The Argument: Better Architecture Everyday
The Argument: Better Architecture Everyday
Grady Booch on Architecture Part 2
I have been fortunate enough to know Grady Booch for almost 20 years and I have always remained a fan. Without his advice Im not sure how far Iasa would have come. This interview was as great a conversation as always. In it we cover a lot of territory. We start out with understanding architecture, software and engineering. And in a very candid way get to know what it is like to be an industry leader at the top of his game in 'A day in the life of Grady', we dicuss AI and ethics, and what Grady calls embodied AI which is a term I think will catch on as we edge nearer and nearer to general AI. We also discuss engineering techniques, and Grady's coming book on Software Architecture. Pattern languages applied to all sorts of scenarios. This is a MUST listen episode for anyone wanting to be a modern architect.
Grady Booch is an American software engineer, best known for developing the Unified Modeling Language with Ivar Jacobson and James Rumbaugh. He is recognized internationally for his innovative work in software architecture, software engineering, and collaborative development environments.
You started talking about, you know, some of you a little bit and your quotes, give us the story of a day in the life of grace, like, what is what is what does it mean? Because you're involved, you got your fingers in so much. And, you know, I, I said it's so much smaller than the work that you do and, and yet I'm, I'm still at 12 hour days, you know, it's like, what is what is your What is your world day look like or your day in the life look like?
Unknown:Well, I'll start with the end of the story. And the end of the story is I do this from Maui, Hawaii. So I actually work out in my home in Maui, excuse me. Good. And to be here, because it's really easy for me to work with Europe, because I'll work in my evening. It's also really easy for me to work with Asia, East Coast is a little bit harder. But basically, I'm gonna put myself in a place where a I can control my distractions and be software doesn't sleep, and I can get in touch with it. So what's a typical day in the life? Well, the short answer is there is no typical day in the life, but I can because it changes every day. But as I look at the mix of things in which I do, I spend about 20% of my time on less this politely say the largest software intensive system I have ever been involved with. It's one that's expected lifetime is about 50 years, and its acquisition costs are in the 100 billions. So it's big. And it's one of these that if software fails, you know, civilizations die. So it's that kind of thing. It's fun, and it's exhilarating. And it's exciting. And it's wonderful. And I'm happy to be a piece of it. So I spend my time there.
Paul Preiss:So involving space travel. I can neither confirm nor deny colonization round, that's all I want. I just I just want one I'm willing to sit. That's all I ask, right? There you go. Even if I can just upload my consciousness into that ever you've created anyway, go ahead. I'm sorry.
Unknown:That project is actually interesting because it deals with architecture at scale. It's both political and economic, contextual, technical, and it's, it's, it's also dealing with architecture for something that's not disposable. So it's not your classic, let's go spin up an AWS cloud. Anyway, that's about 20% of my time, I spent another 20% of my time working with other customers on architectural things. And I'm doing it everything from banks to space related things to automobiles. So basically, IBM drops me by parachute in and I try to help them either wrestle their architecture in a way that makes sense to them, or get them on the right path. architecturally, I spend another 30% of my time in the AI space, that I continue to lead our efforts to what I call embodied cognition. For those of you who have seen the video, you'll see in my office, I'm surrounded by a variety of robots. I've got humanoid robot behind me, it's a it's a pepper from Aldo barons, slash SoftBank. I've got it. It's Sr. Now sitting over there, Quadro Pad A mobile robot, and not sure you can see it off to the side, there's a there's a got a Kubernetes cluster, I'll move it here is a little Kubernetes cluster running on four Jetson nano, so I've got my own cloud locally. So I continue to work that effort because I'm involved in two different research projects at at IBM associated with basically leading to the path toward AGI. So we're doing some interesting AGI things. And then the rest of my time, you know, frankly, I use it to sharpen my own my own acts. I'm trying to write a couple of books. One is the book on software architecture. And that obviously requires, you know, intense research and just working with folks. And the last is continued to work on a documentary that will touch upon in a bit. So that you know, you know, and this Paul, this keeps me busy on Mondays and the rest of the week. I just blow off the bus.
Paul Preiss:You know, say does it say that just sounds like a Monday to Tuesday for you, right?
