I have posted many articles concerning Algorithms that are plundering our lives and the world for profit.
Although governments and world organisations are only just waking up to the power of these algorithms giving the changes we are witnessing to society there are little, or no conscientious efforts as to how to introduce regulations to limit the damage they are doing.
With every click, power is shifting to the Google’s, the Microsofts, the Apple, the Amazon, the eBay’s, the Netflix’s, to machine learning recommendations, to Social Media rhetoric, to right-wing politics disguised as populism nationalism.
ALL CREATING A PLANET IN CRISES.
So In this post, I am hoping to create an online pressure group to lobby the relevant powers to effect change.
Life is not only trade, consumption and markets.
THE SUGGESTED NAME FOR THE GROUP IS # WHAT IF.COM
SO IF THERE IS ANYONE READING THIS THAT KNOWS HOW TO GO ABOUT SETTING UP SUCH A WEBSITE I AM ALL EARS.
WHY SET UP SUCH A GROUP.
BECAUSE:
Markets are not faceless forces.
All markets have some sort of morality.
Buyers and sellers need to consider the consequences which their actions and decisions may have on the environment and on society itself.
Today a simple one-dollar-one-vote principle dominates the world economy.
International organizations ought to impose sanctions upon countries which condone immoral practices, such as the use of child labour, environmental destruction, the selling of arms or the persecution of trade unionists.
The detrimental effects of international money markets and the crises caused by speculation can be alleviated by international legislation such as levying taxes on international currency exchange.
Free markets do not guarantee adequate conditions of life to all people. Therefore we need states and organisations that protect the weak and defends social justice.
The eradication of poverty presupposes equalization of income. This means, for example, that the strong and well to do must assume a proportionally greater burden of taxes than the weak and the poor.
We need services which citizens themselves initiate and generate, and the new potential, which they can contribute to the life of our congregations and local communities.
The ultimate responsibility for ensuring that local communities have the resources to guarantee basic security for all their members use to rests with the national governments.
Basic security must, in the future, also include healthcare and adequate, living standards, so that all people are reasonably covered regardless of their wealth and position in society.
All contributions and comments appreciated. All like clicks chucked in the bin.
If you look at the news, it looks like the entire world will be run by artificial intelligence (AI) in just a decade or two.
Humans need increasingly smarter, machine-assisted ways to navigate the ever-growing mountain of scientific knowledge and to help researchers keep pace and come up with new and better theories and ideas.
However when it comes to A.I. (not to mention blockchain or genetic- engineering) most of us including A.I. itself still have no clue what the repercussions or benefits will be in the future.
In recent years more has been written about artificial intelligence in technology and business publications than ever before: the current wave of artificial intelligence innovations has caught the attention of virtually everyone, not in the least because of artificial intelligence fears.
Knowing the power of sudden shifts in human behaviour, essentially the main cause of what we call digital disruption and the digital transformations that occur as a consequence, people’s trust, values, beliefs and most of all actions are of extreme importance.
None of us is exempt from the impact.
There is one thing for certain we are all noticing how A.I. is changing our lives.With smartphones, I pad’s humans are far more willing than most people realize to form a relationship with AI software. It is going to impact every single industry and everything that we do.
On a bigger level, areas like sustainability, climate change, environmental issues — they are becoming more at the forefront of everybody’s minds as we move more into the 21st century and think about the huge challenges we need to tackle like population increases, urbanization, and energy, climate change, the sustainability of our ecosystems. A. I. will bring along new challenges.
If not managed now it is going to increasing inequality and possibly unemployment as routine.
AI feeds on raw data and we are the willing participants. Even today’s relatively simple programs can exert a significant influence on people—for good or ill.
Data mining companies are wading through the emotional sludge of social media for profit.
As exciting as all this technology might be many questions remains.
Will we all end up in a world of total surveillance. The AI’s Pandora Box.
How is A.I. going to change our laws, our ethics?
Will A.I. improving our lives or not?
Whatever happens, these changes are currently being decided in our absence.
