Submitted for your consideration, as day-before-the-holiday bemusement…
Ah, the last eight years! How did we ever get through them? A time filled with immortal observations like the following instant classic from Donald Rumsfeld:
“There are known knowns. There are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we now know we don’t know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we do not know we don’t know.”
But it seems that Rumsfeld may even have been wrong here, for defense contractor Northup-Grumman is patenting a system that claims to detect “unknown unknowns!”
As reported in New Scientist:
Grumman’s patent is every bit as baffling [as Rumsfeld’s observation]. Software fed a long chunk of text on a certain subject will somehow use mysteriously powerful “inferencing algorithms” to work on the facts and extract the unknown unknowns.
The patent is online here, and I can’t make much out of it either.
Anybody have any thoughts on this? It seems to me that by definition an “unknown unknown” is so unexpected as to be unpredictable or unidentifiable. Isn’t this program just identifying “unknown knowns,” that is, things that are knowable in principle but not yet identified?
Is this all smoke and mirrors to collect some big bucks as the Bush regime heads for the sunset? Are the folks who invented the stealth bomber onto something even more mysterious this time? Or is this in the same category of an attempt to prove the unprovable as the “proofs” for the existence of God?
I look for the wisdom of crowds to provide some enlightenment on this.
Or if nothing else, you’ve got something other than the latest cabinet picks to discuss over dinner tomorrow. Have a good holiday!
I liked this:
There are different approaches for organizing information content, such as decision graphs or data tables, namely, a knowledge-based approach and a data-based approach. Using the knowledge-based approach, a person (known as a knowledge engineer) interviews an expert in a given field to obtain knowledge about the given field.
Isn’t an unknown unknown a surprise?
Btw, I voted for “known unknown” cause someone will try something new in addition to the “knowns.”
Happy Thanksgiving to you too.
Our plans are probably out the window, as my 91 yo mom is being checked out at the local ER for a sudden inability to swallow. I have a sneaking suspicion we may be lunching at the hospital cafeteria. Don’t really know for sure yet, tho.
ID I hope whatever is wrong with your Mom is nothing serious, and they’re able to resolve it right away.
Sending best wishes to her and you.
Very sorry for your Mom. Hope it all works out.
Thanks to both of you for the good wishes. After an endoscopy this morning, we’re hopeful for a good outcome. I just made dinner reservations for Mrs. Dem and I at a local inn, so we’ll finally have our T-day there.
Garbage In, Garbage Out.
Ah, but suppose that garbage coming out can be made to look like real information?
When your choice in that meeting at Corporate is between saying “I haven’t any idea, sir” and “my IT staff says that our best strategy is to . . . ” which are you going to chose?
This software ought to sell itself . . .
As well as opening up a plethora of new “consulting” opportunities.