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“I Doubt There Will Be More Than A Few More Human Generations Behind Us Anymore”

November 2, 2016 in Excerpts, Politics, Science/Tech | Permalink

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Because Gary Johnson smokes pot and clearly doesn’t bother studying for tests, the Libertarian Presidential candidate has been sort of the cool kid of the class this election season. But Zoltan Istvan, standard-bearer of the Transhumanist Party, is not only in favor of legalizing all drugs in America, he also believes athletes should be on PEDs and we needn’t regulate gene editing. Now that man’s a party!

I’ve really enjoyed writing about Istvan’s ideas over the course of his campaign, even if I’m sometimes aghast at them. The unorthodox pol just did a lively pre-Election Day Ask Me Anything at Reddit, and I’ve embedded a few exchanges below.

Question:

Is there a way to protect privacy with technology developing along current trajectory? Big data and more deliberate forms of mass surveillance seem to suggest major social changes concerning and individual’s right to keep secrets.

Will privacy become an anachronism in the next few decades?

Zoltan Istvan:

Everyone hates this, but we must get over our privacy issues. They simply won’t survive the onslaught of tech. My response is to observe the government as much as they want to observe us, so at least it’s a two-way street. Ultimately, though, there’s just too much tech tracking us now and 20 years into the future for privacy to survive as we know it today.

Question:

Do you think the claim by a few people that we’ve subverted our natural evolution in favour of becoming a part of a singularity has any kind of credence? What kind of obstacles do you think we still have to overcome for that kind of scenario to be a positive experience?

Zoltan Istvan:

It’s tough to talk about the Singularity since the idea is essentially beyond our comprehension. It’s such a bizarre concept, and yet I believe in it. But we are certainly are subverting our natural evolution, and to those that oppose it, I like to bring up the fact that without basic evolutionary progress, we might still be dying from infections from cavities.

Question:

Very good point. So does that mean you tend to believe that we’re more likely to find ways to augment and prolong through methods like, say, nano technology as opposed to shedding physical form entirely?

Zoltan Istvan:

Yes, I think we’ll likely want to stay in semi-human form for as long as possible. Even I’m a bit skeptical to just become intelligent AI or organized star dust.

Question:

I believe this to be a long-term solution to technological unemployment that doesn’t involve a huge centralized government agency, but I’ve also come to consider how Basic Income might be useful towards attaining this system. However, I’ve been cautioning against total reliance on this idea, because I realize that almost all governments out there are only out to perpetuate power, and a basic income in a highly automated society represents a great deal of power over citizens who will have no other way to survive besides this common dole.

So my questions are thus:

A. What are your plans involving basic income?

B. Do you believe that Basic Income by itself is enough, or that Vyrdism represents a proper step forward beyond it?

C. Are you concerned by the potential ability of governments to abuse the concept of basic income to enforce a totalitarian order?

Zoltan Istvan:

I highly support a basic income. I can’t see any other way around the situation that is not completely dystopic for the future. I have a plan over 6 years to begin implementing a moderate basic income, which would include higher taxes, companies that create the automation to pay up, and loaning or selling of federal land (we have tons available). With that, we could bridge a few decades of a UBI. After that, it’s anyone’s guess what will happen. But capitalism likely won’t survive.

This article of mine is one possibility of an outcome. The lack of any ownership might prevent a totalitarian order. Read here.

Question:

| and loaning or selling of federal land (we have tons available.

Are you talking about national parks? Would you sell them to entities that will function as a park/nature reserve only or would you allow them to mine or drill for natural resources?

Zoltan Istvan:

National Parks would be last on the list to touch. But there’s plenty of other land just sitting out there. And yes, I’d allow some natural resources to be mined or drilled. But very selectively. We all must take a step back and imagine how many trillions of dollars we’re dealing with here. Half the 11 Western most states are federal land. And our population is barely budging, and the machine age is upon us. I doubt there will be more than a few more human generations behind us anymore. So the land is not as necessary as it once was. We simply might not be entities that eat anymore in 50-100 years. So let’s use that federal land to make our lives better now.

Question:

Hey Zolt. Wondering if you can talk a little bit about your thoughts on regulating human enhancement through gene editing methods such as CRISPR. I know as a libertarian-leaning person, you are against agency regulation in general, however, do you feel there is a place for a regulatory agency outside or parallel to the FDA to oversee safety and efficacy of human enhancement and germline modification? Thanks!

Zoltan Istvan:

On this, I just really don’t think we need regulation. I think the greater concern is that China goes full speed ahead with genetic editing and America gets left behind and we dance around whether it’s a good idea–and then shortly after a new generation of Chinese babies are born with better genetic intelligence than everyone else (posing a serious national security and cultural issue). I say embrace it. We don’t need a new agency for gene editing.

Question:

Where do Sports fall into the Transhumanist viewpoint?

Zoltan Istvan:

I think sports are great when we allow ourselves to use drugs and enhancements. I think the future is the creation of new sports with new technologies, and turning humans sports more into Formula 1 type racing endeavors, where the scientists and engineers and coaches are just as important as the athletes. Read here.

Question:

If the world becomes globalized through tech, can we expect countries to dissolve? Will the world become borderless?

Zoltan Istvan:

Yes, I don’t expect as many countries in 25 years. And in 50, there might only be a few left. Despite BREXIT, I still think we will go borderless at some point. I advocate for this in the future. I think peace will come of it.

Question:

Are you voting for yourself in a week, or for one of the other candidates?

Zoltan Istvan:

I’m voting for myself. I will totally understand given all the circumstances if my supporters vote for others though.

Question:

Would you endorse one of the other candidates over the other?

Zoltan Istvan:

Yes, in general, I think in swing states, you should vote for Hillary (though I’m not anti-Trump, I just like Hillary better). In Utah, vote Evan McMullin. Everywhere, else I suggest voting for Gary Johnson. If Gary get’s 5% of the vote, the Libertarian Party will get federal funding. That means America will not longer be a 2-party system. Whether you like Libertarians is not the question–it’s a question of overcoming the two party monopoly, which I think is important for democracy.

Question:

How do you justify telling people to vote for Hillary though?

I mean she represents everything that people hate about the government right now. From her directly lying to the public and holding no remorse about it, to her husband pardoning criminals on the way out for money, to being under active FBI investigation for deleting evidence after a subpoena

Zoltan Istvan:

One main reason is that is Trump becomes President, and gets assassinated, Mike Pence will take office and that could be a disaster for science and tech, especially in the gene editing and AI era. Read my sci-fi story.

I like Gary Johnson the best. Actually, I like myself the best, but the reality is the choice is between Hillary and Trump. And people must make that choice.•

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“In Just A Few Hundred Generations—Perhaps As Little As 6,000 Years—A New Type Of Human Might Emerge”

November 1, 2016 in Excerpts, Science/Tech | Permalink

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Humans, as we know them, will not persist.

That’s not to say we’ll certainly meet with some sort of extinction event, even if that’s a very plausible scenario sooner or later. It does, however, mean speciation will likely occur whether as a result of our commandeering of evolution through biotechnology or via the establishment of space settlements in environments far different from the one that sustains us.

If you read this site with any regularity, you know my opinion that sending humans to Mars in the near- or medium-term is needless and crazy. Doing so within the next decade as Elon Musk plans to seems particularly foolhardy. Reusable rockets carrying robots to do reconnaissance and infrastructure-building for the foreseeable future seems wiser. But billionaires get a bigger vote than the rest of us, so off we (probably) go.

In “The Martians Are Coming–and They’re Human,” an excellent Nautilus essay, Scott Solomon analyzes how Mars would remake Homo sapiens, explaining why perhaps that planet’s pioneers will develop orange skin, why sex between Martians and Earthlings will be verboten, etc. An excerpt:

Take this all together—no sex between Earthlings and Martians, founder effects, changes to the microbiome, natural selection in the harsh Martian environment, and low gravity—and the message is clear: Settling Mars could eventually lead to the evolution of an entirely new human species. This happens routinely to animals and plants isolated on islands—think of Darwin’s famous finches. But while speciation on islands can take thousands of years, the accelerated mutation rate on Mars and the stark contrasts between conditions on Mars and Earth, would likely speed up the process. In just a few hundred generations—perhaps as little as 6,000 years—a new type of human might emerge.

In 1950, Ray Bradbury published a series of linked short stories called “The Martian Chronicles” that imagined a distant future in which Mars had been long ago colonized by humans, who have subsequently lost all interest in and connection to Earth. The Martians have brown skin and yellow eyes. “Do you ever wonder if—well, if there are people living on the third planet?” asks one Martian. “The third planet is incapable of supporting life,” states her husband. “Our scientists have said there’s far too much oxygen in their atmosphere.”

Bradbury’s fiction may well prove prescient. Should some disaster occur on Earth, colonizing Mars might be necessary for our long-term survival. Yet the strategy meant to preserve our species might ultimately change us forever.•

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“Uber And Other Ride-Sharing Apps Haven’t Stopped Drivers From Racially And Sexually Discriminating”

November 1, 2016 in Excerpts, Politics, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

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Almost all the promises Uber used to sell itself as an agent for social good have turned out to be utter bullshit.

The rideshare service isn’t in business to employ Iraq War veterans or keep African-Americans safe from police brutality. Travis Kalanick’s outfit isn’t here to free you from the shackles of bureaucracy, unless you’re very troubled by a steady income and benefits. It isn’t part of the solution for employment woes, as people who should know better have said. At long last, Uber is a corporation that will do whatever it takes to make as much money as possible without regard to the effect it has on human beings, drivers, passengers and anyone else.  

