The Google: A Real Newspaper Discovers Modern Research
December 4, 2016
I read “Google, Democracy and the Truth about Internet Search.” One more example of a person who thinks he or she is an excellent information hunter and gatherer. Let’s be candid. A hunter gatherer flailing away for 15 or so years using online research tools, libraries, and conversations with actual humans should be able to differentiate a bunny rabbit from a female wolf with baby wolves at her feet.
Natural selection works differently in the hunting and gathering world of online. The intrepid knowledge warrior can make basic mistakes, use assumptions without consequence, and accept whatever a FREE online service delivers. No natural selection operates.
A “real” journalist discovers the basics of online search’s power. Great insight, just 50 years from the time online search became available to this moment of insight in December 2017. Slow on the trigger or just clueless?
That’s scary. When the 21st century hunter gatherer seems to have an moment of inspiration and realizes that online services—particularly ad supported free services—crank out baloney, it’s frightening. The write up makes clear that a “real” journalist seems to have figured out that online outputs are not exactly the same as sitting at a table with several experts and discussing an issue. Online is not the same as going to a library and reading books and journal articles, thinking about what each source presents as actual factoids.
Here’s an example of the “understanding” one “real” journalist has about online information:
Google is knowledge. It’s where you go to find things out.
There you go. Reliance on one service to provide “knowledge.” From an ad supported. Free. Convenient. Ubiquitous. Online service.
Yep, that’s the way to keep track of “knowledge.”
Info-Distortion: Suddenly People Understand
November 16, 2016
I have watched the flood of stories about misinformation, false news, popular online services’ statements about dealing with the issue, and denials that disinformation influence anything. Sigh.
I have refrained from commenting after reading write ups in the New York Times, assorted blogs, and wild and crazy posts on Reddit.
A handful of observations/factoids from rural Kentucky:
- Detection of weaponized information is a non trivial task
- Online systems can be manipulated by exploiting tendencies within the procedures of very popular algorithms; most online search systems rely on workhorse algorithms that know their way to the barn. Their predictability makes manipulation easy
- Textual information which certain specific attributes will usually pass undetected by humans who have to then figure out a way to interrelate a sequence of messages distributed via different outlets
There is some information about the method at my www.augmentext.com site. The flaws in “smart” indexing systems have been known for years and have been exploited by individual actors as well as nation states. The likelihood of identifying and eliminating weaponized information will be an interesting challenge. Yep, I know a team of whiz kids figured out how to solve Facebook’s problem in a short period of time. I just don’t believe the approach applies to some of the methods in use by certain government actors. How do you know an “authority” is not a legend?
Stephen E Arnold, November 16, 2016
Cyber Security Factoids
October 31, 2016
I came across “Luxembourg to Become a Cyber Security Hub.” I usually ignore these blue chip consulting firm public relations love fests. I did not some interesting factoids in the write up. Who knows if these are correct, but some large organizations pay a lot of money to have the MBAs and accountants deliver these observations:
- “In Luxembourg, 57%* of players expect to be the victim of cybercrime in the next 24 months.” (I assume that “players” are companies which the consulting firm either has as clients or hopes to make into clients.)
- There are four trends in cyber security: “1) digital businesses are adopting new technologies and approaches to Cyber Security, 2) threat intelligence and information sharing have become business-critical, 3) organizations are addressing risks associated with the Internet of Things (IoT), and 4) geopolitical threats are rising.”
- “In the 2017 Global State of Information Security Survey, PwC found more than 80% of European companies had experienced at least on Cyber Security incident in the past year. Likewise, the number of digital security incidents across all industries worldwide rose by 80%. The spending in the Cyber Security space is also increasing with 59% of the companies surveyed affirming that digitalization of the business ecosystem has affected their security spending.”
- Companies the consulting firm finds interesting include: “Digital Shadows from the UK, Quarkslab from France, SecurityScorecard, enSilo, Skybox Security and RedOwl from the US, NetGuardians from Switzerland,Ironscales and Morphisec from Israel, and Picus Security from Turkey.”
Interesting.
Stephen E Arnold, October 31, 2016
Another US Outfit Learns about the Online Idiosyncrasies of Nation States
October 27, 2016
Google learned that China does not listen to suggestions from the ad giant about its online policies. Now LinkedIn has bumped into a similar ethnocentrism in Russia, altogether a really fun place in some folks’ eyes. I read “LinkedIn Runs Afoul of Russian Data Law — Is It on the Verge of Being Banned?” I highlighted this passage:
Russia could end up banning LinkedIn in a matter of weeks as the government reportedly seeks to make an example of the business-oriented social network. The company is being targeted following its failure to comply with a 2014 federal law that demands online firms that deal with the personal information of Russian citizens store their data within the country. Earlier this year, the Kremlin’s media watchdog Roskomnadzor attained an injunction against LinkedIn from a lower court. If a Moscow city court decides to reject an appeal, set for November 10, the platform will be blocked.
