Matt Jones, a designer at London-based BERG, explores the idea that smart cities can be constructed bottum-up with the creation of smart products; that is, small and unobtrusive loosely networked objects fluidly integrated within their larger context. His talk from TechnoArk in Switzerland is below:

People Are Walking Architecture, or making NearlyNets with MujiComp, January 2010

[People are walking architecture, or making NearlyNets with MujiComp], via [PSFK]

The attendees of Thursday night’s Bootstrapping and Agility meetup at Rotterdam witnessed the unveiling of a very neat idea that could very well change the game of business plan submissions. Though presented in a “tongue-in-cheek” manner, I believe the concept solves a very real problem: clear communication between entrepreneurs presenting new ventures and investors seeking new opportunities. Many ideas begin from a playful starting point; only when one takes a step back and really evaluates them is their actual merit realized.

The presentation comes from Peter Hilton (@PeterHilton) of Lunatech, part early stage VC firm and part software development company and the gracious hosts of the event. Inspired by the simplicity and success of the Creative Commons icons, which condense pages of information that no one ever reads into an easily-understandable symbol accompanied by a sentence of text, Peter proposes to apply that exact same logic to business plans. In reality many submitted business plans are simply not read by investors – they are too long, too boring, or too convoluted. Naturally, the entrepreneurs who write them want to go into as much detail as possible in their plans while the investors that read them just want to see the very core points.

This inherent rift that persists between investors and entrepreneurs is bridged by creating icon-based business plans, which condense a thick proposal to an easily-digestible single cover page. The system provides a way for entrepreneurs to present exactly what they are offering in a standardized common visual language. It has the potential to save a lot of time (and frustration) for both ends. Of course, this is not meant to replace a business plan, but rather act as an initial filter for at least getting the right ideas through the door.

Lunatech imagines this as a simple web app where users can check-off all the standard descriptions that apply to them, producing a final page of icons that can each be accompanied by no more than an additional 140 characters of descriptive text. This should be enough for any investor to know whether they want to meet with you or not, and to easily identify the strong and weak points of your proposal.

Peter’s entire presentation can be seen here. Please note that this is the first time this has been presented, it is in the very early stages, and they are still very much working on the concept.

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UPDATE (3/5/2010): The application is now live at PlanCruncher.com. Check it out everyone!

History’s greatest grandmaster Garry Kasparov just wrote an in-depth review of Diego Rasskin-Gutman’s newly published “Chess Metaphors: Artificial Intelligence and the Human Mind” for the New York Review of Books. The article provides a spectacular summary of the history of computer chess programs and the AI engines that power them. What makes it a must-read, however, are Kasparov’s personal anecdotes about his own experiences playing computers, including, of course, his notorious loss to IBM’s Deep Blue in their 1997 rematch (Kasparov won the first match in 1996). This not only marked the first time a computer defeated a world chess champion, but was also seen around the world, for better or for worse, as the conclusive tipping point when raw machine intelligence overcame what we mere humans could handle.

Kasparov occupies an entirely unique post in the history of world chess champions – the tables turned during his guard. He started out in the mid-80s being able to beat the most sophisticated chess programs conclusively every single time; during the late-90s the exact reverse situation materialized. In fact, by the beginning of the new millennium $50 commercially available chess programs running on regular PCs could “crush most grandmasters” and when Kasparov last played two serious matches with such programs (in 2003) they both ended in a tie.

Of course Kasparov reminds as that just because computers can now decisively win at chess doesn’t mean that “chess is solved.” He writes:

“The number of legal chess positions is 10⁴⁰, the number of different possible games, 10¹²⁰. Authors have attempted various ways to convey this immensity, usually based on one of the few fields to regularly employ such exponents, astronomy…Diego Rasskin-Gutman points out that a player looking eight moves ahead is already presented with as many possible games as there are stars in the galaxy. Another staple…is to say there are more possible chess games than the number of atoms in the universe.”

Even if there were such a thing as “solving chess” – that is, both sides continuously playing the perfect game – these impressive numbers highlight how mathematically difficult, probably impossible it would be to actually accomplish this feat. And even if this were hypothetically possible, Kasparov notes the importance of not confusing narrow AI applications, such as playing chess, with general intelligence of the sort that allows humans to think, intuit, dream, walk up stairs, wash the dishes – to generally lead the kind of lives expected of (relatively) advanced sentient beings. Chess has been used for centuries as the ultimate metaphor for the mind, but Kasparov finally concludes that “perhaps chess is the wrong game for the times.”

Enter: Poker
Many players, including myself and several of my friends, started out playing poker directly from the chess world; yes the opportunity for profit is greater, but it is also because poker is in many ways more complex and challenging than chess. While chess is a 100% information game and entirely susceptible to computer calculation, poker is defined by hidden information and contains nuanced elements such as tells, bluffing, and emotional control which span distinct fields such as social psychology, risk-management, and game theory – all aspects that make it significantly more problematic both for players and AI programmers to master.

Something I have been advocating for several years, and it seems that Kasparov and others agree: Poker is where AI gaming researchers should be focused. Whereas chess programs can now consistently beat anyone in the world, no one has yet figured out how to beat advanced human players at poker. And it’s surely not for lack of effort – there are dozens of entities working on this problem every day. In fact, some claim that they have already built software that profitably beats online poker (for example: “How I Built a Working Poker Bot”). There are many others out there, and some make the claim that they are consistently winning. Of course it is difficult to assess the success of these programs – especially since many of them are likely not even public – yet I remain skeptical. It is probably possible to program something to beat the microlimits, but entering the realm of even mid-stakes amateur play is an entirely different ballgame.

