Difference between revisions of "CHI 2016 Plenary: Alan Kay in conversation with Vishal Sikka"

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<subtitle id="0:0:6">- Good morning.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:0:9">- I am Jofish Kaye</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:0:12">on this 4th morning of CHI.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:0:15">- So, we are here again  to celebrate #CHI4Good</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:0:18"></subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:0:24">with two amazing people in conversation.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:0:27">You're gonna start the intro?</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:0:30">- (laughs) Just a little bit. (laughs)</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:0:33">(Allison laughs)</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:0:36">We swapped it today because the  people that we've got coming</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:0:39">have a particularly special  relationship to CHI,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:0:42">and Allison's gonna tell you about that,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:0:45">particularly how Alan was shaped by you</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:0:48">I believe, is the main story, right?</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:0:51">- Yeah, and I was sort of a bit  of a lump of clay, yes, yes.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:0:54">- Yes.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:0:57">The theme, as you know, is #CHI4Good,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:1:0">about these people is the contribution</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:1:3">that they have made both  to CHI and HCI in general,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:1:6">but to society as well.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:1:9">we've brought people  who had reflected that</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:1:12">in all sorts of different ways.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:1:15">- Yes.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:1:18">have truly changed the face of computing.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:1:21"></subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:1:24">Vishal has done this  in industry primarily,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:1:27">and actually when I was  talking with them backstage,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:1:30">I said, "So, Vishal, how  should I be introducing you?"</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:1:33">And actually Alan said,  "Well, just introduce him</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:1:36">"as one of the best CEOs in  all of the United States,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:1:39">"and maybe all of the world."</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:1:42">- It was the best CEO in the Fortune 500.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:1:45">- [Jofish] The direct quote.  - The best.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:1:48">He is the CEO of Infosys.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:1:51">He has had leadership roles at SAP.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:1:54">He himself has his own research  in artificial intelligence,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:1:57"></subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:2:0">brought the notion of timeless,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:2:3">what is it?</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:2:6">Yes, I have it in here.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:2:9">It was, okay, I'm sorry.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:2:12">I'm looking at it, but I'm not finding it.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:2:15">But anyway, so all said,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:2:18">Vishal is a doer, a  thinker, and a changer,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:2:24">and what is amazing about him</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:2:27">is not just the companies he's worked for,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:2:30">but how many nonprofit  organizations he has actually,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:2:33">his companies have spun out.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:2:36">about those nonprofit organizations</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:2:39">when Vishal and Alan join us.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:2:42">As for Alan Kay, it is very hard</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:2:45">to give any introduction to Alan.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:2:48">It is very hard to say,  "Well, his biography is</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:2:51">"he worked here, he worked here."</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:2:54">He is the grand thinker  of what we think about</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:2:57">in terms of mobile computing.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:3:0">He makes people think.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:3:3">Back in the days of Xerox PARC</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:3:6">when people were just trying to struggle</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:3:9">he helped to lead people</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:3:12">out into a visual, interactive space.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:3:15">He has advised many Fortune 500 companies,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:3:21">been a part of Apple, of Disney,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:3:24">of many other organizations.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:3:27">He's now at his own  nonprofit organization,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:3:30">Viewpoints Research.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:3:33">But, to me, I had the honor of having him</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:3:36">as my thesis advisor when  I was at the MIT media lab.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:3:39">And Alan asked me the most  important question of my career,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:3:42"></subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:3:45">and I continue to tell  people this, which is,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:3:48">"If you could design any  new technology for children,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:3:51"></subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:3:54">And my problem is I have  not answered that question</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:3:57">in my 20 plus years of working on this.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:4:0">Every time I have ever gotten a chance</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:4:3">Alan has a been a part of it in some way.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:4:6">And, you know, yesterday we didn't even</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:4:9">expect Alan to be here,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:4:12">and he spent three plus hours  with our student volunteers</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:4:15">just sitting there talking,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:4:18">That says a lot about who he is.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:4:21">It says a lot about who and Vishal are</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:4:24">about giving to all of us for the future.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:4:27">And with that, let us join us to the stage</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:4:30">Alan Kay and Vishal Sikka.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:4:33">(audience applauds)</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:4:51">- Hi.  - [Alan] Hiya.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:4:54">- I think you're there.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:4:57">One reminder, we're  gonna be asking questions</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:5:0">using slido.com again.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:5:3">Go to slido.com, put  in the hashtag CHI2016.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:5:6">We're not gonna have any  pieces of paper passed around.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:5:9">So no more pieces of paper.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:5:12">if you want to see what  questions other people are asking</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:5:15">please go to slido.com,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:5:18">enter the hashtag CHI2016.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:5:21">vote them up, and ask your own.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:5:24">because Alan and Vishal insisted on this,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:5:27"></subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:5:30">and that we start with  a question for them.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:5:33">than the last two conversations we've had,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:5:36">and this is not because  I need to be onstage</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:5:39">with these two amazing gentlemen,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:5:42">and I've, you know, I  love hanging out with him.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:5:45">- Okay, so when we talking about</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:5:48">what questions they might ask each other,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:5:51">I threw out a few questions</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:5:54">and then, of course, Alan and Vishal say,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:5:57">"Well, wait a second. Why  don't you ask questions?"</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:6:0">And so I said, "Oh no,  don't do that to me."</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:6:3">so we're throwing the first question here.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:6:6">Alan and Vishal, you both have had visions</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:6:9">of what is possible for  computing in the future.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:6:12">for example, the Dynabook,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:6:18">operating systems, and so on.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:6:21">If you both could design the future,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:6:24">what's just on the horizon  that we should be seeing?</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:6:27"></subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:6:30">And what's down the road a  bit that we shouldn't miss?</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:6:33">- Well, let's get Vishal  to start with the answer</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:6:36">because he is the CEO  of a very large company</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:6:39">with a couple of hundred  thousand employees,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:6:42">and is in the process of  changing a culture there</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:6:45"></subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:6:48">that is already deep into learning,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:6:51">but to change it for the future.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:6:54">- Well, first of all, I looked everywhere.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:6:57">we were thinking that  everybody who woke up so early</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:7:0">to come and see us</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:7:3">(laughing)</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:7:6">I hope all of you guys are awake.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:7:9">- Yeah, we should,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:7:12">they wanted to ask Marvin Minsky</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:7:15">if he'd teach a course at  11 o'clock in the morning,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:7:18">(laughing)</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:7:24">just to come here.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:7:27">- No, I'm sorry, if you look  at a company like Infosys,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:7:30">we have 200,000 employees</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:7:33">that work on close to 10,000 projects,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:7:36">and yet you find, not only in my company,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:7:39">but in all companies like this,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:7:42">a severe lack of basic  things like collaboration,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:7:45">the ability to work with  others, and so forth.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:7:48"></subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:7:51">called Zero Distance</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:7:54">to get people to see what others have done</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:7:57">that could be learned from.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:8:0">And as you do that, you  realize that basic interfaces</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:8:3">for helping a team find out  what other teams have done</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:8:6">and bring that into their own work,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:8:9">or decontextualize the  work that others have done</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:8:12">and they could relate themselves to it,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:8:15">are not there.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:8:18">And yet, we know that when we collaborate,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:8:21">a team that works together is,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:8:24">can be exponentially more  powerful than any individual,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:8:27">no matter how smart the individual is.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:8:30">So one of the things that I  think is around the corner</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:8:33">is the ability to, better  ability to collaborate,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:8:36">better abilities to learn.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:8:39">Of course, I'm an optimist.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:8:42">We haven't seen much happen yet.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:8:45">But I think better  abilities to help us improve</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:8:51">to help us make discoveries,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:8:54">that maybe are related  to what we are doing.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:8:57"></subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:9:0">Alan has just started working  on a great, new adventure</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:9:3">around rethinking some of  these basic ideas on learning.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:9:6">that I would see around the corner.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:9:9">- So that's a good lead-in</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:9:12">to just bringing up the  name of Doug Engelbart.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:9:18">I spent three hours or more yesterday</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:9:21">talking to student volunteers,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:9:24">and I found that everybody  had heard of Engelbart</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:9:27">and that he had something  to do with the mouse.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:9:30">But...</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:9:33">could tell me anything else about him.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:9:36">None of them had typed</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:9:39">E-N-G-E-L-B-A-R-T into Google.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:9:42">This is incredible to me</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:9:45">because we put a lot of  effort in 40 years ago</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:9:48">making it so you're only a  couple of button clicks away</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:9:51">from finding out about things  that you should be curious in</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:9:54">Yet, nobody had taken the  trouble to even do that,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:9:57"></subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:10:0">if you do it right now,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:10:3">you'll find a Wikipedia article  about what he actually did.