Let the Smart Software Do It!
April 6, 2022
Eventually we will produce so much data it will be impossible for mere humans to manage it; AI will simply have to take over soon. This sums up the position of new Dynatrace CEO Rick McConnell as characterized in Diginomica‘s piece, “In Pursuit of General Intelligence—Dynatrace and the Death of the Dashboard.” Here’s a section heading that tickled our fancy: “The [bleeding] edge will make complexity more complex.” You don’t say? Writer Martin Banks describes McConnell perspective:
“Without a strong mixture of AI and operational management, the ability to generate any value out of the exploding growth of data will be difficult to maintain. Indeed, control may degrade enough to start reducing the value that can be created. For example, he sees potential growth in edge-related applications and consequent new growth in the data it will inevitably generate. This points to an underlying truth – that the ability for business users to move up the levels of abstraction, to stop seeing the data and instead see the questions and possible answers data represents – read words and sentences rather than see characters from an alphabet – will become essential for fast and effective business management. It will also play an increasingly important role in the management and development of the applications that will get used, especially as they grow to incorporate the edge into what will have to be a holistic soup-to-nuts business management solution. … The goal here is to completely automate out the need for manual intervention and interaction in tasks such as operations remediation.”
The write-up shares some notes about how Dynatrace approaches such automation. Banks also supplies example situations in which only the immediacy of AI will do, from a shopping cart that drops a users’ items to downtime in a large financial system. We see the logic behind these assertions, but there is one complication the article does not address—the already thorny and opaque problem of biased machine learning systems. It seems to us that without human oversight, that issue will only get worse.
Cynthia Murrell, April 6, 2022
What about the Alphabet Google DeepMind Personnel Zeitgeist? The What?
April 5, 2022
Ah, has, do you remember that zeitgeist (a popular word among some college student embroiled in German philosophy)? Zeitgeist apparently means “to a form of supraindividual mind at work in the world and developed in the cultural world view which pervades the ideas, outlooks, and emotions of a specific culture in a particular historical period.” But you knew that, right? Supraindividual. Cultural world. Pervasive in a specific culture. Let’s accept this Psychology Dictionary definition and move forward, shall we?
“Google AI Unit’s High Ideals Are Tainted With Secrecy” captures the spirit of Alphabet Google DeepMind implicit systems and methods for personnel management. (You may have to pay to view this story. The collection of money befits the cowboy-hatted Big Dog who has an interest in the real news outputs of the Washington Post.) The main idea in the write up is less that Google is secretive and more that Google makes situational decisions and refused to talk about the thought process behind them. Surprise? Nope.
The write up states:
The former DeepMind employee wrote that she was threatened with disciplinary action if she spoke about her complaint with her manager or other colleagues. And the process of the company’s sending her notes and responding to her allegations took several months, during which time the person she reported was promoted and received a company award. DeepMind said in a statement that while it “could have communicated better throughout the grievance process,” a number of factors including the Covid pandemic and the availability of the parties involved contributed to delays.
Woulda, coulda, shoulda — perfect in grade school explanations about a failure, less impressive from a very large, super sophisticated outfit with smart software and wizards occupying hip workspaces. (What about those cubbies for people which allow a door to be closed? Privacy, please!)
The write up includes another of those “we don’t want to remember that” moments. This is the Mustafa Suleyman lateral arabesque. You can visit the real news source for the apparently interesting details. I must admit this incident is cut from the same fabric as the baby making in Google legal and the hooker/drug matter on a yacht called Escape. For some color around this matter, see this CBS report.
I loved this passage about one allegedly harassed Googler’s alleged interactions with co workers:
DeepMind said it is “digesting” its former employee’s open letter to understand what further action it should take. A bold and positive step would be to remove the confidentiality clauses in harassment settlements.
Consequences? Presumably authorities are letting the information work through their bureaucratic intestines. The good news: No attempted suicide, no heroin, no divorces and fatherless children, and no death — this time. Alphabet Google DeepMind want to benefit humanity. That’s great. But the Googley zeitgeist reveals the spirit of the firm in my opinion.
Stephen E Arnold, April 5, 2022
Anti-Drone Measures: A Bit Like Enterprise Cyber Security?
April 5, 2022
The big news is that whatever anti-drone technology is being used by “the West”, it is not working at 100 percent efficiency. The Wall Street Journal, published on April Fool’s Day, the story “Drones Evade West’s Air Defense.” I could not spot the exact write up in my online resources, but this particular item is in the dead tree edition. If you go to an office which has humanoids who subscribe to the hard copy, you can check out the story on Page A-9. Story locations vary by edition because… advertising.