AS SPECIES WE HAVE POSITIONED OURSELVES OUTSIDE THE ENVIRONMENT POLLUTING THE ATMOSPHERE, OUR SEAS, OUR AIR, OUR FRESH WATER, AND WE ARE NOW IN THE PROCESS OF DOING EXACTLY THE SAME WITH A.I.
LOSSING CONTROL OF OUR OWN EVOLUTION.
Unfortunately, the commercial forces driving technology development are not always benevolent. The giant companies at the forefront of AI—across social media, search, and e-commerce—drive the value of their shares by increasing traffic, consumption, and addiction to their technology.
Technology carries the philosophies of those that create it and the nature of capital markets may be pushing us toward AI hell-bent on influencing our behaviour toward these goals. Our tendency to become emotionally attached to chatbots will and could be exploited by companies seeking a profit.
We have seen how technology like social media can be powerful in changing human beliefs and behaviour. By focusing on building a bigger advertising business—entangling politics, trivia, and half-truths—you can bring about massive changes in society.
The big global player Google, Apple, Microsoft etc philosophy is based on profit.
They have systems specifically designed to form relationships with a human and will have much more power than governments, and our out of date world organisations.
AI will influence how we think, and how we treat others.
If you can get users addicted to spending 30 hours a week with a “perfect” AI companion that doesn’t resist abuse, rather than a real, complicated human, A.I. will win.
With face recognition, iris id, blanket video surveillance, GPS tagging, every move will be watched and ultimately our lives.
In a world of surveillance, if there are no impediments applied by technologists, customers, investors or regulators rest assured we can kiss our butts goodbye. So we must begin to build rules into our systems, to make sure user behaviour moved in a positive direction.
We need to deliberately and consciously build AI that will improve the human condition—not just pursue the immediate financial gain of gazillions of addicted users. We need to consciously build systems that work for the benefit of humans and society.
In the future, having these really intelligent ways of surfacing information are going to move from ‘nice-to-haves’ to essentials. We cannot have addiction, clicks, and consumption as their primary goal.
AI is growing up and will be shaping the nature of humanity.
AI needs a mother.
Ultimately, training an AI platform — it is very much like moulding a child.
If you treat it the right way and teach it the right things, train it to know what’s right and wrong, it will inherently grow up to become a productive member of society that cares about people and the future. Just like any one of us.
We must think about AI as a tool for the augmentation of human thought and creation and make every effort not to turn the reigns of creativity or ethics over to the machines.
Why?
Because we humans seem to want to maintain the illusion that the AI truly cares about us.
Finding a way to address these issues on behalf of humanity will soon be one of the defining challenges for the coming decades.
Why?
Because trust barriers are decreasing, and as a result, dependence on AI-powered algorithms and machines is increasing.
There are no algorithms that try and explain what the A.I. ‘Thought’.
Why? Because this would defeat the power of it.
When you live in a world where your computer is not just bound to a specific device but can be anywhere you want to put it, it means computers will have to react to humans much more intelligently than they do now.
As humans we value our being human. And one of the ‘holy grails’, as it has been cherished for ages, is our “intelligence”.
So, the question remains who defines these human values and how you prove alignment with such a human and personal/cultural given.
It might be that human values will forever remain somewhat mysterious. But to the extent that our values are revealed in our behaviour, you would hope to be able to prove that the machine will be able to “get” most of it.
We emphasize it as a way to distinguish ourselves from other beings. We fear superintelligence as we see it as a risk to what we believe sets us apart. We fear it because we don’t know what it will or might be and become.
At the same time, however, while we try to protect what many believe defines our being human for the future, we risk not understanding the benefits and challenges of what is today the fourth industrial revolution.
If we look at the bigger picture of AI for good, then it connects us with more purpose and meaning.
Whether it concerns the use of artificial intelligence, the use of personal data or anything else for that matter A.I. most serve us all equally. Because in today’s world, it’s not a man vs. machine, it’s a man with a machine vs. man without.
THERE IS NO POINT TO TECHNOLOGIES THAT ENRICH THE FEW.
