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Friday, February 15, 2019

Computing and the Future HW 4 - Prediction Markets and Candidate Projects

Prediction markets for telling the future

Question 1) (40 pts.) Recall the topic that you did a Delphi analysis on and/or a topic that you wrote about in other HWs. Think about finalizing this as a term project topic, or decide on another topic. Now you have a topic (you can change it later if you decide to). Write 300 words (or more) if it is a paper or short story, or the equivalent in effort if your project is a software system, skit, musical performance, painting, etc., including a plan or an outline for its completion. Also, answer the question, "What would be a good thing to do next on this project?"


Recall the Delphi topic, my question was:
When will Uber Flying Taxis happen?

This was sharpened to:

What month and year will 'Uber' Flying Taxis happen in Silicon Valley?

It was answered using the Delphi method and the results are here.

In my previous homework, "The Act of Measurement", I discussed how the "month" part of the revised question speciously introduced false precision into the analysis process. I coined the term, "possibility noise" to describe how  false precision can lead to prediction error and outright confabulation. This led me to repeat the homework with less date precision and increased prediction utility. The best version of this question is now:

What year will 'Uber' Flying Taxis happen in Silicon Valley?


Recall a topic that you wrote about in other HWs:

I subsequently defined four other topics as candidate projects, and recently wrote about a fifth one. I'll start with it.

PMTMS: Permanent Magnet Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation
CNN: feature extension of the TensorFlow Neural Network Playground
RNN: demonstration for predicting signals over time using machine learning.
SGL: Soft Gate Logic as a future computing architecture
WQC: Warm Quantum Computer


Status of Candidate Projects

PMTMS: Permanent Magnet TMS
I experimented with this a few years ago. Recent discussions have renewed my interest in this and I have done some additional design work. To allay concerns about human subject testing I want to create a gel-brain model with suspended ferromagnetic particles to demonstrate the induced electric and magnetic fields.

My plan for completion is this.

  1. Create a budget for the project.
  2. Design gel-brain simulator.
  3. Fabricate gel-brain.
  4. Fabricate improved magnetic rotor.
  5. Fabricate improved exciter electric field screen.
  6. Design and build a controller for the rotor(s).
  7. Design and build a controller for the exciter field.
  8. Test and visualize the induced fields on the gel brain model.
  9. Measure and compute the induced fields intensity and distribution.
The next step is to create a budget for the project, including a parts list with estimated fabrication costs. I will keep the documentation on this in this separate blog entry.

CNN: Convolutional Neural Network
My plan for completion is this. I'm done. I finished the Convolutional Neural Network project by extending the TensorFlow Neural Network Playground. The original project by Daniel Smilkov and Shan Carter is here. The version I extended and modified is here

My extensions make the point that basis functions in the feature recognition set enable the CNN to perform better. Said another way, "If your training set contains only dogs, don't ask your AI to recognize cats". 

This extended Smilkov-Carter playground is an excellent demonstration that I can give on demand. Everyone in the CS department should see it. It introduces a dramatic machine learning visual presentation. You can diff my files with the original if you want to experiment with extending this ML education platform. Diff is a Unix tool that takes two directories and prints those files that differ. It is these files that I extended to generalize the example.


The next step is to demonstrate the working system in a live setting.


RNN: Recurrent Neural Network

My plan for completion is this.
  1. Assemble the components from available code.
  2. Revise and update to use the most recent version of TensorFlow (TF).
  3. Get it working for time series data with a single channel of known function.
  4. Get it working for time series data with a single channel of known data.
  5. Get it working for time series with two channels of known function.
  6. An two-channel example of this is predator-prey populations over time.
I have completed steps 1 and 3. Steps 2, 4, & 6 are pending.

The next step is number 2, revise to use most recent version of TF.


SGL: Soft Gate Logic

I have shortened the name of this candidate project to Soft Gate Logic. Growing from my interest in quantum computing I have build a simple simulator for soft gate logic. Here is my current viewpoint on this work:
Soft gate logic is a gateway technology to quantum computing.

