Transcripts For CSPAN Mark Dean On Technology And Innovation 20240713

The university of washington history professor Margaret Omara discusses her book the code. You have the biggest of Big Government programs, the space race. The militaryindustrial complex, that becomes the foundation for this flywheel of an incredible creation and innovation and wealth, private wealth creation, and an industry that considers itself that built itself up on its own, that has become invisible to many people who are in silicon valley, who are the creators of these companies. They think there is not a world, but there is. That is part of the magic, that it is a government out of sight. Cer on sundayun night, on cspan. Martinup, ibm cocreator on mark dean on technology and innovation. Then a hearing on the cost of raising a family. Now computer engineer mark dean. Harold good afternoon, everyone. Glad you made it in the inclement weather. We have a nice representation of people for what i think is going to be an exciting talk. So we are glad you are here. Harold conner, and im a member of the Museum Foundation board. Jim campbell, who just stepped in a moment ago, is the president of the board, so ive a stake in the series of talks. And dr. Mark dean agreed to do this talk several months ago. And he was the first one i saw when i came in. So he is here. I think youre in for a pleasure, and hear some really neat things about what is happening in his career. He went to the university of tennessee. Dr. Dean is an inventor and a computer engineer. He is local. He was raised in jefferson city. How Many University of tennessee fans in here . Show of hands. All right, way to go. So he got his first degree from the university of tennessee. Got his masters and doctorate in electrical engineering. He lost his way from tennessee and ended up at stanford for his phd. So that pretty good school. And we have some people here who know about that university. Is an ibm fellow. Is anyone in here familiar with the ibm pc . [laughter] i bet you cant tell what year you became familiar with the ibm pc . 1975 . I dont remember that long ago. [laughter] harold but this young man was who is going to today was on that team that developed it and he has patents to prove it. He was instrumental in that information technology. Im not sure what we would do today if we did not have the pc and everything that goes along with that. He continued his career with ibm and became a fellow, which is the highest level of distinction in that organization. And he is a member of the National Inventors hall of fame. He has several patents himself, connected with the pc and other endeavors. And it is just indeed a pleasure. He has been the interim dean of the university of Tennessee School of engineering, Tickle College of engineering so it is a pleasure to introduce dr. Mark dean. [applause] dr. Dean ok. Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you, harold, for the introduction. I will put that down there. I am not used to speaking in a microphone because even in this size room i usually can throw my voice. Im also not used to speaking behind a podium. So i may step out a little bit. Just to see better. I am glad you were able to come. Actually, i am happy with the number of people here because we can make this more interactive. Im going to spend a little time telling you about myself, about technology, its impact on society. A few things we need to think about going forward, or at least i would like to have a conversation around them, and then a little bit about emerging technologies. Then we can explore whatever you guys want to explore. So i do not have too many constraints. Some of you who know me may know that. As harold said, i am from a little town near here, jefferson city, tennessee. I started my academic career at nelson mary, a black school before integration. My grandfather was the principal. I like to pointed that out. That dates me. In the third grade they integrated the School System so i went to the integrated school. And i was the last class to graduate from our small high school. Of a picture of my early years. I went to the university of tennessee. Got my undergraduate degree. I cooped at alcoa aluminum, which paid my way through undergraduate. That is a good way to get through school. Then ibm hired me into development. I worked there 10 years on what the ibm pc and related technology for the first 10 years of its life. So ive got just over 40 patents and most of those are tied to the work we did on the ibm pc. It was called the isa system bus. And essentially the thing that defined pc compatibility for 15 years. And we actually i will talk more about that, but we were actually surprised at how long that existed. We did not expect that we would set the standards to that level. As harold said, i got my phd from stanford. I spent 34 years at ibm. And i have spent my last six years as a faculty member at university of tennessee and as interim dean for the Tickle College of engineering. I have been blessed. I have to say, i have been very blessed. Now many people ask. , this is the question i get more than anything else, when you were developing the ibm pc, did you know what you were doing . [laughter] and i say first you step back and say, what did they mean . I think they meant, did we realize the level of impact, good and bad, that the personal computer and related technologies would have on society, productivity, entertainment, information sharing, business models, communications and all that aspects of our lives . So when i recover, i answer the question as no. We really didnt realize what we were doing. We did realize that we were building something that would improve productivity for people that wanted to create and manage information. So this includes word processing, ledgers, anybody that bought the original pc, this is what you would do. You would design. You would have personal data storage. It was one of the systems that started to allow you to store data locally, versus out in the wasnt the cloud at the time. It was usually an ibm mainframe. Now is called the cloud. History repeats itself. So we did not realize how much it would affect everyone and enable so much innovation. Just