From current A.I. debates, it’s clear that people are acting today, not in the future, debating about values and risks. Let these debates and the rich diversity of human values remain human.
Unfortunately, human values are fickle at the best of times, and usually only become a value after the event.
It appears that the only thing we have in common in the world is our brains, lose them to A.I. and if this happens we might as well go back to the Stone Age.
One final point:
It seems that the developed world politics is shifting to identity politics how comical this is when one considers that we are selling not just our ID to A.I. but the identity of future generations.
All human comments appreciated. All like clicks chucked in the bin.
You don’t need me to tell you that we are living through an era of tremendous transition and disruption and whether or not we are comfortable with AI may already be moot:
HOWEVER, THE THREE BIGGEST PROBLEMS FACING THE WORLD CLIMATE CHANGE, ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE IN THE FORM OF PROFIT SEEKING ALGORITHMS, AND NUCLEAR WAR REMAIN VIRTUALLY IGNORED DUE TO OUR STUPIDITY.
NONE OF THESE PROBLEMS CAN BE SOLVED BY ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE OR ON A NATION BY NATION APPROACH.
THEY ARE GLOBAL AND NEED GLOBAL COOPERATION TO BE SOLVED.
IT MAY BE HARD TO BUY INTO THESE PROBLEMS AFTER HAVING GROWING UP IN THE ERA OF INDUSTRY BUT UNFORTUNATELY GOVERNMENTS, WORLD INSTITUTIONS, AND BUSINESS AND US WILL FIND OURSELVES AT THE HELM OF THE PAST IF WE PERSIST WITH THE BELIEF THAT ECONOMIES, CONSUMPTION, AND PROFIT IS THE HOLY GRAIL OF OUR EXISTENCE.
Unfortunately, human stupidity is perhaps the most powerful force humanity has at its disposal to combat the direction we are going to- Extinction.
WHEN IT COMES TO IDENTIFYING ITS EFFECTS THERE IS NO PROBLEM FINDING EXAMPLES IN THE PAST.
WE ARE NOW TRANSFERRING STUPITY INTO THE FUTURE IN THE FORM OF ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE THAT NO ONE UNDERSTANDS OR WILL BE ABLE TO UNDERSTAND.
Remembering that there are no defenses against stupidity. The more pertinent question now is whether we can and ought to build trust in systems that can make decisions beyond human oversight that may have irreversible consequences.
In the internet era, technology is changing at an alarming rate. We, humans, are becoming increasingly reliant on the World Wide Web. This is leading to a decrease in the retention capacity of the human brain and an overall downfall in the intelligence quotient of Homo sapiens.
The only way a society can avoid being crushed by the burden of its idiots is if the non-stupid work even harder to offset the losses of their stupid brethren.
If we take a critical look at the three global problems starting with the current global position on climate change:
Reduce carbon emissions on a national promises bases – stupid.
The bottom line is, take action to cool your planet or the planet will take action and cool your life – forever.
The development of AI:
Turn a blind eye by continuing to feed human existence data into algorithms for profit and power thus concentrating both into the hands of a few Clouds- stupid.
Nuclear Power:
Elect Facebook and Twitter leaders, while Social media feeds us personal recommendations and false News- stupid.
IS IT TIME TO GET OUR HEAD OUT OF THE SAND AND DEMAND SOME GLOBAL INTELLIGENCE TO TACKLE THE GLOBAL PROBLEMS.
RATHER THAN TRADE WARS, PROMISES, NATIONAL ASPIRATIONS, PROFIT FOR PROFIT SAKE, WARS, INEQUALITY, WE COULD LOOK AFTER EACH OTHER AND THE EARTH WE ALL LIVE ON BY ENSURING THE AI SERVES US ALL EQUALLY NOT THE FEW.
All human comments appreciated. All like clicks chucked in the bin.
BUT VERY FEW OF US KNOW WHAT IT IS WHERE IT IS OR WHAT WE ARE DOING ON IT OR TO IT.
IT IS 6.378KM IN RADIUS, 6.6 SEXTILLION TONS IN WEIGHT, WITH A SURFACE AREA OF 197 MILLION SQ MILES MADE UP OF 71% WATER, 29% LAND OF WHICH 5% IS LIVABLE ON.