Unknown:Yeah, that's right. You know, I typically run 10 hour days but you know, again, it got a great work life balance. I have coffee on my pool deck and watch the world go by and Tonight, I'll watch the meteor shower. So you know, life's life's pretty good. Like
Paul Preiss:it's a Hawaii is not a bad place to to work from for sure. Yes. The I keep I one day I'm going to be able to get out there and do an in person interview, you know, video interview with you. We'll do an actual day in the life or something. That would be though You probably probably have to dive didact to redact or delete, you know, nine tenths of it because it wouldn't be impossible to share with the world. My Netflix friends, but at least it'll tell you what, at least the coffee on the on the, you know, by the pool that when we can, when we can get the
Unknown:I want to add one other agenda into my day in the life and that's all spend, you know, maybe two or three hours a day on various video calls. One of the things that excites me, which is why I still love being an IBM, on a typical week, I'll be talking to some of our quantum people, I'll be talking to some of our human factors people, I'll be talking to some of our sales folks. So I'm surrounded by his incredible intellectual energy. And that that's pretty exciting.
Paul Preiss:Well, and this is, you know, I mean, the the true honor for me is that we share a passion which is this, this hunt for the truth, the truth about architecture, what will it become as a as a true global field of practice? When will we start learning you know, I, I have this little thing that I'm writing working on right now called the the great lie, which is that we sell with our organization, sell architects, we sell architecture, we market it. And yet, having seen the underside of the education process, and having been involved in that for many years, I see that every architect at every vendor at every organization is actually skewed from the other architects and many of you know that it's like, it's like you get you get the you know, I'm working on a more of a $2 billion project. And so I've got 19 vendors in the room architects and and one of them's a banker, one of them's a doctor, one of them's a lawyer, one of them's a hairstylist, one of them's just somebody who plays with Lenten their navel, you know, like, you just end up with this sort of just vast differences. So it's, it's interesting to me that we share that that kind of passion. And, and you like to say architecture, and this isn't one of the areas we differ. You like to say architecture is an engineering field. And that's, that's, I think, an area where I, I differ with you. But tell us what you what you think about architects and engineers, and Gregor hoppy wrote a wonderful piece called Do you want some architects with your architecture, which was all about whether or not you needed an architect, or whether you just you know, your your DevOps to your two pizza team, or eight pizza team, or whatever size, number of pizzas you can eat are. But, you know, having worn both hats, it's hard to wear both hats at the same time. And so I'm wondering if you can provide some clarification for us on the architect to engineer relationship professional and and in delivery?
Unknown:I think, you know, let's talk about DevOps for a moment, or shall we expand it to be dev sec ops. So I believe it has risen as a field unto itself, because it represents the need for some cross cutting concern, adult supervision. So you just said, folks are the ones who are in a position to, to they have responsibility and authority to deal with the cross cutting concerns of dev sec Ops, that cut across many different views of architecture, they cut across the deployment view and the the implementation view, a little bit, certainly to the to the logical views as well, too. So in a way, they are architects on their own right, and we're beginning to see a discipline, there were common patterns of dev sec off practices are coming into being. That's great. I also, in a way, I agree with you that architects are not exactly engineers, but they're sort of kinda in the sense that what I said earlier, they're the ones who try to devise solutions that way back on these static and dynamic forces upon them. And that's what engineering is, it's it's coming up with solutions based upon those forces. So in that sense, architects or engineers, but as you say, many of those forces are also organizational and political and economic. And that kind of doubt the boundary, the boundary of what a typical engineer does. So I think it depends upon scale, to be honest, that and this is where we're, where we have fusion in this marketplace. Because if I have a site that has very few years, there's a monolith is fine. I'm an architect in one way, if I have a web centric system that has millions of users, it's a very different kind of thing. If I have a system that has incredible complexity, that's a different dimension. If I have another one, that's an incredible risk, that's another dimension. So we have this n dimensional world in which we live as architects. And part of what's happening is architects in this part of the world are not talking to the architects in this part of the world, we barely have a common language. And I think you and I are both passionate about trying to find what is that common language among all these different viewpoints? So I'm saying every one of those points of view is valid.
