David Hanson: Machine Versus Human

I had a chance to talk to David Hanson of Hanson Robotics in-depth at the Singularity Summit in San Francisco on August 14. He holds the view that humans do want robots to look, feel and sound human - after all, asking humans to think otherwise would be asking humans to re-wire the way they think.

The conversation that unfortunately didn't make it into the video was around robot(ic) behavior - robots versus humans, more specifically robots versus actors. We were talking about some of the best actors actually ARE the character, they don't go INTO character. My example specifically are both women: Meryl Streep and Glenn Close. both of them have a way of drawing you into their character and make you believe nothing else exists. They ARE that character and nothing else; the character is in fact their DNA not who they are in their off-stage life.

I could imagine a world where you could actually buy a 'program' that is set to a particular character. In the future, I'd love an 'open source' robot like the PR2s that Willow Garage is building, and I'd like to separately buy a program, just like I buy a DVD movie today. I insert it into the robot and he/she becomes the character he/she has just been programmed until I change the program. Something you can imagine in our lifetime? What about other human aspects? Listen to David thinks about these topics.

Ray Kurzweil on the Mind and the Brain

Ray Kurzweil answers a question from the audience remotely via video in real-time at this weekend's Singularity Summmit in San Francisco.

Steve Blank: History of Silicon Valley Tech vs Silicon Valley NOW

I haven't heard a 'university' lecture in awhile.....as for the style of one? Sure, I go to LongNow events and some academia shows up at TED, PopTech and others conferences I support and love. Yet, the below take is academic and historical in nature and refreshing in my world of largely start-ups and money.

Steve Blank, Consulting Professor of the Stanford Technology Ventures Program at the Stanford School of Engineering brings an interesting perspective to technology then and now.

Facebook & Twitter: Small Biz & Brands Talk About What Works & Why

Small businesses and brands talk about how they use social media tools and about what works and what doesn't. The panel includes:

Rapper Chamillionaire Rocks & Not Just His Music: He's One Cool Dude!

I had the opportunity to meet and hang out with rapper Chamillionaire this past week at AlwaysOn and again at TechCrunch's Social Currency Event, where he was a panelist at both events.

Not only was his energy welcoming to an 'always-on' overly techy crowd, but refreshing because of his authenticity, humor and charm. Chamillionaire is also very smart and engaging, not to mention (and he'll likely shoot me for this one)....adorable.

Below, Robert Scoble, Renee Blodgett and Chamillionaire. THANK YOU for showing up. Remember that 80% of it is just about 'showing up.' It was also a joy to meet @chamillionaire 's "entourage" - @digijeff #roffles and @beatbullies, who btw are Sidekick users for the record, a device I haven't used or heard about in donkey's years.

Below is a 20 minute fun chat between Mike Arrington and Chamillionaire. And yes, he really has two publicists. Two when I thought publicists were deemed useless. Like lawyers, the role for a damn good publicist won't go away anytime soon. Has anyone noticed that ENGAGING is almost a full time job?

The Open Media Revolution for Better or Worse

Last week at AlwaysOn, Tony Perkins moderated a panel of some really great voices who are either building social media platforms and tools or using them. In a discussion that addressed the question whether we are better off in the new open media revolution, we heard from TechCrunch's Michael Arrington, rapper and singer Chamillionaire of Chamillitary Entertainment, Robert Scoble now with Rackspace, Quentin Hardy of Forbes and Six Apart's CEO Chris Alden.

I captured the panel in five videos - you can either view one or all of them below. A few great observations and quotes I thought were worth summarizing.

"I don’t like silos and I don’t like things that don’t communicate and share with each other – why are we investing in more silos?" asks Scoble about new tools that are coming to market and are another silo rather than a tool that integrates and communicates with the world where you already live online.

Other issues come up, "Discovery of good content is still a huge problem," says Chris Alden who is a big believer in discovery of social content. "We all figure out what we’re going to read based on our social graph." He also adds that Twitter lets publishers be less dependent on Google which is becoming tremendously useful.

On content and the 'amount of it,' we all have to weed through and compete with, Chamillionaire adds with wit and humor: "I have to compete with crazy content up there – like a bomber rapping gets drunk and then gets hit by a car and then a naked girl kisses it or a crazy cat jumping up and down." We all laugh - how could you not? It's not only true but he says it with such authenticity that you almost have to laugh at the mediocrity we're faced with that gets attention, otherwise you'd cry.

"The question is," says Tony, "are we better off? Scoble, I and Arrington don’t have to get ‘real jobs’ because of the open media revolution and WE ARE better off. The new media revolution has enabled that. Chamillionaire gets more access, but are we all better off as an industry?"

