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The Second Machine Age: What It Means for You and Me and Our Kids
By Shlomo Maital
Tom Friedman’s Global New York Times column, Jan. 13, is titled “If I Had a Hammer”. It’s not about the folk singers Peter, Paul & Mary. It’s about the Second Machine Age, and about the chess grandmaster Donner who was asked how to prepare for a chess match against a machine, like IBM’s Deep Blue computer. “I would bring a hammer,” he said.
Friedman reviews a new book by MIT Professors Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee, The Second Machine Age. According to them, in the First Machine Age, 1700-1950, each new invention made human control and human labor more important. In the Second Machine Age, we are automating cognitive tasks. Result: humans, and software-driven machines, may be substitutes (i.e. enemies), not complements. Machines are becoming exponentially smarter. “Our generation will have more power to improve (or destroy) the world than any before, relying on fewer people and more technology”, Friedman concludes.
What does this mean? For one, “we need to reinvent education so more people can ‘race with machines’, not race against them”.
This implies, I believe, that we must totally rethink how we teach kids. The only advantage humans have over smart machines is in their imaginations. So teaching and fostering creativity will be a crucial component of how we educate our children in future. It’s the only competitive advantage we have over machines. The only think smart machines lack, and will always lack, is the human brain’s ability to imagine things that do not exist. No machine yet has a ‘visual cortex’.
What I Learned from Mikaela: It’s the Journey, Not the Destination
By Shlomo Maital
Mikaela Shiffrin is 18 years old, the youngest American skier to be a World Cup champion. She lives in Colorado. She could win medals at the Sochi Olympics. According to the New York Times sportswriter Bill Pennington, Mikaela has an unusual life plan, one we can all learn from.
“I will want to win,” she said. “But the result of the race will not motivate me. I can honestly say that I am motivated by improvement, not results. That’s a core principle.
Her parents (her dad is an anesthetist, her mom and dad were competitive skiers in college) recount that in Vail, Colorado, they once invited Mikaela, then very young, to come ski in the ‘back bowls’. But Mikaela declined. “No. I want to stay on the racecourse and train. I’m working on my pole plants. I want to get better every day.”
Here is what I personally learned from Mikaela. I want to be an excellent educator, teaching innovation at a high level. But I should focus on the journey, not on the destination. Each course I teach, each workshop I deliver for managers, I need to ask, how can I do this better? How can I deepen the experience of my students, and give them useful take home tools? And at the end of each course, I need to evaluate the ‘gradient’ or ‘slope’ – did I improve? Or get worse?
If you come to focus on the process, on the journey and not solely on the result, and if you can create a positive learning gradient, improving all the time, ultimately you will achieve excellence. And you will enjoy life while doing so. Because each improvement, each notch on the ‘learning slope’ becomes a tangible achievement. You don’t need to wait a decade for Carnegie Hall.
Remember that tired joke? “ How do you get to Carnegie Hall? Practice.”
How about, instead…. “ How do you get to Carnegie Hall? Just keep improving, every day… and in every way. And enjoy!”
Making Eureka! Happen: On Inviting Ah-hah Insights!
By Shlomo Maital
All of us have experienced a “eureka” moment – a sudden flash of insight that yields a creative solution to a problem. Eureka is Greek for “I have found it!”, allegedly shouted when Archimedes discovered his famous displacement principle.
Can you do things that make ah-hah! moments more frequent and more powerful? Apparently you can. In researching neuroscience for an upcoming conference, I found an article, “The Aha! Moment: The Cognitive Neuroscience of Insight”, by John Kounios (Drexel U.) and Mark Beeman (Northwestern U.). [Recent Directions in Neurological Science, 2009].
The authors use EEG (electromagnetic imaging) and fMRI (functional MRI imaging) of the brain to physically map eureka moments. They give subjects a ‘compound remote association’ problem: e.g., Find a single word, that can form a compound word or familiar 2-word phrase with EACH of three words. E.g., crab, pine, sauce. One answer: “apple” (applesauce, crabapple, pineapple). They map brain patterns while subjects tackle the problem. They then ask the subjects to say whether the solution “popped into their minds” (eureka) or resulted from analysis (e.g. ‘cake’…crabcake, but pinecake no; reject cake; crabgrass…no, applegrass doesn’t work..etc.).