IT IS 4.54 billion years old, plus or minus 1%.
We humans speaking 7, O97 LANGUAGES of which 23 accounts for half the world’s population has been on it for a mere 0.004% of the Earth’s history.
IT HAS 15,000 BIRTHS PER HOUR. 360,000 PER DAY, 132 MILLION PER YEAR WITH 56 MILLION DEATH PER YEAR.
IT HAS 10.7 percent LIVING IN EXTREME POVERTY WITH 68.5 MILLION DISPLACE PEOPLE, OF WHICH 25.4 million are refugees, over half of whom are under the age of 18 with 1% OF RICH PEOPLE owning half the world’s wealth.
IT IS THE 5TH LARGEST PLANET IN OUR SOLAR SYSTEM WITH ABOUT 10 BILLION WITH TONS OF CONCRETE POURED ON IT EVERY YEAR.
3% OF THE WORLD IS COVERED IN URBAN AREAS WITH 33 BILLION METERS OF ROADS.
After water concrete is the single most widely used material in the world – and it has a carbon footprint to match.
As you read this, there are more than 40 conflicts unfolding in countries around the world. Yet these are just the most visible look beyond them and there are plenty more.
Total world military expenditure rose to $1739 billion in 2017.
We can blame terrorism and the fear it inspires despite the statistically unimportant number of casualties it inflicts, or the contemporary media and the breathless cycle of “breaking news”, but the truth remains that the wars that seem to inspire the fanatics or have produced so many headlines in recent years prompt deep anxiety.
And with climate change and profit-seeking algorithms things are only going to get worse.
Surely the needs of humanity should always come first. While there are people on Earth who need help, they should be helped, rather than seeing money spent on sending robots onto other planets. Humanity is the number one priority; keeping the human race alive is a necessity.
But we cannot live without the other species we share the earth with. Okay, guess quickly: how many species do you think we share the earth with.
A trillion.
While that may (or may not) be true, the next sentence is spuriously precise: “Every hour three species disappear. Every day up to 150 species are lost.”
Even putting aside the apparent mathematical error in that claim (on the face of it, if three species are disappearing every hour, 72 would be lost every day) there is an obvious problem in generating any such number. No-one knows how many species exist. And if we don’t know a species exists, we won’t miss it when it’s gone.
BP claimed the earth has enough oil left for about 53 more years at current production levels
So far Nasa has spent trillions on trying to get off it.
Science may well give us good things.
We all know Velcro came from NASA.
But why bother spending all this money exploring space and finding out there was water on Mars at some point in the last few thousand years (we have water in Earth) when these same great minds could be applied to finding better ways to power humanity’s insatiable desire for energy, to feeding the starving millions around the globe, and generally making life down here better before looking up into the heavens.
It seems the authoritative powers have their heads way, way up in the clouds.
Earth first:
14 billion pounds (6B Kg.) of garbage are dumped into the ocean every year. Most of it is plastic. Americans make up 5% of the world’s population, and yet, produce 30% of the world’s waste and use 25% of the world’s resources.
More than 95 percent of the world’s population is breathing polluted, unsafe air.
THIS IS THE EARTH YOU NOW LIVE ON SURROUNDED BY JUNK.
NOT THE EARTH ON YOUR SMARTPHONE NOR THE ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENT EARTH.
IF YOU WANT TO GROW UP ON THIS BEAUTIFUL PLANET LET YOUR VOICE BE HEARD.
All human comments appreciated. All like clicks chucked in the bin.
At the moment with AI and its algorithms, the forces of change driven by machines that use them are unpredictable.
Previous industrial revolutions changed human labor with machinery this time it’s our mental functions that are being replaced.
Our ability to make predictions and make decisions are more and more being controlled by our general acceptance of allowing our living data to be analyzed by computers.
AS A RESULT, IT IS PLAIN TO SEE THAT CAPITALISM IS MAKING A TRANSITION TO AN ECONOMY DRIVEN BY SMART MACHINES BASED ON ALGORITHMS THAT ARE BASES ON BIG DATA.