Another piece of the company’s hype as an agent for social change has fallen into tatters. The idea that Uber would make transportation colorblind has turned out to be a fugazy. From Gaby Del Valle at the Gothamist:

Uber has long claimed that its platform prevents drivers from engaging in discriminatory practices, like refusing to pick up people of color, but a new study suggests that Uber and other ride-sharing apps haven’t stopped drivers from racially and sexually discriminating against passengers.

According to a study conducted over two years by the National Bureau of Economic Research, black passengers are more likely to wait longer for a ride or have their ride canceled than their white counterparts, while women are likely to be taken on longer rides by drivers who either want to charge them more money or flirt with them (or both).

The study involved nearly 1,500 rides in Seattle and Boston, and the findings are based almost entirely on data from Uber rides, since Lyft displays the rider’s name and picture before a driver chooses to accept the ride, making discrimination nearly impossible to quantify.

In Seattle, undergraduate students from the University of Washington were given identical phones with Uber and Lyft pre-downloaded and told to take a few pre-determined routes. They were instructed to note what time they requested the ride, when the ride was accepted by the driver, what time they were picked up, and when they got to their destination. The results showed that wait times for black passengers were up to 35 percent longer than they were for white drivers.

In Boston, researchers set up two different Uber and Lyft accounts for each rider—one with an “African-American-sounding” name and one with a “white-sounding” name—and had passengers order rides from both. (“White” passengers had names like Allison, Brendan, and Brad while “black” passengers had names like Aisha, Hakim, and Darnell).

In Boston, profiles that appeared to belong to black men had a cancellation rate of 11.2 percent, compared to just 4.5 percent for passengers who appeared to be white men. Passengers believed to be black women had a cancellation rate of 8.4 percent, compared to 5.4 percent for white women.•

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“We’re Going To See Capabilities Of Computers Grow Way Faster Than At Any Time In History”

October 31, 2016 in Excerpts, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

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In the 1969 National Geographic feature “The Coming Revolution in Transportation,” the idea of driverless autos centered on retro-fitting roads and highways, making them over into “guideways.” An excerpt:

The Unicontrol Car–a research vehicle built to test new servomechanisms–is easy to drive. Still, it does have to be driven. I asked Dr. Hafstad about the proposed automated highways that would relieve the driver of all responsibilities except that of choosing a destination.

“Automated highways–engineers call them guideways–are technically feasible today,’ Dr. Hafstad answered. “In fact, General Motors successfully demonstrated an electronically controlled guidance system about ten years ago. A wire was embedded in the road, and two pickup coils were installed at the front of the car to sense its position in relation to that wire. The coils sent electrical signals to the steering system, to keep the vehicle automatically on course.

“More recently, we tested a system that also controlled spacing and detected obstacles. It could slow down an overtaking vehicle–even stop it, until the road was clear!”•

It hasn’t worked out that way. The eyes and ears of the operation–the brains, really–will be within the vehicle with an assist perhaps from wi-fi–enabled gadgets on the outside; any contributions from driving surfaces will be secondary. Key to the “formal education” of cars will be the sharing of information among them, which will permit constant learning. Perhaps someday they’ll be smart enough to tell us how to replace millions of jobs lost in the trucking, taxi, delivery and limousine industries.

From a smart interview Jason Anders of WSJ conducted with Nvidia CEO Jen-Hsun Huang, whose company is tasked with supplying Teslas with autonomous capability:

Question:

Tesla announced that all of its coming vehicles are going to have your technology. Is Elon Musk pushing things too fast?

Jen-Hsun Huang:

If you don’t develop the technology and deploy it, it never gets better. At some level, you have to put it on the road. But what’s important is it’s a massive software problem. So companies like Tesla who have a great deal of software capability have an advantage. There’s a rigorous methodology of developing software. The software becomes better and better over use.

Question:

What can’t the cars do today?

Jen-Hsun Huang:

A whole lot of stuff. We’re going to have an AI inside the car that’s going to look around corners. So even if you’re driving, the AI might prevent you from an accident. There’s all kinds of things that the AI could predict on your behalf.

Question:

Can the car be doing too much?

Jen-Hsun Huang:

The thing to realize is the quality of the software improves over time, whereas people’s performance of driving decreases.

Question:

What about at first, when very few cars on the road are driverless?

Jen-Hsun Huang:

Making sure we don’t cause an accident is something we can control, and we ought to do that as quickly as possible.

But the cars will learn from every other car’s experience. We’re going to see capabilities of computers grow way faster than at any time in the history of our industry.•

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“Clean Air Is Actually A Very Rare Commodity”

October 31, 2016 in Excerpts, Politics, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

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A horrifying sign of the times is the peddling of packaged air, sold in bottles so that those with disposable income in badly polluted locales can breathe freely. It sounds like a smog-saturated setting imagined for a dystopic, futuristic novel, or, you know, contemporary China. Considering one of the two major American political parties would like to shutter the EPA and its nominee wants to remove “70 or 80% of the regulations,” we all might want to grab a six-pack if we can afford to.

From Javier C. Hernández and Emily Feng of the New York Times:

Would you pay $100 for a whiff of Welsh air?

In some of the world’s most polluted cities, people apparently will: Sales of bottled air from fresh-smelling places are taking off.

An Australian company is hawking six-packs of air bottled in places like Bondi Beach in Sydney or the eucalyptus-covered Blue Mountains. A Canadian firm sells containers of Rocky Mountain breeze as an antidote to smoggy skies (“a shot of nature,” its marketing promises).

Aethaer, a British company, is hoping to turn packaged air into a popular luxury item in fast-growing markets like China. The company sells glass jars holding 580 milliliters (a bit more than a pint) of air from Wales — with a “morning dew feel,” according to its website — for 80 pounds, or $97.

The company’s 28-year-old founder, Leo De Watts, said he hoped buyers would come to regard his product as a collectible, like a “sculpture or a limited-edition print made by an artist.” “Clean air is actually a very rare commodity,” he said.

The market for all kinds of pollution-fighting tools is booming in many smog-choked cities in China, India and Southeast Asia. Innovations abound, including air purifiers that are attached to bicycles and outdoor towers that are meant to suck up smog.

Bottled air is one of the least practical but most talked-about ideas.•

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“This New Data Turns Out To Be A Disappointment”

October 31, 2016 in Excerpts, Politics, Science/Tech | Permalink

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“Estimating longevity is as much an art as a science,” writes Ben Steverman in a Bloomberg piece about actuarial projections of American lifespans. Lately, it’s been a dark art, as death has been coming earlier to a surprising number of U.S. citizens and the long-term picture for millennials has dimmed.

If I had to guess the causes, I would go with the aftershocks of the 2008 recession (especially since earlier deaths spiked from 2010 to 2014), opioid and alcohol abuse and obesity, though I wonder if the rising suicide rate is the chief culprit. Steverman lists most of these factors in his report.

The opening:

Death awaits all of us, but how patiently? To unlock the mystery of when we’re going to die, start with an actuary.

Specializing in the study of risk and uncertainty, members of this 200-year-old profession pore over the data of death to estimate the length of life. Putting aside the spiritual, that’s crucial information for insurance companies and pension plans, and it’s also helpful for planning retirement, since we need our money to last as long we do.

The latest, best guesses for U.S. lifespans come from a study(PDF) released this month by the Society of Actuaries: The average 65-year-old American man should die a few months short of his 86th birthday, while the average 65-year-old woman gets an additional two years, barely missing age 88. 

This new data turns out to be a disappointment. Over the past several years, the health of Americans has deteriorated—particularly that of middle-aged non-Hispanic whites. Among the culprits are drug overdoses, suicide, alcohol poisoning, and liver disease, according to a Princeton University study issued in December. 

Partly as a result, the life expectancy for 65-year-olds is now six months shorter than in last year’s actuarial study. Longevity for younger Americans was also affected: A 25-year-old woman last year had a 50/50 chance of reaching age 90. This year, she is projected to fall about six months short. (The average 25-year-old man is expected to live to 86 years and 11 months, down from 87 years and 8 months in last year’s estimates.) Baby boomers, Generation X, and yes, millennials, are all doing worse.•

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“If Diversity Was Such A Cherished Value In Silicon Valley, Why Wasn’t There More Of It?”

October 31, 2016 in Excerpts, Politics, Science/Tech | Permalink

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It’s not likely that Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg are spoken to honestly very often, certainly not by those who work for them. What good could come of that for an employee? Perhaps, then, no one has been brazen enough to directly point out that their defense of Trump supporter and emotional homunculus Peter Thiel, if not his politics, is utter horseshit. 

“There are many reasons a person might support Trump that do not involve racism, sexism, xenophobia or accepting sexual assault,” Zuckerberg wrote in defense of maintaining Thiel as a Facebook board member. Bezos added at a Vanity Fair event that “it’s way too divisive to say if you have an opinion, you can’t sit on my board…that makes no sense.”

What really makes no sense is Thiel being treated as if he just so happens to be supporting a fellow conservative, a right-of-center politician who earned the Republican nomination. But Trump isn’t that. He’s someone who’s called for a ban on Muslims entering the country, used anti-Semitic memes online, labeled Mexicans rapists and African-Americans inherently lazy, threatened to jail his political opponent who’s been found guilty of no crime, promised to change libel laws to diminish journalistic freedom and boasted about sexually assaulting women.