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:10:6">You'll find the website of the Bootstrap.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:10:9"></subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:10:12">You'll find the 75 papers he wrote,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:10:15">most of them about exactly the  issue that Vishal brought up.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:10:18">You can see what they were doing</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:10:21">for collaboration back in 1968,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:10:24">which is close to 50 years ago now</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:10:30">hen that big demo happened.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:10:33">actually obtains today.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:10:36">And this, to me, is what's wrong with,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:10:39"></subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:10:42">because if you measure  things about bad interfaces,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:10:45"></subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:10:48">Right?</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:10:51">You have to have some vision</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:10:54">that you're trying to approach there.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:10:57">so, to me, what hasn't  happened over the last 35 years</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:11:0"></subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:11:3">is concerted efforts in  getting to the real problems</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:11:6">of interacting with computers.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:11:9">And some of these were  tackled very well by...</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:11:15">some of our founders of  our field in the past,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:11:18">like Engelbart.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:11:21">Some of them were merely articulated</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:11:24">like shouldn't the user  interface be able to be proactive</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:11:27"></subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:11:30">as well as being reactive in  helping you to move around it.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:11:33"></subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:11:36">So the fundamental issues to me,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:11:39">I don't see generally in computing,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:11:42">and I don't see them in the  human user-interface community.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:11:45"></subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:11:48">So I think the good news is</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:11:51">there's a lot of really  good stuff that can be done</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:11:54">if you can find a way of getting away</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:12:0">and worrying about peer reviewers,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:12:3">And this is why talking to a visionary</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:12:6"></subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:12:9">from industry like Vishal is critical,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:12:12">because he doesn't want  incremental improvements</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:12:15">on the way his business or  any business is running now</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:12:18">any more than Engelbart did.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:12:21">He wants to solve some of the  big problems of the world,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:12:24">and this is why, in part, why Infosys</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:12:27">has put up so many public  benefit foundations</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:12:30">You should mention the  one in this country.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:12:33"></subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:12:36">I mean, one of Engelbart's ideas,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:12:39">great big ideas that Alan  told me about many years ago,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:12:42"></subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:12:45">was this idea of how  organizations can improve.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:12:48">And this is something that is  common, as far as I can tell,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:12:51">that there are these A, B, and C tasks,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:12:54">and the task As are the ones  that we are usually focused on,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:12:57">which are the things  that we are working on.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:13:0">And we usually also have B tasks</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:13:3">and which are the tasks that  help us get the A tasks done</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:13:6">But what Engelbart said  that was very profound</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:13:9">was that in great organizations,  just as in great organisms,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:13:12"></subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:13:15">there are these C tasks  which are the tasks</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:13:18">that help us constantly  improve the B tasks</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:13:21">and help us find the new A tasks.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:13:24">And usually most companies  don't have the C task.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:13:27">I mean, the Xerox PARC was  an example of a C task and...</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:13:30">it is a very basic thing  that companies don't have.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:13:33"></subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:13:36">what kind of C tasks there would be,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:13:39">foundations, research organizations</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:13:42">which think about the blue plan stuff,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:13:45">the long-term kind of things,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:13:48">in an unencumbered way,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:13:51">Spending 1% or 2% of your profits</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:13:54">on something that might end  up improving the whole lot</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:13:57">is something extremely  in shareholder interest,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:14:0">and we don't think of this  type of thing over the day.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:14:3"></subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:14:6">Even recently, I won't say how recent,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:14:9">that have been around for 20, 30 years</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:14:12">and how little they have improved,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:14:15">and it is because we  constantly keep searching</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:14:18">And if you had thought</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:14:21">and there are many  word-processing spreadsheets</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:14:24"></subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:14:27">and if we had thought about the fact</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:14:30">wo or three decades into the future,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:14:33">we might look more seriously</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:14:36">- Yeah, and just to add  on another Doug Engelbart,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:14:39">I keep on bringing up Engelbart here</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:14:42">because it's not that  he was the only person</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:14:48">but it's particularly relevant, I think,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:14:51">to thinking about problems  of human interface.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:14:54">And one of the things to think about</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:14:57">was that collaboration in their system</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:15:0">was at what we would call the  operating system level today.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:15:3"></subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:15:6">It wasn't something that might  be stuck in a half-assed way</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:15:9">in Google Docs or something,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:15:12">but something that was  fundamental to the fact</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:15:15">hat you're on the computer at all,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:15:18">that every single thing  that was done of any kind</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:15:21">like we expect to be connected  to the internet itself.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:15:24"></subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:15:27">So this is something  to really think about.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:15:30">if fundamental principles  of collaboration.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:15:36">Another interesting one is...</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:15:39">the power of different  perspectives on things</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:15:42"></subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:15:45">up to the point of war.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:15:48">So...</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:15:51">one of the drivers of the whole universe</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:15:54">is the fact that elementary particles</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:15:57">are partly sticky and partly standoffish</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:16:0">at different scales,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:16:3">and this generates most  of the macro phenomena</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:16:6">And if you try and use that  as an analogy in human beings,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:16:9"></subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:16:12">you immediately see that human beings,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:16:15">and in fact most mammals,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:16:18">are partly cooperative  and partly competitive,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:16:21">and they're done at different scales.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:16:24">The competitive stuff is much less useful</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:16:27"></subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:16:33">The age of abundance came out, came apart,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:16:36">came to pass because of our ability</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:16:39">And this is another part  of what Engelbart said</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:16:42">in his original 1962 proposal to ARPA,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:16:48">and boy, if you haven't read that,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:16:51">you're really not in the  human interface field</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:16:54">who doesn't really want  to know what Newton did</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:16:57">or how he did it.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:17:0">So these great visionaries,  another one is Ivan Sutherland.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:17:3">- Yeah.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:17:6">their visions were bigger than we are.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:17:9">They're bigger than time,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:17:12">and they're things that are  not worth schluffing aside</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:17:15">just because they happen to be old.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:17:18">- I mean, this point, Alan,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:17:21">about knowing about the work of others,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:17:24">And yet, in our discipline,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:17:27">in the computer-human interface  discipline in computing,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:17:30">- Well, I don't think we have a field.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:17:33">- I think it's still  basically a pop culture</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:17:36">probing around their little  pockets of this and that,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:17:39">but it doesn't act like any field</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:17:45">that's taking its larger  mission seriously.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:17:48">- It's kind of a caricature.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:17:51">- Interesting.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:17:54">Okay, so I'm gonna move you  guys to the left a little bit,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:17:57">(clears throat)</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:18:0">that you all have been  working a lot with nonprofits,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:18:3">a lot with the foundations.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:18:6">For example, Vishal,  your nonprofit in India</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:18:12">ctually impacted all of India</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:18:15">because you set the example,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:18:18">and then they made some  kind of law because of you?</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:18:21">- The Infosys foundation has  been doing tremendous work</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:18:24">and just a general good for a long time.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:18:27">It was started by our  founder's wife, Mrs. Murty,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:18:30">and the 2% rule that we have now in India</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:18:33"></subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:18:36">was largely influenced  by, among other things,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:18:39">our foundation's work.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:18:42">And beyond this general foundation,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:18:45">we have the Infosys Science Foundation</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:18:48">and the rating for the ACM  Infosys Award comes from there.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:18:51"></subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:18:54">And, more recently, we  started the Infosys Foudation</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:18:57">And they have done some great work</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:19:0">in the last year and a half</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:19:3">on bringing computer science  education to everyone.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:19:6">We don't realize that kids  who are in school today</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:19:9">are going to come out of school  in the year 2032 or 2033,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:19:15">and when we look at our  future that far ahead,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:19:18">and chances are that computing</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:19:21">around us by then.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:19:24">Are we really teaching them</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:19:27">how to think nontraditionally in school?</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:19:30">And so this is one of the  things that they really focus on</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:19:33">- That is interesting.