singularity – Page 19 – Maverisk / Étoiles du Nord

Solution

I think I have the solution to this one but unfortunately the Internet is too small to write it down.

This day and age, one cannot be too careful with one’s digital traces. To the point where normal functioning in modern society is impacted. And then, that’s not enough. Your mere existence may cause trouble by you not being the only one recording your life. As in this here piece…

Which, apart from its many manifest errors of thought on the side of the wannabe good guys that by being absolute n00b sorcerer’s apprentices at best, has this nugget of inhumanity: “The RMV itself was unsympathetic, claiming that it was the accused individual’s “burden” to clear his or her name in the event of any mistakes, and arguing that the pros of protecting the public far outweighed the inconvenience to the wrongly targeted few”. Well, if you think that, you might as well join terrorists in the Middle East; they think the same and wouldn’t be allowed to be at all, in any functioning society.

Well, I’ll stop now before suggesting the ones doing such erroneous thinking should be locked up safely in some asylum of the old kind, and leave you with a calming:
[On how life actually is]

Care-ful Carr

[In Dutch] Een boekbespreking…:

[Edited to add, this just in: Zelfs deze eminence grise denkt dezelfde kant heen…]

In zijn roemruchte artikel IT Doesn’t Matter (uitgewerkt in boekvorm: Does IT Matter?) maakte Nick Carr duidelijk dat de T van IT niet zo relevant (meer) is. Dit leidde tot een storm van protesten van degenen die baat hadden bij het behoud van het belang van de T. Steve Ballmer noemde het artikel “grote onzin”; hoeveel groter kan een compliment zijn ..? In de opvolger The Shallows (het Ondiepe) werkte hij dit verder uit naar een maatschappelijk niveau: Wij worden door gemakzucht van kritisch (diep) nadenkende burgers tot slappe oppervlakkige volgzame consumenten van informatie-fastfood.

In zijn nieuwste meesterstuk De Glazen Kooi (The Glass Cage) trekt Carr deze lijn door: Wij gaan als mensen daadwerkelijk anders denken; onze hersenen veranderen door de steeds verder doorzettende informatierevolutie. En anders dan bij de industriële revolutie zitten er steeds minder mensen aan de knoppen. We raken de regie kwijt…

Caar toont dit aan met een reeks van anekdotische, maar representatieve, voorbeelden. Waarbij hij telkens weer waarschuwt voor de degeneratie van onze hersenen en ons denken dat hierdoor wordt gestimuleerd. In wezen is dit dus een trendbreuk naar een negatieve spiraal, nadat de mensheid steeds slimmer was geworden. Afgezien van de vraag of de opwaartse lijn naar een Hegeliaans ideaal eindpunt voorheen überhaupt wel gold, zijn de tekenen van neergang nu onweerlegbaar voor de mensheid, net op het punt dat de Rede het van de mens gaat overnemen. Ondanks Carr’s onterechte idee door het hele verhaal dat machines nooit even creatief en weldenkend en … noem uw favoriete Menselijke eigenschap, zullen zijn als mensen – de uniciteit van de Mens telkens opnieuw zo moeten definiëren, is wél altijd al een terugtrekkende beweging gebleken.

Dit staat dan tegenover de optimistische visies van Kurzweil en anderen. Wie eerst De Glazen Kooi leest en daarna nog eens The Age of Spiritual Machines, zal zien dat de laatste toch wel wat naïef is… Beide naast elkaar houdend, lijkt het erop dat de dystopian visies op de Singularity en daarna, toch vooralsnog de beste argumenten hebben. Nu is het (ook) van alle tijden dat zulke negatieve visies de ronde doen. Carr weet dat, en is au fond ook niet alleen maar negatief – hij waarschuwt juist voor het gemakzuchtige idee van de optimisten dat er vast wel oplossingen voor de fundamentele ethische vragen van de nabije (sic) toekomst zullen komen én hij koppelt dat aan een oproep om in ieder geval op pad te gaan om die oplossingen met z’n allen te gaan maken. Niet afwachten dus, maar vormgeven.

