Category Archives: Algorithms.

THE BEADY EYE SAYS. WE ARE CREATING A DANGEROUS DIGITAL INVISABLE WORLD?

20 Thursday Jan 2022

Posted by in #whatif.com, 2022: The year we need to change., Algorithms., Artificial Intelligence., Civilization., Dehumanization., Digital age., DIGITAL DICTATORSHIP., Digital Friendship., Fourth Industrial Revolution., Human Collective Stupidity., Human values., Humanity., Modern day life., Modern day Slavery, Our Common Values., Post-Covid-19, Robot citizenship., Speed of technology., Technology, Technology v Humanity, The common good., The essence of our humanity., The Internet., THE NEW NORM., The Obvious., The pursuit of profit., The world to day., THE WORLD YOU LIVE IN., TRACKING TECHNOLOGY., Unanswered Questions., WHAT IS TRUTH, What Needs to change in the World, Where's the Global Outrage.

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , ,

 

 

 

( Fifteen-minute read) 

We all know that there is an invisible world and that today it is undeniably digital.

This invisible world is becoming both powerful and dangerous leading to digitalizing without a system of oversight of the way we operate in the world, resulting in not just hidden powers but a decoupling between human rights and democracy.

On one hand, digital democracy, or eDemocracy, uses the internet, social media, and technology to improve our democratic systems of governance. 

On the other with our electronic overlords, ( Smartphones, Pads, Apple watches, TV, Web Services), this world of invisibility is been driven by non-accountable, non-transparent commerce, operating profit-seeking algorithms, with self-learning data collection codes, that no one comprehends.

As our day-to-day lives are increasingly immersed in technology, it is easy to lose perspective on things that matter. 

The capitalist world of profit and power is disappearing underground.

New technologies – from social media and GPS systems to artificial intelligence and digital twins – make the planet we inhabit unrecognizable from even 20 years ago and it’s only going to get faster, changing how we live.

The rise of the sharing economy, online marketplaces, and digital platforms are shattering old barriers and reducing the distances between industries, societies, and places, all of which are without adequate regulations are vanishing from scrutiny and accountability. 

                             ——————

While it’s true that today, leaders need to deal with unprecedented changes and an unpredictable and challenging future due to the Fourth Industrial Revolution, Climate change, and the covid pandemic they need to be more agile, to deal with sudden changes and challenges that any one of these will bring.  

Why?

Because the status quo as the inertia of past success can be crippling for the future.

The paradox of leadership lies in staying focused on the present, while also visualizing the future and creating a roadmap to reach it.

This is a major problem requiring Statmanship on a global scale.

                                —————–  

Why is all of this happening now?

What’s interesting about this question is, there’s no answer to that question.

What I think is so true about that is, with technology even nonconformists are conforming.

Why?

Because these days it’s difficult to not see how real the invisible world is affecting our lives and the systems that govern life.

Today, with the covid pandemic’s we see it is very rare that you find someone that’s not influenced by anyone else.

You don’t have to be a digital native to behave like one.

It’s the invisible world we want to connect with in order to maintain the magic in life.

Why?

Because a world without emotions will be a sterile world.

Yes, the invisible world is real.

It is the limited life of a limited mind.

Increasingly, this limited value is delivered through new cross-sector, outcome-based propositions, rather than traditional sector-specific products and services.

We have all experienced trying to get to speak to a human to solve a problem with a service – press one press two – listen to music – you inquiry- will be answered – press 3 if – till you give up.

If you can spell it you can’t enter it. A society that is dependent on technology can create inequality.

                                           ————-

To stop this invisible world people must take ownership of things as the digital world is not about technology, but people.

At a time when geopolitical tensions are on the rise are at their highest level this century.  And this turbulence is escalating.  Even nuclear non-proliferation can no longer be taken for granted.

At the same time, we see trade and technological conflicts that fracture world markets, undermine growth and widen inequalities.

And all the while, our planet is on fire.  The climate crisis rages on.

With Climate Change, we are risking a ‘great fracture’ between world powers, each with their own internet and AI strategy, as well as dominant currency, trade, and financial rules, and contradictory geopolitical and military views.

With dwindling natural resources, an unstable world climate, viruses on the rampart, not to mention the effects of pandemics on world trade, inequality, the world does not need politicians that do not think of the next election but statesmen of the next generation.      

 It is crucial to ensuring a united world.

Those yet to be connected remain cut off from the benefits of this new era and remain further behind. People need money to access the internet and buy the latest devices.

By 2050 there will be 9 billion people to feed, clothe, transport, employ and educate.

Maybe that’s not really bad when you think of what’s coming next. You couldn’t call it a fully digital world yet. It’s not even close.

However, there’s room to dream about building the world we want, instead of the one we’re turning into. 

As we pursue unlimited growth, our limitless consumption threatens to crowd out everything else on Earth. We are warming the climate, overspending our financial resources, requiring more fresh water than we have, increasing income inequality, diminishing other species, and triggering shockwaves whenever we can’t cope with a problem. Billions are committed to a growth-driven world economy.

Our world is full of screens. We keep them in our hands, purses, and pockets, next to our beds while we sleep, and surround ourselves with screens on our desks and countertops. Our TV sets are morphing into interactive screens as we put them online so they display everything for free.

What if that networked system brought everyone the world’s best services, resources, and knowledge-based on what we do, as a normal part of everyday life?

                                           ————————

The top-down approach is no longer sustainable in the Economic/ Power/ or Democracy Capital Accountability. Leadership needs to be vigilant and create a long-term sustainable value proposition for all stakeholders.

The same technologies are giving rise to new business models, with organizations using digital to create and monetize new forms of value. Disruptions in the digital world occur at a phenomenal rate.

They have the power to impact the way entire industries operate reshaping entire industries with profit-seeking algorithms.

Although giving up your data was once an afterthought when gaining access to the newest internet services such as Facebook there aren’t many great options available to limit what is seen and known about you online.

YOU BECOME A DIGITAL FORM OF YOURSELF IN THE VIRTUAL WORLD OF THE INTERNET.  

How do we define what a digital human is?

Worthless, a form of entertainment to have conversations with yourself without being able to show emotion and behavior as a real human. 

So, is the invisible world the real world?

Hard to say, but I think it’s what makes the visible world worth living in.

When someone dies, the essence of that being merely inhabited that form – the life within the form was always invisible.

Digital leaders will have the power to shape the future of our world.

When we want to believe, there is still time to interrupt the announced disappearances of so many plant and animal species which, if we are not careful, will lead to our own end.

This situation cannot go on. It is our common duty to avoid it.

While risks intersect and technologies develop quickly, too often our institutions for governing international security remain reactive and slow-moving.

ALL HUMAN COMMENTS ARE APPRECIATED. ALL LIKE CLICKS AND ABUSE CHUCKED IN THE BIN.

THE BEADY EYE ASKS: IS THE ENVIORMENT MORE IMPORTAIN THAN THE ECONOMY?

09 Thursday Dec 2021

Posted by in 2021. The year for change., A Constitution for the Earth., Algorithms., Capitalism, Climate Change., Disaster Capitalism., Economic Depression., Emergency powers., Environment, Fourth Industrial Revolution., How to do it., Human Collective Stupidity., HUMAN INTELLIGENCE, Human values., Humanity., Inequality, Life., Modern day life., Our Common Values., Pandemic, Politics., POST COVID-19., Purpose of life., Reality., Survival., Sustaniability, Technology v Humanity, Telling the truth., The common good., The essence of our humanity., THE NEW NORM., 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.  , Unanswered Questions., Universal Basic Income ., VALUES, We can leave a legacy worthwhile., What Needs to change in the World, Where's the Global Outrage.

≈ Leave a comment

(Five-minute read) 

With the continuation of the covid pandemic, this is going to become the big question because the two are intertwined.

If this pandemic drags on, which appears it will do with new variants, the degree of economic harm will become extreme, resulting in a different kind of “ailment” worse than the one we’re supposedly trying to “cure.”

Either way, the current shackling of the economy cannot be allowed to drag on much longer, or we will find ourselves in a full-blown global depression — and then more people will die.

