Disruptive Tendencies

Big Ideas: There If You Look

In today’s New York Times, Neil Gabler bemoans, “Ideas just aren’t what they used to be.”

He goes on:

“Once upon a time, they could ignite fires of debate, stimulate other thoughts, incite revolutions and fundamentally change the way we look at and think about the world.”

One can’t argue that a “Big Idea” would have these characteristics. One can debate whether they are as rare as Mr. Gabler laments.

Humans transcending biology. Immortality. The Singularity.

If this isn’t the mother of “Big Ideas”, I don’t know what is.

No one could dispute that Ray Kurzweil’s books have ignited fires of debate, incited revolution, and have fundamentally changed the way we look at and think about the world.

Much of what Kurzweil discusses in his books, in his TED Talks and in “The Transcendent Man”, is humankind’s propensity to extrapolate linearly, and that exponential growth rates are beyond our ability to grasp, which he refers to as “The Law of Accelerating Returns”. He spends a lot of cycles plotting growth rates to log curves to prove his point that advances in technology have been growing at exponential rates. He goes on to suggest that there is no reason to expect this to change, the implication being, of course, that change is happening at an accelerated rate that few grasp.

Ray deserves credit for putting stakes in the ground and for the transparency with which he supports and defends his predictions. By estimating the computing power of a human brain and projecting Moore’s Law, he tells us that in 2020, a $1000 computer will have the equivalent processing power of the human brain. This is different than a computer becoming indistinguishable from a human. That won’t happen until 2029, when a computer with Strong AI becomes the first to pass the Turing Test.

But for Kurzweil, it’s not just Moore’s Law and exponential growth of compute power (although it is perhaps that best known example). His Big Idea comes from connecting the dots across multiple disciplines, which he has coined “GNR”, a convenient acronym for Genetics, Nanotechnology and Robotics/AI.

Mr. Gabler, there are Big Ideas out there. You’ve just got to look for them.

That’s my .02!

Martin Suter

About.Me/martin_suter

 

Space Juxtaposition

Catching up on the news this morning, I scanned the MSNBC homepage for interesting stories. “Iran Sends Mouse, Worms, Turtles into Space” caught my eye, especially as it was juxtaposed with another story, “US Grieves Over Cancelled Program”. Iranian President Ahmadinejad is quoted as saying that the “Scientific arena is where we could defeat the West’s domination.”

Now, I don’t equate the launching of a 10’ rocket with the Apollo program or the space shuttle, but it seems that they are kicking ass in ambition. While Iran aspires to, and works towards, putting man into orbit within the next 10 years (it has already put a communications satellite into orbit), America is getting ready to mothball the shuttle fleet this year and has just cancelled the Constellation program, “effectively cancelling a five-year, $9 billion effort to build new Orion spacecraft and Ares rockets”, which “were slated to replace NASA’s three aging space shuttles.”

Is it possible that Iran (?!?) will have a heavy launch vehicle capable of putting man into orbit before the US gets its act together and replaces the shuttle fleet?

And it’s not just Iran. Our traditional space race competitor, Russia, will soon be the only means we have of getting our own astronauts to the International space station ("Can we catch a ride? We'll give you gas money."). India has successfully inserted a spacecraft into lunar orbit, has a manned program underway, has allocated budget and will launch a manned mission by 2014-2015. China has put men into orbit, and has laid out its plans to put a man on the moon by 2020.

I was in grade school when the Apollo program was underway. It was a race to be the first, to be the best, and to show the world what America is capable of achieving. We had political will. There was national pride. We accomplished that which no other country has yet to achieve. We were leaders. We swaggered when we walked.

And today? I fear that we’re not even laggards. Our mojo is gone. It's not that others have passed us, it that we've pulled ourselves out of the race. While other countries see manned space flight as a primary ambition, we yawn collectively and couldn’t care less. Maybe we’ll start caring when Iran has its own astronauts in orbit or when Russia/India/China puts astronauts back on the moon. But by then, we’ll be left in their dust – moon dust. That’s my .02!

Martin Suter

martin.suter at iplicensing.net

Immigration Policy as Scientific Impedance (Redux)

Yesterday, I wrote about how two out of three Americans, awarded the Nobel Prize for Medicine this year, were immigrants to this country. Well today, as I perused the Times again, I came across an article on this year’s Nobel Prize for Physics recipients. It turns out that two out of three of the Physics winners are also immigrants. Dr. Kao was born in Shanghai and Dr. Boyle in Canada.

Imagine a scenario today, where a Chinese or Canadian engineer had a job opportunity in the US. Chances are that their prospective employer would attempt to sponsor them for an H1B visa, an employer-sponsored visa for positions requiring advanced degrees. But there is a limited number of these every year, and typically the H1B pool is vastly oversubscribed. So maybe today’s Dr. Kao or Dr. Boyle can’t even enter the country to work.

Or perhaps they get lucky, and get that coveted H1B. Despite the fact that neither their spouse nor their children are able to work under their H4 status, they decide to emigrate anyway. The 6 year clock starts ticking, and unless they get a Green Card during this period, they’ll have to move elsewhere at the end of this period – earlier if they lose their position with their employer sponsor.

Once again, they’re amongst the lucky ones, whose employer agrees to the expense and administrative overhead and begins the employer-sponsored Green Card process. Before the application is actually submitted, the company needs to submit a job description, with a minimum set of qualifications required to do the job, and have this approved by the Department of Labor. Once signed off by this Department, the position needs to be posted internally and advertised externally for a period of 30 days, during which time the employer is required to accept applications for the job.

If, during this phase, an American applies, who meets the minimum level of qualifications, the potential applicant is deemed to be taking a job away from an American and cannot apply for his/her Green Card, meaning that once his H1B 6 year clock runs down, he/she must leave the country.

It’s very easy to imagine tomorrow’s potential Nobel Prize winners being put through this process today. Does anybody believe that employment is zero-sum? That there is a finite number of positions available? Or is it more enlightened to acknowledge that scientists, engineers and entrepreneurs are creators of jobs, and that their desire to immigrate to America should be embraced and encouraged.

There’s way too much friction in the system today. Brains abhor friction, and in a flat world, can just as easily be located elsewhere. When the Nobel Prize winners in 2040 are all in China, Russia, India or Korea, it will be too late for America, and it need only to look back a few decades and bemoan its own immigration policies.

That’s my .02!

Martin Suter

(martin.suter at iplicensing.net)