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#NewhouseTrends in Digital Media
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Is Innovation Slowing Down?
In “The Second Machine Age” by Brynjolfsson and McAfee, the authors look at the data and trends regarding innovation, particularly in the U.S. to address this question. They offer a number of solutions for individuals and organizations to ensure the continuation of progress. And they point to previous government investments that led to break-through technology.
This recent article in Harvard Business Review https://hbr.org/2019/11/why-the-u-s-innovation-ecosystem-is-slowing-down?utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter_daily&utm_campaign=dailyalert&referral=00563&deliveryName=DM57352 tackles the same issue with similar data and analysis. However, this article suggests that universities may have an opportunity to play a bigger role in advancing innovation and technology. Could this be the real opportunity for higher ed? Shifting the focus away from passing along information that already exists to addressing real-life problems in each and every class that forces progress? #newhouse.syr.edu
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How College Affects Students
In “The Second Machine Age”, a study conducted by Arum, Rojas, et.al. found college students who show great improvement on the Collegiate Learning Assessment are those who spend more time studying (especially alone), take courses with more required reading and writing, and have more demanding faculty. “The impact of college is largely determined by individual effort and involvement in the academic, interpersonal, and extracurricular offerings on campus.” I find this information extremely valuable as I consider my learning focus around the impact of technology in an academic environment. This research says to me that technology alone cannot significantly impact learning without combining with traditionally rigorous collegiate activity. As I begin to formulate my predictions for the future of technology in higher education, I must keep this in mind. #newhouse.syr.edu
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Floor 9 podcast
This is a great podcast for insight into media tech trends. In a recent episode “Let the streaming wars begin”, the presenters shared their thoughts about new Disney streaming service versus Netflix and Apple. They provided interesting and reinforcing perspective, including Disney’s ownership of stellar high-end family content, Netflix’ market share and unique opportunity to deliver long-tail custom content, and Apple’s global positioning. The other advantage of Apple (and perhaps what they lack in content) is the outstanding high-end quality of picture. The authors indicated that the pixel picture of Apple TV may set the consumer boundary higher. #newhouse.syr.edu
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The Second Machine Age
In Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee’s book, the authors explain the distribution of income in a superstar or power law economy vs the normal distribution curve. The Pareto Curve, where a much smaller number of people reap a disproportionate share of economic advantage, makes sense in this machine age. But just because it is understandable doesn’t make it palatable for the “average” citizen in a developed country. Without going off too much on a political tangent, it now makes much more sense to me why Democratic politicians, like Bernie Sanders or Alexandra Ocasio Cortez, seem to be promoting a more socialist platform. Furthermore, the authors point out that during Eisenhower’s term, the top marginal tax rate was near 90%. By Reagan’s term it was down to 50%. But in 2012, it was down to 35%. No wonder the wealthy are encouraging higher tax rates. As Franklin Roosevelt said, “The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough to those who have little.” #newhouse.syr.edu
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Advances in technology always run the risk of misuse. On the plus side, sounds like this technology gets us closer to more cogent audio and hearables, a huge advancement opportunity in digital tech trends. #NewhouseTrends @SUNewhouse #newhouse.syr.edu
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Google introduces BERT
Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers (BERT) software is improving Google’s search algorithm for long queries and relationships between words. Here’s an excellent example of technology that addresses the adjacent possible by providing significant improvements in search algorithms. It’s also a great example of true artificial intelligence with sophisticated language comprehension. Furthermore, it enforces McQuivey’s concept around digital disruption because google is providing this “free” service upgrade to its search platform at no additional cost to the consumer.
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Digital disruption
In James Mcquivey’s book “Digital Disruption” he predicts future trends. A particularly interesting one for me is this idea that “regulation becomes obsolete.” As we listen to recent Congressional hearings involving Facebook and other media, Mcquivey opines that eventually “people take sides on whether the collection and strategic sharing of our private data is fundamentally good or evil...because there will be far too much value to be gained from the collecting and sharing of their data.”
As much as this is a technological disrupting trend, it is also fundamentally a political and societal philosophy. Mcquivey paints a picture of a future consisting of mercenary “gig” employees working for disposable companies that very freely share ideas, sources, and data for the collective good. This future utopia, where knowledge is shared generously, sounds like we are moving toward a socialist economy. I can’t help but think of Alexandria Ocasio Cortez and Bernie Sanders, and their vision for a more equitable future state.
As Mcquivey suggests, “participants in the digital economy have the right to decide how to manage all of these things themselves.” If that’s the case and we believe we will collectively benefit from sharing and aggregating our personal information and data, then perhaps the issue of privacy will be less of a concern in the future than it is today. If we thought WE would benefit from our data being collected and shared, then WE may not oppose it after all.
#Newhouse.syr.edu
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“Almost everything we do has become simpler, easier, and more efficient in some way because of software.” That statement is difficult to argue against in today’s modern world.
“The point isn’t to stop progress but to enable it. .. These are people who build things fast but who are also fixing things. They’re using technology to take us to new places. They’re thinking deeply-but not to the point of paralysis- about the problems society faces and the ways technology can help.”
This to me is the true definition of a futurist.
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The Long Tail
The article “The Long Tail” by Chris Anderson, published in Wired Magazine focuses on the plight of scarcity in the traditional media model, juxtaposed against today’s media model of abundance. Anderson proposes that consumers want variety and narrow niche media, but most people were unaware of their appetite for this type of media because it previously had not been offered. Now, with the seemingly limitless amount of options available online, there is in fact an audience for almost every media ever created. Companies like Rhapsody, Netflix and Amazon are so successful because they offer the “mainstream” media that draws consumers in, then have the algorithms in place to provide similar types of products (based on other people’s recommendations or buying habits) to offer deep and varied options to suit every taste and appetite. The current technology now provides the means to personalize like never before.
