AI Bots on Billie Eilish

#Imabiscuit #billieeilish

In my last post, i talked about how #artificialintelligence is NOT the super borg/being that could take over the world. So why not? #AI is #machinelearning and we are the teachers.

One of the earliest and prolific examples is Google translate. Instead of using rules based learning: vocabulary + grammar = new language, AI consumes the Internet’s volumes of translations online, eating everything, idioms and nuances. The human level equivalent for a single language would be blind, total immersion. Go to a country knowing nothing of the language and simply listen, read and repeat, making mistakes along the way.

Humans have to train the data too, teaching it right from wrong. #AIbots don’t know – and don’t care – what the output is – as your text auto completion can attest. What comes out as a result is sometimes odd and sometimes beautiful – kinda like its human creators.

If you’re thinking wow, how cool, and wouldn’t something that can learn language better than we can take over the world? Not so much. The #trialanderror is as large as the training data set (100 billion translations as of 2016). The results of a single translation are a lottery ticket sample size. #youtube abounds with examples of how #googletranslate doesn’t quite figure it out.

Check out “I’m a biscuit.” Better known as #badguy

The Skinny on Artificial Intelligence

#C3PO

#R2D2

#skynet

#Hal

#Wall-E

The pop fiction visions of #artificialintelligence bifurcate to optimism or pessimism. #AI is either going to take over the world or it’s going to become a better best friend than real people. These fictitious characters are examples of artificial general intelligence (#AGI) . Although it makes for great movie substance, the reality of AGI is further away than Mars travel and likewise some argue, impossible.

What generates numerous effects in your daily life now is Artificial Narrow Intelligence (#ANI). ANI finishes your sentences in Gmail or texts. ANI filters your spam and selects music for you. #Siri ANI answers your questions.

ANI – the AI we have today – can do specialized tasks far better than we can, but that’s all it can do. As Janelle Shane puts it though, “machines have been superior to humans at specific tasks for a while now. A calculator has always exceeded humans’ ability to perform long division – but it still can’t walk down a flight of stairs.” – You Look Like a Thing and I Love You.

So oddly, the ability to walk and chew gum still pays off 😉

The Dark Side of AI

#superbowlcommercials2020

WARNING! ALL #AI IS NOT GOOD. FOR YOU. For anyone.

I would have lead with #youhadmeathello but that’s too benign a lead in for the #darkside of #artificialintelligence . Yes, you’ve heard #AI is not all good and the commercial tearjerker #googleAI shows us why by consoling a widower. Emotions are the most dangerous drug. Addiction becomes an inability to resist the high whether it is good or bad for the host.

Kudos to #Google marketing though for getting me to hold my breath from the first second to finish of the vignette. I thought perhaps they were solutioning #alzheimers and I still think they left that innuendo lingering on the table with the photographs.

But that’s the issue.

Using human emotion so intensely is a very slippery slope. We’d do anything to assuage the pain and keep his memories fresh and tender – but perhaps at what cost? Linger in the good feelings too much and you fail to live the life in front of you. #AI needs humans to teach it. Follow that trail long enough and perhaps you’d see how possibly Loretta was actually only the #aibot of his dreams. Reality was never that pleasant and painless.

AI let’s you live a life that never was.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6xSxXiHwMrg

What did we do before #alexa ?

#superbowl2020commercials

Leave it to #Amazon to remind us with a whimsical and historical perspective. In days of yore – or pre-1990s – asking for something to be done involved asking a person to do it. The news was always there, but the channel was limited to singular, often isolated sources (but still subject to heavy interpretation). Jokes and songs were live performances. A message to a lover hazarded the peril of birds of prey and not cell coverage or battery life.

But . . . these things still happened. #artificialintelligence didn’t create new content so much as enable pace, reliability, reproduction, and perhaps consistency. I imagine most think this is goodness and I agree. The tax is the freedom and burden of space to “do”more. This is the essence of the #goodness of #ai .

