Our Evolving Relationship with Data #InternetLibrarian @DanielWRasmus

Dan Rasmus, consultant

In France, they have “wisdom management”: “How do we know if what we know is what we should know?”

How you think about the future is dangerous.

There is no data from the future.  Even “real-time data” is at least milliseconds old.

Scenario planning: outside factors.

Possible futures: there is no the future yet.

Considerations for future of the university:

• The nature of learning
• Global economic model
• Relationship with data

Has “Book of all knowledge” from 1850.  Most of it is wrong now.

Things we thought we knew:

• How DNA works (epigenetics)
• Moons of Jupiter
• The Big Bang, dark matter, laws of physics
• Number of galaxies (recently found 10x more than we thought)
• Periodic table (new elements)

A database is “rewriting history to predict the future.”

USB-C: download a movie in seconds.

Norse real-time cyberattacks

Pirate Bay.

Sensors: Internet of Things, lights, doors. Pervasive computing.

Expectations for augmented/virtual reality. We have to make sense of our own data.

Data for human bodies, traffic, city planning.

Data from all these sources can be correlated.

In public sector: water, power, transportation, libraries, schools, etc.

Kurzweil’s “Singularity.”

What question did Watson not answer on “Jeopardy”?  Watson did not have a conversation with Alex Trebek about its hobbies.

Another blog post here: http://www.libconf.com/2016/10/21/evolving-relationship-data-closing-keynote/

 

Technology that may Impact our Future, keynote, Larry Magid #InternetLibrarian @LarryMagid

Larry Magid, long-time tech writer, also runs ConnectSafely.org

Developments:
IBM Selectric
Apple II
IBM PC
Commercial Internet
Search engines (“fundamentally changed acquisition of knowledge,” now you don’t have to go somewhere to find things out)
Blackberry, Iphone/Android
Voice Recognition

Google Pixel has a modicum of A.I.

“How far to x?”
“Can you recommend a restaurant there?” (It knows where “there” is.)

“How do you say x in Spanish?” (Breaking down language barriers)

Drones, autonomous cars (changing mobility, parking, traffic)

Facial recognition: on phones, surveillance cameras

Privacy: close to zero

A.I.: A long way to go, but moving quickly.

Machines getting smarter, will start teaching each other.

Robotic journalists: better memories, work longer for free.

Lawyers: preparing a will. May not be empathetic, but could be smarter.

Accounting: easier to do on Turbo Tax than it is to gather documents for a human accountant.

Reference librarians: augmented by computers. It may be easier — for some people, for some questions — to ask a computer.

However, human touch is essential. People traveled to Monterey for this conference for the human interaction.

Robotics: manufacturing will come back to the U.S., but the jobs won’t. Just need cheap energy.

People will build and maintain robots until they repair each other.

Drones: delivering meds in Rwanda; Amazon.com deliveries.

Telemedicine: may have no reason to go to a doctor. Robots could give meds.

Internet safety:

Cyberbullying: not just kids, adults too. It’s gotten worse in the last 15 months (i.e., during election campaign).

How can we model the proper behavior? Counter cynicism.

Advice for libraries: Engage people: invite them to make a video for your blog. You have to go to them.

“Anonymous is not synonymous with ominous.”

Anonymity is essential for dissidents, sexual minorities, people with some diseases. Sometimes there is bad behavior, but sometimes, people are more likely to say nice things when they are anonymous. Law enforcement can usually find you, even if you are anonymous.

Media bubble:

Facebook steers you to what you already like.

Magid lives in Palo Alto, is a journalist with a graduate degree. “So you can imagine what kind of bubble I’m in.” But he makes an effort to consume different media.

A lot misstated facts, urban legends go around.

Another blog post here: http://www.libconf.com/2016/10/21/technology-may-impact-future-wednesday-keynote/