Here is what they, and others, have found: Eureka problem-solving “can be influenced by the prior preparatory state”. As Pasteur said, “chance favors the prepared mind.” Eureka comes to those who prepare for it. A relaxed, pleasant state of mind is far better for eureka than tension. (Attention, companies that put workers’ feet to the fire to develop ideas). Humor is very conducive to eureka. And most important: “individuals high in creativity habitually deploy their attention in a diffuse rather than a focused manner”. I.e., we get to eureka, not in a straight linear line, but zig-zag.
The authors believe you can organize ‘eureka’ thinking, as a ‘cascade of processes’ that generate aha! I agree. Zoom in! Think hard about a problem. Then let your mind wander. Soar into the clouds. Zoom out! Think of wild ideas that make you laugh. Bring a shopping cart with you, and dump all the possible ideas into it. At some point – pause. Zoom in again. Take your shopping cart and start to empty its contents. Choose one solution in it you think will work. Listen carefully to your gut. This could be a eureka! Or aha! Moment. If it is – listen to it! And then – get to work.
The Creative Brain: It’s NOT Left-Right!
By Shlomo Maital
There is an amazing explosion of resources and people studying the brain these days, and new results are sure to come. Here is one, summarized in Scientific American (Aug. 19/2013) by Scott Barry Kaufman, “The Real Neuroscience of Creativity”.
Remember that left-brain-right-brain idea? Left brain, is “L”, logical analytic, organized, rational. Right brain is “R”, creative, passionate, sexual, colorful, poetic, even irRational?
Forget it. The L-R distinction is “not the right one when it comes to understanding how creativity is implemented in the brain”, notes Kaufman. “Creativity does not involve a single brain region or single side of the brain. Instead, the entire creative process – from preparation to incubation to illumination to verification — consists of many interacting cognitive processes and emotions.” Different brain regions are recruited to handle the task, depending on the stage of the creative process.
Many of these regions “recruit structures from both the left and right side of the brain”.
To simplify and summarize: There are thre large-scale brain ‘networks’ critical for creativity. 1. Executive Attention Network – recruited when a task requires that the spotlight of attention is focused like a laser beam. Active when you’re concentrating on a challenging lecture, or solving a problem. 2. The Imagination Network: used when “imagining alternate perspectives and scenarios”. 3. The Salience Network: monitors both external events and internal stream of consciousness and “flexibly passes the baton to whatever nformation is most salient to solving the task at hand.”
The key to understanding creativity, according to neuroscientists, is recognizing that “different patterns of [thinking] are important at different stages of the creative process.
So, what can we do with all this, to be more creative? According to Rex Jung: a) allow your mind to roam free, imagine new possibilities, and SILENCE THE INNER CRITIC! Reduce the Executive Attention Network a bit, increase the other two. Then, bring back the Executive Attention Network, to critically evaluate and implement your creative ideas. In other words: Zoom In, to understand the problem; Zoom Out, imagine, to seek many alternate possibilities; then, again, Zoom In, to choose the optimal alternative. Organizing these stages is important. Skipping a stage will damage the process.
I am amazed that this neuroscience model fits precisely the model of my friend, colleague and former student Arie Ruttenberg, known as Zoom In/Zoom Out/Zoom In, and presented in our forthcoming book The Imagination Elevator. Ruttenberg derived his model by simply intuitively taking apart, and reconstructing, the ways he reached his own creative ideas.
If You Can Subtract, You Can Innovate!
By Shlomo Maital
Innovation is breaking the rules. But often, the rules most rewarding to break are unwritten ones, ones we assume are true in our heads, ones we never challenge.
One such rule: “Innovation is about addition” – adding new features onto old things. Nothing could be more wrong.
Innovation is about subtraction. Taking things away. Yet we use addition far more often than we use subtraction, in creative endeavours.
Here are some examples, drawn from Ruth Blatt’s wonderful blog in Forbes magazine (Dec. 26/2013).
* Led Zeppelin made an album, with no writing on the cover. Nothing, no band name, nothing. It was their best-selling album (Led Zeppelin IV). And they did it by subtracting.
