Vaughan at Mind Hacks has a new post reminiscent of your favorite sci-fi films. Indeed, many world governments are now ordering weapons systems incorporating artificial intelligence. 

Maybe you don’t get the blue screen of death quite as often as I do, but this gives it a whole new meaning. In South Africa a software problem with a robot canon carried out that meaning for nine, now-deceased soldiers serving their country. 

Perhaps one of the most fascinating aspects of weapons systems controlled by artificial intelligence is that scientists and the military fully realize that once they train an artificial intelligence-based weapons system, they don’t understand how it then begins to make decisions and take actions.

“If you examine the ‘weights’ of connections across different instances of the same network after being trained, you can find differences in how they’re distributed even though they seem to be completing the task in the same way.

In other words, simply because we have built and trained something, it does not follow that we can fully control its actions or understand its responses in all situations.” – Mind Hacks

 Interestingly, Peter W. Singer‘s [Brookings Institution] article in the New Atlantis, the trigger for Vaughan’s post, claims that remotely-controlled drone missions now outnumber manned aircraft missions in the US military.

I highly recommend a browse of both Vaughan’s post and the article in the New Atlantis.

From the New Yorker, brought to my attention by Jim Collins (of Good to Great and other fame).

“This crisis is the culmination of events and trends reaching back, depending on your perspective, four, seven, seventeen, twenty-two, twenty-seven, thirty-eight, sixty-five, or a hundred and two years. (…) The causes are technological, mathematical, cultural, demographic, financial, economic, behavioral, legal, and political. Among the dozens of contributors and culprits, real or perceived, are the personal computer, the abandonment of the gold standard, the abandonment of Glass-Steagall, the end of fixed commissions, the rating agencies, mortgage-backed securities, securitization in general, credit derivatives, credit-default swaps, Wall Street partnerships going public, the League of Nations, Bretton Woods, Basel II, CNBC, the S.E.C., disintermediation, overcompensation, Barney Frank and Chris Dodd, Phil Gramm and Jim Leach, Alan Greenspan, black swans, red tape, deregulation, outdated regulation, lax enforcement, government pressure to lower lending standards, predatory lending, mark-to-market accounting, hedge funds, private-equity firms, modern finance theory, risk models, ‘quants,’ corporate boards, the baby boomers, flat-screen televisions, and an indulgent, undereducated populace.”

Glad to hear it isn’t too complicated. Or perhaps this is simply more evidence than needed that the wisdom of crowds is not yet at work here.

Back in late January we talked about new advances in quantum computing. Science’s Jan 23 report talked about scientists’ success in using a qbit’s state of essentially occupying two spaces at the same time to, in essence, teleport it. A baby step perhaps, but pretty exciting stuff. 

Now Microsoft has announced the eXtreme Computing Group (XCG) headed by Dan Reed. Formed this month, the group will develop, “radical new approaches to ultrascale and high-performance computing hardware and software.” Among others, these approaches include quantum computing.

Is it possible we’re that close? Stay tuned for more news from XCG.

“Tell me whether you’ve heard this one,” Christian Shea begins his post in MarketingProfs: “All the research shows that companies that spend on marketing during a recession come out ahead of the competition as the economy rebounds.” But is it really true? Kudos to Christian for challenging the oft-cited but rarely backed-up claim, and for giving us the full disclosure on what available studies reveal, and what is often left unsaid. Check it out here, at the MarketingProfs site.

“Carbon nanotubes are smaller and harder than asbestos fibers, making it easier for them to enter the lungs and likely to cause far greater damage once there. Yet there are no standards for controlling them as a potential hazard in the lab or end-products.”

I was startled when I read this over five years ago in Science News. The article featured past discoveries and technologies with great capability or promise, but whose use was now banned, due to simple failure to consider and address inherent risks. Lessons from the past were followed by new, highly-promising discoveries with readily identifiable risks still waiting to be addressed.

Today, more than five years later, the risks for nanotechnology are still not addressed according to @WIREsNanomed (on Twitter), who brought to my attention a newly-released paper written by scientific representatives at the US Consumer Product Safety Commission, American Chemistry Council Long-Range Research Initiative; EPA; and Silicones Environmental, Health and Safety Council of North America. The paper calls for researchers and standard-setters to pursue the establishment of appropriate standards to safeguard ourselves and the technology.