Thiel, who’s spoken out against multiculturalism, made puzzling comments about suffrage and had a checkbook ready when racists like Hulk Hogan or Trump needed an assist, wants people to accept that he loathes his candidate’s overt bigotry–his “personal characteristics,” as Thiel terms it–and only supports the GOP nominee because he somehow possesses the magical talents to “fix America,” or some such thing, despite having demonstrated not even a basic understanding of foreign or domestic policy. As I’ve said before, Thiel is the single best argument for a return to the draconian progressive tax rates of the Eisenhower Administration. 

The venture capitalist has the absolute right to support financially and otherwise this Berlusconi who dreams of being a Mussolini, but sitting on the board of Facebook and working for the Y Combinator is a privilege, not a right. Zuckerberg and the rest can’t pretend this is politics as usual. Il Duce and his fellow 1930s Fascist Adolf Hitler also were popular with millions of their citizens. That wasn’t “diversity,” but tyranny. So it is, perhaps, again.

From David Streitfeld at the New York Times:

Two weeks ago, Mr. Thiel revealed that he was donating $1.25 million to support the election of Donald J. Trump. As these things go, it was a small gift. Dustin Moskovitz, a founder of Facebook, is giving tens of millions to support Hillary Clinton. But the news made Mr. Thiel a pariah in much of the tech community.

He was accused of promoting racism and intolerance. There were demands that Facebook drop him from its board of directors and that Silicon Valley’s leading start-up incubator, Y Combinator, sever ties with him. Emotions and accusations raged on Twitter. …

“I was surprised by the intensity,” Mr. Thiel said. “This is one of the few times I was involved in something that was not a fringe effort but was mainstream. Millions of people are backing Trump. I did not appreciate quite how polarizing the election would be in Silicon Valley and elsewhere.”

“By lending his image, his voice, his influence and substantial capital to Trump, Thiel isn’t simply exercising his legal right to vote: He is fueling and enabling racism, sexism, sexual assault, violence and tyranny,” Arlan Hamilton of Backstage Capital, a Los Angeles venture firm, wrote in a blog post.

She said she turned down an investment of $500,000 — a huge sum for a small firm like Backstage — because of the investor’s ties to Mr. Thiel. Ms. Hamilton did not identify the investor or respond to an email.

Mark Zuckerberg, chief executive of Facebook, defended the company’s association with Mr. Thiel, emphasizing that it did not endorse his views — and much less Mr. Trump’s — but was striving to be inclusive toward those whose values differed from its own. Critics noted that if diversity was such a cherished value in Silicon Valley, why wasn’t there more of it?•

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“It Occurs To Me How Often Shkreli Himself Speaks In Trumpisms”

October 30, 2016 in Excerpts, Politics, Science/Tech | Permalink

Former Turing Pharmaceuticals CEO Martin Shkreli, who said he was reporting using a video service called "periscope" on his smartphone, stands with reporters after Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton leaves an apartment building Sunday, Sept. 11, 2016, in New York. Clinton's campaign said the Democratic presidential nominee left the 9/11 anniversary ceremony in New York early after feeling "overheated." (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)

Martin Shrkeli is guilty of being bad person, but he’s certain he’s a good capitalist.

As Donald Trump is a stress test for American democracy, the pharmaceutical executive is one for our economic system. Both run fairly well if those occupying seats of power act decently and responsibly, but, come on, let’s be adults here. 

The smirking 33-year-old entrepreneur, who believed only the profits of his shareholders mattered when he drastically spiked the price of lifesaving medicine, essentially performing a legal mugging of those who depend on EpiPens, never should have been placed in a position to monopolize such a market. Regulation that encouraged competition was required, as was a lever that thwarted those who exploited the system. It’s just another reminder that corporations aren’t of the people, by the people and for the people–they aren’t people. 

David Crow of the Financial Times penned an excellent profile of the remorseless, brat-faced “pharma bro” as he awaits trial on securities fraud, still treating life like a zero-sum game. An excerpt:

If the private Shkreli is any different to the pugnacious public persona, it is not immediately apparent. “This is my date spot if you will,” he says, gesturing to the dark panelled walls of his favourite haunt, as he launches straight into his defence. I should not, he swiftly makes clear, expect any regrets.

“To me the drug was woefully underpriced,” he says. Rather, he thinks he should have charged a higher price still because Daraprim can keep people alive: “It is not a question of ‘Is this fair?’, or ‘What did you pay for it?’, or ‘When was it invented’. It should be more expensive in many ways”.

He boasts of other attempts to buy old drugs for fatal diseases with the “ingenious plan” of inflating their prices as well, and suggests that executives who eschew such tactics are, in effect, defrauding their investors. “If you have a drug that is $100 for one course of therapy, and you know that you can charge $100,000, what should shareholders think when you say, ‘I’d rather not take the heat’?” he asks. …

The conversation, like any other in the US these days, soon turns to the presidential election. While not registered to vote, Shkreli instinctively supports Donald Trump despite his flaws. “The symbolism of his success is in many ways what you’re voting for. It’s sort of like the Statue of Liberty; he’s an icon that represents something.

“I think that his supporters endorse being rash, being American, being polarising and having this un-PC, unedited attitude. In many ways it’s not a surprise that I identify with that.” Later, it occurs to me how often Shkreli himself speaks in Trumpisms, like this: “I’ve had my photo taken a lot with people who say, ‘I support you, you inspire me, you’re the American dream’.”•

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“There’s Something Unique About Information Technology”

October 28, 2016 in Excerpts, Politics, Science/Tech | Permalink

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I try not to use the word “never.” Not ever. That term will almost always eventually be wrong, even if we’re not still around when our serious theories become laugh lines.

Paul Mason embraces this dangerous word in a Medium essay, arguing that “maybe the economy never recovers.” Wow, that’s a big statement.

But Mason needn’t be right forever. If salaries are depressed for too long and wealth inequality grows too wide, we can see serious social fraying, even collapse. That may not be plausible, but it certainly is possible if the levers of change–protests, unions, legislation, etc.–fail.

If new and better jobs emerge that replace those disappeared into the zeros and ones, that’s fine. But not everyone who’s a truck driver can become a Self-Driving Car Engineer. In fact, it’s tough to believe any of those engineers will be needed soon enough. Machines should be able to engineer the machines. Neither will it be necessary for long for autonomous taxi and truck companies to have owners. With a few modifications, they can be self-sustaining outfits.

Even if good jobs not prone to automation surface in the long-term future, it will be awfully difficult to get from here to there without significant policy changes. As Mason notes, positions are being automated “faster than new work can be invented.”

The essence of his answer is that we need to “actively [promote] automation, but at the same time…end reliance on wages for work.” Universal Basic Income, he believes, should be used to support those doing healthcare and environmental work, for instance, those jobs being uncoupled from capitalism.

Mason believes we’re in the early stages of a “500-year event,” but I’ll bet like with everything else in today’s souped-up society, the action and reaction will occur in a much briefer time frame.

An excerpt:

Capitalism is failing to adapt

So how could one of the greatest technical leaps forward ever be causing something bad in economics?

The answer is — there’s something unique about information technology, which suppresses capitalism’s capacity to adapt.

When the system is in big trouble, over the past 240 years it usually adapts. It morphs radically, so that the old generation look at it and say — “this can’t be capitalism”. Usually when it adapts, it creates a new synthesis between technology and society — so you get the factory system in the 1800s, you get railways plus heavy engineering in the 1850s, you get the scientific management revolution before the first world war; you get the science-led postwar boom of 1948–73.

I think the problem is: the new technology is suppressing the economy’s ability to adapt.

Let’s think about what normally happens. Old jobs are automated, but new jobs replace them, with higher wages. New commodities command higher prices. Carlota Perez calls this the techno-economic paradigm and each time it’s happened so far it produces an economy based on higher value: higher wages, higher prices, higher living standards.

But information disrupts this process in three ways: in its effect on work, and its effect on ownership, with the emergence of new models of sharing and collaboration.•

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“That’s Where You Have To Go If Reality Starts Outpacing The Grotesqueness Of The Fictional World”

October 27, 2016 in Excerpts, Politics, Science/Tech | Permalink

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Haven’t had a TV for years and can’t say I miss it. Don’t want to spend all that time watching more and more shows, as wonderful as the seemingly endless content might be. The only program I’ve gone out of my way to view in the past five years is Black Mirror, a brilliant and often hilarious satire that some have called futuristic, though it can barely keep up with the present.

That’s not the fault of Charlie Brooker, the program’s creator, who’s brilliant. As I wrote in 2015, it’s tough being Paddy Chayefsky these days. In our souped-up world, with ubiquitous cameras and speeding media cycles, as soon as you can get a handle on a situation, the moment has passed. It’s on to the next outrage or suspiciously communal viral moment. It all seems quantified, commodified and focus grouped, even the spontaneous bits. If someone can break through this sound-stage world with something genuine, no matter what it is, how we appreciate them. We’d even consider them for President.

In a Vice interview conducted by Angus Harrison, Brooker, who’s just released the third season on Netflix, discusses the near-impossibility of being a futurist when every day is tomorrow, the difficulty of satirizing and ever-more extreme society. An excerpt:

It’s impossible not to recognize a hint of frustration in his voice when I mention the binary “technology goes wrong” view of the show some people have. “I think sometimes, when people are parodying it, they miss how self-aware it is,” he says. “I know when it’s being a bit silly.”

