I just came back from a technology conference. I felt like it was mandatory for each speaker to talk about the speed of technology. The problem is that most people tell this story in a highly boring way. Some use high level markers like the industrial revolution, the discovery of the telephone, the first TV broadcast, etc. Other people just say things like “Remember, just 10 years ago the iPhone was created.”
Health: At the turn of the last century, indoor plumbing was not common. Raw sewage was often dumped directly into streets and open gutters which went straight into rivers and lakes, many of which were sources of drinking water. Waterborne diseases were the 3rd leading cause of death.
Household Appliances: In 1930 a popular women’s magazine asked readers “How many times have you wished you could push a button and have all your household chores performed for you?” This was decades before modern conveniences like dishwashers and microwaves were possible.
Cars: In 1904 there were a grand total of 141 miles of paved roads outside of cities. The first crossing of the continent by car, in 1903, required 44 days of hard driving.
Telecom: Telephones were initially sold in pairs. The first customer, a Boston banker, leased a pair for his office and home and needed to purchase a private line to join them.
A few months ago Microsoft released Seeing AI. This is a tool created by a blind product manager to help blind people. It’s trying to using computer vision to replace lost sight.
The most interesting piece is the person functionality. This is a fairly transparent implementation of Microsoft’s Face API. The Face API has a number of characteristics that it can determine including hair color, emotion, glasses, facial hair, makeup, smiling, gender, and age. Computer geeks, take a look at Face API, it’s pretty awesome. Here’s an example of the person functionality from Seeing.ai using the Face API.
Microsoft’s Seeing AI
It’s a great party trick to show your friends how AI can figure out all this stuff. The most interesting characteristic is age. Microsoft thinks so too and created an entire website called how-old.net.
So I started bringing it out at parties. But there was the problem. People who skewed older than they really were started saying “Hey, that’s not cool.” I started to realize that the app didn’t have a lot of tact.
It was like a little kid saying, “Mommy, that lady looks 45.”
And the woman saying back, “My Lord! Don’t you have any manners!”
This is similar to a scene in the Netflix series Atypical about Sam, a character with Autism Spectrum Disorder (formerly called Aspergers Syndrome). Sam doesn’t read emotions very well and is often too honest — not taking into account other people’s feelings.
At one point Sam made a list of the Pro’s and Con’s of Paige, his prospective girlfriend. Paige found an imprint of the list and used a pencil to read it.
Paige with Sam’s list of Pro’s and Cons about her.
To paraphrase their conversation:
“Why would you do that? You called me bossy and said I’m always interrupting people,” said Paige.
“But I also said that you had very clean shoes and had a nice neutral smell. So there were some good things in there,” said Sam.
“Ugh. You’re just not supposed to write that stuff down. It’s rude.”
And that’s the inherent problem with the way Face API displays people’s age. Making these things too transparent is just rude.
From all this, I’ve learned 3 things.
It’s kind of creepy how AI can take things from the real world and “know” things about you.
When building a computer program, features like “age” are useful in doing things like matching or making predictions but should generally be hidden from the end user.
Update August 16, 2018: Amazon’s Face API is a lot more sensitive in its demo. It uses the word “seems” and not focusing on a specific age but using an age range.
In this email, I’m answering some questions from a reader.
Rob,
I really like what you put on this site. I’ve tried to blog myself but could use your advice on the following topics:
Why write about something when you know that there’s bound to be someone on the internet that has written the same thing – likely better than you? Wouldn’t it make more sense to just link to that?
How do you decide what to write about?
How can I do what you do? Whenever I sit down to write something, I find that I want to write a treatise and I never get finished with it.
How do I subscribe to your blog?
Best,
Dave
I’ll answer these questions one at a time.
Why write about something when you know that there’s bound to be someone on the internet that has written the same thing – likely better than you? Wouldn’t it make more sense to just link to that?
That’s a good point Dave. Here are a few reasons why I write rather than link:
It’s not worth comparing myself to others. There’s always someone in the world who’s doing something better than me. But if I’m writing about something personal that means something to me, hopefully, I can bring something new to the conversation.
Some people (like you) seem to be interested in what I write.
To paraphrase Maria Popova from Brain Pickings, “I’m writing for myself. If other people want to read this that’s great. But I’m writing for me and not them.”
It’s fun to write.
The best way to become a better writer is to write more. Jeff Atwood, co-founder of Stack Exchange, has some great advice on how to be a great blogger. He says “If you can demonstrate a willingness to write, and a desire to keep continually improving your writing, you will eventually be successful.”
