It is said that “The road to hell is paved only with good intentions”. Does this folkloric knowledge “hods water” and if so, why and how? Let’s explore this concept with few diagrams and a bit of ideation around them.
Humans (and not only) are born in this reality and are roaming it until they die. During all this time all forms of life must solve one big problem, and that is, how to maintain their “alive” state. This implies solving various problems among others how to find or grow food and keep away from being food for other living beings.
Humans are one of the few species that have mastered collaboration in large groups and this is due to our larger magnitude of the abilities to communicate more efficiently in large groups.
Unfortunately to us this reality is much more complex than we can handle now or ever, even if its “guts” are working by following relatively simple rules (quantum mechanics might look weird but it is make of relatively simple rules). This is simply because of its immensity of states and configurations those simple rules can combine in order to create diversity.
The best we can do is only to ever increase our abilities to more accurately know what the reality is by using Scientific Methods in order to reduce the risk of confusions and mistakes.
In this context some of the errors and mistakes we do are embedded in the processes we use to identify and find solutions to our problems.
In most cases (unless ignorance, fear and hate are predominant drivers) we identify problems and than start with a large amount of compassion, some knowledge about why and how and some hope of being able to help more than ourselves, to help the others (the business component).
The diagram bellow tries to depict the relative importance of those 3 aspects of our fight to solve an issue.
Please understand the difference between the absolute quantity and the relative quantity. This is not a “zero sum game” depiction it is simply the relative (to each other) influence of each of the three factors considered in this case. For example you may say, well my Compassion or Knowledge did not diminish (as the diagram may suggest) and that is true, yet what matters is the relative comparison of the magnitude of all three factors. That is important as our minds (and processes) tend to be impacted by the relative importance and not only by the absolute magnitude of the feature.
As time passes we may get our idea off the ground, we start to gain more understanding and other people start to “buy into it” by investing resources (time or money or hope). It is only natural that now we have (relatively) more focus on acquiring knowledge and try to “sell” it to more people. However this simple “normal” action has the consequence of pushing the Compassion component down in the relative balance between itself and the other two components. An important observation is that in absolute terms the compassion may remain at the same value but the unfortunate reality is that in the relative space it becomes less important.
This phenomena is depicted in the diagram bellow.
Once we have a solution, the business world takes over and the main reason of action is now to “sell” the idea or the product to other people. Now gaining profits take main stage and since we still need a grip on the “how it works” (or the Science component) it is almost inevitable that the Compassion component will be in further relative decline and will slide into the configuration depicted bellow.
Unfortunately this configuration is the one that has the highest probability to create monsters that will end up destroying (almost) all we initially intended. Now is the time when mistakes are hid and coverup of mishaps happens and when BS flourishes.
Twenty six years ago, in 1995, Orson Scott Card wrote once a short called “How Software Companies Die” where he follows on how this process happens in the software application development companies and groups. The article ends with the prophetic phrase “Got to get some better packaging” that is the main indication of BS overdrive of a product. You should read it, is only two pages long and is as relevant today as it was 26 years ago.
OK, fine, you may say, now what? What is the solution to this problem? Eventually a solution that not ends in a bigger disaster by embedding in it the very process we just described.
For most, it would be clear that the solution would be to forever keep an eye on the compassion and humility in the business process. But this is much easier said than done. If you put yourself in the shoes of a business owner or a manager that needs to make it possible for his employees and himself to take a salary home then you can see how this can be more than nerve wreaking it can be almost impossible to overcome.
Given our current state of business with the “dog eats dog” type of competitive environment it is extraordinary that we are still keeping sanity in the society at large. To me, this is one item banking towards the proof that human beings are good in their “normal” state but the environmental constraints can erode that “goodness” to sometimes horrific levels.
And that my friends is “the road to hell”, as you can see it starts with good intentions (at least) most of the times but without a lot of focus on the relative importance of the Compassion, Science and Business components we can all “go to hell” sooner or later.
Let’s try to target to the bellow (or close to) distribution of relative importance of those components that are part of all we do.
One important tool to help us with that is the notion of humble and humility. Too many of us seem to equate humble with weakness when in fact it is one of our greatest strengths. If you are surprised to hear that please read my previews article on humility.
The English mountaineer George Mallory was asked “Why did you want to climb Mount Everest?”, he answered “Because it’s there”. Mallory died at 37 doing what he loved, climbing Everest.
I have the feeling that with AI these days we seem to have an equivalent approach “Why do we want machines to be like people?” and the answer seem to be “Because is possible!”. I really hope we will learn from history and avoid getting lost (or die) climbing the mountain of humanizing machines.
To understand the technological feat of this simple call, made by a machine, with a voice really indistinguishable from a human, you would need to open the hood of the machine learning software driving the AI application and take a look. I guarantee that 99.99% (or more) of the people on earth will have absolutely no clue on how the machine does what it did (provided all this was not just a trick).
I mean this is “rocket science” for most of people out there, so Google needs to be congratulated. Until you start to think…. (yeah thinking can be dangerous sometimes).
So, we hear a machine making a phone call to talk to a human in order to make an appointment. Both parties sounds perfectly human, but the caller is not. Let’s now think what would happen if the business also get a Google business assistant?
Now it really get’s interesting, and wired and, well … wired, and here is why. If you know a bit of computer programming you already know that you can achieve the same final outcome (your computer scheduling an appointment into another computer) by a 1000x simpler and more predictable algorithm by using simple structured text over internet connections.