It’s an important distinction, given the 21st century’s unstoppable, almost unknowable rate of progress. The idea of being lectured or chastised for behaving in a certain way feels alienating and reductive. Yet, crucially, Black Mirror has never really set out to make people look stupid; rather, its intention has always been to make people look like people. Flawed, bruised, and lacking the requisite software to cope with the threats and promises of the digital age.

Take “Be Right Back,” surely the best episode of the second season—if not the entire show. It’s a harrowing hour of television, in which a young woman clones her recently deceased husband using the blueprint of his identity, as spread across his social media activity. The episode isn’t a lecture: The characters are left confused and morally conflicted, much like the viewers. Is this where satire has to turn in an increasingly extreme world? To the intimate and the personal?

“Possibly,” Brooker nods. “I hadn’t thought about it like that, but quite possibly, that’s where you have to go if reality starts outpacing the grotesqueness of the fictional world.”

This outpacing, of course, specifically alludes to the two starkly prophetic instances in earlier episodes of Black Mirror—series one’s “The National Anthem” and series two’s “Waldo Moment,” both of which depict events with eerie similarities to real political events: Cameron’s pig-fucking debacle and the rise of Donald Trump, respectively. Yet, while the parallels do bear striking resemblances, the episodes show more the mind of a writer who is fearful of ochlocracy and the corrosion of democracy.•

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“If Stanley Kubrick Directed Dr. Strangelove Again, It Would Be About The Issue Of Autonomous Weapons”

October 26, 2016 in Excerpts, Politics, Science/Tech | Permalink

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Below are four unsettling if not unexpected paragraphs from an excellent report by Matthew Rosenberg and John Markoff of the New York Times about the American military’s transition from nuclear secrets to software codes, as billions spent on placing us on the bleeding edge of AI warfare are enabling weapons systems with automated capacity. A human is said to remain in the loop at all times, the machines unable to make their own decisions, but as other nations catch up in Artificial Intelligence as they have in traditional battle networks, will rational decisions still rule the day among numerous states with differing priorities, especially since fleets of such weapons will ultimately become relatively cheap and widely available?

For now, freestyle chess, which teams human and computers, is the model of the Department of Defense, a strategy it’s termed “centaur warfighting.” The future is far more cloudy.  As the journalists write, “the debate within the military is no longer about whether to build autonomous weapons but how much independence to give them.”

An excerpt:

Almost unnoticed outside defense circles, the Pentagon has put artificial intelligence at the center of its strategy to maintain the United States’ position as the world’s dominant military power. It is spending billions of dollars to develop what it calls autonomous and semiautonomous weapons and to build an arsenal stocked with the kind of weaponry that until now has existed only in Hollywood movies and science fiction, raising alarm among scientists and activists concerned by the implications of a robot arms race.

The Defense Department is designing robotic fighter jets that would fly into combat alongside manned aircraft. It has tested missiles that can decide what to attack, and it has built ships that can hunt for enemy submarines, stalking those it finds over thousands of miles, without any help from humans.

“If Stanley Kubrick directed Dr. Strangelove again, it would be about the issue of autonomous weapons,” said Michael Schrage, a research fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Sloan School of Management.

Defense officials say the weapons are needed for the United States to maintain its military edge over China, Russia and other rivals, who are also pouring money into similar research (as are allies, such as Britain and Israel). The Pentagon’s latest budget outlined $18 billion to be spent over three years on technologies that included those needed for autonomous weapons.•

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“The World Finds Itself Again Passing Through A Fullerian Moment”

October 26, 2016 in Excerpts, Politics, Science/Tech, Urban Studies, Videos | Permalink

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Buckminster Fuller was right on some vital points even if most of his designs never made a leap from the drawing board. He knew, for instance, that the idea of race was a phony tribal concept steeped in ignorance, wealth inequality was a real threat to democracy and childbirth per family would decline as the infant mortality rate decreased.

The theorist, who certainly realized the delicate balance of our environment, may or may not have been right when he insisted pollution itself was a great resource gone unharvested, a recyclable more or less, but that’s an awfully dangerous assumption. Even if it’s so, our “creation” of these raw materials could extinct the species long before we establish a collection day. Technocracy has its merits, but I wouldn’t want to wager everything on it.

In a smart Aeon essay, Samanth Subramanian wonders about the renewed capital of Fuller’s teachings in this time of climate peril and technological prowess, when those domes Elon Musk dreams of printing on Mars may soon be as needed on Earth. The opening has a great, largely forgotten anecdote about a Vermont town deciding in 1979 to build a Fuller-ish dome around itself to deal with falling temperatures and rising gas prices, before quickly quashing the project. The writer also de-mythologizes much about the Futurist, whose self-promoting prowess was Jobsian long before Jobs was born.

An excerpt:

Fuller wasn’t the first person to dream of domed cities – they’d featured for decades in science fiction, usually as hothouses of dystopia – but as an engineering solution, they feel thoroughly Fullerian. Implicit in their concept is an acknowledgement that human nature is wasteful and unreliable, resistant to fixing itself. Instead, Fuller put his faith in technology as a means to tame the messiness of humankind. ‘I would never try to reform man – that’s much too difficult,’ Fuller told The New Yorker in 1966. Appealing to people to remedy their behaviour was a folly, because they’d simply never do it. Far wiser, Fuller thought, to build technology that circumvents the flaws in human behaviour – that is, ‘to modify the environment in such a way as to get man moving in preferred directions’. Instead of human-led design, he sought design-led humans.

Winooski’s grand dome never went into construction. By the end of 1980, after the election of Ronald Reagan as president and a summer of stormy criticism over the cost and visual impact of the project, the mood had shifted. But Fuller, who had first advanced the idea of a domed city in 1959, continued to champion it until his death in 1983. ‘The way consumption curves are going in many of our big cities, it is clear that we are running out of energy,’ he wrote. ‘It is important for our government to know if there are better ways of enclosing space in terms of material, time, and energy.’ The most ambitious of his urban lids was the dome he wanted to lower over midtown Manhattan, a mile high and two miles in diameter. As well as a perfect climate, Fuller said, the dome could protect New Yorkers against the worst effects of a nuclear bomb going off nearby.

In the great flux of postwar United States, Fuller was convinced that the world was marshalling its resources poorly and unsustainably, and that change was a burning imperative. The world finds itself again passing through a Fullerian moment – a phase of political, environmental and technological upheaval that is both unsettling and exhilarating. Within this frame, Fuller’s life and ideas – the sound ones but also those that were tedious or absurd – ring with a new resonance.•

Fuller introduces the Dymaxion House in 1929.

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“It Really Is People Sitting In An Arena Watching Other People Play Videogames”

October 25, 2016 in Excerpts, Science/Tech, Sports | Permalink

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E-sports aren’t nearly the weirdest event to have graced the several iterations of Madison Square Garden, which hosted poultry shows during a more agrarian age and week-long walking races that thrilled a pre-automobile audience. The question is whether the action, mostly virtual, at the League of Legends World Championship, which held its semifinals recently at MSG, announces a new and lasting arena-friendly competition or if someday these gatherings will be looked back on as are handsome chickens and panting pedestrians.

After attending the LLWC gathering, Jason Gay of the Wall Street Journal was transformed from skeptic to (sort of a) true believer, despite his Frogger Era upbringing. “If you are a serious e-sports fan, I apologize that this column probably reads as if the Journal sent a dog to cover the World Series,” he says, in one of his typically witty articles.

Without necessarily understanding the game, Gay explains the culture and the seemingly mysterious allure of people watching a screen showing other people playing a game on another screen. God knows if such a spectacle will truly sustain, but the NFL in 2016 probably wishes its athletes were comprised of pixels, unblemished by domestic-violence charges and undiminished by brain injuries.

An excerpt:

We arrived Friday night to a cascade of thousands walking into the Garden. E-sports owns a rap for being a predominantly male audience—unlike, say, a Jets game, which is a richly cosmopolitan crowd—but there were a good number of women. I’d say the average age was somewhere in the early to mid-20s. Josh and I stuck out like Regis Philbin and Larry King.

Inside, the arena was packed, loud, happy. This really threw Josh. He is a lifelong Knicks fan whose family had season tickets to the team for years. He’s not used to seeing enthusiasm at Madison Square Garden.

If you’re wondering if e-sports really is people sitting in an arena watching other people play videogames, I’m going to give it to you straight: It really is people sitting in an arena watching other people play videogames.

But the drama was fascinating! Underneath an enormous four-sized jumbo screen, two five-person teams were positioned at the Garden’s center, like Ali vs. Frazier: SK Telecom T1 and the Rox Tigers, both of South Korea. (South Korea is to e-sports what Brazil is to soccer.) They had nicknames like Peanut, Joker, Bang, Wolf and Faker. (Yes: e-sports names are about 900 times cooler than golf nicknames.) The 20-year-old Faker (real name: Lee Sang-hyeok) is considered the Michael Jordan of e-sports, a revolutionary player who has transformed the game.

“Faker right now is the greatest of all time,” said a fan behind me, Elias Vargas, 17, who’d driven to the Garden from Lancaster, Pa with two friends. “He does things, like his rotations and his mechanical skills, that nobody has reached.”

I’m not going to pretend any of this made sense to me.•

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“Government Will Never Run The Way Silicon Valley Runs”

October 25, 2016 in Excerpts, Politics, Science/Tech | Permalink

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In an excellent New York Times Magazine piece, Jenna Wortham writes of the boon and bane that attends Barack Obama being the “first digital President,” the one who ushered into D.C. the start-up spirit of technologists, significantly shrinking the distance between the Y Combinator and K Street. 

