Dr. Marty Trevino, a polymath and former Technical Director/Scientist for the NSA has had much of his work shrouded in secrecy. The unassuming and pragmatic Dr. Marty, cognitive/neuroscientist, is among an elite group of Executive-level Scientists and Technologists at the forefront of reimagining UX/UI and Analytics system design to inform data-driven decision-making as well as new and innovative models of Human/Tech/AI Complementarity. His application of cognitive/neuroscientist to the technical world of Data, Visual Analytics, and AI/Human Complementarity is rapidly becoming a center of gravity for firms looking to establish a scientific basis for their DX efforts.
Dr. Trevino’s expertise lies in theoretical science, which means his primary goal is not to prove a particular truth or falsehood but to continuously explore the realm of “what is possible.” He is deeply passionate about reimagining next-generation visual analytics by altering the sensory experience while pioneering novel models for humans and AI collaboration to drive innovation and problem-solving.
With four university degrees and a distinguished record of service to his country, Dr. Trevino has received numerous citations and honors for his exceptional achievements and serves as a senior technical advisor to 27 countries of the Americas. His work has been published in prestigious journals, and he is a sought-after speaker and advisor for industry, government, and military leaders on technical matters. His humble and unassuming nature is one of gratitude. He often says it is his life’s honor to work with brilliant people and influence critical aspects of the cyber-physical world evolving around us.
Prior Life
Dr. Trevino grew up on a Texas ranch with family, animals, and a love of the natural land. He was raised with a direct relationship with their food and still possesses this love today. His father taught him the importance of hard work, focus, and dedication to one’s craft or profession – “there are few shortcuts,” he would say. He spent many years in the university and loves to learn. That love of learning resulted in his picking the hardest thing he could think of to do, which was serving his country and attempting to understand the human brain. He lives in Dallas and has a ranch in Oklahoma where he finds solace and allocates time to do deep thinking and virtual work.
The Beginning
Dr. Trevino’s life path was altered one day when he saw someone make a “gut” decision irrespective of the data and visual analytics. He then began to look at similar situations throughout history. Dr. Trevino quickly realized that how the brain makes decisions was a profoundly deep field of study and would be directly influenced by technology in our rapidly evolving cyber-physical world – he was hooked. Being a polymath, this quickly evolved into his hybrid career of neuroscience and technology. “I realized that to change how we made decisions with data, I had to understand both how the brain functioned as well as how the technology worked from the data modeling to the visualization of data,” he states. His unique insight to blend Cognitive Neuroscience and Technology has resulted in a unique, beautiful, and supremely challenging career.
Creating New Paths
Dr. Trevino has rarely liked the standard approach to anything, as it often only produces a standard result. Dr. Trevino states, “It’s only by pushing the art of the possible with a scientific basis that we will optimize our cyber-physical world to solve today’s unsolvable problems.” He approaches data-driven decision-making (D3M) and Human/AI Fusion from the unique perspective of the human brain vs. the data, math, or what he terms “simplistic visualization of data based on well-intentioned but ill-founded tenets.” All of those aspects are supremely relevant but applying Cognitive Neuroscience to data science and new models of Human/AI complementarity brings a unique perspective and rich body of knowledge that is shaping thinking and the development of new systems and applications in a field that will be the basis for many of humanity’s large gains for decades to come.
The Search for Life Balance
Finding a balance in life that is unique to oneself is a universal challenge, and it’s one that changes over time. One of the beautiful things about Dr. Trevino is that he often cannot distinguish between work and play – he loves both deeply. He balances his primary passion – the cognitive neuroscience of decision-making with outside activities that range from woodworking, sailing, travel/exploring, and a love of cooking. He’s also a lover of animals and surrounds himself with them. Life is filled with richness and beauty; he believes you must search for tiny, perfect things and, in contrast to others, says, “Most people tend to look for beautiful or meaningful in big things like climate change or world hunger; I believe you have to look low and they’re often right in front of you.”
Making Change
Dr. Trevino’s professional focus and love of work are centered on his desire to make a difference in people’s lives and solve problems. If he can be a part of a team that is doing great things, impacting people’s work lives and the organization, and adding value to all, he can’t think of a better way to live life. There are few rewards, like solving a difficult problem that makes a difference to people and the firm. He cites a central error in most firms seeking to make data-driven decision-making part of the DNA of the firm. “Almost all executives agree that people are a major part of the equation of the firm’s success in the digital/AI-augmented future.” He goes on to say, “Almost all firms have a DX strategy that lacks one critical component – a Human Factors component and an organizational capability that brings as deep of an understanding of how the human brain perceives, trusts and makes decisions with data/analytics as the firm has in the math and method of data science.” This all-too-simple insight could explain why most digital transformations fail to meet expectations and why humans fear AI replacing them in masse.