Scoble says, “we’re in the cycle between the old school and new school – by having more people connected on the network, we’re getting access to better and more information. The City Council isn't get covered in the same way it was ten years ago and they haven't invested in a new way yet, but the mayor can blog, the guy who sits on a City Council can blog, the guy who builds houses can blog and they can all tweet. Chamillionaire challenges and wonders whether its really BETTER information though.

I don’t worry about the openness, or the ‘free’ but I worry about the opposite," says Alden. "Look at the control in Iran and China. Even here, more control is happening aorund us."

In the music world, Chamillionaire says he preaches to his colleagues that they need to have equity in something. He says, "I have a friend who worked for a radio station for 14 years and then got laid off. Now what? He has no brand, no equity, nothing." It upsets him that people just keep chasing the next pay check.

Perkins asks the panel for predictions on where we're going to be in 5 years. Their responses below:

5 Year Predictions:

Chris Alden: "BusinessWeek will go for less than $5 million, a ham sandwich. Newsweek will be up for a fire sale…..there will be a few smart ones that will survive. You’ll see a migration of talented people from traditional media who are going to say I can build my own media empire. You’ll see a different landscape – news will come from independent sites."

Quentin Hardy: "It’s going to be pretty freaky in ways we don’t even understand yet. People always imitate the old model because that’s all they know. TV started out looking like radio and Internet started looking like magazines and newspapers. We’re still looking at the pre-existing model of advertising – we’re still trying to figure that out and how we’re going to get paid that isn’t advertising and we need to get figure that."

Robert Scoble: "We’ll be able to talk to devices and that’s going to happen to media as well. Show me the Mercury News, or show me all the information about Chamillionaire or put his music on my phone because I’m not familiar with him and I’m sitting next to him right now. It’s going to be revolutionary. This will be part of our everyday life in 5 years – our devices will be communicating with us and vice versa."

Chamillionaire: "The record people who are controlling agencies and musicians are either going to get smart and hang with you guys (meaning tech industry), or they’ll be dinosaurs and drop off the grid. They’re either going to try to stop it or get a piece of it. The rest of them will die off. Technology is growing. Even though I’m an old school person, I’m also a new school person. I use Sidekick but I also have an iPhone. I study the old and the new and use both. I feel like it’s going to change pretty dramatically and I’ll be here taking advice and stealing as much information from you." (again, meaning his pals in the tech industry.

Mike Arrington: Whenever there are predictions, they’re wrong. Steve Jobs didn’t put the iPad team together until December 2008, but they didn’t start going hard at it a little over a year ago. I don’t think predictions are that interesting. Things are changing so fast that we don’t know what is going to happen around the corner and that’s what I love about it."

Tony Perkins: "I think devices like iPad and the Kindle will create a renaissance --- we’ve gotten used to reading very short pieces lately. Writing long form books and thought provoking pieces still provide a lot of value and we’ve been missing out on those because we haven’t had the right form factor. In the future, we will. There’s going to be advancement in something along the lines of ‘engagement advertising’ as well."

Below are five videos that captured the entire discussion:

 

You Are Not a Gadget.....at Least if You Live Outside Silicon Valley!

I chatted with Jaron Lanier in a sunny courtyard at Stanford University last week during the AlwaysOn Stanford Summit.

His latest book: You are Not a Gadget, takes a controversial look at how we should and shouldn't embrace technology and where we should spend our efforts versus where the government should step in and why.

From a brief synopsis of his book: "for the most part, Web 2.0--Internet technologies that encourage interactivity, customization, and participation--is hailed as an emerging Golden Age of information sharing and collaborative achievement, the strength of democratized wisdom. Jaron Lanier doesn't buy it. He argues the opposite: that unfettered--and anonymous--ability to comment results in cynical mob behavior, the shouting-down of reasoned argument, and the devaluation of individual accomplishment. Lanier traces the roots of today's Web 2.0 philosophies and architectures (e.g. he posits that Web anonymity is the result of 1960s paranoia), persuasively documents their shortcomings, and provides alternate paths to "locked-in" paradigms. Though its strongly-stated opinions run against the bias of popular assumptions (particularly in Silicon Valley), he seeks a useful, respectful dialogue about how we can shape technology to fit culture's needs, rather than the way technology currently shapes us."

Lanier suggests that people think we are more decentralized but we’re not. He says, "Everyone who wants to make the most money and are trying to get closer to the biggest server with the most power – they’re trying to get more and more central – there’s an all or nothing mentality. Innovation is important, but in the longer term, we have to get away from the winner takes all dynamic and that’s what is happening with the network effect – not just in Silicon Valley, but for the human species. When you see Facebook winning, it's just another niche winner."