* Composer John Cage wrote a piece called 4’ 33”, a four-minute 33-second piece in which a full orchestra sits down..and remains in perfect silence for over four minutes. A concert, minus the music. Insulting? Ridiculous? Usually, the orchestra gets strong applause when they stand up and take a bow.
* In 1966 the Beatles made a key decision. They decided to be a rock ‘n roll band, that does not perform for live audiences. By subtracting the ‘live performance’ from their art, they created new possibilities. They did not have to reproduce live what they did in the recording studio. They climbed new artistic heights in this way.
Ruth Blatt advises, “Next time you feel blocked, try doing like the Beatles and take out something you used to think was essential.” You’ll be amazed at the results.
Breakthrough: Vaccine Against Cancer!
by Shlomo Maital
Cancer immunology [use of the body’s own immune system to kill cancer cells] has been chosen as the “Breakthrough of the Year” by the editors of Science. A fascinating report was published in the December 20 issue. (This blog is longer than usual, because the topic is so important).
For example: According to the U.S. National Institutes of Health: The photo shows an aspirin-sized disk, the first therapeutic cancer vaccine implanted beneath the skin. “We know it can eradicate melanoma in mice—the deadliest form of skin cancer—with impressive efficacy . Now, it’s being tested in human trials.”
One day, hopefully, chemotherapy may be replaced by immunotherapy. Instead of poisoning cancer (and our own body), we may be able to trick cancer cells, which are good at defeating the body’s own T-cell immune system, and enable our T-cells to kill cancer cells before they become tumors or even after.
What is the science here? According to the NIH, vaccines prevent illnesses, like smallpox, by introducing dead or weakened germs, to teach the body to create antibodies if it does appear. We already have vaccination against the human papilloma virus (HPV)—a powerful way to prevent cervical cancer. The new anti-cancer vaccines work differently. They’re given to patients who have already been diagnosed with cancer. Once given they “behave like traditional vaccines—by teaching the immune system how to seek out and destroy a target—in this case, a tumor. “
“ A couple of cancer vaccines have already been approved by the FDA. However, producing these vaccines is typically a cumbersome, time-consuming, and expensive process. First, immune cells are taken from a patient. The cells are modified and reprogramed in the lab, and then they are injected back into the patient. In the vaccines approved to date, this elaborate production line has extended patient life—but only slightly. And so, some researchers began to look for a simpler, and perhaps more effective, way to make therapeutic cancer vaccines. About four years ago, an NIH-funded, multidisciplinary team based in Boston and Cambridge came up with an approach that would modify and reprogram patients’ immune cells—inside the body, not in a lab!! The team first developed a porous polymer implant, made from the same material as biodegradable sutures and meshes. Then they infused the disk with a collection of three immune stimulants that recruit the immune cells, activate them, and imprint them with a chemical signature of the tumor that is targeted for destruction.
“The first of the three immune stimulants is a drug called leukine (also known as GM-CSF), which summons millions of dendritic cells, key immune cells, to enter the implant. The second is DNA that mimics viral and bacterial DNA and sends a danger signal that activates these cells. The third ingredient is the personalized part of the recipe: a combination of proteins made from the patients’ own tumor. It gives the dendritic cells the unique signature of that person’s tumor, which they share with the warrior T-cells. The “educated” T-cells are then primed to hunt and obliterate the tumor.”
The new approach is metaphorically like training cancer-killer cells to a) spot cancer, and b) kill it, by first teaching them to recognize the enemy and then, giving them ‘martial arts’ skills to destroy it.
Some of the most advanced work in the world on cancer immunology is done in my country, Israel. Prof. Leah Eisenbach, at the Weizmann Institute, Rehovot, has done breakthrough work. A company known as Compugen has developed antigens proven useful against cancer, and sold two of them for hundreds of millions of dollars to Bayer.
We know today that there are more than 120 different types of cancer. Each requires its own variant of chemotherapy. While survival rates have risen enormously, there has to be a better way than ‘tailored poison’. There is. Immunotherapy may point the way. If you know someone who has cancer, or whose loved ones have it, draw their attention to this new breakthrough. There is definitely hope, and the progress may be relatively rapid.
BRIC is so 2013! Now It’s…Want to make a MINT?
