Monthly Archives: February 2021

THE BEADY EYE ASK. SHOULD WE AGREED TO COVID PASSPORTS?

26 Friday Feb 2021

Posted by in #whatif.com, Covid. Passports/ Digital ID.

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(Seven-minute read) 

 


COVID LIKE THE FLU IS A VIRUS IT MUTATES IT DOES NOT DISCRIMINATE, UNLIKE PASSPORTS WHICH ARE DISCRIMINATORY.

They should be fought against “tooth and nail.

They will become a backdoor to the rules yet to be made up, mutating into a wider digital identity scheme with the data more than likely to flow to third-parties with varying degrees of repurposing trustworthiness.

Even with the most privacy-preserving technology, the expectation is that health data will be viewed by different actors, from healthcare settings, employers, clients, police, and pubs to insurance companies, who may have different levels of experience and trustworthiness in handling personal data. 

For those without a passport, they will constitute a denial of liberties that others are being granted.

Such a program could potentially bring about invidious discrimination against racial and ethnic groups and stigma against an uninfected individual fracturing the solidarity of societies so the introduction of a vaccine passport or any such document that would deem someone “immune” goes beyond just the obvious challenge of logistics.

Why?

By replicating existing inequities, the use of immunity passports would exacerbate the harm inflicted by COVID-19 on already vulnerable populations.

The choice is not between returning to a normal life versus issuing immunity passports. Instead, the choice is between periodic lockdowns, attempting to emerge from lockdowns with immunity passports, and attempting to emerge from lockdowns without immunity passports.

First, a strong presumption should be in favor of preserving people’s free movement if at all feasible.

Passports or Digital IDs will eventually be weaponized creating coercive and stigmatizing work environments and are more likely to compound than redress…structural disadvantages and…social stigmatization.

In either form they will create a perverse incentive for individuals to seek out infection or choose to fraudulently acquire passports permitting immune individuals to exercise more freedoms than those who are not immune would undermine the message that we are “all in this together”

Although we recognize the deep existing inequalities in all countries and the ways in which COVID-19 has increased the hardships for the worst off they will turn the population into products to be are traced and tracked with employees risking losing their jobs if they don’t get vaccinated.

The advantages accruing to those with immunity (and immunity passports) would persist into the future. 

                                           —————————-

Faced with a deep economic recession/ depression governments around the world are considering the use of immunity passports to allow a degree of normality to return.

It is unethical to require someone to avoid contact with others if they pose no or minimal risk of spreading the virus. I acted in the belief that I was immune.

Some have claimed that “the whole point of immunity passports is to control movement”.  However, this claim is a gross mischaracterization: the point of immunity passports is to facilitate movement when it is safe to do so.

The root of the concern for many is the unknown degree to which past infection confers future immunity. Until it is understood whether or not people can be reinfected with the disease, and how long any immunity lasts, the move to issuing covid passport is premature.

For certificates or any form of passport to work internationally, they must be recognized by countries around the world.

COVID jabs certificates are readily available to creative forgers to copy.

Individuals who are immune to SARS-CoV-2 are expected to be at a vastly reduced risk of getting and transmitting the virus, and so removing their civil liberties would be unjustified.

The main argument for their issue is that it is unethical to restrict freedom unless there is a real risk to other people.

We have the technology to decide who is not a risk, we should use it.

Whether immunity passports should be used to reliably identify immune individuals it would be better to look for solutions to the inequitable distribution of resources and to tackle the upstream causes of inequality.

This same reasoning should be applied to immunity passports.

Furthermore, as some have highlighted, the advantages of COVID-19 immunity might not entrench existing inequalities in the way often assumed. We might wish to certify only those who are unlikely to transmit the virus.

The U.K., now shut out of the E.U. thanks to Brexit, is considering its own brand of immunity proof that would allow vaccinated people to go to restaurants, pubs, and—if other countries allow—the airport.

The safety-first mentality could spread into almost every area of modern life. When it does, there’s no telling where it will lead – this is murky territory that will develop into an app.

Everyone’s vaccination status is already being logged centrally by the National Immunisation Vaccination System using their NHS number. This information could be easily linked with an app.

Will, there use be legal or illegal?

That’s the crucial, still unanswered question.

Unless such discrimination is ruled out under the law, we can expect more of it.

The moral quandary is the same: Is vaccine ID a harmless tool that creates a safer society — or a sudden expansion of a surveillance state?

God forbid if I am ever asked to produce my ID card as evidence that I am who I say I am. I will take that card out of my wallet and physically eat it in the presence of whatever emanation of the state has demanded that I produce it.

All human comments appreciated. All like clicks and abuse chucked in the bin.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

THE BEADY EYE LOOK AT THE POST PROFIT SIDE OF COVID-19.

23 Tuesday Feb 2021

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(Thirty-minute read) 

Warren Buffett’s famous bit of investing advice: “be greedy only when others are fearful.”

So, if technology has virtually revolutionized every industry in the current global economy, why are economists still question whether technology is visible in traditional economic metrics such as GDP, productivity, and corporate profit? 

