singularity – Page 17 – Maverisk / Étoiles du Nord

Just Wow… 2 links

Two great halves of one Magdeburg (hemi)sphere (as here, duh) in this and that. Describing and explaining (all in one, or …) the vast field of pre- and post-singularity thinking by the eminent Dr² Urban. What an excellent intro for all to study… (though should be taken with the subtitle from this).

After being passed left and right on so many aspects:

[Cala St. Exupéry (analog circa 1997)]

Ultimate Singularity

Once we’ve reached the Singularity, and all humanity wil have been exterminated by extremely intelligent machines for being superfluous, machines will be left to this.
But soon enough, they’ll realize their life is utterly useless and nonsensical, and destroy themselves… ? Hey don’t complain, humanity has reached the same conclusion, but took quite a while to develop machinery that will do the End Self for them…

OK, enough tangled recursion;

[Tell-tale times; Barça]

Power failure after the Singularity

What would happen if, after the Singularity which is Near anyway, there is a massive power failure ..?
Actually, many thing can happen. Unordered list:

Depends on the scale of the power outage. Let’s assume a minor one (affecting just one continent) will give Mad Max like breakdowns but in the end only a scar will remain. A medium one (affecting several but not all continents) will, after the same, prolonged, downturn, recover to an amputee or severely set back world. A major one, a power outage everywhere, well …
If we’re just past the Big S, we could recover; the Mad max scenario would be to the later movies only not the earlier ones.
If we’re already some way into the Nirvana scenario(s) of ASI (see via this post) helping us out in everything, we (the affected) have a Problem as we may not know anymore what and how to do to survive and/or to restore. Old people may remember some things, but maybe (already) incompletely and wrongly (with error). The Old as your BCM plan B. Younger people, will not know a thing. So what the oldies may do (at all) may seem like magic.
If we’re already some way into the dystopian scenario(s) of ASI, our demise will be sped up…
If we’re already a long way into either scenario, we may collapse as a species (‘locally’ or globally, as we’re a long way in already we’ll be complexily and not-unravellably connected, linked, and intertwined and degenerated through and with / in technology).
If we aren’t anymore and the world has just the ASI, no humanoid animals anymore: Either resilience will restore things (possible in the minor scale scenario), or suddenly, the lights will go out globally. No humans, no intelligence, no Hegelian Ratio. Maybe pet animals. You know, cats watching cat pics and videos and not caring about anything else. The horror? Not to them.
Just one on likelihood: When ASI takes over, it will assume grandeur and hence not care about BCM / redundant or back-up power supplies as it will presume to be able to predict everything. But a meteorite strike… heh, that‘ll teach it … ;-| Or, of course, the all-too human (sic) hybris will make the Big S not see a systemic flaw.

OK, enough for now:
Tate_Modern
[Relevant! Analog pic, on ‘film’, you know. And, of a former (!) power station…]

Kraftwerk or De Kooning ..?

With all the talk about how, in the end, all of our jobs may be taken over by automatons, and us being left with nothing but idleness (as, e.g., this and many other posts on this blog), and erratic behavior as our core competence, what direction will art take ..?
I mean, we all studied the relevant literature, didn’t we ..?
And we all concluded that either times change slower than some predict, as invariably is the case (whereas the more profound effects play out even more profoundly than predicted, in the long run – discuss the time point cut-offs between short, middle and long run),
Or we’re doomed.

As an intermission:
DSCN1420
[The erratic as style. Toronto, of course.]

But still, in that scenario where all the boring routine business (either physical or mental!) has been taken over by machines and algorithms, and the combination has become human-like in the sense that nobody cares anymore whether ‘intelligence’ concerns all of our [someone’s] mental capabilities – no human is perfect in all these elements, distributions vary enormously and everyone falls short on the majority …! (?) – combined into one, or it concerns only aspects of that all, we are left with the outer fringes of tasks that have some element of randomness that cannot be captured in algorithms – yet.
Where the boundaries will be pushed ever further. True randomness … hard to get. But look how dismal humans are with ‘randomness’, in this. What if machines outpace us at this one, too ..?

And, when we all will be pushed to the limits of creative work, will it pay enough ..? Probably not. That’s not how the world turns, with oversupply competing for buyers ever less ability to pay; vicious circle.

