Finally. Ok, I'm a procrastinator. Age 54, it's 2010, and my first blog. Here we go. I want to ruminate on the intersection of artificial intelligence, gaming, social media, online classrooms, and transforming work productivity via Web 2.0+. My current role at Laureate Education, Inc. is a culmination of all these interests that has me finally excited enough to start blogging. Your call if it's worth it. See my profile for more about my background - too much to list it all here.
I'm calling this blog Virtual Intelligence as an obvious play on Artificial Intelligence. The problem with artificial intelligence is the artificial - which it is. Given enough computing power, time, and interest - computers can be programmed to mimic many aspects of intelligence. But if the manner in which it does so cannot self-generalize to other problems and evolve or adapt on its own, then it is simply not interesting as a model of what humans do. I have a lot to say about the parallel progress-blocking dichotomies that exist between neural networks and symbolic logic, calculus and set theory, behaviorism and cognitive psychology - expect to see blogs on those topics coming soon.
But I'm currently interested in how we can use lessons learned in computer gaming and social media to enhance online classrooms and, ultimately, transform what we mean by "work." There are many voices now moving in the same direction, as any TED follower is well aware. The computer game industry, and to a lesser extent the social media industry, have been forced to master the art of making work into fun. Think about it - what do you do in an online game? You go on quests and side-quests, amass virtual fortunes in various materials, learn new skills, lead or join teams to conquer obstacles and other teams... and that is what work is, right? Yet - with no external reward, millions of people spend money to do this work online - for more hours than their day job. Why? And how do we expose and leverage that motivation and environment to enrich our work experience and productivity? And once we do - and we most definitely will - what will our society become?
Big questions, and I'm hardly up to answering them. But I can certainly ruminate.