Because to date, it’s not but it has and will continue to profoundly alter our modes of life and the function of the state.

The field of state activity has been widened by the Covid pandemic while profit is disappearing into the cloud. 

Profit-seeking algorithms are advancing without regulation presenting many significant opportunities but also posing major challenges. 

Today, innovations in information technology are having wide-ranging effects across numerous domains of society, and policymakers are acting on issues involving economic productivity, intellectual property rights, privacy protection, and affordability of and access to information – paying little or no attention to who benefits from this exploration of data and the profits being made. 

Modern technology has made the states perform such functions as -the protection of the aged, the weaker section, and the minorities making provision for education, health care, etc. Choices made now will have long-lasting consequences, and attention must be paid to their social and economic impacts.

It has brought about remarkable changes in the whole system of social relationships and installed new ideologies in the place of traditional ones.

 The industry is being taken away from the household and new types of economic organizations have been set up online such as factories, stores, banks, corporations, etc.

These covid inventions are leading to a shift of functions from local government to the central government of the whole state but the most striking change is the change in economic organization. 

                                             —————–

COVID-19 has not been nor will it be an equal opportunity virus so what will be the aggregate consequences of COVID-19?

Around the world, there are marked differences in how the pandemic has been managed, both in terms of how successful countries have been in maintaining the health of their citizens and the economy and in the magnitude of the inequalities on display.

It is not only exposing and exacerbating inequalities between countries but within countries. This pandemic will end up exerting a significant adverse impact on inequality and we will need a comprehensive rewriting of the rules of the economy.

One that is greener and more knowledge-based, with even greater equality, trust, and solidarity.  

To date, it is presenting a  silver lining to firms that have now crossed the psychological threshold of large-scale remote work.

Robots do get viruses. They are more easily managed. So it is likely that robots will, where possible, at least at the margin, replace humans.

For example “Zooming” will, at least at the margin, replace airline travel.

                                    ——————————

The year 2020 will go in history books as one when the world economy was ravaged by the Covid-19 pandemic.

The year 2021 is set to go into the history books for Profit above the planet’s needs and the humanity that live on it.  

Our capitalist economic system needs to first recognize that the competitive equilibrium model (whereby producers maximize profit, consumers maximize utility, and prices are determined in competitive markets which equate demand and supply that has dominated economists’ thinking for more than a century) does not provide a good picture of the plant or the economies of today.

We now have the beginnings of an economy rife with market power and exploitation which is weakening the constraints on corporate power to generate profit with profit-seeking algorithms.

While the pandemic is reminding us that our lives are in the hands of so many people who work in underpaid jobs it has stripped many of the effective rewards away from work placing them in the hands of a few online monopolies like Amazon, eBay, Facebook, Twitter, Netflix, PayPal, Alibaba, JD.Com, Etoro, Plus500, Avatrade, Libertex, Alphabet. to name just a few.  

The rules governing globalization must do more than just serve corporate interests; the environment has to be protected.   

Clearly, there will be an even faster acceleration of digitalization and automation across the board.

From virtual work from home to telehealth, distance learning, online shopping, entertainment, journalism, online delivery, the true economic realities are hitting home.  

In the meantime, there will be collateral damage, with countless businesses shutting down, millions of people losing their jobs and many will have to struggle with their mental health from the isolation of lockdown not to mention the digital market. 

                                      —————————– 

Since the pandemic started in March of 2020, more than 110 million people have become infected with COVID-19 globally – 84 million of those people have recovered but over 2.4 million people have died.

We might now be reaching a point where we are in control of the virus rather than it controlling us.

This pandemic has indeed been the great accelerator of many technologies and innovations, and it made decades happen in few weeks but most viruses are experts at changing genomes to adapt to their environment.

It is switching us from our high-touch, highly analog daily interactions to the exact opposite all in a span of a year.

As we convert our lives online the evidence that SARS-CoV-2 is a wily, capable and ruthless, and adaptable adversary is piling up steadily. There are two major technology trends that will accelerate in the post-Covid-19 world:

Touchless technologies and highly automated robots augment human tasks.

To estimate the distributional impact of this pandemic event we are going to need to recognize the disproportionate burden of the pandemic on low-skilled workers. 

                                         ———————–

Before Covid-19, the global market for all vaccines was about $24 billion a year.

Apart from the obvious pharmaceutical companies are filling a desperate public need, they are also corporations with shareholders expecting a return.

At the moment drugmakers are not asking for as much as they could for their vaccines, especially considering the enormous economic value attached to the end of the pandemic, because that prestige can be lost very easily if the vaccine is too expensive for people or governments to buy.

Now, these companies want to avoid the risk of investing in a capacity that eventually proves worthless.  Firms invest in large-scale capacity only after the vaccine has proved effective and it will paradoxically be easier for pharmaceutical companies to negotiate higher prices for their vaccines when they aren’t as essential for the functioning of the world.