This process owned by monopolies on internet platforms is rampant and unregulated.
When it should be subject to careful oversight by a new world governing body that ensures transparency, responsibility, with the right framework to make decisions as to whether all our common values are being protected.
Should we be concerned?
Yes, we should be.
We are already living in an economic system that is not working for people with the gaps of inequality becoming wider and wider. As each and every day goes by with our politicians turning a blind eye to the long-term social effects.
We are seeing the rise of short-term populist politicians who are in effect ( and more than likely than not in denial) representing to days social media’s bad side which is run on monopoly platforms.
The overriding aim of these present-day monopolies is to make a profit.
Therefore, theoretically, a capitalist free-market economy may not be ideal for the future AI and robot world, for capitalism is primarily driven by human greed.
Don’t expect these tech overlords who invent and own robots or AI to share the benefits with the rest of us.
Governments cannot afford to let selfish profit-seeking big corporations rule the roost.
If we are not vigilant the one percent of the world upper class- those in control of the robots will build empires that will govern and dictate the AI and robot economy.
For the present, there is little concern that we are in danger of becoming technological slaves, but the concept of self is almost lost.
Without technology and our mobile phones, in particular, we feel naked, stripped and alone. Vacations now include a laptop. What’s a trip without photos that we immediately upload to Facebook and Instagram? It’s like it didn’t happen, at least if we don’t share them in real-time.
Human- level Ai might well be centuries away but it is no wonder that there have been voices calling for taxes on AI and robots, so as to use the money collected to make society more egalitarian.
However, this is not the ultimate solution, because big sleazy corporations can always find ways to avoid paying tax. Therefore, we may need a fundamental change in our economic structure and society.
If the government is going to have to look after the millions of idle human workers deprived of any means to support themselves and their families after they are replaced by AI and robots.
Perhaps a sort of planned economy is one of the answers?
IT’S TIME TO WAKE UP.
A business must have a conscience as well as a counting algorithm.
All human comments appreciated. All like clicks chucked in the bin.
We are just beginning to realize that our societies are founded on a very limited definition of power.
Google it and you will see where the real power is.
Data:
As software devours the world (we are all producing trillions of it) – to be exploited by Algorithms, that are aligning us all in one direction of living, without awareness or the ability to truly see the world around us.
There is no argument that Artificial Intelligence is the way forward but what is the point if we are not citizens anymore.
We’re consumers AND WILL REMAIN SO FOR THE FORESEEABLE FUTURE.
AI for profit is infiltrating every aspect of our lives and is going to expand the world inequality beyond wars.
If we want to change the direction of AI to serves us all we have to change the way corporations view us and the world.
And we all know that this is impossible.
There is no point in hoping that our governments are going to introduce regulations that are going to stick, as AI has passed the threshold of any transparency.
The warnings surrounding the AI revolutions are plenty.
The voiced by Elon Musk: ( Do you Trust this Computer) The not so late Prof Stephen Hawking warns us, Westworld: shows us.
Unfortunately, there is no money to be made ensuring that AI servers us rather than the owners of the algorithms. So we end up working on symptoms all the time, ignoring the causes till its too late.
This too late scenario is not an option with AI for profit that’s is now developing its own rules as to who gets what at what price, with little or no obligations for any of this technology to contribute to the core values of life.
AI might stabilize our environment, allow us to share more equally in the opportunities of life without damaging the planet, but this is pie in the sky.
The need for a balance needed for this technology which brings such benefits in terms of health, communication, education, safety, business, is now paramount.
In this, I am all right Jack world such an achievement would be surely something miraculous.
The reality is while we are all distracted, bombarded with false news no one has a crystal ball to see the future, but we do have the cultural history to know what happens when power is abused.
What will artificial intelligence do to us?
AI deals with ends: It establishes its own objects. In essence, AI represents thoughtless.
AI makes its own decisions about who and where to target.
We are in danger of losing the essence of human cognition. U Tube is full of disinformation rhetoric, social media full of weird views.
