disruption – Page 22 – Maverisk / Étoiles du Nord

Some quick notes on Audit / service development

An invitation for co-development or I go it alone…
[This also being a copyright / idea claim]

Undecided what name will stick; either
Ethics Test Services, or
Autonomous Judgement/Decision Analysis Services;
Because it is about checking the morality baked into, or emerging from, algorithmic decisions and/or decisions and conclusions from autonomous and self-learning systems;
Contra “Computer says No”, obviously.
If you’d want to learn what that refers to; see here;
[Intermission] Whereas some in European politics (sic) discuss to impose a limit where autonomous systems without one human in the loop anywhere would have to have an ‘explanatory’ function that can display in layman’s terms how it arrived at some decision, and that being contestable. But the questions are: What if the ‘system’ were hosted outside the EU (and just like inflation, Gresham will obviously apply), and what if (maybe ‘when’; we’re talking politicians here) such a very first step towards transparency may still not make it, and what if as a cheap escape trick the human would and could only click ‘OK’ — could (s)he be culpable?
Elements would be:
- Process correctness,
- Data correctness,
- Exceptions handling; essential and necessary.
This, in Standard Form and with an overall human (me; run to the hills) judgement both over process/systems quality and over moral/ethical admissability;
Will have to extend the notions of ethics, morality et al. here; e.g., how humans make decisions in the first place with all their errors of all kinds, what to do when systems/humans don’t follow morality and/or the decisions from the systems.

So, everyone (dabbling in this space from now on,) will pay me serious license fees for using the above ideas in commercial services… [note: I’m serious]
And/or all help is welcomed.

To add:

[Would deliver above services to this address for expense reimbursement only …]

Quitting a club

Where some trade association of … drum roll … chartered (sic) IS auditors declared Cybersecurity is becoming an ever bigger problem. An IS auditor should need to keep informed of the latest developments as an argument to join in some CYBER ARRGHHH! lecture,
one better leaves. I did.

Sure, I’m member of some other, global, of the same trade and tricks one might say. But to list the other arguments to quit the local (i.e., Dutch; could have characterised them as ‘provincial’ but why) one, would take ten pages (yes I have them, spelled out including various legal trespassing of the vilest kind, far from complete after some this-years developments within the club…) and I don’t want to bother you with the water under the bridge.
And sure, I re-joined yet another trade association. And try to contribute in another way, as yet not yet disclosed. And #ditchcyber.

But I’m unsure about my discretion in leaving (behind the hopeless) and would be curious about your best advice when and how (that’s two) to quit a club. Thoughts?

Oh:

[Not only T towers might need (sic) to be renamed…]

Sticky Wicked

I’ve been seeing ‘wicked problem’ turn up again lately. Again, hardly in its original sense let alone to the criteria. But rather, as problems where the counterforces to solutions are just too dug in against change, to be overcome. As human, societal problems rather than something systemically hard. To bulldozer over, with a MBT, maybe ..? What a fine demonstration of irritation to let loose.

And, of course:

Golden Oldie Pic of the Day

Just like that:

[Looks like banks have been reorganising profoundly, yes.]

Misquote: No Problem, or are you?

Don’t come to me with problems, only with solutions

Is wrong in so many ways…

When not if a manager would say such a thing, he denies his (her, not often enough) very job. Yes, the job of a manager in times of knowledge workers truly is what it was in times past, glorious as they were; “decision making under uncertainty”. Which has devolved into sickly-panic over any uncertainty that is inherent in results as future states;
So, workers — sounds too much like worker bees, working to their untimely death for the blip of glory of the Leader (quod non ..!) — should come to their bossy type or that empty vessel would have too little to do..?
When workers would come to their bossy types with problems and solutions, the latter would be degraded to secretaries of the collect-input-collate-and-report types. Because that would be what they’d do;
And not would they be the emperors in charge of Decision Making (preference ratification) over proposals (researched scenarios / preferences) to solve problems, as that suggests managers of this type, would have any inside knowledge. True, sometimes, very sometimes, one meets these old-style (old school is too old school) true managers that actually have the best of knowledge over the problem at hand, and knowledge of the environment, context and strategies surrounding and/or overarching the decision, at the same level as the workers doing the solutions research.
If the manager would really have better info on the latter categories than his workers, he’d have failed to give them proper information (mention not the risk of the atrocious destruction of humanity that micro management is) i.e. not delegated properly, for the scenarios of the workers would limp and be of greatly suboptimal quality to his decision making;
Rare then, would be the true manager, that has sufficient knowledge nay wisdom to know how much to decide himself and what swarms of decisions to delegate and sit as go-beween and stakeholder representative of his workers to other departments and upper regions, facilitating whatever goes around in his department;
Rare then, the manager that says, can handle: “Solve what you can and report the solutions via my business office; bring me not solutions but problems that need over-head resolution”. Not the mis-quote; they’d not say that which makes it the one deserved, righteous forms of humblebragging-by-remaining-silent allowed.

However rare … the quote is still a misquote. As so many are of the manager type of the first couple of bullets, and say the thing only when they intend to degrade themselves to the pitiful that don’t see their own empty-vesselness when uttering the quote.

Oh, and:

[If you think you’re in, you aren’t; Utrecht]

Plusquote, nevertheless good to have been ousted

Of course referring to the little guy’s family name. Here, because of his sound advice on how strategic planning should be done:

You engage, and then you wait and see.