However, if you combine the pandemic with the other major crises Climate Change the Environment wins hands down. 

Why? 

Because in the long run if the environment is not protected it will inevitably lead to the depletion of economic resources and the destruction of the earth and human life. 

In this world, humans are not here for only survival there are many other aspects that are necessary for the lives of humans. The economy is not, and never was intended as, “an end in itself”.

Everything that belonged to humans came from the environment but we can live without an economy, but not without our environment!

We’re all in this together.

There’s just enough truth to that to convince the average citizen — but the more insidious (and, I believe, likely intended) effect is to promote public docility;

To persuade us to go along with any and all directives issued by the authorities.

An economy is good only insofar as it satisfies our needs for freedom to enjoy the actuality of living, not valuing profit over life itself. On the physical level, human lives literally depend on the economy; not only for paying the bills and preparing for retirement but for healthcare itself.

With no economy, there is no point in having a good environment. everything in the history of the world created by humans came from the environment.

A “healthy” economy is an indicator of a “healthy” society. They live side by side.

If the goal of government policy is only “to slow the spread of infections”“

If you think the economy is more important than the environment, try holding your breath while counting your money.” — Guy McPherson.

The cure shouldn’t be worse than the disease. Government handling of any public emergency — if those in power are rational and just — will be balanced with their handling of the economy.

Pope Francis said on Sunday that people are more important than the economy, as countries decide how quickly to reopen their countries from coronavirus lockdowns.

What do you think the economy is? 

It is people but unfortunately, with our present system of capitalist economies, people do not benefit equally from its growth. Essential workers versus the unemployed, shareholders versus self-employed, foodbanks versus dialing a meal, the list is endless however without humans, how can we hope to repair anything?

To remove these inequalities is impossible but an economy based on universal basic income for all would allow people to look after themselves rather than state handouts.

Providing inflation was controlled it would go a long way to leveling up. 

Instead, the possibility of dictatorial governments using technology data is now on the cards. This fear is exacerbated by the average person’s lack of reflection on just what “the economy” is, and what it means to both individual freedom and the public good.

History has shown us we shouldn’t underestimate the threat to our liberty arising from the government’s response to Covid. There’s no reason to assume that after the pandemic — if there is an “after” — all democratic governments will voluntarily relinquish their newly acquired power.

Sure the government’s first obligation is to ensure people can survive both Climate change and the virus but without the means to change the way we live our lives it will be meanless.  

So it’s time for the media to make the cost of human life better understood.

It’s time for the advertising industry to stop promoting consumption for profit. 

It’s time to regulate Profit for-profit technology such as non-transparent Algorithms. 

Either we are really all in this together or we are not.

Of course, together will remain only words till we address the weakness which is at the heart of any nation-state project ( Like the current Vaccination program)

The vast majority are unable to participate because of a lack of compensation, by the capacity ( notably economic) of the capitalist system to ensure that everybody enjoys certain equality of access to material well-being. A Basis Universal income would rectify that.      

Modern societies can easily get by without cultural integration, tolerating a situation of competitive pluralism of values without automatically sinking into anarchy feared by the sociological tradition of inequality, if given the means to do so.  

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

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

THE BEADY EYE ASKS. IS SLAVERY DEAD? NOT BY A LONG SHOT, WE ENTERING A NEW WORLD OF SLAVERY.

20 Saturday Nov 2021

Posted by in 2021. The year for change., Algorithms., Artificial Intelligence., Covid - Passports., Dehumanization., Digital age., DIGITAL DICTATORSHIP., Human values., Humanity., Modern day Slavery, Modern Day Slavery., Our Common Values., Post-Covid-19, Reality., Robot citizenship., Technology v Humanity, The Future, THE NEW NORM., The Obvious., The state of the World., The world to day., THE WORLD YOU LIVE IN., TRACKING TECHNOLOGY., Unanswered Questions., Vaccines., What Needs to change in the World, Where's the Global Outrage.

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , ,

 

(Twenty-minute read) 

NOT BY A LONG SHOT.

When you hear the word slavery, it conjures images of shackles, mistreated people of color, forced to work.

This image was once a true, vivid picture;

However, the term slavery has broadened, and now slavery comes with many more definitions creating a new image for the vile term slavery.

THERE IS A NEW, MODERN, INVISIBLE SLAVERY THAT ENSLAVES PEOPLE AND THEY DON’T EVEN KNOW IT ! !! AND MOST OF US CHOSE THIS FORM OF SLAVERY. 

This new strain is much more virulent and deadly adding hundreds of thousands of new slaves to the mix every minute of the day  – Algorithms Slavery. A hidden world programming its self. 

Slaves are cheap these days.

There are an estimated as high as 45.8 million people in modern slavery around the world. More than in the 18th century at the height of the transatlantic slave trade. 

Simply knowing the statistic that 45.8 million individuals are enslaved in our world is not enough to put an end to the malpractice of modern-day slavery.

We all can and should play a part in the international advocacy for the freedom and rights of all, not only as fellow human beings but also as concerned community leaders and consumers in the global economy.

They’re the step-by-step instructions working quietly behind the scenes of everyday life; in internet search engines, satnavs, air traffic control, and food delivery services.

Companies and governments increasingly rely upon algorithms to make decisions that affect people’s lives and livelihoods – from loan approvals to recruiting, legal sentencing, and college admissions – from internet search results to product recommendations, dating matches, and what content goes up on our social media feeds. 

Slavery today includes:

10 million children.

24.9 million people in forced labor.

15.4 million people in forced marriage.

4.8 million people in forced sexual exploitation.

Human trafficking and slavery are the fastest-growing illegal activities in the world today. 

Keep the National Human Trafficking Resource Center’s 24/7 confidential hotline handy.

Saving this number in your contacts and using it whenever suspicious of having seen a victim of human trafficking is one of the easiest and most effective ways to aid law enforcement officials in uncovering exploitation, bringing traffickers to justice, and victims to freedom and restoration.

                                                ——————

Algorithms have been rising fast and saturating our modern world.

We should not take the path of least resistance by sitting in judgment on the past while ignoring the injustices of our day.

Most algorithms in the world today are created and managed by for-profit companies, and many businesses regard their algorithms as highly valuable forms of intellectual property that must remain in a “black box.”

Every time a site is opened we are confronted with an Agreement Templates a choice to Agree or not.  Many websites prompt you to agree to their terms of use before you can register on the website or even use it.

There are two different types of website agreements: browsewrap and clickwrap.

A browsewrap agreement is connected to the main page of the product by a hyperlink. The hyperlink leads to another webpage that will have the terms and conditions of the agreement detailed.

A clickwrap agreement is designed to ensure that the user has a chance to see the terms of use and they must also actively agree to the terms in order to agree. (This one is more legally binding.) 

But are not transparent as they do not reveal the source code, inputs, and outputs of the algorithm that is running the site. 

Without this transparency, the question is how can they be legally binding. 

Specifically, machine learning algorithms – and deep learning algorithms in particular – are usually built on just a few hundred lines of code. The algorithm’s logic is mostly learned from training data and is rarely reflected in its source code. Which is to say, some of today’s best-performing algorithms are often the most opaque.

This is the new form of slavery.  Now being promoted by track and trace, with the current Coivid pandemic digital certifications that no one knows how or who will control, the data that they are now producing and in the future. 

 It suggests that technical transparency – must become law.

Essentially such laws would mandate that users be able to demand the data behind the algorithmic decisions made for them, including in recommendation systems, credit, and insurance risk systems, advertising programs, and social networks.

In doing so, it tackles “intentional concealment” by corporations.

But it doesn’t address the technical challenges associated with transparency in modern algorithms. Here, a movement called explainable AI (xAI) might be helpful.

However, this approach merely shifts the burden of belief from the algorithm itself to the regulators.

In the world of data analytics, it’s frequently assumed that more data is better.

But I firmly believe that the resistance to getting vaccinated is founded on this dilemma of trust.

Risk management, data itself is often a source of liability. That’s beginning to hold true for artificial intelligence as well.

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

 

 

 

 

THE BEADY EYE LOOKS AT THE ROLE OF MONEY IN POLOTICS.