like all previous innovations, the creators could not have fully understood how they would change the world. Now the pcs, laptops, tablets and your smart phones are all integral parts of our lives. Helping us create and share information, be entertained, and to get things done. So again, i was in the right place and the right time, not knowing any better and things worked out. So i have been fortunate. Fortunate enough to be part of a lot of teams that includes the ibm pc, that includes the first gigahertz microprocessor. Ibms supercomputer called blue jean in new york. We developed a discipline called services science. If we had a few hours i would tell you what it is. Just trust me it was , interesting. Then more recent work that was done with one of my colleagues in the audience computing , paradigms based on the human brain called noomorphic computing. So it has been great. I cannot complain. I have been able to explore a lot. Me what doesasks it feel like to invent . What is it like to have 40 patents . The real truth is most of my inventions are the result of what i would call my superpower. Right . Youre dreaming, right . A vividmy superpower imagination and confidence to believe you can build anything. That is my superpower. And i am not unique everybody , has a superpower. Most do not realize what it is or have the opportunity to develop it and focus on their superpower. I have had that opportunity. There have been two primary organizations that allowed me to develop and exploit my superpower. One is the university of tennessee. Without the education i got there, i would not have had the chance to go on and be a part of ibm. And of course ibm. Individuals none of you will recognize, but without them i would not have had the chance to do things i i have been able to do. The first is von schenklin in my early career at alcoa. Ted davis, who helped me when i joined ibm. Rod atkins, wayne davis who is now interim chancellor here. And it the reason i came back to be a faculty member. My wife, denise. She has been with me and made a lot of things possible. My parents, james and barbara dean. And my grandparents eugene and , althea. A shoutout to them. Because without them, none of this would have been possible. So, we have actually been able to change the world. I guess that would be the way i would have to put it. Not thinking that was the intent. But that is how it kind of turned out. I actually believe anything we realized. E can be there is just a simple matter of four key elements. Time, money, risk, and determination. Now, i use the word determination. But most people would call that not knowing any better. But determination sounds a whole lot better. So i will use the term determination. Also, most great innovations that have had the biggest impact on society, have occurred in the gaps between disciplines. Right . Putting ideas together from multiple sources and disciplines to solve a problem or to address an opportunity. Thats where most of the great innovations have occurred. And i would have to say the pc falls right into that category. Innovation being the application of invention to solve a problem is something i am far more proud of than my inventions themselves. I have all these patents. But the real value is what we did with them. Not the patents and the inventions themselves. So the invention is worthless unless it has an impact. Unless it changes peoples lives or helps people live better, have more success, be happy, so that is the true measure of a particular innnovation. And so i have enjoyed watching right . Use what we built, that is where i get my joy to , watch someone use a computer i have designed or take advantage of something we have been able to build. That is where the joy comes from. Theres a lot of innovations that we often take for granted. And have ignited significant change in the world. I just want to mention a few. Just to set up the talk after that. Harvesting energy from burning organic material, we would say diesel engines, gasoline engines, steam engines, these things have allowed us to find breakthroughs in transportation, manufacturing, infrastructure, mining, lots of areas. Thats a big deal. Trains, planes and automobiles. They have allowed society to spread out. And without that we would not be s we are today. T electricty, wired communication, and telephone broadband. , and wireless communication. So we wouldnt have television, cell phone, radio, satellite. Penicillin and vaccines are big. And i was telling someone earlier, i think the next great breakthroughs will be in biology. On penicillinigh vaccines, and other , breakthroughs that are coming in biology. Aspirin and ibuprofen. Atomic energy. A lot of it was developed here. Plastics. The transistor. Computers, obviously. The internet. And gps. These are things that innovations and many Others Society could not live without. Today. Right . They have also enabled new discoveries and new innovations. Theyre not just innovations in themselves, but they have enabled us to go further. So now engineers and scientists often build things as a challenge to their abilities. And i have to admit that is kind , of why i built most of the things that i have built. Or that it has never been done before. We are driven by being first. Or because it is fun to watch somebody use something you design. So these are the things that tend to drive engineers and scientists. Engineers and scientists seldom consider the impact on society a particular invention or innovation may have. At most this would be a secondary consideration and probably would not occur after the first prototype or demonstration model was done. So im going to question, this is going to be a question that all great innovations that have had a Significant Impact on society, also may have had some negative impacts on society. I want to explore what responsibility engineers and scientists have to help society understand both ends. The positive sides are easy. But can we explain and address and make sure society is aware of the potential negatives. I am going to cover a few technologies and then move on to talk about that in general. So computers. Lets take computers for example. Cell phones, tablets, entertainment