First off of(f) course, he wasn’t particularly little it was just that his generals next to him, were long.
Second, he’s right, about the above approach. Reminder: Some later giant took the above and expanded, explained, it more in the style of his countrymen’s need for rambling-on notation. And quoting some latter-day possibly (!) overrated general, “Plans are nothing, planning is everything.” which again is the same thing. In the core, right. Also for business today; how could anyone pretend to be able to predict even the nearest of future better than such an eminent strategist ..? If, then despicable.

Third, did anyone mention that the abovementioned frog, and all others involved except some who couldn’t handle the truth (sic), found William II superior to some other, now much revered, general (Et moi je vous dis que Wellington est un mauvais général, que les Anglais sont de mauvaises troupes et que ce sera l’affaire d’un déjeuner) that just sat there and was almost annihilated by the French if it hadn’t been for the protraction and depletion at Quatre Bras and other places (Hougoumont, much?), by others mainly, so Blücher could arrive in time.

Enough for now, with:

[Myopia, caused; Amsterdam]

For members, useful insights

I’d suggest making this available widely; beyond membership only. Because it ties in so well with, e.g., this and many other issues at this.

Yes, I may be biased; just like everyone if only for having been member of this. Which (subject) plays a much more prominent role in your lives than you think, certainly in the nearest of futures. Beware.

And be aware of:

[Your ethics reasoning: All corners, leading nowhere, abandoned; Fabrique Utrecht]

Move; to Canadaya ..?

While discussing the options for those in developed countries that would not necessarily agree with the outcomes of recent or pending elections, of course Canada was on the table. Not quite in the Tim Horton / Hudson’s Bay / Blue Jays style, but rather as evac site. Not the Thinking Class leaving, but the retreat of the Others [needless to say, the 1%-and-up aren’t anywhere anymore already; they escape no matter which way the wind blows] is what we have seen with/before/at the Elections in this case; back into the countryside as if the cities aren’t the major country elements these days (‘states’ and electoral colleges as artifacts, makeshift solutions to early-days haphazard nationwide (then, more height than width) comms).

Or still, nevertheless, this here old (Spring) post may provide an option.
Which is perfectly possible; aren’t they where they’d retreat in the first place? But that would bring the ‘risk’ [ P(X)=1 ] that it turns out that the ones not retreating into the billyhills, can perfectly do without the retreaters [many letters in common with traitors], or even fare better.
Calling into question whether the pres that will ‘represent’ all, does, for all or doesn’t, for a majority (!) thus undermining the very idea of validity of the representer in that position and the systems/schemata of elections that brought him there despite the majority not wanting him.

Interesting.

May still bring the near-(sic) Yucatan arrangement closer.

Oh well, plus:

[Defensible against those so utterly bluntly lied to, but also my next / client offices; Breda]

First Rule of Risk

First rule of risk: Never underestimate risk. Even when you follow this rule, and even when your estimates seem ‘proper’.
Where of course, the propriety of your estimates is in grave doubt, either on the “This has never happened to us so / Come on, get real, [we’re not a target because we’re of no interest to anyone] what are the odds!? / Ho hum, there’s the boy cried wolf again”,
or on the “I’ve been reading this thing about CYBER! Arrrgh! In the Inquirer so why aren’t all staff hiding under their desk and we didn’t yet have the Marines take over and destroy the office to defend it ..?” FUD-side.
[Side note: You did have ‘consultants’ over (office (culture, motivation) destroyed, seems like a preventative measure?), but be aware that’s the opposite of Oorah]

Because when every nanosecond brings the possibility of an ‘event’ (how’s the repeat of sampling with (! … is it?) replacement over so many draws working out in your frequency estimations..!?), one can be sure that a 99% chance of something not happening, will result not in the virtually certainly not happening every time, but in the certainty that the 1% will strike, repeatedly, and a strike will endure much, much, much longer that the inception of it. The ‘event’ isn’t measured in nanoseconds, but in days, weeks, months and sometimes even years (think the, near-certain, reputational damage). So, your estimates are too low, all too low.

But since the detractors are always downplaying your estimates due to their other-directed agendas, do follow the First Rule of Risk …

[Your in-house security gurus are quite like that, yes, being the absolute rookies at the BlahBlah Seat At The Board Table — probably available only when the Board is out — or any level they’re relegated to]

Lament / Where have ‘Expert Systems’ gone ..?

Those were the days, when knowledge elicitation specialists had their hard time extracting the rules needed as feed for systems programming (sic; where the rules were turned into data, onto which data was let loose or the other way around — quite the Turing tape…), based on known and half-known, half-understood use cases avant la lettre.
Now are the days of Watson-class [aren’t Navy ships not named after the first of the class ..?] total(itarian) big data processing and slurping up the rules into neural net abstract systems somewhere out there in clouds of sorts. Yes these won out in the end; maybe not in the neuron simulation way but more like the expert system production rules and especially axioms of old. And take account of everything, from the mundane all the way to the deeply-buried and extremely-outlying exceptions. Everything.
Which wasn’t what experts were able to produce.

But, let’s check the wiki and reassure ourselves we have all that (functionality) covered in “the ‘new’ type of systems”, then mourn over the depth of research that was done in the Golden Years gone by. How much was achieved! How far back do we have to look to see the origins, in post-WWII earliest developments of ‘computers’, to see how much was already achieved with so unimaginable little! (esp. so little computing power and science-so-far)

Yes we do need to ensure many more science museums tell the story of early Lisp and page swapping. Explain the hardships endured by the pioneers, explorers of the unknown, of the Here Be Dragons of science (hard-core), of Mind. Maybe similar to the Dormouse. But certainly, we must lament the glory of past (human) performance.

Also,

[Is it old, or (still) new ..? Whatever, it’s prime quality. Spui, Amsterdam]