The downside of #ai ? That’s another post . . . and another #superbowlcommercial 🙂

Have a great #mondaywisdom

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=trfbpONj3dk

Tony Stark vs Robert Downey Jr

Is this #tonystark or #robertdowneyjr ?

Week 2 of #mondaywisdom on #artificialintelligence . This is the future of #ai – or is it?

Watch but don’t be fooled by the very slick production but if the point is to demonstrate the power of AI then we should be scared shtless. In the future, we won’t need friends or babies because we can basic make better relationships than actual humans.

The irony and the POINT is in the comments on #youtube though. You’ll find a more insightful and colorful and funny discussion of the clip: NOTHING about the pros and cons or magic or whatever of AI but whether the actor has become his role of #ironman or vice versa. Poignant: Tony Stark has been recreated in a gray area between literary character and real person in order to capture attention and at the same time establish credibility . . . through a fictional character.

Meanwhile the actor/character is reporting on how artificial intelligence can virtually recreate better people than the ones we have to deal with in real life.

Choose your friends wisely 😉

Are you there God? It’s me Margaret’s AI Bot

This post is the first in a series on #artificialintelligence – which you should know is a controversial subject. Even if you think you know what Artificial Intelligence means, it’s a good chance you’re not sure and even then you may be off the mark. The spectrum of #AI application is both widely utilized and narrowly applied. Specifically and precisely . . . AI covers a lot of #data ground.

Instead of starting with the WHAT of AI, we’ll start with WHY – as in, why do you care?

AI can and can’t do a lot of things but pretty much all its current and future potential does touch you. Yes, it suggests what you might want on #netflix and #amazon . AI produces #google answers to searches. AI makes #lyft and #uber possible. AI conveniently reduces spam in your inbox and allows you to deposit checks from your living room. Further down the road, AI is enabling #selfdrivingcars – which potentially can reduce traffic. Cool. But those cars have had fatalities and AI has a darker side. AI has been accused of influencing political elections (#trump) and enabling #autonomousweapons. These are things you should know because unless you’re an ostrich, AI is in your life and it’s watching you.

I’ll let the folks at #MIT explain . . .

https://www.technologyreview.com/s/612689/never-mind-killer-robotshere-are-six-real-ai-dangers-to-watch-out-for-in-2019/

Hold Onto Your Seatbelts

So . . . I am into #data AND #visualdisplayofinformation, which has led to a deep interest in #signage. (see other posts). I found this gem on the flight from Eindhoven, NL, to Naples, IT.

First, kudos to #ryanair for taking the critical safety information card out of the seat pocket and right in front of your nose (eye level) on the back on your tray table that has to stay up from taxi to take off and again on descent and landing. I can’t think of a better placement for Public Safety.

The message is tempered a bit by the onboard food advertisement, but I can get over that because I give another kudos for the all-graphics depiction. The Ikea-esque simplicity is better than the Babel of English. BUT . . . let’s take a closer look at the characters.

EMERGENCY OXYGEN – CHECK

SEAT BELTS – CHECK

LIFE VESTS – CHECK

INFANT FLOTATION DEVICES – oh wow! Bad news for the kiddos. I’ve gone over it 10X and it’s just a hot mess. Take the flotation device with you by all means but there’s no figuring that out in an emergency. We’d all be standing in the aisles going “I think that strap goes there and then you loop and then . . . I got nothing.” Hold your kid tightly because you’re going to be rigging this vest in the water.

EMERGENCY LANDING – Brace for landing and crawl to exit frames are really good, easy to understand pictures. Prohibited items though: glasses? Really? I don’t think so. People who need to wear glasses need to wear them to exit a plane in an emergency. I think the other item in that circle is dentures too. Why would you take them out – even in an emergency?

EMERGENCY EXITS – CHECK

EXIT A DOORS – Hmmmm. Not sure what is happening in frame 2 with the right arrow going upward. As for jumping out of a plane with your arms crossed on your thighs, that ain’t happening. I dare you to do that on a stationary slide without falling over. As someone who has actually done the escape an airplane by jumping on the chute (FAA training with the Navy), your arms go everywhere and anywhere to keep upright.