05 Friday Nov 2021

Posted by in 2021. The year for change., Algorithms., Big Data., Corruption., Democracy, Digital age., Emergency powers., Facebook, First past the post., How to do it., Human Collective Stupidity., Modern Day Democracy., Money in Politics., Political Trust, Politics., Post - truth politics., Reality., Robot citizenship., Technology v Humanity, Telling the truth., The common good., The essence of our humanity., The Obvious., The state of the World., The world to day., Truth, Unanswered Questions., We can leave a legacy worthwhile., WHAT IS MONEY?, What Needs to change in the World

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , ,

(Eighteen-minute read) 

First, money is a medium of exchange that lets us earn, buy, and sell completely different things in the same units.

On top of this, money is also a unit of account—i.e. it lets us put the prices of very different things in the same terms.

This is why private wealth impacts public life, with the world of politics full of lobbyists. 

Money has always shaped the process of political competition and influences policymaking but most of us are unaware of how money works, behind the scenes in the political theater, it is a year-round issue that dictates the daily life of the nation.

Money finds its way into politics in myriad ways — 

Any political campaign lives or dies by its funding and for a long time, there has been a popular myth about how everyday voters who outnumber the wealthy will collectively donate more money than the few donations of the wealthy.

The influence of cash within politics could be called dark money.

It turns politicians’ existence into serving their donors instead of their voters, which affects the policies they support, how they allocate government spending, and their expressed values.

Regardless of our personal feelings, money makes the world (and democracy) go round.

It seems unfathomable that these external entities have such leverage in our election process.

Whether elected officeholders betray their voters, prioritizing interest groups or single campaign donors, remains a question to be answered in the public sphere. 

The super-wealthy class is almost single-handedly funding elections, which impacts our government’s overall functionality and integrity, meaning the power lies in the hands of few.

Cash has become a determining factor for who wins the most crucial elections like the president of the USA. 

most expensive presidential campaign

 

Since 1980 if you add it all up it comes to $ 105 billion 349 million.   

There’s way way way too much money in politics and most of it is having a corrupting, undue influence and locking out the voices that count.

For too long, money has been the one thing that has reigned supreme in a democracy.  

The influx of cash from corporations and interest groups sways the ways our political leaders pass legislation that supports these entities, regardless of the public’s best interest.

It allows corporations to buy leverage that alters the fabric of our economy.

                              ———————————

Fighting undue influence and corruption from political financing requires a clear understanding of the difference between unlawful influence on public administration and behavior and breach of trust of voters.

The former requires precise regulation of those sectors of administration that usually lend themselves to compensate campaign donors.

The potential entry point in the public sector can vary along with several channels of influence.

Beyond political advertising and election contributions, cash is influential in the lobbying industry. 

A ridiculous game in which corporations are people and money is magically empowered to speak. Allowing people and corporate interest groups and others to spend an unlimited amount of unidentified money has enabled certain individuals to swing any and all elections.  Donal Trump and referendums like Brexit.

While banning all campaign donations is an option, a comprehensive approach will take into account private agents who can resort to lobbying, personal networks, or corruption.

The truth requires that we call the corrosion of money in politics what it is – it is a form of corruption and it muzzles more of us than it empowers, and it is an imbalance that the world has taught us can only sow the seeds of unrest.

                                               —————

Money cannot always buy the best election results – Trump – Robert Mugabe – Crown Prince Abdullah – Kim Jong-un – Bashar al-Assad –Saparmurat Niyazov –  Putin – Idi Amin Saddam Hussein – Mengistu Haile Mariam – Augusto Pinochet – Pol Pot – Charles Taylor – Suharto – Mobutu Seko to name just a few dead and alive.

As of today, there are 50 dictatorships in the world.

But the millionaire class and the billionaire class increasingly own the political process, and they own the politicians that go to them for money.

It’s time to get big money out of politics., and have a system of scrutiny to ensure that no special access or call time with rich donors or big-dollar fundraisers to permanently eliminate big money from our politics and return it to the people.

                                —————-

Our democracy shouldn’t be bought and paid for by the wealthy and powerful.

It belongs to all of us or does it with the arrival of Big data the next currency of politics now being used to directly influence our decisions.

Data brings change to much more than just the commercial side of our lives.

We have to acknowledge that our data has much more than just a “one-shot” value.

The fact that Facebook and other social networks collect data on us is presented as something outrageous but not in the political world.  

Putting you into an “opinion bubble” by better targeting political ads and thus motivating you to actually go and vote, and become (unknowingly) an ambassador for the power that has you in its aim, exists. 

Data as a Political Asset: valuable stores of existing data on potential voters exchanged between political candidates, acquired from national repositories, or sold or exposed to those who want to leverage them

Data as Political Intelligence: data that is accumulated and interpreted by political campaigns to learn about voters’ political preferences and to inform campaign strategies and priorities, including creating voter profiles and testing campaign messaging.

Data as Political Influence: data that is collected, analyzed, and used to target and reach potential voters with the aim of influencing or manipulating their views or votes.

In reality, the same problems with money and now data have existed for years, with huge amounts of personal data being sold to corporate clients. And yet, we only start panicking when we see how the illegal, or barely legal trade of our life patterns collected by social networks impacts our political choices.

Knowing where we spend our time, what media we watch, what books we read, what food we prefer, and what words are we most likely to use in our tweets makes the difference.

But what is it that makes the politicians “addicted to big data like it’s campaign cash”,

Unfortunately, this “addiction” to data has induced politicians and their campaign managers into the same illusion that businesses are struggling with right now:

Big data allows reliable prediction and, obviously, politics, as the very structure of societal governance, is heavily impacted.

It is, indeed, a problem.

The amount of information that companies have about who we are and what we are as social units is so huge, that it is this data reshaping the very fabric of our societies.

Most people believe — because of huge public buzz scandals like the one of Cambridge Analytica — that big data in politics serves the goals of better manipulation.

The issue of data collection in the interest of the political actors must not be reduced to just cynical Frank Underwood-style power brokers buying data on where we eat and what we watch on Netflix and who our friends are to better sell us their quotes about how they are gonna make our lives better.

The overwhelming power of the big brother that tracks our every step raises the question.  If societies value equality of information, open debate, and transparency, these trends should be of concern?

One thing we know for sure is that the clear trend of getting more and more data involved in political campaigning and decision-making is there.

Without considering these questions, there is a danger that any response may have unintended consequences and fail to advance the principles we want to uphold.

Bribery is human nature and the only way to expose it is with transparency requirements that enable the media, public interest groups, and parties to engage in this debate.

The manipulation of the future political result, by algorithms is only a click away.

We will still need (yes, NEED) tons of “money in politics.”

Without big donors, how many Independent candidates will be able to go up against the dark money and deep, oligarch pockets?

Ok, let’s figure out where that money goes. 

All human comments are appreciated. All like clicks chucked in the bin.

 

THE BEADY EYE ASKS. WILL THE WORLD OF TECHNOLOGY GET RID OF INEQUALITY.

29 Friday Oct 2021

Posted by in 2021. The year for change., Afghan War., Algorithms., Artificial Intelligence., Capitalism, Climate Change Summit Scotland 2021, Climate Change., Environment, Green Energy., Human values., Humanity., Inequality., Our Common Values., Post-Covid-19, Technology v Humanity, Technology., The common good., The essence of our humanity., The Obvious., The pursuit of profit., The state of the World., The world to day., Trade Agreements., Unanswered Questions., We can leave a legacy worthwhile., Wealth., What Needs to change in the World, Where's the Global Outrage., WORLD POVERTY WHERE'S THE GLOBAL OUTRAGE

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , ,

(Thirteen-minute read)

With or without technology there will always be inequalities in the world.

So why do we keep trying to solve poverty with technology?

Because this way of thinking is so ingrained that is adopted by organizations that fight poverty—which often refashion themselves to resemble technology startups.

Inequality has been growing so much that all governments and civil society speak about it with increasing worry, trying to understand its causes, but unable to find solutions, because of greed. 

It is our policy on technology that drives inequality.

There is no better example of this than in the way the world is handling the current Covid pandemic unable to share the know-how to make the vaccinations. 