By Shlomo Maital
There’s nothing like a good acronym to catch the eye of those seeking new places to make money. That’s why Jim O’Neill, former head of asset management at Goldman, Sachs, coined the term BRIC 13 years ago – Brazil, Russia, India, China – to name the four up-and-coming nations. He got China right. Brazil is struggling. So is India. Russia still doesn’t have a true economy other than oil and gas. So – one out of four. Pretty good, for a global banker.
Now comes a new acronym. Remember it: MINT. Mexico, Indonesia, Nigeria, Turkey. If you want to make a MINT, then invest in MINT. According to www.metro.co.uk:
‘If they get their act together, they’ve got the ability to get so much bigger,’ said O’Neill of the MINT countries. It will be the subject of an upcoming BBC radio series, MINT: The Next Economic Giants. ‘If not as big as the BRICs, then not that far off.’ Mexico, O’Neill argues, previously lost out to China on cheap exports and labour. But with wages increasing in China, Mexico can capitalise, especially with its proximity to the US. ‘It’s probably the most competitive OECD country at the moment,’ said O’Neill. ‘And these guys have a bunch of young reformers who make Maggie Thatcher look like a pussycat.’
O’Neill argues convincingly that Nigeria is THE MINT country to watch:
“Indonesia has a chance to boom, like Mexico, because of a large, willing workforce and a rapidly urbanising population, said O’Neill. ‘There are 240m of them in Indonesia, the third largest populated country in the world.’ Turkey, meanwhile, benefits from its geographical position between East and West and ‘because they know how to deal with us in the West, with the Middle East, with the Russians’. But the most exciting MINT country is Nigeria. ‘The place is complete madness, of course, and one can’t be 100 per cent sure, given its challenges, that it will be one country in four years. But after India, it’s the best in the world in terms of useful population. By 2050, Nigeria will have more people than the United States. If you get those young people in productive jobs, that place will arguably be the most exciting country in the world in the next 30 years. Linked to that, there are so many creative entrepreneurs there and, interestingly, so many educated Nigerians returning from the US because they smell this opportunity to be the next big thing.’ Nigeria is also rich in resources, including oil.
There are at least two ways to take Jim O’Neill’s acronym. 1. Given his 1 out of 4 record in the past: Search elsewhere. Or 2. Bet big time on Nigeria.
What are your thoughts, readers?
Why Latvia Loves the Euro
By Shlomo Maital
Tomorrow, Jan. 1, Latvia becomes the 18th nation to adopt the euro, following Estonia’s euro adoption in 2011. A third Baltic nation, Lithuania, will adopt the euro in 2015.
Why would any country willingly choose to shift to a currency in so much trouble? It is simple, according to Richard Milne, writing in today’s Financial Times.
According to Finance Minister Andres Vilks, ““Russia isn’t going to change. We know our neighbour. There was before, and there will be, a lot of unpredictable conditions. It is very important for the countries to stick together, and with the EU. We have completed our mission” of joining all the main institutions in Europe from the EU to Nato….. “We will be more integrated and protected in case of troubles, and we can see what is happening in Ukraine today.”
Russia has exerted tremendous pressure on Ukraine, not to sign a free-trade agreement with the EU, and has supplied an enormous $14 b. loan as a tempting bribe.
The adoption of the euro came despite huge Latvian opposition to the idea, among the public. A poll last October showed only one Latvian in five favored the euro. The people of Latvia seemed to believe that along with the euro came austerity, which is partly true.
Vilks noted that Russia (and Putin) “is nervous about losing partners and influence. That is one reason why the Baltics and Finland were so eager to go to all institutions, including Nato. It’s not so easy for small countries to deal with these issues; we need help.”
According to Milne, Latvia still has close ties with Russia, with about 40 per cent of the bank deposits in the country coming from ex-Soviet states, while about a quarter of its population is ethnic Russian.
As a small nation, Latvia has little leverage on Russia. But, on the other hand, it also has little importance. Ukraine, a huge country, is crucial for Russia; Latvia is almost a ‘rounding error’.
Latvia’s euro adoption shows the importance of strong political leadership. How many Western political leaders would face a hugely unpopular decision, and proceed with it anyway, knowing they could well be tossed out of office in the next election. Kudos to Vilk and little Latvia. Obama, Netanyahu – do some homework on the Baltic states. They know things about leadership that neither of you do.
