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Episode 33: Flawless Predictions For 2021
22 Plays4 years ago
Enough with 2020. Rolf and Joe present their predictions for what lies ahead in 2021.....
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction & 2021 Predictions
00:00:09
Speaker
Welcome to Cog Nation. I'm Joe Hardy. And I'm Rolf Nelson. On this episode, we're going to explore our flawless predictions for 2021. So we're revisiting our role in last year's predictions for the 2020s. And we decided that maybe we'll make it an annual thing. So get some of our predictions
Challenges of Short-Term Predictions
00:00:29
Speaker
out there. And since we were so amazingly correct last time, I think you'll be interested in what we have to predict this year.
00:00:39
Speaker
This is a little bit different than a whole decade of predictions, so maybe we're not predicting such big things, but it's more sort of things that could happen within the next year or so. Right, absolutely. I don't know, Ralph, about you, but for me, I found this exercise a little bit more challenging, actually, than the decade one. Is that because it's just a year, so you can't look as proud into the future?
00:01:02
Speaker
Yeah,
Pandemic's Impact on Society
00:01:03
Speaker
I think that's it. I mean, Bill Gates has that famous quote. Most people overestimate what they can do in one year and underestimate what they can do in 10 years. And I think that sort of relates to this. A lot of things can happen in 10 years. Uh, and maybe at different times during that 10 years somewhere. You don't know when in that 10 years it's going to hit. That's it. Like I kind of feel really good about most of the predictions that we made in the, especially like the crisper chips. Yep. Yeah. I mean, I think we're, I think we're headed in that direction.
00:01:32
Speaker
Absolutely. So we know that that's going to happen. Okay. So how do you want to organize this? Um, maybe let's go back and forth. Maybe you give me your, your one and then I'll give you one and we kind of go back. We'll do five each. Okay. So we have not heard each other's predictions in advance. So this is going to be as shocking to each of us as it is to you. Okay. So, uh, let's start with a first prediction. You want to start with the first prediction, Joe?
00:01:55
Speaker
Sure. I'm going to start with a kind of a boring one, but I feel like it's important just because it's frames everything else that's going to happen this
Future of COVID-19 and Societal Healing
00:02:05
Speaker
year. And I'm going to predict that the pandemic pandemic, the COVID-19 pandemic will be squashed by the vaccine and life will go somewhat back to normal.
00:02:13
Speaker
And this is a prediction for this podcast because it does relate to cognition in some way. And specifically we had an episode, this is a callback to our episode 26 with Joshua Ackerman, who's a professor at Michigan. Yeah, that was a good episode.
00:02:32
Speaker
Yeah, that's a good one. If you haven't listened to that one, I don't think a lot of people did listen to it because it was, it was in March and a lot of stuff was going down and it was a car hard to focus on cognitive science podcast. But he talked about the behavioral immune system, which is basically your cognitive response to the perception of threat of illness. So we all know that like, if you see someone coughing and sneezing and sniffling, you're going to try to avoid them because you don't want to get sick.
00:03:01
Speaker
and you've always got that going on. And so he talked a bit about the kind of cognitive processes that go on in the behavioral immune system. And one of the things that came out of that was that one of the things that occurs in the behavioral immune system is that you, especially when you feel under threat, in this case, you're really under threat of disease, that it causes some in-group, out-group dynamics that might lead to more
00:03:29
Speaker
racial, cultural, et cetera type bias. And now that sounds prescient on us. Yeah. Right. And we, and we predicted at the time, uh, in March that you would see a
Rise of Cognitive Science and AI
00:03:42
Speaker
flare up of some of this, you know, in-group out-group discord in our society. And my prediction is that as the, as we are able to come back together a little bit and our behavioral immune system,
00:03:57
Speaker
uh, kind of gets quieted down a little bit. It may offer an opportunity for some, some healing along those lines of some of these in-group, out-group biases. But I think there's also kind of, a lot of it is going to remain in a lot of the after effects. That's the way, that's the problem with, with these
00:04:15
Speaker
cognitive biases is that they're very persistent and it's hard to undo them. So while the prediction is that there will be somewhat less of that acrimony that, you know, uh, in group, out group, cultural, racial, et cetera, um, stuff going on by the end of the year, it's still going to persist in some of the effects that we've seen from this pandemic and from just all everything going on. We'll, we'll see you there.
00:04:43
Speaker
Well, clearly what needs to happen.
Revolution in Radiology with AI
00:04:45
Speaker
So, I mean, if we're envisioning the coronavirus ending, everybody going outside and enjoying fresh air again, I think we need to get everybody playing on the same playground again and playing well together, right? That's right. Yeah, exactly. Literally and figuratively.