systems, cable boxes, all of these are computers, basically. It is obvious the Significant Impact they have had on productivity, information and information sharing, new forms of entertainment, business models, complex systems modeling like weather forecasting, Business Opportunities for new applications and services, it is an endless list. It is part of our lives. Now, let me pose this. And i have yet to find someone we have a discussion but is an interesting thought. Think about this. Computers are the only product where we buy them expecting them to fail. [murmers] dr. Dean right . It is the only one we expect to have to reboot a computer or download a new version of software to fix it. I challenge people, is there anything else that we buy that we expect that of the product . Like refrigerators, cars. Light bulbs . Dr. Dean light bulbs . But they at least last 10 years. If my computer lasted a year without me having to reboot it. I would then accept that. But i do not get a week out of it. [laughter] [inaudible] dr. Dean ive never heard that recalled before. Im not sure you can upgrade that. Yeah, ok. Those moments only happen one moment in time. That is a positive experience when you look back on it. Usually. When you look back on your computer blue screen, that is usually not a positive experience. So, society now accepts flaws in Computing Products and the computing industry takes advantage of what we have trained society to expect. We will ship the computer industry will ship something before it really is fully tested. Right . Yep. Out becauselp them you test it for them, you tell them about the problems, and they give you an upgrade. We are used to that. We accept that. It feels funny, i was a part of this. And i feel funny about it. But i admit that we created this. And maybe it is ok. Im not going to say it is not ok. But it is strange. Like i said, i feel funny about it. Another i would have to say is negative that computing is insufficient at data privacy and data security. I have to admit that. We have exposed society to loss of sensitive or personal data. Especially to bad actors. And im going to talk more about that later. But i have to say that we have built computing and we have gone so far and we didnt take into consideration the effects on access to our private information. And maybe that should have taken more thought. So we cannot live without computers, right . And we did, things will slow if we did, things will slow down significantly. Some of you might say, that might be a good deal, right . Maybe slowing down a little would be ok. But no, the world is not going to slow down. So the question is should society expect some of our great computing capabilities to be used to improve computing reliability . I mean should we expect that , instead of more megahertz, more memory, more storage, more blah, blah, blah, that some of that could be used to make computers last more years, like a light bulb . Without me having to fix it or download a new application. I do not know. We could use the capability to provide better protection to our data. Maybe. Right . Maybe it could provide more independence for people that has no relevance to their social status or financial status. Right . Maybe it would open up new opportunities for everyone. Not just the few that can have access to it. The question is can consumer , expectation demand have a major effect on vendors and what they offer . Yes, it can but we have to decide that that is what we want. That we want something, something better. And expect that, and drive the industry, maybe. Like i said, the upside of computing, the productivity and efficiencies are significant. We see that and we accept some of the downsides because of the significant upside. There are other technologies that we use every day and have positives. Plastic. That is another example. Huge, right . I do not think we could live without plastic. Packaging of food, distribution of food, reduction in waste, it has been a big deal for us. But the challenge with plastics is, as you all know, waste. And the potential contamination of our environment. Again, im not going to blame the innovators of plastic or the technology, because it is something we can address. But obviously these are types of things we have to thing about. The internet is another one. Again, without the internet we would not have the great sharing of information, social media, all the great things we have come to enjoy having internet, even netflix and the things that provides, amazon would not be here without the internet. But i have to admit, the internet has exposed our information, personal information, our finances, our confidential records to exposure on a scale not before possible. Before the internet, you had to break into an Office Building and get something. Then it is local. Now i can sit in my living room. And i can get access to a lot of stuff. So, something to think about. Just something to think about. Again, im not trying to denigrate or downgrade these great breakthroughs. We just need to have these conversations. That is all im trying to expose. So, like a said, i do not wish to suggest that we should not have developed or deployed these technologies. The question is, should we as engineers and scientists, and im talking about myself, have identified and minimized the negatives of these technologies before they were deployed, or early in their deployment . And if we had, would anybody have listened . If we had said, wait a minute, heres some of the downside. Would people have paid attention . Or would they run off and say thats great, but im going to do this and this is gonna be good. It is an interesting thought. Could way as innovators have known ahead of time the downside of distribution and use of these technologies . Could we have predicted it . Like i said when we were doing , the ibm pc, we did not predict a lot of stuff. We do not know any better. It kind of took off. But we could have given it a lot more thought. Is it our responsibility as engineers and scientists to notify and protect society from the potential downsides and dangers of a Given Technology . The real question is who is liable for any damages or losses incurred from