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:19:36">And I understand that just very recently</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:19:39">Alan may have inspired  yet another foundation</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:19:42">- Well...</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:19:45">all the credit should go to Sam Altman</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:19:48">- Y Combinator. He's  the CEO of Y Combinator.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:19:51">Truly remarkable.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:19:54">We call him a builder of civilizations.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:19:57">- And 30 years old.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:20:0">and he's just the greatest thing ever.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:20:3">- So what are you thinking of doing?</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:20:6">- Well, so he contacted me  a little over a year ago</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:20:12">because he had gotten curious</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:20:15">about the...</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:20:18">basically the qualitative level of output</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:20:24">from the big research funding of the 60's,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:20:27">of which Xerox PARC was a...</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:20:33">It was all one big community</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:20:36">because of the Cold War,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:20:39">but with all of the IP completely open</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:20:42">and in the public domain,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:20:45">and the combined gross world product</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:20:48">from the result of that fund.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:20:51">Well, just from Xerox PARC,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:20:54">the gross world product  from what Xerox PARC did</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:20:57">is about $35 trillion to date.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:21:0">And so this is an interesting  thing to think about,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:21:3">As Vishal was pointing, this is a C idea.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:21:6"></subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:21:9">If you do A and B well, you  get millions and billions.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:21:12">It's kind of businesses have  their sights set very low.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:21:18">but really good researchers want trillions</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:21:21">because it involves creating  an entire new industry,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:21:24"></subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:21:27">an entire new way of  doing things in world.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:21:30">And that's what this  government funding did,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:21:33">and so we started talking about it.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:21:36">You know, and I'm a refugee.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:21:39">I actually started graduate  school 50 years ago this year.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:21:42"></subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:21:48">that funding was only four  years old when I started.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:21:51">So they had done their  first round of stuff,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:21:54">and I was a second-generation  researcher in that,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:21:57">and I got to see how they did it</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:22:0">and how it was done and...</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:22:3">was very privileged to  help set up Xerox PARC</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:22:6">and participate in that.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:22:9">And Sam absorbed all of this stuff,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:22:12">and he came up with a  tremendous plan which was...</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:22:18">industry should somehow fund this</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:22:21">because the government just  checked out of doing this</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:22:24"></subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:22:27">But that's just the way it is.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:22:30">And so he started raising money.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:22:33">Vishal chipped in  considerable from his company.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:22:39">So they set up a nonprofit  called Y Combinator Research</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:22:42"></subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:22:45">which is a 501c3 company, open IP,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:22:48">and they've started creating  research communities.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:22:51">The first one was called OpenAI.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:22:54">The second one is called Basic Income,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:22:57"></subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:23:0">in many ways, one of the most interesting.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:23:3">It's an interesting idea  that keeps on coming back,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:23:6">And then just yesterday we  announced a rather large one</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:23:9"></subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:23:12">called the Human Advancement  Research Community</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:23:15">which is kind of an ARPA organization of,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:23:18">based in San Francisco,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:23:21">in Cambridge, Mass.,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:23:24">and soon in other places,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:23:27">to try to deal with  some of these problems.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:23:30">And we have some very, very good people</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:23:33">who are founding researchers of it,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:23:39">including Bret Victor,  Vi Hart, and others.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:23:42">So this bodes well for the future,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:23:45">that there are people with enough vision</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:23:48">outside of just the simple things</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:23:51">to see that there's actually a world</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:23:54">that is no farther away  than a telephone call</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:23:57">or an internet packet.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:24:0">And...</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:24:3">one of the most famous early thinkers</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:24:6">in the Greek civilization</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:24:9">was a guy by the name of Solon.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:24:12">And one of the questions  that he asked the Athenians</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:24:15">when they asked him to make laws for them,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:24:18">he said, "What should be the penalty</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:24:21">"for not being competent in a society?"</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:24:24">And he didn't mean just  mental incompetent,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:24:27">suppose you're hurt,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:24:30">suppose you can't do this,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:24:36">What is the penalty</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:24:39">for being in a civilization?</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:24:42">And the answer is the whole difference</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:24:45">and a dog-eat-dog competitive  climbing over other people,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:24:48"></subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:24:51">is to answer that question  in a reasonable way.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:24:54">So this is what the 60's  research was actually about.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:24:57">The technology you have  today came from people</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:25:0">who were pretty much  idealists just like I am.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:25:3">And what we're seeing here, I think,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:25:6">is the most exciting thing ever,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:25:9">who have access to considerable funds</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:25:15">grappling with this larger,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:25:18">smaller world</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:25:21">that we really have to deal with.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:25:24">- So these would be  like large communities?</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:25:27">So explain this a little bit.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:25:30">- It is the Human  Advancement Research Center.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:25:33">- Like PARC, it is HARC,  in case you missed that.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:25:36"></subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:25:39">And it is funded by Y Combinator,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:25:42">but also by us, by SAP,  by other companies.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:25:45">And it has a great bunch of researchers</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:25:48">headed by Alan himself, obviously,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:25:51">and Vi Hart, and Bret  Victor, and Alex Wild,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:25:54">and a bunch of very, very  smart thinkers and doers.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:25:57">And it's got organization,  completely open IP,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:26:3">- And so anything in the public  good you can think about?</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:26:6">- Yeah.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:26:9">They will work on,  obviously, on interfaces,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:26:12">on learning, on things  that move us forward.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:26:15">- I should mention that  one of the main propeties</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:26:18">of this 60's research,  and carry it into PARC,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:26:21"></subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:26:24">was basically the thinking,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:26:30">the conception of problems,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:26:33">the organization of doing  things was at the PI level,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:26:36">It wasn't top down.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:26:42">can really help things by having a vision.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:26:45">So Licklider, who set all this up,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:26:48">he said, "The destiny of computers</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:26:51"></subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:26:54">"are to become interactive,  intellectual amplifiers</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:26:57">"for all people on earth  pervasively networked worldwide."</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:27:0"></subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:27:3">That was his one sentence,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:27:6">This allowed him to hire  a lot of smart people</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:27:9">who had different slants,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:27:12">and this created a community  of about 17 places,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:27:15"></subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:27:18">another 1/4 of them at  government think tanks</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:27:21">like Rand, and BB and N, and MIDER.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:27:30">the energy,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:27:33">the different points  of view, the arguments,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:27:36">created a very rich picture</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:27:39">of what the future should be like.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:27:42">that we have in our  computing systems today,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:27:45">and of course including the internet,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:27:48">and the graphical user interface,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:27:51">they came out of this  whole community effort.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:27:54">That wasn't done by any  single research group.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:27:57">Even Xerox PARC, we  thought of ourselves there</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:28:0">as being less creative</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:28:3">by design,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:28:6">because our job, we thought,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:28:9">was to finish off this ARPA funding</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:28:12">and come up with a reasonable,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:28:15">practical solution</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:28:18">and interaction,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:28:21">and computing power,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:28:24">and the best we could do in that day.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:28:27"></subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:28:30">And so we were actually a  little bit more conservative</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:28:33">as far as thinking up new ideas.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:28:36">We just stayed with what  it was, and we tried to be,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:28:42">have a set of designs where  we actually built all of them.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:28:45">For instance, the first  thing that was like a Mac,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:28:48">we built 2,000 of them</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:28:51">and that was when  computers were hard to do.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:28:54">that I think is sort of relevant</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:28:57">o this topic we're sort  of talking about right now.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:29:0">Do you think that our focus on startups,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:29:3">particularly those that are VC-funded</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:29:6">as a culture right now...</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:29:9">- (laughs) I love user interfaces.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:29:12">- [Jofish] Inhibits solving  the big problems as a--</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:29:15"> You know, here's a great  line from Negroponte.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:29:18">Years ago he said,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:29:21">"An infrared urinal knows  more about what you're doing</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:29:24">- Absolutely.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:29:27">(laughing)</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:29:30">- All right, we're gonna start. (chuckles)</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:29:33">(laughing)</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:29:36">Do you think that our focus on startups,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:29:39">inhibits solving the big problems,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:29:42">as opposed to an  environment that's dominated</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:29:45">by government funding and research labs?