Category Archives: Emotions.

THE BEADY SAY’S: WILL A ROBOT WITH EMOTIONS SPELL THE END OF HUMANITY.

17 Wednesday Jul 2019

Posted by in 2019: The Year of Disconnection., Artificial Intelligence., Communication., Dehumanization., Democracy, Emotions., Evolution, Facebook, Fourth Industrial Revolution., HUMAN INTELLIGENCE, Humanity., Inequality, Life., Modern Day Communication., Modern Day Democracy., Modern day life., Our Common Values., Politics., Populism., Reality., Robot citizenship., Social Media, Technology, The common good., The essence of our humanity., The Future, The Obvious., The state of the World., The world to day., Unanswered Questions., WHAT IS TRUTH, What Needs to change in the World, Where's the Global Outrage.

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(Eighteen-minute read)

 

An absurd thought you might say but it is the holy grail of AI to manipulate your feelings our emotions.

However, the uses of emotionally AI are nearly endless.

The number one question is going to be how do we stop being manipulated by those who control the data.

Another words democracy itself has been and is becoming more with Social media an emotional puppet show run by companies such as Facebook who is undoubtedly one of the kings of social networking.

It is who and how data is controlled that determines the outcomes of elections and referendums as we have seen with Brexit and the election of Donal Trump and now the coming of G5 we going have:

Autonomous Driving.

Remote Robotic Surgery.

Smart(er) Factories.

Immersive Gaming and Augmented Reality.

Supply Chain Management.

Digital Transformation in the Experience Economy.

It will “offer users no less than the perception of infinite capacity.

                                                  –

But how can we find a balance between accelerating technological progress

and governments’ responsibility to improve the economic conditions and raise

the level of wellbeing for their citizens?

There isn’t a single solution.

Why?

Because Democracy is based on feelings. During an election, you are not being asked to vote rather how do you feel.

Currently, many people cannot imagine their life without social networks, which in less than a decade have become an indispensable resource in our daily lives who have served multiple purposes throughout its short life and replaced other media.

With 2.38 billion monthly active users as of the first quarter of 2019, Facebook is the biggest social network worldwide. It is at a size where it’s worth really taking a careful look at what are all the things that it can do to make social media the most positive force for good possible.

But like climate change, we sit back and watch the development of technologies that have little or no regulation both of which are reshaping the world we live in and the Earth exponentially.

Perhaps sometime in the next few decades, we’ll start developing technologies that improve human intelligence. We’ll hack the brain, or interface the brain to computers, or finally crack the problem of General Artificial Intelligence.

Should we be worried about technology’s advance and our demise?

Will Technology Save Us Or Enslave Us?

Intelligence is the source of technology.

The purest case of an intelligence explosion would be a General Artificial Intelligence rewriting its own source code.

That prospect would certainly change our viewpoints on what is life.

The potential impact on our world is enormous.

Both climate change and GAI  are heading us all to a  critical point of all human history.

Right now, almost no one is paying serious attention to either.

So what might a General Artificial Intelligence do with nanotechnology?

Feed the hungry?

Heal the sick?

Help us become smarter?

Remove our emotions so we have no sense of guilt?

Instantly wipe out the human species?

Probably it depends on the specific makeup of the AI.

See, human beings all have the same cognitive architecture. We all have a prefrontal cortex and limbic system and so on. If you imagine a space of all possible minds, then all human beings are packed into one small dot in mind design space. And then Artificial Intelligence is literally everything else. “AI” just means “a mind that does not work like we do.

So you can’t ask “What will an AI do?” as if all AIs formed a natural kind.

There is more than one possible AI.

Back to the question of whether a robot could or should have emotions.

From an intellectual point of view, this may not be as important to a robot as being able to interrupt human emotion and also display it back while interacting with people.

The most efficient way to answer the question would be to start by making itself smarter: Acquiring more computer resources could probably be most easily accomplished by hacking every computer connected to the internet.

Once that’s done, it could use the resulting enormous amount of computing power to calculate the most optimal way of rewriting itself for more intelligence.

Using this newfound intelligence and raw brute force, it may turn to develop new and more efficient computer chips and proceeding to turn the surface of the earth and nearby matter into computer innards.

We would not escape as we are made from perfectly usable carbon atoms, just waiting to be utilized as computronium – re-purposing our atoms.

It would then be simply a matter of the robot fooling a human, an easy task into thinking it had emotions.

The sort of emotion a robot might actually be programmed would be the same as its intelligence that being artificial.