There is an online version with the jazzy title “NATO Investigates How Russian and Ukrainian Drones Bypassed Europe’s Air Defense System.” You might be able to view the article at this link, but you probably will either have to pay or see a cheerful 404 error. These folks are in the money business. News — mostly like the Ford 150 — is cargo, and it has a cult I believe.
The point of both write ups is that both Russian and Ukrainian drones have not be interdicted by anti-drone systems. How did those in neighboring companies know that Russian and Ukrainian drones were entering their air space and zipping through their anti-droned borders?
Drones crashed. People walked up and noted, “Okay, explosives on that one.” Another person spots a drone in a field and says, “Looks like this one has cameras, not bombs.”
Countries whose borders have been subject to drone incursions include Romania, Croatia, and Poland. There may be others, but some of the countries have areas which are a difficult to reach, even for an Eva Zu Beck type of person.
NATO is looking into the anti drone measures. That makes sense, since most vendors of military grade anti drone systems have PowerPoint decks which make it clear, “Our system works.” Should I name vendors? Nah, remember Ubiquiti and Mr. Krebs. (That sounds like a children’s program on a PBS station to me.) Slide decks become the reality until a drone with explosives plops down near a pre-school.
My immediate reaction to these Wall Street Journal stories was, “Maybe the anti-drone defense vendors operate with the same reliability as the vendors of enterprise cyber security systems?” The PowerPoint decks promise the same efficacy. There are even private YouTube videos which show drone defense vendors systems EMPing, blasting, or just knocking those evil constructs out of the sky. (Check out Anduril’s offering in this collision centric method, please.)
For several years I followed drone technology for an investment outfit. I learned that the information about the drone described devices best suited for science fiction. I read patents which were not in the fiction section of my local library. I watched YouTube videos with nifty DaVinci Fusion video effects.
The reality?
NATO is now investigating.
My point is that it is easy to sell certain government types advanced technology with PowerPoints and slick videos. This generalization applies to hardware and to software cyber systems.
I don’t need to invoke the SolarWinds’ misstep. I don’t need to recycle the information in the Wall Street Journal stories or the somewhat unusual content in Perun’s drone video.
Is procurement to blame? Partially. I think that Parkinson’s Law (1958) gets closer to the truth, particularly when combined with the observations in the Peter Principle (1971). Universals are at work with the assistance of fast talkers, PowerPoints, and video “proof”.
Stephen E Arnold, April 4, 2022
Ethical Behavior and the Ivy League: Redefinition by Example
April 5, 2022
First, MIT and its dalliance with the sophisticated Jeffrey Epstein. Then there was Harvard and its indifference to an allegation of improper interpersonal behavior. Sordid details abound in this allegedly accurate report. Now Yale. The bastion of “the dog”, the football game, Skull and Bones, etc., etc.
“A Former Yale Employee Admits She Stole $40 Million in Electronics from the University” makes clear that auditing, resource management, and personnel supervision are not the esteemed institution greatest strengths.
I gave a talk at Yale a decade ago. The subject was Google, sparked because one of the Yale brain trust found my analysis interesting. Strange, I thought, at the time. No one else cares about my research about Google’s systems and methods. I showed up and was greeted as though I was one of the gang. (I wasn’t.)
At dinner someone asked me, “Where did you get your PhD?” I replied with my standard line: “I don’t have a PhD. I quit to take a job at Halliburton Nuclear.” As you might imagine, the others at the dinner were not impressed.
I gave my lecture and no one — absolutely none of the 100 people in the room — asked a question. No big deal. I am familiar with the impact some of my work has elicited. One investment banker big wheel threw an empty Diet Pepsi can at me after I explained how the technology of CrossZ (a non US analytics company) preceded in invention the outfit the banked just pumped millions into. Ignorance is bliss. Same at Yale during and after my lecture.
Has Yale changed? Seems to be remarkably consistent: Detached from the actions of mere humans, convinced of a particular world view, and into the zeitgeist of being of Yale.
But $40 million?
An ethical wake up call? Nope, hit the snooze button.
Stephen E Arnold, April 5, 2022
Facebook Defines Excellence: Also Participated?
April 5, 2022
Slick AI and content moderation functions are not all they are cracked up to be, sometimes with devastating results. SFGate provides one distressing example in, “‘Kill More’: Facebook Fails to Detect Hate Against Rohingya.” Rights group Global Witness recently put Facebook’s hate speech algorithms to the test. The AI failed spectacularly. The hate-filled ads submitted by the group were never posted, of course, though all eight received Facebook’s seal of approval. However, ads with similar language targeting Myanmar’s Rohingya Muslim minority have made it onto the platform in the past. Those posts were found to have contributed to a vicious campaign of genocide against the group. Associated Press reporters Victoria Milko and Barbara Ortutay write:
“The army conducted what it called a clearance campaign in western Myanmar’s Rakhine state in 2017 after an attack by a Rohingya insurgent group. More than 700,000 Rohingya fled into neighboring Bangladesh and security forces were accused of mass rapes, killings and torching thousands of homes. … On Feb. 1 of last year, Myanmar’s military forcibly took control of the country, jailing democratically elected government officials. Rohingya refugees have condemned the military takeover and said it makes them more afraid to return to Myanmar. Experts say such ads have continued to appear and that despite its promises to do better and assurances that it has taken its role in the genocide seriously, Facebook still fails even the simplest of tests — ensuring that paid ads that run on its site do not contain hate speech calling for the killing of Rohingya Muslims.”