Al met al is (ook) dit werk van Carr dus van harte aanbevelenswaardig. Omdat het geen juichverhaal is, en omdat het geen droefenis alom is. Maar een eye opener, één die ertoe doet en inzicht geeft, leert.

Afsluitend, voor de visuele ontspanning:

Jumping the aggre chasm

On the subject of individuality versus group aggregates. And where the characteristics just don’t add up because they do. As in:

Elections. Every vote counts, but no single one matters.
‘Democratic’ (quod non) politics in general. Where one can only change things by joining political parties where your particular issue voice is lost, you are required to toe the party line on many (other) things against your ad hoc will and purpose, and parties end up not representing anyone in particular – no party has exactly all opinions right on all your issues, and in the end even parties don’t do as promised because they have to compromise.
Organizations. Where group think (is the) rule(s). Where all collectively are expected to behave individually. Or so. At the end of this.
Statistics. Where n times the average of n data points is nowhere the same as any of the data points. The statistician drowned in the river that is 1 ft deep on average. The average human has 1 nipple and 1 ball. Etc. [Let alone causality that is only implied in the human discourse, the Story, but has never yet been proven to exist. Philosophers’ stuff]
Mathematics (I). Where the greatest common divisor decreases rapidly as the number of elements increases.
Mathematics (II). Where there is a continuity ‘correction’ when jumping from discrete to real arithmetic.

But now, first, your pic of the day:
DSCN1315
[Also Girona, oft missed]

Which all reminds us of Ortega y Gasset’s rants against the hordes, the masses – his their Revolt is the fear of the shrinking greatest common divisor.

Which also reminds us of the perennial individual versus history movements when discussing innovation. One can go it alone but will not gain traction. Or (later) succumb to the pressure of joining others but losing something for the sake of being allowed to join. Hmmm, I feel there’s much more to be said here. But the bits margin on this blog did just not suffice. To be continued. In the mean time, I’d welcome your contributions to the above list …

Flavours of IoT

In my on-going attempts to get a grip on IoT, I recently developed a first, for me … Being a broadest of classification of IoT deployment, with characteristics yet to work on:

B-internal; the ever more intelligent, ever more (visually) surroundings-aware robots in factories, replacing extorted laborers thus taking away the last options to life they had. On the other hand, freeing humanity of toils at last ..? If not when there’s a Hegelian end…
B2B; having near-AI ‘machines’ as the new middlemen, if at all or incorporated on the sell- or buy-side.
C2B; as with most lifelogging e.g., through wearables. You didn’t really think your health data was for your private consumption, did you!? If so, only as a weak collateral product of insurer’s ever better reasons to turn you down the more you need them. No escape.
C-internal; maybe, here and there, with domotics. And with this; will already a blend with the previous, probably.

To which I would then add some form of mapping to the various layers of discourse (as in:

but then, much more stacked with OSI-like layers and elements performing various functions like collection, aggregation, abstraction. Seems relevant to do a risk analysis on all those levels and points/connections.
Yes, it’s rather vague, still. But will work on this; to see whether the classification can shed some light on various speeds of adoption, and where privacy concerns et al. may be worst. Your comments, additions and extensions are much welcomed.

I’ll leave you for now, with:
[From an old analog to digital time, still SciFi ..?]

Clustering the future

Was clustering my themes for the future of this blog. Came up with:
[Sizes, colours, or text sizes not very reflective of the attention the various subjects will get]
Low sophistication tool, eh? Never mind. Do mind, to comment. On the various things that would need to be added. As yes I know, I have left much out of the picture, for brevity purposes. But will want to hear whether I missed major things before I miss them, in next year’s posts. Thank you!
And, for the latter,
[Bah-t’yó! indeed]

A simple explanation of Bitcoin “Sidechains”

Noteworthy. In one sense, a dilution. In another, a move to widespread adoption and acceptance. From which, probably, some unforeseeable, maybe even weird, whole new societal developments may spring.
And, for the heck of it:
[Pre-1998 analog to digital, FLlW @ Bear Run obviously]