Patents and copyrights are not guaranteed as individual rights, like the right to free speech or religion.

After all, why would a drug company pay large amounts of money to people to develop new drugs if the drugs can be copied and sold by competitors from the day they enter the market?

If it is not already obvious, patent and copyright monopolies are instruments of public policy, not acts of God.

This is why there is still not enough coronavirus vaccine to meet worldwide demand.

A year ago there was no commercial market for mRNA products.

Vaccine manufacturers long ago should have been sharing technology and expertise to boost production in the U.S. and Europe, and especially in developing countries. 

The same would be true of software developers, makers of medical equipment, computer manufacturers, smartphone companies, and any other product where the cost of research and development was a substantial portion of the price of the product.

The complete elimination of patents and copyrights is of course an extreme scenario, but it is a possible policy option.

If we did choose this policy option, we would have a much more equal distribution of income, in spite of having the same technology.

In short, the fact that there was a huge increase in inequality associated with the development of technology over the last four decades was the result of policy choices, not technology.

There should be serious public debate about both how strong we want to patent and copyright protection to be and also whether they are always the best way to promote innovation and creative work, as opposed to alternatives like direct public funding.

If we acknowledge the extreme case, where we literally have no patent or copyright protection, then we have to recognize that there is nothing inherent in our technology that would cause inequality.

Few things, in principle, can’t be delivered through technology.

It is entirely our rules on technology that can cause inequality to increase.How Technology Ends Inequality

So on one hand, technology can eradicate poverty — not by making poor people less poor, but by making it less valuable to be rich.

On the other as technology spreads, making its creators rich, but treating its users the same, we should expect more monopolies and more financial inequality.

Although it is your data you can’t pay for a better Facebook experience.

Companies are incentivized to offer a product if it makes more than it costs. And technology ends up not costing much once you’ve built it.

So, in the end, you charge people whatever they can pay and in poorer countries, people just pay and get paid less.

Times are changing from the days that growth in inequality was largely an organic process independent of government policy.  

“Owning” the robot/algorithm is not a technical relationship, it is a legal one, and therefore one that depends on our laws.

The reason some people might get very rich from owning robots or algorithms is that they own patents and copyrights that are needed for the making of the robots/ algorithms.  

                                         __________________

In the past, technological improvements would be beneficial to all:

Extreme economic inequality is corrosive to our societies.

Around 8% of the world’s population lives in extreme poverty — but do you know why?

Gender inequality, caste systems, marginalization based on race or tribal affiliations are all economic and social inequalities that mean the same thing:

You might think that poverty causes hunger (and you would be right!), but hunger is also a cause — and maintainer — of poverty. This is why now with climate change, negotiating international trade agreements behind closed doors with only bureaucrats and corporate lobbyists present has to end.

Economics should take into account ethics and the environment, and treat its claims less like invariable truths.

It goes without saying that any actions coming out of Cop 26 climate change conferences to reduce temperatures will be derailed by not just income inequality, (only the higher income household will be able to afford green energy technologies. Solar panels, electric cars, heating pumps, etc.) but by the total lack of shared responsibility to do anything about it.   

Of course, there are hundreds of other elements that contribute to the problems our world is now facing. 

World poverty isn’t a problem of limited resources, it is a problem of inequality and this inequality is upheld by the idea that aid creates dependence.

Climate change will drive up to 132 million more people into extreme poverty by 2030.

The pricing carbon emissions on average is at a mere $3 a tonne.

The price of inequality in all its forms is greed. There are vast fortunes to be made with Technology/ Algorithms for profit and nothing blurs ethical lines faster than greed. 

So far, any decoupling has either been largely relative – in the sense of merely achieving higher rates of economic growth than gains in emissions – or achieved by shifting dirty production from one national territory to another.

And that is why, for now, global emissions are still rising.

The idea of “Just Transition” without financing is pie in the sky. 

Take the aftermath of the Afghan 20-year war.

The country is now facing starvation. Why not bomb it with food.   

By coming together to tackle the plague of destitution around the world, we have the opportunity to advance the human condition and eliminate global poverty in a way no one has done before.

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

 

THE BEADY EYE ASKS. WHAT DO YOU THINK ARE THE MOST DIFFICULT THINKS FOR HUMAN TO UNDERSTANDS?

20 Wednesday Oct 2021

Posted by in 2021. The year for change., Algorithms., Artificial Intelligence., Dehumanization., Digital age., Disconnection., Evolution, Human Collective Stupidity., HUMAN INTELLIGENCE, Human values., Humanity., INTELLIGENCE., Life., Purpose of life., Technology v Humanity, THE WORLD YOU LIVE IN., Unanswered Questions.

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

 

(Six-minute read) 

Of course, various people can be expected to have various answers to this question.

They all depend on when in our history as a species the question is asked, however, we can’t understand that which is beyond our knowledge still stands.

This question is like asking me to tell you everything I don’t know.

So in this post, I am going to try and address the usual problems with understanding. 

Even trying to define what we mean by “reality” is fraught with difficulty.

Philosophers devote their life’s work to developing and defending definitions of reality and other indeterminate concepts however one could tweak their definitions by equating reality with what appears to be a sufficiently large group of people. But just, because sufficiently many people believe in something, does not make it real.

Let’s just say that we behave in certain ways, merely because our brains act according to physical laws – Reality is that which, if you stop believing in it, does not go away. Things that we do not want to regard as real can be stubborn, as anyone who has ever been trapped in a nightmare knows.

Perhaps Penrose offers the best dictionary definition of “reality” as a starting point for understanding.

Whatever kind of reality you think you’re living in, you’re probably wrong.

                                            ————

My vote goes to Ourselves.

But “Know thyself,” turns out to be ridiculously complex.

We humans seem to be only just beginning to understand that we all live on one planet.

To understand that in a couple of billion years the sun will explode and your contribution will be ash. 

That we are completely, totally, and utterly alone in this piece of space called the solar system is beyond our understanding.

Let’s start with the nature of reality.

The brain operates with electrochemical signals from which it extracts patterns and assigns meaning, creating your subjective world. The brain doesn’t know or care where the data comes from; it just figures out what to do with it, and it does it efficiently.

Therefore all the sensors that we know and love, like our eyes and our ears and our fingertips, are merely peripheral plug-and-play devices.

Our common-sense notion of reality is that our eyes, ears, nose, and fingertips pick up objective reality, but that couldn’t be farther from the truth.

The interaction between what’s “out there” and our sensory organs isn’t the whole picture, either because the brain has no direct access to the outside world. Smells, sounds, and colors do not actually exist in the outside world they are locked in silence and darkness inside your skull.

At birth, we have no natural concept of reality. The slice of our ecosystem we can detect—or biological umwelt—(the world as it is experienced by a particular organism) is created by an interaction between the outside world, our sensory organs, and our “pink computational material.”

Ask the questions.

Eagleman says. “Your neurons require other people’s neurons to thrive and survive,” “Who you are has everything to do with who we are.”

So what can we know about the nature of reality?

We must first confront our utter lack of in-the-moment awareness regarding how our umwelt shapes and constrains what we know as reality.

However, we go about our lives as though we are operating in an objective reality.

The function of the brain, it turns out, is dependent upon input. In other words, feed the brain with enough shit for long enough and it will start believing that it is true/real.

Fortunately, the reality we experience is constrained by our biology.

Michael May who lost his sight at 3 years old from a chemical explosion says

 “Vision isn’t all that it’s cracked up to be if—a big if—you have developed the other blindness skills to make you a fully actualized person”

Just as May and other blind people can operate in a reality devoid of the light waves in the range received by the human eye, we are all able to operate in a reality devoid of the radio waves, microwaves, X-rays, and gamma rays that are passing through our bodies all the time.

We are unaware of them because we are “blind” to them—our sensory receptors are incapable of receiving them. 

“Over seven billion human brains traffic the planet today. Although we typically feel like independent operators, each of our brains operates in a rich web of interaction with one another—so much so that we can plausibly look at the accomplishments of our species as the deeds of a single, shifting, meta-organism.” —The Brain: The Story of You, Dr. David Eagleman

In particular, there is the question of the reality of our minds.