In SGL a bit is represented as a continuous number between zero and one on the closed  and continuous real number interval [0, 1]. It degenerates to traditional Boolean logic but adds continuous interior values. This enables fuzzy queries that do not have a hard true-false answer. It cannot represent the entanglement or superposition of states that quantum computing can represent, nor can it represent complex number fields where one component is imaginary. Complex fields are useful for representing particles that go in and out of existence. Fuzzy queries are useful for questions like, "Given a list of hotels, what is the best one to stay at?" SGL is easily simulated using real numbers constrained to the interval [0,1]. 

In quantum computing we make the further escalation that a bit can be a complex number represented by two soft gate bits. We furthered  allow our qubits to be entangled meaning that the state of one can be the instantaneous complement of the other, meaning there exists a dependency of the state of Bob on the state of Alice, a coincidence generated at the moment of their synthesis and remaining for the duration of their existence. This requires two soft-gates per qubit which is in bra-ket notation written a * |0> + b * |1>. In the qubit case it can be shown that a and b can both be complex, but due to constraints, there are only two degrees of freedom, thus we seek a representation of the form A + B*i where A and B are functions of a and b.

We can release the restriction that their entanglement be complementary if we so choose. We are the architects and we endow ourselves with that representational power which suits us and the kinds of problems we want to embed and solve.

I have already defined the soft-gate logic and built the continuous truth-table definitions for the natural extension of Boolean logic that occurs.

My plan for completion is this:

  1. Finish implement the full extended Boolean logic in a C-based simulator.
  2. Work some simple example problems to demonstrate the concept.

The next step is to fire up the simulator and examine its logic.


WQC: Warm Quantum Computer


I have shortened the project name of 'Room-Temperature Quantum Computer' to simply 'Warm Quantum Computer'. This project is a multi-person effort, that could build upon the aforementioned projects and concept sketch provided here. The process of preparing for this class in December gave me the chance to codify some of my thoughts on this matter and I am grateful for that. I include it here for the mere assurance that it won't die in case I do. If it wasn't written down, there is always that risk.

A plan for completion is this:
  1. Reproduce the lithium niobate splitter and Gisin's experiment proving entanglement at optical frequencies.
  2. Create a microwave splitter whose geometry is analogous to the lithium niobate crystal structure and conduct Gisin's experiment again at microwave frequencies.
  3. Implement a dye-recombiner that is the inverse of the splitter and prove that it works at optical frequencies.
  4. Implement a dye-recombiner that works at microwave frequencies.
  5. Implement the gyroscope equivalent circuit (GEC) documented in the concept sketch using appropriate component values for microwave frequencies.
  6. Create multiple instances of the GEC to serve as qubit simulators.
  7. Connect the splitters, recombiners and qubit simulators together and implement a simple quantum algorithm to demonstrate feasibility.
The next step for this project would be to confer with the IBM quantum computing team and some RF engineers and some physicists to see if qubit states could be simulated with entangled fields. It could be that some simple observation could illuminate how to best proceed or whether there was some unkillable monster that could obstruct progress.



2) (15 pts.) Look into the intrade.com mess. What happened? What is the current status? 

According to John Cassidy of New Yorker Magazine who did an in-depth report on this, there were a confluence of several events:


  • In November of 2012, "Commodity Trade Futures Commission (CFTC) sued Intrade to stop Americans from using the site, saying that it was illegally selling futures contracts, which can only be traded in the United States on a registered exchange or by special exemption."
  • Intrade said that,  "it was closing down forthwith following the discovery of 'financial irregularities.'"
  • As discussed in class, Cassidy explores runup of Romney contracts, when in fact, Obama was in the lead in the 2012 election.

According to this entry on Quora, the CFTC conflict dated back to 2005, when Intrade was pressured not to sell contracts on gold and crude oil and then reneged on the agreement. Further the author said that the CFTC wanted to continue its monopoly of control over Futures Markets in the United States. 

The astonishing thing to me is that, in this age of the dark web and the Silk Road, that some other fully-featured Prediction Market did not immediately pop-up in its place. As Nicholas Negroponte, who I met at the MIT Media Lab, once said, "The Internet treats censorship like damage and routes around it."

Perhaps the monopoly of the CFTC could be challenged in court, and broken up, in the way that the Bell Telephone Monopoly successfully was.

