Monday 7 January 2022, 6:30 pm - 8:30 pm
Any replies to the organizer
- thormay@yahoo.com
Venue: Cafe Brunelli, 187
Rundle St, Adelaide CBD, South Australia
Talking Points
1. Every day you use dozens of items
without thinking about how they really work (.. how deeply do
you understand your mobile phone?). What don't you care about
when it comes to understanding this stuff? What do you feel
curious about investigating further?
2. From your
employment experience, are you satisfied with a narrow set of
job skills, or (for example) do you want to understand enough in
an organization department to run the whole thing yourself?
Defend your choice.
3. There is a now rarely used
Australian slang word, 'nousy'. A nousy bloke was someone who
could improvise a solution to any situation from whatever tools
or string & chewing gum, or patchy knowledge was at hand. Being
nousy was highly valued. Is it now devalued? If so, why?
4. Should school curricula include a 'subject' with lessons or
projects to explore how some of the machines, devices, programs,
institutions etc we encounter actually work? What would you want
to include for study in this school subject?
5. Fees by
service personnel are typically inflated when the customers have
no idea what is really being fixed. Examples? Note that this
affects not only individuals, but also organizations where
clueless managers don't know what they are managing.
'Consultants' also dine on this kind of ignorance. Is all this
inevitable? Solutions?
6. Are there big gender
differences in the kind of stuff which each gender want to know
about 'how things works'? Examples? Is this a problem? Are such
differences inevitable?
7. In every country, regardless
of the political system and systems of administration, a huge
part of each population has no real idea of how governments and
administrations work, either formally or in practice. At best
these people can express a small collection of slogans. Does
this matter? Can it be changed? Would people make better choices
if they actually understood these systems?
8. There is
almost unlimited information now available for free on the
Internet - more than you can learn in any school or university.
How many people are skilled at finding this information when
they need it? How many people can understand this information
when they find it? Can they be taught to effectively find and
interpret information? [Hint: 1. The answers you get depend upon
the questions you ask. 2. Judgement is often poor. Half of
marriages fail.]
9. Are you an information minimalist or
an information maximalist? Defend your position. If you were a
politician or CEO, how would this affect your work?
10.
Are you willing to let AI decide your fate without having a clue
how it is deciding? The self-teaching algorithms of AI
(artificial intelligence) mean that even the computer engineers
who put questions into such systems don't know exactly how such
systems arrive at their answers. This can be a life or death
issue in scenes like self-driving cars, fly-by-wire planes or
computer driven medical surgery don't know what the machine will
decide, or exactly how it will decides.
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Extra Reading
Andrew
Sonstrom (November 30th, 2017) "Broad vs. Narrow Skillsets:
Software Engineering Skills Demystified". Deep Core Data @
https://www.deepcoredata.com/software-engineering-skillsets-demystified/
Thor May (1995) "English for Mechanics" [ebook]
http://thormay.net/lxesl/teachx2.html [comment:
This is a program of 99 units explaining car & engine
components. Some sample units are online here free. (You really
need car parts or illustrations in ont to you to make much sense
of this. The ebook costs US$15)]
[no named author, no
date] "How WiFi and Cell Phones Work | Wireless Communication
Explained". The Explained Channel @
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kxLcwIMYmr0
Shep Hyken (Jun 10, 2017) "Half Of People Who Encounter
Artificial Intelligence Don't Even Realize It". Forbes @
https://www.forbes.com/sites/shephyken/2017/06/10/half-of-people-who-encounter-artificial-intelligence-dont-even-realize-it/?sh=1c4c1d62745f
Zachary Aldwin (26 May 2016) "The pros, cons of
ignorance". The Herald [Zimbabwe] @
https://www.herald.co.zw/the-pros-cons-of-ignorance/
Georgina Kenyon (6 January 2016) "The man who studies
the spread of ignorance - How do people or companies with vested
interests spread ignorance and obfuscate knowledge? Georgina
Kenyon finds there is a term which defines this phenomenon". BBC
@
http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20160105-the-man-who-studies-the-spread-of-ignorance?ocid=fbfut
Adam Brownell (Feb 17, 2022) "Our Impending (&
Self-Inflicted) AI-Horror Boom - The world is growing more
distrustful of AI, and it’s AI developers fault". Towards Data
Science @
https://towardsdatascience.com/our-impending-self-inflicted-ai-horror-boom-e764a20af456
[Quote: "What percentage of people are scared of AI? Studies
show that 34 percent of people are afraid of AI, while 24
percent think AI will be harmful for society. GWI finds that 63
percent of people worry about how their personal data is used by
companies. Or an article about how only 25% of consumers trust
an AI over a human to make a financial decision for them."]
Kevin Parrish (Sep 27, 2021) "Survey: 80% of Americans Don’t
Know How the Internet Works - We surveyed 1,000 Americans on
their internet knowledge—here’s what we found". High Speed
Internet @
https://www.highspeedinternet.com/resources/how-internet-works-survey
[Quote: "As the graphic shows, 74% of those surveyed believe
they know precisely how the internet works, but just 20% could
explain it correctly. That’s understandable, given we open our
favorite browsers, stream our media, and play our games online
without thinking about how our data gets from Point A to Point B
and back".]
John Lee (January 22, 2021) "The risks to
Australia’s democracy". The Brookings Institution @
https://www.brookings.edu/articles/the-risks-to-australias-democracy/
[Quote: "... 30% of 18-29 year-old citizens surveyed believed a
non-democratic system is preferable to a democratic one under
some circumstances, while 55% believed democracy is preferable
regardless of circumstance. This is a contrast to those 60 years
and over surveyed, only 15% of whom believed a non-democratic
system might be preferable, while 72% believed democracy was
always preferable. The overall numbers for all surveyed was 22%
and 65%, respectively. The lower regard for democracy amongst
younger Australians is reflected in previous polling going back
to 2012. ... There is immense public ignorance as to the
respective roles of the federal and state governments. Much of
the Australian public is ignorant of the reality that it is the
latter which is largely responsible for the health and public
response to prevent and/or manage the consequences of the
pandemic ...There is immense public ignorance as to the
respective roles of the federal and state governments. Much of
the Australian public is ignorant of the reality that it is the
latter which is largely responsible for the health and public
response to prevent and/or manage the consequences of the
pandemic .. ']
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