Should we not include a conscious experience as something real?

And what about concepts, such as truth, virtue, or beauty?

In fact, every process in the universe can be reduced to interactions between particles that produce binary answers: yes or no, here or there, up or down. That means nature, at its most fundamental level, is simply the flipping of binary digits.

Conscious mental experience, accordingly, has no further reality than that of the material underlying its existence; though not yet properly understood, it is merely an “epiphenomenon”, having no additional influence on the way that our bodies behave beyond what those physical laws demand.

For example, Quantum Physics uses the knowledge that our brains cannot understand such as something not existing until it is observed! where is the logic in that?

                                          ————

Take Religious beliefs -thoughts.

Quite a lot of religious concepts are so counter-intuitive that their respective religions just refer to them as mysteries and don’t even bother to try to explain them…..

‘Gods’ were of our own creation – because we couldn’t comprehend that we are completely, totally, and utterly alone in this piece of space called the solar system. It’s just us humans and everything else on this planet.

Or that we are completely, totally, and utterly not alone in the piece of space called the Milky Way Galaxy and or the greater globular cluster. Another life is statistically just too relevant to ignore.

Take Time itself the fourth dimension of reality. 

There is never enough time in the day. 

Defined by Physicists as the progression of events, from the past to the present and into the future. It’s not as you know something we can see, touch, or taste, but we can measure its passage. In the natural world, it has only one direction, called the arrow of time – irreversible it cannot move backward’s.  

However, Astronauts on the International Space station jump forward in time on returning from space.  

To reconcile general relativity with quantum mechanics, either time does not exist, or else it is not fundamental in nature. 

We cannot have any perception of the immediate present, without some memory of the past and some expectation of the future to give it context.

The universe is timeless. 

                                     ————————————

A few others could be added to the list of not understanding. 

Take Distance. 

The infinite distance of the Universe or multiple universes.

Take Massive data.

Analyzed by machine learning or algorithms.

Without computer programs to analyze massive data, we may never be able to discover new ideas because of our limitations. 

Take Art.  

What is art?

It’s completely subjective, for one thing. I may look at something and view it as art, where someone else would pick it up and eat it without thinking twice about it.

Take Music.

What is music?

It’s basically just talking while inflecting your voice in different pitches.

The Internet.

What the heck is the internet?

Language.

What IS language?? 

Love.

What is love? 

There are so many different types of love, that it’s hard for us to even understand where it comes from. 

Why?  Because you have to love yourself first before you can receive it. 

La vie?

We kill, murder, steal, lie, cheat, destroy.

We destroy not only ourselves, but the very planet we call home.

What is life? Take Wars. Death makes no sense.  

Take field forces like gravity.

It affects particles at an infinite distance, imagine their interactions!!

They change Every. Single. Instant.

What good would it be to describe a state of the Universe if, by the time you even began to do so, the state has changed drastically?

And, assuming you are actually a part of this Universe as you do that, you would also manipulate particles thus changing the state.

So there is no link between input and outcome.

Perhaps this is why the initiators of a cooperative or an ecosystem must create incentive and control systems that function stably over the long term.

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

THE BEADY EYE ASKS. IS ARTIFICAL INTELLIGENCE INTELLIGENT OR JUST PROBLEM SOLVING?

17 Friday Sep 2021

Posted by in Algorithms., Artificial Intelligence., Climate Change Summit Scotland 2021, Climate Change., Digital age., Evolution, Human Collective Stupidity., HUMAN INTELLIGENCE, INTELLIGENCE., Life., Modern day life., Post-Covid-19, Reality., Sustaniability, Technology v Humanity, Technology., The essence of our humanity., The Obvious., The state of the World., The world to day., VALUES, We can leave a legacy worthwhile., What Needs to change in the World

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , ,

 

(Twelve-minute read)

Let’s start with this question.

Is humanity getting smarter or dumber with AI?

The answer has to be both, as intelligence per se cannot guarantee that one uses it intelligently.

We can find undisputed evidence of this by looking not that far back in history.

It took humans 200,000 years to think about God, soul, nature, world, life, and themselves. Our ancestors wrote million tons of Literature on all these topics and we still haven’t figured out any of these.

There’s more food wastage in the world than ever before although a large number of people are dying in hunger, malnutrition, and gross food shortage.

Although we know we are depleting Earth’s limited resources at a break-neck speed, there’s more over-production than ever before and more over-consumption than ever before!

For the sake of energy and resource conservation, we request the poor to consume less who already consumes way less, while we shut our eyes to the rich who keep consuming exorbitantly.

We invented the first atomic bomb in 1938 and the world’s first nuclear explosion occurred on July 16, 1945.

The concept of capitalism has many debated roots, but fully-fledged capitalism is generally thought by scholars to have emerged in Northwestern Europe, especially in Great Britain and the Netherlands, in the 16th to 17th centuries. 

Ever since we have plundered our planet-destroying what we love. Heating what is useful to us. We oppose what is good for us. Then, we love what is bad for us. We adore what is damaging to us. We follow what is deceitful.

We believed we were invincible, most intelligent, and just the best.

Then Corona showed us how very weak, unprepared and vulnerable we are.

With all the information we have been able to gather to help fight the virus – there are still some who cannot follow the rules. This is the height of stupidity.

So we are intelligent but only to a certain degree.

There are conflicting ideas about how intelligence is measured.

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

Is intelligence overrated? 

Socrates held that ‘the unexamined life is not worth living.’

Intelligence is ‘the ability to think, reason, and understand instead of

doing things automatically or by instinct.

This is not beyond animals and even plants, they too can be said to be possessed of intelligence. 

The problem with artificial intelligence is that is it artificial and does not have to confine itself to methods that are biologically observable.

It leverages computers and machines to mimic the problem-solving and decision-making capabilities of the human mind. 

But when one considers that intelligence at its broadest, refers to the functioning of a number of related faculties and abilities that enable us to adapt and respond to environmental pressures.

So as we move toward an increasingly digital world Artificial intelligence cannot be considered in isolation.  

Take the West’s obsession with analytical intelligence. It has had and continues to have, dire political, social, and, above all, moral consequences.

Everything we love about civilization is a product of intelligence.

All this is to say that what constitutes intelligence can vary quite considerably according to our values and priorities.

After all, people deemed to be less rational—women, non-white people, the lower classes, the infirm, the ‘deviant’—were not just disenfranchised but dominated, colonized, enslaved, murdered, and sterilized, in all impunity.

History is full of technological over-hyping.

Will we control intelligent machines or will they control us? Will intelligent machines replace us, coexist with us, or merge with us? What will it mean to be human in the age of artificial intelligence? What would you like it to mean, and how can we make the future be that way? 

Why should we be asking these questions?

Because with AI there’s an enormous gap and there’s a paradox at work here.

We are living at a time when great advances have been made, and are continuing to be made, in many areas of science and technology. These advances are having a major impact on our lives, and this will probably continue to be the case for the foreseeable future.

This may, at first, seem to be a very positive prospect, but there are important reasons to be concerned with its benign effects.  

As a society, we have not learned how to deal properly with the risks, especially at the early stages, when knowledge is sparse.

In today’s world, the benefits of AI have been seized by a small, wealthy elite.

If anything, regulation is getting weaker. As our technological abilities grow ever more powerful, the danger of this approach is steadily increasing. What would a wiser policy look like?

The most difficult problems involve new technology that has very obvious, attractive, characteristics, while little, or nothing, is known about the effects of long-term use.

Genetically modified organisms (GMOs) in food products are one example.

Nanotechnology is another fascinating new area that is sprouting all kinds of new products. Its applications range from sunscreen lotions to more durable concrete, to improved ways to administer medication. But the same characteristics that make it so interesting and useful, also make it dangerous.

Cell phones addiction.  

Whether this will lead to an intelligence explosion; and whether this is something we should welcome or fear.

Saying that “real intelligence has consciousness just pushes the problem further down the road” 

The next problem is what is consciousness and can AI be consciousness.

To become so it would have to act independently.  

As long as we manage to keep the technology beneficial  

After all, today, we cannot go very far without having some considerable IT skills.

