Maybe because the biggest hurdle Google is trying to overcome with Glass is the the "fashion" side of it, which Steve Mann has not cracked in those 20 years and isn't going to if he has 20 years more.
Also - does he really have so much experience with that tech? There seems to be some controversy around how much self-promotion he's doing via Wikipedia.
Academics have been driven largely by hubris since time immemorial. It's a mistake to think that this conflicts in principle with a passion for the subject (all though in can in practice, of course). If you get rid of all the academics who made you nauseous with self-promotion, you'd pretty much just be left with Erdős and some teachers.
Incidentally, for those who haven't read it, pg's analysis of the incredible technology of the Segway being completely trumped by human fashion is great: http://www.paulgraham.com/segway.html
As a graduate student, I can tell you, what you are saying is just plain untrue.
Surprisingly many professors I know seem to be genuinely motivated by what they see as a service to society. Typically, more through teaching than research.
Yes, there are a few big jerks who are clearly driven by wanting to show off.
Becoming an academic in CS for the sake of showing off would be an extremely dumb move. You get paid less than your students after just a few years, and nobody knows about you except some small clique of international researchers.
I do know of one or two in my area who seem this way, and I think they're very shallow people. And I know of some profs who are just kind of slackers. Maybe they though academia was something different than what it turned out to be.
But most profs are smart enough to know what kind of life it is going in. (A modicum of intelligence and societal savvy are required to get the job.)
It's clear that profs aren't in it for the money or the worldwide fame, but that hardly shows that they are motivated by societal altruism or an intrinsic love for the subject.
I didn't rule out showing off, I ruled out worldwide fame. People find communities that they believe to be important and then seek to gain status in those communities. You don't care about who won the best rhubarb pie in the greater Kansas bake off, but there is small contingent of people who care greatly about this prize. (After all, Kansas is center stage for fruit-based pies worldwide, and everyone knows that rhubarb is the true test of the purist.) This effect is even stronger in academic fields where it's easier to convince oneself of the importance of your community even when most people haven't heard of you. (The masses just don't understand the importance of our work, obviously.)
It's not always easy to distinguish between status motivations and the more socially desirable motivations. In fact, one measure of how well our institutions are constructed is how well aligned these motivations are; ideally, they would be indistinguishable. But there are ways to tease this out.
For example, when some exogenous input (e.g. federal funding cut) knock these people out of a high-status career, do they still work long hours in their spare time on the subject? Very rarely, especially as it becomes clear they won't regain former respect.
The incredible power of fads in academics, even among those with tenure, is more evidence. The best group strategies for maximizing impact call for diversifying research routes, but academic researchers clump very strongly because this is often in the best interest of an individual's status.
Human motivations are complicated and this makes it very difficult to compile indisputable evidence of anything. This is compounded by the fact that we want to appear to have other motivations than our actual ones. However, I think if you take a careful look and try to model academics as robots you'll find the "tries to maximize status" is a better first order approximation than "tries to maximize academic contribution".
For the record, I've been strongly influenced by the views of economist Robin Hanson on this subject.
I'm not saying that self-promotion is entirely and absolutely bad. Just that the post I replied to seemed to think that Mann was the be-all and end-all of the field, and I'm not sure how much that was based off his own propaganda.
> Also - does he really have so much experience with that tech?
Well, I, for one, was fascinated with wearable computers for a time after reading an article about Steve Mann (in MIT Technology Review, IIRC). That was about fifteen years ago. Based on my memory of that article, I'd say that 20 years is a bit of an understatement.
Comments
Maybe because the biggest hurdle Google is trying to overcome with Glass is the the "fashion" side of it, which Steve Mann has not cracked in those 20 years and isn't going to if he has 20 years more.
Also - does he really have so much experience with that tech? There seems to be some controversy around how much self-promotion he's doing via Wikipedia.
I was an undergrad research assistant for him for a while in the mid-1990s.