the use of a Given Technology . Who is responsible . Ok, i will leave you with that thought. Lets talk about the newest commodity to be leveraged by us, individuals, and businesses. Anybody want to guess . A. I. Dr. Dean no, it is a commodity. [indiscernible] dr. Dean here is what i think. It is data. Just data. Just data. It gets big because theres a lot of it. The potential revenues and Profit Margins for the creation, collection, integration, analysis, distribution and sale of data and information is greater than any other commodity. Right . So Data Information is quickly becoming the new world currency. Far exceeding import and export of any other commodity. Just moving data around. It is a bigger import and export commodity than anything else. And theres going to be more money made on that movement of data than any other commodity. Than any commodity you can think of. This will far exceed the revenues associated with it. Just moving bits around. Just bits. That is all it is. But there is a lot of money in that business. So, Companies Like amazon and ebay, google, facebook, ups, microsoft, ibm, b of a, accenture, and many others are making large amounts of money collecting, analyzing, leveraging, and distributing data. That is all they are doing. No manufacturing required. People sitting in an Office Building, airconditioned, moving bits around. Making money. And all these companies are delivering products and services that have contributed to our prosperity. Because they are doing it, we are enjoying that. That prosperity they are providing. Now the question what , responsibly do they have in in protecting this information we weve should these companies treat our data like banks treat our money . Or maybe banks used to treat our money . What penalty should be levied on the loss of this data . What value should we place on things like Social Security numbers and medical records and banking account information or purchases . Emails and tweets and website visits. Information of our physical activities and pictures or videos, and all of Data Information. What value should we place on that . Should we start treating Data Information like precious metal . Gold or platinum. Should we think of it that way . Or maybe like a currency . Maybe we should treat data like a currency . I do not have the answer. I like talking about it. I like imagining that. People do not realize the value that is in this information. They do not realize how much money is being made because they are moving stuff around that you actually have provided. I am not saying it is a bad thing, it is a commodity. So we probably need to have this conversation. We need to consider the policies that are required to protect us as individuals and our organizations. Heres one of my biggest concerns. It has to do with what could be the next downturn in the Global Economy. Again, i do not know any better. One of my superpowers. So im going to say this. It will be interesting to hear your response. I think one of the potential things that could cause a downturn in the Global Economy would be the lack of trust. The lack of trust in online information and transactions. I was talking to brian here in the room, we coined this phenomenon as a trust bubble. What if we had a trust bubble . Such that this would be an environment where individual companies and governments could not trust online correspondence and transactions. So emails, advertisements, retail websites, information sources, news feeds, social media sites, and all the others, could be sufficiently untrusted, not completely untrusted, but sufficiently untrusted to restrict transactions, information sharing, and productivity. So if entities and transactions and content on the internet become just marginally untrusted, progress in our Global Cultural awareness and Global Economy, and working globally to solve problems, stalls. If i all of a sudden cannot open up an email because i do not trust that it is from who it says its from or if i cannot order something from a company because i cannot trust that theyre going to deliver that commodity to me, i stall. If i cannot interact with a colleague because i cannot trust that the email or file that im getting is actually from him, or is clean, or is uncorrupted, i stall. Now i cannot do anything. All right. So if this happens again, this is speculative. If this happens, is there a way for us to address this potential issue . Can we deal with this before it becomes reality . If you believe it could become reality . And anytime you have sat in front of your computer and gotten an email and you look at it and question whether it really is from bank of america, an insurance company, or someone trying to sell you something, and you have not clicked on it because you do not want it to contaminate your system, you have now suffered that lack of trust. It is a bubble. All of a sudden we all stall. Can we deal with it . Is there something we can do . Im going to say yes. It is going to take work. But im going to say yes we can. We need governments, companies, academic institutions, and individuals to Work Together globally to establish transparent and effective policies toward providing trusted and secure transactions and information sharing on the internet. That is a lot to say. Its basically that we can Work Together to fix this. There are technologies to do it. Some of that technologies that can help with this is, and again, its not all of them, and we can argue whether this would work or not, some of them i think could help our block chain, agents, Realtime Data analytics, data providence, encryption, and data use and privacy policies that would go a long way to alleviating the threats and maintain trust in this environment. Engineers and scientists, it turns out, are second only to nurses in the trust that society has toward their insights and guidance. So, that feels good, right . Nurses are number one. Everybody kind of trusts nurses. Engineers are next. So i tell my students, you carry extra responsibility because of that. My mother depends on you getting it right. And protecting her from everything that is coming at her, so take on that responsibility and make sure you keep her out of trouble. Because engineers have a huge impact. Engineers make up about 1. 