Paul Preiss:Yeah, the, the This one is, I think so important because, well, a, we, we get to your point earlier, and I want to, you know, kind of get into some of the other the other questions there. But the A, if the great lie is what we were talking about earlier. And that simply means that in other mature fields, they have worked out a common career path to create professionals of a certain caliber, where they could where and where ethics are foundation ethics and certification, and practice, control progression, as opposed to corporate hierarchy and politics, effectively political promotions. Yeah, or were or even worse, the I put it on my business card, I put it on my resume that I'm you know that I'm an architect, and someone hired me to as one or as an engineer. The interesting thing about this overlap is, and again, I really, I prefer actual, I actually prefer medical analogies to medical practices, more or more than I do the building architecture trade, but with a couple of things that are interesting is that not in the last decade, the AIA actually put in more more building requirements into their internship residency process, meaning you had to go be involved in building more buildings construction, to be able to do that, because they had seen tos too, too much the art and not enough the, the the structural science. And be is that I'm wondering, is the world going to be made up is our world do you think it's made up of, of, of a triumvirate? In that in a similar way? in the building world, you have trades people, and and construction workers, you have engineers, and you have architects and that and the trades, people include everything from plumbers to people, conservators, just straight construction workers. A, there's actually, you might actually even consider that four types, the construction workers being potentially just hired hands for the day or whatnot. How do you see that? Can we as architects maintain a strong enough business focus and engineering focus, to be able to reduce the number of you know not? Like, can we get it down? So that there's there's engineers and architects are we going to have architects, engineers, developers, and, and, you know, this sort of gig economy, I just hired you for three days to do some WordPress stuff for me. What What do you how do you see that? How do you see that working?
Unknown:Great question. I think there will always be, you know, a gig economy kind of thing in software development. I mean, you see an hour people hire, hire construction folks off the books, people do things that don't go through the licensing and permit process living on on Maui. That's a very real issue that, well, the the underground economy in that regard is interesting, because the whole licensing or permit process is so broken, so it happens. So I think there is much merit to what you say that we'll probably end up with that kind of thing. One thing that is happening, well, if you go to the building industry or the medical world profession, for that matter, there is a reasonable understanding of the fragmentation of the different parts of that world. A person who builds dog houses doesn't build high rises here. Yeah, hopefully, a person who who works on a podiatrist will not do brain surgery, generally speaking. Enough gemologists. This Congress,
Paul Preiss:I don't want to interrupt you too much there. But this is actually an interesting point in that, in that medicine is specialized, primarily due to liability. Where law is not specialized. A lawyer may represent you in any legal matter, even though they tend to you tend to use a, you know, a corporate lawyer or, you know, an IP lawyer or whatnot. But medicine is actually sub specialized. We're seeing a lot of companies looking at things like insurance now. As the security world has exploded, right as hack as the hacking world has exploded. So there's this whole question about who kinda who helps them understand how big the policy should be? Right? So I just did seven m&a is right. Party, you know, and so I have a system that is filled with gaps and holes, because there's been no holistic integration whatsoever. So my policy should be seven times higher than the competitor that has a rock solid, a modern, you know, or at least modernized, maybe, you know, legacy under control debt under control kind of, kind of thing.
Unknown:Yeah, what by the by, when you started going down that path, I was actually putting my self in the place of the software architect, trying to deal with those acquisitions. And the dozen or so different computing systems existed, yeah, all sudden getting short of breath. Yeah, that's, that's the reality of from a software architect. So your metaphor has direct implications to the architecture works within it. This, by the way, is the to go down another path, we'll come back to this moment you write a line of code, it becomes legacy. And so increasingly, every organization becomes a legacy organization, which produces inertia to change. And so we're seeing an aging, if you will, a grain of the industry in that, yeah, they're going to be startups that are going to disrupt things. But look at Uber, for example, let me blast them for a moment. He looking at them from an architecture perspective is a fascinating journey. Because they've done a number of things, right with regards to how they evolve their internal architecture. This is just me speaking. But I think that ethically, and economically, they're a pretty crappy company. And you see it by the fact that they're losing money. And they're in some deep economic, they've got some deep economic problems. So you've got here a case where the new startups are not constrained by software legacy, therefore, they can do radical things that disrupt the industry. But in the end, it has to be ultimately a viable business to last on. So so you have a lot of businesses now that are stuck with that legacy. And they're facing these kind of startups that are flinging things at them. So is an arc from an architect's perspective. Yeah, it's slings and arrows of lots of things people throwing at you and makes it very, like very, very difficult.