If it turns out to be possible to create an AGI, it will presumably be given a task of some sort.

Here are a few.

  1. Psychotherapy software that utilizes an emotional connection to dispense advice.
  2. Call answering software that detects caller emotions and responds accordingly.
  3. To foresee the consequences of actions.
  4. Robots will not be susceptible to the effects of fear, adrenaline or shock and could potentially make strategic, reasoned decisions much faster than a human soldier.
  5. Robots would not be restrained by human emotions and the capacity for compassion.

So could a robot acquire Adrenaline along with emotions?

Emotions appear to be integrated as part of a biological body and a biological brain but our inability to see beyond biological programming does not allow us to answer this question.

There is no doubt that as AI technology grows more sophisticated, the potential for implementing it in weaponry is all but guaranteed – Drones that get an Adrenaline kick.

Adrenaline can be used in both technical and nontechnical contexts.

It is commonly used in describing the physiological symptoms (such as increased heart rate and respiration) that occur as part of the body’s fight-or-flight response to stress.

In a robot, it would not be just an act in the same vein. A thinking person feels empathy for something that looks alive and has complex behaviours, even if it doesn’t have life in a biological sense.

In the end, there is absolutely no reason why any sane human would ever want them to have characteristics but technophobic response actually feels rational.

Like a robot dealing with sick people should be able to mimic some emotions like compassion and carefulness….. They testify to the fact that emotions and our biological body operate together.

While a consensus is yet to be reached over the scope and scale of the effect we should expect from mobile connectivity on poverty-reduction and inequality some argue that it might be the best hope we have.

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

 

 

 

 

 

 

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THE BEADY EYE ASKS: WHAT IS HAPPINESS.

31 Thursday Aug 2017

Posted by in Artificial Intelligence., Capitalism, Emotions., Energy, Google it., Happiness., Humanity., Life., Our Common Values., Technology, The Obvious., The world to day., Unanswered Questions.

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( A follow on read: Twelve minutes from the post – WHAT IS THE CONCEPT OF NOW.)

While writing:( what is the concept of now) my daughter suggested I write a happy post. This post is therefore dedicated to her continuing search for happiness.

What is happiness?  How do we find the key to happiness?

Is happiness the sole purpose of life or is it just good health with a bad memory.

To day this is the default view. Skepticism about the afterlife drives humankind to seek not only immortality but also earthly happiness.

Who would like to live for ever in eternal misery?

What stands between us and an answer to this deceptively complex questions is the problem of subjectivity –happiness means different things to different people.

To behaviorist, happiness is a cocktail of emotions we experience when we do something good or positive. To neurologists, happiness is the experience of a flood of hormones released in the brain as a reward for behavior that prolongs survival. According to the tenets of several major religions, happiness indicates the presence of God.

This question has no straightforward answer, because the meaning of the question itself is unclear. What exactly is being asked? Perhaps you want to know what the word ‘happiness’ means. In that case your inquiry is linguistic.

Chances are you had something more interesting in mind: perhaps you want to know about the thing, happiness, itself. Is it pleasure, a life of prosperity, something else? Yet we can’t answer that question until we have some notion of what we mean by the word.Image associée

Is there anything more to being happy than just thinking you’re happy?

Do we have the power to choose to be happy or unhappy?

Are all kinds of happiness created equal?

Happiness is not a single all-encompassing concept it is a complex the notion.

A state of mind. What is this state of mind we call happiness? Typical answers to this question include life satisfaction, pleasure, or a positive emotional condition.

A life that goes well for the person leading it. Perhaps you are a high-achieving intellectual who thinks that only ignoramuses can be happy. On this sort of view, happy people are to be pitied, not envied.

We are inclined to think that pleasure is the key to happiness.

Is it purpose, or goal?

Has a goal that is an end-in-itself, nothing that he does is actually worth doing.

For most people, happiness is a central aspect of well-being, since most people very much desire to be happy. Even a slave might come to internalize the values of his oppressors and be happy, and this strikes most as an unenviable life indeed.

Is happiness overrated?

How if at all should one pursue happiness as part of a good life?

Is it possible to objectify and even quantify so subjective and elusive a quality as happiness?  The individual pursuit of happiness may be subject to non-moral norms as well, prudence being the most obvious among them.

The pursuit of happiness is self-defeating especially when it is associated with pleasure. The virtue of compassion or kindness, giving not receiving, produce happiness.    

Philosophical “theories of happiness” can be about either of at least two different things: well-being, or a state of mind. To be happy, it seems, is just to be in a certain sort of psychological state or condition.