Thanks to Ryanair for the innovation. Keep working it. You are improving our safety.

“If people touching you under water bothers you, i suggest you stay out of the pool.” Josh Pray on playing water polo

Does Amazon Know What’s In Your Bank Account?

I watched a marketing webinar last night.

It was free. Typical of that genre, the point was to give away some information but sell you on a product or service that will give the rest of the picture. That seems a good trade off considering their time and effort put into the creation of the webinar. In return, learning from their experience made my time and effort watching it worthwhile. That’s a fair market return.

Amazon knows what’s in your bank account 🙂

The presentation wasn’t interactive other than the pop up order form at the end. So it was basically a recording, once produced it can be repeated with only the additional broadcast cost. From what I can tell, it is played twice a day, most likely for a “limited time.” The product being sold is more of the same information. More extensive knowledge and examples are digitally boxed for download. Some level of customer service is implied.

For me, it potentially could be a good product.
The topic – Marketing – isn’t my strong suit, so I make an easy, albeit skeptical, target. I might have bought it … but the price was a bit more than what I would spend. I have a technique for shopping where if I like something enough to want to purchase it, I mentally calculate what it is worth – to me. The process includes thinking about my bank balance, the relative “need” for the product or service, how long it will last, will it pay me in return, alternative resources that may or may not do the same things for more/less time and/or money. The final consideration is Quality of Life – will I be happier/faster/slower/better for having purchased it. Whether a house or a pair of shoes, I scramble all that data to run it through the gonkulator that is my brain and contrive a cost I am willing to pay.

Then I look at the price tag.

Marketing & Economics 101

Ah price point – where supply and demand meet the wealth of nations. Wrigley made a fortune from penny sticks of gum. Today’s $.99 ebook downloaded a million times is close to a million dollars (depending more on its one time set up cost.) On the other end of the spectrum, the multi-million dollar yacht salesman needs 3 to hit the annual sales target. One puts him out of business and five will hold over for another year.

Adam Smith touted that without the tethers of government interference, private monopolies, lobbyists or “privileged” entities, the free market wields the perfect price where supply and demand meet. When banana crops fail, the price of those that make it to market goes up enough to meet whomever is willing to pay for more expensive bananas.

I’m sure he would have been spellbound by the much more elaborate threading of airline flight tickets. An incredibly (I don’t use that word lightly) sophisticated algorithm cultures those seat prices like a mother hen, sub-minute by sub-minute searching databases and optimizing just how much the seat should be priced. Would Mr Smith’s contemplations and calculations hold under the intense smoothing of the pricing integral? His theories have been smeared all of the earth with both creamy taste and reputed disgust.

He would’ve been further floored with the near-zero production costs of electronic products and services, although I’m sure he’d have much to say on it. These are the elements of economic evolution that test free market capability in a global economy.

Big Data Price Point

Of course, you probably wouldn’t be here reading this unless you’re more interested in Big Data than my spending habits. This is hardly business continuing education credit either.

But these “small” data examples are all market driven. The future – the Big Data Price Point – is the price will shift according to your ability as much as willingness to pay. That means the webinar product that I didn’t want to pay $497 would have been further discounted to the $247 that would have made me uncomfortable but ready to use my credit card.

How is this possible? Supply and Demand. For one, it is a product with almost zero production cost. Unlike the widget which requires materials, labor, manufacturing, storage, and distribution. The digital warehouse doesn’t need a water supply or a janitor. The one stored copy (and backup) replicates instantly. There is a set-up cost; the knowledge must be conveyed creatively. People are needed to develop the product which must be marketed and maintained. The elegance of the digital effort minimizes the cost as the theoretical sales count grows infinitely. This is not a scenario Mr Smith would have anticipated.