Those representing the businesses and other organizations who do/will benefit from nanotechnology should take the lead. While my quote from the Science News article is based on recollection, its point is unalterable. The ultimate cost of inadequate protective standards is the viability of the technology itself, even ignoring financial and ethical responsibilities for harm done. With many products already touting their inclusion of nanotechnology, the time for research to preserve its benefits is now.

I still recollect that first meeting perfectly: a room filled with over a hundred well-dressed business owners, executives, and a few retirees belting out,

“Old MacDonald had a farm, E – I – E – I – O,

And on that farm he had a…”

Why was this group of otherwise sane executives oinking, quacking and singing together? This ritual of sometimes-strange singing synchronicity is a long-standing tradition at this and many other Rotary clubs. In fact, whether pulling you into the Chicken Dance at a wedding or a rowdy version of your college fight song at the big game, the tug of synchronicity is hard to resist.

And, Mind Matters points out, it’s only natural. More than birds and fish benefit from synchronicity. Whether in the bush or the ghetto, any adversary would rather face an individual than a coordinated group. And we are so clued in to coordinating with others that our brains actually have special parts, mirror neurons, that, as we watch, re-enact others’ experiences in our own brains. So it’s natural, but how big might the benefit be? 

This is what Stanford researchers wondered about, and found. For those of us who work in teams to accomplish mutual goals, the benefits of coordinated group behavior can actually help us more effectively accomplish our goals. For example, comparing students who marched around campus together singing songs to control groups who did not, they found in later games and competitions that the synchronized students were more cooperative, more willing to sacrifice their own goals for the group’s, and felt more connected with and trusting of each other.

Getting back to those Old MacDonald pals, their cooperation in putting together tens of thousands of dollars each and every year for schools, community non-profits, scholarships, international clean water programs and hundreds of millions worldwide in an effort to end polio, is pretty amazing indeed. So the next time you’re searching for ways to build your organization’s connectedness, consider a fun round of synchronized activity to build on that sense of unity and cooperation. Even if it’s not a round of Old MacDonald, you may be surprised at the results.

Dave Munger talks about a series of experiments that seem to indicate the truth of this advice. Smiling will actually help you feel better. Find out why at Cognitive Daily. (Note: This is no easy thing to test because of the need to disassociate the request to smile from the actual impact of the smiling itself. So why not trying smiling before you click on that link?)

Any of us who have ever been in school remember that stressed-out ”I MUST REMEMBER THIS” feeling. Now I am comforted to know that I may have been doing myself some good by triggering those thoughts. A group of German scientists recently published a study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences showing that certain activations in your brain (theta waves) actually do precede better recall. See the  Neurophilosophy blog for study design and details. But don’t stay up too late reading it — adequate, uninterrupted sleep is still crucial in laying down memories.

During World War II, Winston Churchill took nearly two hours to nap every day, even going so far as to get undressed and crawl under the covers. He insisted that his nap was essential, and allowed him to fit two days into every one.

Sleep is essential to stamina, and to good decision-making. And what better day to ponder these facts than National Nap Day? 

Having a little trouble justifying that extra sleep to others? If your most cheery disposition isn’t enough inducement, you could cite the NASA study showing its pilots improved their performance by 34% with just a 26-minute nap. Or if you’d like more entertainment with that same high data quality, spend a few minutes reading up on the benefits of sleep from Dr. John Medina, author of Brain Rules. 

And when is the best time for your nap? Generally 3pm will give you the most relief and largest performance boost, but any time is good. Zzzzzzzzz

“Elegance delivers the power to cut through the noise. It can shake markets. It can change minds, and mindsets.” 

– Matthew May, In Pursuit of Elegance, Why The Best Ideas Have Something Missing

Elegance is about what we leave out. The crucial pieces that enhance meaning with their absence.

A couple of days ago Garr Reynolds (Presentation Zen) Tweeted a link to Matt May‘s article on elegance.  

At branes we have a constant emphasis on the Peter Drucker truism that about 10% of efforts and resources usually generate about 90% of results. For our clients, and in our own work, we focus on redirecting resources devoted to the 90% of low-contributing efforts to high-contribution activities. In this piece May will draw you in with demonstrations of elegance and stories of lives and organizations changed because of it. In line with Peter Drucker, Jim Collins, Marshall Goldsmith and many others, May emphasizes that so much of success is about what we need to stop doing.

So stop what you’re doing just a little longer, and check it out.