</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:29:51">You know, the question is how...</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:29:54">how much have we been taught,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:29:57">and go along with that teaching,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:30:3">and how much have we been taught</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:30:6">o try and periodically step back</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:30:9">"There's more to world's than this."</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:30:12">And if you think about  it, the purpose of art</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:30:15">is to get us out of our seven  plus or minus two chunks</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:30:18">that we are using to focus  on any particular goals</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:30:21">that we have right now,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:30:24">"Hey, there's a whole  nother world out here."</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:30:27">And one of the purposes of education</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:30:30">This is what Buddhists,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:30:33">this means something else in Hinduism.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:30:36">but in Buddhism it's the acknowledgement</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:30:39"></subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:30:42">hat we live in a world of illusions,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:30:44">what Kahneman called system one.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:30:47">It's there for dealing  with things in real time,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:30:50">and so it's an incredibly disastrous gloss</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:30:53">on what's actually going on.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:30:56">And so the way of  answering that question is,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:31:0">no, startups are wonderful.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:31:2">But for crying out loud, don't  make a religion out of it.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:31:5">And don't be confused with what,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:31:8">the dynamic in startups</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:31:11">is completely different</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:31:14">han the dynamic in real research.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:31:17">- You have to get the current product out,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:31:20">and you have to get the second  product ready to go out.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:31:23">And if you don't do that, you're done for.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:31:26">So you've basically taken off.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:31:29">It's like we used to say back at PARC,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:31:32">"Once you've put your optimization hat on,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:31:35">Because you can't wear both of  those hats at the same time.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:31:38">They're just not in the  same psychic universe.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:31:41">So you just have to pick  and choose when you're like,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:31:44"></subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:31:47">again, just to say another PARC story,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:31:50">PARC was involved building at least 100</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:31:53">of every single thing that we did there.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:31:56">of what you might call  small-scale practical engineering</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:31:59">that had to be done,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:32:2">was to not just completely get buried</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:32:5"></subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:32:8">by the technicalities  and the optimizations</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:32:11">but to be able to pull  back and do another thing.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:32:14">that we did four completely  different versions of Smalltalk,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:32:17"></subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:32:20">one every two years, at Xerox PARC,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:32:23">each one of them operational,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:32:26">and there was never another  version of Smalltalk</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:32:29">once it hit the bricks  to the outside world.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:32:32">It's crazy, but that's just the way it is.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:32:35">- Absolutely, Alan.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:32:38">are like the children,  the young of our industry.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:32:41">firing startup ecosystem.  - [Alan] Absolutely.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:32:44">But don't get confused with  that and the larger picture</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:32:47"></subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:32:53">that is going to be used by human beings,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:32:56">even if it's soft,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:32:59">can't be cutting edge.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:33:5">You know, this is why we want  engineers to design airplanes,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:33:8">not scientists and mathematicians.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:33:11">are even happier if the airplane crashes</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:33:14">because there's something to find out.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:33:17">Think about it.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:33:20">it's something that's  worthwhile being able,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:33:23">it's like a suit: you put it on,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:33:26">but you don't want to  confuse that with invention.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:33:29">are just completely different things.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:33:32">- One's incremental,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:33:35">and one is attempting  to change the paradigm.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:33:38">How do you, if you--</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:33:41">One of my many heroes,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:33:44">a person I would ask a question of,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:33:47">would be Michelangelo,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:33:50">because he was capable of enormous vision.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:33:53">But the great story about Michelangelo</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:33:56">is him personally painting the ceiling</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:33:59">of the Sistine Chapel over four years,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:34:2">lying on his back with candle wax,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:34:5">because it was, if you've been there.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:34:8">So candle wax is dripping onto his face.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:34:11">He's up there lying on his back,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:34:14">painting this incredible  ceiling for four years</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:34:17">after having this insight  of what could be up there.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:34:23">about the people I admire the most,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:34:26"></subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:34:32">he would call himself an engineer, but...</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:34:35">And so he had some of  the best ideas ever had</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:34:38">that were absolutely  crazy to even think about,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:34:41"></subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:34:44">yet he did that all himself,  the machine code in one year,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:34:47">and gave us something that  is still hard to understand</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:34:50">how it could possibly have happened.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:34:53">And so the balance there  is part of the heuristics</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:34:56">of being a researcher.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:34:59">Right?</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:35:2">We live in a world where almost nothing</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:35:5">that's interesting about  computing can be proved.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:35:8">So when we go from research,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:35:11">and when we go from creativity,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:35:14">the way we deal with  understanding where we are</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:35:17">in these ideas is we build them.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:35:20">And so we're kind of, at our best,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:35:23">we're enlightened engineering.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:35:26">We have artists who...</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:35:29">can smoothly move,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:35:32">like Michelangelo who also  did the dome on Saint Peter's.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:35:35">- But did he do these things by hims--</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:35:38"> But the people you're talking about,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:35:41">that did things by themselves first.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:35:44">- That wasn't the way it worked because...</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:35:47"></subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:35:50">were doing these frescoes,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:35:53">- Aah, okay.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:35:56">trained in Donatello's shop.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:35:59">They all did.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:36:5">- Okay, so Seymour Paper always said,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:36:8">he always said that actually</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:36:11">we should not be creating master teachers.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:36:14">- Yeah!</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:36:17">all of us should be a  learning community together,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:36:20">and that we don't all know  where the finish line is,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:36:23">and so together we're learning together.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:36:26">- So it's interesting because, Vishal,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:36:29">your startups seem to be your foundations.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:36:32">And it's interesting  because your foundations</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:36:35">eem to be also in this  collaborative sense as well.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:36:38">- Well, he's got, also  has really 1,000 startups</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:36:41"></subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:36:44">but I'm gonna look four startup  foundations at the moment.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:36:47">Yeah. (laughing)</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:36:50">The foundations are, in some sense,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:36:53">the longer-term contribution,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:36:56">but we do have a startup fund as well.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:36:59">And one interesting thing is that,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:37:2">we don't plan this out in advance.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:37:5">that we invest in startup  companies around us</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:37:8">is roughly the same as the amount of money</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:37:11">- Really? Wow.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:37:14">Okay, great.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:37:17">and we don't say</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:37:20">that we are going to spend  $41 1/2 million a year</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:37:23">on this thing when we set out.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:37:26">it turns out that it ends  up being sort of like that,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:37:29"></subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:37:32">in the startups around us</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:37:35">in the same ballpark.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:37:38">in the context of how  research happens at Infosys?</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:37:41">One of the things that happens,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:37:44">about where research goes.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:37:47">about the difference between  invention and innovation.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:37:50">So first of all,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:37:53">saying that we have an  innovation team in Infosys</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:37:56">are not innovators.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:37:59">- And anyone, a company  of our size and scale,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:38:2"></subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:38:5">anyone could set up a lab  with 30 people in Palo Alto,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:38:8">and say, "Oh, these are the innovators,"</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:38:11">that the innovators are over there</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:38:14">in Palo Alto, or in Israel,  or Berlin, or wherever,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:38:17">and I am just sitting here doing my thing,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:38:20">I think this is nonsense.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:38:23">You have to create a mindset</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:38:26">So this idea that I mentioned  earlier about zero distance</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:38:29">is about 200,000 innovators,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:38:32">people who think about  what they could do better,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:38:35">who are unconstrained  by the statement before.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:38:38">of a company like Infosys</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:38:41">is that people do what they are told.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:38:44">You know, many services companies  wear this badge of honor</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:38:47"></subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:38:50">but if you think about  it, a best practice,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:38:53">why would you want a best practice?</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:38:56">A best practice is not only  not an innovative practice,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:38:59">that you already know  which one is the best one.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:39:2">(laughs)</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:39:5">that, "We'll tell you the best practice,"</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:39:8">which only means they have  looked backwards enough</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:39:11">that they know what  everybody else is trying</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:39:14">and which one of those  happens to be the best one.