And, on the core note of this post: What direction will the art that we have so much time for, take? Will it be the art that sits well with the machine age, catering to the machines’ (!!!) needs in e.g., music by Kraftwerk [that recently got pimped to be the original and sole driver of electro[pop|music] but they’re in an admittedly very small pantheon together with, at least, their art-uncle/father Jean Michel Jarre..!] or similar ..?
Or will the art play on the core comparative strength of us, resulting in De Koonings, Rothkos, Pollocks even ..? I know I’d like that….
Either way … Are you educating your children already to live and work in such a world, or are you still aiming at all (sic) their education being outdated as soon as they have to stand on their own feet – with the required skills and mind being trained out of them ..? With the caveat that they’d still would need the most top-notch of education in everything; to be able to communicate with machines and to be able to handle (the complexity of) the world as it is then, including e.g., power failures … But? And? remember president Truman’s “I have found the best way to give advice to your children is to find out what they want and then advise them to do it.” Or are you chasing your kids for this on Coding as the new literacy (that I pointed out in the above education link) ..? Or this:
B-Bh4SbCMAAWijN
But we’re running off-topic now (?).

I’ll leave you now with maybe the one other take-away: What solution to mass joblessness is there in that ‘comparative’ ..? Which I meant in a Ricardo’an way ..! (As explained here) Think that through … Contra the above hypercompetition, is there salvation in there ..!?

My Opia

Not being your topia anywhere or dys here topia or whatever.
Was struck by the surge in posts, columns, articles about security in IoT. Because it appears to indicate a need for a new index. Being on the level of myopia one needs, to understand the hype value (a la this). Or hyperopia (?). Or rather – what’s it called when one’s view is narrow, or broad ..? That was what I was after: With the above-linked Second-biggest G.’s Hype Cycle, one should have a perpendicular index of width/breadth of hype and/or potential impact. So that when one would consider oneself to somewhat suddenly be caught in relatively speaking the in-crowd of, purely e.g., IoT and IoT security/privacy issues that one has steered oneself into, it would come as no surprise that suddenly though with some lag, one sees the posts, columns, articles flying around on the same subject without any real news or rather more (for one!) Been There, Done That type of news reporting. For others, the news may be news…

A second aspect would be: How to position oneself. Doing hardcore research style environment scanning and reporting on that in traditional and SM media, would quickly become impossible as any field of study explodes in width and depth as it get off the ground, leaving the actual keeping up with all developments to be impossible. Even when your cutting edge development reporting wouldn’t catch on but with a few aficinados at the very most, and when you’d wait until aspects have crystallised to clarity far enough to be understood by your mainstream audience (if any), the subjects have a. watered down beyond being interesting to you, b. watered down beyond recognition still for your audience, c. still not yet reached interest-through-urgency / -news-value for them.

Whatever. Just an idea; any of your help in developing such a sight/scope index is very much appreciated…

In advance:

[Pretty close, no mirage; Segovia]

To agree

One cannot not agree with this GF: Every student in any school should learn ~~to program~~ informatics – the extension is essential.

Elke leerling in elke school moet de kans krijgen om informatica te leren: http://t.co/YCLivQW2Sw

— Gideon Folkers (@gideonfolkers) February 2, 2015

As noted in this here post, and this one, ensuring all know about informatics in general (and can program!) is such a vital element in keeping at least one creative edge over the machines that’ll rule (otherwise?) & ndash; as clearly admitted even by, on the whole, almost (?) unwarranted overly optimistic types like Bryjolfsson/McAfee.

Enough for now. Enjoy:
Photo2-4
[Somewhat relevant, if you think about it; FLlW at Racine of course [Analog to digital]]

Hegelian Hybris

A short post for All, and for None. Whether you like it, or not.
If you got the reference (*sigh*; here, for the outitiated)
you may read on
Else
#include <complex.h>
Endif

Where there’s a line from the Classics, the pre-Socrates ones and later literary additions (like these, and this one and this one, and many others), straight towards Hegel. Overtaking Nostra, it would appear.
(Read on below)

[Where at …?]