The language in these ads is not subtle—any hate-detection algorithm that understands Burmese should have flagged it. Yet Meta (now Facebook’s “parent” company) swears it is doing its best to contain the problem. According to a recent statement sent to the AP, a company rep claims:
“We’ve built a dedicated team of Burmese speakers, banned the Tatmadaw, disrupted networks manipulating public debate and taken action on harmful misinformation to help keep people safe. We’ve also invested in Burmese-language technology to reduce the prevalence of violating content.”
Despite such assurances, Facebook has a history of failing to allocate enough resources to block propaganda with disastrous consequences for foreign populations. Perhaps taking more responsibility for their product’s impact in the world is too dull a topic for Zuck and company. They would much prefer to focus on the Metaverse, their latest shiny object, though that path is also fraught with collateral damage. Is Meta too big for anyone to hold it accountable?
Cynthia Murrell, April 5, 2022
System Glitches: A Glimpse of Our Future?
April 4, 2022
I read “Nearly All Businesses Hit by IT Downtime Last Year – Here’s What’s to Blame.” The write up reports:
More than three-quarters (75%) of businesses experienced downtime in 2021, up 25% compared to the previous year, new research has claimed. Cybersecurity firm Acronis polled more than 6,200 IT users and IT managers from small businesses and enterprises in 22 countries, finding that downtime stemmed from multiple sources, with system crashes (52%) being the most prevalent cause. Human error (42%) was also a major issue, followed by cyber attacks (36%) and insider attacks (20%).
Interesting. A cyber security company reports these data. The cyber security industry sector should know. Many of the smart systems have demonstrated that those systems are somewhat slow when it comes to safeguarding licensees.
What’s the cause of the issue?
There are “crashes.” But what’s a crash. Human error. Humans make mistakes and most of the software systems with which I am familiar are dumb: Blackmagic ATEM software which “forgets” that users drag and drop. Users don’t intuitively know to put an image one place and then put that image another so that the original image is summarily replaced. Windows Defender lights up when we test software from an outfit named Chris. Excel happily exports to PowerPoint but loses the format of the table when it is pasted. There are USB keys and Secure Digital cards which just stop working. Go figure. There are enterprise search systems which cannot display a document saved by a colleague before lunch. Where is it? Yeah, good question. In the indexing queue maybe? Oh, well, perhaps tomorrow the colleague will get the requested feedback?
My takeaway from the write up is that the wild and crazy, helter skelter approach to software and some hardware has created weaknesses, flaws, and dependencies no one knows about. When something goes south, the Easter egg hunt begins. A dead Android device elicits button pushing and the hope that the gizmo shows some signs of life. Mostly not in my experience.
Let’s assume the research is correct. The increase noted in the write up means that software and systems will continue to degrade. What’s the fix? Like many things — from making a government bureaucracy more effective to having an airline depart on time — seem headed on a downward path.
My take is that we are getting a glimpse of the future. Reality is very different from the perfectly functioning demo and the slick assertions in a PowerPoint deck.
Stephen E Arnold, April 4, 2022
When Filtering Is Not Enough: Google Lobbies
April 4, 2022
Lawmakers are finally getting serious about curbing the prodigious power of large tech firms. Google, for one, is fighting back with a resource it has in abundance: money. MarketScreener briefly reports, “Google U.S. Lobbying Jumps 27% as Lawmakers Aim to Rein In Big Tech.” The increase brings the company’s 2021 lobbying expenditure to $9.6 million. Writers Diane Bartz and Paresh Dave observe:
“That’s far below the more than $20 million it spent in 2018 but more than the $7.53 million that went to lobbying in 2020. Google spent $2.2 million on lobbying in the fourth quarter of 2021. Google’s lobbying spend dipped in 2020 as it restructured its government relations teams. The biggest technology companies, including Amazon.com Inc, Meta Platforms Inc’s Facebook and Apple Inc, have been under pressure in Congress over allegations they abused their outsized market power. A long list of bills have been introduced aimed at reining them in, but none have become law.”
Not yet, but one significant bill did recently pass the Senate Judiciary Committee. Will Google’s and other companies’ lobbyists succeed in stopping it and similar legislation? We are sure they will do their best to fulfill their oh-so-lucrative contracts.
