As scholar James Q. Wilson has stated, “The poorest Americans today live a better life than all but the richest persons a hundred years ago.”[3] In 2005, the typical household defined as poor by the government had a car and air conditioning. For entertainment, the household had two color televisions, cable or satellite TV, a DVD player, and a VCR. If there were children, especially boys, in the home, the family had a game system, such as an Xbox or a PlayStation.[4] In the kitchen, the household had a refrigerator, an oven and stove, and a microwave. Other household conveniences included a clothes washer, clothes dryer, ceiling fans, a cordless phone, and a coffee maker.

(http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2011/07/what-is-poverty)

It should be noted that these benefits are not necessarily due to increases in income, but rather to advances in technology.

So why is technology such a pain in the %@#$!   It would be fair to say that I was born and raised in the technology era.  I am the Chief “Technology” Officer at Discovery Machine Corporation.   I was 12 when I got my first computer at home which was an Apple ][e (actually one of the first clones called a Franklin Ace 1000).   I have been working with technologies of all kinds since the mid-80s and have kept up pretty well with the advances.

My main disappointment is that it is people that are adapting to the technologies, rather than technologies adapting to people.   We recently purchased a new double-oven and as is my habit I looked for the coolest new technology I could find.  The oven has a touch panel and libraries of recipes for all kinds of things built in.  Sounds cool!  But the touch panel shorts out when the oven goes over 400 degrees and requires me to “reboot it”.  Yes, I have to reboot my oven?!?.   So point number one is what does technology do when it fails.  “Message FE12: call the manufacturer” is not helpful!

Another example is the universally aclaimed user interface found in iPods and iPhones.  Have you ever tried to deal with a whole family of “iDevices” each attempting to access a different subset of music, apps and videos with your daughter asking “Hey Dad!! Why can’t I get Avril Lavigne on my iPod?”  Its not that it can’t be done or that its particularly difficult, but for the uninitiated it requires significant learning.   And even for me it requires my time.   Why?  Nor am I interested in hearing the argument: “Android does this way better?”  So I should throw out all my kid’s iPods and switch, giving myself new technology to administrate?    A great user interface only goes so far.

Why do those who develop technology expect those who use it to adapt?  Why doesn’t the technology adapt to them?   Well, for one thing, technology is stupid.   I don’t mean useless, I mean it does not have the intelligence needed to adapt to its situation.   Also, technology is built upon requirements where functionality and aesthetics trump the inconvenience of learning.  Everyone assumes some learning curve for their new gadget.

At Discovery Machine we are building technology that is based on the best practices of experts.  We capture not only the typical use-cases for doing a job, but also many historical or limiting case examples.  While our efforts currently involve military or manufacturing jobs, the potential is far greater.   What if every new gadget came equipped with an on-board “expert user” that I could ask questions?   If I could dialog with my technology and it attempted to understand what I wanted, rather than reading through manuals and help systems,  I may be able to significantly reduce that learning curve.  We have entered a new era in technology where we will be able to talk to our devices as demonstrated by Apple’s Siri.   Now we need to give those devices something useful to talk about.   Perhaps not: Message FE12, but “One of keys is stuck and needs to be replaced.  Should I call the manufacturer to schedule maintenance?”

We see a few dark clouds in this new environment, finding larger companies more active in the submission’s competition and companies that are VC funded and owned now back in the mix. This has clearly taken some early tolls on the success rates for many a small firm.

A recent article by Greg Avery of the Denver Business Journal had what I view as a very nice summary of the VC related changes and is quoted, below. Discovery Machine wishes the best of fortunes to all companies who participate in the new SBIR program.

“VC-backed startups now free to chase SBIR grant money”

Denver Business Journal by Greg Avery, Reporter

Date: Friday, January 13, 2012, 4:00am MST

“For the first time in 10 years, startup companies majority-owned by venture capital funds are eligible again for hundreds of millions of dollars in research grants available to small businesses each year.

Legislation, buried in a national defense spending bill adopted on Dec. 30, allows federal agencies to award a portion of their Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grants to VC-backed startups.

It’s a reversal of a 10-year-old policy that excluded firms that were more than 50 percent owned by VC investors…….”

Although, the company always respected the individual, they do not always realize just how much power that person gave their company.  It comes back to the knowledge that person possessed and how they used it.  In this case, the company lost access to the knowledge and as a result lost power in the marketplace.  If only, the company had realized how the knowledge of an experienced person was affecting their business, they could have taken steps to retain that knowledge.

If only this company had heard of Discovery Machine, they could have captured the knowledge of their expert and deployed it throughout their workforce.  As a result, their company would have become more powerful instead of losing their most experienced individual.  Discovery Machine’s methodology and software is designed to document the tacit decision-making processes of experts and actually deploy it.   Knowledge is power and should be treated as a commodity.  Using an approach like Discovery Machine’s companies can harness that power and unleash its true potential.

Discovery Machine has had a great year to.  Our AI work with the Navy is receiving great reviews.  We released our VBS2 Behavior Modeling Console and entered a formal partnership with Bohemia Interactive.  We had a great  Interservice/Industry Training, Simulation and Education Conference (I/ITSEC) at the beginning of this month.  Hundreds came by our booth for demonstrations of our Navy and VBS2 AI solutions.

The sad event for the year was the passing of John McCarthy in October at 84.  John designed Lisp in the late 50s.  We have all done a little Lisp.  Late at night on the VAX  11/780 in the 80s I was not a fan but I am now. He also coined the term “Artificial Intelligence” at the famous Dartmouth Conference in the summer of 1956.

One of the best AI events this year is the closing of the Google’s sponsored AI contest at “aichallenge.org”, the winner was announced on December 23rd at 9:00 PM. The winner was Mathis Lichtenberger. He is a second year computer science student at the University of Lubeck  They say there is no prizes just “There is of course the glory and bragging rights that come with doing well in the best programming contest ever made.”  Mathis, give me a call and I will give a job!

So we end 2011 as an great year for AI.  I cannot wait for 2012 to begin. Have a great new year, see you in 2012.

The I/ITSEC Show Daily for November 30th reported on the General/Flag Officer Panel where each participant addressed the I/ITSEC 2011 theme of, “Prepare the Force; Secure the Future”. http://www.iitsec.org/Documents/IITSEC_2011_Show_Daily/IITSEC11_Day3_web.pdf

There were two key messages in the article that summarized the panelists’ comments:

1. There is a need to capture operational experiences and expertise from the past 10 years and going forward.

2. Modeling and simulation is effective at reducing training costs while still offering effective training.

Discovery Machine embraces these messages and offers a valuable solution. Our knowledge capture methodology was developed to allow any expert to conduct introspection and articulation so their experiences can be leveraged in executing models. At I/ITSEC we demonstrated the captured experiences as intelligent agents running in simulations. The captured experiences can also run as best practices where each best practice becomes an application.

Modeling and simulation offers large cost reductions by saving money on bullets, fuel, maintenance and risk to human lives. Discovery machine takes it one step further by creating a more realistic training environment through intelligent agents that not only help with training on doctrine but also cognitive decision making that is critical to adapting to new situations. The intelligent agents also reduce the workload of instructors so that instructors can focus on students rather than simulations. In addition, Discovery Machine has made authoring intelligent agents simple – no programming required. This significantly reduces the cost in creating and supporting training events.

If we didn’t get to meet you at I/ITSEC and give you a demo, please check out our website or give us a call.