00:04:59
Speaker
So I'll read my first prediction, which is startlingly similar to yours actually, because, you know, there's no way to get coronavirus off the mind, right? It's everywhere. So my prediction was pretty simple too, which is that coronavirus is going to be eliminated. Maybe this is wishful thinking. Coronavirus is going to be eliminated by the time it's nice outside.
00:05:19
Speaker
Hmm. Well, I think nice outside depends where you live, though. That's so you live in Providence, Rhode Island. Well, I'm talking. This is egocentric. So it might be like late July. Right. When it's nice out for me, that's when I'm ready for coronavirus to be totally finished. I feel like then. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I live in Northern California. It's going to it's going to be, you know, tends to get nice here. Like really like that's probably nice there now, isn't it? It's not it's it's not terrible.
00:05:48
Speaker
Yesterday was gorgeous. We need rain, though. We really need rain. Anyway, so any more to that prediction? I don't have much more to say about it. That's just kind of wishful thinking. I don't have any real particular insight into coronavirus, and I don't claim to.
00:06:04
Speaker
Yeah. Well, that's good. I mean, we, I'm glad we're on the same page there. We won't sacrifice is going to be done. We're fucking done with it. We're just totally done with it. We're done. We're done with it. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. What's your number two, number two prediction number two. All right. So this is kind of a different thing, but I'm saying that cognitive science in 2021 is really going to come to the forefront and be acknowledged as one of the most important sciences out there.
00:06:33
Speaker
Now, what do I mean by that? In the 1990s, President Bush declared the 1990s the decade of the brain. And I think that the 2020s are going to be the decade of cognition. Decade of cognition. It's a decade long one, but now we have to, so what's a signal of the rise of cognitive science?
00:06:58
Speaker
Right. So, I mean, a few different places where, where I see this coming into play and I'll try to work a prediction into here, but you know, I kind of just want to frame it a little bit. Some of the places where you see cognitive science really taking hold and taking root as being extremely important to especially innovation, but in general, a lot of the things that are happening in our society, artificial intelligence is one.
00:07:22
Speaker
And we've talked about this on the show before. Artificial intelligence has its roots in cognitive science. That's where machine learning grew up out of, neural networks, understanding, can you make a machine that is smart like a brain? And there's just nothing in technology that's more important right now than artificial intelligence, with the possible exception of CRISPR. But let's say within this branch of sciences, artificial intelligence is huge.
00:07:52
Speaker
And I think that the cognitive science aspect of that is becoming increasingly understood to be important. Other places where you see it is like the behavioral algorithms on social media and online marketing. Those are fundamentally cognitive science algorithms, cognitive science problems. How do you capture someone's attention? What are the things that are going to capture that person's attention, get them to click on something?
00:08:19
Speaker
So my prediction, my specific prediction for the year is that the understanding that the cognitive science is to the level now where we can manipulate attention so effectively, quantitatively, statistically, that it's
00:08:38
Speaker
a technology that needs to be regulated. So I believe that there will be regulation that specifically targets the allocation of attention in some specific way. I think this speaks to just the preeminence that cognitive science is gaining in our society.
00:08:57
Speaker
That's crazy. That's a crazy thing to think about. I know there are, I mean, we think more and more of attention as a quantifiable thing and something that, you know, we want to get from market share, it's monetizable too, I think is the big thing. So I guess what you're predicting is that because attention is monetizable now with these kinds of technologies that, you know, it's going to explode. I mean, that's a good reason for any technology to explode is when it becomes worth something.
00:09:23
Speaker
That's right. Exactly. And as the market value of these cognitive science algorithms and understandings grows, it's important grows. And also, ultimately, there will be a need to have some regulation on it. I mean, we can't just have Mark Zuckerberg deciding what everyone sees all the time. That doesn't make sense.
00:09:47
Speaker
All right, so let's see, I'm going to I'm going to jump into, I'm trying to limit anything related to
Remote Work Trends Post-Pandemic
00:09:55
Speaker
coronavirus and also to
00:09:58
Speaker
everything that we think about 2020. So I'm going to try to move away from that. We're moving forward. The one that I had is sort of, I'm thinking of kind of the elasticity of behavior after COVID. And I was thinking new craze. I'm going to predict this. This is going to be a new craze is crowded parties, crowded in quotation marks. So are you going to that crowded party? Like, yeah, there's going to be like, you know, 300 people in a tiny room.
00:10:26
Speaker
It's just going to be like stoked about this being crammed together in a small just cramped together like the worst cramping you had in your life. People are itching for that. I think that's what's going to happen. They'll be crowded bars. They'll be crowded parties. It's going to be a new thing. I like it. I mean, I'm I'm interested to see how my mind will react to that. Do you think you mean? Right. So after all that apprehension at getting near people, is it is it that you want?