5 of society, but the impact an engineer can have is on hundreds of thousands of people. One little application, one little toy. It is huge. My mother buys those things. I need to make sure that she is ok. This means we have a primary responsibility to clearly explain how technology can help us be more prosperous, happy, and protected. My experience says that when institutions and individuals are transparent and open and share ideas, technology, and innovation, we create a bigger market. More prosperity. Safer products. And a higher dependence on each other. Thus a more trusted environment to live, work, and play. If i have a higher dependence on you, i have to have a higher trust for us to do things together. And a willingness to accept and embrace diversity, diversity of thought, will also help strengthen trust in these interactions. So, it is not just technology, we also have to appreciate each others differences. And see the value in that. We are stronger and more protected when we Work Together. When we Share Technology and know how. Markets are created, become more trusted, and grow faster, for people and organizations and companies when we all can participate. The Marsh Corporation calls this the economics of mutuality. Everybody in the supply chain benefits. As always, technology is an enabler. It is a tool like a hammer. We have to figure out how best to use it and how best to protect ourselves from people that may want to use it for bad. No matter what it is, you can use it for good and there is always somebody who can figure how to use it for bad. So to increase awareness of technology capabilities, and the continued Technology Development of technologies that protect our well being will be key to avoiding this potential downturn, economic disruption, negative effect that might be realized in our present environment. So i can ramble about technology. Ive got a lot of things we are working on. Given the size of the audience, i thought it would be a good time to pause and see if theres something you want to talk about. I would rather talk about things you are interested in then things i have written down. So, if theres anything you are interested in, i can repeat it so the recording can pick it up and we will have a chat. Yes sir. Better part of a century ago, mail fraud was made illegal. Also crime carried out across state boundaries, National Crimes were made illegal. And now fraud and scamming and so on are definitely running wild in these classes. This is not an engineering problem except in terms of educating the engineers and the entire population to get a government that can step in and do that. Do you have anything to say about that . Dr. Dean so the question was, we figured out how to deal with wire fraud, mail fraud, some other things that were new technologies at the time. The government stepped in and made things illegal. To date, at least some governments have stepped in, not all governments are on the sidelines. In general, we have yet to put in place specific laws. We tried to leverage existing law to address it. The problem is the technology has kind of moved beyond what was defined in the old law. So it is hard to have them hold together. Heres what i think. Im going to be gentle. We as engineers and scientists need to help our government officials understand the issues. I cannot expect the people that are our leaders to understand everything. All aspects of technology. Because they would have to understand biology and computers and nanoscience and physics and that is just not reasonable. But what they can do is ask us some questions. They can have technical advisors guiding them in these areas. That is our responsibility. If they ask the question, or if we can offer them insight, which we often try to do, we can start to expose these issues and potential solutions. Some of the technologies i read off are technologies that, if put in place, could help us. Could make a difference. You realize, with any kind of improvement, especially where we are because there are trillion exo i do not know if you know the term for the amount of computing and Technology Information out there. For us to move, it is going to cost a bit to get there. People will consider that. Especially corporations, they may say, oh, wait a minute, you mean this is going to cost me x to do this . What you want to say is, you have to think about my mother. I will tell them that. You have to protect her. You have to protect my operation. You have to protect my children. I got to have an environment where they are safe to do the things they want to do. That should be the starting point of the conversation. Then we can talk about how. Then we can talk about how to deploy it, technology moves fast. It would not take much time for us to move the needle, enough to where we can avoid what i would call this trust bubble that might be occurring. But it is interesting. I need to read history. My grandfather was a history teacher. He would tell me, what is the saying, history does not repeat, it rhymes. We are rhyming. I am curious how long it took to put laws in place to protect us from mail fraud. I will look at that you and look at that. I would like to compare it to how long it is taking us now to deal with where we are today. It has gone a ways and maybe something needs to happen. Question here . The thing that concerns me is that extensive use of these things by children may actually affect how their brains are developing and we will not have any idea until we have gone a couple of generations. It may be good and it may be awful. We do not know. And we will not know for a long time. That is really creepy. Dr. Dean yes. This is interesting. This is why we should have these conversations. I do not know either. I do know that while we cringe, when i teach my classes and i cringe at the students i have in them like, really . You are our future leaders . [laughter] dean but i have to say, there are representatives in that classroom that are really strong. They got there because they have all of this access to all of this information. So i think, like anything, there is good and bad. I think our kids have benefited