What struck me is that this unavoidable future (as a businesses are more probable to get the AI before you) where machines talk to machines and pretend to be people is ludicrous. It is in fact this is an equivalent of a Rube Goldberg case of software solutions where the only reason to do it is “Because is possible!”.
For those cases, I usually like to talk about a potential measure of unnecessary complexity as the RG factor from famous (and funny) Rube Goldberg machines.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m a computer nerd and I love those things, but I’m also aware of times when we seem to loose our bearing. Thanks to the audio bellow now I’ll have to drop my home phone as a machines can now impersonate anyone and call me for insane reasons.
Should I now start to send passwords over encrypted channels first so that if my wife call’s me I should ask her the password first to make sure I’m not talking to a machine?
What’s next?
May 16, 2018 —— adding some (positive) ideas —–
The only way to try keep the RG factor low for language tools in AI is to use it exclusively for personal use. That is, you train your own natural language to your own machine interface. Both recognition of your voice and speech syntheses (your machine talks back to you in natural language) are valuable tools when it comes to AI use cases.
This means you can “grow in” your personal machine (starting from very early age and continue to improve it until you die. This will minimize the error rate for both speech recognition as well as speech synthesis leading to a flawless interface between humans and their personal machines. An there is where “personal assistant” has a lot of meaning and real use.
This approach allows us to get one step closer to mastering the many-to-many class of communication we basically are unable to engage today. This will be done by using natural language to communicate with our personal assistants (human <-> personal machine) and communicate between each other via structured, secure, factual machine to machine channels.
In more lay terms you talk to your machine and get things straight and clarified then your machine talks to other machines out there. The receiving end machine(s) will receive, validate, process the information let’s say to remove redundancy (things you already know) then feed you only what really matters for you and the whole community of intelligent living entities.
The future can be bright. Is all up to us to choose the right path…
By now we have all probably heard the two magic letters ‘AI’. Artificial Intelligence we say, and this steers a lot of awe and fear in different people depending on what level of understanding you happen to be on the subject.
The problem is that, as with many other new things in our society, the full utility impact and danger of this technology are pretty much under or over-estimated. If you were old enough to understand the issue, during the first time microwave ovens first popped on the market, you may remember salespeople pitching the oven as a miracle able to cook pretty much anything. Today (2018) most of us would never try to cook something in a microwave oven but simply reheat food already cooked by conventional means. I feel that the same is true with today’s AI hype when we’ll look back in 10 or 20 years.
What is AA then?
AA is not Alcoholics Anonymous as it may first sound like but in the AI context, it stands for Advanced Automation. I think AA is actually what most of the current so-named AI applications are doing. Limited signal (image, sound, or other sensors) recognition, can e hardly be called ‘intelligence’.
Why AA and not AI?
Fits better the current functionality, as in pattern search and identification in various data streams video, audio, other sensor types, or human input (old good keyboard)
In real AI (or AGI), I mean the one Data from StarTreck or the Human Replicators in StarGate or Terminator, machines are self-aware, living noncarbon-based systems. Our current systems we call AI are far away from having enough complexity to allow consciousness to emerge.
The main problem with Real AI
Around 25 years ago (more or less) I won a praise from a radio station when (for the first and last time), I bothered to call in to comment on their show, which was about all those smart machines of the future. At that time AI was not yet what it is today.
My comment, which impressed the radio host was this:
“Any system modeled to work as the human brain does whose complexity is higher than a certain unknown level will naturally spawn a consciousness, or simply put will be a living intelligent entity like you and me!”
This is a totally different ball game than what we call today AI. Our current level of technology is much closer to regular automation but at a higher level of complexity due to the ability to process complex natural data flows generated by sensors sensing the real world by using various Machine Learning systems and variants.
Why we should not create real AI systems?
The answer is simple. If we will create real AI systems, they will by definition compete with human beings for resources and abilities sooner than later. Since we are already living in a highly competitive environment ourselves, the last thing we should do is to add high-ability competitors for human beings. This can and most likely will end in us humans being wiped out of existence. The only thing yet to be solved is a power source compact enough for the machines to use, but we’ll get there.
If not AI then what?
Advanced Automation (AA) targets enhancing existing human beings. Instead of creating new competitors for human beings as in AI’s case, with AA we simply increase the abilities to live and compete with regular humans and even other living things.
May 9, 2018: Since publishing this article I’ve got some feedback and I’d like to add the following additional info to the article. Trying to clarify some issues pointed out to me without getting into technical details.
A hypothesis I like is that our universe uses a fractal engine whose change in the time dimension is powered by quantum mechanics (injecting random changes in the fractal structure). So, basically, it works based on algorithms (laws of nature). There are two kinds of algorithms out there, fully predictive and partially predictive. Regular (no ML/AI) programming is fully predictive. ML and AI are not. We built digital computers to BE fully predictive because we need stability in dealing with the quantum nature of reality (dealing with small random changes).
We did not yet master the classic coding, (how many defects are in our products so far?) and we are jumping head-on into more advanced cases of automatically generated algorithms used by ML which is the bases of AI. My point is simple, to succeed and avoid getting in trouble (legal?) in the future we have to make sure we know how to test ML and AI in order to minimize their errors. On the other hand, we have to educate the end user to understand the limitations, pitfalls, and dangers of the technology.
I’m afraid that the warning Carl Sagan gave us was not to put advanced tech. in the hands of technically illiterate users is near and it can impact all businesses using ML and AI very soon.
