SETI, Volunteer Computing, and Education in the Future

Painting in honor of the late Danny Ordaz

How easy it is to get swept out to sea when surfing the web.

While reading a book for my English class I remembered my friend told me a long time ago that you can have your computer help search for aliens when its idle. With Google always ready to serve me, I let my attention take a tangent, threw the book aside, and took out my laptop. The SETI alien project at Berkeley is the first result, and they have truly a remarkable system so that anyone can let their computer contribute to scientific data analysis. When we see lists of supercomputers, this aggregate network actually tops them all. 

I found that SETI is a part of the non-profit called GridRepublic which manages 20 different projects that need "volunteer computing," projects from understanding complex proteins to proving complex mathematical theorems. I installed the software, and then bam, my computer was contributing to 20 projects, advancing Science and The Knowledge of Humanity!

However, I immediately noticed that my hard drive had accelerated and the fan was cranking out at an alarming rate; I quit the program and will probably never run it again. 

Why am I never going to use the program again? The program has easily adjustable settings such that you can set it to only crunch data when the computer is idle, not while in use, but what is idle? If I don't touch my computer for a minute, is it automatically going to turn on and start crunching? Won't it sap the memory of my computer so everything will work a lot more slowly? I already have resource-intensive programs on my computer and I don't need another to worry about, especially one that doesn't provide me with instant gratification (I'll have to wait years to read the next SETI publication saying that still no aliens have been found); frankly, even though there are settings that allow me to participate as much or as little as I want, I don't have time to sort it all out, and above all I don't want to have to replace my brand new laptop after a year because this program runs my computer twice as hot as it runs normally. 

Actually no, she is not pregnant

This made me think about human nature, about selfishness. I have other computers sitting under my bed that I don't care about at all, which I could set up in my closet to crunch numbers as well. But am I going to? No - That would require my time to upkeep the machines, electricity, as well as serve as a huge distraction; GridRepublic has a "points" board, making the whole volunteer computing competitive, and I would naturally be curious as to the performance of my mini-cloud. But how selfish is it to not donate my time and resources? Its funny how knowing that something like this exists can throw you into a moral tizzy.

Yet, the idea is inspirational to me because it is a matter of optimization.
No matter what the resource is, if you're not using the resource to its full potential why not let someone else use it?
    If you have a fruit tree in your yard but only eat half the fruit, letting the rest falling on the ground to rot, why not let your neighbors eat from it? Data-crunching resources are following Moore's Law, so with a non-selfish community (or more likely if there were greater incentives to participate ie. money), we would crunch through these numbers in a jiff. 

It seems like technology is becoming so interconnected and independently operating that it's practically alive; through machine learning computers think on their own and solve their own problems, continuously optimizing performance, what a dream come true! After all, isn't optimization the one task our brains are constantly working on? Why not have computers do it for us? My optimizing mind was thinking about the prospects of efficient, affordable solar cells, nanomachines; technology that could fit so seamlessly into our lives that we forget its even technology. E-Ink is replacing paper as we speak - why? Because it's more natural than having a million LCD lights shining at your face.
It's painful seeing the improvements that can happen in our world, in technology, but are happening so slowly... or maybe my concept of speed has been skewed. For example, I see that education in the future is going to be electronically-based, using machine-learning and statistics to figure out the optimized way to present material, which problems you should be presented with based on your learning characteristics. The Kahn Academy is going in this direction, but they are trying to make the objectively clearest presentation possible - and that's a fallacy. People learn in different ways, so whereas the video they make may be the clearest presentation for, say, 90% of the population, there will still be 10% for whom a different presentation is more easily understandable. There are listening learners, seeing learners, and touch/experience learners studies show, and many shades in between, so there would have to be different presentations for different people.
How I imagine learning math in the future:
Wireless power and information will be transmitted simultaneously via the technology that this guy at my coop named Kun Wang is trailblazing, transmitted into a device that is a paper thin version of the iPad/Kindle; you can fold it up, spill on it, whatever, no problem. The student puts this device on the table, and decides to study math.
The student is presented with the material they are learning in the most efficient way possible. How? A concept like Green's Theorem has been presented sooo many times in soo many different ways, and through statistics, the best presentation would quickly be deduced. This is modified by the fact that the individual's particular learning patterns could be analyzed and understood through machine learning so that the 'best presentation' may inherently change from student to student. Let's say that a group of students are presented with 'presentationA' and are then immediately given a problem to solve, and on average 80% can solve it. Taking another group and presenting them with 'presentation B' yields only 40% can solve the same problem. Which presentation was better? Obviously there are many complications, but statistics on large numbers do wonders, and an optimized presentation could be found. One nice thing about computers is that they don't have egos, huh? The student could write their answer on this device: integrals, plus/minus, handwriting... the computer could interpret all of it and track how well the student is understanding things, and tailor the presentation of the material. Furthermore, methods to keep the students' interest would be employed by making the material more relatable. Instead of 'considering a given projectile,' it could be a golfball if the student is interested in golf, etc.

Thinking about the direction our society is going in blows my mind and makes me want to keep studying science.

"You can make babies, if you so choose. I can make you make babies, if I so choose."