galleries mentioned the PWAP and the Federal Art Project in a recent interview launching an appeal to governments and institutions, as they put in place major stimulus packages, asking for projects to supports artists and cultural entities, “These are day of great concern and precariousness for everybody, also the artists. During these times the role of institutions is to support art and the role of culture”.
Of course the focus of governments should be in the very first place about the health of the population and saving lives. But I agree with him that as livelihoods move into focus, with all the economic rescue packages associated with it, it is of paramount importance that artists and art are part of them. And this is not only because “Ultimately, also artist need to eat!”, as Harry Hopkins - one of the key figures of the New Deal - once said. The key point here is about the role played by art, which is going to increase in importance in the new reality which is to come.
The neuroscientist Antonio Damasio revealed in his bestselling book Descartes Error that decision making is far more than a rational activity – it is an activity in which the emotions play a pivotal role. Damasio describes how a man whose ‘emotion holding’ section of the brain had been destroyed could still function with a high degree of normality, scoring highly in tests of rationality, and with his personality registering within the normal range. But the man, without that vital emotional component, could not perform the crucial function of making decisions. On the occasions when he did choose between the options confronting him, his choices were, by any standard, wildly inappropriate and counterproductive to the task at hand. Decisions, in other words, cannot be made on the basis of pure rationality. Other aspects of the thinking process, in addition to and beyond the exercise of rational faculties, need to be adduced if decisions are to be made effectively. And art, literature and poetry play a pivotal role in shaping the emotional component of decision making, and the increased volatility of the new reality ahead of us, post-Covid, will increasingly require us to make decisions. We need art, literature and poetry. More than ever.
Some highlights from this week's edition include:
● "Machine behavior" is a recent idea by researchers collaborating from a number of disciplines, and aims to explain the way algorithms interact with society. Read more about it in this wonderful Gizmodo feature.
● BCG's Martin Reeves and Jack Fuller believe that imagination is a crucial component in finding new paths to growth. In their HBR guest post, they detail how companies can adjust their imagination mindset.
● What's the next global pathogen? While we're already too late with COVID-19, researchers working on antiviral drugs for today's virus are also thinking what we need to tackle in future pandemics.
● Few things gets public buy-in like sports and competition. That's why the founders of Airspeeder, the first electric flying car sports program, believe the new motorsport will be a catalyst for innovation.
● SPACE10, IKEA's innovation lab, is almost an antithesis of the typical innovation lab - it open sources its designs, it's physically open to the public, and views customers as experts.
● Getting brain implants to last is like "tossing your foldable, flexible smartphone in the ocean and expecting it to work for 70 years." Here's what researchers did to bring intracranial electrode lifespans up to six years.
...along with a number of other enlightening reads.
Human and Machine
How an 18th Century Explorer Can Help Us Understand the Algorithms Taking Over Our World
With the swath of emerging technology connecting our lives in every conceivable way, we are beginning to view machines not as "engineered artifacts" but an entire ecology, complexly interconnected with our own. In 2019, 23 researchers published Machine Behavior, asserting that the new field "cannot be fully understood without the integrated study of algorithms and the social environments in which [they] operate."
Although it's tempting to compare the world of algorithms and humans to that of animals and humans, there are key differences. Andrew Berry, a lecturer in organismic and evolutionary biology at Harvard University notes that technology isn’t transmitted vertically, but horizontally (information exchange isn't limited to parent to offspring): "When YouTube alters its recommendation algorithm, your local instance of YouTube will reflect the new features instantly, regardless of the lineage of your app or browser or your distance from Silicon Valley."
This implication suggests ways we can study machine behavior without relying on the creation of a new field that mimics biology. For Berry, the history of science and technology is a better parallel, with numerous clues about the consequences of technical progress and the resulting social dynamics. Others recommend ethnography: "people who are already vulnerable in the real world - because of ethnicity, gender, social status, or other characteristics - experience 'disproportionate exposures to harm within data technology."
Advance Could Enable Remote Control of Soft Robots
Soft materials in robotics can allow for more flexibility and adaptability, just as they allow humans and animals to accomplish a variety of tasks rigid robots tend to fail at (for a great primer on soft robotics, see this TED talk). For example, they could enable medical devices that navigate inside the body, or search-and-rescue robots that can squeeze through small openings.
The issue is with the motors powering these soft robotics are often larger than the robots themselves, or have to be attached via cables. Researchers recently published a paper detailing a process that could manipulate soft materials with magnetic fields, which would remotely rearrange internal structures into new patterns - and cut the need for cords or bulky motors.
Creativity
We Need Imagination Now More Than Ever
BCG's Martin Reeves and Jack Fuller believe that imagination - "the capacity to create, evolve, and exploit mental models of things or situations that don't yet exist" - is a vital component for finding new paths of growth. According to research, however, imagination is lacking. The two surveyed over 250 multinational companies to better understand the measures they were taking during the pandemic. Only a minority of respondents are identifying and shaping strategic opportunities (see the chart below).
Reeves and Fuller suggest seven ways organizations can increase their capacity for imagination. That includes "allow yourself to be playful." Jorgen Vig Knudstorp, chairman of the LEGO Brand Group, told the two that "creativity is the rearrangement of existing knowledge into new, useful combinations" that can lead to valuable innovation.
Reeves and Fuller also suggest setting up a system for sharing ideas: "Companies need to facilitate collective imagination. The key to this is allowing new ideas to be shared while they are still in development: creating forums for people to communicate in a casual way, without hierarchy, reports, permissions, or financial justifications."
