Wait, What?
Sept. 10, 2015
A technology forum would not be a Wait, What? Forum without Wait, What? moments. So your roaming "What’s Up at Wait, What?" blogger embarked on a small-batch quasi-random sampling of attendees to hear about their Wait, What? moments.
We found Mark Martell of BAE Systems and a DARPA Riser standing at the DARPA history wall in the Demo Hall, getting some insight into the deep roots that some breakthrough technologies have. “I was surprised how long ago some of these technologies that most of us think are new actually came about, like the F-117, in 1997. That was years before I was born!”
A woman from Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory working on DARPA’s ACTUV and Upward Falling Payloads (UFP) programs said that she had a “beginning of a thought” sparked by the topological data structures Gunnar Carlsson showed during his talk.
She said those complex structures reminded her of initial array designs that she and her colleagues had worked on, and that Carlson's talk suggested to her a possible new perspective on those designs. “I don't know if there is anywhere to go with that, but it is a thought,” she said. To which we say: That's exactly the kind of connection Wait, What? aims to catalyze!
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I was surprised how long ago some of these technologies that most of us think are new actually came about, like the F-117. |
On the activity feed of the meeting app, one respondent who was asked what her Wait, What? moment was, said she “will wait eagerly for improvements in diaper design,” a thought catalyzed by Zach Serber’s talk about "impossible materials". Another respondent described her Wait, What? moment to be a fresh appreciation of how: “the convergence of unlikely variables can create a potentially new field.”
Cheryl Martin, a former acting director of ARPA-E, the Department of Energy’s version of DARPA, and founder of the consulting firm Harwich Partners, was taken by the work she learned about in the Demo Hall on the vexing challenges posed by an ever more congested electromagnetic spectrum that is under ever increasing demand.
“Thinking about the cross applications outside of the direct military and security applications and how and why it can help us rethink things like congestion and routing and apportioning of the spectrum in different ways really got me to thinking Aha!, Oh!, Huh!"
Which is to say: Wait, What?
Keynotes
DARPA Director Arati Prabhakar welcomes guests and recaps presentations from Day 1 of the forum. | 11:34
New Voices, New Perspectives: DARPA Risers Alex Bataller (UCLA), Anupama Lakshmanan (Caltech) and Max Shulaker (Stanford) explain their ongoing research into dense microplasmas, adapting immune cells and enabling much faster, lower-power microchips. | 19:52
Smart Software in a World with Risk: Tom Dietterich, president of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence and Distinguished Professor of Computer Science at Oregon State University, delves into the challenges of ensuring that artificial intelligence performs safely and properly in the face of programming errors, cyberattacks and other risks. | 31:53
Communicative Computers: I2O Program Manager Paul Cohen describes how DARPA aims to improve human-machine mutual understanding by enabling computers to collaborate with biologists to figure out how deadly cancers work, and with human authors to create collaborative works of fiction. | 5:34
I Am Become Life… R. Alta Charo, the Warren P. Knowles Professor of Law and Bioethics at the law and medical schools of the University of Wisconsin, considers how the United States and the world — once consumed by fear of our newfound ability to annihilate all life — have now entered an equally stressful era characterized by fear of our ability to create new kinds of life. | 32:22
Design Tools for the Trillion-Device Future: Dr. Alberto Sangiovanni-Vincentelli, who holds the Buttner Chair of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences at the University of California at Berkeley, dives into the implications of a near future in which everybody is connected to thousands of networked devices embedded everywhere — a sensory swarm that is instrumented, interconnected and intelligently responsive. | 34:31
Wrangling Complexity STO Director Nils Sandell, Jr. describes how DARPA is paving the way to a national-security future in which complexity is wrangled to create systems of systems that function more reliably and safely than today’s “simpler,” more monolithic systems. | 5:12
Connect Everything - Spectrum Unbounded: MTO Director Bill Chappell explains how new spectrum-sharing technologies could fuel revolutionary improvements in our increasingly connected lives. | 5:04
Small Satellites and the Changing Space Industry: Craig Clark, satellite builder and CEO of Clyde Space Ltd., discusses the changing nature of the space industry and the potential benefits of small satellites made available on a much wider basis. | 29:52
Port of Call at 36,000 km TTO Deputy Director Pamela Melroy explains how low Earth orbit is booming with new commercial space activity—but another transformation awaits as geosynchronous Earth orbit (GEO). Space robotics technology will help us build the infrastructure for vibrant, sustaining presence at GEO and beyond. | 4:53
BTO | Future Biotech, Future Law: Revolutionary advances in the biological sciences promise a host of new capabilities, from programmable microbes to brain-machine interfaces that interpret and correct disruptive neural wave forms or allow direct control of devices through thought alone. But advances like these are poised to raise difficult ethical and legal quandaries. Moderator: Alta Charo, the Warren P. Knowles Professor of Law and Bioethics at the law and medical schools of the University of Wisconsin. Panel: Geoff Ling, Doug Weber, and Justin Sanchez. | 1:06:37
DSO | Science, Disrupted: Advances in physical sensing, leaps in computing power, an abundance of data and a host of other capabilities are advancing a revolution in science unlike any in the last 400 years, and are allowing us to tackle wicked problems that were intractable just a few years ago. Moderator: Ivan Amato | 1:13:54
I20 | AI Ascendant: AI technology is starting to be integrated into our critical infrastructure, our economy and our defense. This panel explored the issues that these changes raise. Moderator: Steve Lohr, New York Times. Panel: Trevor Darrell, Tom Dietterich, Yolanda Gil, and Hadas Kress-Gazit. | 1:15:42
MTO | Technology by the People, for the People - Circuits: The biggest innovation multiplier of all: The ability of kindred brains to find and work with each other wherever in the world they might be. Where and how will this revved-up open-source ethic prove most consequential? Moderator: Tom Kalil, Deputy Director for Technology and Innovation at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. Panel: Prabal Dutta, Andreas Olofsson, and Nigel Paver. | 1:08:33
STO | Wrangling Complexity: Today's complex and sophisticated technologies are built from components that assemble into mid-level systems that, in turn, integrate into systems of systems. Participants discussed the technical, design, logistical, operational and other challenges associated with systems of systems in both civilian and military contexts. Moderator: Nan Mattai, senior vice president of engineering and technology at Rockwell Collins. Panel: John G. Clark, Kathleen Fisher, Evan Fortunato, and Richard Murray. | 1:18:10
TTO | Launching New Trajectories in Space: How will this proliferation of new capabilities in launch and on-orbit operations, and today's bending of the cost curve, change the way we use and operate space? Moderator: Mike Gold, director of DC operations and business growth at Bigelow Aerospace. Panel: Craig Clark, Stan Dubyn, Debra Facktor Lepore, Talbot Jaeger, and Amit Mehra. | 1:16:44