So ML and AI test automation as well as end-user schooling in limitations and pitfalls is a must.
From this perspective, I believe that AA (Advanced Automation) is a closer-to-reality acronym than AI, at least for now. Obviously, it is up to all of you out there to choose what two letters to use to label this new technology…
Is Truth the same thing as Fact? What is the difference between Fiction and Lie?
In the post “Fact Fiction and BS” I’ve looked at the notion of Fact. In this post, I will focus on the notion of Truth and its relation to the Fact.
You can check the classic definitions of truth, fact, and fiction in dictionaries or lately online dictionaries. I’ve included some links at the end of the article.
I will try (below) a definition of my own aiming at the core of the concept.
The “Truth” is the mental projection of a Fact
Also, the Truth is the attempt of the human mind to capture and recall a Fact.
Let me present the definition of Fact and Fiction from the “Fact Fiction and BS” article:
Fact: A fact is any piece of information, created by a sensor of any kind measuring one or more parameters, from a well-defined position in space-time and whose content can undoubtedly be authenticated by a quorum of “witnesses” at any moment in time and space, after the measurement, upon request.
Facts are the bricks of what we call “reality”.
Fiction: Any information which is not fact is fiction!
Based on the above definitions of Fact and Fiction you can see that the Truth resides somewhere between Fact and Fiction. For a short time, a Truth can “match” perfectly a Fact but will never be a Fact, it is simply our mental image of a Fact.
So, the human mind alone can only produce Fiction or Lies and in certain cases (at random or not) match a Fact.
One important corollary of the above sentence is that any attempt to find “facts” by probing human memory is futile. For example, using a machine such as a classic lie detector may at best only probe if an individual lies intentionally. If your intention is to get to a fact by using any device to probe the brain’s memory content then you are simply leading yourself on a wrong path.
The most accurate dictionary definition I found so far is in “The Devil’s Dictionary (1881-1906)” stating “TRUTH, n. An ingenious compound of desirability and appearance.“. I’m not sure why the devil seems to be closer to defining a term than the holy. That says a lot about how our psyche works.
So, how and why the brain is such an unreliable machine to produce factual information? Let’s explore some of the most important causes of error.
Errors in how the information is acquired by the brain via natural sensorial processes
Errors induced by the “malleability of the mind” as our memories change continuously for many reasons
Let’s explore those error-inducing reasons.
1. The information acquisition errors.
We all know that our visual and auditive acuity is different from person to person as well as at different moments of one’s life. Our “reality” is constructed by our brain exclusively out of sensorial information. If the information produced by our natural sensors differs from person to person and even for the same person in time, then how can we think we can produce factual information out of it? Additionally, sensorial errors induced by external conditions further undermine the accuracy of the raw basic information our brains use to construct our reality.
An excellent case study, put in a movie is (obviously) The Matrix scene where Morpheus explains to Neo what Matrix is. Interestingly enough our reality may be an even more complex and convoluted case of The Matrix where each individual tends to live in their own Matrix and our reality is only an overlap of many individual Matrix-like realities.
2. Memory storage inaccuracies.
The fact that the information in a human mind matches a Fact does not necessarily makes it a Fact. To be a Fact the information must be able to be verified by other entities (minds or machines) and we have no way, yet, to precisely extract mind states and test them against other minds or machines. The problem is, even if we can probe and examine a mental state, the mental state will change almost immediately (that is how minds work) hence rendering the mind state non-factual. Yet for the mind, there will be no way to sense that without an external reference. So, the Truth (the representation of a fact) will drift away from the Fact. This is a complex relationship and if we are not aware of it we can end up confusing Truths and Facts with disastrous consequences for us and the society.
My definition of the Truth is based on analyzing how the human mind works. To perceive anything, our mind needs to rely on memory. Simply put there is no way for the human mind to make the distinction between any entities outside of the mind itself without prior information about the external world. To use this prior information the mind needs to store it in the physical support, the neurons in the brain.
An interesting book explaining how our memory works and how reliable is (or not) The Memory Illusion by the researcher Dr. Julia Shaw. The book cites many research projects including her own trying to understand how reliable the human memory is, including how the memory can be manipulated. YES! your memory can be manipulated by what you hear in ways you can barely believe. Many other researchers such as Elizabeth Loftus have studied how human memory works and provided sufficient proof for us to understand our own weaknesses and our inability to gather and use factual information by only using our own natural bodies.
So, we are bad at probing our reality with our natural sensors and we easily mess up what we acquired by mixing it with fictional constructs of our own information induced by other minds and yes we do forget things.
Knowing all this, how anyone can hope to get to and be able to work with Facts? Luckily for us, we invented ways to precisely sense and measure reality and also accurately store and recall information. Our digital computers, if used correctly, have the potential to do exactly that.
My solution to these limitations of the human mind is to pair human beings with digital machines in a fully symbiotic way in order to use the machine as a scaffolding for the mind. This new living entity will be able to accurately acquire and use factual information as well as unleash human creativity in the realm of fiction.
I’m coining a new concept called “Self Reliance” for Self Reliant Individuals as the base unit for a society of the future. Self Reliant is NOT equal or equivalent to Selfish, but exactly the opposite. A society made up of self-reliant living entities has the best shot to endure until the end of time and enjoy life together with all humanity. “Live and let live” kind of society. This society is also built on shared facts and will lead to a microbalance of abilities. However this is not a given, we have to fight for this type of society. Unfortunately, our current society seems to head directly towards auto-destruction instead. Yet there is hope….