Silicon Valley’s ideas and energy can be an intoxicating engine of creativity and leaders in that community claim to want to satisfy all the world’s wants, but let’s not forget these are huge corporations primarily concerned with the bottom line, not justice or equality or paying taxes. When Travis Kalanick briefly uses Iraq War veterans to try to foster good will, keep in mind that he has no long-term commitment to them. Most of the industry doesn’t view Washington as a sibling but as a profligate son.

Even truly benevolent titans like the sweater-clad 2.0 version of Bill Gates (formerly a bullying, vampiric capitalist) talks openly about how he doesn’t want the government to have his money because he can spend it more wisely. Perhaps that’s true in his case, but you wouldn’t want to base a country on such thinking. The gritty work of Congress should not and cannot have the brevity and grace of a particularly satisfying TED Talk.

As Wortham further notes, “fixing problems with technology often just creates more problems, largely because technology is never developed in a neutral way,” and that’s a challenge that will only grow more profound as AI develops further. She does, however, credit President Obama with realizing the limits of venture capital to cure the world’s ills, referencing his recent address at Carnegie Mellon. An excerpt from that speech:

The final thing I’ll say is that government will never run the way Silicon Valley runs because, by definition, democracy is messy. This is a big, diverse country with a lot of interests and a lot of disparate points of view. And part of government’s job, by the way, is dealing with problems that nobody else wants to deal with.

So sometimes I talk to CEOs, they come in and they start telling me about leadership, and here’s how we do things. And I say, well, if all I was doing was making a widget or producing an app, and I didn’t have to worry about whether poor people could afford the widget, or I didn’t have to worry about whether the app had some unintended consequences — setting aside my Syria and Yemen portfolio — then I think those suggestions are terrific. (Laughter and applause.) That’s not, by the way, to say that there aren’t huge efficiencies and improvements that have to be made.

But the reason I say this is sometimes we get, I think, in the scientific community, the tech community, the entrepreneurial community, the sense of we just have to blow up the system, or create this parallel society and culture because government is inherently wrecked. No, it’s not inherently wrecked; it’s just government has to care for, for example, veterans who come home. That’s not on your balance sheet, that’s on our collective balance sheet, because we have a sacred duty to take care of those veterans. And that’s hard and it’s messy, and we’re building up legacy systems that we can’t just blow up.•

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“He Wants Everything Free And Eventually Provided To Us By Robots, Software, And Automation”

October 25, 2016 in Excerpts, Politics, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

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In 1789, Benjamin Franklin identified death and taxes as the only things we can be certain of. It wasn’t a completely original quote, but it seemed a permanent truth, with no one betting against the continued presence of graveyards and other shovel-ready projects. Some Futurists would like to make a liar of the most famous kite flier, delivering to our doorsteps a-mortality and post-scarcity, like a couple of pizzas lowered gently by a drone.

On the economic side of things, Transhumanist Presidential candidate, Zoltan Istvan, not a fan of tariffs, recently found a kindred soul in visionary Venus Project architect and theorist Jacque Fresco, who even at 100 years old still hopes to radically remake our cash-and-ownership economy into a resource-based one.

In a Vice “Motherboard” piece, Istvan argues that Fresco’s far-out ideas, which would not only eliminate taxes but also currency, may be the best means to preventing violent upheaval should the robots devour all the jobs. An excerpt:

Over the next 20 years, I see automation taking nearly all jobs, and I doubt capitalism will survive that. As a result, I advocate for beginning the process of eliminating taxes and doling out a universal basic income—one that swallows welfare, Social Security, and all health services. Otherwise, I see inequality dramatically growing and an even larger befuddled welfare system than we have now. When robots take all the jobs, I also see civil strife and revolution occurring if corporations and the government don’t give back enough to society.

For me, the most important aspect of the future is to actually get there, and I worry that without giving something to unemployed humans, a dystopic society of violence and chaos will come about. The last thing America—and the scientific community—needs is a civil war.

Some experts have predicted that fully automated luxury communism is the way to go, and it’s a term increasingly being thrown around. Basically, it argues that humans should be pampered by technology, and to do so, communism should finally become the dominant economic system. Fresco doesn’t buy this.

He thinks that if we could just get rid of money and ownership, most of the humanity’s problems would disappear. And he claims only a resource-based economy—an idea he said he’s been working on since he was 13 years old—could do this.

The resource-based economy goes like this: In the future robots will do all the jobs (including creating new robots and fixing broken one). Now, imagine the world is like a public library, where you can borrow any book you want but never own it. Fresco wants all enterprise like this, whether it’s groceries, new tech, gasoline, or alcohol. He wants everything free and eventually provided to us by robots, software, and automation.•

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“It Is Also The Future Of Crime”

October 24, 2016 in Excerpts, Science/Tech | Permalink

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Allan Pinkerton had an idea in 1857: Why not use the new technology of photography to create a pictorial file of repeat offenders causing the majority of the crime? That way the police could become familiar with broken noses and twisted smiles, making it easier to round up the usual suspects. The word “database” wouldn’t be coined for another century, but that’s essentially what the Rogues’ Gallery was. The subjects may have been uncooperative at times, but one way or another they were made to pose.

Now we’re all rogues, or at least suspected of such behavior. Here’s the opening two sentences from a recent Ars Technica article by David Kravets:

Half of American adults are in a face-recognition database, according to a Georgetown University study released Tuesday. That means there’s about 117 million adults in a law enforcement facial-recognition database, the study by Georgetown’s Center on Privacy & Technology says.

While such files can be viewed as an invasion of privacy by police, an invitation for us all to be pre-criminalized, they also pose another problem: As tools improve, these images may be used to steal identities. And it’s not just limited to faces–our voices may also be stolen right out of the air.

From John Markoff at the New York Times:

Imagine receiving a phone call from your aging mother seeking your help because she has forgotten her banking password.

Except it’s not your mother. The voice on the other end of the phone call just sounds deceptively like her.

It is actually a computer-synthesized voice, a tour-de-force of artificial intelligence technology that has been crafted to make it possible for someone to masquerade via the telephone.

Such a situation is still science fiction — but just barely. It is also the future of crime.

The software components necessary to make such masking technology widely accessible are advancing rapidly. Recently, for example, DeepMind, the Alphabet subsidiary known for a program that has bested some of the top human players in the board game Go, announced that it had designed a program that “mimics any human voice and which sounds more natural than the best existing text-to-speech systems, reducing the gap with human performance by over 50 percent.”

The irony, of course, is that this year the computer security industry, with $75 billion in annual revenue, has started to talk about how machine learning and pattern recognition techniques will improve the woeful state of computer security.

But there is a downside.

“The thing people don’t get is that cybercrime is becoming automated and it is scaling exponentially,” said Marc Goodman, a law enforcement agency adviser and the author of Future Crimes.•

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“Guaranteed Minimum Income Doesn’t Really Empower Anybody”

October 24, 2016 in Excerpts, Politics, Science/Tech | Permalink

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Guaranteed Basic Income has become a serious topic of discussion in think tanks and Silicon Valley boardrooms, among some conservatives and libertarians as well as liberals, but, if instituted, it could wind up being more a pain than a panacea. If used as a Trojan horse by those looking to pull away social safety nets, it could be devastating. Even done with the best of intentions, it really wouldn’t be a better life than a good job with a chance for advancement. It could wind up an anodyne, part of a means to quiet the masses with bread and Kardashians.

Or maybe, possibly, it would free us to be creative beyond our wildest dreams in a post-scarcity society, building spaceships in our garages with cheap 3D printers. But I would have to bet the under on that one.

In a Vice “Motherboard” Q&A conducted by Alex Pasternack, Douglas Rushkoff speaks to his fears about GBI as a mere palliative. An excerpt: 

The thing that surprised me—the thing I’m working through now—is this whole idea of guaranteed minimum income. I make a pretty strong case for it in the book: In a society with abundant resources, people deserve food, housing, and medical care. We have gotten to a place where people need jobs not because we need all that work done, but because we need an excuse to let them have the food and housing which is already in abundance. That’s ass-backward. So just let them have it.

But I spent some time at Uber, and I heard my guaranteed minimum income argument come back to me but from their lips, and it sounded different. They were telling me how they understood that Uber drivers don’t get paid a living wage—but that once the government instituted a guaranteed minimum income, then it wouldn’t matter that the drivers don’t get paid enough to live! Or that their jobs were replaced by machines. At least they’d have enough money to hire Uber cars when they need to get somewhere!

So guaranteed minimum income doesn’t really empower anybody. It just creates more cash for people to spend as consumers. It doesn’t give the workers any more ownership of the “means of production” than they had before.

And I’m still working on this problem, since I believe that food, housing, and medical care are basic human rights for which you shouldn’t need a job, but I don’t like how guaranteed minimum income becomes an excuse for more exploitation of those at the bottom, and a new two-tiered society.•

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“Utopian Projects Usually End Disastrously”

October 24, 2016 in Books, Excerpts, Politics, Science/Tech | Permalink

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In a smart Five Books interview, Ellen Wayland-Smith, author of Oneida, discusses a group of titles on the topic of Utopia. She surmises that attempts at such communities aren’t prevalent like they were in the 1840s or even the 1960s because most of us realize they don’t normally end well, whether we’re talking about the bitter financial and organizational failures of Fruitlands and Brook Farm or the utter madness of Jonestown. That’s true on a micro-community level, though I would argue that there have never been more people dreaming of large-scale Utopias–and corresponding dystopias–then there are right now. The visions have just grown significantly in scope.