from the fact that, instead of having to just be constrained by the Small Library they may have had in their high school or their grammar school, they now have this broad access. But they have so much access, now they need something to help them not get confused. Let me say it that way. Or get the things they maybe should not get to. Maybe we need to leverage some of the technology to help the parents meter, monitor, and control. We used to have that, when you would go to the library and get a book, it was hard for the parents not to know what books you are having access to. It is harder now. While i praise the access to all this information, i think it is great, i think kids can do things that i would never have been able to do because i did not have access to all of that information. But with that comes the exposure to stuff you would rather not have them exposed to. Or they do things you would rather for them to go outside and get exercise. This is a balance, right . They may not be relating to each other. Dr. Dean yeah, or relating in different ways to each other. Without that medium in between it. That will affect how they could work with other people. Dr. Dean that is fair. It is somewhat up to us to help them understand that. I will get people who come up to me and say, what happened to our kids . I will say, well, we, my generation, we are responsible for these kids. They are our kids. We have that responsibility. Technology can help and hurt us, but we can get involved. I am not so negative, per se. Because there are some good things. Back in my growing up years, the best i could do was mail my penpal. Our communications took weeks. Now, kids can have hundreds of friends that dont even live close by. They cannot live in an other country. They can live in another country. That can be good. Cultural awareness can be super. They also can have conversations when they are not facetoface that are more caustic than if they were facing each other. So, yes. Like i said, it is good and bad. I remember when email first came out, you should see what people would say over and email that they would never say in front of that person. They had to learn. No, you cannot do that. There is some etiquette. We have to teach people that. Like with everything, there is positives and negatives. I think the positives are pretty strong. We do need to work on some of the downsides. That are affecting our kids. We may not know what the downsides are for a long time. People smoked until we figured out they were dying of it. Dr. Dean i am not sure there is much we can, per se, do about that except Pay Attention. If we Pay Attention, we cannot address it before it gets too bad. A lot of times, people just are not paying attention. You said the important thing was to have confidence. How do you know when you have confidence. How do you recognize it, realize it, and retain it . Dr. Dean it is trust what i am focused on. You may say that is confidence in the tools that we use. Is that what you are really saying . You used the word trust and i translated it to confidence. Dr. Dean that is fine. I think that is something that is inherent in our cultural awareness. In ourselves. You know it when it exists. But it is hard to measure trust. I have a lot of trust in people. That is because, what ive experienced with them makes me say, ok, i trust them. When they said they are going to do something, it is going to happen. I have certain trust in certain things i do on the web, because i have interacted with these businesses and they have always produced. Thus im comfortable now buying more things from them, or sharing information with them. If i sit in front of my computer and i come upon something and i question whether i should engage, that is a lack of trust. Especially if i do not engage. Now i have very little trust. So the reason would be, i have either experienced something negative and thus the feeling is i dont want to experience that again. So everybody has their own threshold. My wife, she trusts just about everything. She will buy from anything. She will come up on a website and say, that looks nice, and ill say, how do you know that youre going to get from this what you are ordering . She says, oh, it will happen. So until you do something to lose her trust, she trusts. She is a trusting lady. Im a little bit more cautious. I may do a little bit more research before i jump in. The key is, society as a whole can decide. If enough of us trust a particular website or particular company, that builds on itself and things works out. If enough of us do not trust it or question whether we should engage, then that particular entity or company will not do as well. At some point, they will fall apart because there is lack of trust. Its almost Like Development of a brand. There are some brands that are so strong, everybody wants to buy from them. They have become a trusted entity. Im not going to say any brands because i will get in trouble. Somebody will say, i dont trust them. There are brands that are strong and produce great cars or great financial results, they are very productive. We buy stuff and they always deliver. There are some companies im impressed with. Ups is one, i have to have a shout out at ups. Im amazed at the efficiencies of their operation. These days we hear a lot about fake news. And everything is subject to fake news. There is nothing you can trust anymore. Dr. Dean that is the bubble im worried about. That is the bubble. If i stall because i cannot trust anything i hear on the web, i cannot move. Im stuck. I do not advance, i cannot figure out what is going on. I cannot figure out how i can help. That is what im talking about. That is why i brought this up. That is what bothers me now. Are we approaching this bubble where i cannot even opt in because i do not know what is being said is right or wrong . That is exactly right. News feeds that i seem to trust. Maybe i do not know any better. Maybe if i verified them through other means. That is what is going to take work is for us to started to trust certain things, we cannot just accept input from one source. We also have to be willing to have the discussion the funny thing i am afraid of, if you are not on my