He's both self-promotional and has legitimately done all of the stuff he's promoting.
Academics have been driven largely by hubris since time immemorial. It's a mistake to think that this conflicts in principle with a passion for the subject (all though in can in practice, of course). If you get rid of all the academics who made you nauseous with self-promotion, you'd pretty much just be left with Erdős and some teachers.
Incidentally, for those who haven't read it, pg's analysis of the incredible technology of the Segway being completely trumped by human fashion is great: http://www.paulgraham.com/segway.html
As a graduate student, I can tell you, what you are saying is just plain untrue.
Surprisingly many professors I know seem to be genuinely motivated by what they see as a service to society. Typically, more through teaching than research.
Yes, there are a few big jerks who are clearly driven by wanting to show off.
Hmm, I wonder if maybe there's some correlation between academics the poster has heard of, and those that self-promote? :)
As a post-doc, I think you're deluding yourself or they're fooling you :)
Becoming an academic in CS for the sake of showing off would be an extremely dumb move. You get paid less than your students after just a few years, and nobody knows about you except some small clique of international researchers.
I do know of one or two in my area who seem this way, and I think they're very shallow people. And I know of some profs who are just kind of slackers. Maybe they though academia was something different than what it turned out to be.
But most profs are smart enough to know what kind of life it is going in. (A modicum of intelligence and societal savvy are required to get the job.)
It's clear that profs aren't in it for the money or the worldwide fame, but that hardly shows that they are motivated by societal altruism or an intrinsic love for the subject.
So if we rule out - money - showing off - altruism - love of the subject
then what the heck do you think think they're in it for?
I didn't rule out showing off, I ruled out worldwide fame. People find communities that they believe to be important and then seek to gain status in those communities. You don't care about who won the best rhubarb pie in the greater Kansas bake off, but there is small contingent of people who care greatly about this prize. (After all, Kansas is center stage for fruit-based pies worldwide, and everyone knows that rhubarb is the true test of the purist.) This effect is even stronger in academic fields where it's easier to convince oneself of the importance of your community even when most people haven't heard of you. (The masses just don't understand the importance of our work, obviously.)
It's not always easy to distinguish between status motivations and the more socially desirable motivations. In fact, one measure of how well our institutions are constructed is how well aligned these motivations are; ideally, they would be indistinguishable. But there are ways to tease this out.
For example, when some exogenous input (e.g. federal funding cut) knock these people out of a high-status career, do they still work long hours in their spare time on the subject? Very rarely, especially as it becomes clear they won't regain former respect.
The incredible power of fads in academics, even among those with tenure, is more evidence. The best group strategies for maximizing impact call for diversifying research routes, but academic researchers clump very strongly because this is often in the best interest of an individual's status.
Human motivations are complicated and this makes it very difficult to compile indisputable evidence of anything. This is compounded by the fact that we want to appear to have other motivations than our actual ones. However, I think if you take a careful look and try to model academics as robots you'll find the "tries to maximize status" is a better first order approximation than "tries to maximize academic contribution".
For the record, I've been strongly influenced by the views of economist Robin Hanson on this subject.
> As a graduate student ...
Implying an educated person.
> ... I can tell you, what your [sic] saying is just plain untrue.
Did that education include English literacy? s/your/you're/
> Implying an educated person.
I'm actually far more literate than most of my colleagues. Making this mistake honestly makes me want to harm myself.
I'm not saying that self-promotion is entirely and absolutely bad. Just that the post I replied to seemed to think that Mann was the be-all and end-all of the field, and I'm not sure how much that was based off his own propaganda.
> Also - does he really have so much experience with that tech?
Well, I, for one, was fascinated with wearable computers for a time after reading an article about Steve Mann (in MIT Technology Review, IIRC). That was about fifteen years ago. Based on my memory of that article, I'd say that 20 years is a bit of an understatement.
You should read his book "Intelligent Image Processing" for a bit more information on what he's been doing in the area.