With social media playing such a big part in our lives, could we be sacrificing our mental health and well-being as well as our time? In some ways, the AI explosion represents the latest challenge for transparency.
What does the evidence actually suggest?
Conclusive findings are limited.
People use social media to vent about everything from customer service to politics, but the downside to this is that our feeds often resemble an endless stream of stress.
It won’t be long before marketers will be buying data science products that autonomously construct audience segments and our world organizations such as Governments will not be able to cope.
At the moment most of AI is narrow, meaning it is specifically programmed to accomplish one task or two, however it is well on the way to developing what is called general AI that will assist us with practically everything we do.
It must be remembered that machines will not learn the same way as humans do. They will think in an abstract way whether they are managing multiple goals simultaneously or not.
An example is Face recognition.
Before all of this happens:
Surely we as the creators of AI should be passing laws that require all AI programs to be vetted against human values. That a copy of the original program should be held in a virtual cloud strongroom available to one and all. (See previous Posts)
Until we have a viable path forward.
There are now billions of people walking around with supercomputers in their pockets, and they are all connected to each other by the internet. Unless we use this power to replace Capitalism with a form of Direct democracy that really recognize that we are interconnected, that our well being is inextricable from that of our ecosystems, profit-seeking Algorithms and there like will continue to rape our Planet.
In Jason Silva latest video (below) he conveniently ignores in his presentation the power of the planet to move not just continents but all of us.
When he advocates that AI, Biology, and Nanotechnology will combine to make nature with technology one and the same to become the motherboard of technology he ignores nature.
Nature is the physical world collectively, plants, animals, landscapes, oceans, air, and all other features and forces that are not created by man.
It won’t be the coming together of AI,Biology, Nanotechnology, nor big data, or patterns, that is going to tax the human imagination, rather the rewards of climate change that is well on the way to changing the planet we all live on.
All human comments and suggestions appreciated. All like clicks chucked in the bin.
Modern day technology with its Artificial Intelligence does not point in any single direction. However, the gap between words and deeds is growing.
In times such as ours where there is a slow disengagement of truth, we need to be reminded that our central calling, our main task on the planet, is survival, which with the ever-growing use of AI gives rise to a host of new ethical problems and dilemmas.
With most of us chocking on non-truths, new technologies, and AI, the earth and our living conditions on the planet are worsening faster than ever.
Both AI and technology are begging for attention in order to be harnessed to our common values rather than profit for profit sake.
This is a debate that is only just beginning.
Since time memorial man does not seem to be able to ” help ” his selfishness, the desire to stand out.
They say that we are stuck with our character, we can’t evolve beyond it or without it.
So let’s not ask what is wrong with modern-day society, but ask where it is leading us?
It seems to me that we are living in a period where the overproduction of truth and non-truth cannot be consumed.
We are tranquilized with trivial.
We can’t control our own actions and there is no control over the actions of others.
So are we going to end up living with an inner sense of chaos that robot will not have?
At the moment we are split in two we have the awareness of our splendid uniqueness, but yet we end up feeding worms.
However, if the fear of death is removed by Technology we will lose the ability of our self- preservation.
( Anxiety is something we all share, now more than ever – normality is a neurosis.)
Then it will become impossible for us to have the ability to organize our own perceptions and our relationships to the world.
If we remove the idea of death, we remove what it means to live.
So is technology and AI going to create a greater social- historical truth, by omitting religious and spiritual ideas for our lives?
To do so it must replace what in our conscious life is called fear.
Our present-day fears are fashioned out of the ways in which we perceive the world. So we continue to design societies of symbolic action systems with structures of statuses ( Likes, Hits, Followers, Tweets, Posts, ) and roles, customs, and rules for behavior designed to service vehicles for earthly heroism. It doesn’t seem to matter whether the cultural hero-system if frankly, magical, religious, primitive or secular, scientific, technological driven or not.
The question is how conscious are we of what we are doing to earn our feeling of heroism?
Is there a need to create a larger theoretical structure to society?