Obviously, this is what I believe and I’m presenting here the base on that belief. I’m happy to get any feedback that may lead to a better understanding of this essential issue deeply affecting the lives of all of us. I also believe that most of the atrocities humans committed against other living things including other humans during our short history under the sun are rooted in this confusion between the Truth and Fact.
I have intentionally not analyzed the concept of Lie in this article. A lie is an intentional distortion of truth by a human mind when communicating with other human minds. This is all for now on the subject of lies. If time permits I’ll come back to this subject in a different article.
Added on Oct 28, 2018: If you are still skeptical about how easy is those days to change digital information without the ability to detect the change just take a look at the excellent abilities of the InPixio suite of editors (https://www.inpixio.com). Those tools are exquisite and have a lot of use in creating fictional constructs by mixing and altering real data. The edited info is good and can add value as much time as we can detect that it is fiction. Without detection, it is just beautiful BS… Below is a small example of what inpixio erase can do. The following images are before and after the removal of an object from the image:
and, after removal…
End add Oct 28, 2018
Links to other people’s opinions in this matter
Dr. Julia Shaw on human memory imperfections
Elizabeth Loftus: Powerful case of human memory issues
Anil Seth: Excellent talk about the mind and reality
Blowing your mind, we live in “A Matrix” like reality, Nick Mercer:
The heads in the sand: Next, how and why we run towards our own demise… (gullibility and ignorance) Forget for a while this is a commercial, just turn off the sound and see the brilliant way it points out a human weakness of all of us (more or less but always there).
There is a blind fight out there between believers in different versions of our health care model. Some are worshiping the mighty market and the others are jumping head on in the communal insurance pool. Who is right? I personally believe both views have huge issues and biases.
It seem that both groups are missing one important fact I’m going to try explain by using a simple graph bellow.
Let’s put the above graph (the camel graph) in few words. The profit for the health industry, including Drug companies, Hospitals, Doctors and personnel, and to some extent insurance industry makes the biggest bucks out of your health misery!
If you are dead, the industry makes nothing (at least for now…), if you are completely healthy the industry only makes money out of your insurance and your fears. It sells you “maintenance pills” however you have the choice to refuse buying into it.
The insurance though is a totally different matter. To work will, all people should contribute to maximize the common pool and no one or only few should consume out of the pool in order to maximize the profits. One way or another things go down to profits and entitlements. When you have a limit on your insurance people tent to maximize the usage and the health industry pushes for it. That pushes the costs up and lower insurance business profits so they will push down on how may people are insured, how expensive your insurance is and how much you can claim.
Clearly, we want that people which helps us to be healthy, to have a top status reflecting our real top health condition. Unfortunately, when profit is in the middle, things start to get biased towards the dark side.
My solution for this complex problem?
These days, personal automation, will give all individuals a chance to get out of this “rat race” if they choose to understand and believe in it.
There is a bright future waiting for all believers in this solution and will be alive when it will happen. Extends your mind and grab it or else it may grab you instead, if it does it could grab you the wrong way. Sh..t happens in general, but it tend to happen more frequently to the ignorant. Don’t be one.
Did you ever observed that smart people (I mean really smart ones not fakers) will never say “I’m sure of…” this or that? Why is that?
Charles Darwin seem to come to a conclusion as he may have said:
“Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge: it is those who know little, and not those who know much, who so positively assert that this or that problem will never be solved by science.”
Here is a simple explanation, which describes the phenomena of the knowledge horizon. Imagine that all your knowledge is represented as the interior of a circle and the “unknown” as what lies outside of it. However you can’t “see” outside of the circle, the only thing you see is the “margin” or “perimeter” of the circle. Anyone can “see” that there is “something” they do not know by measuring the “perimeter” of the circle.
Now, here is the funny part. As you increase your knowledge, you have more information to store in your “circle”. To store more you need to increase the diameter of the circle but if you do so you will increase automatically its perimeter. So, the more you know the more “unknown” you may be aware of. Unless you hit “the wall of all there is to know”, which to my current knowledge never happened, you’ll always know that there is potentially more than you do not know than what you know.
Another important clue is your focus on the known or unknown. People who advance their knowledge are the ones which focus on “the whole” circle both the interior of the circle (the known) or the perimeter “the unknown”. Focusing only on the known will end in a stagnation of knowledge process and create “smart ignorant” people (yes, there is such ting).
So, it is impossible to be “humble” and say that “I know it all” at the same time because you really don’t know it all. The focus on knowledge only and avoiding the unknown is also opposite to “humble” and generates the phenomena I described above, the “smart ignorant” type.
Well, but there are a lot of people asserting that “they are sure” of things. Are they all ignorant? I think not. I guess too many times we are forced by the social pressure to behave as “we know it all” because most of us do not realize this simple principle of the “knowledge horizon” and push for “perfection” and people freak-out and give up and assert over confidence. The other explanation is that when people assert that “I’m sure of..” they actually fail to give a more precise expression “I’m sure of … with this error level” assuming the rest of us already know what they wish to say.
What can we as a group take out of this idea? We need to stop asking people to be “perfect” at all cost as no one is really perfect. Pushing for perfection we will get in fact more imperfection wrapped in “perfect superficiality” or more blunt put BS.
Morpheus: “This is your last chance. After this there is no turning back. You take the blue pill, the story ends you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill , you stay in wonderland and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes.Remember all I’m offer you is the truth and nothing more… Morpheus: The pill you took is a part of a trace program is designed to disrupt your input output carrier program so we can pinpoint your location.” Neo: “What does that mean?” Cipher: “It means buckle your sit belt Dorothy, cause Kansas is going bye-bye!”