                                    —————

While the large corporations profiting from this technology are strongly motivated to defend their products, often funding research to develop arguments in their favor, there is no adequate countervailing force.

Take profit-seeking algorithms that are plundering the world unregulated.

Surely they should be careful study by an independent public agency to look for possible harmful effects, especially possible consequences of long-term use before releasing for general use.

                     ——————————————  

When you look at the world we have today you could not be blamed for thinking that we are all suffering from world dementia which is disturbing our multiple higher cortical functions including memory, thinking, orientation, comprehension, calculation, learning capacity, language, and judgment.

As a consequence of our greed and our disregard for the health of our planet, we are now faced with the problem of producing energy that is carbon-free. 

This is going to require a complete change in how we live our lives with our energy requirements produced from sustainable green sources. 

Yes, we are currently addressing the problem with Climate Change Conferences that to date are barking down the wrong road. 

Why?

Because all intelligence is telling us that there is no option but to generate energy from green renewable sources – sun – wind – water.   

Taken together, this suggests that the only viable option (working alongside intelligent technologies) is to take the H out of H20  (with green energy) and convert it into Hydron gas energy totally free of CO2 when used.  

When it comes to Genius AI is way behind humanity.

Genius is in contrast is more a matter of drive, vision, creativity, and luck or opportunity.pool of liquid hydrogen like that at the core of Jupiter

Intelligence is not in the cloud.

Whenever you use any service on the internet, you are connecting to one of many millions of servers located in one of many thousands of data centers around the world.

The energy requirements for these centers are estimates to vary from 200 terawatt-hours to 500 TWh and there are an estimated 18 million servers deployed in data centers globally.

If electricity continues to be a major source of data center energy and is generated from non-renewable sources, data center emissions could exceed the aviation industry which is currently responsible for 2% of annual human-generated CO2.

The data center industry is changing rapidly and how that will affect energy profiles is uncertain, but surely companies like Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Apple, and their like should be using green energy. 

Companies all over the world use cloud storage. 

Finally:

Finances are intertwined in every part of our lives, and technology is quickly following suit, finding a way into every aspect of modernity.

They’ve been on a collision course for decades, and the integration of technology into finance was, as we see it now, eventually inevitable.

You’re seeing this now with new algorithms being used to determine credit worthiness, or generating profit for profit’s sake.

For better or for worse, artificial intelligence (AI) is a natural progression for us, and something that has the potential to make life much less monotonous.

AI and finance go hand-in-hand. 

One thing is clear, blockchain will indeed eventually transform how the industry works. 

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

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

THE BEADY EYE SAYS. THE FUTURE ISN’T SOMETHING THAT SHOWS UP FULLY FORMED.

02 Thursday Sep 2021

Posted by in 2021. The year for change., A Constitution for the Earth., Algorithms., Artificial Intelligence., Big Data., Dehumanization., DIGITAL DICTATORSHIP., Evolution, Fourth Industrial Revolution., Human Collective Stupidity., HUMAN INTELLIGENCE, Human values., Inequality, Modern day life., Modern day Slavery, Our Common Values., POST COVID-19., Purpose of life., Robot citizenship., Speed of technology., Survival., Technology v Humanity, The common good., The essence of our humanity., The Future, The Obvious., The state of the World., The world to day., THE WORLD YOU LIVE IN., TRACKING TECHNOLOGY., Unanswered Questions., VALUES, We can leave a legacy worthwhile., WHAT IS TRUTH, What Needs to change in the World, Where's the Global Outrage., World Leaders, World Organisations.

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

 

 

( Seven-minute read) 

I don’t know if like me you are getting sick to death of hearing and reading the following phrases: 

WE NEED TO. WE VALUE YOUR PRIVACY, WHAT LESSON SHOULD WE LEARN. LET ME BE VERY CLEAR. 110 PERCENT.  ETC.

Unfortunately, we treat the future like a distant colonial outpost devoid of people where we can dump ecological degradation, technological risk, nuclear waste, and the public debt, and that we feel at liberty to plunder as we please. 

If you have a young child, she or he will likely talk to computers — naturally, as he or she does with you — for the rest of his or her life and the computer will not need to or learn lessons.  

We are standing on the precipice of life-altering technologies, but unable to break free from a continuous cycle of surprise and fear because we can’t come together to address collectively the existing problems not to mention what is awaiting us all down the road.

Global warming is the greatest existential challenge of our age, requiring massive societal changes to mitigate and adapt to it.

However, there is another threat that is being ignored to our peril.  

With politicians (the vast majority of whom do not have any background in science or technology) unable to look past the next election, making important policy decisions with little regard to how they will affect the planet and country 20, 50, or 100 years from now.

This is why Governments need to set up a Department for the Future, depoliticized technology and science. 

The citizens of tomorrow are granted no rights. There are no government departments or world organization bodies to represent their concerns or potential views on decisions today that will undoubtedly affect their lives.  

Representative – democracy systematically ignores the interest of future people. 

The world is presently experiencing a new form of colonization not by wars but by Digital Data, combined with climate change.   The Digital Divide: A Technological Generation Gap

This colonization is presently happing between China and the USA.



                                               —————–

The “Digital Divide,” is the gulf between those with access to both the necessary technology and the information accessible with it and those who do not.

The immediate concern is that those with the technology will acquire the necessary skills for the twenty-first century and those without will not, further widening the economic chasm between the lower-income strata and those who manage the data.

Technology has an obsoleting impact on those without the proper skills and, with the speed at which the technology changes, it is very difficult – near impossible for some – to keep current. 

This will become even more of a concern when the wealthier private and public school systems began to acquire personal computer networks and internet connections while schools in poorer neighborhoods will not.

Those who grow up with technology assimilate it into themselves;

“WE value your Privacy “

                                   —————————

There will constantly be new tools – the cloud, big data, location analysis, etc. – and ones of which we have not yet heard.

In A Data-Driven World, it will be too late unless we establish an organization

that can understand the context of all Future interactions. 

Those who do not embrace them may be ambushed by them and by a younger generation pushing them out the door.Shutterstock

When it comes to Robots. 

The Three Laws are:

  1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
  2. A robot must obey the orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
  3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Laws.

By Isaac Asimov in his 1942 short story “Runaround.” 

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

bin.

  

THE BEADY EYE SAYS. THE CLIMATE CRISES IS NO LONGER A LOOMING THREAT IT IS ARTFICAL INTELLIGENCE.

29 Saturday May 2021

Posted by in #whatif.com, 2021. The year for change., Algorithms., Artificial Intelligence., Capitalism, Climate Change Summit Scotland 2021, Dehumanization., Digital age., Enegery, Environment, Fourth Industrial Revolution., Green Energy., How to do it., HUMAN INTELLIGENCE, Human values., Humanity., Modern Day Communication., Modern day life., Post - truth politics., POST COVID-19., Purchasing Power., Reality., Renewable Energy., Sustaniability, 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.  , VALUES, We can leave a legacy worthwhile., What Needs to change in the World, Where's the Global Outrage.

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , , ,

 

(Eight-minute read) 

We live in an age in which intersecting crises are being lifted to a global scale, with unseen levels of inequality, environmental degradation, and climate destabilization, as well as new surges in populism, conflict, economic uncertainty, and mounting public health threats.

All are crises that are slowly tipping the balance, questioning our business-as-usual economic model of the past decades, and requiring us to rethink our next steps.

In the next few months, we will once again witness a gathering of verbal diarrhea in Scotland all promising to go green.

There is no doubting in the last few decades that we humans have achieved advances away beyond what our ancestors would have believed possible. The irony is that to survive we have to become something very different from what we are. 

Many optimists believe that technology can transform society and solve climate change.

To a great extent, this is probably true no more so than in the field of medician. 

Take the discovery by Alexander Fleming in 1928 of Penicillin.

Before its discovery, we were dying thirty years early than we do today. 

His discovery was down to an accidental piece of bacteria landing on one of his Petri dishes which took another ten years to develop into a drug to save lives. 

Today with human intelligence and machine learning we can produce drugs in a matter of months.     

The way forward to reducing CO2 emissions is not a by-pass lane it is by using the technologies that already exist.  