He also thinks there's a role for government and that should be in the boring nuts and bolts back-end that we don't really care about. He thinks we should all have a single account that works everywhere; you should be able to buy and sell on it universally and this function should be a government one. "Government is good because it gives you currency." Set up this way, he suggests that people can make up a thousand niches rather than us relying on Facebook or Steve Jobs-like control freaks to give us what they create. Lanier would like to see more Zynga-like companies in the world. "I like the idea of building companies that create wealth for others."

The WSJ book review here and the New York Times review here. Below are two videos of a very informal dialogue with a couple of attendees and myself at Stanford.

Stoppelman & Hanke on the Local Web: Engagement & a Little More Groupon?

On Friday at TechCrunch's Social Currency event, there was an interesting panel discussion on the Local Web with Yelp's CEO Jeremy Stoppelman and Google's VP of Product Management at Google, John Hanke. Moderator Erick Schonfeld says that he find himself using these local apps like Foursquare & Gowalla to see what’s around him, but adds: "I want it to tell me for this category of things to tell me what’s nearby and then also what’s nearby and who has a deal.”

Below John Hanke and some of his insights into what's happening with the local web right now.

"It’s a great time to be building a company in this space.”

"We’ll see a lot of simplified local, things like click-to-call and we’re going to start to see the RPMs go up, so the money will be there so we can start to build businesses. What we’re seeing the confluence of gaming dynamics, and offers through services like Groupon. We'll also see advancements in HTML 5 and lots of services emerge in the geo-loco area."

"The success of Groupon is that there’s a direct relationship. Coupons are one way to get people through the door and close the door. It’s about understanding about when people is asking about a place, we want to show local results that are relevant & add meaningful information to that place – we want to add relevance. A good local site adds good rich information and doesn’t just regurgitate.”

Adds Erick, "the success of Groupon is the social component, it's not between a single consumer and a merchant, but it's about bringing togehter a group of people (30-40), so they can offer a discount for that group. There's value to the consumer and value to the merchant."

Below Yelp's CEO Jeremy Stoppelman and his insights.

Re: the advertising and promotional opportunities, there's the growing popularity of connecting people when they’re searching for something local and tracking that info – it will make it easier for companies to advertise. That’s part of the success of Groupon. Hopefully we’re moving towards a world where we track those decisions.”

"I’m not sure the group concept is as big of a deal as offering great values for consumers."

Below is the video of the fireside-chat with Yelp's Jeremy Stoppelman and Google's John Hanke:

Because Groupon was raised so many times in the Stoppelman/Hanke interview, I decided to include the interview that Schonfeld and Arrington did earlier in the day with Groupon's CEO Andrew Mason:

Jaron Lanier Chats to AlwaysOn Crowd: MacNiven & Perkins Moderate

Author Jaron Lanier talks to the AlwaysOn crowd at Stanford this past week about his thinking behind where the Internet is going, where it should be going and why what we think is Open today is more 'big brother' than you realize.

"If everything was really open, Google wouldn’t have a reason to exist," he says. "Both are not operable or separable from each other. You can’t have the Linux model without the Steve Jobs model and vice versa. They need each other."

He adds, "When industrialization took off, there was a huge anxiety about fear of being obsolete - that is a lot of what motivated Marxism. Re: Obama’s decline in popularity, you’ll also find that fundamentalism is going up as well. If modernity isn’t working, you’ll always see fundamentalism going up as well."

Not unlike Andrew Keen's sentiment on the 'crowd mentality, he suggests that what you really get crowds and crowd mentality is mediocrity. With crowd sourcing comes homogeneousness of the human. He says, "if you ask a crowd to invent something, I see no evident of it happening," and discounts the examples people bring up again and again: Linux and Wikipedia, although not in a way that suggested that they don't and haven't brought value. Below is his talk.

In the following two videos, he takes questions from the audience and from moderators Jamis MacNiven and AlwaysOn founder and producer Tony Perkins.

Women on Entrepreneurship & Mentorship

Elizabeth Tinkham, the Global Lead at Accenture moderated a panel this afternoon at the AlwaysOn Stanford Summit on 'entrepreneurship.' They discussed the venture community, raising capital as a woman in the current landscape and the kind of mentorship (with examples) that led to their success today.

On the panel was Donna Wells, President and CEO of Mindflash, Victoria Ransom, Founder & CEO of Wildfire Interactive, Lisa Stone of BlogHer, Hilary DeCesare, of Everloop, Carol Realini, CEO of Obopay and DoubleTwist's Monique Farantzon.