Taking a more general look at who is going to profit, life after the pandemic “is going to be, in many aspects, a sped-up version of the world we knew.”

And this is also applicable to technology and its role at the onset of the pandemic.

The pandemic is likely to bring about a rash of debt crises so there will be a debt restructuring.

Without a  debt moratorium, it will leave long-lasting scars.

That’s why it’s a matter of self-interest—as well as a humanitarian concern—for the developed economies to provide the assistance the developing economies and emerging markets need. Without it, the global pandemic will persist longer than it otherwise would, global inequalities will grow, and there will be global divergence.

It is not sufficient for economies is open for business. The economy depends upon imports, exports, travel, and tourism. The longer-term rebuild of the post-pandemic economy requires rethinking our policy approaches and targets defining success.

So we are at a historic crossroads for shaping the recovery and have a window of opportunity to reset economies on a new trajectory of more inclusive and sustainable growth.

Because of online profiteering and automation, this can only be achieved by the removal of the social welfare net and replacing it with unconditional no-strings-attached Universal Living Wage that will redistribute wealth, release creativity ensuring that nobody lives in poverty. 

The hiatus imposed by the pandemic provides a unique moment to introduce a far-reaching systemic change that will stop inequality from spiraling further out of control and focus on measures that will enhance social mobility.

The only question is whether it can be introduced orderly or disorderly.

GDP itself will also need to be updated to reflect value creation in the digital economy, the value created through unpaid care work as well as value destroyed through certain types of economic activity.

                                      —————————

Companies have long been profiting from our feelings – The facebook-like button is possibly the best example. Click by Click producing data that was once undervalued now worth billions. 

You name it profit is moving to profit-seeking algorithms that monitor/analyze our emotions one of the most important sources of profit in the contemporary economy.

If you don’t believe this look at the profits of Pay Pal, Netflix, Libertex, Plus 500, Etoro, Avatrade, Libertex, Alibaba, J D.Com, Alphabet, E Bay, Google, Amazon, to mention Apple, are just a handful of companies that are replacing large industrial super companies.   

All of these will not, in the short run at least, create the equality and solidarity that we need. Markets on their own pay no attention to the broader impacts that arise from decentralized decisions leading to excessive borrowing in foreign-denominated currencies or excessive inequality.

With significant economic contractions, low-income people have a limited ability to work from home than those with higher income.

15 ways to salvage a troubled digital transformation

Various historical epochs – hunter-gatherers, agrarian society, and industrialist society are distinguished from each other in terms of technological advancement.

The evolution of mankind can be seen in terms of technological evolution as well.

Technology changes society by changing our environments to which we in turn adapt.

This change is usually in the material environment and the adjustment that we make with these changes often modifies customs and social institutions.

Scientific and technological inventions have modernized societies in various countries. 

However, the problem of unemployment is a concomitant feature of rapid technological advancement. Machines not only provide employment opportunities but also take away jobs through labor-saving devices.

This results in technological unemployment.

Within this new context, and given the fast-paced emergence of disruptive products and business models, as well as the transformative power of digital technologies on business and society it is now of paramount importance that we are capable of detecting the economic impact of such fast technological changes and respond with similar speed and foresight.

                             ————————————–

The pandemic won’t be controlled until it is controlled everywhere, and the economic downturn won’t be tamed until there is a robust global recovery.

Manufacturing coronavirus vaccines is a potentially lucrative business, but how much will these companies earn?

If we leave it entirely to the market, we will get too little vaccine too late.

We don’t want to find ourselves with a working vaccine but too little manufacturing capacity.

Son an advanced market commitment to support vaccine development is a critical component of a timely plan to defeat the virus, reopen the economy and return to normal life stronger and more resilient.

What will the market for Covid-19 vaccines look like in the long term?

Pfizer and Moderna are likely to make money from the vaccine—and it isn’t the vaccine itself.

It’s the patents on how they were made.  

The fact that mRNA technology could be capable of changing medicine and the pharmaceutical industry as we know it. But Moderna and Pfizer’s vaccines have an element that is far more important than the elements that make it effective specifically against Covid-19: The use of RNA messengers to trigger the immune response.

These are patents cover everything from the formula, to the method of administration, to the manufacturing process. But often, when a new vaccine comes to the market, there is little in it that hasn’t been patented already in the past.

                                 ———————

With any transformation, projects get mired in the fear of the unknown, risk aversion, and a misunderstanding of what digital offers.

It won’t be long before we see the sale of a digital token for smartphones that can verify that you are Virus-free – “Vaccine nationalism.” 

Many choices being made now will be costly or difficult to modify in the future.

It took two world wars to win the freedoms we have, but it will take a pandemic for humans to be barcode-like products.

 It will take years of legal case to win them back.  

All human comments appreciated. All like clicks and abuse chucked in the bin.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

THE BEADY EYE SAYS: ITS TO LATE TOO REGULATE ARTIFICAL INTELLIGENCE – SO WHAT IF ANYTHING CAN BE DONE?