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:39:17">This cannot possibly be  something innovative.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:39:20">So to clear the culture</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:39:23">where these kind of things can be done</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:39:26">is extremely important.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:39:29">you realize that the tools are not there,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:39:32">the tools to do better collaboration.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:39:35">We were joking about this robot  that is walking around here</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:39:38">(laughing)</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:39:41">- Somebody goofed when they did that</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:39:44">because what the person is looking at</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:39:47">is, of course, not the TV thing</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:39:50">because it's up above  where it shouldn't be.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:39:53">(laughing)</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:39:59">is already there, you know.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:40:2">are done by the same principle,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:40:5">so we could easily program the  ability to make eye contact</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:40:8">- Well, there are bunch of papers of,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:40:11">even if the camera is offset,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:40:14">it's a simple transformation  to transform the image</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:40:17">so it looks like it's looking out</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:40:20">from the screen, rather.  - [Vishal] Looking at you.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:40:23">- This is like user interface 101,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:40:29">It's painful to see the people</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:40:32">using billions of devices</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:40:35">that have forgot that undo is a good idea.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:40:38">That's ugly to see people  go after the thought.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:40:41">Come on!</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:40:44">- Let's use that to segue into--</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:40:47"> Do you have an undo on that thing?</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:40:50">(laughing)</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:40:56">what is the most prominent problem in HCI</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:40:59">that you believe is still unsolved?</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:41:2">Is it the undo?</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:41:5">No, these are...</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:41:8">So I'll put out mine.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:41:11">This is something that  we've periodically tried</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:41:14">to get the national acadamies behind,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:41:17">and it has to do with something  really interesting about...</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:41:20"></subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:41:23">our genetics,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:41:26">how we learn things in  traditional cultures.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:41:29">It tends to be by learning as remembering.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:41:32"></subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:41:35">Thinking is bringing up past cases.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:41:38">Traditional cultures change very slowly</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:41:41">because they're mainly set up for coping,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:41:44">So we're in a different world,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:41:47">but we have the same old genetics.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:41:53">if you look at learners,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:41:56">maybe 5% to 8% are autodidacts</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:41:59">who don't need a lot  of external motivation,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:42:5">and tend to make use of  resources of various kinds,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:42:8">including people.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:42:11">But for most human beings,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:42:17">hook into learning things  is cultural learning.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:42:20">Cultural learning is learning  by being around other people,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:42:23">because a lot of it is social</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:42:26">and there's a little  technique mixed in there.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:42:29">And because of that, when  you try to reform education,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:42:32"></subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:42:35">you're faced right away with the problem</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:42:38">that a rather large percentage  of the human population</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:42:41">anywhere in the world,  including this country,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:42:44">really needs to interact with  human beings in various ways</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:42:47">in order to learn.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:42:50">They're not naturally autodidactic.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:42:53">And there was an attempt  in the 19th century</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:42:56">to do exactly what you're talking about</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:42:59">because the object of learning to read</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:43:2"></subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:43:5">in the 19th century in  most American schools</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:43:8">but to learn how to learn from reading.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:43:11">- And this was articulated by  a number of people back then.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:43:14">The idea was there's too  much for getting it orally,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:43:17"></subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:43:20">and we can read five times  faster than we can hear,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:43:23">and books travel in a better way.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:43:26">They're better than teachers.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:43:29">So this is stuff we've heard before.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:43:32">It's in the 19th century.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:43:35">and for a variety of reasons</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:43:38">coming up with good teachers  is incredibly difficult.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:43:41"></subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:43:44">So for instance, suppose  we had some new thing</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:43:47">that would be really  important for people to learn,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:43:50">We can make 5 billion copies  of it almost for nothing now</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:43:53"></subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:43:56">using the internet,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:43:59">but Vishal could spend an  enormous amount of his budget,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:44:5">and he wouldn't be able to  come up with 1,000 teachers,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:44:8">1,000 good teachers, to save his life</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:44:11">- Yeah.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:44:14">between not enough Socrates going around</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:44:17"></subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:44:20">by getting some of what  Socrates about into media.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:44:23"></subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:44:26">So one of the oldest dreams,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:44:29">and this is where my  answer to the question,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:44:32">that was on the scene when  I started, still there,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:44:35">I think it's still the most  important thing to work on,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:44:38">is that special thing that computers have</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:44:44">but goes beyond it in the  same vein as what a book is,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:44:47"></subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:44:50">which is to deal with the great ideas</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:44:53">and the great teachers  of ideas in various ways</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:44:56"></subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:44:59">by allowing the medium to  do more and more teaching</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:45:2">to help us become the learners  that can then be independent.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:45:5">That's a bootstrapping problem.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:45:8">So like learning science</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:45:11">is partly getting away from stories,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:45:14">but you need to learn  science when you're a kid.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:45:17">So you have to start  teaching kids using stories,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:45:20">and then gradually show them other ways</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:45:23">So this is a big deal.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:45:26">It's been the big deal for 50  years since I've been in it.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:45:29"></subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:45:32">It goes all the way back to  McCarthy's advice-taker paper</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:45:35">none of the students I talked to yesterday</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:45:41">about what user interfaces  on computers should be about.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:45:44"></subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:45:47">Have you ever read this paper</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:45:50">Come on!</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:45:53">- Classics.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:45:59">Because it's not the solutions  he specifically suggested,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:46:5">and what he generally  recognized had to be the case</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:46:8">in order for this revolution to happen.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:46:11">Nobody knows this.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:46:14">- And a variation on that is this idea</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:46:17">of helping us see better,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:46:20">interfaces that help us see better.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:46:23">We all sometimes stumble  onto great interfaces</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:46:26">that help us see things  that are beyond our senses,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:46:29">and scales that we can comprehend.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:46:32">And those kind of making systematically,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:46:35">making interfaces that  help us do these things,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:46:38">would be very interesting.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:46:41">- Yeah, we could say a  simple way of saying it is,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:46:44">what people have drifted into,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:46:47">what is where we are today,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:46:50">as more or less as they are at birth,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:46:53"></subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:46:56">filled with our genetic propensities,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:46:59">and try to make user  interfaces that fit to that.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:47:2">So this is the...</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:47:5">This is a key idea</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:47:8">because it's putting kids on  bikes that have training wheels</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:47:11">and not telling them that  they are training wheels.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:47:14">- And training wheels are  a horrible user interface.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:47:17">- It's a horrible idea, and  if you've never seen a real...</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:47:20">the problem with the bike is</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:47:23">it requires you to be different,</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:47:26">but that is the whole  point of the difference</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:47:29">between hunting and  gathering 100,000 years ago</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:47:32">and where we are today.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:47:35">that help us be different</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:47:38">han our genes try to tell us to be.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:47:41">- I think, on that inspiring  note, we should finish up.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:47:44">I'd like to thank both of you for coming.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:47:47">It's been such a pleasure  to have you up here.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:47:50">- Amazing.  - [Alan] Thank you.</subtitle>
 +
 +
<subtitle id="0:47:53">(audience applauds)  - Thanks.</subtitle>

Latest revision as of 23:44, 6 December 2017

- Good morning.
- I am Jofish Kaye
on this 4th morning of CHI.
- So, we are here again  to celebrate #CHI4Good
with two amazing people in conversation.
You're gonna start the intro?
- (laughs) Just a little bit. (laughs)
(Allison laughs)
We swapped it today because the  people that we've got coming
have a particularly special  relationship to CHI,
and Allison's gonna tell you about that,
particularly how Alan was shaped by you
I believe, is the main story, right?
- Yeah, and I was sort of a bit  of a lump of clay, yes, yes.
- Yes.
The theme, as you know, is #CHI4Good,
about these people is the contribution
that they have made both  to CHI and HCI in general,
but to society as well.
we've brought people  who had reflected that
in all sorts of different ways.
- Yes.
have truly changed the face of computing.
Vishal has done this  in industry primarily,
and actually when I was  talking with them backstage,
I said, "So, Vishal, how  should I be introducing you?"
And actually Alan said,  "Well, just introduce him
"as one of the best CEOs in  all of the United States,
"and maybe all of the world."
- It was the best CEO in the Fortune 500.
- [Jofish] The direct quote.  - The best.
He is the CEO of Infosys.
He has had leadership roles at SAP.
He himself has his own research  in artificial intelligence,
brought the notion of timeless,
what is it?
Yes, I have it in here.
It was, okay, I'm sorry.
I'm looking at it, but I'm not finding it.
But anyway, so all said,
Vishal is a doer, a  thinker, and a changer,
and what is amazing about him
is not just the companies he's worked for,
but how many nonprofit  organizations he has actually,
his companies have spun out.
about those nonprofit organizations
when Vishal and Alan join us.
As for Alan Kay, it is very hard
to give any introduction to Alan.
It is very hard to say,  "Well, his biography is
"he worked here, he worked here."
He is the grand thinker  of what we think about
in terms of mobile computing.