Having a blog becomes a personal record of your thoughts and ideas. It becomes a record of who you are – hopefully of your best self.
Think about your readers. If you look at my first posts I had a lot of links and quoted a lot of sources. This makes it difficult for your readers who just don’t have a lot of time. Paradoxically, by writing a little more, you’re having your readers read a lot less.
You need to be confident in yourself that you have something useful to say. But you need to have your own ideas – not just parrot the ideas of others.
I keep a prioritized list of ideas. When I look at the top of that list, I find a few things that are really exciting and fun to write about. I generally say, “Wow, that’s a really fun idea I’ve put on my list.”
How can I do what you do? Whenever I sit down to write something, I find that I want to write a treatise and I never get finished with it.
Going back to my previous post about writing, I’ll pick a topic that seems pretty exciting and try to figure out how I can get it across in the shortest amount possible. That keeps the boring stuff a minimum and lets me get done with pieces faster. Then I only write about things while they are still interesting. That’s what keeps it fun.
I was travelling today, having a quick breakfast in Charlotte, NC, before heading into to work. When I left the hotel room, I had a roller bag with me. I finished breakfast and started heading to work. A minute later my phone rang.
“You forgot your bag at breakfast,” said the super nice Charlotte woman. I went back the 50 feet and picked up my bag.
This reminded me of the most useful travel tip that I know:
Always make sure that your luggage tag has your cell phone on it.
Stick a business card onto your laptop (with your cell phone on it). This is mainly for security at the airport. It’s easy to forget that you’ve taken your laptop out of your bag when you’re in a rush to catch a flight. And if you do remember, it’s easy to accidentally pick up someone else’s laptop.
Bonus trivia of the day! On an airplane, I always hear them talking about “Putting your rollerboard bags in the overhead compartment.” I just learned that the pilot is saying “roll aboard” not “rollerboard.” Now that makes much more sense.
Alan Kay said, “Technology is anything invented after you were born.” While that makes sense intuitively, it’s hard to see in real life. To make this more tangible let me take you back 8 years.
It was early 2010 and we were in Key West for Jeff and Debbie Katersky‘s wedding. Debbie’s niece Carly was about 8 at the time and was given a single use film camera to take pictures at the wedding. This was her first experience with a film camera.
“How do I know what I’m taking a picture of?” Carly asked, pointing to the back of the screen.
“You look through this viewfinder right here,” I said.
“OK…” said Carly, squinting to look through the viewfinder. “But how do I see the pictures once I’ve taken them?”
“You won’t be able to see the pictures. They’re stored inside the camera,” I said.
“Oh, so they get emailed automatically?” she says, excited that she’s starting to understand things.
“No. They don’t get emailed. They stay on the film in the camera. Then between each picture, you have to turn the knob at the top to wind the film.”
“Why do you have to do that?” she asked, thoroughly puzzled.
“Because all the pictures are stored on film, which then needs to be developed. Because of the film you need to be very careful not to open up the back or all the pictures will be destroyed,” I said.
“So that means they get deleted?” she says as she starts opening the camera.
“No! Don’t do that!” I yelled, running to stop her. “They won’t get deleted. If you open up the back all the pictures will be ruined!”
Carly made it through the wedding taking her pictures. And like all photographers with film cameras, she got 1 or 2 good shots on her roll of 24.
Malcolm Gladwell is one of the best writers of our generation. That’s not to say he’s always right. As he likes to say, “I hope you find my work entertaining even when it’s wrong.” Gladwell has done some amazing stuff as a magazine writer, book writer, speaker, and even podcast host. If you want to watch some amazing talks, check out: The Spaghetti Sauce Talk and The Coke and Pepsi Talk. But who are the people that Malcolm Gladwell thinks are the best writers and speakers?
My great hero as a writer is Michael Lewis. I just think Michael Lewis, believe it or not, is the most underrated writer of my generation. I think he is the one who will be read 50 years from now. And I think what he does is so extraordinary, from a kind of degree of difficulty standpoint. The Big Short is a gripping book, fascinating, utterly gripping book about derivatives. It blows me away how insanely hard that book was to do, and it’s brilliant. The Blind Side, I think, it might be the most perfect book I’ve read in 25 years. I don’t think there’s a single word in that that I would change. I just think it has everything. But he uses no science, right? Very little.