Or is it too late as there is no harmony that unites different positions so that the sterile and ignorant polemics can be abated.
The crises of modern society are precise that the youth no longer feel heroic in the plan for action that their culture has set up.
We have been unable to this day to give an overall sense of heroism to any present-day capitalist industrial society mainly because of inequality.
As profit for profit sake dons the cloak of AI it is disguising the way society sets up its hero system with virtual reality and false promises.
Indeed it will not be far into the future when Robots will invent reasons for anxiety even where there is none to allow humans to exist.
The fear of death is a biological and evolutionary problem. It is an expression of the instinct of self-preservation, which functions as a constant drive to maintain life and to master the dangers that threaten life.
If AI removes the fear of death what will our mental functions be- will it be just living in the moment.
All historical religious address themselves to how to bear the end of life.
If we remove death, our biology and evolution must transfer into Trans-humans.
Will we really be able to call such hypothetical trans-humans “human” at all?
We must be more realistic about our situation in nature.
(Just look at Donal Trump who has more trouble with his lies than others.)
If we don’t do so we are we all going to end up as children living in others dependence – or on Artificial Intelligence.
All human comments appreciated. All like clicks chucked in the bin.
If we ever wanted more evidence that we are now on the cusp of an event that is going to have a disastrous effect on society we only have to look at what is happening in the world at the moment.
Every advance in technology is moving us further and further from our attachment to nature.
Years of Capitalism for profit has produced – Pollution/Waste/ Excessive production/ Wars/ Climate change and technology in the form of AI. All asking the question is Capitalism obsolete?
It is not working for the vast majority of humanity.
Now faced with the arrival of Artificial intelligence, which if not regulated will control market forces, with the super-rich oligopoly of data billionaires reaping the wealth of automation and profit-seeking algorithms to the detriment of us all.
The more AI advances into a general purpose technology that permeates every aspect of life the less sense it makes to allow it to remain in the private hands rather than of the many.
Indeed there is already a case for nationalizing AI.
Its very pervasiveness is invading not just democracy but our private and social lives. Causing wars and exploitation of not just us but our economies – High-Frequency Trading, Sovereign Wealth funds, Currency trading, Trade Agreements, down to what toilet paper you wipe your arse with.
Its inability to spread the wealth, to tackle inequality and poverty not to mention its exploitation of privacy and democracy have recently seen -FaceBook.
No company should be allowed to possess an exclusive cutting edge technology or core AI platform. Indeed with Deep learning, we are now beginning to see programmers feeding computers with learning algorithms that expose them to terabytes of data resulting in software writing software.
THERE IS NO DISPUTING THAT THE WORLD IS GOING TO NEED THE POWER OF AI TO RESOLVE FORTHCOMING PROBLEMS.
But it must serve society as a whole instead of the private capitalist operating in their own self- centered interests.
It must be brought under social control by Regulation with the creation of a virtual world strongroom, where a copy of all original AI algorithms, software programs are required by law to be lodged to be held and vetted re there compliance with our core values.
As I said in a previous post;
We need to create a class of ‘algorithmic auditors’ — trusted representatives of the public who can peer into the code to see what kinds of implicit political and ethical judgments are buried there and report their findings back to us.
This is a good idea, though it poses practical problems about how companies
can retain the commercial edge provided by their computerized secret sauce if
they have to open up their algorithms to quasi-official scrutiny.
It is very unlikely that this will happen. We are however in danger of
App exploitation not only for profit but when there is no immediate cash peril –
culture, education, and crime.
We are well on the road to becoming slaves to the algorithms with computers
taking more than some tough choices out of our hands if we let them.
God forbid that some form of AI manages to become self-aware.
Such automated augury might be considered relatively harmless if its use is
confined to figuring out what products we might like to buy. But it is not going
to stop there.
Amazon Echo machine-learning services are both a powerful revenue generator that is going to remove us from any commitment to society or nature that sustains us all.
A low-cost, ubiquitous computer with all its brains in the cloud that you could interact with over voice—you speak to it, it speaks to you.