As for demand, Big Data Price Point (PP) kicks in by knowing YOU along the same lines I mentioned that I use to make a purchase. Big Data PP would figure out if I have enough cash or credit for the sale. Big Data PP knows if I spend money on these types of products already. Big Data PP knows whether this fit my spending lifestyle or if it is a reach. Big Data PP determines if I can or cannot deduct it as a business expense. Even more so, Big Data PP calculates whether I need deductions at this point, against how many deductions I have already accrued in my fiscal year.

Big Data PP will charge me a different amount than the next sale to a different customer. An entity with a bigger bankroll may get charged more, or they may be offered a morphed package of sales for services I cannot afford: X downloads, unlimited downloads, additional webinars or custom services.

That’s not fair!

The same product is sold for different prices – because of how much I make? Well … yah. Want to write your Congressman or call your attorney? Think again.

Buy now!!

Google (of course) is already doing it

And there are others. As early as 2000, Amazon was “price testing” multiple prices for the same DVD. They took some heat when consumers found out, so they dropped the practice (as well as the price.) In 2005, dynamic pricing came into play again when a University of Pennsylvania study noticed prices differed according browsing history – someone who had shopped competitors would get the more competitive price. In 2012, the Wall Street Journal reported how Orbitz ‘s offerings priced up to 30% higher for Mac users – Mac users have a higher income average.

Although the level of complexity may be surprising, we have become accustomed to cookies and their impact on our experience. Most don’t appreciate the impact though on the bottom line in the shopping cart.. The Atlantic explains:

the immense data trail you leave behind whenever you place something in your online shopping cart or swipe your rewards card at a store register, top economists and data scientists capable of turning this information into useful price strategies, and what one tech economist calls “the ability to experiment on a scale that’s unparalleled in the history of economics.” –

The price of the headphones Google recommends may depend on how budget-conscious your web history shows you to be, one study found. For shoppers, that means price—not the one offered to you right now, but the one offered to you 20 minutes from now, or the one offered to me, or to your neighbor—may become an increasingly unknowable thing.

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/05/how-online-shopping-makes-suckers-of-us-all/521448/

I’m going to need to see your zip code, ma’am

Physical or virtual, cost of living has always been tied to location. You can expect prices to be higher in New York City vice Greenbow, Alabama. I’ve known friends who won’t shop the grocery stores near their house because they are reputed to have higher prices. Then there’s the contra-pricing. I live in a resort area and to help out those of us who “suffer” through the throngs of vacationers to live the other nine months in peace, there is “locals only” pricing. That includes parking, some attractions and often secret pricing whispered over the phone ordering pizza or with the cashier for lattes.

Around the World

All the way back in the physical world, in Kenya most shopping is done in the very personal, one on one basis. Outside the upscale Village Market shopping mall in Nairobi, the Masai Market meets weekly in an open lot across the street. Advertised as an artisan fair of sorts, the goods are nevertheless likely to be found in a variety of souvenir shops anywhere in the country. It’s the experience though, another country’s version of selling what makes them unique.

I was excited. I was looking to find perhaps practical items to bring back home to share this lovely country’s culture. I was accompanied by a local. Although well-practiced at haggling from many countries around the world, I would need his native language and color to get a decent price. Otherwise, I would get the “mzungu” price, their understandable upcharge for an American, which I deserve. I didn’t expect to pay the same price as locals but I couldn’t afford the inflated price. The average monthly wage in Kenya is $76. Pricing is relative – to my location, my income, my nationality, my experience (traveler, savvy, job, education, common sense). I should pay more but not more than what the gonkulator tells me.

In the cloud

Where you live is already calculated in your costs and the virtual world does not provide escape any more than it does anonymity. My daughter realized a typical price difference phenomena when she went to college. The prices she knew from shopping online at home increased noticeably on her laptop while in Washington DC. She text a friend back home to shop simultaneously and compare. She was shocked to find the results. When she tried to change the zip code for delivery purposes – hoping to trick the system – the price refused to budge. Amazon knew where she was.