00:10:56
Speaker
you want contact or is it that you're going to take a little time to get back into? I'm really excited for parties in general. I mean, I am excited for parties too. Yeah. I mean, if you guys, if someone's throwing a party, like please invite me, I'm, you know, after this is, you know, after, you know, it gets nice out and Corona's gone.
00:11:15
Speaker
Uh, please invite me because I, I, I'm all down for parties now. Um, I haven't always, you know, sometimes I am sometimes not, but right now I'm totally excited for that. Yeah. My, my extroverted self is dying to get out a little bit now. But yeah, in terms of the question of like actually being, you know, rubbing elbows literally with people, I don't know. Yeah. I, I'm sure, I mean, it'll be interesting to see how long it takes to, to just like get back into the groove of that.
00:11:45
Speaker
how that will feel. I think some people are gonna be just stoked for it and are gonna just dive right into it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure, for sure. Cool, crowded parties, I like it. I'm looking forward to that. All right, so your number, okay, so your number three. Number three, I think that in 2021, we will see at least three new algorithms in radiology,
00:12:13
Speaker
that qualify for direct reimbursement for reading scans. It's very specific. Unpack that a little bit, okay. It's a very specific one. After my very vague number two, which I think is the most important one, by the way, of the things that I predict, but it wasn't as quantified, number three is very specific. So last year in 2020,
00:12:39
Speaker
There was a company, VizAI, full disclosure, I worked for VizAI for a time and I no longer work for them. I don't own any shares in them. And we will cover all companies as we would cover any company, irrespective of our relationship to them. But I just happened to know about this thing, which is that they were qualified for what's called a CPT code, which is basically like a code that is used by
00:13:09
Speaker
Insurance companies is the standard. It's based on like Medicare. They basically get paid every time their algorithm, their artificial intelligence algorithm reads what's called a CT angiogram. And it basically is looking for these strokes, these big large vessel occlusion strokes. And every time their, their algorithm just reads a scan, they get paid and it's like over a thousand bucks. It's a lot of money.
00:13:36
Speaker
just for literally the ones and zeros to flip around in a GPU to come up with a prediction, a result.
00:13:47
Speaker
for what's going on in that scan. So it ends up being that there's a huge economic incentive to build these algorithms now, if you can get that kind of reimbursement. And I predict that there'll be, that's the first one that I'm aware of in radiology. I predict there'll be three more this year, and it's going to kick off this wave of intense activity, which is already ongoing, but it's just going to really super intensify to use artificial intelligence to read all kinds of different scans in radiology.
00:14:18
Speaker
You're going to see it in immunology as well. Uh, but you know, really the first place you're going to see it really, really take over as radiology and it's going to fundamentally transform the role of the radiologist and just generally how things work in a hospital.
00:14:35
Speaker
Okay, now that's a great, super
Traffic Paradox in a Remote Work Era
00:14:39
Speaker
specific prediction, but it sort of points to other kinds of growing trends, I suppose, too. When we were talking earlier, we had another episode when we were talking to Brent Stansfield about medical education and what doctors are doing out in the field, too. And one of the things that he pointed out is
00:15:03
Speaker
Doctors end up doing a ton of bureaucracy. You think they should be spending time with patients and doing all the things that doctors do, but they, you know, they end up having to manage all of these programs and algorithms when what you want to do is reduce the cost of medical care. Um, so something like this, I don't know, what do you think is this for the, is this for the good of the, of the medical profession? I mean, it's cutting down on work, so you would think it would be right.
00:15:30
Speaker
Well, I mean, I guess I think the different algorithms and the different systems will have differential effects depending on who you are and where you are in the system. I mean, especially if you're a tech, let's say you're a radiology technician, your job is getting much harder. You've just got way more systems that you have to manage. It's kind of getting more interesting in a way as well.
00:16:00
Speaker
Because there's more that you can do, there's more that you do do. But yeah, it's becoming more complicated. The training is going to need to be more intense. And in general, that's the case in medicine, right? The people on the front lines who don't get paid nearly as much as doctors are increasingly having to do more and being expected to do more.
00:16:23
Speaker
And I think there's a fundamental unfairness there that I hope gets rectified, but I will not make the prediction that it does this year, for sure not, but hopefully at some point. But for the actual, like for example, in the example of the CT angiography algorithm that I mentioned, that definitely makes the surgeon's life better, no doubt, and more profitable.
