Alternative Visions for Computer Science Technology in Service of Society

Alternative Visions for Computer Science

Technology in Service of Society

Raj ReddyCarnegie Mellon University

CCSV-2020 Talk October 13, 2009

CCSV2020 Vision I: Jim Gray’s Vision1. Scalability: Devise a software and hardware

architecture that scales up by a factor for 10^6.2. The Turing Test: Build a computer system that wins

the imitation game at least 30% of the time.3. Speech to text: Hear as well as a native speaker.4. Text to speech: Speak as well as a native speaker.5. See as well as a person: recognize objects and

behavior.6. Personal Memex: Record everything a person sees

and hears, and quickly retrieve any item on request.7. World Memex: Build a system that given a text

corpus, can answer questions about the text and summarize the text as precisely and quickly as a human expert. Do the same for music, images, art, and cinema.

CCSV2020 Vision II: Jim Gray’s Vision (Cont)

8. TelePresence: Simulate being some other place retrospectively as an observer (TeleOberserver): hear and see as well as actually being there, and As well as a participant, and simulate being some other place as a participant (TelePresent): interacting with others and with the environment as though you are actually there.

9. Trouble-Free Systems: Build a system used by millions of people each day and yet administered and managed by a single part-time person.

10. Secure System: Assure that the system of problem 9 only services authorized users, service cannot be denied by unauthorized users, and information cannot be stolen (and prove it.)

11. Always-Up: Assure that the system is unavailable for less than one second per hundred years -- 8 9's of availability (and prove it.)

12. Automatic Programmer: Devise a specification language or user interface that:a. makes it easy for people to express designs (1,000x easier),b. computers can compile, andc. can describe all applications (is complete).d. system should reason about application, asking questions about exception

cases and incomplete specification. But it should not be onerous to use.

CCSV2020 Vision II: Societal Need Driven Research

Goal Driven Basic Research: Pasteur’s Quadrant (Stokes, 1997)

Curiosity Driven Goal Driven

Fundamental Bohr's Quadrant Pasteur's

Quadrant Atomic Theory Germ Theory of Disease

Tactical Pre-Darwin's Quadrant Edison's Quadrant

Study of Flora and Fauna Electricity

Examples of Societal Need Driven CS Research

Helping Aging population Disaster Rescue Accident-Avoiding Cruise Control Access to Information and Digital

Libraries Access to Education

LiteracyUrban/Rural Divide

Access to HealthcareAccess to Health InformationEmergency Healthcare

Helping Aging populationEncouraging Social Activity view video-clip

Robotics and Disaster Rescue

Watch Video-clip• Disaster sites are often dangerous for human exploration

• Victims must be retrieved within 48 hours

• Technology Needs• Information Collection from Above

• Robotic Helicopter• Infoballoon

• Information Collection on the Rubble• Information Collection in the Rubble

• Snake Robot • Wide-Area Information Collection

• Drop-in Cell-phone Tower• Database for Rescue Management

Accident-Avoiding CarWatch Video-Clip

Sanskrit book on Rig-Veda Video-Clip of DL Concepts

Learning to Read: Reading Tutor Watch Videoclip

A University for Gifted Youth from Low Income FamiliesTALENT is spread across populations, but OPPORTUNITY is not

Robbery – Thief requested wife to dial 108 after 10 minutes to take the injured husband to hospital

3 Hour Neonate (Baby Girl) Buried

Firing - Between Army Commanders and Naxalites

Cyclist– Fell on road divider rod

Emergency Management Research InstituteInnovative Use of ICT in Healthcare View Video

Technologies in UseCall Centers: Voice LoggersGIS / MapsGPS / AVLTMobile CommunicationApplication software for Sense, Reach and CareePCR (Electronic Patient Case Record) Form

Extraordinary Performance from Ordinary People

CCSV2020 Vision III: Follow the MoneyHuman Resource Development for Future Generation

Technologies Computer Engineering

Semiconductor Industry Processor and Memory Technologies Systems: PCs, Laptops, Mainframes, Super Computers

Computer Science Computational Thinking: Understanding Computation

Computational Complexity Creating Usable Computation

Algorithm Design System Architectures Software Engineering

Human Computer Interaction AI: Search, Learning, Robotics, Language Technologies

Application Domains where ICT is central Education Healthcare Entertainment Energy Transportation Computational X: Science, Engineering, Political Sc., Environment

Missing Science in SystemsSILKy systems

Speech, Image, Language and Knowledge based systemsForgiving Systems

Tolerate error and ambiguity in interactionsSelf Improving Systems

Incremental non-intrusive knowledge acquisition Learn from examples and observations

Self- Aware Systems: Intelligent Help, Advice and Tutoring

Learn from examples and observations Intelligent Agents

Mail: Junk Mail Problem Communications: Telephone Dialog Understanding Secretarial: Scheduling Budget Management

Missing Science in AlgorithmsGoal Driven AlgorithmsApproximate AlgorithmsDiscovery and Inference from Massive Data

Data Intensive Computing Incremental Learning

Learn from examples and observations in sparse data environments

Resource Limited Algorithms Communications Limited

On-chip and off-chip Memory Limited Processing Limited

Missing Science in InfrastructureConnectivity

Access to free Internet for basic services?Computer Access

Accessibility: Less than 5 minute walk?Affordability: Costing less than a cup of coffee per

day? Digital Literacy

Language DivideLiteracy Divide

Improving Access to information and knowledgeeducation and learninghealth care job skillsentertainment

CCSV 2020: What Next in CS Research?

Concept Driven ResearchFollow the footsteps of Babbage, Turing, and Vannevar Bush

Societal Need Driven ResearchFollow Pasteur

Future Employment Driven ResearchFollow the MoneyThe golden rule: He who has the gold makes the

rules