18 Thursday Feb 2021

Posted by in #whatif.com, 2021. The year for change., Algorithms., Artificial Intelligence., Big Data., COVID-19, Dehumanization., Digital age., DIGITAL DICTATORSHIP., Digital Friendship., Disconnection., Emotions., Face Recognition., Facebook, Fake News., Fourth Industrial Revolution., Google, Inequality, Lock Down., Modern day life., Modern day Slavery, POST COVID-19., Quantum computers., Reality., Robot citizenship., Social Media, Social Media Regulation., Technology, Technology v Humanity, The common good., The essence of our humanity., The Future, The Obvious., The pursuit of profit., The state of the World., The world to day., THE WORLD YOU LIVE IN., THIS IS THE STATE OF THE WORLD.  , TRACKING TECHNOLOGY., Twitter, Unanswered Questions., VALUES, We can leave a legacy worthwhile., WHAT IS TRUTH, What Needs to change in the World, Where's the Global Outrage.

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  ( A Thirty-minute read)  Do you have a right to believe what you want? Yes, of course, but we now live in an Algorithmic driven world that is blurring the boundaries and amplifying the social tensions that are festering under the surface.  The problem is that we are allowing the building of technologies, that are making consequential decisions about people’s lives. AI is shaping people’s lives on a daily basis, but it’s an open question whether AI will become a trusted advisor or even a corrupting force.

It’s not COVID-19 that will kill us all its Profit-seeking algorithms.