Final Morph

So pricing in the virtual world has not gone into our personal pocket books yet (that we know.) The online market does use digital information such as browsing history and location to triangulate your willingness to pay a certain price. This is still within the Small Data genre of capability, utilizing mean and median sources.

Big Data Price Point though – and I believe it will – knows YOUR personal bottom line. This is not a random variable calculated through the local and not so location population supply and demand. Big Data Price Point knows exactly what price to set for you from all your transaction history in stores and online, your taxes, your job, your household status, and much more.

Is that scary? Perhaps. But it is already very close to possible.

What would have happened with the Housing crash of the early 2000s? Big Data Price Point would have offered houses at rates that individuals could afford. Would it have curbed the domino effect or accelerated it that much more? Perhaps Big Data Price Point would have sensed the cumulative errors the isolated banks were unknowingly committing and eventually unwilling to admit. It’s a twist again for Mr Smith’s legacy to wrap around.

The world out there is waiting to sell you the next Best Thing and Big Data or not, marketing will continue to morph to find the magic price you are willing to pay. Big Data Price Point though will be oh-so intimately familiar with you and your money. In the end though, Big Data Price Point can only posture the question: will you buy?

The answer is still up to you.

The Hard Is What Makes It Great

What’s the Big Data Idea is Bringing Big Data to the People.

I’m passionate about Big Data.

I believe Big Data will change everyone’s lives whether you like it or not. It’s not just about how your cell phone let’s you know about traffic or that Target knows your daughter is pregnant before you do. The immensity of the impact cannot be overstated.

I’m passionate about solving Big Problems with Big Data.

9/11 taught us many things about the world and how small it is. That was a pre-Big Data world, too. Unlike Apple computers and bleeding edge technology that only applied to the affluent, Big Data touches everyone – even illiterate natives in remote regions. Big Data can solve – perhaps for now assuage – Big Problems such as hunger, disease, piracy, terrorism, human trafficking, wildlife preservation.

I’m not a smart man…

But I know what Big Data is. I know enough to combine it with my creativity and experience to make great visions of Big Data taking on Big Problems.

I’m not a baseball fan,

But I saw this clip recently and it reminded me about perseverance.

It’s not just about baseball. There’s something each of us are passionate about doing.

For those that quit that passion.

For those that know they shouldn’t quit.

For those that believe in making a difference.

“The hard is what makes it great.”

8 Best application examples for blockchain in the US Navy (or your organization) – Part 3

By Piergiuliano Chesi (Own work from scan) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Part 3 Expanding Operational: Blockchain Deployments for Impact

Expanding Operational: Blockchain Deployments for Impact

In Part 1, we explored the building blocks of blockchain – bitcoin and smart contracts. These top level basics of blockchain work quickly toward making more complex operations possible. Using step by step application, blockchain is already progressing right now in today’s industries.

In Part 2, we began moving from tactical to operational. The tactical utilization of bitcoin and smart contracts for stand-alone functions in test and evaluation morphed into the next level of operational with the isolated applications pulled into a third dimension, kinda like the third semester of calculus.

In this Part 3, we move further into operational with more complexity and subsequently a greater demand for coordination of resources. Using these novel concepts also further intertwines cultural change both internal and external to the organization. Instead of modifying or enhancing current business practices, blockchain replaces the process entirely.

Scary? Because replacing a current practice requires extensive planning and considerable disruption to the business process, the effort must exact a significant return on investment. So, let’s start with a strong and somewhat clean candidate for substituting a process entirely.

NO Sugar Coating

Blockchain can eliminate travel claims. Travel claims are a huge administrative burden to any organization and the Navy is no exception. The present digitized paper process although cumbersome has been necessary because travel claims historically have been riddled with fraud. A significant check and balance system has been necessary not only to counter the financial risk but also to hold together the integrity for faithful use of government funds.

The essence of blockchain is trust and the point of a travel claim has been verifying trust in a complicated (but not complex) process determining whether travel costs are true to the mission, in line with the command operations, and in adherence to multiple legal rules and guidelines.

