Overview

1
Overview

• looking forward
• what will information and communications
  technology be like 10 years from now?
• what will the computational and social
  environment be like, under the impact of the
  information revolution?
• culture, information and knowledge flow,
  technology
• a brief look at a system that is consistent with
  this kind of computational and social environment
• I-Help
• Keywords
• localization, relativity, fragmentation,
  reactivity, context, emergent behaviour,
  robustness, adaptivity, individualization

2
The Information Revolution

• the information revolution is just getting
  underway
• coming soon
• - the billion channel universe
• - radical impact of information technology on
  work and play
• - major paradigm shifts in all areas of
  intellectual enquiry
• - information technology pervasively part of our
  life
• - fundamental shift in our perspectives of
  ourselves in relation to the world
• will lead to the fragmentation of
• - culture - information and knowledge flow -
  technology

3
Fragmentation of Culture

• people need to put up barriers to stay sane
• localized perspective on cyberspace
• the electronic village
• each persons village will be unique
  relativistic, not global
• village will share many of the characteristics
  of a real village neighbours, professionals,
  friends, community organizations, markets (for
  information)
• person will only know something when it comes
  into their village

4
Fragmentation of Culture

• each village will overlap a wider world
• a person will also be part of many virtual
  communities extending beyond their village
  boundaries explicit and implicit
• - each focussed on its own issues
• - each with its own language and culture
• - overlapping each other
• - each person a member of many such communities
• information and knowledge will flow in and out
  of most such communities

5
the electronic village
virtual communities
6
Fragmentation ofInformation and Knowledge Flow

• information flows at the speed of light,
  knowledge at the speed of human understanding
• flow between communities
• - identifying the information/knowledge to be
  spread
• - supporting its spread finding collaborators to
  foster understanding between communities
• (diplomats, negotiation)
• flow within a community
• - top down from community leaders and those
  bringing in outside information/knowledge
  (teachers, apprenticeship)
• - collaboratively through internal debate
• - immersing new village members in community
  culture

7
flow between communities
8
Fragmentation of Information and Knowledge Flow

• information flows at speed of light, knowledge at
  the speed of human understanding
• flow between communities
• - identifying the information/knowledge to be
  spread
• - supporting its spread finding collaborators to
  foster understanding between communities
  (diplomats, negotiation)
• flow within a community
• - top down from community leaders and those
  bringing in outside information/knowledge
  (teachers, apprenticeship)
• - collaboratively through internal debate
• - immersing new village members in community
  culture

9
flow within a community top-down from elders
10
Fragmentation of Information and Knowledge Flow

• information flows at speed of light, knowledge at
  the speed of human understanding
• flow between communities
• - identifying the information/knowledge to be
  spread
• - supporting its spread finding collaborators to
  foster understanding between communities
  (diplomats, negotiation)
• flow within a community
• - top down from community leaders and those
  bringing in outside information/knowledge
  (teachers, apprenticeship)
• - collaboratively through internal debate
• - immersing new village members in community
  culture

11
flow within a community collaboration
12
Fragmentation of Information and Knowledge Flow

• information flows at speed of light, knowledge at
  the speed of human understanding
• flow between communities
• - identifying the information/knowledge to be
  spread
• - supporting its spread finding collaborators to
  foster understanding between communities
  (diplomats, negotiation)
• flow within a community
• - top down from community leaders and those
  bringing in outside information/knowledge
  (teachers, apprenticeship)
• - collaboratively through internal debate
• - immersing new village members in community
  culture

13
flow within a community cultural immersion
14
Fragmentation of Information and Knowledge Flow

• cultural fragmentation means information/knowledge
  flow will be partitioned and fragmented
• pervasiveness of information technology means
  many activities will be on-line new things can
  be understood as needed in small chunks, in the
  context of on-going activities just in time
  action/knowledge
• human experts will often be needed, to help
  integrate knowledge with culture, to help
  translate knowledge into terms appropriate to
  people in other communities
• each person can be an expert or novice,
  depending on the situation fragmentation of roles

15
Fragmentation of Technology Software Without
Boundaries

• the boundaries of a software system will be
  indefinite
• software will be fragmented into many
  quasi-independent entities (agents)
• many of these software entities will come from
  outside a particular application package
• behaviour of such software systems will be
  emergent, like an ecosystem, fundamentally
  unpredictable
• distinction between procedures and data,
  hardware and software will blur
• software will exist simultaneously at many
  levels of detail
• software will be embedded in a complex social
  environment

16
Fragmentation of Technology Software Without
Boundaries

• software will take on a particular coherence only
  relative to end use
• as defined by the communities in which it is
  used, and the goals of the people using it
• a system to support humans, therefore, will
  only be meaningfully identifiable in terms of its
  end goals
• - system that helps a learner
• - system that helps somebody search the web
• - system that supports a software engineer in
  building new embedded applications
• - system that supports an accountant preparing
  tax returns
• .

17
emergent behaviour
fragmented technology
complex social embedding
end use determines coherence
18
The I-Help System(Greer, McCalla, Vassileva,
Deters, Kettel, Bull, .)

• aimed at providing peer help and other help
  while learners actually solve problems, in school
  or the workplace just-in-time, contextualized
• several sub-systems (and more to come)
• - public discussion (PDF) open peer forums (aka
  CPR)
• - peer helper finding IKE (office) and 1-2-1
  (university courses)
• - HA helping the helper
• underlying agent architecture
• - MAGALE agent environment
• - personal agent for every learner
• - I-Help economy ICUs, to aid motivation,
  resource allocation
• various versions tested, in university and
  workplace
• many graduate student thesis projects exploring
  aspects of this architecture

19
?
?
?
20
Conclusion

• important technology issues
• - dealing with inconsistent and incomplete
  information/knowledge
• - individualizing and customizing systems
• - fostering and supporting collaboration
• - computing under resource constraints
• - tracking change
• - understanding context
• - making systems easy to use, especially for
  novices
• - developing and using distributed systems
• - integrating intelligent memory management
  techniques
• - finding techniques for robust computing
• - localizing failure

21
Conclusion

• some important social issues
• geographic globalization vs social localization
  which wins?
• ownership who owns a particular piece of
  software when it is distributed over the entire
  internet?
• responsibility who takes responsibility for
  software failures?
• integration how will all these fragmented
  systems integrate with the social systems in
  which they are embedded?
• preventing chaos how to localize the system
  errors that will be inherent in these distributed
  social/technological systems?
• local action with global effect anybody can
  design/influence the software/social environment
  by building a component and letting it loose on
  the world
• managing change technology changes will
  stimulate change in society and vice versa, with
  unpredictable feedback loops
• integration of computer science with all other
  areas of human endeavour business, social
  interaction, arts, communication, economics,
  engineering, is everything computer science?