00:16:52
Speaker
because they are able to identify more of these large vessel occlusion strokes which they can operate on. That's the key point of this whole thing is that these are strokes that with a very intense procedure you can remove these clots from the brain using a catheter that you stick up
00:17:17
Speaker
through a significant proportion of the whole body. But anyway, it's crazy. It's an amazing person. Well, that definitely sounds like something that would be sort of an unambiguous good, I guess. Yeah. I mean, so you can do more of those surgeries and then more of those people live and they have, not only do they live, but they have more
00:17:35
Speaker
useful life and flourishing life ahead of them potentially than they otherwise would because there's less of their brain is dying. So yeah, I mean, that one is kind of like an unqualified good, I think. Well, I guess it depends. Presumably, it's getting rid of some of the drudgery of work, right? Like, I don't know how much radiologists enjoy looking at scans. Yeah, I mean, unfortunately, they still have to review all those scans.
00:18:03
Speaker
They still have to do that. It's just that this sort of introduces a way of, it's a kind of triage. It's a kind of way of putting certain things to the front of the line. I mean, still at the end of the day, for a while, it's going to be the case that every single scan needs to be read thoroughly by radiologists. Like there's just no, but it's just the timing of that and the intensity of like the timeliness of it is a little bit alleviated. If you can get an algorithm to sort of bump certain scans to the top,
00:18:33
Speaker
Cool. Well, that sounds like a very promising and happy and optimistic prediction. Yeah, I think so. I think that's going to be a good one.
00:18:44
Speaker
Cool. Okay. I'll move on to my prediction number three. Number three. And I have decided to go back a little bit. I'm going to do some retro predictions because, you know, when I thought about predictions for 2021, I thought, okay, what happened in 2020? Okay. First of all, I'm not really sure, but there were two things that happened. Donald Trump and Coronavirus. Right. So I don't want to make further predictions about those. Um, so I'm going to go back to like, uh, future style predictions. I'm going to say.
00:19:12
Speaker
that this is the year 2021 is the year that Elon Musk finally invents a practical jetpack for all. We had a big debate about jetpacks and drones and flying cars on our 2020s. And this brings up the question, what do you mean exactly by this statement? Be the very specific
00:19:40
Speaker
um what like just unpack it like what is this all right it's gonna be a jetpack that doesn't look like a jetpack that we thought it would first of all that's the only thing i know it has some sort of revolutionary new blade or something in it that that it's like a new blade made by dyson or something that um
00:20:01
Speaker
That gives it, you know, a hundred. Some engine. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. It's essentially a reverse. Um, so very strong leaf blower. Yeah. It's like a very strong leaf blower. So it's not, so it's not burning rocket fuel or any of that bad stuff. It's just got, you know,
00:20:21
Speaker
Let's see. What's the range? I don't know. The first, it's like, it'd be like a segue, I guess you could, you know, you could go successful. Those were the first ones, like the first jet packs are going to be just fun. Like you can go like 50 yards or something in them. Hmm. Yes. And then I see no talking about this as though this is real. Yeah. Sounds reasonable. Um, yeah. So something that looks kind of like a drone or something.
00:20:51
Speaker
Mm hmm. Yep. So I'm envisioning when you say it'll be called it. It'll be called a jet pack. Whatever it whatever. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. What I'm envisioning when you say that is Inspector Gadget. Uh huh. Where he has that little helicopter thing come out of his hat. Yep. Yeah. Yeah. Something like that. So not exactly like Boba Fett style. Yeah. I mean, for me, it's not a jet pack of it's not like Boba Fett style.
00:21:16
Speaker
Well, that's got to be Mandalorian style. Right. It can't. Was it the Phoenix, the order of the Phoenix or something like that? The order of the Phoenix. Have you watched the Mandalorian? I'm about halfway through. Yeah. Maybe we haven't seen that part yet. But anyway, they get more into the jet pack thing. Well, maybe, I mean, the Mandalorian could be a catalyst for this sort of thing. I mean, it could be fired up about it now. I mean, just talking about it, honestly, with you right now is going to be fired up for it.
00:21:44
Speaker
Well, that's always the case whenever you talk about jet packs, it just, it gets people pumped up. It's a, it's a winner. It's a winner. So in that, in that sense, my prediction is just a shameless, um, just a shameless, uh, way to get more listeners. That's right. Okay. So that's my, that's my number three is going to be a new practical kind of jet pack.
00:22:08
Speaker
All right. We'll, we'll, we'll check back in and, uh, December 31st. We don't have to necessarily do fact checking on these. Well, yeah. Like I was going to say, I'll, I'll, I'll jet pack over to you, but I don't think we're not talking about that type of range right now. Yeah. Not that sort of range yet. No.
