“The art of progress is to preserve order amid change and to preserve change amid order.”
— Alfred North Whitehead
“The art of progress is to preserve order amid change and to preserve change amid order.”
— Alfred North Whitehead
Military Robotics
Will military robots become malignant machines or serve as the path to peace?
[Please click here for a Presentation on Military Robotics]
Sun Tzu And Military Robotics
Sun Tzu’s wise and ancient (about 2,400 years old) observations on warfare are still valid today. We applied Sun Tzu’s aphorisms to military robotics and accompanied each selected aphorism (in italics) with our explanation (i.e., our own commentary) of its relevance to 21st century military robotics, including integrated robotic air and ground systems of systems.
[Please click here for a Commentary on Sun Tzu and Wisdom about Military Robotics]
Critical Thinking
Many of the world's problems, from individuals to nations, originate with the lack of critical thinking, a skill that should be taught to everyone from elementary school through college. This Overview of Critical Thinking presentation might interest you to pursue the subject further and perhaps incorporate its techniques into your daily life.
[Please click here for an Overview Presentation on Critical Thinking]
Philosophical Foundations of Science
While the scientific method is not identical to critical thinking, it serves as the basis for evidence-based thinking and should also be taught to everyone from elementary school through college. While the practice of the scientific method does not always coincide with its ideals, this unique approach to understanding, relatively recent in human history, has contributed to increasing human comprehension, accelerating the advance of technology, and enhancing the wealth of nations.
[Please click here for a Presentation on the Philosophical Foundations of Science]
Management of Technology
Teaching graduate courses in technology-oriented subjects such as "Foundations of Management and Technology," Strategic Management of Technology and Innovation," Principles of Technology Management," and "The Manager in a Technological Society," one comes to appreciate the critical role technology and innovation have in determining national productivity. And as Economics 101 teaches, it is productivity which determines national wealth and the wealth and health of a nation's citizens. Even a small change in national productivity can alter a country's global status and influence - up or down - within a generation or two.
Keep in mind that technology is the totality of the means employed to provide objects necessary for human sustenance and comfort. It consists of products and processes. It encompasses the technical and managerial knowledge which is embodied in physical and human capital and is published and transmitted in various ways. Technology was ignored as a key production factor (like land, labor, and capital) until recently. Technology can be ascribed to tool-using non-human organisms or entities as well (e.g., chimpanzees or aliens from the planet Glarfnex).
Despite our current emersion in technology, the most important technological artifact in human history was among the first –the flint cutting tool used by Homo habilis(c. 2,500,000 BCE). These essential tools allowed relatively puny humans (who were more scavengers than hunters) to rapidly cut, detach, and carry away meat from carcasses before more formidable predators and scavengers arrived. This primitive, but effective, technology allowed the tiny numbers of humans to survive, and it provided a high-protein diet that allowed the brain to enlarge and evolve.
[Please click here for a Presentation on the Management of Technology]
An Overview of Systems
Technology continues to evolve at an exponential rate, along with the growth in human population. Organizations of people and machines grow increasingly complex, along with the problems and opportunities they engender. Solutions to problems become counter-intuitive, and the best intentions of decision makers lead to disastrous consequences. Sometimes it seems that “up” becomes “down,” and “in” becomes “out.”
Knowledge of systems is essential to solving complex problems, but too many decision makers think they know what a system is, but do not.
[Please click here for An Overview of Systems]
Technology Innovation
While invention is the wellspring of national productivity and wealth, invention without innovation is like a car without fuel – it won’t go anywhere. Innovation ensures that the creative process of invention culminates in a successful product in the marketplace.
[Please click here for a Presentation on Technology Innovation]
Robotics in Future Warfare
In April 2009 we gave a Presentation on Robotics in Future Warfare at the Army War College Strategic Studies Institute as part of the Panel on Robotics and Contemporary and Future Warfare for the Conference on the Strategic Implications of Emerging Technologies.
[Please click here for a Presentation on Robotics in Future Warfare]