How to Create Great Memories – And Why We Should
By Shlomo Maital
Very few readers will recall the American comedian Bob Hope, whose radio theme song was Thanks for the Memory: “Thanks for the memory, of sentimental verse and nothing in my purse, And chuckles when the preacher said, “For better or for worse”, How lovely it was…”
Today’s New York Times has a fine op-ed article by neuroscientist Kelly Lambert. She observes that “neuroimaging evidence indicates that when certain events are recalled – presumably after being triggered by familiar sights, smells or sounds – emotional brain areas are activated as well as visceral responses. You relive the feelings you experienced in the past.” I think this is a crucial observation. Great memories are like a perpetual feast. You experience them once, you remember them many many times. So it is crucial to shape HOW we remember things.
When you are about to make a decision, ask yourself, how will I recall this? Will I recall it as one of my finest moments, as an action true to myself, to my values? Or will I relive it, in shame, in sadness, in regret?
“Thanks for the memory, Of rainy afternoons that pulls me by the case, And how I jumped the day you trumped my one and only ace, How lovely it was…”
According to Kelly Lambert, “addicted rats experience pleasure when they anticipate receiving cocaine, even if they don’t actually consume it.” There is another key point here about how to live. Don’t rush to seize pleasure. Defer it. Because the anticipation itself brings pleasure.
“We said goodbye with a highball Then I got as high as a steeple But we were intelligent people, no tears, no fuss, Hooray, for us”
What this means is: Life is about before, during and after. Before – if before a happy event – is full of pleasure and meaning. Don’t rush it. Create events that you anticipate and look forward to, well in advance. Then during. Seize the moment. Enjoy. Shape the memory! And finally after. Relive the good memories that you were wise enough to create.
“So, thanks for the memory, Of sunburns at the shore, darling, how are you?, You might have been a headache, but you never were a bore, I’m awfully glad I met you, cheerio and toodle-oo, And thank you so much…”
Lambert notes that there are “benefits of trying to assure that my girls have an emotional holiday portal for their future adult brains”, referring to Christmas.
Why (and How) We Truly Care About Others – the Amazing Mirror Neurons
By Shlomo Maital
One day, an Italian neurophysiologist named Giacomo Rizzolatti, Parma University, will win the Nobel Prize for his amazing discovery of mirror neurons.
Here is what he found, by accident, like so many great discoveries, and why it is important.
Rizzolatti and colleagues were studying the nerve cells that controlled hand movements and seizing of objects.
The research was very monotonous, as it required the researchers to follow neuron patterns in the brains of macaque monkeys, who were holding peanuts and bringing them to their mouths. As the monkeys moved their hands, the nerve cells in their brains that controlled the movement fired electrical impulses, which could be seen in the electroencephalogram printout.
At one point, one of the researchers picked up a peanut. He was amazed to see that the same neurons activated in the monkey’s brain, when the monkey itself picked up the peanut, were fired when the monkey saw someone ELSE pick up a peanut. It was an astonishing finding. How could a neuron, responsible for hand movements, fire when the hand did not move, but someone else’s hand moved?
The researchers realized they had stumbled on a revolutionary finding. The brain possesses unique cells that respond to an animal’s own movements, but also to the SAME movement when performed by other animals. How come the monkey’s own hand did not move, when the neuron fired? Because other neurons inhibited motor ‘imitation’. Mirror cells only SENSE the motion, they do not initiate the same motion.
Humans too have mirror cells, we now know. This enables us to feel empathy, and to be social animals, to cooperate, to help, to be a team member. Probably, those mirror cells were created by evolution – humans possessing them were better equipped to survive and procreate than those who lacked them. And soon, all humans had them.
Some neurophysiologists deny there are such things as mirror cells. But there are, and they do exist. They explain much of our human-ness.
Some selfish people ignore what their mirror cells tell them; they broadcast very quietly. But some people increase their sensitivity to the ‘firing’ of mirror cells and become exceedingly caring empathic people. And since empathy is a key part of innovation, my theory is that great innovators have heightened sensitivity to what their mirror cells tell them about what other people feel and need.
Kudos, handshakes, to Rizzolatti and the other researchers who refused to say, nuts! to a remarkable, perhaps impossible, observation. They deserve the Nobel.
TIMnovate 