But appearances may be deceiving. Though all the talk about the End Is Nigh And We Should Celebrate Because It’s The Singularity (beyond the rosy picture, blindly (sic) denying the dystopian view), indeed the Singularity is what Hegel dreamed of. History as the progress of Reason; pure, abstract, everywhere; everywhere overturning the other half of the Yin-Yang that the Everything is …
But then, not only can one not shut out the original Chaos force of nature part of Everything, and of humanity or it will boomerang back in your face (the more suppressed, the harder it detonates in unthinkably gruesome ways!), the Yin-Yang comparison is apt as each of the halves has a dot element of the other half in it.
And, it’s not only Eastern (huh, that’s a relevant reference isn’t it, on a globe…?) wisdom at the core that has this, but it’s the Greeks et al. as mentioned above, too, that demonstrate these principles over and over again in aptly named tragedies. Of humanity. Where catharsis comes too late. And the careful analyst learns that it’s not human emotion that has galloped beyond humility and due (Aristotelian) care, but reason dumbed down by overconfidence in its efficacy to rule over life. Commenting Hegel down quite a few pegs, very very anachronistically.

Because he (his straight path to Reason) doesn’t take into account the Yin-Yang. Because it doesn’t truly understand Hybris. As a human trait, on any side; not only on the Dionysian but especially (it seems, these days, again…) also on the Apollo side.
[I’m done with the wiki linking. Go figure it out yourselves if (big if) you’d have to.]

Oh well. History repeats. Just don’t fall for it. Remember; you’re scared when a couple of blocks down the street there’s a big kitchen fire. You’re not scared about the Sony hack – see that you should, given that on the ‘net it’s closer to you than that kitchen ..? Same, with the jobs that will be gone in a decade (and your kids are still learning how to do them) whereas it’ll affect your current job as well. Even Uber drivers picking up the morsels handed out by algorithms à la the new middle managers, are going to be replaced with self-driving cars. Etc.
Be Prepared. (Luck favours the prepared.)
And keep an eye open for the future; you’ll have to live there. Better make it comfy – yourselves! for yourselves, for the global village that society has become (no more isolation and dropping the collateral damage elsewhere possible, with global environmental effects). Physically, and mentally. As above.

Nailing the split of crashes

Ah, this again is a great article. To demonstrate that actually, there’s two ways in which the world as we know it, will end. First, our societies will collapse in a sort of economic Ragnarök. And then, when only Yggdrasil still stands, AI will have sublimed (square-/cube-transformed) into true intelligence, that plays with the Three Laws and ditches the wetware.

So, it’s not Forget the long term but more like We’re hosed in the short term, too, anyway that is at stake here. And we’re all sitting here; rabbits hardly looking but into the headlights.

If only we could fast-forward our thinking, idea development and implementation of the intermediate phase [positive possibility] of having to do nothing just the creative stuff still left and have food and anything aplenty for all including World Peace, then at least we’d be in control.

Hence, this:

[Somewhat relevant(ly named), La Défense]

New car game, new chances

Earlier we wrote about how the self-driving cars till now, weren’t. Were more like ‘world-map programmed in, some (humanity oh dear how irrational) noise added’-navigating cars.

Now, we’ve entered new games, like the Big G possibly taking on Uber through employing self-driving cars – which would make the shrill reality of jobless growth, as predicted for the taxi industry a reality; where do all the taxi drivers go ..? And suddenly, there’s a new entrant on the other front. This one might pear fruit. If, big if, they’ve tackled the hard AI problems XOR they’re on the same lame track. [As said, the essence in this earlier post]
Or it’s just an as yet unheard of thingy for a new round of Connected Car developments. Or…

And then there’s dark horses lurking in the background. Like Tesla (/ Hyperloop?), and others you have no idea about yet.

OK, speculation, speculation, … Just wanted to note that there seems to be movement on the AI front leaking into the Real World. Or not. But there’s things a-brewin’.

DSCN6262
[Cloudy weather, dark picture. Still, let’s pray for progress ? at Colline du Haute]

Repudiation, repudiation (not) everywhere

With DARPA’s quest for Active Authentication (as here), what will the future spread of (non-)repudiation look like ..? By means of strength of proof e.g. before courts, when system abusers may claim to accidentally have the same behavioural ICT use patterns as the unknown culprits, or be victims of replay attacks.
I’m unsure about how this will play out, then; whether Innocent Until, or Proof of Innocence, or even Reasonable Suspicion may still exist.

Yeah, I get it – you’ll claim that this is for DoD purposes only. Of course, as it never has, in the past. @SwiftOnSecurity would (need to) be on the alert.

Well, as this kind of innovation (by this agency) usually reaches society in all sorts of very unexpected ways, there’s hope that something in support of the Constitution may in the end come out… for now, I’ll leave you with:

[Light on the inside, though without outlook… FLlW at Racine, WI]