It’s all story. But he does more work in his stories, makes much more profound points than I do by dragging in all these sociologists and psychologists. He’s proved to me that, if you can tell a story properly, you don’t need this kind of scaffolding. You can just tell the story. And so, I’ve been trying, not entirely successfully, but trying to move in that direction over the last couple books.
I don’t think people realize how hard it is to do a single narrative book. That’s one of the things I admire about Michael Lewis. He seems to be able to do it effortlessly. I don’t even think I could pull it off. Maybe it’s because I’ve never found an individual whose story is rich enough. But, maybe I’m just not as good at developing a single story. I just think that’s kind of beyond me a little bit. … I would lose faith in my ability to keep the reader engaged. I’m much too nervous a writer. Whereas the amount of self-confidence you feel in Michael Lewis’s work, or Janet Malcolm’s work … she’s so extraordinarily sure of her gift, she’s not in any hurry to start and she knows you’ll stick with her because she knows she will deliver. To use a sports metaphor, Janet Malcolm and Michael Lewis are the people who are quite happy to take the last shot. I’m going to pass.
In addition to being a compelling author, Gladwell also makes phenomenal speeches. My favorite Malcolm Gladwell speeches were given about 10 years ago: The Spaghetti Sauce Talk and The Coke and Pepsi Talk. Both of these are brilliant examples of storytelling and really show the difference between reading an article and giving a performance.
In his interview with Tim Ferris (starting at about 28 minutes), Gladwell talked about how difficult it is to give a great speech. It’s not about reading an article in front of a group, it takes a lot more work than that. Then Ferriss asks Gladwell, “Is there anyone in the world of speaking alive or dead who is the Michael Lewis for you.” Below is Gladwell’s answer. Note that I used YouTube’s transcript function and tried editing it so it makes sense on the page:
I once went to a birthday party for an old friend of mine, Anne Applebaum, in England. Now first of all the English are way better at giving speeches than we are. And secondly, we were talking about the creme de la creme of English speech givers. Like serious Cambridge and Oxford debating society kind of people.
Niall Ferguson, the historian, gave a birthday toast which is just the best toast I’ve ever heard in my life. I mean it was like so much better than anything I had ever heard — like on another level. I was like oh my god that’s good. And part of what made it genius was he really gave you the impression he was making it up on the spot. Now he might actually have done that. He may be so good he could do that.
The conceit was that it was totally spontaneous. It was so cleverly done and so hilarious. And one of the ways it was so charming was the ways in which he was wrong. Part of the joke was he was going to make this elaborate hilarious argument about Anne who was turning fifty. And half of the stuff that he was going to say was not right. He spun a theory about the weekend and about her birthday and about her friends that was like hilarious because it was not accurate. And he did it with such panache. First of all that would never have occurred to me to make stuff up in such a dramatic way. But also I can’t do off-the-cuff. Ever since then I just worship the guy. I just think I think he walks on water.
I had Niall as a professor when I was at NYU for business school and he was just amazing. His books (like The Ascent of Money) and television programs (like The Ascent of Money) are really amazing. If you want to see him giving more of a speech like Malcolm mentioned, though a lot less funny, you can watch his speech at the Sydney Opera House.
What makes a great consultant? It’s someone who get’s the job done quickly, teaches me instead of selling me and gives me the advice for the future. I’ve also got a great example of a bad consultant. The best consultant that I’ve met recently was the guy that fixed my refrigerator.
The Issue
Our Viking refrigerator was broken. The water filter was stuck. It was so badly stuck that in the act of trying to get it out, I broke the holder for the water filter. At this point, we needed to call in an expert before my “home improvement” project became a “buy another fridge” project.
Calling for help
So I called Len’s Appliance in Brooklyn (718) 238-3200. In the past, I’ve learned its useful for me to be there when the repairman comes rather than trying to rope someone else in. If it’s a bad repairman, I can avoid the damage. If it’s a good repairman, there’s a lot I can learn.
Get in Quick, Get It Done and Get Out
He came in and fixed the problem within 10 seconds. He grabbed the filter, disengaged it from the holder and twisted to remove the filter. The filter holder itself was made horribly. Not only is it very flimsy but it requires a lot of force in an awkward position to remove it. This is not a good combination. The force needed to take the filter out of the refrigerator stresses the holder so every time I change the filter, it’s always on the verge of breaking it. Once he removed the filter from its holder he could easily apply enough force to remove the filter. Wow that’s bad design.
