Reed's Ruminations: The Past, Present, and Future
Reflections on science, technology, and computing — leavened by personal experience
Category: Innovation
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Who’s Doing Your Thinking (and Writing)?
N.B. This essay is about three interrelated topics: (a) the art and soul of human writing, (b) the ethics of intellectual delegation via AI, and (c) the mechanistic reality of intelligence. Many years ago, I sat in a university cabinet meeting as we debated some forgotten, but seemingly momentous issue. At some point during the…
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The AI Whispered Your Name …
You have probably been the unwitting protagonist in the following social horror movie. A stranger approaches you and begins chatting animatedly, like an old acquaintance or confidant. Meanwhile, you nod vaguely, half-listening while seized by internal panic. You frantically attempt to triangulate a face, name and a context. It is a study in cognitive dissonance,…
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HPC In An AI World
We need a moonshot that rebuilds our core computing infrastructure based on 21st century ideas, not just variants of those from the past century. It will not be for timid, the nostalgic, or the underfunded. Bold ideas and new approaches never are.
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Merit Review: Investing in People and Ideas
While I was chair of the National Science Board (NSB), which is the Presidentially appointed body charged with oversight of the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF), we launched a comprehensive review of how NSF selects and competitively awards funding for research proposals. We did so recognizing that leadership of the United States in Science, Technology,…
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A Canticle for Reason
N.B. This is an old article, written a decade ago, but shared only informally with a few. In today’s uncertain world, it seems appropriate to share it more widely. The news spread through the community as most things do – a whisper here, a brief allusion there. Everyone seemed to know, but nobody dared talk…
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RENCI and the Digital Antique Shop
In 2004, I moved to North Carolina to found the Renaissance Computing Institute (RENCI). My goal was to bring a new approach to computationally mediated problem solving, one rooted in multidisciplinary teams and focused on important and vexing societal problems – health, environment, society, and economics. In a phrase, to be a catalyst for innovation.…