Cs 575 Week 4

Spring 2008

Bapa Rao

Outline

• Organizational

• Discussion on previous week’s presentations

• Continuing discussion on Engelbart’s article

• Student Presentations

• Discussion

• Agenda for next week

Organizational

• CS 575 Forum is now set up– Supplement your classroom discussion grade– Sign up for forum, if you aren’t already signed up– Contact me if you need help– Each presenter can take the lead on their topic and encourage

others to join in• If you join in discussion of others’ topics, they will come to yours

– Create a forum topic and link your wiki presentation back to it• When uploading presentations, using widely accessible

formats (ppt, not pptx for example)• Only one signed up presentation today?• Please keep the wiki signup page updated• Questions? Comments?

Engelbart review

• Capability to obtain better solutions to complex problems

• Benefit ‘information workers’• New conceptual framework• What to augment

– Artifacts, language, methodology, training– Whorf’s hypothesis & the weighted pencil expt– Problem-solving process– Structure: bureaucratic to more distributed– Executive capability—choosing from repertoire

• What is the impact of augmentation?

Engelbart: Two-domain system

• H-LAM/T

Last week’s presentations

• Cloud computing—Tam Nguyen

• Human interaction in Internet communities—Jerry Chang

• HCC and HCM—Ashok Sahu

• Artificial Life—Saeid Mousavi

Engelbart (contd)

• Capability repertoire hierarchy– Basic capabilities (human and artifact) are the raw

materials– Mental structuring (cognitive structures)

• Development Models: garden, basketball team, machine building

– Concept structuring– Symbol structuring– Process structuring

• ‘M’ in H-LAM/T– Physical structuring

• A in H-LAM/T– Interdependence among all these structures

Engelbart (contd)

• Concept structuring– concepts are tools– concepts have handles--representations– concept structures map to mental structures– some concept structures are better than

others– language (natural lang esp) is the grand

concept structuring tool

Engelbart (contd)

• Symbol structuring– some symbols work better than others

• depends on the purpose

– need flexibility, translatability– view generation capability (rather than

physical linear ordering)

Engelbart (contd)

• Interdependence among hierarchies– Cyclic– Regenerative

• Improvement in one category feeds improvement in other categories

Augmenting the Human Intellect

• 1962 report/proposal to Air Force Ofc. Of Scientific Research

• Capability to obtain better solutions to complex problems• New conceptual framework

– Not small tricks

• Example scenario: an architect’s workday– Design alternatives– Operational environments– Functional specifications– Detailed design– Tools

• Synthesis, analysis, verification, debugging

Engelbart (contd)

• Who will benefit– Every person who does his thinking with

symbolized concepts • Human language, pictographs, formal logic,

mathematics, …

– Architects, engineers, lawyers, writers, …– ‘information workers’

Engelbart (contd)• Conceptual framework is needed to know

– What to augment• artifacts• language• methodology• Training

– Goal: problem solving process• Process is what we actually do, and are trying to do more effectively

– Structure or organization across the board• Little steps, organized as a process hierarchy

– Versus objects?• Process repertoire or toolkit• Basic capabilities (‘hardware’) to higher-level capabilities

– Synergy, emergent capabilities, …• Which subprocess to choose?

– Executive Capability: planning, selecting, and supervising

– Augmentation impact• Suppose you had a better writing tool…

– Hardware, software, dictionary, spell checker, fact researcher, …– Pencil to word processor

» Benefits?» Break down old process, come up with new process» New capabilities!

Engelbart: Two-domain system

• H-LAM/T

Engelbart (contd)

• How did humans get ‘augmented’ during our development?– 1. concept manipulation– 2. symbol manipulation– 3. Manual, External, Symbol Manipulation

• Whorf’s hypothesis: Language affects our thinking and capabilities– 4. Automated external symbol manipulation (neo-

whorfian: technology affects language and capabilities)

• Language can also evolve to meet conceptual and task needs (counterargument to whorfian hypothesis)

Engelbart (contd)• Brick-pencil experiment

Engelbart (contd)

• Brick-pencil expt (de-augmentation)– Typewriter: 7 sec– Pencil: 20 secs– Brick, small letters: 65+ secs– Brick, large letters: 42 secs

• Impacts on effectiveness of culture– Too hard too few people doing it– Different concepts for work, record-keeping, etc.

• What about known impacts of actual augmentation, 46 years after Engelbart wrote this proposal?

Engelbart (contd)

• Capability repertoire hierarchy– Basic capabilities (human and artifact) are the raw

materials– Mental structuring (cognitive structures)

• Development Models: garden, basketball team, machine building

– Concept structuring– Symbol structuring– Process structuring

• ‘M’ in H-LAM/T– Physical structuring

• A in H-LAM/T– Interdependence among all these structures

Engelbart (contd)

• Concept structuring– concepts are tools– concepts have handles--representations– concept structures map to mental structures– some concept structures are better than

others– language (natural lang esp) is the grand

concept structuring tool

Engelbart (contd)

• Symbol structuring– some symbols work better than others

• depends on the purpose

– need flexibility, translatability– view generation capability (rather than

physical linear ordering)

Engelbart (contd)

• Interdependence among hierarchies– Cyclic– Regenerative

• Improvement in one category feeds improvement in other categories

Engelbart (contd)

• Roles and levels– executive– direct-contributive

• model of executive superstructure– Bureaucratic hierarchy is onerous– contractor-subcontractor model

• Flexibility in the Executive Role– executive tasks are complex– orderly flexibility requirement on symbol etc.

structures is costly– disorderly process of change must be supported

• ‘agile methodologies’

Berners-Lee’s view

• Social = Human

• Concept augmentation is an emergent phenomenon

Student presentations

• Uday Dhokale– Logo, Dynabook, Media Lab

• ???