Advanced Concepts
One of the A Priori guiding tenets of Dr. Marty’s theories is the structuring of user interfaces and AI to enable the brain and computers to complement the strengths of each and compensate for the other’s weaknesses. At the tip of the spear of these efforts is eliminating barriers causing user and system friction. “Through applying our evolving understanding of brain functioning through Cognitive Neuroscience, we can purposefully evolve the structure and functionality at the interface level to create ‘enhanced’ interaction of humans/AI to be human-centric and as natural as possible from the lens of the brain’s functioning. An example of enhanced UI functioning is enabling the brain’s natural learning through movement. Thus, we can develop user interfaces to enable “movement through data,” not simply static analytics or tabular data displays. The brain forms memories that are Invariant and time-sequenced. We can augment this uniqueness of the brain with the precise nature of computer memory and enhanced association of time with core data and contextual information. Non-typical visualizations such as 3D and High-Dimensional Space and Space-Time Cubes with time sequences and events, combined with the ability to explore the data laterally and vertically, offer unique opportunities to support the brain’s ability to associate relationships and outcomes of poorly structured occurrences. All these improvements to current systems build on the uniquely complementary nature of the human brain and AI.
AI – It is not Intelligent – but the Human Brain Is
AI is not Artificial Intelligence, as it currently exists in form and function. AI today does not resemble Hollywood’s vision nor recollect or solve problems like the human brain. AI is not intelligent; it does not possess knowledge or understanding as our brains do. Nor do Artificial Neural Nets (ANNs) represent the brain’s structure and, more specifically, the brain region responsible for both memory and higher-order functions – the Neo Cortex. How our brain learns, remembers, and solves problems vastly and categorically differs from how an AI learns from a Large Language Model (LLM). It is also categorically inaccurate to say that our brain is a form of computer – it is not. While controversial, I agree with Neuroscientist and author Jeff Hawkins that we will not develop true general-purpose intelligence until we develop a deeper understanding of the human brain.
Today’s AI can more aptly be described as Advanced Information Processing, Synthesizing, and Production systems vs. a true general-purpose intelligence. A prime example of the difference between AI and the human brain is their categorically different problem-solving approaches. AI attempts to solve problems through probabilities, correlations, likeness, and other complex equations, often taking billions or trillions of ‘steps.’ Our brains solve problems by accessing memories, understanding relationships of variables, and time-sequenced occurrences in relation to the variables of the current situation. The brain does this utilizing a series of reference frames and associated emotional correlations, such as trust, perception, and beliefs, and it does this in 100 steps or less – never more. In short, our brains are intrinsically different yet uniquely complementary in that when we pair the human brain with AI; we have the most powerful combination problem-solving construct ever known in human history. This complementarity through augmentation will propel problem-solving, innovation, and organizational valuation and wealth for decades.
Significance of Innovation and Problem-Solving
Dr. Trevino professes that the greatest gains humanity will make in innovation and problem-solving will result from novel models of Humans/Technology & AI. He believes that the firms should seek insights from wherever possible – often wholly unrelated industries to help inspire their thinking on how to build the cyber-physical organization of the future.
He cites A prime example of next-generation human/tech/AI fusion is the concepts underpinning the development of air dominance fighters for the U.S. Air Force and the U.S. Navy.
The United States Air Force and US Navy are developing the Next-Generation Air Dominance fighter aircraft. Central to this development is the Central Tenet of Human/AI Augmentation. The NGAD will represent a technological leap in the design of fighter aircraft on many levels; however, more importantly, it represents a fundamental shift in thinking away from a single unit or even team of units to what the US Military frames as a “family of systems” intended to produce defined outcomes within an overall Land, Sea, Air and Space ecosystem. This conceptual thinking and unique Human/AI fusion model represents some of the most advanced concepts of multiple layers of human operators with all their uniqueness coupled with technology & AI seamlessly integrated to execute missions. Businesses in every industry vertical should be taking notes and applying the same thinking to their business models and missions.
The NGAD fuses a pilot with technology and AI in ways that eliminate traditional obstacles to mission objectives. One example is situational awareness in a 360-degree, 3D environment. Today, pilots rely on their sight, radar, and passive sensors and augmentation by Airborne Warning and Control Aircraft (AWACS) to provide information verbally or through flat displays or a virtual helmet. In the NGAD, all these will be radically elevated through an almost endlessly scalable and seamless integrated network of advanced sensors and connectivity on a distributed network of other fighters, satellites, radars, passive sensor arrays, drones, etc. The aircraft, its human pilot, and AI are at the center of the multi-dimensional, multi-spatial, cyber-physical universe of objects, platforms, AIs, and people distributed globally.
This new Human/Tech/AI – cyber-physical fusion model is a model for all organizations regardless of their industry, as we can now re-design so many of our current value creation, problem-solving, and decision-support models.
The Age of Augmentation
“We stand at an inflection point in human history, the transition from the Information Age to the Age of Augmentation. At the center of this age is the central tenet that Humans and AI are categorically different yet uniquely complementary in a way never seen in human history. This central tenet will guide us to create value through problem-solving and innovation as never before. And while replacing people in the workplace will occur, the gains, while not trivial, will be incremental. We have examples of Human/Technology & AI fusion developing before our eyes, and they can act as thought catalysts for other industries and societal segments.”
Low-resolution and inflammatory predictions of inevitable doom have been present throughout history, and now, they serve little purpose. We may one day have to concern ourselves with a sentient AI contemplating the extermination of our species, but that’s likely a concern for the next century. Today we can focus on uniquely combining human beings and AI in the best ways to do what is today un-doable and create value in ways never contemplated.
Message: “To anyone who knows me – I believe in my heart that we can make a difference for the betterment of mankind. Our thinking and efforts will shape our cyber-physical world for decades to come. Let us not avoid this difficult task as we build the world for our children and their children. Let us endeavor to do AWESOME.”
Written by Steve Sanchez.