By integrating smart contracts as the mission validation and order generation, a blockchain solution ensures the individual travel arrangements are only ticketed if they follow the smart contract requirements. A traveler can’t make a first class airline reservation to the Caribbean unless the orders include that provision. The traveler can’t accidentally book a rental car in Bangor Maine when he or she should be in Bangor Washington. They can’t book a hotel that exceeds the maximum lodging rate, again unless the orders permit such exceptions. Although the user-unfriendly Defense Travel System (DTS) flags such transgressions, it does so in a cryptic procedure that still requires verification in both the creation and execution of the process, adding administrative burden as well as risk – to the traveler, the authorizing official and subsequently to the organization.

Blockchain ledgers reside in several distributed processing nodes that miners use. As such, a complete copy of the database exists on each node. This makes it highly difficult for anyone to misuse the technology for fraudulent purposes. A person will need to fool all the miners in the system to create a fraudulent entry.

https://gomedici.com/how-blockchain-will-revolutionize-invoice-backed-financing/

Furthermore, changing travel arrangements, even to save the overall cost of the mission, requires significant staffing of command personnel as well as a 24/7 help desk. Resolving those changes works well sometimes and not other times, making the process clumsy and flex-deterrent. Travelers avoid modifications because the process often doesn’t cooperate and changes cause ambiguities in cost accountability, shifting the risk to the traveler. It’s safer for the traveler, but more expensive for the government, to stick to the original itinerary.

Execution

With smart contracts, the travel payment and former claim process actually execute simultaneously in real time as travel occurs. There is no back-side report which is today’s travel claim. When the traveler boards a plane, the transaction is verified and paid. When the traveler checks in the hotel, the night’s stay is paid, and the next, and the next until the traveler leaves. The metro ticket or Uber ride is verified – and paid – as it happens. Per diem clocks in at midnight every day. Per diem might morph into per minuta (prima/secunda) more relevantly. Each transaction is a block – communicated and verified as it happens.

Accountability

The immediate exchange is possible because accountability is pervasive and simultaneous. The command, the travel authority, and the financial auditing are all the distributed network. All receive identical copies that cannot be altered or corrupted as the traveler progresses. The smart contracts are created to only execute with valid transactions. By definition, all costs are incurred and audited in situ – as they happen. Travel claims are not necessary because the transaction cannot happen without valid quid pro quo. Get it?

Smart contracts also provide detailed record keeping on a Big Data level. Because the transactions are distributed to several sources, each monitors flags for transactions out of context. More efficient than verifying each travel claim, individual anomalies are not only detected and resolved more readily, the anomaly data provides feedback to the system as a whole.

http://dataconomy.com/2018/01/blockchain-will-kill-invoice/

Pay Off

The Defense Travel System (DTS) is basically a digitized paper process, enhanced with the ability to flag certain items and complete select transactions such as airline tickets, hotel reservations and rental cars (most of the time). A blockchain smart contract is a true digital process inherently built with trust to facilitate transactions without undue verification. Smart contracts would understand cost trade offs without manning redundant staffs.

APPLICATION 5: substitute the travel claim process with travel order smart contracts

Replacing a digitized paper process with a digital system is a foundation for operational blockchain applications. So let’s pick another example.

Pass the Test

Physical fitness is and always will be a personal measurement. No one can be your fitness for you; it’s a bank account only you create through deposits and withdrawals. However, it no longer needs to be a command function. Like most standardized tests, the Navy’s Physical Fitness Assessment (PFA) doesn’t measure fitness; it measures the ability to take the test. Blockchain can eliminate the administrative burden of physical fitness assessments currently required of each command by replacing them with continuous monitoring and smart contracts.

To understand the solution, let’s first look into the natural stasis of physical fitness testing within the Navy lens. Personal physical fitness – and the test thereof – falls into three categories.