I write this not to disregard people’s present efforts, but to encourage AI researchers to view the poker platform with the same enthusiasm and seriousness that I believe it deserves. The many disparate fields from which players must simultaneously draw information and the very social nature of the game make it perfectly suited for some truly interesting research of advanced gaming AI, and, dare I say it, even research dealing with problems of strong AI. At least it is surely more accurate than chess as a metaphor both of the mind and of the way humans interact with the world. A few brief reasons:

-Minds operate on heuristics, not algorithms.
-Our existence can be summed up as making choices in the face of limited information.
-We operate within a social context.
-Information that is presented to you may be false, and will surely be false >0% of the time.
-Individual instances of “chance” exist and do matter.
-There are limited resources and different entities have varying amounts of control over those resources.
-There are many variables from varying realms that go into making even the simplest decisions.

Let’s go beyond poker bots that can at best squeeze out profits playing for pennies, and begin thinking about a poker AI than can adapt to individual players, can make unwarranted bluffs only to establish a crazy image for uncertain future gains, can vary its playing style – in short, can outthink its opponents. Perhaps while venturing down this road of creating a social, competitive agent, one driven by the same impulses of survival and will towards progress that guide biological life, we will come one step closer to the birth of a true thinking machine. Just be careful: never trust a poker player.

[The Chess Master and the Computer, Garry Kasparov - New York Review of Books]
[Cylons Playing Poker via Anthony J. Cox]

Virtual worlds are a natural setting for experimenting and testing various AI applications and appear especially suited for “general” intelligence development because of their broadness, openness and theoretical lack of limitations and rules. Ben Goertzel and his company, Novamente, have been working on virtual pets and the results are pretty interesting. So while projects such as these are something to get excited about, it’s hard not to dismiss bigheaded goals as worthless hype without seeing the real work that has gone into specific planning and execution – at least something that does not recall the infamous Underpants Gnome plan of 1)Collect underpants 2)??? 3)Profit. So while I don’t think much will come out of this, I have to issue the small warning that the distinction between “virtual” and “real” is pretty nonexistent. All that data is comprised of real code stored on real servers with real physical locations managed by real people… And again while I do remain skeptical of anyone achieving anything close to sentient intelligence anytime soon, I am also a bit concerned about singular commercial entities working secretly on a closed AGI system. Not involving all stakeholders – that is, ALL OF US – raises some ethical quandaries that at least need to be debated.

I would put someone like Philip Rosedale (proven record, visionary thinker, deep pockets and connections) pretty high on the list of people that could make some serious headway in the field, especially in potential commercial applications; he certainly tackles the big issues. Let’s just hope Philip Rosedale doesn’t resemble Watchmen’s Ozymandias…

[New World Notes - Philip Rosedale Attempting to Create Sentient Artificial Intelligence That Thinks and Dreams in Second Life!]

3.6 Zettabytes is a wooden puzzle created by me and Mark Kizelshteyn that visually and haptically illustrates media consumption in the United States. The title refers to the total amount of information data absorbed by the country for the year 2008 as calculated by a recent study (December 2009) published by the Global Information Industry Center at the University of California, San Diego. A zettabye is equal to one sextillion = 10^21 = 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 bytes, or roughly 5.1 trillion average PC hard drives of data!

The puzzle represents information consumption measured in hours [per American, per day] across seven major media categories — television, radio, print, phone, recorded music, computer, and videogames. Average time spent on each activity is mapped to the area of the brain; the total brain represents a 24-hour day while the surface area of each puzzle piece proportionally represents the time spent on that activity. Blank puzzle pieces signify time spent on anything else other than information consumption. Along with hours average data measured in gigabytes is also provided.

A 19th century phrenology diagram is employed as the basis for the puzzle. The juxtaposition between a familiar antique design and the absolutely contemporary, futuristic, almost unbelievable data that it communicates provides extra contrast for users to appreciate just how fully the modern-day media landscape has permeated our lives. When phrenology diagrams were first made this map/brain would have been almost completely blank, with maybe a tiny dot representing the very few citizens who had enough time to read books.

The board is made out of two pieces of 30 X 35 X 0.3 cm three-layer birch plywood and was cut with an Epilog Mini 24 Laser Cutter. Special thanks to the CabFabLab for making the project happen! More pictures after the jump.

Reference: Roger E. Bohn & James E. Short (2009). “How Much Information? 2009 Report on American Consumers.” Global Information Industry Center at the University of California, San Diego. – [pdf]

We had the opportunity to meet interesting people, network with industry leaders, hear inspirational talks (and not so inspirational ones), and rekindle some of our energy/enthusiasm about the future of the web and 2010 in general. It was surely a nice antidote for entrepreneurial burnout. Off course, some truly great food and wine and simply enjoying the beautiful City of Light doesn’t hurt either.

A lot has been written about Le Web 09 already and we don’t want to simply recycle content, but rather offer a few highlights of our personal experience:

Twitter and Square
First off, we heard the term Twitter a bit too much, but that’s not surprising. Not only was it spoken about constantly (especially rumors about a Google purchase), but it seemed like everyone were on Twitter compulsively every spare second they had. The conference started out with Jack Dorsey, co-founder of Twitter, presenting his newest venture: Square. Square is a small hardware attachment for the iPhone that allows users to accept credit card payments directly in person. It looks very promising and using the headphone jack plug is a creative solution. The application’s interface seems incredibly intuitive and quite beautiful, and will likely be a hit. We also had an opportunity to watch Jack demo Square close up at a reception thrown by the Mayor at the Paris City Hall: