Opening keynote @Supercomputing #SC18 : #HPC is an enabling technology ...

… Ok, the speaker said far more than that. But one of his central theses is that in this “second” machine revolution, we are enabling data driven decision making, distributed decision and consensus, as well as expanding beyond the confines of specific expertise in a field. The latter I’ve heard described as cross fertilization … gather a bunch of smart people “together” and give them a problem spec. Let them run with it.

I’ve always been of the opinion that if you give a bunch of very smart people very powerful tools, and take away barriers, that they will build interesting things with the tools. It iss nice to see these statements discussed more formally, and with better development of the core ideas.

I also (re)learned an acronym I’ve heard before: HiPPO. As in “ask the HiPPO”. The HiPPO is the Highest Paid Person’s Opinion. Its an amusing acronym, but it rings true in this age. Expertise is effectively siloed, not democratized.