Following a quiet two-plus year gestation period, G2 came to life January 28th, 2011 – one year ago today – when I formally announced its existence here: Sensemaking on Streams – My G2 Skunk Works Project: Privacy by Design (PbD).
“This new technology, something that might be characterized as a “big data analytic sensemaking” engine, is designed to make sense of new observations as they happen, fast enough to do something about it, while the transaction is still happening.”
Oh, the difference a year makes. Over the last twelve months G2 has evolved in many ways. Three of the more exciting characteristics to emerge are:
Orders of Magnitude, appreciation of
G2 now has the ability to consider proportions when determining the best way to count things … evolving counting methods in real-time, without external influence (humans). There is a big difference between zero, one, two, three, etc. But at some point why take the effort to increment a counter from 4,090,223 to 4,090,224? Why is this important? Imagine how much attention it would take if you had to keep an exact count of everything you had ever seen. What a waste. In the interest of saving its energy for more important tasks, G2 starts using orders of magnitude to optimize its resources. Of course, G2 can be told to keep exact counts (despite scale); if an exact count is needed from time to time, G2 will count them, one-by-one.
Geospatial and Temporal Reasoning, use of
G2 is showing early promise in the area of geospatial and temporal reasoning. Using the basic physics principle “Two different things cannot occupy the same space at the same time,” G2 can more accurately assert when things are the same. Also, G2 can now tell the difference between something happening “here and now” versus “then and there.” If you were reading a book about the 1906 fire that swept through San Francisco, you would not be freaking out about the danger, filling the bathtub and watering the roof of your house. No, you understand that this is information about “then and there,” not “here and now.” Why is this important? When it comes to making recommendations about a “next best action,” if one doesn’t take into account geospatial and temporal factors, be prepared for a slew of bogus recommendations.
Confusion, awareness of
And, just today, G2 suddenly developed the ability to notice when it becomes confused about something, making “note to self” about this important fact. This awareness of confusion is triggered when facts appear to disagree. If someone has three phone numbers – no big deal. On the other hand, if someone has five different dates of birth, that just doesn’t seem quite right does it? That would be confusing. Why is this important? Well, if you are looking to analytics to make important decisions, wouldn’t you want to know during the decision making process if there was related confusion … before action is taken?
While G2 is showing no signs of evolving any motor function any time soon … the cognitive advances we are seeing and the benefits we hope this will bring society … make these exciting times.
Happy Birthday G2!
Sincerely,
Jeff Jonas and the entire
G2 Development Team
Sensemaking on Streams – My G2 Skunk Works Project: Privacy by Design (PbD)
Smart Sensemaking Systems, First and Foremost, Must be Expert Counting Systems
On A Smarter Planet … Some Organizations Will Be Smarter-er Than Others
Data Finds Data
Accumulating Context: Now or Never
General Purpose Sensemaking Systems and Information Colocation
Big Data. New Physics.
Master Data Management (MDM) vs. Sensemaking
Jeff,
Congrats! I am so glad to hear this idea is taking flight. It was really great to be at IBM while you were conjuring up this vision.
Cheers!
Chris Ensey
Posted by: Chris Ensey | January 31, 2012 at 11:24 AM
Completely awesome Jeff and team! Geospatial time in conjunction with these pieces may start to reveal attributes of causation for the sensemaking/correlative functions.
Posted by: Damien Anderson | February 07, 2012 at 02:44 PM
Wow, Jeff. Just wow. So stoked for you and what you're up to. This is amazing stuff. And I love how you can write so simply about topic. I had my kids read this and they totally understood it. That is equally amazing.
Can't wait to hear the next update!
Posted by: David LaPlante | February 09, 2012 at 12:15 PM
I use multiple social networks and for privacy reasons do not want all my private data, including date of birth, cullable from these sites. So I end with with putting a date that might or might not be my real birth date when I register with these various sites. I suspect many might follow the same. So birth dates as with everything has also to be looked in context of their source or origination.
Posted by: bala | April 13, 2012 at 12:54 PM
Congratulations, Jeff. I wondered what happened with G2, as I read your initial post about it, while it was in "stealth" mode.
The previous comment, left by bala, is of course correct. I do the same thing, mostly out of vanity. But fraud is an exogenous influence, and there are methods devoted to detecting it. Whether they can be smoothly integrated into G2 is not clear, and in some ways, not relevant for the moment.
The real purpose for my comment is because I am having difficulty with your TypePad set-up. I have tried on several occasions to click the link "Add me to your TypePad people list" but received error messages. I sent a bug report to TypePad support, no response. You don't know me, I am a former IBM employee, but that shouldn't be relevant (I assume I am not blocked). Thinking aloud here: Unless you don't want to be on anyone's TypePad people list... in which case you shouldn't offer the option at all! No, that wouldn't make sense. The link is in the left sidebar, toward the end. (FeedBlitz is a cool new alternative to FeedBurner, I noticed that you use that here. Idealab is so prolific!)
P.S. I am not a Facebook user, but I suspect there is a problem with that button too. It shows the API key on hover, which isn't typical. Most important of all, it does not indicate that anyone has chosen to be your "fan" on Facebook. That seems highly unlikely! This is an excellent blog, particularly the entries about data security and information sharing! I would be your fan if I used Facebook!
Posted by: Curious Ellie | April 21, 2012 at 12:41 AM
Jeff, I'm writing a PhD on Sensemaking of Bigdata among other things - just wanted to say hi. and suggest if you've connected G2 to Open Mind Common Sense http://openmind.media.mit.edu/ or something similar.
Posted by: Kam | October 27, 2012 at 02:26 PM