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Floor 9 Podcast
Episode 48, State of Voice Tech shared AMazon’s recent announcement updates, centered around smart audibles and complementary products to bring Alexa outside the home. The way AMazon introduces beta products for testing, including the loop (which is actually a ring) and a potential partnership with GM is evidence of how quickly technology is changing and evolving. Gone are the days when a brand didn’t announce new products until they were fully vetted and on the shelf ready for purchase.
Based on this podcast, the presenters were confident in the certainty of continued growth of audibles. The convenience of hands-free, coupled with the increase in true “assistant-like” natural language processing and response to voice commands, makes voice tech a huge growth market.
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IPG Media Lab
“Outlook 2019: Unintended Consequences” was great article #SeanBranagan shared with #NewhouseTrends class. The key question for me is how brands ensure that all of their visuals and assets are indexed properly to maximize positioning with the increase of visual searches. Is this an opportunity for libraries to participate in setting best practice for indexing? Where will the social media apps and web platforms “look” for this information? How do alt tags in images play a part in this. The trend is surely significant, but understanding how to implement for maximization is critical.
The other key component in this article that impacts higher ed is the idea of automation interrupting workforce. How can higher ed institutions prepare students and adjust curriculum to factor in the jobs that will be available after automation replaces so many?
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Blurring the boundaries between real and virtual
https://er.educause.edu/blogs/2018/4/vr-and-ar-the-ethical-challenges-ahead
This article explored something I hadn’t previously considered when thinking about the use of VR, AR, MR or XR in higher ed - the ethical implications of blurring the lines between the real and virtual world. For some, witnessing “first-hand” disturbing video can create PTSD. The technology also has the potential to unfairly present one side of an issue or story. And in “walk-through VR” experiences, where users can interact virtually with others, the potential of hiding behind this environment can create harassment situations similar to cyber-bullying. The article discusses the potential of technology developers to capture very personal data about users, students, including concepts like mind control, that can then be used beyond the classroom. Another challenge with the technology is whether it has been developed/tested for accessibility. All interesting and valid concerns that need to be factored in as higher education institutions adopt virtual reality technologies.
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Intersection of Technology and Learning
I recently reviewed an e-book report from HelioCampus on how technology has disrupted higher education.It stands to reason that academic is not immune from James McQuivey’s idea of “digital disruption.” In the e-book, HelioCampus focuses on 5 trends in higher ed that are disruptive:
1.Customize curricula using artificial intelligence. This will enable post secondary institutions to authentically and fully focus on student-centered learning.
2. Integrated data analytics. This means institutions can aggregate data to make accurate predictions, then use that information to change the course.
3. Immersive learning. Using AR, VR (and MR, XR) to provide experiential learning opportunities.
4. Privacy and security. Higher ed institutions are privy to sensitive information. As such, they have a heightened responsibility to protect that info.
5. Evolving online business models. Students are demanding more online courses, and businesses are springing up to provide that.
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Inevitable: Interacting
In reading about this, the first thing that comes to mind is the show “Catfish.” The premise (from what I understand) is that pretending to be someone you aren’t and interacting online has become a common problem. The show aims to uncover these ‘interacting fakes.’ But it seems inevitable that with fluidity, screening and interacting, scenarios like these will become the norm.
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Hidden Brain: Decide Already
In a recently listened to Hidden Brain Episode titled You 2.0: Decide Already, the topic of how to make a decision that you will be happy with was explored. The number one deciding factor on your happiness/satisfaction with a decision is to use the feeling/response of someone who recently made a similar decision. Said another way, asking other people with a similar experience their feelings about a decision was the highest predictor of your feelings about the same decision. Hence, the popularity of the app Yelp.That also explains the popularity of online reviews.
So here’s a maybe obvious trend -- any sort of technology, app or otherwise, that allows people to share their feelings and experiences about anything. Maybe even using a “search” to obtain results of a query about a particular decision. Now that’s a sure bet!
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Manipulation of AI
The article by Geneva Henry. “Research Librarians as Guides and Navigators for AI Policies at Universities.” Research Library Issues, no. 299 (2019): 47–65. https://doi.org/10.29242/rli.299.4 reminded me of a recent research project conducted by two graduate students in a Libraries Information System program. The researchers detailed a not uncommon experience where they searched for information about poets. Not surprisingly, at the top of the algorithm search appeared almost entirely Caucasian poets, since the majority of poets are white. Even when they searched for African American or black poets, unless a poet self-identified explicitly by their race, they may not have appeared in the search. This represents an intrinsic bias in the data based on the metadata behind the search algorithms. So the researchers manipulated a particular field in the metadata in a particular database to enable black poets to appear at the top of the search results.
“Without visibility into the algorithms that were programmed into the systems by the software developers, the training datasets that were used to enable the algorithms to build a knowledge base, and the ongoing self-improvement processes that drive the decision-making based on continued use, users are blindly trusting in systems that can have implicit bias programmed into them and limited knowledge that can skew results towards unexpected behaviors.”
The article goes on to note that only 18% of AI PhD researchers are women and 1.7% are African American. This lack of diversity exemplifies that primarily white men are developing the algorithms and datasets being used in AI.
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Ethical Problem of AI summed up in a visual
newhouse.syr.edu
#How do we teach digital literacy in the age of AI?#Michael Ridley. “Explainable Artificial Intelligence.” Research Library Issues no. 299 (2019): 28–46. https://doi.org/10.29242/rli.299.3.
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