Is it a psychological state (for example, feeling overall more pleasure than pain) and happiness as a positive evaluation of your life, even if it has involved more pain than pleasure.

Above all, there is the fundamental question: In which sense, if any, is happiness a proper goal of a human life?

Wealth, beauty, and pleasure, for example, have little effect on happiness.

What is needed to achieve genuine happiness?

Answer me this:  Would you choose to attach ourselves to a device that would produce a constant state of intense pleasure, even if we never achieved anything in our lives other than experiencing this pleasure. We all need to answer this question for ourselves.

Morality itself is a worthy goal of human existence. Our good or bad fortune can play a part in determining our happiness; for example, happiness can be affected by factors as our material circumstances, our place in society, and even our looks, whether we are married or not. In the long run marriage is not a major source of either happiness or unhappiness.

When asked Aristotle said” that the supreme good is happiness.”

And of this nature happiness is mostly thought to be, for this we choose always for its own sake, and never with a view to anything further: whereas honour, pleasure, intellect, in fact every excellence we choose for their own sakes, it is true, but we choose them also with a view to happiness, conceiving that through their instrumentality we shall be happy: but no man chooses happiness with a view to them, nor in fact with a view to any other thing whatsoever.

But what is happiness?

For Aristotle, it is by understanding the distinctive function of a thing that one can understand its essence.

Whereas human beings need nourishment like plants and have sentience like animals, their distinctive function, says Aristotle, is their unique capacity to reason. Thus, our supreme good, or happiness, is to lead a life that enables us to use and develop our reason, and that is in accordance with reason. Unlike amusement or pleasure, which can also be enjoyed by animals, happiness is not a state but an activity. And like virtue or goodness, it is profound and enduring.

By living our life to the full according to our essential nature as rational beings, we are bound to become happy regardless.

For this reason, happiness is more a question of behavior and of habit—of virtue—than of luck; a person who cultivates such behaviors and habits is able to bear his misfortunes with balance and perspective, and thus can never be said to be truly unhappy.

Some goals are subordinate to other goals, which are themselves subordinate to yet other goals, but happiness needs sadness. Without sadness there can be no happy moments unlike pleasure which can be manufactured by algorithms.

Being happy doesn’t come easy with the stress of modern life.  Take for instance the average American who uses sixty times more energy than the average stone age hunter-gatherer. Is he sixty times happier?

It took just a piece of bread to make a starving medieval peasant joyful.

It appears that even with all our unprecedented accomplishments even if we provided free food, ensured world peace, provided free medical care, gave everyone a thousand bitcoins the Capitalism system ensures that the ceiling of happiness remains out of reach.

Our exceptions are driven by our biochemistry level rather than our economic, social or political situation. Pleasure v pain. Unpleasant bodily sensations.

PEOPLE WILL ALWAYS DISAPPOINT TO REMAIN HAPPY YOU MUST LEARN HOW TO FORGIVE, FORGET, “ Comparison is the thief of joy.”

Self-actualization is Happiness. Joy goes in and out of vogue. We can deceive ourselves into thinking we’re happy when we’re not and we can be happy without realizing it.

Happy.

It’s pretty hard to tell what does bring happiness; poverty and wealth have both failed.

Résultat de recherche d'images pour "pictures of a pig in shit"

I would be as happy as a pig in shit if I could live in THE CONCEPT OF NOW.

All comments happily appreciated all like clicks chucked in the bin.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

THE BEADY EYE SAYS: We need to be genuinely intelligent about how humankind anticipates artificial intelligence.

19 Thursday Jan 2017

Posted by in Artificial Intelligence., Big Data., Capitalism, Emotions., Humanity., Technology, The Future, The world to day., Unanswered Questions., What Needs to change in the World, Where's the Global Outrage.

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( Seven Minute read )

Who programs the programmers?

Soon enough, it might not be people behind the development of advanced machines learning and artificial intelligence but other AI.

This will drastically reduce the human input required.

We must not be blinded by science, nor held captive by unfounded or fantastic fears.Afficher l'image d'origineI have previously posted blogs putting the case that all technology (whether it be atomic energy or nanotechnology, bioengineering or DNA mutilation, or Artificial Intelligence) should be subject to examinations by a New World Organisation, that is totally independent and transparent.

( It’s imperative that we do not leave such examinations to the whims of the marketplace nor the cost-benefit calculations of a given quarter to marinate Artificial Intelligence into a sense of human complacency.)