I’m a Canadian. Why should I care about who the US citizens will give the power to? Well, maybe because even though I can’t vote for the most powerful person on earth I will (like most of the people living outside US) will definitely be impacted by this choice.
Let me explain what I felt as I was watching this spectacle. Do you remember the aviation disaster with the Germanwings flight 9525 ? When they listened on the cockpit recording, they could hear the screams of the passengers, which become fully aware they only had minutes before their Kansas went bye-bye. I think many of us, non US citizens, though living close to US may have felt that night. The truth is that we really have no idea if this means we are now flying our 9525 yet. I surely hope we didn’t, but how did we get here in the first place? Here is my take on this It started a long time ago with another German artifact, the Berlin wall …
What does the rise of Mr. Trump has to do with the fall of the eastern socialist block? Well, if you go even more back in time, people like Mr. Trump, in the eastern part of the world, found themselves in their own 9525 sort of speaking, when communism took Russia by storm. As a consequence, the western counterparts got scared, very scared and they suddenly realized they needed a wall. Well, not the Berlin kind, but a human one. A wall they could use to defend themselves, if the same phenomena would happen in their own countries. So they “took it easy” and allowed the middle class to grow and flourish. That proved to be a smart decision. The middle class people are usually floating around the center. They usually do not shallow any blue or red pills. This makes the middle class a formidable wall against extreme behaviors. That was a good plan, as much as it lasted, until that Berlin wall fell…
Well, its all figurative, but all those events are part of a bigger “flow” of events each linked to each other. When the communist block fell there was no mental counterbalance for power welding people in the west. Their fear subsided and the regular greed started to prevail in their minds. On top of that, two more new phenomena become more important each day, globalization and automation and they destabilized even more the already fragile balance of power between the social classes (the micro balance of power).
Globalization?
For many, this simply means that you loose your well paid job, to create a dozen of stupendously low paid jobs somewhere else on the globe. How is this possible? Because most of the people today have no way to efficiently communicate to other people on the globe. As such “divide and conquer” principles are easy to be used to kill wellness in both places, here and there, all imposed by a “dog eats dog” like market based competition.
On the other hand, if globalization means that all of us are able to freely communicate and exchange information and ideas then globalization would be ideal, yet that is not true so far.
Automation?
When W. Ford started to build his cars he invented the assembly line. He also paid well his employees, well enough that they could afford to buy his cars. This new approach put out of business many of his competitors who still believed in “craftsmanship”. Each car being unique and the soul of the craftsman poured into it, was not enough to compete against highly efficient production process created by Ford. And that lasted for a while. It lasted until the computers and their close relatives robots and automated production lines were invented. And so the Ford’s assembly line looses its humans.
The problem with automation is that every job on earth can be automated.Every single one!.
Don’t lie to yourself hopping it will pass, because it won’t. The fact you can’t imagine how what you do can be done by a machine it does not mean others can’t.
So, if all jobs can be automated, let’s think of the extreme case when indeed all jobs are automated.
This means that no one other than the few very wealthy people will actually have a job and in income, all other will have none.
No job no money, no money no buy. Then why to produce anything in the first place?
More, if no one can buy, money will loose their value, and the wealthy will loose their wealth (monetary) instantly! WTF then? Well simply put, you can’t automate this type of society without killing it.
Now imagine that the business granularity is at the individual level, meaning that you are a business entity and you are SELF SUFFICIENT via computers and automation.
Suddenly the automation turns from a nightmare to a dream!
You have no job, but you don’t care as much time as you can ensure all your wellness by using your own symbiotic machines to live your life anywhere, on Earth on Mars, or in the deep space. More, you are your own master, you are independent you are free! …
So, is Globalization and Automation good or bad?
Well, I’d say they are what we make them to be. But so far in this early stages, we managed to uses them to hurt ourselves…
In one of my previews articles around a year ago I was warning about this phenomena by comparing it to one of the American movies called “The man of the year”. The fresh funny talking showman Mr. Dubbs getting elected president by a fluke of a computer. I don’t think Mr. Trump got elected by a fluke of a computer, but I do believe he got elected by a human fluke.
It was clear to me that the fall of the communist eastern block plus computers leading to globalization and automation will create the right conditions for more and more people to loose their hope, and when the hope goes all sorts of extremes can creep in.
I think Mr. Trump is a smart and cunning business man who felt that there is an opportunity and he took it.
Mr. Trump said these days “I won” and yes this is what happened fair and square. However my warning, is not to think that this is a regular win. Mr. Trump needs to analyze exactly what this “win” means, as I believe he sits on top of a explosive human situation, which can go off at any moment, endangering many lives in both US and all over the globe.
To summarize:
Mr. Trump got on top of a wave, which probably he and no one else may truly understand. Surfing the wave will be probably be a smarter thing than try to oppose it frontally.
Globalization and Automation can lead to our salvation or our destruction, let’s try to get the right pill this time, and keep in mind that there are many other “pills” of may other colors out there!
I believe in the future, I believe in the human race, I believe in each of us being self sustainable and I believe we can be a better global society. We only need to stop and ask “why” until asking “why” has no meaning, to be curious to put ourselves in the other people shoes.