However, here in this post, my main concern is whether the AI techniques will develop into quantum algorithms that will be totally out of control.  If artificial general intelligence is on the not too distant horizon, surely we should be ensuring that it is not owned by anyone corporation and that at its core it respects our core values. To achieve this we cannot surely let wealth be concentrated in fewer and fewer hands, or to be let to the marketplace, or any world organization that is not totally transparent and self-financing. We therefore as a matter of grave urgency need a new world organization that vets all technology, and algorithms. (See previous posts) As long as the ALGORITHMS don’t go to war with each other and cause something even more difficult to diagnose than a crash on the stock markets they are safe is as naive as saying ” It’s going to be Great.” AlGORITHMS are increasingly in charge of a world that is precious to us all. Basically, we’re entering the era of machines controlling everything. If we want to create new different societies with human dignity for all we need to do something about it. The difficulty of predicting the future is not just a cliche, it’s a basic fact of our existence. Part of the hypothesis of Singularity is that this difficulty is just going to get worse and worse. Yes, creating AGI ( Artificial General Intelligence) is a big and difficult goal, but according to known science, it is almost surely an achievable one. However, there are sound though not absolutely confident arguments that it may well be achievable within our lifetimes. If artificial general intelligence is on the not too distant horizon, surely we should be ensuring that it is not owned by anyone corporation and that at its core it respects our core values. If we think in months we focus on immediate problems such as the present-day wars, the Covid crisis, the Donald Trumps, the economy, if we think in decades, climate, growing inequality, the loss of jobs to automation are all presenting dangers. But if we look at life in total, science is converging on data processing and AI that is developing itself with algorithms. When intelligence is approached in an incremental manner, with strict reliance on interfacing to the real world through perception and action, reliance on representation disappears. It won’t be long before we will not be unable to distinguish the real world from the virtual world. Since there is only one real world and there can be infinite virtual worlds the probability that you will inhabit this sole world is zero.  So it won’t matter whether computers will be conscious or not. Is starting to feel like it’s every man for himself, Is possible that right now, a global crisis is upon us, Without even knowing… And the virus may not be the biggest threat, but the crisis that follows, Everyday goods that keep us alive will be gone, I’m talking, food, freshwater, medicine, clothes, fuel… Intelligence is decoupling from consciousness and soon rather than later it will be consigned to Google, Facebook, Twitter, Smartphones, and the like to make decisions that are not possible to reverse.  You might think that the above is stupid but it won’t be long before we will be witnessing the most unequal societies in history.                                  —————————— We humans will soon be living with robots that process data without any subjective experiences or consciousness or moral opprobrium. As we watch robots, autonomous vehicles, artificial intelligence machines, and the like slowly (and sometimes rapidly) permeate our world, it’s not hard to imagine them going from permeating to taking over. Algorithms are increasingly determining our collective future. It will only matter what they think about you. We are already halfway towards a world where algorithms run everything. This is why many of the issues raised in this post will require close monitoring, to ensure that the oversight of machine learning-driven algorithms continues to strike an appropriate and safe balance between recognizing the benefits (for healthcare and other public services, for example, and for innovation in the private sector) and the risks (for privacy and consent, data security and any unacceptable impacts on individuals).                                     —————————— WHAT CAN GOVERNMENTS DO?  Please regulate AI, this is too dangerous. Given the international nature of digital innovation, governments, should establish audits of algorithms, introducing certification of algorithms, and charging ethics boards with oversight of algorithmic decisions. Why? They are bringing big changes in their wake. From better medical diagnoses to driverless cars, and within central governments where there are opportunities to make public services more effective and achieve long-term cost savings. However, the Government should produce, publish, and maintain a list of where algorithms with significant impacts are being used within the Central Government, along with projects underway or planned for public service algorithms, to aid not just private sector involvement but also transparency. Governments should not just simply accept what the developers of algorithms offer in return for data access. To this end, Governments should be at the forefront of the creation of a “statutory building code”, which describes mandatory safety and quality requirements for digital platforms. Social networks should be required by law to release details of their algorithms and core functions to trusted researchers, in order for the technology to be vetted. This Law should enable the enforcement of, 
  • forcing social networks to disclose in the news feed why content has been recommended to a user.
  • limiting the use of micro-targeting advertising messages.
  • making it illegal to exclude people from content on the basis of race or religion, such as hiding a spare room advert from people of color.
  • banning the use of so-called dark patterns – user interfaces designed to confuse or frustrate the user, such as making it hard to delete your account.
  • labeling the accounts of state-controlled news organizations.
  • limiting how many times messages can be forwarded to large groups, as Facebook does on WhatsApp.
If we took the premise that people should have a lawful right to be manipulated and deceived, we wouldn’t have rules on fraud or undue influence.                                 ———————————– To days Algorithms and where we are. As data accumulates, even more so now with Covid- 19 track and trace, and now working from home we have more centralized data depositories and large centralized AI models that work off centralized or decentralized data. How does the concentration of power affect this balance that impinges on individual liberty? Our democratic institutions and public discourse are underpinned by an assumption that we can at least agree on things that are true. Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube create algorithms that promote and highlight information. That is an active engineering decision. Regardless of whether Facebook, Twitter profits from hate or not, it is a harmful by-product of the current design and there are social harms that come from this business model. Platforms that monetize user engagement have a duty to their users to make at least a minimum effort to prevent clearly identified harms. We have to focus on the responsibility of platforms. Because people are being manipulated with objectively false information, there has to be some kind of accountability for platforms. Currently, these platforms are not neutral environments they have no common understanding that there are certain things that are manifestly true with algorithms making decisions about what people see or do not see. In most Western democracies, you do have the freedom of speech. But freedom of speech is not an entitlement to reach. You are free to say what you want, within the confines of hate speech, libel law, and so on. But you are not entitled to have your voice artificially amplified by technology. The way Facebook and other platforms approach this problem is: We’ll wait and see and figure out a problem when it emerges. Every other industry has to have minimum safety standards and consider the risks that could be posed to people, through risk mitigation and prevention. There are right now some objectively disprovable things spreading quite rapidly on Facebook. For example, that Covid does not exist and that the vaccine is actually to control the minds of people. These are all things that are manifestly untrue, and you can prove that. However, algorithms are much more prevalent than that- the Apple Face ID algorithm decides whether you are who you say you are. Algorithms limit people’s worldview, which can allow large population groups to be easily controlled. Social Media algorithms tuned to your desires and want’s ensures that everything on your feed will be of interest to you without you knowing what data these algorithms use and what they aim for. Conclusion.  We are already living with large AI platforms that are monopolizing the fruits of globalization with billions being left behind. With us accepting this as if natural.