In macro visions, Silicon Valley technologists speak today of an approaching post-scarcity society, an automated, quantified, work-free world in which all basic needs are met and drudgery has disappeared into a string of zeros and ones. These thoughts were once the talking points of those on the fringe, say, a teenage guru who believed he could levitate the Houston Astrodome, but now they (and Mars settlements, a-mortality and the computerization of every object) are on the tongues of the most important business people of our day, billionaires who hope to shape the Earth and beyond into a Shangri-La. 

Perhaps much good will come from these goals, and maybe a few disasters will be enabled as well. 

One exchange from the Five Books Q&A:

Question:

Speaking of the Second Coming, the last book on your list is Paradise Now, by Chris Jennings.

Ellen Wayland-Smith:

It’s called Paradise Now: The Story of American Utopianism. He goes through five utopian experiments in nineteenth century America. It’s a beautifully written book and interesting as well because he takes the odd era of 1840s America and shows how it gave rise to five very different experiments in alternative living. He does a sensitive job of exploring their differences and similarities but he also examines how crazy they seem today. Some of the ideas seem mystical and fabulous; certainly Noyes had some spectacularly strange ideas about gaining immortality through sexual intercourse. The fact that so many of these strange communities sprung up seems unbelievable to the twenty-first century reader. Chris Jennings points out that we seem to have lost something, there seems to be a diminishment of expectations, a loss of energy.

Question:

In the wake of the American Revolution over a hundred experimental communities were formed in the United States. Do societies become less experimental as they age into their institutions? Is the West losing the audacity necessary for experimentation?

Ellen Wayland-Smith:

That is an interesting question. The 1840s were an incredibly weird time. It was a crossroads. It was the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. Class identification and geographical identification suddenly became uncertain, that was upsetting. There were also an explosion of religious sects at this time, with the disestablishment of state and church. I think it was a time when people felt very vulnerable. All these changes and uncertainties crystallized attempts to live otherwise.

Question:

Jennings writes that a present day “deficit of imagination” accounts for the fact that there are no utopias at present. Do you see a strong foundation for that analysis?

Ellen Wayland-Smith:

There does seem to be a lack of interest in what is transcendent, which keeps people from finding more meaningful ways of constructing their lives. But what accounts for the absence of utopian schemes at present is probably less a ‘deficit of imagination’ than a cynicism about whether these things can work. As I began by saying, utopian projects usually end disastrously.•

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“I Wonder If What We’re Witnessing Is Merely The Painful Birth Of A Three- Or Four-Party US Political System”

October 21, 2016 in Excerpts, Politics, Science/Tech | Permalink

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As I’ve mentioned before, this Baba Booey of an election makes me wonder if we’re looking at the beginning of the end of the two-party political system in America. Could a centrist coalition be possible if Democratic and Republican bases drift further from the middle? Will independents be emboldened not by Donald Trump’s Thiel-approved Lampanelli-Mussolini mashup but by the lack of concern he’s shown traditional ideological lines? It really doesn’t make much sense that a culture so decentralized and splintered and long tail in pretty much every other way would remain traditional in this one, even if entrenched machinery demands it remain that way. 

Douglas Coupland has similar thoughts in a new Financial Times column, which also opines on “logarithmic technologies” impacting politics and the future of online voting. An excerpt:

I look at the current US electoral situation: 330 million people, and Donald and Hillary are what the system has spat forth. What ought to have been a four-party election (Democrats/Republicans/Sanderians/Trumpfs) instead became a two-party slate so ghastly that the metaphor most commonly used to describe the situation is that of a burning dumpster.

A country’s citizenry is toasting marshmallows over burning garbage trying to pretend everything is OK, and it’s not OK.

OK, that last sentence sounded a bit drastic … if nothing else, everybody agrees that the current US election is a hyperbole leaf-blower — and most everyone agrees that something is going random within American democracy. Both parties have somehow come to equate a possible electoral win by their opponents not as a democratically elected majority win but, rather, as mob rule. Each side believes the other is unfit to govern, period — and so it’s not just a matter of winning an election: the other party needs to be smothered and buried. As a bonus, this election has highlighted a specific perversity of human nature — the fact that believing in something that one knows is illogical or untrue somehow makes it much easier to believe.

Actually, let’s take a chill pill and think this through. Maybe there’s no need to be so cosmic about what can seem like the American two-party system’s mutual suicide pact. I wonder if, instead, what we’re witnessing is merely the painful birth of a three- or four-party US political system — something most mature democracies already have, and something the US ought to have seriously adopted decades ago were it not for the country’s battered-wife relationship with its dual-party system that dates back to the late 18th century.

Technically, all it would take for America to enter the multiparty system is to click its heels together three times and say, “Let’s have more political parties”, and much of today’s schizocracy would vanish. People would be able to better choose candidates they can actually believe in and, as we see globally, coalition building would ensure more adult-like behaviour and a willingness for give and take over issues which, at the moment, allow only unyieldingly polarised righteousness and stasis.•

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“Video Helps Us To Digest More Of The Information”

October 21, 2016 in Excerpts, Science/Tech | Permalink

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Video as a new way to pay for journalism seems a bubble to me, though I have to admit print ads were a bubble that paid for news for about 150 years. Of course, in a far more quantified age, if a system of collecting money for getting people to watch a few seconds of an ad goes bust, it probably will happen sooner than in fifteen decades.

But even if video doesn’t become the coin of the realm, it’s the primary media of the moment and immediate future. The lazier among us always skimmed articles, but now you’re not really required to do even that to follow current events. We’ve more recently used technologies to skip past ads during the game, but now we can disregard most of the game as well.

We’ve shrunk time down to just the interesting bits, the moments of impact, which are neatly packaged for us via video. Or we just drink from the stream of live video for a few minutes to get a “taste.” That’s not to say the horrors of Aleppo or the glories of the gridiron are only thrown at us minus context–prerecorded pieces can contextualize–but the more you boil something down, the more that evaporates into the air, unseen.

Despite Youtube, it’s interesting that the things people usually watch from start to finish now are fiction, the endless stock of TV or near-TV content. Fantasies can still be fully embraced, while reality has been collapsed into the palms of our hands.

Excerpts follow from: 1) Jacob Weisberg’s NYRB piece about the scramble for attention in the time of Google and Facebook, and 2) Jarrett Bell’s USA Today article about the NFL’s fumbling ratings.

From Weisberg:

Earlier this year, Facebook announced a major new initiative called Facebook Live, which was intended to encourage the consumption of minimally produced, real-time video on its site. The videos would come from news organizations such as The New York Times, as well as from celebrities and Facebook users. Interpreted by some as an effort to challenge Snapchat, the app popular with teenagers in which content quickly vanishes, Live reflects the trend toward video’s becoming the dominant consumer and commercial activity on the Web. Following the announcement, one executive at the company predicted that in five years the Facebook News Feed wouldn’t include any written articles at all, because video “helps us to digest more of the information” and is “the best way to tell stories.”

Facebook’s News Feed is the largest source of traffic for news and media sites, representing 43 percent of their referrals, according to the web analytics firm Parse.ly. So when Facebook indicates that it favors a new form of content, publishers start making a lot of it. In this case, news organizations including the Times, BuzzFeed, NPR, and Al Jazeera began streaming live videos, which were funded in part by $50 million in payments from Facebook itself. These subsidies were thought necessary because live video carries no advertising, and thus produces no revenue for Facebook or its partners.

Why, if it generates no revenue, is Facebook pushing video streaming so insistently? For the same reason that it does almost everything: in hopes of capturing more user attention. According to the company’s research, live videos—which feel more spontaneous and authentic—are viewed an average of three times longer than prerecorded videos.•

From Bell:

HOUSTON — It’s an election year, silly.

That wasn’t the entire company line, but the impact of the dramatic presidential election cycle was certainly a prevailing sentiment as NFL owners gathered Tuesday for their quarterly meeting and assessed the league’s unusual and precipitous dip in TV ratings.

Assuming the results aren’t, well, rigged, NFL games — the undisputed king of U.S. sports viewing — were down 11% for the first six weeks of the season when compared to a similar point last year.

Blame it on Hillary vs. Donald? Or a sign of deeper problems for the NFL?

“It’s a very muddied water right now because you’ve got obviously the debates going on and you have the Donald Trump show,” Atlanta Falcons owner Arthur Blank told USA TODAY Sports. “That’s a lot of commotion right now. It’s pretty hard to figure out right now what’s real and what’s not.”

The first debate, which ran opposite of a Falcons-New Orleans Saints Monday Night Football matchup in late September, drew a record 84 million viewers. The second debate, coinciding with a New York Giants-Green Bay Packers Sunday night prime-time clash, had 69 million viewers.

“Obviously, the debates have had a big impact,” Houston Texans owner Robert McNair told USA TODAY Sports.

But the debates represent just the biggest of several suspected factors. Tom Brady served four games in Deflategate jail. Peyton Manning retired. The younger generation is increasingly watching games or clips streamed to mobile devices.•

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“Climate Change Is Already Costing Us Billions Of Dollars A Year”

October 20, 2016 in Excerpts, Politics, Science/Tech | Permalink

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Last night’s debate was likely the final ugly stand of the campaign for Donald Trump, the worst American™, the last time he could hector from a national pulpit non-white people and the Constitution itself, with eyes narrowed, fingers pointed, scowl fixed. He was revealed once more in all his damage, bleeding from his wherever, a lucky man who’s been handed everything but feels as if he’s being robbed yet again of what will finally quiet the fury within. But even if Trump, a Berlusconi who dreams of being a Mussolini, is now to be hoisted on Election Day by his feet from a virtual meat hook, he’s already done serious harm to the country.

