Wednesday, November 21, 2012

Optimizing the Professional

Optimizing the Professional .
Andre Willers
21 Nov 2012
“When in doubt , hit a ball.”
Synopsis:
Professionals are inundated by information and demands on their attention . Some simple algorithms make it more manageable .

Discussion:
1.This is an old problem , handled in various ways by evolutionary mechanisms
In a nutshell:
2.The sensory systems overwhelm the brain with trivia . This is handled by the synapse system , various hierarchical evaluation systems (like levels of the brain , eyes , ears , hunter-tracker systems , etc) , mirror-networks , focus(consciousness) .
3.The Amygdala Interrupt : vital messages trigger immediate action .
4.The end result is a clear , unambiguous action . The muscle activivty signals signify a reset .

5.What does this mean to our Professional ?
(For ease , I am going to use the example of a young medical doctor in private practise , married with two young children )
6.Personal Assistants:
The Human package comes with handy , built-in hunter-tracker neural-networks from human evolutionary history .
The doctor is trained to hunt the wily disease , noting the faintest tracks and spoor of symptoms . This entrains large portions of his neural structure .
These are his Personal Assistants , and they can be pretty insistant .
7.Reserves :
We can use the Reserve arguments , but their meaning should be clear . The General Reserve Argument takes as axiomatic that we do not know which element will fail or what the effect will be . However , for a professional large classes of failures of different likelihood and penalties are known . We can then get a better recalculation .
8.Triage .
Divide the demand on attention into three :
It is tempting to have too many categories of information flow and consequences , but then you are right back where you started .
8.1The Amygdala Interrupt :
Wife , children , own health , family gets interrupt priority .
8.2Prey Interrupt :
Patient (client) business . They pay for the Professional’s expertise .
8.3 The rest :
Take an asprin and make an appointment in the morning .

9.How do we get a number ?
We take a leaf out of the bean-counters’ handbook and see what the good doctor’s day is worth .
He charges (say) $100 per 15 min consultation . This gives a 24 hr/day value of 24*60/15*100=$9600
9.1Doctors Health :
9.1.1 Sleep 8 hrs = 8*4*100 = $3200 (weight 100)
9.1.2 Family time : This should be about 1/3 of time left after sleep and clients. The reserve after living priorities . Children are extraordinaly sensitive to this ratio . About 2hrs = $800 (Weight 100)

9.2Patients :
They pay for his full attention . Say 10hrs for 20 patients = $4 000 (Weight 100/20= 5)

9.3 How important is the remaining 4 hrs ?
We estimate it from the $400 / hr charge : Let the weight be R . Then
9600=(4000*100+4000*5+4*400*R)/(105+R)
9600(105+R)=8000*105+1600*R
9600*105-8000*105=(1600-9600)R
R= - 5 A negative number
What does this mean ?
It means that if you want a decent family life , the hourly rate is the critical factor , not the number of hours worked . For a doctor the breakeven point is 9600/4= 600 per 15 min consultation in the above example .
Otherwise the demands will eat you alive , regardless of any information handling schemes .

10.This was about 4 hours for upkeep of professional skills , etc . This is also the time segment targeted by useless memes . It can be eaten up by makework .
11.Electronic personal Assistants :
The new SkyVi by Google seems to be better than Siri . EVA is another option .
12. Real Personal Assistants . You can put all the above in a spreadsheet and calculate whether you would be better off by charging more per consultation . The 4 hour leeway simply means that you can lessen your losses , not enable the quality of life you desire .
13. Ceilings:
While most professionals can use AI’s to enhance their capability , doctors are still prohibited from using AI’s as adjuncts . If you can’t charge more , at least treat more per hour . And it can be done all over the planet quite legally . Most specialize and charge more for their worthless advice .
14.As for the information flood .
The triage should handle it . Use Google on personal computers to index and retrieve . AI’s like SkyVi anBetter yet , use one d Siri can be trained as Personal Assistants .
15.Remember: Humans are an hysterical species . Unless you are the cutting edge (leave the bleeding edge for children) , most of it is interesting garbage .Even worse now as everybody is vying for attention .
16. Facebook , twitter et al.
These operate via amygdala interrupts . “The phone rings , Answer it regardless “. Your underwear might be dirty . Do you have to answer the door when the postman knocks ? Maybe if it is the Postman of the Apocalypse , but the correct response is “return to sender” .
Simply delegate it to your kids .
Better yet , delegate it to one of the older , simpler turing AI’s . Will they even notice the difference .
17. Will you miss out on anything cutting edge ? Doubtful . The present system values repeatability above all . So , unless you are really front edge , it will make no difference .
18 The same with fiction . They have hit the singularity ceiling with a vengeance . Too stupid to distinguish between fantasy and singularity physics , the editors are betraying their readers . You won’t find any “Aha” new ideas . The editors don’t think there is a market for it . Typical lack of variety in a pre-singularity scenario .

Time for a revolution .
Apoptosis is the synopsis .
Andre
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