Simon's Scissors, Weizenbaum's Wisdom, and Nicholas Nostradamus

I publish an off-and-on briefing on things that I notice out there. Personally, I don't think anyone needs yet-another-newsletter. But if that format interests you, signup is here .

March 2023 #DesignInTech Briefing

Four Things That I’m Thinking About #DesignInTech

• Designers tend to care about people as people. Instead of just as prospects or customers.
• Design as a field has evolved to speak more machine, more scale, and more $$$s.
• A lot of work has been done in the design world to birth a new “aesthetics of ethics.”
• But it’s not mainstage because it doesn’t sound like “time or $$$s saved” or “new $$$s.”

Three Things I’ve Noticed In The Last 30?Days

In general I’ve noticed that referencing the past is quite helpful to understand the present. These three quotes help me do an SJ “look backwards to look forwards” daily yoga-style cognitive exercise to stay limber, humble, and hungry.?

1) Simon’s?Scissors

Early 1960s AI pioneer and Nobel Laureate in Economics, Herbert Simon, framed human intelligence as like two blades of a pair of scissors:?

“Human rational behavior is shaped by a scissors whose blades are the structure of task environments and the computational capabilities of the actor.”

Simon’s Scissors are an easy way to understand how Pre-trained Foundation Models work differently than the previous generation of AI systems. One blade is the model (COGNITION) and the other blade is the environment (CONTEXT). When the two blades rub against each other, they produce a kind of intelligence. Think of chatting, move your mouth open and closed, and that kind of looks like cut, cut, cutting?… with a pair of scissors <smile>.

2) Weizenbaum’s Wisdom

My AI instructor from the 80s and inventor of the chatbot way back in 1967, Dr. Joseph Weizenbaum (1923–2008), waxed critically in the intro to “Computer Power and Human Reason: From Judgment To Calculation” (1976) about his invention:

“I knew of course that people form all sorts of emotional bonds to machines, for example, to musical instruments, motorcycles, and cars. And I knew from long experience that the strong emotional ties many programmers have to their computers are often formed after only short exposures to their machines.

What I had not realized is that extremely short exposures to a relatively simple computer program could induce powerful delusional thinking in quite normal people.

This insight led me to attach new importance to questions of the relationship between the individual and the computer, and hence to resolve to think about them.”

3) Nicholas Nostradamus

Nicholas Negroponte wrote in his seminal “Architecture Machine” book in 1967:

“Imagine a machine that can follow your design methodology and at the same time discern and assimilate your conversational idiosyncrasy. The same machine, after observing your behavior, could build a predictive model of your conversational performance. Such a machine could then reinforce the dialogue by using a predictive model to respond to you in a manner that is in rhythm with your personal behavior and conversational idiosyncrasies.”

Isn’t that eerily correct? ??

Two Unsolicited Non-Tech Products That I??

• Paper D’Arménie is beautifully scented post-it note-sized papers to be burned or enjoyed as-is.
• Olfa LTD-10 Scissors have one micro-serrated blade — which means your paper never slips while cutting.

One Special?Link

New report on Design and Artificial Intelligence from SXSW 2023 as video or PDF: https://designintech.report/sxsw2023

One Final?Point

There’s new, emergent bumpiness that’s both human-made (financial world) and natural-made (weather world) that reminds me of everything I’ve learned about resilience. The key thing to remember from the 2022 #ResilienceTech Report is that we all experience change differently. And when we choose to work together, we always get through it.