It’s time to cut out the verbal and bull shit and make these technologies affordable to all. 

Yes, the world today is in a dire state and a new kind of social and ecological environment needs to be created with green energy the price of which is toppling daily.

Comparing global problems involves lots of uncertainty and difficult judgment calls, but every problem is solvable if we devote resources to building a just world and not guns.

THE WORLD RUNS ON ELECTRICITY.  

SO IF WE WANT A GREEN FUTURE NON-REPAYABLE GRANTS TO CONVERT FROM FOSSIL FUELS GENERATED ELECTRIC TO ENERGY BY NON-POLLUTING RENEWABLE MATERIALS – WIND – SUN- WATER-  GEOTHERMAL – HYDROGEN. 

SUCH A MOVE WOULD CREATE MILLIONS OF JOBS AND COULD BE FUNDED BY PLACING A WORLD AID COMMISSION OF 0.05% ON ALL ACTIVITIES THAT HAVE PROFIT FOR-PROFIT SAKE AT THEIR HEART. ( See previous posts) 

                                  _______________________ 

 

We are now presented with two very different futures. 

The last generation that can stop devastating climate change. We have the knowledge and the tools – we just need politicians to lead the way.

or

We fail to meet climate mitigation goals.

For certain, either outcome will not be easy or cheap and it is happing faster than we wish to acknowledge.  

The problem is the two outcomes are profoundly interlocked with lots of uncertainty.

HOWEVER, UNLIKE THE CURRENT PANDEMIC CLIMATE CHANGE WON’T JUST DISAPPEAR IT WILL REQUIRE A NEW MEANING OF LIFE.

To recognize that we are entering a new world with opportunities and perspectives is an enormous challenge not because of climate change but because of the current inequalities existing on the Planet.

The choice we are now confronted with is one we will have to make over and over again as we transition to a more resilient, zero-carbon, just, and healthier future.

The question is who is going to pay for the transition.  

New transformative technologies may promise a radically better future but also pose catastrophic risks.

THERE IS LITTLE POINT IN REDUCING GLOBAL TEMPERATURES IF BY THE TIME IT HAS STABILIZED HALF OF THE WORLDS POPULATION HAS BEEN DESTABILIZED OR DISPLACED.

A lack of global emphasis on foreign aid, conflict, and political factors have kept poverty as a driving factor of Inequality.

To adjust to the coming new kind of social and ecological environment, how do we frame either of the above outcomes constructively.

We will have to relearn the world to do so. 

We have to become more aware of the future of our planet and our future and the legacy of the human species to start a serious battle to make up for the damages.

At the moment it is difficult to know the changes in the ecosystems that surround us not to mention the social uncertainty to come.

The fundamental economic problem is related to the issue of scarcity.

Society is mostly dominated by people wishing to consume more goods and services that are available.

One in nine people in the world go hungry each day and suffer from nutritional deficiencies as a result.

Currently, 1 in 9 people lack access to clean water across the world.

The problem is not that we aren’t producing enough food, but rather that people lack access to food. Many people do not have enough money to purchase food and cannot grow their own.

To try to work out which global problems are most pressing and make progress on foundational questions about how best to address them is impossible unless we address the fundamental problem.

To recognize that scarcity will drive almost everything. 

To recognize a sense of shared humanity. 

To recognize that approximately 600 million children are not mastering basic mathematics and literacy while at school.

To recognize that is not just climate change that treating the world but artificial intelligence and the way we are using it.

Using only the interaction of its embedded sensors, computer programming, and algorithms in the human environment and ecosystem — is becoming a reality that cannot be ignored anymore.

Because building autonomous weapons systems are one thing but using them in algorithmic warfare with other nations and against other humans is another.

They will in no uncertain terms alter the very fundamentals of security and the future of humanity and peace.

As global temperatures continue to rise, technology improves and the world economy grows, it gets easier to cause destruction on an ever-larger scale with the weaponizing of artificial intelligence both military-wise and as a social tool. 

The Weaponization Of Artificial Intelligence

The development of autonomous weapons system (AWS) is progressing rapidly, and this increase in the weaponization of artificial intelligence seems to have become a highly destabilizing development. It brings complex security challenges for not only each nation’s decision-makers but also for the future of humanity.

There are always unforeseen consequences when new technology is introduced. Those unintended outcomes of artificial intelligence will likely challenge us all.

 AI algorithms must be built to align with the overarching goals of humans.

As more and more data is collected about every single minute of every person’s day, our privacy gets compromised.

Look at what is happing in China with its social credit system, it could devolve into social oppression.

Unless you choose to live remotely and never plan to interact with the modern world, your life will be significantly impacted by artificial intelligence.

The transformative impact of artificial intelligence on our society will have far-reaching economic, legal, political, and regulatory implications that we need to be discussing and preparing for.

Sure, it can transform our lives for the better.

In fact, people have gotten used to depending on AI for almost everything and can’t imagine not having these technological advancements as part of their life. Because many processes and applications are getting automated, people are getting addicted to these kinds of inventions which can be an issue for future generations to come.

Societies will face further challenges in directing and investing in technologies that benefit humanity instead of destroying it or intruding on basic human rights of privacy and freedom of access to information.

  • In the future, predictive analytics and artificial intelligence will play an even more fundamental role in content creation that will affect our wallets, health, safety, and lives.

The mistake we are making is to think that this situation is the only future. 

That it is impossible to regulate AI because of the rate of AI change entails. 

This is not true as it is possible to Audit all AI technology and algorithms to ensure that comply with human values and to make their programs totally transparent. 

Why is the above urgent?

Because combined with climate change we are faced with and a transactional wealth of a new currency of unknowable value called personal data inequality will ravage the planet we all live in and on.    

These are not some science fiction movie scenarios the current Pandemic is revealing a much more tragic and fragile world that requires more than trust. 

The United Nations (UN) currently lists 22 “Global Issues”. 

These correspond with the most important issues of our time and are known as the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs).

Here is a few of them. 

FOOD SECURITY.

HEALTH ISSUES.

EDUCATION.

GENDER EQUALITY.

AFRICA.

ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES/ POLLUTION. 

OCEAN CONSERVATION.

WATER SCARCITY.

GLOBAL ISSUES THAT REQUIRE POLICY SOLUTIONS.

This is not intended to be an exhaustive list. Rather, it serves as an overview of some of the major issues all global citizens should be aware of.

Artificial intelligence is not on the list. 

Because the biggest challenge facing the planet needs every solution possible including technology like artificial intelligence (AI). 

But AI is not a silver bullet it can only unlock new insights, pinpointing those responsible for it.

The current environmental issues pose so many problems to industry and society that not enough action has been taken to stop turning Climate change into a product. 

My goal in this blog is not to convince people climate change is real, or that AI is destroying society it’s to get people who do believe that climate change is real and that Algorithms for profit’s sake are plundering the world to do more to affect change.

What can be done by any of us against the might of Capitalism that will have any effect? 

There is only one weapon available to us all and that is our buying power.  

 If we use our collective buying power you will then see not just governments but global corporations change their tune from profit to sustainability.     

We decide whether we want to look at the world in one way or another, always making tradeoffs.

As Harvey Sacks observed.

” If only we introduced some fantastic new communication machine the world will be transformed” 

” But the best and brightest devices must be accommodated within existing practices and assumptions in a world that has whatever organization it already has”  

All are under threat because all are happening at what scientists estimate to be about 1,000 times the normal pace and are yet to be quantified.

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

 

 

THE BEADY EYE ASKS. WHEN WILL WE EVER LEARN THAT THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS FREEDOM ? WE ARE NOT FREE AND NEVER WILL BE. .

22 Saturday May 2021

Posted by in 2021. The year for change., Algorithms., Artificial Intelligence., Big Data., Dehumanization., Digital age., DIGITAL DICTATORSHIP., Facebook, Fourth Industrial Revolution., Freedom, Human values., Humanity., Life., Modern day life., Modern day Slavery, Pandemic, Reality., Robot citizenship., Survival., Technology v Humanity, The essence of our humanity., The Future, The Internet., The Obvious., The world to day., THE WORLD YOU LIVE IN., THIS IS THE STATE OF THE WORLD.  , TRACKING TECHNOLOGY., Unanswered Questions., VALUES, We can leave a legacy worthwhile., What Needs to change in the World, Where's the Global Outrage.