Branches

The first group – hopefully the largest within the Navy – already routinely exercises without monitoring or testing, often far exceeding any written instructions. Whether they hit the gym three times a week or hit the trail every day or train for triathlons or all of the above, they just do it. Working out doesn’t have to make sense or be convenient, these folks know it feels good and it is good. They don’t need an instruction or direction, let alone a minimum test.

The second group does not have any workout regimen, yet they appear twice a year to pass the current fitness testing at whatever competency level. This “3 mile club” demonstrates that testing does not measure fitness so much as underline the administrative burden it takes to execute the command physical fitness assessment. They naturally pass the minimum standard and do not need training or workouts. They do not need further monitoring or assistance unless they begin missing the mark.

The third group does not make the minimum requirements. Falling somewhere in the range of how much or little they workout, these folks are potential for either direction. Not everyone has the natural ability to pass like the second group, but the the patterns of the first group’s regimen can be learned. Instead of the time spent testing the whole, the attention can be given to supporting these individuals that need help. If this group is failing, by this means we can focus the attention on those that need it the most, potentially by learning from those exceeding the bar.

The Minimum

One of the challenges to having standards testing is the minimum requirement itself. The bar is set surreptitiously to ensure that during the perceived arduous duty, Navy personnel have the physical capability to thrive in combat. Historically, the need for physical capability has fluctuated greatly. Even within the lens of today’s standards, the Navy is bounded by the overall physical fitness of the recruiting population, which is famously becoming less fit and overweight.

Within the Navy, too, the physical demands of a job vary from community to community. The pilot flying high-performance aircraft requires greater physical capability than the human resources officer ensuring the mission continues on the ground. The combat corpsman needs to be in better shape than the submariner.

The Rest of the Story

At the end of the day, the bar is set not so much to ensure physical fitness as to meet the variety of goals required for the Navy’s overall mission. End strength – the overall numbers in uniform – and Fit & Fill – the right skill sets sitting in the appropriate job – are highly challenging tasks even without any friction. PFA testing has often been used for force shaping – the tool to manage end strength and fit & fill. Thus the bar raises higher during times of economic downturn and reduced budgets in order to pare down numbers. The bar settles downward to retain Sailors in less austere times.

The Navy will grant a clean slate to nearly 50,000 sailors with fitness failures in their records, part of new shakeup for fleet-wide fitness rules announced Thursdsay.
https://www.navytimes.com/news/your-navy/2017/12/21/navy-grants-fitness-amnesty-to-48000-sailors-who-failed-test/

So what replaces “testing”?

Blockchain validates a transaction and for the PFA, a smart contract fulfills through individual accomplishment. That data aggregates into a Navy-wide physical fitness measurement. Wherein a standardized test measures the ability to pass a test at a given level, flipping that idea means recording actual fitness participation and determining fitness from the data. The smart contract fulfills the testing requirement, but the Big Data capture is actually the value that is important to understand. One more time – knowing how fit the Sailors are is far more valuable than passing any test. Time and policy has proven the test is variable. If followed effectively, this methodology actually relieves the need for a test.

Pic MCS Christopher Pratt/Navy

What Does it Look Like?

Implementation would start with a morph. The first group is the model. Their individual workouts fulfill the requirements of physical fitness for the organization day after day. For this group, the smart contract obligations are integrally and continuously verified. For the second group, the 3 mile club makes a trip to the gym for specific measurements at a periodicity to fulfill the obligation, like an inoculation that has to be fulfilled. Finally, the third group gets flagged immediately, which provides the quality attention for establishing the routines of the first group.

Eventually, the fitness assessment would be seamless, ubiquitous, and transparent. Like your phone knows where you are, the Navy would know fitness as a whole and as individuals. The notion of twice a year testing is bound by the discrete, paper limitations in the box of analog thinking. Today’s Sailors are not draftees. The all-volunteer force are amassing millennials, born into a connected, continuous world. Making a digital process – not digitizing the current one – is what serves them as well as the Navy.

APPLICATION 6: substitute the Command Physical Fitness Assessment test with personal continuous fitness smart contracts

Next up: Part 4,