As companies build their vital machine-learning tools inside AWS, the likelihood that they will move to competing for cloud operations becomes ridiculously remote.
All technology programmers whether they are Algorithms for profit or otherwise should under Law be required to submit a verified copy of the program to be held in a virtual world strongroom, accessible to all ensuring transparency and accountability.
All human comments appreciated. All like clicks chucked in the bin.
Perception is at the heart of this question and of course, there are hundreds of inventions that could and should be mentioned if we had the time and space.
We began the 20th century with the infancy of airplanes, automobiles, and radio. We end the 20th century with spaceships, computers, smartphones, AI and the wireless Internet all being technologies we now take for granted.
However, the world is steeped in poverty with precious little in the way of humanitarian advancement.
HERE IN NO PARTICULAR ORDER IS MY LIST AND WHY.
The credit card:
Part of the fabric of modern day life. Credit no longer the prerogative of the elite. The ultimate symbol of the triumphant Anglo-American consumer culture. The modern manifestation of money. Allowed modern Banks to transcend national boundaries. Guarantees payment of debts.
Microchip: Fiber Optics: Microprocessor: Windows
Created the Credit Card. The Internet and the World Wide Web.
Artificial Fertilizers:
Enabled the further expansion of agriculture and pollution.
Internal combustion engine:
The why is obvious:
The pneumatic tire:
Did more for the engine.
The condom/ Birth pill.
The why is obvious.
Nuclear Power:
Nuclear power has long provoked ardent policy fights, historically centered on the perceived safety or danger of splitting atoms to keep consumers’ refrigerators running.
Today, it’s not local or environmental opposition but economics that’s crippling nuclear power.
It may be very difficult to meet international carbon-cutting goals without the widespread addition of nuclear plants.
This still leaves the problem of waste, and a choice between nuclear waste—deadly but the concentrated poison that lasts thousands of years—and fossil-fuel waste—invisible, diffuse carbon pollution that in sufficient amounts will transform the Earth for thousands of years.
While nuclear waste is nasty stuff, so are the conventional pollutants of fossil-fuel burning. Nuclear power avoids air emissions of over one million tons of sulfur dioxide and 650,000 tons of nitrogen oxides each year, as well as significant particulate emissions.
Since CO2 emissions persist for many years in the atmosphere emissions cuts made today are worth more than the same cuts made down the road.
The best invention may be Toyota’s Hybrid.
AK-47 Kalashnikov: M16:
The twenty century can be characterized by mass warfare and mass killing- two world wars, Stalin’s purges, the Holocaust, Hiroshima, Cambodia’s killings fields, Rwanda the list goes on.
No firearm of any kind has killed more people.
It is the weapon of choice for terrorists, rebels with 75 million in circulation around the world accounting for 20% of the entire global stock of firearms. Every year, small arms kill between 20,000 and 100,000 people in the world’s conflicts. AK-47s Kalashnikov accounts for a high proportion – and quite possibly the majority – of this human toll. In the 68 years since the first prototype was made, the AK-47 has probably dealt death to millions.
This is the decade of AI (run by the Algorithm) I PAD, Youtube, Twitter, Facebook. Social Media. 3d Printing.
Will there use glorify peace? Not on the evidence so far.
Feel free to add yours and why.
All human comments appreciated. All like clicks chucked in the bin.
In a world where nearly 20 people are forcibly displaced every minute by violence, war and persecution ARE WE KIDDING OURSELVES TO THINK THAT TECHNOLOGY WILL SOLVE THE WORLD PROBLEMS.
One in every 113 people on the planet is now a refugee AND THAT IS WITHOUT CLIMATE CHANGE THAT IS GOING TO BE THE BIGGEST MOTIVE TO BECOME ONE.
At the moment ( According to the UN Refugee Agency, UNHCR) it might be true to say that out of the 65.6 million 40.3 million – are people displaced within their own country.
Here are below are four UNHCR videos that should be shown on World TV, across Social Media, in every school to every man woman and child.
With smartphones, I pad’s humans are far more willing than most people realize to form a relationship with AI software. It is going to impact every single industry and everything that we do.