How to distinguish between fact and fiction then fight the lies and BS in your life…
If you check out the latest in the world of politics, its impossible not to feel a big butterfly flapping its wings in hour belly, no matter on what side of the political arena are you at the moment.
We are inundated and practically drown in information hitting us at the speed of light from all directions. We all have the feeling that most of it is simply BS, meant to pull us to one side or another of a conversation, which most of the time makes little sense and even more, you have no idea how all this will impact your life in the future. “Most likely in a negative way”, you think, if you are the “half empty kind of person”, positive if not and yes most of us are simply confused most of the time.
Most of the confusion comes straight out of our inability to discern between fact and fiction. Yes, we can smell it, but can’t really put our finger on it, the regular BS, the one you smell, when let’s say some ruthless sales person picture the products they try to shove your throat and take your hard earned money, then vanish beyond your ability to ever meet them again. At least with sales you know (and possible respect) that most of them must make a living, as you do, put food on their table and they are pushed by their businesses, to make more profit at any human cost. Of course, (hopefully) we all have a job and probably there is a sales person (if you are not one of them), which you need to thank that you can take your hard earned money home, twice a month, if you work for an organization bigger than your own basement.
But then, there is the big BS, the one which is simply there to damage you, your reputation, your life, used as a weapon against you and the entire society by some few BS experts (some people call these artists, but I think it is wrong, artists create fiction not BS).
It is hard to exactly tell, how much damage the confusion generated by BS creates at the social level, but I feel its impact is huge. If so, can we do something about it? I’ve studied this issue for some time now and found that before the age of computers, (the things we now can have and tuck in our pocket) there was no real solution, however, now we do have a chance to fight against BS and give ourselves the gift of being able to distinguish between fact and fiction and reduce if not eliminate the BS from the world.
So, well, how do we do this?
First, we need to be able to distinguish between fact and fiction. To be able to do so, we need to clearly understand what fact and fiction are. You may believe you know, but please stay with me for a while and I may change your understanding of what they actually are (at least in the context of this article).
The definition of facts.
A fact is any piece of information created by a sensor of any kind measuring one or more parameters, from a well defined position in space-time and whose content can undoubtedly be authenticated by a quorum of “witnesses” at any moment in time and space, after the measurement, upon request.
Once the definition of fact is clear the notion of fiction is simply created by exclusion.
Any information which is not fact is fiction!
OK, good, but then what is BS? In this context BS is linked how the fictional information is used to influence human minds.
BS is fiction disguised as fact and used to manipulate human minds mostly to engage in what I define “destructive competition”.
Yeah, I know that is darn mouth full and probably may have confused the heck out of you, yet it contains all the “requirements” for distinguishing the fact from fiction and allow for required devices to be built in order to actually make it reality. Let’s try bring that awful definition down to our world.
Why our own brain is not a good place to find facts?
You may ask yourself why the humans using their natural sensors eyes, ears, nose, skin plus our marvelous brain can’t be used to produce facts. The main issue is that our natural memory is simply designed to be flexible and adaptive. As such it will distort information stored in time based on the future experiences and human activities. The other part is the impossibility to “calibrate” the natural sensors so there is no way to tell if the information sensed by a human is same as by others when sensing an external phenomena. The last but not the least is that the information stored in our brains can’t be “extracted” (at least for now) and compared with information stored in other brains. Additionally the brain stores in same way and around same place fictional information (essential for life to exists) which can and usually do taint the sensed information in our minds. If you do not believe (and I do not ask you to) the above explanation start reading about what we already know about how human memory works. A great book I’ve read is “The memory illusion” by Dr. Julia Shaw (Amazon) .
I believe that both factual and fictional information is valuable.
I love fiction and I trust facts.
Fiction, is an essential process by which our minds “test” the future (and,in a wilder version, creates it) in order to define the present. Without it we would not be able to exists, we must always “guess the future” by using intuition (which is a form of fiction) to be able to do even the simplest tasks. In technical terms this is called “feed-before” as opposed to “feedback” which is reacting to events. Just to make my point imagine you are a boxer and you can only “react” to the punches of the adversary, it would be for sure a short fight…
Only when certain minds try to disguise the fiction as fact, the fiction tuns in BS as a would be reverse alchemy process turns gold to shit, sorry for the expression but is an excellent analogy generating a mental image of what BS is.
Unfortunately, the reverse alchemy of BS is sometimes, or maybe too many times, a unconscious process. Without fighting hard against BS we can all generate too much of it and in time risk drown into it. This is even more obvious these days when we can generate more information than ever, yet the average person is basically unable to process almost any of it. On top of that, the digital information is notorious for how easy is it to be changed without living a trace. And this is a heaven for BS.
These days you can easily find on the internet pictures or movies which are almost impossible to tell if they were actually the originals the video sensor captured from the reality or were tinkered with. Some changes are subtle and technical in nature as changing the contrast luminosity of the picture, other are more insidious but kind of benign, like erasing pimples from your face, eliminating the “red eye flash” or even “thinning” your middle a bit to make you look better (at least to today’s standards). But then there are those changes which if used in justice may incriminate you without a cause like adding your face in a porn scene or depicting you smocking crack. The image editing tools are getting better and better and already is just a matter of time to create a perfect “fake”.
When it comes to justice (or injustice via the justice system) some ill minds can use the system in their advantage in order to damage you, your life and the life of your beloved ones. By using BS in computers any of us are exposed to the digital bulling via skewed justice systems.
Why are facts defined as only the information we capture via sensors, and what is a sensor anyway?