This 3-D Simulation Shows Why Social Distancing Is So Important
We're visual creatures - we're more apt to to react to an interactive COVID-19 dashboard or a (somewhat horrifying) 3D visualization of a sneeze. The New York Times, with the help of their senior R&D engineer Or Fleisher (see his XR work here), created a 3D simulation of the spread of coughs and sneezes that demonstrates the importance of social distancing.
If you have the NY Times iOS app, you can also scan a QR code at the end of the article to try out the Times' AR social distancing demonstration.
Life Sciences
What's the next global pathogen going to be? While we're already too late with COVID-19, researchers working on antiviral drugs for today's virus are also thinking what we need to tackle for future pandemics. The New Yorker follows famed researcher David Ho, who's been fighting the AIDS epidemic for four decades and has seen three coronaviruses devastate populations, as his lab works on drugs to fight present and future pandemics.
Ho's team helped devise the AIDS "cocktail" in the 90s, a combination of drugs that helps patients cope with AIDS. Ho wants to see a similar drug (or cocktail) that will "eliminate whatever ails us" - not the usual antiviral approach of "one bug, one drug."
Spaces
Get Ready for All-Electric Flying Car Races, They're Coming
The promise of "sustainable, electric air mobility" - flying cars - took a step closer to fruition when Airspeeder, the first electric flying car sports program, recently raised a seven-figure sum from several of Australia's largest VC firms. The founders of the program believe the competition could be a catalyst for innovation (DARPA's Grand Challenge was based on a similar concept). Just as important is public buy-in, and a motorsport is likely to generate more interest than a secretive experiment.
Watch Zoox's Autonomous Car Drive Around San Francisco for an Hour
Autonomous vehicle company Zoox recently published an hour-long (autonomous) drive around San Francisco. During the trip the AV made a number of complex maneuvers, such as driving in multi-lane traffic and in crowded areas. The car's sensor array, which spans 360 degrees, 18 cameras, 10 radars, and eight LiDARS, is able to distinguish objects we take for granted, such as open and closed car doors, animals, construction cones, traffic lights, even people on escooters. The planner system then takes into account perceptual data and predictions to make split-second decisions.
Materials
Some Shirts Hide You From Cameras—but Will Anyone Wear Them?
Ars Technica's dive into the world of adversarial attacks against computer vision systems. These attacks can take a number of forms - from JRPG hair and makeup to adversarial clothes to sunglasses and infrared-blocking scarves (Axios has a nice list of examples). At the moment, adversarial fashion is more closely associated with fringe groups and DEF CON attendees than H&M, but Ars expands on ways we can change that:
"First, people have to be interested in wearing adversarial designs. Second, the design actually has to work as intended. And third: the design has to be something you wouldn't mind being seen wearing while also, ideally, being good-looking enough that others will want to wear it, too."
SPACE10, IKEA's innovation lab, isn't as secretive as other labs. In fact, when it opened in 2015, it was a space the Copenhagen community could visit and share thoughts about. This open mentality stretches into the digital. For example IKEA open-sourced the design files for Growroom, "a spherical structure initially designed with the idea of using architecture as a local food producer." It was SPACE10 that helped introduce IKEA's popular AR app, IKEA Place. "We really believe that we're not set up to last, but to evolve," says Mikkel Christopher, SPACE10's lead creative producer.
Processors
The Era of Domain-Specific Processors
Intel's first single-chip CPU - 1971's Intel 4004 - ushered in decades of general-purpose computing. With the resurgance of AI in the early 2010s, and other emerging technology such as IoT, not to mention the drastic slowing down of Moore's Law, we're starting to see specialized chips that are more cost and power efficient than their general-purpose parents. Vipin Jain, co-founder and CTO at Pensando Systems, walks us through the types of domain-specific processors we're seeing emerge.
Interfaces
A New Neural Interface Could Last Up to 6 Years Inside the Human Brain
Intracranial electrodes, used in devices that aim to measure and augment brain signals, traditionally don't last long; neural implants tend to degrade, and may even damage surrounding tissue. onathan Viventi, a biomedical engineer, colorfully compared getting sensors to work in the brain to "tossing your foldable, flexible smartphone in the ocean and expecting it to work for 70 years."
To create longer-lasting implants, researchers have created an extremely thin and flexible neural interface with electrodes that can survive up to six years. The key to the neural interface's durability is the material that encapsulates it: "a layer of silicon dioxide less than a micrometer thick."
VR Is Here to Help With Our New Reality
A recent Wired piece proclaimed that VR hasn't yet progressed past the point of giving us slightly-less-annoying conference calls. XR artist M Eifler has a different opinion (in their own Wired op ed): "I was flabbergasted to learn people still felt this way. My remote-first, spatial-first teammates... are urban and rural, East Coast and West Coast, researchers and engineers, designers and project managers."
Eifler has collaborated in XR for over five years, using the medium to "get in the same room" when other channels didn't cut it. Eifler hears the same pushback from people resistant to VR meetings: they're for architects or game designers, but pointless for going over documents.
"When writing long emails or reports, you probably still resort to a full-sized tactile keyboard, but if you just need to jot a text or one-sentence email, a phone is fine." Eifler applies the same logic to VR: need a record of what's said? Use email. Need instant feedback? Video call. Feeling distant and want to connect in a "deeper, slower, less directed way"? There's VR.