I don’t mean his coarsening of the dialogue and mood or the undermining of our democracy’s legitimacy, though, of course, those things have weight. As I’ve written before, the real cost of the hideous hotelier is that he’s distracted us at a crucial juncture from vital issues at hand that need addressing to secure America’s future. Vladimir Putin couldn’t have done it better himself, though let’s give him some credit.

In a smart, impassioned Vice “Motherboard” essay, Derek Mead speaks to this same issue. An excerpt:

Climate change is especially important in this regard, as it will exacerbate most of the other ills of our current world, including resource-based conflict, pandemics, extreme weather, and food insecurity. For example, Florida is set to be ravaged by rising seas, including the properties of Donald Trump, who has called climate change a hoax. But rising seas are just one final problem; in the interim, we can expect warming weather to negatively influence everything from hurricanes to the spread of disease, as is potentially the case with Zika (which also didn’t make an appearance in the debates, despite an ongoing funding crisis).

For all the pseudo-talk of the economy in the debates, climate change is already costing us billions of dollars a year, and it is only going to get worse, as even the Pentagon is preparing for.

And despite this endless stream of bad news and heel-dragging from our elected officials, we’re already seeing positive impacts from investment in clean energy and divestment from climate-polluting industries. There’s no better time to push harder on mitigating the worst effects of climate change, which threatens all aspects of our livelihoods. Ignoring the climate for favor of arguing over who’s a stronger leader is simply irresponsible.

Climate may be the largest threat for humanity as a whole, but here in the US, the most immediately pressing one is inequality. Inequality is a problem across all demographic breakdowns—racial, economic, geographic, and so on—and for yet another election, the answer has been summed up with varying shades of the word “jobs.” It’s too late to reverse the tide of globalism, unless we want to turn ourselves into some sort of hermit kingdom, but as the leader of the tech economy, the United States is still in a strong position to shape the world’s economy to our advantage.

This is not a simple truth: As shuffling alliances and developing nations reshape the world order, and as the massive disparity in income and capital in the US mixes with a future economy defined less by ownership and more by timesharing everything, the non-barons among us have a difficult road ahead.•

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“In Steps Large And Small, By Trial And Error, Great Conceptual Leaps, The Child Figures Out How The World Works”

October 20, 2016 in Excerpts, Science/Tech | Permalink

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Pedro Domingos’ book The Master Algorithm takes on many issues regarding machine learning, but as the title makes implicit, it wonders chiefly about the possibility of a unified theory enabling an ultimate learning machine, which, the author recently told Russ Roberts of EconTalk, could perhaps figure out as much as 80% of any problem posed. Can’t say I’m expecting its development in my lifetime.

In one section of the interview, there’s a technical and philosophical exchange between host and guest about creating infantile robots that can grow and learn experientially as human babies do–gradually, with small steps becoming giant leaps. Two points about this section:

  • I believe Domingos is right to say that philosophers who believe “standard models of biology, chemistry, and physics cannot explain human consciousness” are getting ahead of themselves. No one should be shocked if the keys to consciousness are located via knowledge developed within current frameworks. I think that’s actually the likely outcome. We’re not at some sort of “end of science” moment.
  • Machines could theoretically someday possess the type of complicated emotions humans have, or maybe they won’t. It may not matter in some practical matters. After all, a plane can fly without being a bird. Roberts’ consternation about a sort of robot consciousness sans emotions seems like a visceral and romantic concern on his part, but such a scenario could have profound implications. Not to say that emotions are a fail-safe from destruction–sometimes they get the best of us–but it does seem they’re essential in the long-term to truly complex growth, though it’s impossible (for now) to be sure.

The exchange:

Russ Roberts:

So, I’m going to read a somewhat lengthy paragraph that charmed me, from the book. And then I want to ask you a philosophical question about it. So here’s the passage:

If you’re a parent, the entire mystery of learning unfolds before your eyes in the first three years of your child’s life. A newborn baby can’t talk, walk, recognize objects, or even understand that an object continues to exist when the baby isn’t looking at it. But month after month, in steps large and small, by trial and error, great conceptual leaps, the child figures out how the world works, how people behave, how to communicate. By a child’s third birthday all this learning has coalesced into a stable self, a stream of consciousness that will continue throughout life. Older children and adults can time-travel–aka remember things past, but only so far back. If we could revisit ourselves as infants and toddlers and see the world again through those newborn eyes, much of what puzzles us about learning–even about existence itself–would suddenly seem obvious. But as it is, the greatest mystery in the universe is not how it begins or ends, or what infinitesimal threads it’s woven from. It’s what goes on in the small child’s mind–how a pound of gray jelly can grow into the seat of consciousness. 

So, I thought that was very beautiful. And then you imagined something called Robby the Robot, that would somehow simulate the experience and learn from, in the same way a child learns. So, talk about how Robby the Robot might work; and then I’ll ask my philosophical question.

Pedro Domingos:

Yes. So, there are several approaches to solving the problem of [?]. So, how can we create robots and computers that are as intelligent as people? And, you know, one of them, for example, is to mimic evolution. Another one is to just build a big knowledge base. But in some ways the most intriguing one is this idea of building a robot baby. Right? The existence proof of intelligence that we have as human beings–in fact, if we didn’t have that we wouldn’t even be trying for this. So, the idea of–so the path, one possible path to (AI) artificial intelligence, and the only one that we know is guaranteed to work, right? Is to actually have a real being in the real world learning from experience in the same way that a baby does. And so the ideal is the robot baby is–let’s just create something that has a brain–but it doesn’t have to be at the level of neurons, it’s just at the level of capabilities–that has the same capabilities that the brain, that the mind, if you will, that a newborn baby has. And if it does have those capabilities and then we give it the same experience that a newborn baby has, then two or three years later we will have solved the problem. So, that’s the promise of this approach.

Russ Roberts:

So, the thought, the philosophical thought that I had as I was down in the basement the other day with my wife and we were sorting through boxes of stuff that we don’t look at except once a year when we go down in the basement and decide what to throw out and what to keep. And one of the boxes that we keep, even though we never examine it, except when we open, go down to the basement once a year to go down through the boxes, is: It’s a box of stuffed animals that our children had when they were babies. And we just–we don’t want to throw it out. I don’t know if our kids will ever want to use them with their children–if they have children; our kids, we don’t have any grandchildren but I think we imagine the possibility that they would be used again. But I think something else is going on there. And if our children were in the basement with us, going through that, and they saw the animal or the stuffed item that they had when they were, say, 2 and a half or 3 years old, that was incredibly precious to them–and of course has no value to them whatsoever to them right now–they would have, just as we have, as parents, they would have an incredible stab of emotional reaction. A nostalgia. A feeling that I can’t imagine Robby the Robot would ever have. Am I wrong?

Pedro Domingos:

I don’t know. So, this is a good question. There are actually several good questions here. One is: Would Robby the Robot need to have emotions in order to learn. I actually think the answer is Yes. And: will it have those emotions? I think at a functional level we already know how to put the equivalent of emotions into a robot, because emotions are what guides us. Right? We were talking before about goals, right? Emotions are the way evolution in some sense programmed you to do the right things and not the wrong ones, right? The reason we have fear and pleasure and pain and happiness and all of these things is so that we can choose the right things to do. And we know how to do that in a robot. The technical term for that is the objective function–

Russ Roberts:

Stimulus,–

Pedro Domingos:

Or the utility function. Now, whether at the end of the day–

Russ Roberts:

But it’s not the same. It doesn’t seem the same. Maybe it would be. I don’t know. That’s a tough question.

Pedro Domingos:

Exactly. So, functionally, in terms of the input-output behavior, I think this could be indistinguishable from the robot having emotions. Whether the robot is really having emotions is probably something that we will never know for sure. But again, we don’t know if animals or if even other people have the same emotions that we do. We just give them credit for them because they are similar to us. And I think in practice what will happen, in fact, this is already happening, with all of these chatbots, for example, is that: If these robots and computers behave like they have emotions, we will treat them as if they have emotions and assume that they do. And often we assume that they have a lot more emotions than they do because we project our humanity into them. So, I think at a practical level [?] it won’t make that much difference. There remains this very fascinating philosophical question, which is: What is really going on in their minds? Or in our minds, for that matter. I’m not sure that we will ever really have an answer to that.

Russ Roberts:

I’ve raised the question recently on the program about whether consciousness is something which is amenable to scientific understanding. Certain philosophers, David Chalmers, Thomas Nagle claim–and they are both atheists–but they claim that models of evolution and the standard models of biology, chemistry, and physics cannot explain human consciousness. Have you read that work? Have you thought about it at all?