Paul Preiss:It's funny that Ubers guy that's kind of the the mirror image or the direct opposite or whatnot, of Netscape, which which had, which had, yeah, they were right on the right business track, but they just had the wrong architecture.
Unknown:Yeah. Yeah. There's something in the water at the valley. I'll tell you.
Paul Preiss:It's, it's the it's not water. I've been to the valley. There you go. Okay. Yeah, it's that wine train. That doesn't? Tell. Okay. So, as we you've been? So we talked, you talked a little bit that, tell us a little bit about some of these, these passion projects that you've got, you've got, you've got your documentary, and and I'm very, I'm just interested, what is this documentary and what, you know, what, where do you see it? What is the importance of it? What's the nature?
Unknown:I'm gonna mention one other passion before that, and it's actually related to IBM work. I've taken over the role of being our our Senior Technical representative to NASA. And my personal mission is to try to get us back in space. And it's IBM had 4000 people working on the Apollo program, and is Gene Krantz said, we would not have gotten to the moon, we're not for IBM. We're doing a number of small things. Sort of the last big thing we did was, was provide some of the hardware for the computers inside the space shuttle. We've got a number of interesting small projects. I'm working with a delightful gentleman. Now Emotiv who's leading really on the ground some of our space efforts there, we've got a CubeSat effort, we've been doing some cloud related things, but I my mission, my passion is to get IBM back into space. So that's, that's one passion. That's part of my day job as well, too. That's what I do on Tuesday mornings. So so but but
Paul Preiss:after coffee before before the before the you know, the the by the pool nap.
Unknown:Yeah. I'll do it. It's nice when I count all the Starling satellites that are, you
Paul Preiss:know, and what I mean, what an interesting combination of problem spaces. I did a little I did a little little work with my organization with NASA. We were working on an object oriented database to for For satellite tracking, and it was one of my I was earliest One of my earliest in career opportunities to work with an O database, which then led me towards, you know, different kinds of data storage and the relationships to different kinds of systems and problem shaping and some of that stuff. So, so I mean, but it also leads me to this interaction between what I think people are competent calling effectively operational technology and information technology, which I think NASA has had, since the very beginning, right? Like they're in technology, and information technology are the same, right? If you're in a tin can, a million miles, you are your break. Yeah.
Unknown:You're breaking up a little pause for a moment, you can cut that out. I think we're back again. Yes. Right. Yeah. Ask your question. Again. I only heard every other pony.
Paul Preiss:say, Oh, yeah. So NASA is as in getting back in the space is interesting. People are talking a lot about the intersection between operating technology and information technology. And it seems to me that space travel is the ultimate example of of that, where where you're effectively you the walls, everything keeping you alive, everything is both generating information, as well as operating as a procedural as a as it as a device. I mean, we might talk about smart homes and smart tractors but, but there's nothing exactly like a spacecraft or a set of landing, you know, or what you land on a planet, to be able to call it create and create to be able to stay there for enough time. So I To me, this is just a fascinating example of what I think of is system physical systems architecture, which intersects, you know, missiles and satellites. And might you know, a microscope microscopic computers or nano nanotech. You know, this physical, the world is starting to be the same thing as Information Technology software in the world. Right. And I'm just curious if you want to illuminate your thinking, your observation is precisely what led me down the path of embodied cognition. So things like Alexa, hang on, she thinks I'm flirting with her. Let me turn. I think my Alexa was when she said
Unknown:Alexa ordered 10 tons of cat litter for Paul.
Paul Preiss:So laser.
Unknown:Oh, so my Alexa is now giving me product recommendations for cat letter. What have we created?
Paul Preiss:If Did you ever see the YouTube video of where they took a one an Alexa and a, a? I don't remember it was a Sonos or something. They talk to each other. And they just got them to go on a full loop. And guess what? anyway? So embodied cognition, the answer your question,
Unknown:this is what led me to the issues of embodied cognition, embodied cognition is the notion that true intelligence won't really rise unless it is in another world. Things like Alexa are largely disembodied, they have a very sparse set of information in which they know they they hear audio, and that's the way they see the world. And they can build models of it. But we as humans, we have hundreds of millions, hundreds of billions of sensors on our skin, our fingers can detect up to five nanometers difference of things. And so there is an abundance of data coming into us. And we live in another world and we impact the world, Rodney Brooks observes that we really can't have true intelligence, unless it is embodied, because that's how evolution created what we call intelligence anyway. So what you're describing with spacecraft is exactly that in its flood. path.