As the punk band learned in 2012, Russian authorities have some interesting approaches to resolving life’s little challenges. Not only did the band end up in jail, few knew in which jail the musicians resided. I was told at a conference in Prague that losing track of the female prisoners was an unfortunate administrative error.
LinkedIn may want to keep the fate of the punk rock band in mind if the Moscow authorities gear up and speed to locations where LinkedIn may have advisors, employees, fellow travelers, or folks who are championing the social media recruitment online service. Just an idle thought.,
Stephen E Arnold, October 27, 2016
HonkinNews for 25 October 2016 Now Available
October 25, 2016
This week’s video roundup of search, online, and content processing news is now available. Navigate to this link for seven minutes of plain talk about the giblets and goose feathers in the datasphere. This week’s program links Google’s mobile search index with the company’s decision to modify its privacy policies for tracking user actions. The program includes an analysis of Marissa Mayer’s managerial performance at Yahoo. Better browser history search swoops into the program too. Almost live from Harrod’s Creek in rural Kentucky. HonkinNews is semi educational, semi informative, and semi fun. Three programs at the end of the year will focus on Stephen E Arnold’s three monographs about Google.
Kenny Toth, October 25, 2016
The Thrill of Rising Yahoo Traffic
October 21, 2016
I love the Gray Lady. The Bits column is chock full of technology items which inspire, excite, and sometimes implant silly ideas in readers’ minds. That’s real journalism.
Navigate to “Daily Report: Explaining Yahoo’s Unexpected Rise in Traffic.”
The write up pivots on the idea that Internet traffic can be monitored in a way that is accurate and makes sense. A click is a click. A packet is a packet. Makes sense. The are the “minor” points of figuring out which clicks are from humans and which clicks are from automated scripts performing some function like probing for soft spots. There are outfits which generate clicks for various reasons including running down a company’s advertising “checkbook.” There are clicks which ask such questions as, “Are you alive?” or “What’s the response time?” You get the idea because you have a bit of doubt about traffic generated by a landing page, a Web site, or even an ad. The counting thing is difficult.
The write up in the Gray Lady assumes that these “minor” points are irrelevant in the Yahoo scheme of themes; for example:
an increased number of people were drawn to Yahoo in September. The reason may have been Yahoo’s disclosure that month that hackers stole data on 500 million users in 2014.
“People”? How do we know that the traffic is people?
The Gray Lady states:
Yahoo’s traffic has been declining for a long time, overtaken by more adept, varied and apparently secure places to stay on the internet.
Let’s think about this. We don’t know if the traffic data are counting humans, software scripts, or utility functions. We do know that Yahoo has been on a glide path to a green field without rocks and ruts. We know that Yahoo is a bit of a hoot in terms of management.
My hunch is that Yahoo’s traffic is pretty much what it has been; that is, oscillating a bit but heading in for a landing, either hard or soft.
Suggesting that Yahoo may be growing is interesting but unfounded. That traffic stuff is mushy. What’s the traffic to the New York Times’s pay walled subsite? How does the Times know that a click is a human from a “partner” and not a third party scraping content?
And maybe the traffic spike is a result of disenchanted Yahoo users logging in to change their password or cancel their accounts.
Stephen E Arnold, October 21, 2016
HonkinNews for October 18, 2016 Now Available
October 18, 2016
From the wilds of rural Kentucky, Stephen E Arnold highlights the week’s search, online, and content processing news. Two services make it easy to buy a product with a mouse click. Will Amazon’s eCommerce business be threatened by eBay and Pinterest? Plus, this week’s program comments about Google and Pindrop, National Geographic’s new topographic maps, and another of Yahoo’s mounting public relations challenges. The program explains that Google is taking a step toward marginalizing the “regular” Web in favor of the mobile Web. You can view the video shot in eight millimeter film from a cabin in a hollow at this link.
Kenny Toth, October 18, 2016
Artificial Intelligence: Time to Surf, Folks
October 17, 2016
I read a remarkable article in Fortune Magazine: “Google Artificial Intelligence Guru Says AI Won’t Kill Jobs.” I had a Dilbert moment mixed with a glimpse of bizarro world.
The main point of the write up is that smart software is the next big thing. Unlike other big things such as outsourcing work from the US to other countries with lower cost labor, work will not be “killed.” Strong word.
I highlighted this statement from the prognosticating write up:
humanity is still “many decades away from encountering that sort of labor replacement at scale.” Instead, the technology is best used to help humans with work-related tasks rather than replace them outright.