side, i do not like you. Grandfather, he loved to engage in a conversation. He would always play devils advocate. It would drive my cousins and uncles crazy. He would always go on the others. He may not have believed in it, but he wanted to carry on the conversation. I loved it so i do it too. That kisses my wife off. She hates it. But i like it. Need we need to be willing to hear out both sides or multiple sides and aside from all that information. Maybe we can get rid of this fake news if we were willing to have a conversation. How much of it is our responsibility as individuals because there is so Much Technology and so much information . With my sons were young, they would stay with their grandparents and my motherinlaw was a teacher, calculators come out. She would let them punch the numbers, but they had to show her on paper that they knew how to figure out the problem before they could turn it on. I did not understand it then. When i go to the Grocery Store now iegisters down understand. News we, we call fake i think, have to have individual responsibility to take advantage of the technology there because you cannot decide for me, i do not believe you can decide for me, what is fake and what is not. I may have had a trusted experience and someone else did not. Dr. Dean trust is developed lots of different ways. Comfortable with people like themselves. You tend to trust those individuals before he would trust someone that is not like you. People thatt mean are not like you are on trustworthy, it is just a natural tendency. We as humans have to kind of fight that if we are going to build a more diverse society. We have to embrace our differences. You are right. Here is what i would say. Responsibility to give getmy opinion, and if we everyones insight, we often times can come to a middle ground. At least we had the conversation. If i only interact with people i am comfortable with or one station or one a newscast, that is going to bias me. Responsibility to be aware of all the other things being said and those opinions and then decide. They may have a compelling argument. What i have noticed, there is always that middle ground, that compromise. If you can find it, everyone says, got it. What i wanted,ly but if it brings other people in, it is good enough. Say,andfather would perfection is overrated. He stole these sayings from other people. I give him credit. Perfection is overrated. Eve you can get it good enough, you are good to go. Quit working so hard. Educator, you are seeing the students that have grown up with technology. How do you assess todays students . You teach engineering school, used to brag there are students having average entrance that was one point higher than the previous class. That cannot go on forever. What do you see now on these up with who have grown the technology . What is your general conclusion of the impact on all these students of this technology . When i would have to general, i think they are pretty smart. I think this is on average. You have some kids that are off the scale. You cannot even measure the upsides they are bringing to the table. That you still have a few that are lost, they wander around, they may run into the wall, finally find a place to sit, a kind of get through. On average, it is pretty good. Average 31. Re on the maximum is 36. If you have an average of 31, that is pretty good. The gdp not gdp. , average scores for their issses in high school, it 4. 1. It used to be you could not get over for over four. Some students are 4. 5. They are off the scale. Are those for the department of engineering . Dr. Dean thats right. The university is a little bit less than that. For college of engineering, we are getting top students and we are growing. It is not that we are getting fewer smarter students. The students are doing pretty well. There is a little more we can do to get more students. There is a shortage. 2025, thetics say by u. S. Will be short on engineers by 400,000. Ofwill have a shortage 400,000 engineers in five years. We need to find a way to get more students into the system. Say,tudents, i have to while i cringe sometimes at the questions they ask, i have to say, we are producing some smart ones as well. Students thathd are really special. Of straddling the answer a little bit. I have to admit, they are awful smart. Challenges,are some i think that all in all they benefited from technology. I am retired, we have known each other for a long time. When mark and i went to the we hadity of tennessee, amazing access to resources. Advantage oftook those resources, the sky was the limit on what they could do. The problem is not all students came in with the capabilities to take advantage of those resources. Later, theof years access of the students of the resources the students have access to is incredible. Again, do they have the, not just knowledge, but the practice and skill set coming out of k12 to leverage those resources . Those that do fly away. We have seen people go from ut to caltech, m. I. T. , but below the top off of things there. And there is always this group that struggles and hit the walls and there is the group that flies away. Maybea middle group the disbursement has gotten larger. Possibly because of the wealth of technology and resources people have access to and whether they can leverage that. Rate at our graduation ut for the college of engineering are the highest in the state and they have improved over time. We used to have half the students get through the engineering program. Through, it was probably 20 . Dr. Dean now it is close to 70 of the students through the system. That does not mean it is easier. I think we are doing pretty good. I am positive about the kids. We can do better. We still have more work we can do. It is a constant battle because technology does not take that into consideration. We did not take into consideration what social media might do and expose our kids and ourselves too. We thought it was great. We can share every moment of our lives with our friends. Everything i do i can share, not thinking, maybe i should not share some things i do. Maybe we should not do that. In the interest of time, and or talk, you talked about the data bubble. How it will