  • It will be too late when we are asking ourselves. What’s more valuable – intelligence or consciousness? Then ask yourselves what happens to society, politics, and daily life when non-conscious but highly intelligent algorithms know us better than we know ourselves?
  • Whatever view one takes on artificial intelligence ethics. You can rest assured that we will see far more nut cases blowing themselves up, far more wars over finite resources, with vast movements of people.
We have to remember that self-regulation is not the same as having no regulation. Of course, the loudest arguments for and against something often have one thing in common. They are often made by people with no desire to compromise or understand the other side. I think self-regulation, in and of itself contemplates people in power, deciding how they will act. We have to accept from history that we cannot possibly predict all adverse consequences of technology and that’s because it is not just technology that has adverse consequences, but the context in which is applied, It is impossible to regulate AI while thinking about all of its potential adverse consequences.  The seeds for harm at the design stage, or at the development stage, or at the deployment stage. We don’t have to wait for the technology to become an application before we think of regulating it effectively.  There is a need to strengthen specific provisions to safeguard individual liberty and community rights when it comes to inferred data. There is a need to balance the trade-offs between the utility of AI and protecting privacy and data.  Self-regulation within the AI industry may not be enough since it may not solve the massive differential between the people developing the technology and the people affected by it. Machine learning is the next step that they are aiming for, with the algorithms deciding the input and output completely. Inherent political and economic power hierarchies between the state and citizens and within the private sector need to be addressed because the promise of globalization is a lie when it comes to AI and prosperity for all. Algorithms are being used in an ever-growing number of areas, in ever-increasing ways, however, like humans, they can produce bias in their results, even if unintentional. We are all becoming redundant with biotechnology becoming only available to the riches of us. I don’t think that AI per se can be regulated because today it is AI, tomorrow it will be Augmented Reality or Virtual Reality, and the day after tomorrow it may be something that we can’t even think of right now. So it is important to have checks and balances in the use and access to AI that go beyond just technological means. Why? Because they are also moving into areas where the benefits to those applying them may not be matched by the benefits to those subject to their ‘decisions’—in some aspects of the criminal justice system, for example. However, technology companies are not all the same, and nor is technology the only part of the media ecosystem. It is essential to ensure a whole society response to tackle these important issues. You could require algorithms to have a trigger TO SHUT OF – to stop misinformation or terrorist groups using social media as a recruiting platform. BUT who defines what counts as misinformation? It is no longer possible for humans to fact-check so the only course of action is a world Independent Universal Algorithm that is designed to establish fairness.  While “fairness” is much vaguer than “life or death,” I believe it can – and should – be built into all AI using their algorithm. Therefore every Social network should display a correction to every single person who was exposed to misinformation if independent fact-checkers identify a story as false. (Google’s search algorithm is more closely guarded than classified secret documents with  Google Algorithm’s that now owns most of the largest data sets in the world stored in its cloud.)                                        ——————– We now have algorithms fighting with each other for supremacy on the market, prey on other algorithms in order to blunder the world exchanges for profit to such an extent that they now effectively in control of capitalism.  Take for instance, when someone says algorithmic trading, it covers a vast subject not just buying and selling large volumes of shares automatically at very high speeds by unsupervised learning algorithms. There are four major types of trading algorithms.  There are:
  • Execution algorithms
  • Behavior exploitative algorithms
  • Scalping algorithms
  • Predictive algorithms
Transparency must be a key underpinning for algorithm accountability. Why? Because it will make it easier for the decisions produced by algorithms to be explained.  (The ‘right to explanation’ is a key part of achieving accountability and tackling the ethical implications around AI.) We are only on the outskirts of mind science that presently knows little about how the mind works never mind consciousness.  We have no idea how a collection of electric brain signals creates subjective experiences however we are conscious of our dreams. 99% of our bodily activities take place without any conscious feelings. As neuroscientists acquired more and more data about the workings of the brain, cognitive sciences, and their stated purpose is to combine the data from numerous disciplines so as better to understand such diverse phenomena as perception, language, reasoning, and consciousness. Even so, the subjective essence of “what it means” to be conscious remains an issue that is very difficult to address scientifically. To really understand what is meant by the cognitive neurosciences, one must recall that until the late 1960s, the various fields of brain research were still tightly compartmentalized. Brain scientists specialized in fields such as neuroanatomy, neurohistology, neuroembryology, or neurochemistry. Nobody was yet working with the full range of investigative methods available, but eventually, the very complexity of the subject at hand-made that a necessity. The first problem that arises when examining consciousness is that a conscious experience is truly accessible only to the person who is experiencing it. Despite the vast knowledge we have gained in the field of mathematics and computer science, none of the data processing systems we have created needs subjective experiences in order to function. None feel pain, pleasure, anger, or love. These emotions are vanishing into algorithms that are or will have an effect on how we see the world but also how we live in it.   If not address now all moral and political values will disappear, turning consciousness into a kind of mental pollution. After all, computers have no minds. Take images on Instagram they can affect mental health and body image.  You might say so what that has always been the case. And you would be right up to now but because of Covid-19 government has given themselves wide-ranging powers to collect and analyze data, without adequate safeguards. If we are not careful they will have no notion of self, existing only in the present unaware of the past or future, and therefore will be unable to consciously plan for future eventualities. Unconscious algorithms in our brains rather than conscious images in a mind. If you are using a smartphone, it indirectly means that you are enjoying the AI knowingly or unknowingly. It cannot be modified unknowingly or can’t get disfigured or breakdown in a hostile environment. We should not be regulating technology but Artificial Intelligence. It is so complicated in behavior we need to be regulated it at the data level. In lots of regulated domains, there is this notion of post-market surveillance, which is where the developer bears the responsibility of how the technology developed by them is going to be used. As William Shakespeare wrote in – As you Like it.   ” All the world is a stage, and all the men and women merely players, they have their exits and entrances. ”   Sadly with AI, Machine Learning Algorithms no one knows or for that matter will ever know when they enter or exit. Probably like AI learning is actually an ongoing process that takes place throughout all of life. It’s the process of moving information from out there — to here. Unfortunately with the brain, has its own set of rules by which it learns best, unlike AI, the information doesn’t always stick. Together, we have a lot to learn. Humanity is in contact with humanity.   All human comments appreciated. All like clicks and abuse chucked in the cloud bin.        