00:22:29
Speaker
OK, well, this could be like the last mile range. It could be that, you know, the right. You could have delivery like Amazon could be delivering by jet pack rather than by those vans that are everywhere. Well, this is a good thing where if like, let's say you're in traffic and you're self-driving car and we've not heard a lot about self-driving cars in 2020, have we? No, but there will be a lot in 2021. I didn't make a specific prediction because of the
00:22:58
Speaker
you know, the 10 year problem. And we, we talked a lot about this in our 2020s thing, but like there, 2021 is going to be a big year for self-driving cars. You know, I just, it has been quiet in 2020. You're right. But people aren't driving a lot of driving. They're going anywhere. So it's not a topic. Yeah, exactly. People aren't going anywhere. So it's not a topic right now. Nobody's buying new cars and yeah.
00:23:23
Speaker
But I mean, for example, in the 2020s episode, we talked that the first jetpack drone self-flying situations will happen in Las Vegas. Yes. And I noticed that Lyft on their website, when you go to their self-driving ride page, has a big picture of Las Vegas on it and a self-driving car
00:23:51
Speaker
Are they functioning in Las Vegas now? They are. Do they do that? Do that. So if you want to, if you want to get a self-driving lift, you can go, there's a few different places where they're, they're happening. Vegas is one of them. It's perfect, right? It's like everyone's drunk. No one should be driving. Yeah. No one should be driving. That makes perfect sense. It's a theme park kind of thing, right? Yeah, it is. It's like a ride. It's like a theme park ride. So it's the perfect place for that to start. And I think in Vegas, that's a prediction, like.
00:24:19
Speaker
Oh, the significant proportion of, uh, well, first of all, Vegas is we've, you know, it's going to be big in late 2021. Yeah. Right. People are going to Vegas. That is a thing that is going to happen. Um, flights to Vegas are going to be expensive in like October, November. And then when you get there, you're going to be able to take a self-driving lift and people are going to want to do that because it's cool.
00:24:43
Speaker
So my prediction number four has to do with some of these, it relates to some of these things we're talking about here, which is that work from home is here to stay, but there will be a lot of conflict and discussion and just, yeah, it's going to be a topic for people to sort of work out with their workplaces in 2021. Okay. So,
00:25:07
Speaker
What does that mean? It's here to stay too though, because most people are going to be like, okay. Whatever percentage of people like you and me that are now working at home and we're formerly working at an office and we're likely to return to some office would make the decision to just stay at home. I'm going to, I'm going to put it this way. People are going to be doing that.
00:25:33
Speaker
Good question. Yeah, exactly. I'm going to say this. Let's put it in quantitative terms. And I'm just making this up right now. But I'm going to say, you know, just one out of one day out of five. So there will be 20 percent more people on a day to day basis on any given day, 20 percent more people working from home in 2020 and late 2021. Let's say. Say October, October, 2021, which I think, you know, things will be a pandemic way under control.
00:26:04
Speaker
And it's not holiday season. So October, 2021, there'll be 20% more people working from home than there were in 2019, October. Under the assumption that they're not working from home because of the virus. That's right. That's right. Now, if the virus is still there and we missed our other predictions, then, you know, all bets are off because it's not a fair comparison. But, um, I think that 20% more, uh, and it relates, you know, in, in, in a weird way to something that.
00:26:34
Speaker
I've been noticing, and it's not really a prediction, but it's I think more of like just a topic of conversation for us, which is how traffic patterns and transport in general are changing. Because, you know, you would think that with all that's going on with, you know, people not going anywhere and all the self-driving cars and everything, that traffic should be getting, and people staying working from home more, in general, traffic should be getting better.
00:27:03
Speaker
But I believe it's the case that actually traffic is gonna continue to get bad because of a couple things that are sort of like related but kind of contradictory patterns. Like one is that what you just mentioned about Amazon. There's so many Amazon vans on the road. And there's so much just stuff being shipped
Online vs In-Person Education Challenges
00:27:31
Speaker
goods and consumer goods being shipped on the road, where people used to go to a central location to get it, I think it's gonna continue to have a negative impact on traffic. And then you've also got all these lifts and Ubers roaming around, and now they're gonna be like, you don't even need a driver, so they're gonna be everywhere. And there's gonna be this awkward period where there's gonna be so many cars,
00:28:00
Speaker
A lot of them without even drivers, you're not even paying anybody to be in there. So many vehicles on the road and the systems of coordination are not yet instituted. That's gonna be just a fucking mess. So it's chaos for a while until people figure out how you coordinate between cars and sort of get it made more efficient instead of just bumbling around. That's right.
00:28:31
Speaker
in a lot of different companies having their own systems and proprietary technology and all that stuff. Exactly, exactly. So I think that that will actually put further pressure on the workroom home thing.
