timfg.com
  • home
  • timfg
    • work
    • play
  • us
    • alison >
      • my aim is true
  • stuff
    • what's new
    • caravan
    • brenda
    • about the site
  • blog
  • contact

When did the machines take over?

28/4/2013

 
I've blogged in my personal life for years - sometimes as me, sometimes anonymously.  Mostly, blogging as me has been for my own entertainment and amusement, the appeal being much the same as keeping a diary might have held in years gone by, albeit one that, in the modern world, a wide audience of people can read if they want to.
Blogging seems to have gone very mainstream in the last year or so.  So I now have four different blogs to maintain - this one, one at work, one as the Chair of the Board of Governors at my daughter's school on our internal site and one in the same capacity externally. I'm not convinced there's much value in the latter, which is much what I said about blogging in the work environment a few years ago. I blog here, for me. I blog at work and on the Governors' site because I have something specific I want to communicate.  Why would I blog as a Chair of Governors, to an educational community - do I have something to say that is better enabled by the constraint of that limited audience? Not sure that I do - so not sure that the National College of Teaching and Leadership has really enabled the capability for reasons much beyond 'because we can'...

One thing is clear though: The amount of content being published across the globe is increasing at an exponential rate, as the tools mature to the point that it's become a trivially easy activity. And a likely response to that is increased sophistication in the tools that do the job of finding content of relevance and delivering it to the individual - not based on self-selection, in the way that RSS and portal technology dealt with the issue in the past, but based on a contextual understanding of the individual's preferences, role, habits, location... psyche, emotions, purchasing preferences... It just isn't possible for a person to manage this effectively - and it is possible for algorithms to do a much better job. Commercial organisations are already exploiting this capability... how do you think Amazon works out what to entice you with? And did you know that it may adjust the price of that irresistible DVD box-set based on what it knows about you?

Science-fiction writers have been depicting a world where the machines have taken over since the Industrial Revolution. No desire to spoil anyone's Sunday lunch - but we need to come to terms with something: They already have.

Comments are closed.

    RSS Feed

    All
    Cherish
    Eat
    Frame
    Geek
    Listen
    Ponder
    Watch

    What are these tags?

    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    August 2019
    April 2019
    July 2018
    June 2018
    February 2018
    March 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    March 2016
    October 2015
    April 2015
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012
    November 2012
    October 2012
    September 2012
    August 2012
    July 2012
    June 2012
    May 2012
    April 2012
    March 2012
    February 2012
    January 2012


    timmytime...?