Amazing, really, article in recent New Yorker on ongoing R&D in computer sensing and processing of human emotions. The ability to “sense” who we are at any moment is far down the path towards recognition already…. for various hardware/ software combinations, including aggregating data and using algorithms .
[gview file=”https://publicservicesalliance.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/We-Know-How-You-Feel.pdf”]The implications of this are hard to overstate…and bring up some of those questions about the dangers of AI that we have in the back of our minds. (see Nick Bostrom’s Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies). Marketers are among those farthest along in using emotional sensing to guide their product advertising, but there are innumerable uses, including game play, and security clearances.
Yes, there’s definitely a big brother aspect to this; yet another part of change to “worry about”…but there’s a lot of positive potential too.
One of which is to support learning in general. Research shows that when people are emotionally engaged, they are more likely to recall what they are paying attention to at that moment.
The article also mentions that we as “individual economic units” have three types of assets. 1) Money, 2) Time, and 3) Attention.
Many many entities want our attention, and it turns out that can be quantified in dollars and cents. Or so the article claims. On average, our attention is now worth something more than….six cents per minute. But in learning terms, of course attention is priceless. You gotta have it for learning to take place, and it’s a requisite for all forms of SLC too.
Emotion and learning is a huge field of new discovery waiting to be explored, and already being explored. PSA needs to help regional educational programs incorporate that important element using cloud tools. Big task ahead; might as well get started now.
Clarification on the three types of assets that we have as individuals…should have included “fungible” as adjective. Had to look that word up, and still not quite sure I understand it, but I think it means something like “that which can used in a transaction”.
Should also note that an individual also has what one might assume would be other “fungible” assets, such as experience, skills, knowledge, character, friends and family, community and other relationships….and more.
These “assets” are important if they are fungible and part of how an individual succeeds in life. Therefore they are also part of what “learning for success” needs to address and include. An employee who has the desired fungible assets is worth more to hire, than one who does not.
This is sort of where learning and workforce development overlap…and exhibit common goals.
Not sure I agree with your seeming definition of fungible and it perhaps has a nuanced implication on your conclusion(s).
I understand fungible to connote “replaceable” or “interchangeable”. One fungible good or service can be viewed as equivalent to another – i.e. a commodity if you will that can be bought sold or traded because it has know/agreed value.
Many of the “assets” you list are not directly “fungible” since there is no clear replacement/substitution value.
Was hoping to get a correction if I had it wrong. So thanks Gary.
Interesting distinction for fungible, because maybe in a new world global economy, and using cloud interactions, some of the assets I “add” on might become fungible, one way or another? The quantification of emotion, and what is “engagement” would seem to be similar to the “attention” that is listed as fungible in the article.
Actually maybe the word fungible is something to pay a lot of attention to. I still don’t quite grasp what could or could’t be described as fungible, given future changes in relationships between economic entities when connected online to big data, for example. ;
If a market is what creates the possibility of fungible, does innovation online offer the possibility that individuals could enter into a market with some of their individual assets I list, as, in some way , interchangeable because of a known value? Maybe someone has written a tome on this?
Very curious. Thanks.