Category: Technology

Latest Read: Think for Yourself

Post author By Don Kasprzak
Post date August 5, 2023

Think for Yourself: Restoring Common Sense in an Age of Experts and Artificial Intelligence by Vikram Mansharamani. Vikram was a Lecturer at Harvard University and also previously lectured at Yale University.

He holds a Ph.D. and Masters from MIT’s Sloan School of Management, and a Masters in Political Science also from MIT. He holds a BA from Yale University.

In our AI world Vikram pushes the pause button, for good reason. We have lost the ability to think for ourselves. He provides solid examples of AI gone wrong. As indicated the bookcover of a car driving into a river is a true story.

On the island of Sardinia, the town began erecting signs “Do not follow the directions of Google Maps.” 144 drivers were requesting ‘rescue’ services. As a result of blindly following the AI mapping application.

The message is also that we must question AI. In fact, we must outright challenge the so called experts, their products, and how they position their services. While it may work for one service, it will certainly not work for all.

Vikram rightfully calls out the so called experts. They live in their bubble and fail to consider the wider impacts across our world, results can even include death.

Tags Artificial Intelligence, Innovation, Think for Yourself, Vikram Mansharamani

Education Innovation Reading Technology

Latest Read: HBR Guide to Critical Thinking

Post author By Don Kasprzak
Post date July 15, 2023

HBR Guide to Critical Thinking by Harvard Business Review. The ‘HBR Guide’ series offers articles addressed in multiple sections. This is not a single author’s interpretation.

This offers a fresh restart to critical thinking. I welcome opportunities to make a re-start with new ideas and approaches in our pandemic world. This indeed provides a good starting point in developing skillsets. The ultimate goal of critical thinking by Helen Lee Bouygues is to think reflectively, objectively, and analytically about situations and problems.

I found Section One: Get in the Right Mindset – Article 3: Act Like a Scientist very engaging. We basically are testing assumptions. How can organizations address employees or customers who suggest underlying practices are out of date, costly or even obsolete? By investing in data analytics.

Like a scientist, you must become a knowledge skeptic. As we continue to confront the impact of the pandemic, remote work and large changes in business operations over the last three years, perhaps ‘the established way’ is no longer relevant. Add upon legacy practices are the new realities of regulatory and compliance mandates faced by organizations. this becomes challenging to confront the ‘why we believe this’ or searching to confirm if the evidence supports or challenges commonly held ideas and practices within your organization.

Tags critical thinking, Innovation, knowledge, tipping point

Education Innovation Reading Technology

Latest Read: HBR Guide to Remote Work

Post author By Don Kasprzak
Post date July 8, 2023

HBR Guide to Remote Work by Harvard Business Review. The ‘HBR Guide’ series offers articles addressed in multiple sections. This is not a single author’s interpretation.

This title was published during the pandemic when employees were already remote. This guide is addressing a very large change in human behavior and the need for organizations to respond.

More importantly, this addresses new, unique challenges when confronting the simple day to day aspects of working outside the office. Perhaps within your family, the new remote office is the kitchen. For managers, your direct reports are certainly confronting new challenges in delivering their workflows.

Enter the Zoom era. New organizational elements were quickly changing. How to ensure employees are staying focused despite all the new distractions from home.

This Guide is indeed providing insightful tips and advice. So, how does an organization shift their operations from 100% face to face to the new remote work? Many employees quickly embraced working remote in casual clothing. In fact, this helped their bottom line saving money on gasoline and lunches.

Tags culture, Innovation, remote work, tipping point

Blockchain Education Innovation Reading Technology

Latest Read: Tracers in the Dark

Post author By Don Kasprzak
Post date May 27, 2023

Tracers in the D ark: The Global Hunt for the Crime Lords of Cryptocurrency by Andy Greenberg. Andy a senior technology writer at Wired. He previously worked as a staff writer at Forbes magazine and as a contributor to their online website.

Indeed, with every great advancement or popular service, criminals manage to insert themselves to commit new types of crime. Cryptocurrency (aka Bitcoin) is the latest example of a digital advancement under exploitation, creating black markets that hide financial transactions.

Yet this powerful technology allows criminals to actually conduct business right out in the open instead of hiding drug transactions, money laundering, and human trafficking in the analog world. In fact, during the pandemic, crypto’s value simply exploded but the damage had already been done.

Internet culture quickly baked the idea on social media sites and technology blogs, especially on the digital underground (Dark web) that this technology was in fact a digital, anonymous, private money source. And more importantly to criminals it was untraceable.

This is attributed to blockchain ledgers which are deployed anonymously. Andy reveals how digital criminal empires are built on crypto. Yet we also learn of their simple mistakes resulting in their takedown. Well….kinda of a takedown.

Tags Andy Greenberg, Crypto, Cryptocurrency, Tracers in the Dark

Education Innovation Reading Technology

Latest Read: Crypto

Post author By Don Kasprzak
Post date May 20, 2023

Crypto: How the Code Rebels Beat the Government—Saving Privacy in the Digital Age by Steven Levy. He is the former chief technology correspondent for Newsweek. Today he is an editor at Wired, and author of eight books. Crypto, won the Frankfurt E-book Award for the best non-fiction book of 2001.

If you’ve ever made an e-commerce purchase with your credit card, then you have used cryptography.

Steven guides the reader into learning about the history of cryptography. This book begins with Whitfield Diffi e. He authored initial developments of cryptographic key s. He was then joined by Martin Hellman in 1976.

From this point, Steven reveals how Ron Rivest, Adi Shamir, and Leonard Adleman, teaching at MIT also furthered cryptography research. Their development led to the formation of their company, RSA.

The National Security Agency (NSA) certainly interpreted these cryptography developments as a threat and began working to thwart their developments.

Tags Clipper Chip, Crypto, Cryptography, culture, privacy, Steven Levy