IT - Between Magic and FashionA Personal Perspective

Heinz Roggenkemper

AtelierSAP Conference – Orlando - May 12, 2013

The Magic

SDXC

Deep Blue/Kasparov

The power of community and Open Source

Examples: Reddit, Kaggle

Watson/Jeopardy

Watson at Work

Watson at Work

Watson at Work

How Watson works

The Magic

SDXC

Deep Blue

The power of community and Open Source

Examples: Reddit, Kaggle

Watson

A two-year old with an iPad

What Do We Find in Magic?

The power of roadmaps – Moore’s Law and beyond(?)

Law Of Accelerated Returns

What Do We Find in Magic?

The power of roadmaps

The capability to thoroughly master domains

Community involvement

Creating an accessible common layer on top of many domains

Reaching everyone

Fashion

The paperless office

Virtual reality

MOOC, 3D Printing, cashless society

Sandy Hook Promise Innovation Initiative

‘A new group of Bay Area technology investors plans to back startup companies developing ‘smart gun’

Technologies that change everything (a list of 2005)

AJAX, biogenerics, deep web search, HD Audio, hybrid cell phones, micro fuel cells,WiMax

What Do We Find in Fashion?

Information technology will transform everything.

The believe that something that is possible is inevitable.

Everything needs information technology.

‘…given enough apps, all of humanities bugs are shallow’ (Evgeny Morozov)

Moore’s Curse

First mover’s advantage

IT has mastered innovation

What About Innovation?

First thought experiments

Let us go back 200 years, put a leading scientist/engineer 100 year into the future, and expose him/her to the current knowledge

James Watt

Mathematics (real foundation), physics (Maxwell, quantum theory, relativity theory), biology (genetics), medicine (understanding of diseases, pharmaceuticals),energy (coal, oil, electricity),materials (alloys), chemical industry, transportation (railways, mass transit, cars, air planes), communication (telegraph, telephone, radio), photography, phonograph, movies

Overwhelmed!

Repeat for 100 years

Thomas Alva Edison

Substantial progress everywhere, but not many real breakthroughs (antibiotics, human genome, nuclear energy, computers, Internet, wireless)

Impressed, but not overwhelmed

Second thought experiment

Let us go back 100 years, and compare the change that a representative of a median income family would experience in the next 50 years

electrical appliances (washing machine, refrigerator), in-door plumbing, central heating, cars, telephone, radio, TV, record players, compact Cassette (1963, that is a close one)

Overwhelmed!

Repeat for 50 years

Everything is better, many things are digital, but not much is new (microwave, PCs, printers, cell phones, Internet access everywhere)

Impressive, but not overwhelming

How Important Is IT?

Impact on overall economy

Median incomes over the last 20 years

You can see computers everywhere except in productivity numbers

China

Property rights, enforceable contracts

Technologies played a major role, and IT played a minor role

Finance

High-speed trading as an example for an arms race without social value

What Else Matters?

Principle of diminishing returns

Unintended consequences

Quite often, the opposite of something true is also true.

Power

The Big Challenges

Energy/Climate Change

2050: carbon-free KWh at 50% of today’s cost (Bill Gates)

Education

‘...I’ve had to come to the inevitable conclusion that the problem is not one that technology can hope to solve. What’s wrong with education cannot be fixed with technology. No amount of technology will make a dent.

It’s a political problem. The problems are sociopolitical.’

Steve Jobs

The Big Challenges

Energy/Climate Change

2050: carbon-free KWh at 50% of today’s cost (Bill Gates)

Education

Healthcare

Nurses will be more important than technology

Investment over consumption

Science

A New Hope

Augmentation

A New Hope - Augmentation

Freestyle Chess (2005)

Anyone could compete in teams with others or computers

The result: ‘Weak human + machine + better process was superior to a strong computer alone and, more remarkably, superior to a strong human + machine + inferior process.’ (Gary Kasparov in ‘The Chess Master and the Computer’)

A New Hope

Augmentation

Collaboration and new value chains

Quirky

New AI

New platforms

A deeper understanding of human behavior that includes evidence from cognitive psychology, evolutionary biology, and neurology.

The Empire Strikes Back

The end of Moore’s law (around 2020)

Software becomes/is more important than hardware

Intellectual property

Last year, for the first time, spending by Apple and Google on patent lawsuits and unusually big-dollar patent purchases exceeded spending on research and development of new products, according to public filings. (NY Times, Oct 7, 2012)

Judge Posner’s ruling in an Apple/Motorola case (focusing on damage calculations) is encouraging, but is likely to be appealed and overturned.

No Jedis, it is just us.

ReferencesTyler Cowen, The Great Stagnation, 2011

Richard Farson, Management of the Absurd, 1997

Andy Haldane, Financial Arms Races, 2012

Gary Kasparov, The Chess Master and the Computer, 2010

Daniel L. McFadden, The New Science of Pleasure, NBER Working Paper, Feb. 2013

Evgeny Morozov, To Save Everything, Click Here, 2013

Vaclav Smil, Creating the 20th Century, 2005