Teach Me to Fish Rather Than Selling Me a Fish
Now remember, I called Len’s because of the broken filter holder. After removing the filter he told me where I could go to buy a replacement. It was fairly easy to install myself and it wouldn’t be worth the $125 service call for him to reinstall it. Then he paused. “On second thought,” he said, “you don’t actually need this piece at all.” He explained that the poorly designed holder that made it difficult to remove the filter was only in use DURING the filter change process. So it actually wasn’t necessary at all.
Give Me Advice for the Future
Then he told me about the refrigerator itself. We’d bought this Viking fridge because we were under the impression that this fridge was unique in its size. This is a tiny Manhattan kitchen where space is a premium. He mentioned that the fridge was actually a standard size which is great! He also said that it’s out of production now and that spare parts are more expensive and will continue to go up in price. Eventually, the parts will be impossible to buy.
Did you know that refrigerators are only meant to last 7 years? That’s what he told us. That big expensive kitchen appliance that you thought would last forever goes out of production every 7 years and you’ll need to buy a new one when it breaks. He told us that if the refrigerator breaks badly, it’s probably worth just buying a new one. Oh, and from what he’s seen, the cheaper models like GE break less often than the Viking ones.
He felt bad that he was charging me $125 for the visit when he was only in my apartment for 15 minutes. But this was the best repair visit that I’d ever had.
A man in a hot air balloon comes descending on a meadow where a shepherd is tending his flock. After he greets the man he asks him “If I tell you how many sheep you have without having to count them, will you give me one of them?”
The shepherd agrees.
The man in the balloon says “You have 100 sheep.”
A bit surprised the shepherd says “How did you know?”
“Well,” says the man, “your field is about 5 km by 5km and in this part of the wilderness you can graze 4 sheep on each square km of land. So 5×5 is 25 square km times 4 is 100 sheep.”
“Wow, you’re right,” said the shepherd, “please take your pick of the sheep.”
After the man in the balloon selects his sheep, the shepherd turns to him and says “if I tell you what you do for a living, will you give me my animal back?”
The man in the balloon agrees. The shepherd says “You are a consultant.”
The man in the balloon is amazed at the insight that the shepherd has shown and says “How on earth did you know I am a consultant?”
The shepherd answered, “You showed up here even though nobody called you. You want to get paid for an answer I already knew, to a question I never asked. And you don’t know a thing about my business … now give me back my dog!”
I was looking online and saw an ad for Master Class, an online site that has celebrities like Steve Martin teaching you comedy and Annie Leibovitz teaching you photography. It seemed interesting. Then I saw the videos about basketball and tennis, and I lost all hope that this was a good idea. Here’s why.
A few years ago I had this guy working for me, let’s call him Jim. Jim was a wonderful worker and would always present the most important information at our meetings. His one problem was that he wasn’t a dynamic speaker. This wasn’t a big problem. I’m at a big company and we have public speaking classes. I myself had learned how to be a better speaker at this company. So I called HR.
“I want to get some public speaking training for Jim. Maybe he could take a public speaking class? I took one last year,” I asked.
“We don’t offer that anymore,” she said.
“You don’t offer the class anymore? What do you have instead?” I asked.
“We have decided to move to more online training. The world is moving to much more of a ‘training-on-demand’ culture — like YouTube. We have a number of online classes that teach you how to speak in public from the basic to the advanced level.”
“You realize that public speaking is something you need to practice,” I said. “It’s not something you can learn from a book.”
Crickets.
I learned that there was a Toastmasters group at work that met informally and told Jim to join that instead.
When I told a co-worker this story, he said that it’s like saying “You don’t know how to swim? I have this fantastic PowerPoint deck on swimming. Once you read it just jump into the deep end of the pool. Don’t worry, you’ll be fine.”
An OpEd he wrote for The New York Times, entitled “A Lifesaving Checklist” which talks about how the Federal Government tried to stop the checklist from moving forward. It’s a good example of how difficult it is to get people to agree to a new process – even if it’s clearly the better thing to do
Gawande also wrote a great book, Being Mortal, about how getting old is not a disease. This book is pretty amazing because it shows how to use our time and the time of our loved ones (especially the last few years) in the best way possible
He also has a couple of books, Complications and Better, that pull together his New Yorker stories. It’s all amazing stuff
And I have to include this wonderful history of surgery. Surgery was all about speed before the invention of anesthesia. Here’s an example of how draconian surgery used to be
Examples of amputation without anesthesia. Panel A is a drawing by Charles Bell from 1821 showing the circular method of amputation.9 Panel B shows the flap method of amputation being used in 1837, with an assistant retracting the tissue flap to allow the surgeon to saw through the femur.
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