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, ,

(Twelve-minute read) 

People think they’re free, but in reality, they don’t even understand freedom.

To live a free life, you must first be free.

Rousseau notes that the real mystery of freedom is how we can be in chains and still regard ourselves as free (Rousseau: 181).

And Kant’s argument provides us with a formidable justification for assuming that freedom is the necessary and indispensable condition of human existence given that man has the capacity to act upon the commands of reason: that is the categorical imperative.

If the will is subject to extraneous circumstances or influences it ceases to express itself freely in our actions. In this scheme of things, freedom can only be preserved if the moral laws that individuals endorse and accept as their guidance are such that they can accept them voluntarily (Kant: 57-58).

Just how true in the world of Algorithms, Data collection, Social Media, Search Platforms, Track and Trace, Potential Covid Passports, Smartphones with around-the-clock electronic surveillance to name just a few, remains to be seeing.     

In fact, there is no such thing as freedom. 

Is there a statement more likely to provoke consternation from people than to submit that there is no such thing as freedom?

I think not.

The modern political theory holds that “freedom” is something available to all but in the technology world and post-pandemic world, there is no such thing as freedom in the absolute sense since everyone views freedom differently.

Can you remember who you were before the world told you who you should be?

The dictionary definition of freedom is; The power or right to act, speak or think as one wants without hindrance or restraint and the power to determine action without restraint.

In other words, we have full control over the things that we choose to do.

This is simply not true.

A democratic constitution will not state that each of us is free, what it says is that we have the right to certain freedoms which the constitution is supposed to protect.  

We are simply part of a system of rules that gives us certain rights referred to as freedoms.

So what have we got? 

  • Free means that we freely make the choices we make and are thus are morally responsible for our choices. In addition, we may be held legally accountable for the choices we make.
  • Or does it mean I am stronger than you, so I will retain my freedoms at your expense by the use of force?

There is no such thing as “freedom” because it can’t be defined objectively.

Why? 

Because too many people in the world live with the constraints of poverty, poor access to health care and education, and a structural lack of opportunity.

None of us were representation or were participants in the writing of the rules of the social contract of the Internet.

In the face of such a common reality, is it reasonable to speak of free will as a tool to change lives?

At the most, we might be able to argue that in such circumstances a person is constrained but not determined.

We are free to stop eating but we are not free to stop breathing.

                                             ————–

The truth is that our rights, beliefs, and actions are determined by our biology, neurology, life context, nature, experiences, and interpretation of our experiences.

In psychological terms, free will means that we understand the history of our determinedness; how we have come to be what we are. 

However, the scope of your individual rights has one primary limit: it ends where the rights of another begin.

Apply that universally and you have the basis for all rights.

Instead of using the word “freedom” as an entity all in itself (which does not exist) should we be using rights?

Each culture defines rights differently based on the ethos of the various cultures.

“Rights” are simply arbitrary policies set up by individual societies to meet the needs of the citizens. Different people and different individuals differ on what they believe is a right.

Again, a subjective phrase depending on what is morally right.

It is my belief, and it is a belief shared by many, that these are rights that should be observed, and that the infringement upon these rights of any entity, whether it be government or individual, should be stopped.

So rights are freedoms with the caveat that it’s morally correct to collect Data without our express permission to do so in the first place. A Liberty which is taken for granted.

Take  “Liberty” an abstract word that doesn’t have an absolute definition.

The word simply means whatever it is accepted to mean even if one’s man’s desired Liberty is perceived as infringing on another man’s Liberty.

Freedom, use to be the ability to legally do or think anything that does not infringe upon the rights of another human being whether or not the action or thought is popular or under a certain prevailing viewpoint.

Freedom does happen, in the brain but one’s perception of freedom changes when one can not see the freedom one owns. So freedom these days still exists though it may seem as though it is not all that it is cracked up to be.

Not any longer. To access platforms one has to agree with an untransparent Algorithm that runs that platform.  

Is this morally wrong? 

How do you define “morally wrong” when everyone has a different moral belief?

The problem is that data collection is now the holy grail and the fewer people in a country feel they have been severely limited in their freedom, the less free the country is as a whole.

“Freedom is nothing left to lose”

The current Pandemic has and is highlighting how freedoms that are taken for granted can be reversed. 

As long as the masses do what the elite tells them to do, then they are free.

What then is freedom? 

The power to live as one wishes. – Marcus Tullius Cicero.

The moment we let go is the moment we find freedom. – Rebekah Stephenson.

Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed. – Martin Luther King.

Most people do not really want freedom, because freedom assumes responsibility and most people are afraid of that. – Sigmund Freud.

Freedom is the power to choose our own chains. – Jean Jacques Rousseau.

It’s only after we’ve lost everything that we’re free to do anything. – Tyler Durden.

Money doesn’t buy you freedom, but freedom cannot be achieved without money either. Money doesn’t work for you, you work for money – you’re a slave for money.

                                          __________________

The role of the internet and social media offered the possibility of retrieving a common space and a way for people to share and connect and to be free. 

It was a chance to build an economy that wasn’t based purely on the extraction of resources and capital.

But that’s not what happened.

Instead, digital technology is used to double down on industrialism and it has evolved in everything from the spread of terrorist propaganda to the rise of authoritarianism.

At some point, technology ceased to be a tool to help us get what we want and instead became the only thing we actually want.

Technology is everywhere, and we’re all more or less dependent upon it — so how do we escape the pitfalls?

We’re talking about algorithms here. They live with us, even if we don’t see them.

We stopped using technology and it started using us.

We’re all hostage to our technologies, or we’re simply at the mercy of this system.

We’re being steamrolled by our devices, and the result is a kind of emotional slavery turning crucial decisions about people’s lives over to machines to translate the data into action.

We now live in a consumer democracy that restricts human connection and stokes “whatever appetites guarantee the greatest profit.”

Algorithms are behind the digital services that we consult daily. They are modifying the opinion of their users based on their psychological profiles and they are increasingly being extended to all businesses.

Take a platform like Facebook, and Facebook is using data from your past to dump you into a statistical bucket. Once they know what bucket you’re in, they do everything to keep you in that bucket and to make you behave in ways that are more consistent with all the things about that bucket.

The lifeblood of data science is turning what left of our identity into  “filtered freedom”  “predictive algorithms freedom”  “governance algorithm” “risk reports algorithms, Google search algorithms,  all effectively destroying human autonomy.

With a growing dependence on automated systems that are taking humans and transparency out of the process?

Where are our digital rights? 

How to confront the use of algorithms.

George Orwell once predicted that those who control the information hold the power.

This is more true today than it ever was!

How do you win against a computer that is built to stop you?

How do you stop something that predetermines your fate? 

There must be total and full transparency with all algorithms subject to auditable accountability. 

I can’t control other people, but I can control my choices.  

One of the things we need to make really clear about algorithms — is that they are hand-tailored to a particular decision.

Kant notes that man may come to approve of various rules of social co-operation for a variety of reasons, some of them ethically more obscure than others.

Algorithms are not just doing our thinking for us they are fucking up the world.

AI algorithms are worthless without a dataset to work on.

Because of this, the usefulness of an AI algorithm is intrinsically tied to the availability of high-quality data. In this regard, AI algorithms are fundamentally different from other types of software, whose code is valuable on its own without any additional data.

This is why you see companies like IBM buying Weather Channel’s data operations not because it wanted to know if it’s going to rain, but because climate change is going to be the number-one factor driving global GDP the data will allowing it to do everything from predicting winter energy demand to forecasting crop yields.

Google, Facebook, and others hold similar advantages in their respective areas, possessing vast quantities of consumer and social-media data that can be used to train highly valuable AI tasks, from sentiment analysis for marketing to object-recognition for photos to natural language processing for user interfaces.

For AI tech companies with large treasure troves of data, the sky is the limit, and rest assured it is not to stimulate broad societal benefits but to cash in on your freedoms.

Freedom is to remember your humanity what you do with what’s been done to you.  

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