April 25, 2019
THINKING CAPS
Everybody says you can’t be in two places at once. But is that even true anymore? Not for Nicolas Godingen, a GE field services manager in Singapore who’s sometimes called on to give advice to colleagues working on-site — say, doing repairs at an electrical substation. Godingen’s team is embracing technology that helps experts in the office feel like they’re in the same room as the technician at the substation: augmented-reality wireless smart helmets. Such tech helps technicians get the advice they need instantly from experts anywhere in the world — without even having to get their passports stamped.
Using their noggins: Tech companies have had mixed results selling augmented-reality gadgets like smart glasses to everyday consumers. But those products have found a niche in industrial settings like substations and power plants, where engineers don’t mind wearing futuristic-looking devices if it helps speed things along. Equipped with mini screens, cameras and audio communication, smart helmets look just like typical hard hats but allow wearers to seamlessly communicate with experts working out of the office. The ones used by Godingen’s team are Bluetooth-enabled and overlay digital images on the wearer’s field of vision. Recently, Godingen used one to remotely instruct a colleague in Singapore. “It was very fluid,” he said. “You can show (your engineer) exactly where they need to go instead of spending time on the phone.”
Find out more here about how smart helmets are helping GE engineers on the job.
THE RIGHT STUFF
At work, John Blanton Sr. kept his head in the clouds — it was no less than a job requirement at GE Aviation, where Blanton was one of the few high-ranking African American employees in the 1950s and ’60s. There he charted a futuristic engine to propel Air Force fighter jets to Mach 3.5, and prototyped another engine that would enable planes to take off and land vertically — achievements that helped land Blanton in GE Aviation’s Propulsion Hall of Fame in 1991. But Blanton’s commitments were also firmly rooted in the soil of his adopted hometown of Cincinnati, where he overcame prejudice to become a civic leader who consistently sought justice and equality for his fellow citizens.
Queen City royalty: When Blanton and his family moved to Cincinnati from upstate New York in 1956, they found a city where their son couldn’t go to some public swimming pools, and where discrimination kept the family from buying a house for three years. Blanton wouldn’t just triumph over this adversity — he’d be one of the community leaders who helped turn the tide. The GE engineer became a leader in local public transportation, served on the Urban League of Greater Cincinnati, even helped run a chapter of the Boy Scouts. Recently, while attending a lecture in honor of GE Aviation’s 100th anniversary, communications employee Cole Massie was mesmerized by Blanton’s story, dug into it, and found that, beneath the high-flying professional achievements, there’s a whole lot more to know about Blanton.
Blanton’s 96-year-old widow, Corrine, helps tell the tale. Learn more here.
THE FUTURE OF AI
When they talk about artificial intelligence, experts often refer to an event called the singularity: when AI becomes so smart that it overtakes human attempts to control it — basically, when computers displace us at the top of the technological food chain. But in a new article, MIT Media Lab director Joi Ito says such fears are overblown, and reflect a human bias toward believing in exponential growth (in this case, the endless growth of machine intelligence) instead of a willingness to grapple with the complexity — and unknowability — of the digital future. Rather than disrupt or overtake the systems we’re integrating them into, Ito believes machines will “augment” human intelligence. But only if we do it right.
OK computer: “Instead of thinking about machine intelligence in terms of humans vs. machines,” Ito writes, “we should consider the system that integrates humans and machines — not artificial intelligence but extended intelligence.” That doesn’t mean we don’t have challenges ahead, but the challenges lie in smartly embedding AI in the larger systems we want it to help out with — “complex adaptive systems such as the economy, the environment or health.” Human engineers must then prize “humility over control”: “Instead of trying to control or design or even understand systems, it is more important to design systems that participate as responsible, aware and robust elements of even more complex systems.”
Read more here in Wired. Humans can be humble but so, increasingly, can AI — click here to find out how GE engineers are programming humility into the machines they work on.
— VIDEO OF THE WEEK —
— QUOTE OF THE DAY —
“You can go directly to where the expert wants you to have a look.”
— Nicolas Godingen, field service manager for GE in Singapore
Quote: GE Reports. Image: GE Grid Solutions.
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