The Future is Notebooks

Co-presented with Elijah Meeks, Chief Innovation Officer. ODSC East 2023 (https://odsc.com/boston/).

This year, OpenAI and ChatGPT, have boomed as popular tools for data and idea generation. With the generative power of these tools, a critical inspection of the resulting data grows in importance. Is the data valid for the use case? What aspects of the data may be harmful or a poor fit for the problem to be solved? Exploring and answering these questions will drive greater adoption of notebooks to make this new technology accessible to larger groups of people.

Notebooks with an elegant combination of prose, visualization, and code open the door for greater understanding and introspection of data. The ability to explain the data through words and illustrative charts provides a foundation for anyone to understand and critically reason about data and its application. While other tools like an IDE or BI tool provide artifacts, the notebooks compose information in a way that is greater than the sum of individual parts and enable more people to experiment and take action. The future is notebooks.

Transcript

1. The Future is
   Notebooks
   Carol Willing
   Elijah Meeks
   noteable.io
   

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2. |
   2 About the Speakers
   Elijah Meeks
   Chief Innovation
   Officer
   Carol Willing
   VP Engineering
   ● Jupyter Software
   Steering Council
   ● JupyterHub and
   Binder Core
   Developer
   ● 2017 ACM Software
   System Award
   ● Python Core
   Developer
   ● Python Steering
   Council
   ● PSF Fellow
   ● Co-Founder at
   Noteable & Data
   Visualization Society
   ● Author & Speaker on
   Data Visualization
   ● Netflix, Apple
   ● Great shirts
   ● Unconventional path
   to tech
   ● Late to Notebooks
   

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3. |
   A Brief History of Notebooks
   ● First Generation
   IPython Notebooks to Jupyter
   ● Second Generation: 2018 - 2023
   Collaboration & Modern Data Stack
   ● Third Generation: Now - 2028
   AI, Time, and Scale
   3 Agenda: The Future is Notebooks
   

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4. |
   4 What Are Notebooks
   Notebooks rock
   You might not realize that, yet
   But we’re here to help
   

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5. |
   5 First Generation: IPython Notebooks to Jupyter
   

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6. |
   6 First Generation: IPython Notebooks to Jupyter
   

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7. |
   7 First Generation: 2017 ACM Software System Award
   

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8. |
   8 The Classic Notebook
   

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9. |
   9 Second Generation: 2018 - 2023
   

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10. |
    10 Second Generation: 2018 - 2023
    

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11. |
    11 Modern Data Notebooks
    

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12. |
    12 Paradigm Shift: AI, Value of Time, Scale
    We’re in the middle of a
    paradigm shift at scale
    AI is rapidly changing
    computing and humanity
    

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13. |
    13 The Third Generation of Notebooks is Here
    Aspirational and Inspirational
    ● Productivity of experts
    ● Unlocking context and capabilities for all
    ● Available everywhere (mobile, office, global)
    ● Visualize when a picture can convey a
    thousand words
    

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14. |
    14 Where will Notebooks Evolve?
    Notebook++ Isn’t the Answer
    ● “Notebook for the Modern Data Stack”
    ● Modern Data Stack Fatigue
    ● Integrate new technologies more often than
    synthesizing new workflows
    ● Creators and Consumers as distinct categories
    

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15. |
    15 The Third Generation of Notebooks: Onboarding
    Imagine a Radically Inclusive Data
    Tool
    ● Natural language for greater access by all
    ● Cognitive science and learning: success by a
    user motivates more usage and more
    possibility for complex analysis and tasks
    ● Consolidation of help and docs in one natural
    language interface
    

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16. |
    16 The Third Generation of Notebooks: Onboarding
    What excites people about ChatGPT?
    ● It does text well
    ● It does code well
    ● Code + Text is a notebook
    

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17. |
    17 The Third Generation of Notebooks: Onboarding
    Everyone can level up their impact
    

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18. |
    18 The Third Generation of Notebooks: Superpowers
    All Users get Superpowers
    ● Create me a chart that shows…
    ● Summarize the code cell in prose for my peer
    ● Create a prose cell that draws conclusions
    from this dataframe
    

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19. |
    19 What if I don’t know how to code but I know how to bake?
    

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20. |
    20 Not a baker?
    Or a 5th grader
    interested in baseball
    Maybe you’re a Hollywood exec…
    Or a VA psychiatrist…
    Or you like dogs… or run a small
    business… or own a Rubik’s Cube…
    

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21. |
    21 The Third Generation of Notebooks: Superpowers
    All notebooks will be collaborative
    ● Never work with data alone again
    ○ Error response
    ○ Code copilot
    ○ ChatGPT in the comments
    ● AI assistants for creation of prose and viz
    ● AI guides to assist new users
    

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22. |
    22 The Third Generation of Notebooks: Superpowers
    Everyone can create / use notebooks
    ● Guided visualization (DataPrism)
    ● AI assistants (Noteable ChatGPT Plugin)
    ● Fully web based for users
    ● Guided pipelines for creators
    

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23. |
    23 The Third Generation of Notebooks: Superpowers
    It’s not just AI
    

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24. |
    24 The Third Generation of Notebooks: 2023 to 2028
    Context is Key
    ● Scenarios for business options
    ● Improved decision making with confidence
    ● Risk analysis
    

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25. |
    25 The Third Generation of Notebooks: Context
    Everyone can share context
    ● Scenarios
    ● Domain knowledge sharing
    ● Risk assessments
    ● From data to pipelines to business impact
    

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26. |
    26 The Third Generation of Notebooks: Context
    Where Will Notebooks Be in 5 Years
    Anyone can create a notebook anywhere, everyone in a notebook will
    be simultaneously creator, collaborator and consumer
    ● What is a data engineer when notebooks have integrated ETLs?
    ● What is a data analyst when they’re using the same tools with the
    same feature breadth as data scientists?
    ● What is a data scientist when anyone can deploy any ML with just a
    prompt?
    

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27. |
    27 Takeaways
    Takeaways
    ● Notebook++ Isn’t Enough
    ● Include Everyone in Data Work
    ● All Users Get Superpowers
    ● Context is Key
    

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28. |
    28 The End
    Fin!
    Thank you
    

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29. The Future is
    Notebooks
    Carol Willing
    Elijah Meeks
    noteable.io
    

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