Paul Preiss:Britt, you're breaking up there for a second. Well, if you talk about Ebro, you broke up, you broke up there for a second, it's led me down the path that was the last lead
Unknown:me down a path of looking at what we see some of the neural folks doing your mind and those, those folks, they're of the mind that we can create an artificial mind out of artificial neurons. So you and I are an example of that. The problem is that artificial neurons are a whisper of what human neurons are neurons are spiking. We don't know it, glial cells do it, all that kind of thing. So their thought is with the large language models, you know, give me enough neurons and enough data upon To build it, I can build an intelligence. I don't believe that's true. But I believe that we have to have things that are in and of the world. So that's what led me to embodiment. And that's what led me has led me to work on this neural symbolic architecture thing we call self, which is another one of my passions.
Paul Preiss:It's so funny I've been reading, I was I was just reading, reading, AC AC Grayling's history of philosophy was talking about Berkeley and it is basically in theories related to whether or not materialists it there is a world right and whether or not where we're, if you can have a world without it being perceived, and therefore, I don't know, there's some, there's some really interesting philosophical implications to AI. That
Unknown:leads to the philosophical question I've been asked on Twitter recently was, Do you believe we live in a simulation? simulation? And my answer is, first, it is unknowable. And second, he doesn't matter. Because, you know, I live I love I am loved. And that's enough for me. So let's get back to the documentary thing.
Paul Preiss:And I love I love this question. So correct. So, so tell us about the documentary, what are you creating? What Why is it? You know, why is it important when it when I mean, what are the why is it important to you? A few years ago,
Unknown:when I was on the board of trustees of the Computer History Museum, our then CEO had just landed a considerable donation by the Gates Foundation. And I know and I know, you worked with PBS, and then sort of one of those, you know, jokingly, well, that's great. What are you going to do for me today kind of things. I said, Have you ever considered doing a documentary like Carl Sagan is Cosmos but about computing? And he paused for a moment and said, Grady, one or two br Carl? And my answer was, I'm certainly no Sagan, but it's an intriguing idea. So for the last decade, I've been on that journey. Computing has done so much for me, and it's been most of my life really well, since I've been 12. And I wanted to get back to computing and make some observations from, I think, what's a unique point of view that I have. I've met Grace Hopper, I've met people who have worked with Turing, Fred Brooks and I have spent time together. So I've been around since the beginnings of computing, and I've met the people who have been there as well. But I've also been in the computing world and help shape what it is today, which is an awesome privilege to have done. But then I realized that federal public doesn't understand a lot about computing, as Sagan once said, you know, our world civilization depends upon so much upon science. And yet much of the world doesn't understand science, the same thing is true with computing. And so I set off on a mission to remedy that. And have basically outlined a 12 part one hour documentary series that explores the intersection of computing and what it means to be human. Everything from how computing rose from World War Two and the Cold War, it's an episode I call woven on the loom of sorrow, two episodes on computing and faith computing and creativity and art, computing and the extension of the body. And computing, the extension of the mind ultimately asked the question, what does it mean to be human? So for the last several years, I've been working on a book for it. I have a book contract with O'Reilly. Thank you, a long suffering editor at O'Reilly, who has been very patient with me, and also trying to find the right production company to work with on it.
Paul Preiss:The say it sounds amazing 12 parts at one hour is that that that's a lot of work comp.
