Professor, Urban and Environmental Policy and Planning (UEPP), Virginia Tech; Joann Boughman Innovation Fellow at USG; Acting Director, Center for Future of Work Places and Practices (CFWPP); Head of Outreach and Engagement, Center for European and Transatlantic Studies (CEUTS)
The assigned reading for today’s New Media Seminar is entitled “Personal Dynamic Media,” written by Alan Kay and Adele Goldberg in 1977 (two years after I was born). In this article, Kay and Goldberg look to the future and describe with remarkable accuracy the various components and capabilities of the modern day personal computer, including several ideas that have yet to be fully realized. After reading the article, I visited the Innovation Space at VT to find a quiet place to write this entry (only to find it was buzzing with activity in a good way) and to see if I could be inspired to think about what “future” new media might look like. It’s always surprising how a new environment can provide inspiration.
In parallel with this week’s seminar, I am hosting several colleagues from IITK, who are visiting VT for the second meeting of the IITK-VT partnership. A primary objective of our week-long meeting is to identify transformative research opportunities around the notion of sustainable infrastructure systems.
VT and IITK faculty in VT’s School of Public and International Affairs (SPIA) in Alexandria
As I think in the Innovation Space, the worlds of the New Media Seminar and the IITK-VT partnership begin to collide. One question that emerges is what would a future technology platform look like that enables the design of sustainable infrastructure services in the US and India? What would be transformative about this platform from a technological and social perspective? I’m also left wondering how communities (including children) could be enabled by the technology platform rather than excluded from the learning process. I have several ideas about how to address these questions, but they need a little more finessing before being discussed here.
On Monday, March 4, Master’s Civil Engineering student, Joseph Arcella, successfully defended his thesis entitled “A Comparative Analysis of Current Performance-Based Maintenance Procurement Methods to Improve Virginia Highways.” Joseph’s research was conducted out of the Center for Highway Asset Management Programs (CHAMPS) at Virginia Tech. Funding was provided by the Virginia Department of Transportation’s Maintenance Division in an effort to help improve their current performance-based “Turnkey Asset Maintenance Services” (TAMS) contracts used on the interstates.
CHAMPS Researchers. Left to Right: Berk Uslu, Joe Arcella, Omidreza Shoghli, Joe Plummer, Dimitrios Sideris, Grant Howerton, Carlos Figueroa
For his research, Joseph studied the current state-of-practice in performance-based highway maintenance both domestically and internationally. The research was completed in two phases. Phase one involved a mini-scan study of the highway maintenance industry to identify the current practices in performance-based maintenance contracting (PBMC). This phase gathered information on domestic and foreign agencies currently using performance-based maintenance on highways. Phase two used the mini-scan study information to build, compare, and analyze agency timelines (i.e., VDOT to others). Timelines included major milestones at each agency; milestones which enabled innovation in the field of performance-based contracting. The purpose of comparing VDOT to other agencies was to provide VDOT with industry best practices as well as recommendations for future contract evolutions. Timelines were constructed for Florida DOT, Main Roads of Western Australia, England’s Highways Agency, and New Zealand Transport Agency. Connection links were made between VDOT and the other four agencies based on similarities in procurement laws and maintenance milestones. The timeline linkages and collection of information on benefits associated with PBMC (compared to traditional method-based maintenance) were used to make five recommendations for VDOT’s future maintenance program. VDOT recommendations were: Use performance-based contracting on secondary roads, use area-wide contracts to cover addition facilities, shift VDOT TAMS focus from lowest-cost to a best-value approach similar to England’s Managing-Agent Contractor, devise a strategic network of highways to prioritize maintenance, and use key performance indicators to align the Maintenance Division’s and VDOT’s objectives. Recommendations also considered the current restrictions imposed by Virginia procurement laws.
In our New Media Seminar today, I was rather quiet, not because I had nothing to say, but rather because my mind was constantly spinning around the conceptual framework articulated in Douglas Engelbart’s 1962 article entitled “Augmenting Human Intellect: A Conceptual Framework.”
The essence of Engelbart’s article could be described as constructing a conceptual framework for conceptual frameworks. One of Engelbart’s overarching objectives, articulated so well by Gardner Campbell, was to improve (i.e., augment) the process of thinking and to improve the process of improving the process. You may need to read that last sentence twice!
I found Engelbart’s article intriguing. While reading the article and during our seminar conversation, I found myself trying to deconstruct how I read his article, what I highlighted and why, etc., being mindful of the techniques Engelbart introduces. When describing his framework, Engelbart comments “we have learned quite a few simple tricks for leaving appended road signs, supplementary information, questions, and auxiliary links on our working structures – in such a manner that they never get in our way as we work – so that the visitor to our structure can gain his comprehension and isolate what he wants in marvelously short order.” To me, this is the essence of Engelbart’s process for augmenting knowledge – to find the most elegant way to structure and connect ideas so the “scaffolding” by which the mind had created the knowledge is revealed, furthering learning and advancing knowledge.