If you pull your smart phone out of your pocket and take a look at what “sensors” are available you’ll probably find the following:
Sound sensor (the mike of your phone) Those sensors measure the movements of a thin membrane which is moved back and fourth by the air around the phone. When we speak, or there is sound around the phone, vibrations of the air are creating variation in pressure on the mike’s membrane sides. The membrane then moves with the sound and transmits that movement to an electronic subsystem converting the movement in electric currents. The amplitude of the membrane movement is converted proportionally in voltage or current. Next a digital subsystem measure this electric value (voltage or current) and generates a series of numbers at equal time intervals. Each number is represented by using a number of bits, and the more bits per number the best the “quality” of the sound. In a regular phone 12 to 16 bits are used. A bit is simply the basic unit of digital information is a ‘0’ or ‘1’ or maybe ‘true’ or ‘false’ or ‘exists’ or ‘not exists’ kind of thing. These bits have no “smell” no weight, you can’t see them directly they are just darn simple numbers! And numbers can be changed without living a trace unless we can do something about that! (see further down this article).
Video sensor (your camera) The video sensor works in principle in the same way (from fact/fiction perspective). The light is sampled by an array of microscopic sensors each sensor generating a number representing the intensity of the light it measured at a moment in time. For the same location (x,y) (top,down) on the array there are three sensors “specialized” for Red, Green and Blue spectral domains. The sensor generates an image which from digital perspective is the same kind of string of “bits” as in the case of the sound sensor, the difference is that the image sensors generate way more data in the same time interval and how we interpret the bit string is different. Yet again those bits can be changes without living a trace!
The GPS The GPS measures your position on the surface of the earth and gives you a stream of three coupled numbers (longitude, latitude, height from sea level)
Accelerometer Generates measures and provides a stream of three numbers representing the acceleration your phone has as you handle it on three directions (x,y,z). As with the other sensors same digital bit representation same fake-ability issue.
Magnetic sensor Also a tri-axial (x,y,z) stream of numbers measuring he magnetic field strength around your phone. Same digital issues as with all other sensors.
So, all the sensors you have in any device around you (smart phone, tablet, computer, watch etc) all have the same problem. They generate bit streams which are fake-able once they exit the sensor chip. Even worse, once the information is stored in your phone’s memory it can be “attacked” by malicious software executing on your phone or when you publish pictures or video via public sites that information is stored in those server memories (disk, etc) and are accessible to be changed by few but not zero amount of people.
This means that ALL the information currently generated by the any of our digital sensors can be subject of modification by us or other people for various reasons. Clearly some information may be more valuable than other and its value can change in time. To get a sense of that just look at the 2016 US election drama and see how information was used to attack the each opponent. Also see how video from cell phones was used in various police shootings. Things are getting serious, away is the time of innocence when only cute pets were the subject of attention.
More, these days you start to hear buzz words like “big data”, “cloud”, “machine learning”, “artificial intelligence”, etc. All those new technologies are wonders and can help everyone if used right, or lead to something I coined as “Informageddon” if not. The key for all those systems is the ability to differentiate between fact and fiction and maybe later weed out the BS. At this moment in time though they can’t and that can lead to miss-use and abuse.
“Enhance”!
By now you must have seen already a bunch of sequences in movies where low resolution images are first shown only to give the lead character in the movie the chance to say “enhance”. An so, we are brainwashed to think that we can create information out of nothing! Yes that is exactly what “enhance” is. Let’s make it clear, if a sensor measures some parameter with a given precision then there is no way you can retrieve the missing information other than by using interpolation, which is a mathematical way to guess. But guessing is guessing and when you “enhance” you must be aware that you are mixing fiction (the interpolated info) with facts (the actual data). The resulting info is not factual any more! The same issue is when the sensor measurements overflows or measuring overlapped output of multiple activities.
What can we do about it?
The same technology which generates the issue, can if used fix it and backed by the existing digital cryptography technology and the force of multiple devices on public networks can help differentiate the fact from fiction.
Why do all this anyway? What is so bad what can happen to me?
Imagine the scenario where someone posts a picture or movie of you taking part of a criminal activity. Without a way to verify the authenticity of the information the authorities will at least need to contact you and you’ll have to spend some time explaining and trying to defend yourself. Even if you can prove the picture was “doctored” or edited by other means you still had to waste some of your time (and lots of money) as well as the officers who were mislead in the first place. This scenario is more and more plausible and if you are a public figure part of an election process or in a position of power then it is more probable you may experience this type of issue. However, all of us can be impacted sooner or later and that should be enough to worry you.
You may say, well its simple I don’t need special apps I can simply choose to live offline to stop using those dreadful devices and it will all go away. Unfortunately this will not work unless you’ll start living under a rock, literally. If you stop using the technology the others around you will most likely not and you can be a target without even knowing it! How is that going to save you? The only solution is to understand the dangers posed by technology,use it correctly and in your advantage.
The solution or… How can it be done.
The bits and pieces required to solve this issue already exists. The cryptographic technologies notable, the so called “public key cryptography”, the existing armada of smart phones and the newly emerging cloud solutions are the very components we can use to finally give ourselves the gift of distinguishing fact from fiction.
Of course, things are slightly more complex (as usual) but there is no “show stopper” here. We just need to get down to business and create the actual systems. How would this “look and feel” for the regular (non IT literate person). As with any other case you’ll need to download an app into your phone for regular usage or buy some small box you plug it in your phone or your home network for a “rock solid” secure case. Then you enable and keep all your phone sensors working, or have a more “power smart” way to select what sensors are used when. The phone will record and keep the sensor info secure (encryption) “distillate” chunks of it based on well defined time intervals and “share” the distilled information with other phones which so will “witness” it (your data/facts). The cloud can “save” all this info for later use all under your “key” to keep the privacy strong.