He makes people think.
Back in the days of Xerox PARC
when people were just trying to struggle
he helped to lead people
out into a visual, interactive space.
He has advised many Fortune 500 companies,
been a part of Apple, of Disney,
of many other organizations.
He's now at his own  nonprofit organization,
Viewpoints Research.
But, to me, I had the honor of having him
as my thesis advisor when  I was at the MIT media lab.
And Alan asked me the most  important question of my career,
and I continue to tell  people this, which is,
"If you could design any  new technology for children,
And my problem is I have  not answered that question
in my 20 plus years of working on this.
Every time I have ever gotten a chance
Alan has a been a part of it in some way.
And, you know, yesterday we didn't even
expect Alan to be here,
and he spent three plus hours  with our student volunteers
just sitting there talking,
That says a lot about who he is.
It says a lot about who and Vishal are
about giving to all of us for the future.
And with that, let us join us to the stage
Alan Kay and Vishal Sikka.
(audience applauds)
- Hi.  - [Alan] Hiya.
- I think you're there.
One reminder, we're  gonna be asking questions
using slido.com again.
Go to slido.com, put  in the hashtag CHI2016.
We're not gonna have any  pieces of paper passed around.
So no more pieces of paper.
if you want to see what  questions other people are asking
please go to slido.com,
enter the hashtag CHI2016.
vote them up, and ask your own.
because Alan and Vishal insisted on this,
and that we start with  a question for them.
than the last two conversations we've had,
and this is not because  I need to be onstage
with these two amazing gentlemen,
and I've, you know, I  love hanging out with him.
- Okay, so when we talking about
what questions they might ask each other,
I threw out a few questions
and then, of course, Alan and Vishal say,
"Well, wait a second. Why  don't you ask questions?"
And so I said, "Oh no,  don't do that to me."
so we're throwing the first question here.
Alan and Vishal, you both have had visions
of what is possible for  computing in the future.
for example, the Dynabook,
operating systems, and so on.
If you both could design the future,
what's just on the horizon  that we should be seeing?
And what's down the road a  bit that we shouldn't miss?
- Well, let's get Vishal  to start with the answer
because he is the CEO  of a very large company
with a couple of hundred  thousand employees,
and is in the process of  changing a culture there
that is already deep into learning,
but to change it for the future.
- Well, first of all, I looked everywhere.
we were thinking that  everybody who woke up so early
to come and see us
(laughing)
I hope all of you guys are awake.
- Yeah, we should,
they wanted to ask Marvin Minsky
if he'd teach a course at  11 o'clock in the morning,
(laughing)
just to come here.
- No, I'm sorry, if you look  at a company like Infosys,
we have 200,000 employees
that work on close to 10,000 projects,
and yet you find, not only in my company,
but in all companies like this,
a severe lack of basic  things like collaboration,
the ability to work with  others, and so forth.
called Zero Distance
to get people to see what others have done
that could be learned from.
And as you do that, you  realize that basic interfaces
for helping a team find out  what other teams have done
and bring that into their own work,
or decontextualize the  work that others have done
and they could relate themselves to it,
are not there.
And yet, we know that when we collaborate,
a team that works together is,
can be exponentially more  powerful than any individual,
no matter how smart the individual is.
So one of the things that I  think is around the corner
is the ability to, better  ability to collaborate,
better abilities to learn.
Of course, I'm an optimist.
We haven't seen much happen yet.
But I think better  abilities to help us improve
to help us make discoveries,
that maybe are related  to what we are doing.
Alan has just started working  on a great, new adventure
around rethinking some of  these basic ideas on learning.
that I would see around the corner.
- So that's a good lead-in
to just bringing up the  name of Doug Engelbart.
I spent three hours or more yesterday
talking to student volunteers,
and I found that everybody  had heard of Engelbart
and that he had something  to do with the mouse.
But...
could tell me anything else about him.
None of them had typed
E-N-G-E-L-B-A-R-T into Google.
This is incredible to me
because we put a lot of  effort in 40 years ago
making it so you're only a  couple of button clicks away
from finding out about things  that you should be curious in
Yet, nobody had taken the  trouble to even do that,
if you do it right now,
you'll find a Wikipedia article  about what he actually did.
You'll find the website of the Bootstrap.
You'll find the 75 papers he wrote,
most of them about exactly the  issue that Vishal brought up.
You can see what they were doing
for collaboration back in 1968,
which is close to 50 years ago now
hen that big demo happened.
actually obtains today.
And this, to me, is what's wrong with,
because if you measure  things about bad interfaces,
Right?
You have to have some vision
that you're trying to approach there.
so, to me, what hasn't  happened over the last 35 years
is concerted efforts in  getting to the real problems
of interacting with computers.
And some of these were  tackled very well by...
some of our founders of  our field in the past,
like Engelbart.
Some of them were merely articulated
like shouldn't the user  interface be able to be proactive
as well as being reactive in  helping you to move around it.
So the fundamental issues to me,
I don't see generally in computing,
and I don't see them in the  human user-interface community.
So I think the good news is
there's a lot of really  good stuff that can be done
if you can find a way of getting away
and worrying about peer reviewers,
And this is why talking to a visionary
from industry like Vishal is critical,
because he doesn't want  incremental improvements
on the way his business or  any business is running now
any more than Engelbart did.
He wants to solve some of the  big problems of the world,
and this is why, in part, why Infosys
has put up so many public  benefit foundations
You should mention the  one in this country.
I mean, one of Engelbart's ideas,
great big ideas that Alan  told me about many years ago,
was this idea of how  organizations can improve.
And this is something that is  common, as far as I can tell,
that there are these A, B, and C tasks,
and the task As are the ones  that we are usually focused on,
which are the things  that we are working on.
And we usually also have B tasks
and which are the tasks that  help us get the A tasks done
But what Engelbart said  that was very profound
was that in great organizations,  just as in great organisms,
there are these C tasks  which are the tasks
that help us constantly  improve the B tasks
and help us find the new A tasks.
And usually most companies  don't have the C task.
I mean, the Xerox PARC was  an example of a C task and...
it is a very basic thing  that companies don't have.
what kind of C tasks there would be,
foundations, research organizations
which think about the blue plan stuff,
the long-term kind of things,
in an unencumbered way,
Spending 1% or 2% of your profits
on something that might end  up improving the whole lot
is something extremely  in shareholder interest,
and we don't think of this  type of thing over the day.
Even recently, I won't say how recent,
that have been around for 20, 30 years
and how little they have improved,
and it is because we  constantly keep searching
And if you had thought
and there are many  word-processing spreadsheets
and if we had thought about the fact
wo or three decades into the future,
we might look more seriously
- Yeah, and just to add  on another Doug Engelbart,
I keep on bringing up Engelbart here
because it's not that  he was the only person
but it's particularly relevant, I think,
to thinking about problems  of human interface.
And one of the things to think about
was that collaboration in their system
was at what we would call the  operating system level today.
It wasn't something that might  be stuck in a half-assed way
in Google Docs or something,
but something that was  fundamental to the fact
hat you're on the computer at all,
that every single thing  that was done of any kind
like we expect to be connected  to the internet itself.
So this is something  to really think about.
if fundamental principles  of collaboration.
Another interesting one is...
the power of different  perspectives on things
up to the point of war.
So...
one of the drivers of the whole universe
is the fact that elementary particles
are partly sticky and partly standoffish
at different scales,
and this generates most  of the macro phenomena
And if you try and use that  as an analogy in human beings,
you immediately see that human beings,
and in fact most mammals,
are partly cooperative  and partly competitive,
and they're done at different scales.
The competitive stuff is much less useful
The age of abundance came out, came apart,
came to pass because of our ability
And this is another part  of what Engelbart said
in his original 1962 proposal to ARPA,
and boy, if you haven't read that,
you're really not in the  human interface field
who doesn't really want  to know what Newton did
or how he did it.
So these great visionaries,  another one is Ivan Sutherland.
- Yeah.
their visions were bigger than we are.
They're bigger than time,
and they're things that are  not worth schluffing aside
just because they happen to be old.
- I mean, this point, Alan,
about knowing about the work of others,
And yet, in our discipline,
in the computer-human interface  discipline in computing,
- Well, I don't think we have a field.
- I think it's still  basically a pop culture
probing around their little  pockets of this and that,
but it doesn't act like any field
that's taking its larger  mission seriously.