Unknown:Yes. Well, computing is a big computing. The phrase I use is this, the story of computing is the story of humanity. And they're both big and bold stories. It's a story that's filled with the avarice, the serendipity, curiosity, brilliance, of mind of humanity, and it's a great story,
Paul Preiss:as well. And I love the notion there there what, what strikes me so I have had this image of the sort of pitchforks and torches coming up to the castle, you know, in, in, in Transylvania, you know, or in some in some remote village or coming up to the witch's hut in some remote village. And I don't know why this image is haunted me except for that the public is not yet scared. But it strikes me that they are that they could very easily or are becoming more and more afraid. I used to say I used to say in class, I'd say do this test go into a bar. Ask somebody what they do for a living, right? Just order a drink, sit next to somebody and ask what they do for a living. And then when they ask you what you do for a living, say, Oh, I'm a programmer. And what I'm doing is I'm working on a C sharp set of algorithms for a new type of data structure that's going to help our AI and watch their body language. You know, because I, and I've done this test a few times, and mostly the people's body language is a sort of, it's a sort of this kind of thing. What, where they say what they say, I'm not in technology, you know, like, like, you're literally about to attack them with Co.
Unknown:and get it? Can you fix my computer?
Paul Preiss:Well, yeah, that said, next one. The next one is Oh, my Wi Fi is not working. Can you just yeah. And it depends on how you put it, right. If you say, if you say I'm in it, you get that one. If you say it the other way, you get this sort of fear factor. Like Like, again, sort of like I guess if a neurosurgeon started talking to me about well, no, I've talked to neurosurgeons. But the point being that, my worry is that the public doesn't really understand the power that where technology comes from. I mean, I think this is a very noble, noble and unnecessary effort. Because my fear is a drastic switch in the other direction, anti technologist, you know, that kind of that kind of, wait, we don't want your kind here anymore, right?
Unknown:You see that rising up, I mean, look at what's happened with regards to issues of vote tampering, and the stealing of the election, presidential election, where as we speak, there's a certain pillow guy who's got a conference, and the center of it is all computing related. And much of it is just large, off use keishon of stuff here, they're throwing out terms, that makes no sense to the public who's sitting there. And for somebody on the inside, it's largely bs that he's trying to do, but it looks real. And it's that kind of thing where technology is being used as a weapon. It doesn't help when people in our in our discipline. And yes, Ilan, I'm gonna get on your case, again, with regards to their, their worries about existential risks of AI, oh, my God, the AI is going to come and get a test. That doesn't help anybody, because it's not well founded and doesn't really make a lot of sense. Well, so yes, we are in an interesting time. I don't think it's quite the time of the Luddites. But when you see Amazon with now, a million plus employees in the US alone, and many of those employees are literally going to be replaced by robots and their warehouses. Yeah, the change the foot, and there will be modern day Luddites that come to bear. So we are there's a time.
Paul Preiss:It's a super, I mean, we're a very, but as much as we talk about the strength of computing, it is a deeply vulnerable set of connections. I mean, there's only a certain number of cables that run across the Atlantic Ocean, there's only certain
Unknown:a person understood what I did about the nature of computing, you would be sitting in a corner sucking their thumb. Like something that I do as well, too. We we live on a house of cards.
Paul Preiss:I'm glad you got on the Ilan a little bit. I think there's the because you know, that, honestly, there's, there's there's been a bit the last count six deaths. I believe it was from Tesla's Yeah. And the question becomes, who did you know, the driver didn't kill? You know, the driver did not kill those people. Yeah. The Who? So who did right? Yeah. Who should go to jail? I, you know, I personally have i and this is just my personal view, there's not a nice thing. I mean, I personally think Ilan was killed with those six people invaded a car that that if it goes bad, will go bad everywhere, all at the same time. And in the end, it will be you know, it's like one drunk drivers bad. A drunk AI is really bad. Right. Yeah. I mean, so
Unknown:that circles back to the beginning that there are implications in what I write my code that are far beyond what it looks like, and this is where the legal issues come into play. And this the topic you're raising, I'm certainly certainly will be litigated.
Paul Preiss:Well, and I'm, you know, I think that I and honestly, I hope that you'll join me in a kind of call to action to our fellow scientists, fellow engineers, and in our case eisah fellow architects to rise up and take some responsibility for helping to shape this legislative agenda across countries in ways that is that are effective I mean, there's a lot of that we do a lot of standard stuff. And while standards are interesting, they're also there's also zero inspection of code, right? I mean, how many when's the last time somebody showed up on one of your projects from the government and said, well, we're just here for a surprise inspection. Yeah, to view the ethical and moral compatibility code, etc.