One example I have, that connects to my previous post, can be found in the quote below from Engelbart’s article where he talks about his research program:
“In particular, the electronic-based experimental program could simulate the types of processes available from electromechanical artifacts, if it seemed possible (from the vantage of experience with the wide range of augmentation processes) that relatively powerful augmentation systems could be based upon their capabilities – but the relative payoffs for providing even-more-sophisticated artifact capabilities could be assessed too so that considerations of how much to invest in capital equipment versus how much increase in human effectiveness to expect could be based upon some experimental data.”
Figure 5 from Engelbart’s article
If I had the capabilities of Engelbart’s human intellect augmentation system at my fingertips, I would link the latter part of the above quote to my previous post (as I have done), and append substructures on cybernetics, binary economics, innovation and jobs, co-operatives, etc., establishing the scaffolding for a new research agenda targeted at understanding how capital and labor “productiveness” (and the combination of the two) are linked with wealth and what this holds for a sustainable future. What would be interesting is whether revealing the structure of my thought process would enable others to comprehend the ideas faster (and more deeply) than they would have done had they read the same ideas in a proposal or journal article. This question highlights a challenge faced by Engelbart when trying to articulate his ideas. There is a certain irony to writing a “linear” article describing a conceptual framework that is designed to enable you to tear the very same article apart and reconstruct it in a fundamentally different way. I have no doubt that Engelbart’s conceptual framework would enable one to experience complexity usefully, which perhaps best embodies what he was trying to achieve.
Finally, an interesting question raised during our discussion was whether a human intellect augmentation system (as envisioned by Engelbart) would lead to atrophy, automation, or augmentation of the mind. Only time will answer this question.
A question raised in Norbert Wiener’s 1954 article entitled Men, Machines, and the World About – but not discussed during the last New Media Seminar – is how the symbiotic relationship between humans and machines may impact our working lives (or employment and equality more generally). With possible links to Marx’s notion of relative surplus value, Wiener discusses a new industrial revolution “that consists primarily of replacing human judgment and discrimination at low levels by the discrimination of the machine.” Another way to think about this idea is the transfer of knowledge from the worker to the machine, possibly rendering the worker jobless. A familiar example is the automated phone system. These systems have captured the basic knowledge of the operator and have externalized the cost (in time) of managing calls onto customers, whether they like it or not.
While there is much that could be said about the displacement of jobs by technology (or innovation), my interest here lies with the use of technology to enhance worker productiveness – not to be confused with labor productivity. Labor productivity is calculated by dividing an output by a factor of input (labor or capital), i.e., it is the amount of output per unit of input. In contrast, labor productiveness is a measure of the quality of being productive or the capacity for producing. Thus, labor productivity could be increased by a more productive worker (e.g., the worker’s skill has been improved), the use of more efficient technology/processes, or some combination of the two.
Wiener’s notion of cybernetics, like J. C. R. Licklider’s concept of human-computer symbiosis, points to a new frontier where worker productiveness could be greatly enhanced by the intelligent use of technology. Imagine a worker (white/blue/green collar) whose queries/questions are answered via a Google Glass type of technology that uses data processed and analyzed through a next generation version of Wolfram Alpha. While such a Star Trek-like device sounds intriguing, there are two questions that trouble me. Who will benefit (financially) from this human-machine symbiosis (if it can be called that) and is labor productiveness truly enhanced?
If the worker invests in the technology and is able to enhance his/her productiveness (i.e., knowledge and skills), he/she may be able to demand higher wages for the higher-skilled work being performed. However, there are myriad assumptions behind this statement. The most significant is perhaps the assumption that the technology is actually enhancing the productiveness of the worker, rather than enabling a worker to perform at a higher level due to the data/processes/etc. embodied in the technology – i.e., the knowledge and skills of the worker are largely unchanged. In fact, at an extreme, the worker’s skills/ability could decline has he/she becomes more reliant on the technology to do more of the thinking. Further, if the augmentation technology were owned by the employer, the worker would likely be paid less over time as the technology/capital begins to do more of the actual work. Just as automated phone systems displaced operators, higher-skilled workers could be displaced by lower-skilled workers using skill-augmentation technology to the benefit of the capitalist. Finally, if an augmentation technology were capable of operating in the ‘formulative’ (i.e., idea creation) domain of innovation, whoever owns that technology will be at the leading edge of the market and wealth.
To me, these questions are fascinating, extremely important, and warrant far greater consideration than I am able to provide here.
Ralph P Hall 