Alternately, servers could be set up in offshore locations to serve members of the world community who are not limited by the stifling regulations in the US. In that case anyone could participate that had internet access, a proxy server, a VPN account and an anonymous method of transferring funds such as Cryptocurrencies like BitCoin could theoretically participate. One has to assume that in some parallel universe of the web, this is already the case. I found one such prediction market very similar in look and feel to Intrade and operating for money called PredictIt.org. It is operated by Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand:



The status of Intrade is that it is an empty non-functioning shell with a ghost-town website and contains no significant content meriting discussion.





3)  (15 pts.) Would your Delphi method question work as a prediction contract? How would you have to change it to make it work, if it needs to be changed?

My Delphi question, since it was time based, would definitely work as a prediction contract, albeit a multi-year one. As discussed above and earlier I did refine the question to its current version by deleting the false precision of "month" to obtain:


What year will 'Uber' Flying Taxis happen in Silicon Valley?

To contractualize the question it was evolved to:

In the event that
An Uber-owned fleet of Flying Taxis take flight
anywhere in California, USA

The start date was now, down to the second and the end date was left open so that the contract retains its value in perpetuity, but is fulfilled the moment the Delphi question is answered in the affirmative. Also the borders of "Silicon Valley" are loosely defined and evolving, so the borders of the state of California were used, since Silicon Valley is a proper subset of that.


4)  (15 pts.) Write up a prediction market contract based on your Delphi method question. It should look something like the sample contract discussed in class.





5) (15 pts.) Recall the video "Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams." It is about the future... your future.

a) What were at least three ways he suggested to help achieve your childhood dreams? Do you agree with them? Why or why not?

I counted fifty quotes on ways Dr. Randy Pausch, Professor at CMU, explicitly suggested to help one achieve and facilitate the childhood dreams of oneself and others. Even though I have included them for completeness you don't have to read all fifty because I have distilled them down to twenty-five unique principles he espoused. I agree with all of them, except for the one where someone's head was put on a stick. Here is the fine print, taken directly from the transcript of Dr. Pausch's talk:

