Will Future Technology Have Our Back?

Able to see things that humans cannot see and being able to have predictive models and understanding...

Have your back?

Thomas Vander Wal says technology is …

“an enabler for people to do work, communicate, and to essentially have something behind them. Something that has their back as they’re doing what they need in their own life.”

So is it able to see what we cannot see and predict models and understanding?

He adds “As we look at generative AI, it is doing something very close to that as far as computational power that is required to churn out things with hallucinations. What is the value of what we are getting out? How can we have technologies that will have our back? The traditional AI ML (machine learning) models, they can be somewhat computationally expensive as well, but being able to see things that humans cannot see and being able to have predictive models and understanding. Oh, we’ve got a problem with this.’ Being able to understand…

“…As the climate is changing, wind models, other things that we are depending on as renewable resources, seeing those shifts before they are humanly detectable.”

See full conversation (YouTube) and transcript, OR 10-minute brief (YouTube) and transcript and more about Thomas on Imaginize.World.

Thomas, a technologist strongly focused on PEOPLE

More about Thomas, whom I met for the first time over 10 years ago in California at a KMWorld conference.

Thomas Vander Wal is the creator of the term “folksonomy” where people define their personal categories for words (versus organizational, official taxonomy).

Along the same lines he also defined the concept of the “personal info cloud”, the information you collect, organize, save and keep close to you. Thomas has done much more for the world of technology but these two inventions (=perspectives) show the deep importance he gives to people as you will see in our conversation.

What he calls the “model of attraction” underlies much of his thinking and you’ll see.

Performative AI

In our conversation on Imaginize.World We talk about many topics including AI, in particular generative AI which Thomas calls “performative ” AI, and the impact on human-created content and how it can be used in educational contexts.

He shares his thoughts on the future of our planet, sustainability and the role of technology.

______

Please share your thoughts after listening to Thomas.

There are lots more conversations on my YouTube channel. Take a look and have a listen. If you like my work, subscribe to my channel on YouTube. It helps make the YT algorithm like me ;-) Thank you!