Sounds great. Zooming to the subject of Google, the write up reported:
Google has “developed techniques to safely deploy these systems in a controllable way,” countering fears that A.I. systems are left to run on their own accord.
I assume that’s the reason a consortium of folks are going to gather together to figure out how to make artificial intelligence work just right.
I spoke with a person who drives a truck for a living. He was interested in robot driven trucks. He said, “There won’t be much demand for guys like me, right?”
I reassured him. The truth is that “guys like him” are definitely going to lose their jobs. The same full time equivalent compression will operate in law firms, health care delivery, and dozens of other areas where labor is one or the if not the biggest expense. Leasing a system able to work without taking vacations, calling in sick, or demanding a pension will be embraced. Cost control, not work for humans, is the driving factor.
Online may benefit. Think of those folks who lose their jobs and the free time they have. These people will be able to surf the Web, talk to Alexa, and binge watch.
Informationization (a word I first heard in the early 1990s at a conference in Japan) means disruption. Work processes will change. There will be more online consumers. I am not sure what these folks will do for a living.
Unlike the individuals who work in certain types of companies, the guys like the trucker, the legal researcher, the librarian, etc. are going to have plenty of time to be social on Facebook.
Fortune Magazine seems to buy into the baloney that “A.I. will help humans with their jobs, not replace them.” How’s that working out in traditional publishing?
Stephen E Arnold, October 17, 2016
Knowledge Management: Dazed and Confused?
October 16, 2016
I read an interview posted by TallyFox. If you are not familiar with the company, TallyFox provides a collaboration and content management system. The idea is that a company’s real and off site workers can share information. The company states on its LinkedIn page:
TallyFox’s intelligence platform, makes knowledge sharing fun and dynamic. With our proprietary algorithm SmartMatchPro, access to expertise is facilitated, collective knowledge becomes accessible, and you can benefit from it right now, anywhere in the world.
The TallyFox interview with Dr. Nancy Dixon (Common Knowledge, a non profit and a book) is interesting. I noted these factoids and assertions:
- almost 50% of workers are virtual, or “distributed”
- people who are communicating only virtually tend to lose the sense of purpose of what the organization is about.
- A challenge is “to motivate our experts to share tacit knowledge to make the knowledge from inside of a project available to the team of another project.”
- “Collective Sensemaking is a piece of the process which will show us how to take advantage of the virtual and still stay connected in a human way. We are doing it by crowdsourcing, by Innovation Jams, by Working Out Loud, and all of those ways are bringing back the Human Side into the Virtual.”
- “People don’t offer their knowledge because they don’t know what the other person needs…”
Sounds good.It strikes me that Facebook’s Workplace may be encroaching on the collaboration segment. Does Facebook embrace knowledge management?
Stepping back: Knowledge management leaves me dazed and confused about what, how, where, and why? Perhaps knowledge management should become knowledge “Kumbaya” with people online and posting to Facebook while sitting around a Mac with a fireplace screensaver.
Stephen E Arnold, October 16, 2016
IBM Watson in the Third Grade, Doing Math
October 5, 2016
The IBM Watson PR hyperbole machine seems to have been idling. Summer’s over. IBM Watson marketers are back at their work stations.
I read “Next Target for IBM’s Watson? Third-Grade Math.” Keep in mind that you may have to pay to read this bit of PR inspired content. That’s not my fault, gentle reader.
The write up reveals:
For the past two years, the IBM Foundation has worked with teachers and their union, the American Federation of Teachers, to build Teacher Advisor, a program that uses artificial-intelligence technology to answer questions from educators and help them build personalized lesson plans.
When I was a student, sleeping, talking, and day dreaming had a high priority. I didn’t have a mobile device to distract me.
The idea is that IBM Watson is going to make the students of the 21st century drop their mobile phones and learn mathematics.
How will IBM Watson pull off this trick? I learned:
For teachers, one thing Watson will do is help them digest the Common Core standards and incorporate them into daily lessons. The standards are learning goals, a map of what students should be able to do at a given level. Third graders should be able to measure area, for example, by counting out units, like square centimeters or square inches. But rather than just listing a group of skills, Watson serves up the prerequisites those skills are built upon and a set of exercises to break down the standard.
Sounds darned good. I am confident that IBM Watson will make learning today a really fun experience. Great assumption. However, I think schools may find that IBM Watson could end up with a dunce cap or texting with friends. IBM may be sitting next to the innovator who predicted that Apple iPads would energize Los Angeles’ classrooms. How did that work out? Oh, I remember. Not too well.
Stephen E Arnold, October 5, 2015
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