Fifty Quotes
  1. My dad always taught me that when there’s an elephant in the room, introduce them.
  2. When you are 8 or 9 years old and you look at the TV set, men are landing on the moon, anything’s possible.And that’s something we should not lose sight of, is that the inspiration and the permission to dream is huge. 
  3. And then I hit the first brick wall, []. I know, I was heartbroken. I was like, I worked so hard! And so I read the literature very carefully and it turns out that NASA
  4.  Have something to bring to the table, because that will make you more welcome
  5. And that’s a really good story because it’s all about fundamentals. Fundamentals, fundamentals, fundamentals. You’ve got to get the fundamentals down because otherwise the fancy stuff isn’t going to work.
  6. Coach Setliff - he taught me a lot about the power of enthusiasm. 
  7. And these kinds of head fake learning are absolutely important. And you should keep your eye out for them because they’re everywhere.
  8. At a certain point you just realize there are some things you are not going to do, so maybe you just want to stand close to the people. 
  9. And so I bided my time and then I graduated with my Ph.D. from Carnegie Mellon, thinking that meant me infinitely qualified to do anything. 
  10. But remember, the brick walls are there for a reason. The brick walls are not there to keep us out. The brick walls are there to give us a chance to show how badly we want something. Because the brick walls are there to stop the people who don’t want it badly enough. They’re there to stop the other people. 
  11. And he said yes. I said, then I would love to answer your question, but first, will you have lunch with me tomorrow? 
  12. So I find myself on the phone with a guy named Jon Snoddy who is one of the most impressive guys I have ever met, 
  13. And then I compiled all of that and I had to memorize it, which anybody that knows me knows that I have no memory at all, 
  14. So it’s pretty easy to be smart when you’re parroting smart people. 
  15. He said, when you’re pissed off at somebody and you’re angry at them, you just haven’t given them enough time. 
  16. Somebody’s head’s going to go on a stick. Turns out that the person who gets his head on a stick is a dean back at the University of Virginia. 
  17.  It’s very important to know when you’re in a pissing match. And it’s very important to get out of it as quickly as possible. 
  18. Here’s a lesson for everybody in administration. They both said the same thing. But think about how they said it, right? [In a loud, barking voice] I don’t know! [In a pleasant voice] Well, I don’t have much information, but one of my start faculty members is here and he’s all excited so I want to learn more. They’re both ways of saying I don’t know, but boy there’s a good way and a bad way. So anyway, we got it all worked out. 
  19. We published a paper. Just a nice academic cultural scandal. When we wrote the paper, the guys at Imagineering said, well let’s do a nice big picture. Like you would in a magazine. 
  20. So then the question becomes, how can I enable the childhood dreams of others. 
  21. And I said to Tommy, you know they’re probably not going to make those next movies. [laughter] And he said, no, THEY ARE. 
  22.  every single member of my team came from Virginia to Carnegie Mellon  
  23. So I said, can I do this en masse? Can I get people turned in such a way that they can be turned onto their childhood dreams?
  24. There are 50 students drawn from all the different departments of the university. There are randomly chosen teams, four people per team, and they change every project. 
  25. Sensei, what do I do? [laughter] And Andy thought for a minute and he said, you go back into class tomorrow and you look them in the eye and you say, “Guys, that was pretty good, but I know you can do better.”
  26. I said, we’ve got to show this at the end of the semester. We’ve got to have a big show. And we booked this room, McConomy. I have a lot of good memories in this room. 
  27. With some of the most brilliant, creative students from all across the campus. It just was a joy to be involved.
  28. I can’t tell you beforehand, but right before they present it I can tell you if the world’s good just by the body language. If they’re standing close to each other, the world is good. 
  29. And the only advice I can give you is, find somebody better than you to hand it to. And that’s what I did. 
  30. The keys to success were that Carnegie Mellon gave us the reins. Completely gave us the reins. We had no deans to report to. We reported directly to the provost, which is great because the provost is way too busy to watch you carefully. 
  31.  And you get a bar chart telling you on a ranking of how easy you are to work with, where you stacked up against your peers.
  32. The best way to teach somebody something is to have them think they’re learning something else. I’ve done it my whole career. 
  33. Somewhere along the way there’s got to be some aspect of what lets you get to achieve your dreams. First one is the rule of parents, mentors and students. I was blessed to have been born to two incredible people. 
  34. Other people who help us besides our parents: our teachers, our mentors, our friends, our colleagues. 
  35. And he put his arm around my shoulders and we went for a little walk and he said, Randy, it’s such a shame that people perceive you as so arrogant. Because it’s going to limit what you’re going to be able to accomplish in life. 
  36. But it’s not just our bosses, we learn from our students. 
  37.  Never lose the childlike wonder. It’s just too important. It’s what drives us. Help others.
  38. Never give up. I didn’t get into Brown University. I was on the wait list. 
  39. How do you get people to help you? You can’t get there alone. People have to help you and I do believe in karma. I believe in paybacks. You get people to help you by telling the truth. Being earnest. I’ll take an earnest person over a hip person every day, because hip is short term. Earnest is long term.
  40. Apologize when you screw up and focus on other people, not on yourself. 
  41.  Remember brick walls let us show our dedication. They are there to separate us from the people who don’t really want to achieve their childhood dreams. Don’t bail. The best of the gold’s at the bottom of barrels of crap.
  42. Get a feedback loop and listen to it. Your feedback loop can be this dorky spreadsheet thing I did, or it can just be one great man who tells you what you need to hear. The hard part is the listening to it.
  43. Anybody can get chewed out. It’s the rare person who says, oh my god, you were right. As opposed to, no wait, the real reason is… We’ve all heard that. When people give you feedback, cherish it and use it. 
  44. Show gratitude. When I got tenure I took all of my research team down to Disneyworld for a week. And one of the other professors at Virginia said, how can you do that? I said these people just busted their ass and got me the best job in the world for life. How could I not do that?
  45. Don’t complain. Just work harder. [shows slide of Jackie Robinson, the first black major league baseball player] That’s a picture of Jackie Robinson. It was in his contract not to complain, even when the fans spit on him.
  46. Be good at something, it makes you valuable. 
  47. Work hard. I got tenure a year early as Steve mentioned. Junior faculty members used to say to me, wow, you got tenure early. What’s your secret? I said, it’s pretty simple. Call my any Friday night in my office at ten o’clock and I’ll tell you.
  48. Find the best in everybody. No one is all evil. Everybody has a good side, just keep waiting, it will come out.  
  49. And be prepared. Luck is truly where preparation meets opportunity.
  50. It’s not about how to achieve your dreams. It’s about how to lead your life. If you lead your life the right way, the karma will take care of itself. The dreams will come to you.  
Distillation into 25 Principles
  1. Embrace the elephant in the room.
  2. You will hit brick walls, don't give up.
  3. Be prepared, be good at something, bring something to the table, it makes you valuable.
  4. Give yourself permission to dream big, believe in your dreams, use the power of enthusiasm. 
  5. The best way to teach is to have them think they’re learning something else. *My favorite.*
  6. Know your limitations, honor those who exceed them,  be willing to say, "I don’t know."
  7. Network with people via food and phone, in-person and remotely.
  8. Give people time. 
  9. Somebody’s head’s going to go on a stick.
  10. Excuse yourself from the pissing match, avoid drama. 
  11. Demonstrate and publish your results so others can benefit. 
  12. Enable the dreams of others, you can't get there alone.
  13. Build teams and keep them. 
  14. Scale up successful efforts.
  15. Don't be content with great.
  16. Focus on others, read the body language.
  17. Always be the worst musician in the band.
  18. Go where they will give you the reins.
  19. Seek and accept feedback from others.
  20. Honor your parents, mentors, colleagues, students and friends.
  21. Karma lives, arrogance will limit what you accomplish in life. 
  22. Be sincere, be earnest, never lose the childlike wonder. 
  23. Apologize when you screw up, show gratitude, don’t complain.
  24. Work hard.
  25. It’s not about how to achieve your dreams. It’s about how to lead your life. 