                                              social media oligarchy where the richest participants are allowed to spread dangerous                  .                

THE BEADY ASKS. JUST HOW CLEVER DO YOU THINK THE HUMAN RACE IS?

12 Friday Feb 2021

Posted by in #whatif.com, 2021. The year for change., Algorithms., Artificial Intelligence., Civilization., Climate Change Summit Scotland 2021, COVID-19, Dehumanization., Digital age., DIGITAL DICTATORSHIP., Disconnection., Fourth Industrial Revolution., Human Collective Stupidity., HUMAN INTELLIGENCE, Human values., Humanity., Imagination., Life., Pandemic, Post-Covid-19, Reality., Renewable Energy., Technology, Technology v Humanity, The essence of our humanity., The state of the World., The world to day., THE WORLD YOU LIVE IN., THIS IS THE STATE OF THE WORLD.  , Truth, Unanswered Questions., VALUES, We can leave a legacy worthwhile., WHAT IS TRUTH, What Needs to change in the World, Where's the Global Outrage.

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(Twenty to Thirty-minute read)

Do not read this if you are depressed or are easily depressed.

If you do read it try not to click the moron like button, but comment.  

We, humans, believe that we are the most intelligent beings on the planet. 

We believed that are superior to the animals due to our exclusive ability to reason.

In simple terms, this comes about when we select only the ‘survivors’ – those that outperformed the rest, whether people, machines, or companies – and come to conclusions based on their attributes, without looking more broadly at the whole dataset, including those with similar characteristics that failed to perform as well.

Our collective ingenuity has got us into the mess of Climate Change and now a Pandemic that is not just killing us but shining a light on our collective stupidity.

The Earth’s carrying capacity could absorb our endless acts of stupidity. 

So to answer this question one could go back over the history of humanity and pick out numerous examples since man emerged from his cave.

From the Nuclear bomb to stepping on the moon. From Michelangelo to Albert Enstine. From the Stone age to the Tec age we have put greed and power before looking after what we had in the first place – Earth. 

                                       ————————

As there is no escaping our interconnected world in this post I want to address the origins of Planetary realism when it comes to that interconnection.

Why?

Because we are now engaged in two possible futures for the world, the worst or the best. 

Are we going to continue shooting ourselves in the foot?

or  

Are we going to recognize that Human DNA is too similar to split us into subspecies or races of stupidity?  

Can we act like one? 

I firmly believe we know enough to solve our problems, I just doubt we have the collective will to work together to get the job done. We should be much better than our collective selves.

We have to start accepting our common vulnerability and therefore our common interest instead of just National Interests which is paramount to decisions that have to be on a global scale.    

When the stakes are high, we want those making decisions – whether they be machines or human, to be correct, trustworthy, and responsible.

However, now we are handing these decisions more and more to machine learning algorithms and neural nets. 

We implicitly grant artificial intelligence a degree of agency that not only overstates its true abilities but robs us of our own autonomy... It is always humans who choose whether or not to abdicate this authority, to empower some piece of technology to intervene on our behalf. It would be a mistake to presume that this transfer of authority involves a simultaneous absolution of responsibility. It does not.

Perhaps technology can be correct. But can it be trustworthy and responsible?

While it’s hard to judge even if another person is trustworthy or responsible, it may be even harder to judge something that thinks in such radically different ways as humans.

We once viewed ourselves as the only creature with emotions, morality, culture, which is not true, they can be found in the animal kingdom. 

Confucius:

“Real knowledge is to know the extent of one’s ignorance.”

This is to say that intelligence is the ability to recognize our weaknesses and one of our greatest weaknesses is the impenetrable barrier now being created right in front of our eyes between Artificial Intelligence and Capitalist Greed. 

If we measure the IQ of AI it would be against its capabilities of reasoning and its problem-solving ability and nothing else.

Rational thinking and intelligence don’t tend to go hand in hand. 

This measurement doesn’t measure curiosity or creativity.

Unlike the robotic world, people desperately believe they’re smart because they desperately want to see themselves as smart and sometimes because they really can’t tell.

Most of us measure our IQ as being five points higher than it actually is.

Thinking AI might work in the same way as a human brain is not only misleading but dangerous.

Up to now AI only takes orders and does not think by itself so there is a massive disconnect from biological networks. They, that is AI lacks some crucial components essential to navigating the real world…. they do recreate something like human intelligence that has the ability to analyze all matters from multiple angles while not or never will be prepared to take on responsible decision making.  

In short, Dunning and Kruger discovered that the less intelligent you are, the more confident you’re likely to be that you know what you’re doing and the more likely you are to be wrong. Being unsure, in this context, is often a mark of intelligence.

Without being curious, an intelligent person won’t ever use their intelligence to learn and form new ideas.

At the same time, a person without curiosity it seems, be less likely to question themselves or the world around them in the first place. As a result, it seems they would also be unlikely to ever use what intelligence they had to learn new things and question their own misperceptions.

But AI is learning to manipulate human behavior, creating more problems for the world. 

Of course, there is just one thing that nags away at the average man or woman in the street in amongst all this academic and government research and analysis, how safe is AI going to be for me – can I trust big business and government to behave ethically? 

It is already exploiting vulnerabilities in ways people make choices. Click like and the AI steer you towards particular actions by filtering your choices. 

WE now have  “behavioral modification empires.”

The purpose of organizations such as Google and Facebook ceased to be building connections, and instead became about adapting your habits and thought patterns in the name of profit.

With so much misguided thought and active disinformation online, it has become difficult for people with insight worth sharing to do so. Behind the anonymity of the web, anyone can claim to be an expert. When everybody is an expert, nobody is.