- It's kind of a caricature.
- Interesting.
Okay, so I'm gonna move you  guys to the left a little bit,
(clears throat)
that you all have been  working a lot with nonprofits,
a lot with the foundations.
For example, Vishal,  your nonprofit in India
ctually impacted all of India
because you set the example,
and then they made some  kind of law because of you?
- The Infosys foundation has  been doing tremendous work
and just a general good for a long time.
It was started by our  founder's wife, Mrs. Murty,
and the 2% rule that we have now in India
was largely influenced  by, among other things,
our foundation's work.
And beyond this general foundation,
we have the Infosys Science Foundation
and the rating for the ACM  Infosys Award comes from there.
And, more recently, we  started the Infosys Foudation
And they have done some great work
in the last year and a half
on bringing computer science  education to everyone.
We don't realize that kids  who are in school today
are going to come out of school  in the year 2032 or 2033,
and when we look at our  future that far ahead,
and chances are that computing
around us by then.
Are we really teaching them
how to think nontraditionally in school?
And so this is one of the  things that they really focus on
- That is interesting.
And I understand that just very recently
Alan may have inspired  yet another foundation
- Well...
all the credit should go to Sam Altman
- Y Combinator. He's  the CEO of Y Combinator.
Truly remarkable.
We call him a builder of civilizations.
- And 30 years old.
and he's just the greatest thing ever.
- So what are you thinking of doing?
- Well, so he contacted me  a little over a year ago
because he had gotten curious
about the...
basically the qualitative level of output
from the big research funding of the 60's,
of which Xerox PARC was a...
It was all one big community
because of the Cold War,
but with all of the IP completely open
and in the public domain,
and the combined gross world product
from the result of that fund.
Well, just from Xerox PARC,
the gross world product  from what Xerox PARC did
is about $35 trillion to date.
And so this is an interesting  thing to think about,
As Vishal was pointing, this is a C idea.
If you do A and B well, you  get millions and billions.
It's kind of businesses have  their sights set very low.
but really good researchers want trillions
because it involves creating  an entire new industry,
an entire new way of  doing things in world.
And that's what this  government funding did,
and so we started talking about it.
You know, and I'm a refugee.
I actually started graduate  school 50 years ago this year.
that funding was only four  years old when I started.
So they had done their  first round of stuff,
and I was a second-generation  researcher in that,
and I got to see how they did it
and how it was done and...
was very privileged to  help set up Xerox PARC
and participate in that.
And Sam absorbed all of this stuff,
and he came up with a  tremendous plan which was...
industry should somehow fund this
because the government just  checked out of doing this
But that's just the way it is.
And so he started raising money.
Vishal chipped in  considerable from his company.
So they set up a nonprofit  called Y Combinator Research
which is a 501c3 company, open IP,
and they've started creating  research communities.
The first one was called OpenAI.
The second one is called Basic Income,
in many ways, one of the most interesting.
It's an interesting idea  that keeps on coming back,
And then just yesterday we  announced a rather large one
called the Human Advancement  Research Community
which is kind of an ARPA organization of,
based in San Francisco,
in Cambridge, Mass.,
and soon in other places,
to try to deal with  some of these problems.
And we have some very, very good people
who are founding researchers of it,
including Bret Victor,  Vi Hart, and others.
So this bodes well for the future,
that there are people with enough vision
outside of just the simple things
to see that there's actually a world
that is no farther away  than a telephone call
or an internet packet.
And...
one of the most famous early thinkers
in the Greek civilization
was a guy by the name of Solon.
And one of the questions  that he asked the Athenians
when they asked him to make laws for them,
he said, "What should be the penalty
"for not being competent in a society?"
And he didn't mean just  mental incompetent,
suppose you're hurt,
suppose you can't do this,
What is the penalty
for being in a civilization?
And the answer is the whole difference
and a dog-eat-dog competitive  climbing over other people,
is to answer that question  in a reasonable way.
So this is what the 60's  research was actually about.
The technology you have  today came from people
who were pretty much  idealists just like I am.
And what we're seeing here, I think,
is the most exciting thing ever,
who have access to considerable funds
grappling with this larger,
smaller world
that we really have to deal with.
- So these would be  like large communities?
So explain this a little bit.
- It is the Human  Advancement Research Center.
- Like PARC, it is HARC,  in case you missed that.
And it is funded by Y Combinator,
but also by us, by SAP,  by other companies.
And it has a great bunch of researchers
headed by Alan himself, obviously,
and Vi Hart, and Bret  Victor, and Alex Wild,
and a bunch of very, very  smart thinkers and doers.
And it's got organization,  completely open IP,
- And so anything in the public  good you can think about?
- Yeah.
They will work on,  obviously, on interfaces,
on learning, on things  that move us forward.
- I should mention that  one of the main propeties
of this 60's research,  and carry it into PARC,
was basically the thinking,
the conception of problems,
the organization of doing  things was at the PI level,
It wasn't top down.
can really help things by having a vision.
So Licklider, who set all this up,
he said, "The destiny of computers
"are to become interactive,  intellectual amplifiers
"for all people on earth  pervasively networked worldwide."
That was his one sentence,
This allowed him to hire  a lot of smart people
who had different slants,
and this created a community  of about 17 places,
another 1/4 of them at  government think tanks
like Rand, and BB and N, and MIDER.
the energy,
the different points  of view, the arguments,
created a very rich picture
of what the future should be like.
that we have in our  computing systems today,
and of course including the internet,
and the graphical user interface,
they came out of this  whole community effort.
That wasn't done by any  single research group.
Even Xerox PARC, we  thought of ourselves there
as being less creative
by design,
because our job, we thought,
was to finish off this ARPA funding
and come up with a reasonable,
practical solution
and interaction,
and computing power,
and the best we could do in that day.
And so we were actually a  little bit more conservative
as far as thinking up new ideas.
We just stayed with what  it was, and we tried to be,
have a set of designs where  we actually built all of them.
For instance, the first  thing that was like a Mac,
we built 2,000 of them
and that was when  computers were hard to do.
that I think is sort of relevant
o this topic we're sort  of talking about right now.
Do you think that our focus on startups,
particularly those that are VC-funded
as a culture right now...
- (laughs) I love user interfaces.
- [Jofish] Inhibits solving  the big problems as a--
You know, here's a great  line from Negroponte.
Years ago he said,
"An infrared urinal knows  more about what you're doing
- Absolutely.
(laughing)
- All right, we're gonna start. (chuckles)
(laughing)
Do you think that our focus on startups,
inhibits solving the big problems,
as opposed to an  environment that's dominated
by government funding and research labs?
You know, the question is how...
how much have we been taught,
and go along with that teaching,
and how much have we been taught
o try and periodically step back
"There's more to world's than this."
And if you think about  it, the purpose of art
is to get us out of our seven  plus or minus two chunks
that we are using to focus  on any particular goals
that we have right now,
"Hey, there's a whole  nother world out here."
And one of the purposes of education
This is what Buddhists,
this means something else in Hinduism.
but in Buddhism it's the acknowledgement
hat we live in a world of illusions,
what Kahneman called system one.
It's there for dealing  with things in real time,
and so it's an incredibly disastrous gloss
on what's actually going on.
And so the way of  answering that question is,
no, startups are wonderful.
But for crying out loud, don't  make a religion out of it.
And don't be confused with what,
the dynamic in startups
is completely different
han the dynamic in real research.
- You have to get the current product out,
and you have to get the second  product ready to go out.
And if you don't do that, you're done for.
So you've basically taken off.
It's like we used to say back at PARC,
"Once you've put your optimization hat on,
Because you can't wear both of  those hats at the same time.
They're just not in the  same psychic universe.
So you just have to pick  and choose when you're like,
again, just to say another PARC story,
PARC was involved building at least 100
of every single thing that we did there.
of what you might call  small-scale practical engineering
that had to be done,
was to not just completely get buried
by the technicalities  and the optimizations
but to be able to pull  back and do another thing.
that we did four completely  different versions of Smalltalk,
one every two years, at Xerox PARC,
each one of them operational,
and there was never another  version of Smalltalk
once it hit the bricks  to the outside world.
It's crazy, but that's just the way it is.
- Absolutely, Alan.
are like the children,  the young of our industry.
firing startup ecosystem.  - [Alan] Absolutely.