00:28:46
Speaker
Well, I like the specific 20%. I mean, that seems like a... Yeah, so we got a couple of specifics in there. But yeah, we'll see. We'll see. See how it goes. Could be everybody wants to go back to the office. Maybe they're just excited. Maybe like everyone's just like stoked to be in the office. Who knows?
00:29:03
Speaker
I don't know. That's a great question. I am kind of stoked to be in person. I want to be teaching in person because I have to say, you know, there's plenty of good qualities of Zoom, but it just is no substitute for teaching in person. And I don't think it's ever going to be something that I would choose to do again.
00:29:23
Speaker
I mean, it's different for different professions. I can imagine if you're in banking or something or professions where personal contact isn't sort of the primary point of it, I can imagine people. So I'm sure it would vary by sector.
00:29:39
Speaker
And you know, another thing that might affect it a lot too is personality types. I mean, this is an opportunity for people who are maybe more introspective, a little more introverted, to have the option of working at home if they want to. If they find they're loving it at home, then some people might stay. If they're miserable at home, like I know a lot of people are, then they want to get back. Or maybe there's some, like you say, one day a week or two days a week where you find a compromise.
00:30:10
Speaker
Right, yeah, no, exactly, exactly. Yeah, it'll be interesting to see how it plays out. I mean, your point about the in-person teaching thing is so important. I mean, it's interesting because there is such a trend towards online learning.
00:30:30
Speaker
There's a lot of good stuff about online learning. The one thing about online learning is real online universities and schools like that, the dropout rate is just terrible and the completion rate is awful. So when your interactions are impoverished like that, even if it's convenient, it's just not something that's kind of present enough so that you follow through with it.
00:30:57
Speaker
Right. Exactly. I mean, those relationships are so important. They really are. They're more than people think. Yeah. Right. No, it is. The role of relationships and just supporting learning is critical. Yeah. If college were just about learning what is in a textbook, then it really wouldn't require an institution to do it.
00:31:19
Speaker
No, and I think that, yeah, I think that says something kind of deep about what education is really about, especially higher education. But, you know, in general education at all levels, I mean, the stuff that online learning is great for is like, for example, if you want to learn a new software development language, let's say you're a programmer and you're, you know, really good at MATLAB and you want to learn Python.
00:31:46
Speaker
Yeah, go into a class. I don't know. Is it really worth it? If you're motivated, if you're super motivated to do it, and you have a particular targeted goal, you know, in advance what you want to do. And it's also something straightforward to learn, like something in mathematics or computer science, I think, you know, like Khan Academy or something is great for that. Yeah, exactly. But if you want to understand, like I say, if you want to stand, for example, I mean, psychology is a great example, like,
00:32:17
Speaker
So much of psychology is really about how you think about stuff, because there is not, there are some things that are highly quantified, like the vision stuff that, you know, I've had some experience with, you know, like understanding luminance and chromaticity and things like that are, you know, it's pretty quantitative stuff. And you can kind of nail it down to
00:32:38
Speaker
to pretty specific details. And there's not a lot of debate or discussion, but so much of psychology that is really about like how you think about these problems.
00:32:48
Speaker
Yeah, that's right. And I think, well, in particularly, there's a big difference between how beginners and experts or people who have been doing it for a while think about problems. It's just a fundamentally different process. So, you know, as a student, you have to be exposed to that and and sort of understand that it's not about just single isolated facts. But like you say, yeah, a different style of thinking that that, you know, apprehends these new facts in a different way.
00:33:15
Speaker
And it's there to sort of guide you as you're going along and learning this stuff. Right. Absolutely. No.
Social Media Algorithms: Regulation and Ethics
00:33:22
Speaker
And I mean, certainly for for my son, I really hoping that in-person teaching is happening this year because he really he would benefit a lot. I think all those students he's nine. I mean, students of that age.
00:33:37
Speaker
really would benefit a lot from being, being around other students, being around other kids too, right? I mean, the teacher is one piece, but like being just around other students is like more important. It's hugely important. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But we're, but we're digressing here. Where are we for predictions? A little bit. All right. So that was number four of mine. What's your, what's your number four? Okay. So my number four is, uh,
00:34:01
Speaker
is also an old school future prediction. I predict that there are going to be announcements in 2020 that there is going to be a planned mastodon park opening. OK, that's my announcement. It's like a like real mastodons that are like alive, like real mastodons that have been brought back to life. Yeah, I'm not going to say Jurassic Park because I think that's a little too ambitious. But, you know, we could we could bring back a mastodon.
00:34:29
Speaker
Not the biodiversity of a full Jurassic era style park, but just the mastodons. I think people would come just for the mastodons. I'm here for the mastodons. I think that's your big moneymaker in bringing back extinct animals.