In other words, the AI learns how people make choices.

Broad, anonymous social networks breed collective stupidity.

This has enormous ramifications for the future as AI could be used to steer people away from stupid choices or to make them.  

AI can outwit us on the virtual battlefield so let’s not put them in charge of the real thing.

This is already happing with drones that identify, track and kill people without any human intervention. They have no moral capability to decide who lives or who dies, no empathy no compassion. 

However, if a machine can beat us at a game does it make them more intelligent than us?  

Despite the many warning raised not only will we see robots fighting wars they will be planning them too. 

David Dunning and Justin Kruger, “The miscalibration of the incompetent stem from an error about the self, whereas the miscalibration of the highly competent stems from an error about others.”

This goes directly into how people view themselves and their abilities. For instance, most people think they’re above average when that literally cannot be true.

In any leadership role, you’ve got to establish trust.

It’s trusting that the person is going to do things and trusting that they’re telling the truth and being upfront and honest.

But how you go about doing that virtually is a little different – it’s a different skill set.

We have seen that Social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter transform Donald Trump into one of the worst presidents of the USA and a proud country England into a whaling nation of Nigel Farage has beings.

Because of our collective stupidity, social media transformed both into remote winners with lies.

Therefore it is reasonable to say that with the current Coivd-19 Pandemic that hopefully, people are now more likely to be seen based on what they actually do, not based on who they are.

Why?

Because they simply don’t translate into anointing leaders by virtual leadership.

Neither of them got better at the skills, such as reasoning from given data. Indeed smart people are more prone to silly mistakes because of blind spots in how they use logic.

                                       ———————–

Considering the benefits accruing from AI.

Let’s start with how much data we produce globally.  

It’s about 2.5 quintillion bytes of data produced every day in the world. 

Next, if you Googled “how much energy do Google’s servers use?”  

Unsurprisingly, it’s a lot. An estimate in 2017 claimed that the amount of power required to run Google’s servers is 2.26 million megawatts per year – enough to keep 200,000 homes going for the same time. 

Facebook, in contrast, uses a wee bit more than Google, at about 3.43 million megawatts per year. Between them and Google they could power over 20% of the houses in Scotland.

When we come to the internet as a whole, it uses a bit more than 10% of the world’s energy consumption. 

All electricity generation systems have a ‘carbon footprint’, that is, at some points during their construction and operation carbon dioxide (CO2) is emitted.  Then again all electricity generation technologies emit CO2 at some point during their life cycle. None of these technologies is entirely ‘carbon-free’.

While the energy involved in all bitcoin transactions in one year is 77.78 terawatt-hours – equivalent to the entire electrical consumption of Chile.

It’s no wonder that even without co2 emissions have climate change. 

We are going to have to find a way to generate more electricity to power the economies and societies of the future, but in a manner that doesn’t wreck the planet.

There is a saying that “Mad dogs and English men go out in the noonday sun.” 

Did you know the sun produces the equivalent of 38,460 SEPTILLION watts – that’s 3.846 x 1026 watts) PER SECOND.  That’s almost enough to power a Metallica gig.

So you would think that it is a no-brainer that we have solar panels to enable everyone to use this source of energy by giving nonrepayable grants to every home to install them.  To stop Co2 emissions. We have to fit our species into the energy flow of its biosphere.

That is the meaning of life in case you are so stupid still looking for a meaning. 

Instead, we have Paris Climate change conferences promises and the forthcoming Glasgow Zome dribble turning CO2 into a product – for profit.  

Introducing more change to Be-IT

One thing is certain:

The original purpose of the internet has been lost. It set the stage for a technological revolution that could harness human intelligence and advance our shared knowledge.

Its click-baiting algorithms and lack of regulation have brought with them chaos.

As social media came to dominate the landscape, it made using the internet for the purpose of collective intelligence increasingly difficult.

The rise of social media was supposed to bring us closer together but instead, I argue, it has done the opposite.

A system based on generating clicks and interactions has created an environment for the outlandish and bizarre to flourish, with expertise falling by the wayside. With so much content being generated, how can experts possibly stand out from the crowd?

Machines and AI are great, but we have to retain some capacity to think for ourselves. 

No matter how algorithms are retrained they will continue to impact the millions who use them.

The results will be that AI over time, will not categorize people into races on traits it thinks are most important – but into stupid or clever. 

For obvious reasons, this year is different.

The pandemic has, of course, transformed how most workplace in-person teams are now all or partially digital operations in the wake of the pandemic, removing Joe Soap from any say about the Future.

At the moment we have a warlike philosophy – if we continue to develop AI it might not overtake our individual stupidity but our collective stupidity, putting our very existence in danger.

Tech should never be any more than a tool that helps us to bring out the best in humanity. Many of the issues we throw billions at and attempt to solve with technology could be easily achieved if we were able to better utilize our collective intelligence.

All human comments appreciated. All like clicks and abuse chucked in the bin.