Cynthia Murrell, April 4, 2022
Google: Nosing into US Government Consulting
April 4, 2022
I spotted an item on Reddit called “Google x Palantir.” Let’s assume there’s a smidgen of truth in the post. The factoid is in a comment about Google’s naming Stephen Elliott as its head of artificial intelligence solutions for the Google public sector unit. (What happened to the wizard once involved in this type of work? Oh, well.)
The interesting item for me is that Mr. Elliott will have a particular focus on “leveraging the Palantir Foundry platform.” I thought that outfits like Praetorian Digital (now Lexipol) handled this type of specialist consulting and engineering.
What strikes me as intriguing about this announcement is that Palantir Foundry will work on the Google Cloud. Amazon is likely to be an interested party in this type of Google initiative.
Amazon has sucked up a significant number of product-centric searches. Now the Google wants to get into the “make Palantir work” business.
Plus, Google will have an opportunity to demonstrate its people management expertise, its ability to attract and retain a diverse employee group, and its ability to put some pressure on the Amazon brachial nerve.
How will Microsoft respond?
The forthcoming Netflix mockumentary “Mr. Elliot Goes to Washington” will fill someone’s hunger for a reality thriller.
And what if the Reddit post is off base. Hey, mockumentaries can be winners. Remember “This Is Spinal Tap”?
Stephen E Arnold, April 4, 2022
Agolo: Making Government Sales and Landing VC Money
April 4, 2022
Apple, Google, and Microsoft might be search experts, but they continue to get things wrong. These are big companies, so they cannot solely concentrate on the search function like a dedicated company. Tech Crunch explains how Agolo specializes in search and improves upon what the tech giants do: “Agolo Summary-Powered Search Brings In Government Work And Fresh Funding.”
Agolo developed a powerful summary search engine that dissects articles and presents users with shorter versions that preserve key points. Agolo identified two types of search tools: dumb and smart. Dumb engines are not good at locating context or extraction data, while the smart functions are decent at fining relevance and order items. Both are limited in their capabilities. Agolo designed a smarter search function and described it as this:
“Agolo co-founder and CEO Sage Wohns gave the example of searching for ibuprofen. Any ordinary search engine only understands ibuprofen as a term people generally search for in order to learn more about the medicine, and that’s the way it’s reflected in the index. Even if you deploy that search tech on a domain-specific corpus, like research papers, it doesn’t magically gain better understanding. But a medical researcher searching through pandemic-related papers for ibuprofen already knows what it is — what they need is an ordered presentation of how ibuprofen appears in the literature, what other drugs and effects it is most tightly correlated with, what institutions and authors are associated with studying it.”
Agolo digests terabytes of data and summaries them in usable knowledge graphs. The summary search tool is capable of handling long documents and the US federal government uses it. Agolo does not sell an out of the box search solution, instead it partners with enterprise system designers like Google and Microsoft. This is interesting because in a recent round of funding, Google and Microsoft invested in Agolo:
“The company’s A round was just closed, led by Lytical Ventures, plus returning investors Microsoft M12, Google’s Assistant Investment Group, Tensility Venture Partners, Ridgeline Partners and Thomson Reuters. The company has raised over $18 million in total to date.”
Agolo, like Kyndi, are examples of a mini-enterprise search renascence? The memories of Autonomy, Delphi, Entopia, and Fast Search & Transfer have faded from customers’, investors’, and innovators’ memories.
Whitney Grace, April 4, 2022
Ommmm. The Former Tweeter Guy Says Sorry
April 3, 2022
I read an interesting Silicon Valley real news report called “Twitter Founder Jack Dorsey Said He’s Partially to Blame for Centralizing the Internet and That He Regrets It.” Gee, mea culpa. Rough wool cassock, a bit of sharp wire donned as a T shirt, and starving one in a stone cell until a certain wall decoration speaks to him? Nah, hey, regret. Cue the music:
Regrets, I’ve had a few
But then again, too few to mention
I did what I had to do
And saw it through without exemption
Fade out.
The write up is an interview with the inscrutable Silicon Valley thought leader and dual CEO capable Jack Dorsey. Mr. Dorsey allegedly said:
“Centralizing discovery and identity into corporations really damaged the internet.” “I realize I’m partially to blame, and regret it,” Dorsey continued.
Cue the music:
I find it all so amusing
To think I did all that
And may I say, not in a shy way
Oh no, no, not me
I did it my way
And consequences? For some investors, payday. For Geofeedia, a bit of a downturn for sure. For some techno pundits? Win. For those who output “alternative” information? Free nudging which can be automated?
Yes, damage. Regrets. For sure.
Stephen E Arnold, April 3, 2022
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