00:34:48
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. What do you, what do you like about the mastodon over the, like, say like, um, brachiosaurus or. Well, I mean, I think it'd be, I don't think you could do a dinosaur. I think that would be too hard because I don't think you have. Well, I don't have enough DNA. What do I know? I don't know if this is feasible or not. It seems like, it seems like, um, you can get more complete fragments of mastodon DNA and this is just a prediction. This is a vague prediction. I don't know the details. It's a pretty specific prediction. I mean,
00:35:17
Speaker
The science behind it is a little, it's not our area of expertise. But I like it. I'm here for the mastodons. But I'm excited. Nevertheless, I'm excited about it. I am too. I'm excited for it. And I think with mastodons, you're not going to have the sort of widespread terror of, you know, velociraptors breaking out of the park. Right. They're slow moving. They're clearly easily killable by people.
00:35:46
Speaker
Well, clearly considering people, we've extinguished them completely so efficiently and long in the past. Yeah. So that would, yeah, we did. We owe it to the mastodons to bring them back. But would they be sad? Cause it's so hot.
00:36:06
Speaker
Well, um, maybe, maybe, you know, it has to be cold. Yeah, it has to be cold. I think that could be a destination worth going to. You could get people to pay for a big, for a big trip to go see a mastodon. Absolutely. Absolutely. No, I mean, I'd go, I'd go to Sweden to see a mastodon. Yeah. Yeah. Why not?
00:36:30
Speaker
So we'll wait for that. I'm not talking about it happening. I'm just saying we hear an announcement that there are plans to do. Yeah, there's going to be an announcement. Okay. And your final prediction, Joe.
00:36:42
Speaker
Okay. So my final prediction is not really a prediction at all. Unfortunately, apologize for that. Uh, but I, you know, I was just reflecting on the predictions for this year and our 2020s decade predictions. I'm just going to reiterate this point, which I just really struck me as, but thinking about innovations and the intersection of cognitive science and technology and, and, you know, futurism, the future of our world and,
00:37:12
Speaker
just reflecting on the fact that I can, well, let's put it in terms of a prediction. I will continue to predict that people will have a hard time working together and that's going to cause problems. I mean, so many of our technologies are not working in the way that we want them to because people can't
00:37:36
Speaker
get it together to agree, to work together, to just bring things about in a smart way that will make everybody's life better. And if we just need to get better at that, we need to be better. And I'm predicting that it's not going to be a great year for that 2021. But I think more people will start to realize that it's in specific ways that it's important.
00:38:00
Speaker
I'm thinking again about, you know, we were talking about the self-driving cars and just the need for standards and practices around how those cars interact so that we can all get to work faster. That our goods and services can arrive to our houses faster and we, you know, fewer people die. So what are the standards and practices that we need in dialogue?
00:38:25
Speaker
Yeah, good question. Good question. So, I mean, online is a big topic for online stuff, isn't it? I mean, you know, we saw what happened with Parler. They stopped being in the Apple app store.
00:38:42
Speaker
Yeah, App Store shut it down. Google Store shut it down. Amazon and Google services both cut them off. So I don't know. I actually, coincidentally, just downloaded Parler two days ago for the first time just to check it out, see what people were talking about. And so I saw my phone. I could check to see if it's still working or not. But anyway, the point is there that we need to have a framework for
00:39:11
Speaker
our online conversations because so many of our conversations now are online. And there's a lot of it is driven by engagement algorithms that are merely set up to increase the profitability of the companies that want to sell ads to you. And so they're just driving more and more and more engagement with no thought to like what the value of that engagement is.
00:39:38
Speaker
And I guess it would be great to have some standards and practices and understandings around what we want those spaces to look like and how we can make them look like that. And I think cognitive science has a big role to play in that. Boy, what a mess. What a mess. That's the big problem, isn't it? It is. It is. I think more people need to be more energy and attention like grant funding and just energy of smart people thinking about that kind of stuff.
00:40:07
Speaker
how do we solve some of those problems? It was not that long ago when I started working in the tech industry in the mid 2000s that we were thinking of these algorithms, the ability to have an algorithm that can tell you whether somebody is going to take a specific action
00:40:28
Speaker
on a website or in an app as being like an unqualified good, like just would help us provide better services, better technologies to people because it's what they want. Just give people what they want faster. Turns out, guess what? That is dumb. Yeah, just dumb. What's your number five? Well, I'm still thinking about how dumb that is. Yeah.
00:40:59
Speaker
Yeah, it is. It is. It's, it's, it's just naive, right? It's what it is. It's, it's, it's kind of wild when you think about it that like our smartest mind, some of our smartest minds, like at least in like a book smarts way are spending their energy and attention hacking your consciousness to drive more ads into your brain.