b) The whole concept of achieving your childhood dreams resonates with many people, but would not resonate with many others. It is a way to "self-actualize," which is a popular philosophy of life in America, perhaps more with certain segments of the the population than others. But there are other philosophies of life. Other philosophies of life that exist here and in other times and places include things like: (a) a good life is achieved by commitment to a particular religious tradition; (b) one's life should be about caring for (traditionally for women) or providing for (traditionally for men) one's family. It has been said that seeking happiness as a direct goal is a good way not to be happy, because happiness is not achievable as a direct goal, but rather occurs as a side effect of helping, or contributing to, or being important to, others. Discuss this important issue.


Paradoxically, we are often the most fulfilled, and thus happy, when we are helping others accomplish their goals. My wife says that, "When we forgive others, we set them free to be the person they really should be, the person they want to be". I totally agree with this. Forgiveness is a powerful force. Sometimes we have to forgive ourselves, so that we can be free to do the things that we know we are capable of, the things that we should be truly doing. In response to item a) There are various philosophies of life and religion. We know from history that blind obedience to the letter of religious law has often caused more harm than good. The spirit of the law that says, "Love others as you love yourself" is a powerful way to proceed. This reduces harm, the ultimate benevolent principle in a perilous world. Beliefs and the resulting actions that reduce or attenuate harm are actions of love. These can be carried out in very mundane but effective ways, like feeding or even just saying, "Hello", to a homeless person. In response to item b) we are living in the midst of changing roles in society. I believe each of us should do what we are uniquely equipped to do, to the maximum degree that our strength and ability allows. Tradition, for its own sake can stifle people from achieving their goals. I have no interest in tradition for its own sake, unless it has evolved in such a way as to reduce harm, such as the tradition of "Buckle your seat belt". Harm can include making someone feel bad for non-harmful choices that seemed perfect reasonable to them. People should never be humiliated into explaining why they make the choices they do, unless those choices have accidentally or intentionally brought demonstrable harm to others.




6) (Grad students only; 25 points, totaling 125, so this HW will be worth 125 pts) Read 20 pages in the book you have obtained. Explain what you agree with, disagree with, learned from it, and how your views agree with or disagree with the reviewers of the book you are reading. 

I have moved this answer which was quite detailed to my ongoing review of the book, "The Human Race to the Future" a single curated document that is here. In the session for this question I reviewed chapters seven and eight of the book. 

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