Asimov talked about positronic brains for robots, maybe one step was the construction of proton-based chips, instead of the regular electronic-based computing (reference made by Rainer von Ammon on the complexevents forum). The proton-based chips can have better potential to communicate with biological processes and serve as an actuator within the human body, even the human brain. When we called our proactive computing project in the name "proton", we did not know about such a chip, but it can have natural connection: The proton system makes decisions that are carried out using the proton chip that serves as an actuator for the proton system. Cool idea -- somewhat futuristic, but we are getting there. While the scenarios we are working on now are still within the familiar domains, I believe that the big potential of proactive systems are in robotics and computerized-control of biological processes.
WW2, besides all the bad things it did to humanity, also accelerated thinking and technology in many areas, Winston Churchill's war room has advanced the methodology and practice of real-time decision making. There are today many decision support systems that help decision makers to make quick decisions, however, Chris Webber from the Economist Intelligent Unit (EIU), who was one of the speakers in the Progress Software conference last week said that their studies show that the obstacle for getting quick decisions is the human decision maker that has difficulty to get quick decisions even if all information and decision support tools are available for that decision. Maybe, in some circumstances, the human decision maker can be skipped and be replaced by an autonomic system that will be fed with goals and intentions and will make the actual decisions?