Then when someone will claim you were in a bad place or a bad company, or you simply wish to send some pictures or movies to a group of friends or the media they can now verify if the info you sent is fact or fiction (you changed it, or someone else did without your consent).
Since you save the information in the cloud and keep it there forever. You can come back to it and prove your innocence even after you are no more! However this info can be used by yourself for many other proposes than avoid prosecution.
The experimentalists scientists will now have a tool which can be used to validate experimental data as it too can be subject of “doctoring”.
What if someone gets a hold on your stuff from the cloud? How secure is this?
By using strong encryption and strong encryption key management you will always be in control of who can access your information. By using this technology in fact you are safer than if you don’t use it as unprotected information can be changed and you can’t prove it.
Unreliable media!
Hmm… Media, we really have no clue what to believe these days. One thing is clear, media is a business and for any business the first pillar is to maximize its profit. If you think otherwise you should take a hard look at your thinking cause is, well… flawed. So, any business, in order to survive and even more to thrive must truly understand its market its customers. With media, that is, what you are looking to hear or see. Unfortunately most of us are biased towards bad, hype, buzz, abuse, and yes fear. We simply choose to be “informed” more about what can hurt us than what can help us, we tend to watch the half empty than the half full and yes media MUST give you what you are most likely to consume. Are you still surprised that WE ALL ARE THE REASON all this crap hits us everyday?
When people are asked want they wish from media almost all of us say we want FACTS! Unfortunately, there was no reliable way to distinguish between fact fiction and BS, until now…
The future of the media is clearly split in two main roles, first as an information of any kind collector second as processor and distributor. Nothing new you’ll say they already do that. Yes they did but the way the information is acquired has changed. The media can’t control (good thing) the collection or production of information. These days you can “Google” or use other search engines (smart thing to do) to find almost anything. The media these days has the problem of information overload and and on top of that our ability to distinguish between fact fiction and BS is on a historical low.
So, the solution I’m proposing will give you the solid foundation for finding and proving facts. This is a fundamental ability which media can use to build its analysis on and generate predictions based on simulations of the potential future paths for all of us. When this happens we will at least be able to separate the fact from fiction and eventually decide when that fiction gets to close to the stink of BS and discard it.
Even more important our abilities to process vast amount of information will improve by starting to use the “Cloud” and “Big Data” abilities which all big information technology players in the market are starting to make it available for use.
Many-to-Many!
The future is bright!
If we will be able to distinguish fact from fiction, we can accomplish a lot and make big steps towards a global democracy. The issue is that the democracy only works when we all are able to listen, understand and appreciate each others distinct abilities, when we all nourish our differences as global strengths and not as weakness.
In order to do so we need to master the “many-to-many” type of communication. If you think of a scheme which classifies communication based on volume we can identify four classes of communication “one-to-one“, “one-to-many“, “many-to-one” and “many-to-many“. We think we mastered the “one-to-one” kind yet when we look at the aftermath of many of ours one-to-one discussions we realize we are at best mediocre in how much information are we able to receive and understand or verbalize and transmit. We toy around with “one-to-many” in media and I say “toy” as we now know that most of us do not trust media any more. That is a monumental failure of our ability to handle the “one-to-many” type of communication. The “many-to-one” is even more questionable as the main use of this pattern is elections, pooling and “en mass” espionage. When it comes to “many-to-many” we are really loosing it for good. There is not even “a thing” in most minds let aside to try tackle it. Yet this is the only way we can become “something rather than nothing” at the cosmic and universal scale. You may think this is not important but somehow down there in your soul you know it is the most important thing you’ll ever be part of.
The future is bright!
… only if you stop chasing BS and give facts and fiction their right places in your mind…
Just For Fun!
John Oliver: Last Week Tonight on Scientific studies..
Real Time with Bill Maher: New Rule – Lies Are the New Truth (HBO)…
The original post had the mistaken title “Fake, Fiction and BS”, the browser editor “auto correct function” and my temporary stupid state made it possible. I fixed the title, though the signed version still has the original mistake, as it is a fact now! 🙂 …
For further studies and examples of “what on earth” on how people can produce information that passes as “factual” (Example1)
A Boeing 777 was lost, some of us asks themselves how come in a era of “the internet of al things” someone can loose a huge aircraft?
I’ve just got my eyes on this great Time Lapse from NATS air traffic controllers, it seem to speak for itself why. But still we definitely can do better at this…
The disappointing thing, is that people which are supposed to “watch over us” and which years ago were able to find a tennis ball in my backyard, seem to be completely off on this one. Just wonder why?
To the people which can and should do something about it…
More than 200 people may need help or may have lost their lives, we have the technology to find out in seconds where things are. I believe is time to do it. Let’s try think out of the “cheap business box” and try elevate ourselves from taking decisions base don the “body count”.
The Global Reef Record is an ambitious project to photograph in 3D Coral reefs and make this information available to the public. (http://globalreefrecord.org)
Check it out, if you can’t dive yourself, and even if you can how many of us (other than these guys) can afford to see all those for real?
Yet now we all can see and even see the CHANGES. And as more and more of us will see we can start to connect the dots on the big picture of life.
Market based health care model