00:41:22
Speaker
That's right. It's become, it's become a serious science to be able to hack somebody's attention and, and alter their beliefs. Yep. Yeah. And for no reason other than just, you know, the game, you know, specific commercial and I know it's not political, political gain. All right. So my number five is, is, um,
00:41:47
Speaker
Probably a little less practical, but I think nevertheless inevitable. My number five is that Amazon is going to buy Kansas. They're going to build a system of Hyperloops across the country and make distribution perfectly efficient.
00:42:06
Speaker
So you're just going to have like a pneumatic tube in your house. You're like, Amazon, I want a new towel. Well, you know, that's the end. That's maybe the end goal. Yeah. I was just thinking hyper tubes to go from. So you just find the geographical center of the country because that's most efficient and send things to and from it. Just think hyper loops, you know, get big ones for big shipments. You could have like, you know, two hour from Kansas to New York shipping.
00:42:37
Speaker
Yeah, again, everybody thought Elon Musk was crazy when he started the boring company and started digging all these holes. You're like, no, no, it's not. It's kind of not that crazy. I mean, yeah, this is the new, this is the new rush for trains. I think there'll be hyper loops everywhere, guaranteed. But in 2021, I mean, that's a lot of digging.
00:43:00
Speaker
All right. Well, I'll scale back and I'll say there's going to be an announcement that Amazon is planning to buy some land somewhere in Kansas. Okay. Like a big part. Let's make it a bold prediction. It's at least a hundred thousand acres. It's like a big plot. Like a big, like a giant door space and then build hyper loops everywhere. I like it. I like it. They're definitely doing that.
00:43:24
Speaker
Yep. Just for, I mean, it'll be just an initial $1 trillion investment and then it'll pay off over the years. That's right. Well, they have all the money. I think that's another prediction by the end of the year. All of the money will be in the hands of nobody else will have any money. Elon Musk, uh, you know, and like three or four other tech giants.
00:43:50
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Well, those are my predictions. Do you want to do a quick review of your predictions? Sure. Yeah. I guess so. Number one was the pandemic will be squashed. This will have consequences for our brains and the way that we interact with people. Cognitive science takes over, just really becomes super prominent and acknowledged to be super important in a way that we haven't seen before. There'll be at least three new algorithms.
00:44:19
Speaker
that get reimbursed directly for reading scans and radiology. So I'll have big impacts in the way that stuff is done in medicine. Work from home is here to stay, but it will not be so straightforward. There'll be some topics. And we will continue to have struggles working together and coordinating our innovation efforts.
00:44:44
Speaker
All right. My five are, number one, coronavirus will be eliminated by the time it's nice outside. Number two, we're going to see an advancement in new crowded parties. Number three, jet pack. We'll see a jet pack of some form. Number four, Mastodon Park.
00:45:10
Speaker
And number five, Amazon buys Kansas and builds Hyperloops. All right. So we've got some, some more serious ones in here with some more crazy speculative ones. Um, nevertheless, all of these are going to come true. I like it. I like it. I like it. Yeah. I, uh, I think it's good, man. I think we're going to, I think we're, I think our predictions are perfect.
00:45:36
Speaker
Well, are you looking forward to 2021? Or are you of the mindset that it just couldn't be worse? We fit bottom. I don't know. I mean, yeah, I am looking forward to the future for sure in a way that I haven't in a while. I do feel like it could be a rough few months here.
00:45:57
Speaker
I mean, the pandemic is currently at its worst phase to date and it could get worse still before it gets better. Probably will actually get worse before it gets better. We're like 4,000 people a day dying right now. Yeah. I saw that. Yeah. Could that be 5,000, 6,000, 7,000 when the, when the Christmas numbers come back, which is like in like another two, three weeks, but then it, yeah, then it's going to get much, much better when hopefully like the worst case scenario.
00:46:28
Speaker
is that there's a mutation and the, uh, the vaccine doesn't work on it. Don't work anymore. Yeah. So we need to get it. We need to get this thing squash before that happens. Cause that will eventually happen. Right. But it's allowed to, to go out there long enough. So yeah, we need to deal with that. Well, I am optimistic about 2021. Yeah. Me too. Me too.
00:46:53
Speaker
Thanks for listening to us again. And if you need to reach us, please contact us on Facebook or Twitter where, Joe, what's our Twitter handle? Our Twitter handle is at nation cog.
00:47:10
Speaker
Or you could just look up CogNation on Twitter. My Twitter handle is jlhardyphd, so at jlhardyphd. I always like to get those mentions. If you have anything to say, you wanna be on the show, you wanna talk about something, you want us to talk about something, let us know. There's also email, which is cognationpodcast, all one word, at gmail.com.
00:47:39
Speaker
All right, thanks for listening.