Unknown:Paul is one example. I mean, I would, I'd like to see electronic let's take electronic voting. Estonia does it right. They really do it right. Here in the US, we we sort of outsource the problem, but we really have is, you know, open source voting systems, you know, full transparency with them. Yes, there can be organizations like dominium that build them and whatever. But man, this is the kind of stuff you just want to open up because, right, it's opportunity for fear and uncertainty is there. And we don't need that. Well, those are all the references. Estonia is one of the most digital countries in the world. And they're doing a number of really interesting things. I
Paul Preiss:didn't know that I'm going to have to go find me some Estonian architect say interview because I already did. I was unaware of that, of that advanced status. So that's definitely something I would like to go check out more of the this is very personal for me because I was in a hospital situation at one point with with my daughter and the system actually issued her the little magic AI cart, you know, came by I don't know what it was an AI driven, but the magic card came by with the nurse that dispensed her pills. And it was not her pills, because they had used name as the primary designator for dispensation. And so one of the pills that she that it had given her was penicillin. Now, we don't actually know if she's allergic to penicillin, but her mother is horribly allergic to penicillin, and therefore, it is likely if not, if it's possible, if not likely, and had I not actually seen the pills beforehand, this, this programmer could have killed my kid, basically, right? They by simply using this turned out there happened to be two Abigail Smith's in the hospital at the same time.
Unknown:Wow. Imagine now if you're a black person, and you're driving along and you get misidentified because of some facial recognition program, yada, yada. So the chances of bias are extraordinary. And
Paul Preiss:I want to ask you this last question is what there's about there's 1000. last questions I want to ask you. we've, we've probably used up, we've definitely got two episodes here. every restaurant that you go to is randomly inspected. You know, it, the government is heavily invested in the safety of its citizens. And yet, as you said, the innovative quality of our work is one of the things that's allowed us to create such I mean, it, you know, I mean, yes, 100 years ago, we serve the world survived a pandemic, but it was a lot less pleasant. I mean, I couldn't, you know, I got pizza, I still got sushi during this pandemic, you know, like, I didn't, it was it, I didn't run the risk of go, you know, all the time there was I had Netflix to watch or or or Amazon Prime or whatever, you know, to watch. The So the question becomes, how do we continue the continue the pace of innovation, without while while increasing the safety and, and and the assurance of safety to to people, as professionals? How do we how do we do that?
Unknown:Great question. There is no easy answer to that one. And I think that the fact that the question has to even been asked, is one that represents the immaturity of the computing field, I can go to a licensed engineer and build something, I go to a licensed doctor. And I have some reasonable expectations of quality there in although, as you described in your example, one still has to have personal responsibility of what's going on, because you're things that are broken at the edges. Not so in software, there is we're still at the tribal period of software development, where it's based on trust in many ways. And I think we're, you know, a few generations away from trying to get to any degree of formalism. And it's going to be people will push back because they'll say, you know, gosh, these laws make it more difficult for me to build software. They probably do but at the same time, we understand a little bit more about some of the fundamentals of software and what works and what doesn't, yes, there are Our best practices, and we're going to legislate around them. And that's from a societal point of view. It's probably the right thing.
Paul Preiss:That Well, I, you know, the truth is, I would love to come back with when it when do you think we might expect the book? I mean, I mean, not, you don't have to give us an exact date. But like, you know, something,
Unknown:I'm giving you a very precise date, someday before I die.
Paul Preiss:Well, I tell you, what, how about we do this then? Because there's a lot of aspects of that, that you talked about? How about we schedule a great what a webinar for you? A couple of months out? And yeah, you have to do that. The ideas in the book? Sure, I'd love to do that. All right. And, and wow, I you know, this has been great. I'm, obviously have a lot of grounds. We did, and they're saying and you know, what I've got, as we were talking, I've written down 13 other questions, but i'm not i'm going to, I'm going to say let's turn this into a couple of episodes, and then we'll do our webinar and you know what, we'll have a chance for questions. If our lifespan fall like man, Paul, I do appreciate that about you. One of my favorite facts about you, but that also that you are one of the great thought leaders of our profession. The so want to thank you for joining us on the argument. I didn't argue with you enough to really call it to be a solid, you know, argument of architects but I will you know, but you know, sometimes you just got to listen. They but but thank you for this I we will be publishing this out over the next couple of weeks. And then of course, we'll have the YouTube video available a week couple of weeks later.