be an economic boom. Individuals,ng, as how can we take advantage of that . Dr. Dean you want to make some money off of that. I see where you are coming from. Where can i benefit . That is a good question. We, as individuals, we produce a little bit of data. I do not produce individually that much. The benefit is getting your data and my data and everyone elses data together and pulling insight from that. If you had enough computing capacity, you could do that yourself. There is a lot of data online. There are some companies, it just happens because of the way they are doing business. Amazon knows a lot about you. The first time you order something, they know a lot about you and your friends and your neighbors and the people you work with and everything else. They can put that together, now they know a bout. That has a bout of value. An individual has a tough time doing that. All ofnot have access to that. I do not know how you are a valuable guy, maybe you can smell your thinking to somebody. Call them up and say, you want to this data i have. There are a few of us that benefit because when we write something down and call it a patent we get a little bit from that. That is some data we can take advantage of. The way i think we as individuals can benefit potentially, especially the kids can do programming, they can sit in their bedrooms, write an application, give it to someone for a dollar, if enough people buy it for a dollar, you come out ahead. Allowsn be a tool that people to gather more information or get more insights. Individuals create a little amount of data. It is probably, by itself, does not have a lot of value. But in accumulation, enough of it, it has a lot of value. There was a question behind you. You mentioned four steps to innovation. , how, in aring curriculum setting, can you infuse the important parameter of risk all the other ones, they can probably, how, get, bue inactor, how can you part to them that they need to do that . , indean in engineering many cases, it is easier. One of the things i like and the reason i am in engineering, i like building things. Things i think the university of tennessee does pretty well is give students the chance to build stuff. , put a piecee code of technology to. We have everybody in the college has to do a senior design project. That means building something. Building something within a team. , youme you build something are exposed to something happening. Especially in engineering. You blow up something or catch something on fire. One of the lectures doug and i would give, a notion of the dos and donts, the etiquette involved as you are building and testing something, what are the things you need to do to make sure you are safe and your partners are safe . One good example in mechanical engineering, they work on electric cars. 350 volts. That is a lot. Especially given it is a direct current. It can burn you up. Connection and it is not a good sign. It is worse than the outlets, which are 120 volts. They have to go through extensive training on safety to make sure they do not get across that voltage. Getting intot them that situation. I think we have only had one incident where a student it is a grad student got into the postage. It did not hurt them that, but they did get into that awareness and showing people what can happen in one of my a student does a lot in Fire Protection and highvoltage circuitry, so he would give a lecture and he would show what would happen if you got into some of these situations. What can happen if you do not Pay Attention and follow the rules. People get hurt. Aware to help students be of those risks, physical risks associated with that. You could argue, what about financial risk or emotional risk, risks that are less physical and are less transparent . They can happen to you emotionally or in other ways, financially or otherwise. Those are things you have to talk about. You have to have those conversations in class and help them understand what can happen. And in the ring has a set of principles that should be followed as you are developing and testing out things. If you follow those principles, you tend to minimize those risks , at least in design. Ares to society, if you looking at societal impact, we also have a module to cover that as well. I am actually pretty proud i have a shout out to my colleague pretty proud that in most of our departments, we work to try to expose the student to those soft skills, those skills that are not driven by Raw Technology , outside of physics and chemistry. The skills of attics. The skills of communication. The skills of being able to interact. Those are important skills. Technicals have skills and can explain to do the pros and cons, they are differentiated. Those are the ones you want. Thisbody can design widget, but if i can explain to my mother and she gets it, now that person has more value. They can go on and be the leaders. We try to give them some of those soft skills as well to make sure they can understand the risk. Me thisiate you giving time, i appreciate you coming out. At least you are dry. Thank you. [applause] dr. Dean thank you. Thank you guys. [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2019] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] here is a look at some of our featured programming this holiday week on cspan. Today, a joint Economic Committee hearing on the high cost of raising a family. Litigatortitutional talks about occupational licensing requirements at the federalist society. There were three types of constitutional abuses you tend to see. The former slaves and white allies he would have their arms taken away, their right to vote taken away, at a right to be economically selfsufficient taken away. You observe Horror Stories of having to go back and work for former slave owners because of laws preventing them from being able to be selfsufficient. Watch this week on cspan. Cspan2 Life Campaign 2020 coverage continues saturday with congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard in new hampshire. Biden Vice President joe in new hampshire. Yang in newew hampshire. Elizabeth warren in boston. Watch the candidates live on cspan. Org, orat listen on the cspan radio app. Coming u