But don't get confused with  that and the larger picture
that is going to be used by human beings,
even if it's soft,
can't be cutting edge.
You know, this is why we want  engineers to design airplanes,
not scientists and mathematicians.
are even happier if the airplane crashes
because there's something to find out.
Think about it.
it's something that's  worthwhile being able,
it's like a suit: you put it on,
but you don't want to  confuse that with invention.
are just completely different things.
- One's incremental,
and one is attempting  to change the paradigm.
How do you, if you--
One of my many heroes,
a person I would ask a question of,
would be Michelangelo,
because he was capable of enormous vision.
But the great story about Michelangelo
is him personally painting the ceiling
of the Sistine Chapel over four years,
lying on his back with candle wax,
because it was, if you've been there.
So candle wax is dripping onto his face.
He's up there lying on his back,
painting this incredible  ceiling for four years
after having this insight  of what could be up there.
about the people I admire the most,
he would call himself an engineer, but...
And so he had some of  the best ideas ever had
that were absolutely  crazy to even think about,
yet he did that all himself,  the machine code in one year,
and gave us something that  is still hard to understand
how it could possibly have happened.
And so the balance there  is part of the heuristics
of being a researcher.
Right?
We live in a world where almost nothing
that's interesting about  computing can be proved.
So when we go from research,
and when we go from creativity,
the way we deal with  understanding where we are
in these ideas is we build them.
And so we're kind of, at our best,
we're enlightened engineering.
We have artists who...
can smoothly move,
like Michelangelo who also  did the dome on Saint Peter's.
- But did he do these things by hims--
But the people you're talking about,
that did things by themselves first.
- That wasn't the way it worked because...
were doing these frescoes,
- Aah, okay.
trained in Donatello's shop.
They all did.
- Okay, so Seymour Paper always said,
he always said that actually
we should not be creating master teachers.
- Yeah!
all of us should be a  learning community together,
and that we don't all know  where the finish line is,
and so together we're learning together.
- So it's interesting because, Vishal,
your startups seem to be your foundations.
And it's interesting  because your foundations
eem to be also in this  collaborative sense as well.
- Well, he's got, also  has really 1,000 startups
but I'm gonna look four startup  foundations at the moment.
Yeah. (laughing)
The foundations are, in some sense,
the longer-term contribution,
but we do have a startup fund as well.
And one interesting thing is that,
we don't plan this out in advance.
that we invest in startup  companies around us
is roughly the same as the amount of money
- Really? Wow.
Okay, great.
and we don't say
that we are going to spend  $41 1/2 million a year
on this thing when we set out.
it turns out that it ends  up being sort of like that,
in the startups around us
in the same ballpark.
in the context of how  research happens at Infosys?
One of the things that happens,
about where research goes.
about the difference between  invention and innovation.
So first of all,
saying that we have an  innovation team in Infosys
are not innovators.
- And anyone, a company  of our size and scale,
anyone could set up a lab  with 30 people in Palo Alto,
and say, "Oh, these are the innovators,"
that the innovators are over there
in Palo Alto, or in Israel,  or Berlin, or wherever,
and I am just sitting here doing my thing,
I think this is nonsense.
You have to create a mindset
So this idea that I mentioned  earlier about zero distance
is about 200,000 innovators,
people who think about  what they could do better,
who are unconstrained  by the statement before.
of a company like Infosys
is that people do what they are told.
You know, many services companies  wear this badge of honor
but if you think about  it, a best practice,
why would you want a best practice?
A best practice is not only  not an innovative practice,
that you already know  which one is the best one.
(laughs)
that, "We'll tell you the best practice,"
which only means they have  looked backwards enough
that they know what  everybody else is trying
and which one of those  happens to be the best one.
This cannot possibly be  something innovative.
So to clear the culture
where these kind of things can be done
is extremely important.
you realize that the tools are not there,
the tools to do better collaboration.
We were joking about this robot  that is walking around here
(laughing)
- Somebody goofed when they did that
because what the person is looking at
is, of course, not the TV thing
because it's up above  where it shouldn't be.
(laughing)
is already there, you know.
are done by the same principle,
so we could easily program the  ability to make eye contact
- Well, there are bunch of papers of,
even if the camera is offset,
it's a simple transformation  to transform the image
so it looks like it's looking out
from the screen, rather.  - [Vishal] Looking at you.
- This is like user interface 101,
It's painful to see the people
using billions of devices
that have forgot that undo is a good idea.
That's ugly to see people  go after the thought.
Come on!
- Let's use that to segue into--
Do you have an undo on that thing?
(laughing)
what is the most prominent problem in HCI
that you believe is still unsolved?
Is it the undo?
No, these are...
So I'll put out mine.
This is something that  we've periodically tried
to get the national acadamies behind,
and it has to do with something  really interesting about...
our genetics,
how we learn things in  traditional cultures.
It tends to be by learning as remembering.
Thinking is bringing up past cases.
Traditional cultures change very slowly
because they're mainly set up for coping,
So we're in a different world,
but we have the same old genetics.
if you look at learners,
maybe 5% to 8% are autodidacts
who don't need a lot  of external motivation,
and tend to make use of  resources of various kinds,
including people.
But for most human beings,
hook into learning things  is cultural learning.
Cultural learning is learning  by being around other people,
because a lot of it is social
and there's a little  technique mixed in there.
And because of that, when  you try to reform education,
you're faced right away with the problem
that a rather large percentage  of the human population
anywhere in the world,  including this country,
really needs to interact with  human beings in various ways
in order to learn.
They're not naturally autodidactic.
And there was an attempt  in the 19th century
to do exactly what you're talking about
because the object of learning to read
in the 19th century in  most American schools
but to learn how to learn from reading.
- And this was articulated by  a number of people back then.
The idea was there's too  much for getting it orally,
and we can read five times  faster than we can hear,
and books travel in a better way.
They're better than teachers.
So this is stuff we've heard before.
It's in the 19th century.
and for a variety of reasons
coming up with good teachers  is incredibly difficult.
So for instance, suppose  we had some new thing
that would be really  important for people to learn,
We can make 5 billion copies  of it almost for nothing now
using the internet,
but Vishal could spend an  enormous amount of his budget,
and he wouldn't be able to  come up with 1,000 teachers,
1,000 good teachers, to save his life
- Yeah.
between not enough Socrates going around
by getting some of what  Socrates about into media.
So one of the oldest dreams,
and this is where my  answer to the question,
that was on the scene when  I started, still there,
I think it's still the most  important thing to work on,
is that special thing that computers have
but goes beyond it in the  same vein as what a book is,
which is to deal with the great ideas
and the great teachers  of ideas in various ways
by allowing the medium to  do more and more teaching
to help us become the learners  that can then be independent.
That's a bootstrapping problem.
So like learning science
is partly getting away from stories,
but you need to learn  science when you're a kid.
So you have to start  teaching kids using stories,
and then gradually show them other ways
So this is a big deal.
It's been the big deal for 50  years since I've been in it.
It goes all the way back to  McCarthy's advice-taker paper
none of the students I talked to yesterday
about what user interfaces  on computers should be about.
Have you ever read this paper
Come on!
- Classics.
Because it's not the solutions  he specifically suggested,
and what he generally  recognized had to be the case
in order for this revolution to happen.
Nobody knows this.
- And a variation on that is this idea
of helping us see better,
interfaces that help us see better.
We all sometimes stumble  onto great interfaces
that help us see things  that are beyond our senses,
and scales that we can comprehend.
And those kind of making systematically,
making interfaces that  help us do these things,
would be very interesting.
- Yeah, we could say a  simple way of saying it is,
what people have drifted into,
what is where we are today,
as more or less as they are at birth,
filled with our genetic propensities,
and try to make user  interfaces that fit to that.
So this is the...
This is a key idea
because it's putting kids on  bikes that have training wheels
and not telling them that  they are training wheels.
- And training wheels are  a horrible user interface.
- It's a horrible idea, and  if you've never seen a real...
the problem with the bike is
it requires you to be different,
but that is the whole  point of the difference
between hunting and  gathering 100,000 years ago
and where we are today.
that help us be different
han our genes try to tell us to be.
- I think, on that inspiring  note, we should finish up.
I'd like to thank both of you for coming.
It's been such a pleasure  to have you up here.
- Amazing.  - [Alan] Thank you.
(audience applauds)  - Thanks.