Pedro Domingos:

Yeah. And I think that–I disagree with them at the following level. I think if you fast forward to 50 years from now, we will probably have a very good and very satisfying model of consciousness. It will probably be using different concepts than the ones that people have from the sciences right now. The problem is that we haven’t found the right concepts to pin down consciousness yet. But I think there will come a point at which we do, in the sense that all the psychological and neural correlates of consciousness will be explained by this model. And again, for practical purposes, maybe even for philosophical purposes that will be good. Now, there is, I think, what is often called the hard question of consciousness. Which is: At the end of the day, because consciousness is a subjective experience, you cannot have an objective test of it. So in some sense once you get down to that hard core, consciousness is beyond the scope of science. Unless somebody comes up with something that I don’t quite imagine yet, I think again what will probably happen is that we will get to a point, probably not in the near future–it will be decades from now–where we understand consciousness well enough that we are satisfied with our understanding and we don’t ask ourselves these questions about it any more. And I can find analogies in the history of science where similar things that used to seem completely mysterious–like, life itself used to be completely mysterious. And today it’s not that mysterious any more. There’s DNA (Deoxyribonucleic acid) and there’s proteins and there’s what’s called the central dogma of biology. At the end of the day, the mystery of life is still there. It’s just really not that prominent on our minds any more because we feel like we understand, you know, the essence of how life works. And I think chances are the same thing will happen with consciousness.•

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“Computers Can, In Theory, Emulate Human Intelligence — And Exceed It”

October 19, 2016 in Excerpts, Politics, Science/Tech | Permalink

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Stephen Hawking and Ted Kaczynski agree: Machine intelligence may be the death of us. Of course, the Unabomber could himself kill you if only he had your snail-mail address.

Found in the Afflictor inbox an offer from a PR person for a free copy of Anti-Tech Revolution: Why and How, Kaczynski’s new book. The release describes the author as a “social theorist and ecological anarchist,” conveniently leaving a few gaps on the old résumé: serial killer, maimer, domestic terrorist, etc.

A few minutes later, I read Hawking’s inaugural speech at the new Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Intelligence at Cambridge, an institution created to deal sanely and non-violently with the potential problem of humanity being extincted by its own cleverness.

An excerpt from each follows.

From Kaczynski:

People would bitterly resent any system to which they belonged if they believed that when they grew old, or if they became disabled, they would be thrown on the trash-heap.

But when all people have become useless, self-prop systems will find no advantage in taking care of anyone. The techies themselves insist that machines will soon surpass humans in intelligence.119 When that happens, people will be superfluous and natural selection will favor systems that eliminate them—if not abruptly, then in a series of stages so that the risk of rebellion will be minimized.

Even though the technological world-system still needs large numbers of people for the present, there are now more superfluous humans than there have been in the past because technology has replaced people in many jobs and is making inroads even into occupations formerly thought to require human intelligence.120 Consequently, under the pressure of economic competition, the world’s dominant self-prop systems are already allowing a certain degree of callousness to creep into their treatment of superfluous individuals. In the United States and Europe, pensions and other benefits for retired, disabled, unemployed, and other unproductive persons are being substantially reduced;121 at least in the U.S., poverty is increasing; and these facts may well indicate the general trend of the future, though there will doubtless be ups and downs.

It’s important to understand that in order to make people superfluous, machines will not have to surpass them in general intelligence but only in certain specialized kinds of intelligence. For example, the machines will not have to create or understand art, music, or literature, they will not need the ability to carry on an intelligent, non-technical conversation (the “Turing test”), they will not have to exercise tact or understand human nature, because these skills will have no application if humans are to be eliminated anyway. To make humans superfluous, the machines will only need to outperform them in making the technical decisions that have to be made for the purpose of promoting the short-term survival and propagation of the dominant self-prop systems. So, even without going as far as the techies themselves do in assuming intelligence on the part of future machines, we still have to conclude that humans will become obsolete.•

From Hawking:

It is a great pleasure to be here today to open this new Centre.  We spend a great deal of time studying history, which, let’s face it, is mostly the history of stupidity.  So it is a welcome change that people are studying instead the future of intelligence.

Intelligence is central to what it means to be human.  Everything that our civilisation has achieved, is a product of human intelligence, from learning to master fire, to learning to grow food, to understanding the cosmos. 

I believe there is no deep difference between what can be achieved by a biological brain and what can be achieved by a computer.  It therefore follows that computers can, in theory, emulate human intelligence — and exceed it.

Artificial intelligence research is now progressing rapidly.  Recent landmarks such as self-driving cars, or a computer winning at the game of Go, are signs of what is to come.  Enormous levels of investment are pouring into this technology.  The achievements we have seen so far will surely pale against what the coming decades will bring.

The potential benefits of creating intelligence are huge.  We cannot predict what we might achieve, when our own minds are amplified by AI.  Perhaps with the tools of this new technological revolution, we will be able to undo some of the damage done to the natural world by the last one — industrialisation.  And surely we will aim to finally eradicate disease and poverty.  Every aspect of our lives will be transformed.  In short, success in creating AI, could be the biggest event in the history of our civilisation.

But it could also be the last, unless we learn how to avoid the risks.  Alongside the benefits, AI will also bring dangers, like powerful autonomous weapons, or new ways for the few to oppress the many.   It will bring great disruption to our economy.  And in the future, AI could develop a will of its own — a will that is in conflict with ours.

In short, the rise of powerful AI will be either the best, or the worst thing, ever to happen to humanity.  We do not yet know which. 

That is why in 2014, I and a few others called for more research to be done in this area.  I am very glad that someone was listening to me! 

The research done by this centre is crucial to the future of our civilisation and of our species.  I wish you the best of luck!•

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“People Will Go About Their Daily Travels In Self-Flying Planes”

October 19, 2016 in Excerpts, Science/Tech | Permalink

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If robots are introduced into cockpits as a means of coping with a shortage of human pilots and there’s a spike in accidents, that’s clearly unacceptable. If computers fully taking over plane controls enables a reduction in accidents, that would seem to be equally a slam-dunk decision. But not everyone agrees.

Some see the potential transition from human to automated pilot as a threat to us, a “skill fade” that will fundamentally alter who we are. I don’t subscribe to that line of thinking, as people have only flown crafts through the air for little over a century, a mere blink in the history of Homo sapiens. As we once mostly were farmers and now few can handle a hoe let alone a plow, we need to continually reinvent why we’re here and who we are. That’s even truer with aviation than agriculture since relatively few of us know how to fly. I don’t believe pilot-less planes a terrible blow to us.

But since domestic carriers in America crash so seldom now, it’s not easy to develop a better safety record. So, apart from saving a few pilot salaries and the trouble of training them, what would be gained by wholly automated flights? I suppose the bonus would lie in the disruption of Big Air, an explosion (hopefully not literally) of smaller crafts, maybe some much smaller, that are able to thin out long lines at the gate and present an alternative to the often-challenging financials of airline companies. 

Time will tell how commercial aviation develops, but I’d be stunned if we don’t see, at the minimum, automated cargo planes in our lifetimes.

From Joan Lowy of the Associated Press:

MANASSAS, Va. (AP) — Think of it as the airborne cousin to the self-driving car: a robot in the cockpit to help human pilots fly passengers and cargo — and eventually even replace them.

The government and industry are collaborating on a program that seeks to replace the second human pilot in two-person flight crews with a robot co-pilot that never tires, gets bored, feels stressed out or gets distracted.

The program is funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the Pentagon’s arm for development of emerging technologies, and run by Aurora Flight Sciences, a private contractor. With both the military and airlines struggling with shortages of trained pilots, officials say they see an advantage to reducing the number of pilots required to fly large aircraft while at the same time increasing safety and efficiency by having a robot pick up the mundane tasks of flying. 

The idea is to have the robot free the human pilot, especially in emergencies and demanding situations, to think strategically.

“It’s really about a spectrum of increasing autonomy and how humans and robots work together so that each can be doing the thing that it’s best at,” said John Langford, Aurora’s chairman and CEO.

Langford even envisions a day when a single pilot on the ground will control multiple airliners in the skies, and people will go about their daily travels in self-flying planes.•

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“If The Technology Looks Low-Tech, It’s Deliberate”

October 18, 2016 in Excerpts, Politics, Science/Tech | Permalink

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Elon Musk’s dream of colonizing Mars in a handful of years is bold but probably misbegotten. He means well in wanting to safeguard the survival of the human species, but things may not end well. There’s no reason for humans to be out there just yet. It might work out best if Musk’s large-scale plans crater and his still-sizable contributions (e.g., reusable rockets) remain. We can explore space for the foreseeable future without the undue burdens of cost and loss of life if we utilize robots for reconnaissance and 3D printers to lay foundation.

In “The Low-Tech Way to Colonize Mars,” an Atlantic piece by Sarah Zhang, the writer examines a saner alternative to Musk’s vision, a slow build in space via bootstrapping with relatively simple tools. An excerpt:

NASA is all aboard the 3D-printing train. Last year, it unveiled winners of its first 3D-printed Mars habitat design challenge, and the architectural renders of the winning entries were all sleek and futuristic, as renders of unbuilt buildings always are (see above). In reality, the current state of the art for Martian 3D-printing looks more like the clay logs [planetary scientist Philip] Metzger has been documenting on Twitter.

If the technology looks low-tech, it’s deliberate. “We’re rethinking how to do space technology by taking cues from less developed parts of world,” says Metzger. The logic goes like this: If a valve breaks in a complex machine on Mars, an astronaut can’t go online to order a replacement with next day delivery. (It’s more like nine months, assuming Mars and Earth are in their most favorable alignment.) So the idea is to start simple and slowly build up technological capabilities: clay to metal to plastic to electronic equipment. Eventually, Mars will have the refineries and factories to make complicated machines itself. This is “bootstrapping,” and it’s Metzger’s vision for space exploration.•

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