Not so self-driving

Errrm, after reading this Slate article, what is the ‘self-driving’ the car does ..? It’s just fitting into the template of the world laid out, not self-driving with ‘self’ being autonomous and aware.
Though I’m not fully in agreement on the conclusion, I do recognize the comparison in the early paragraphs: The G’s self-driving one as the Newton. But that was handsomely overtaken (intended) by the handhelds of all sizes that are ubiquitous today. As the article already hints, it’ll be a matter of AI creeping into our cars in all sorts of ways, when we suddenly realize how close we are to (or past the point of) true autonomy. But we’re not very close to that, yet; the jumps to be made may be much bigger than the Newton-to-Android-phablet one. Not being able to cope with any but the finest weather … Ugh, if one had known that, no-one would have claimed anything about self of driving, right? Where are the permits to road-legality (CA, probably already, UK 2015/2016 it was?) going to if mere sleet and fog may destroy safety?

By the way, did you notice the similarity with what happened to Glass ..? “Yes indeed, where has that gone!?” Well, it turns out it was a good try for Big G and now has vanished due to the public denouncement, through ridicule and physical backlash. So… next time, the tech will be inobtrusive, secretive, so you’ll not be able to detect or defend against it… Big win, not. So it will go with cars. Till the next round; then: Sneeking up on you, then be inevitable.

OK, I’ll leave you with yesteryears’ gloomy perimeter defences:

Note (bank-, bankable); ICYMI

Hmmmmm… Who would be able to mine the easy pickings already, in the Bitcoin world ..? Who has sufficient resources, old-money wise and miners wise ..?

As the firsts through the gate may gain an insurmountable head start at the game of the future. Also, re this on the as yet ill-understood, hardly visible / overseeable spin-off world. DACs are just one part. When incumbent countries’ / nations’ and supra-governments find themselves competing not only with each other but also with anon societies existing virtually (non-geographically – though in the end, physical servers will have to be somewhere), will the latter be re-invented like wheels, with or without preventing the failures of history …?

Since it will be very interesting, sociologically, but still years away (I think…), this:
[Guess where. Netherlands]

Book by Quote: Time Reborn

Lee Smolin’s 00:00 Time Reborn, Allen Lane 2013, ISBN 9781846142994: A curious read, as I, too, was off-put by the development of the first section in believing LS would actually agree with the “No Time’rs”, ploughing on with No! No! You can’t seriously mean that! when suddenly LS makes a u-ey and explains how things actually are. And then, unfortunately, ends with an almost delirious account on the edge of philosophy – before caving in to e.g., religion. An unfortunate afterburner where the twist to that, should’ve been straight ahead into hermeneutics.
But then again, here we have the, not really representative quotes:

Anyone who thinks that the correct theory of politics or economics was written down in the century before last is thinking outside of time. (p.XV)

We reenter time when we realize that every feature of human organization is a result of history, so that everything about them is negotiable and subject to improvement by the invention of new ways of doing things. (p.XVI)

On a personal level, to think in time is to accept the uncertainty of life as the necessary price of being alive. To rebel against the precariousness of life, to adopt a zero tolerance to risk, to imagine that life can be organized to completely eliminate danger, is to think outside time. To be human is to live suspended between danger and opportunity. (pp.XVI-XVII)

Could we overcome the capriciousness of life and achieve a state in wherein we knew, if not everything, enough to see all the consequences of our choices – the dangers and the opportunities alike? This is, could we live a truly rational life, without surprises? If time were an illusion, we could imagine this as possible … Some number, some formula, could be computed and decoded to tell us all we needed to know.
But if time is real, the future is not determinable from knowledge of the present. (p.XVII)

Relativity strongly suggests that the whole history of the world is a timeless unity; present, past, and future have no meaning apart from human subjectivity. Time is just another dimension of space, and the sense we have of experiencing moments passing is an illusion behind which is a timeless reality. These assertions may seem horrifying to anyone whose worldview includes a place for free will or human agency. (p.XXII)

Now, a pic, and Moar:
[May have used this Dudok beauty before, H’sum]
Continue reading “Book by Quote: Time Reborn”

Tag: singularity