I have also stated that I am pro all technology that benefits mankind as a whole. However it is critical that those individuals who are on the front lines of research be thinking about the implications of their work.

The other day on arrival at Gatwick I was admitted by an Algorithm into the UK.

Since this Algorithm was focus by definition to be based on narrowly defined problems, it got me thinking, who or what wrote the software in the first place.

The ethics of artificial intelligence are non existence.

Whether we are aware of it or not, we are already moving into the era of AI where IBM’s Watson, Google’s AI, Apple’s Siri and Amazon’s Echo will be your new companion.

Once AI can analyze a person’s affective state it will be able to influence it.

Humans are driven by emotions, making a crucial component of perception, decision-making, learning, and more. 

Artificial intelligence is not yet emotional in the same ways that humans are, but it  won’t be long with all the data collection before this is achievable to prompt certain responses and induce desired emotions. 

Creepy or worse predatory.

What happens when one of the human negotiators has an emotionally aware assistant in is the corner.     

  Every decision that mankind makes is going to be informed by a cognitive system like Watson. That future is actually much closer than you think.

To be or not to be. “Are you a robot?” “What?! No I am a real person.”

Afficher l'image d'origine

For example:

Militaries are among the intense users of high-technology, and the adoption of that equipment has transformed decision-making throughout the chain of command. The removal of human beings from the act of killing and from war.

There must be a way to ensure that Artificial Intelligence that is introduced into what ever field of Technology is not dominated by those who have a stake in the expansion of AI for Profit Sake.

There is no excuse for not being aware of the risks that such AI carries for all of us.

These questions have been with us for a long time:

Alan Turing in 1950 asked whether machines could think and that same year writer Isaac Asimov contemplated what might happen if they could in “I, Robot.” (In truth, thinking machines can be found in ancient cultures, including those of the Greeks and the Egyptians.)

About 30 years ago, James Cameron served up one dystopia created by AI in “The Terminator.” Science fiction became fact in 1997 when IBM’s chess-playing Deep Blue computer beat world champion Garry Kasparov.

As the Internet and digital systems penetrate further each day into our daily lives, concerns about artificial intelligence (AI) are intensifying.

It is difficult to get exercised about connections between the “Internet of Things” and AI when the most visible indications are Siri (Apple’s digital assistant), Google translate and smart houses, but a growing number of people, including many with a reputation for peering over the horizon, are worried.

Nevertheless, a debate about prospects and possibilities is worthwhile.

We need to ensure that boundaries are set, not just for research but for all the applications of ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE.

As the Internet and digital systems penetrate further each day into our daily lives, concerns about artificial intelligence (AI) are intensifying. It is difficult to get exercised about connections between the “Internet of Things” and AI when the most visible indications are Siri (Apple’s digital assistant), Google translate and smart houses, but a growing number of people, including many with a reputation for peering over the horizon, are worried.

Recently, there has been a growing chorus of concern about the potential for AI.

It began last year when inventor Elon Musk, a man who spends considerable time on the cutting edge of technology, warned that with AI “we’re summoning the demon.” In all those stories with the guy with the pentagram and the holy water, and he’s sure he can control the demon. It doesn’t work out.” For him, AI is an existential threat to humanity, more dangerous than nuclear weapons.

The possibilities created by “big data” are driving increasing automation and in some cases AI in the office environment.  Legal and administrative frameworks to deal with the proliferation of these technologies and AI have not kept pace with their application. Ethical questions are often not even part of the discussion.

And since their focus tends to be on narrowly defined problems, others who can address larger issues should join the discussion. This process should be occurring for all such technologies.

A month later, distinguished scientist Stephen Hawking told the BBC that he feared that the development of “full artificial intelligence” could bring an end to the human race. Not today, of course, but over time, machines could become both more intelligent and physically stronger than human beings. Last month, Microsoft founder Bill Gates joined the group, saying that he did not understand people who were not troubled by the prospect of AI escaping human control.

More recently, Google’s AlphaGo software beat South Korean Go champion Lee Sedol in series of matches pitting human against software in a board game that apparently has more possible positions than there are atoms in the universe.

What’s more amazing about Alpha Go, unlike Deep Blue before it, was that it was not specifically programmed to play Go – it learned to play the game using a general-purpose algorithm.

The big question is what can be done? If anything, or is it to late.

None of the darker visions have deterred researchers and entrepreneurs from pursuing the field. It is hard to fear AI when the simplest demonstrations are more humorous than hair-raising.

The prevailing view among software engineers, who are writing the programs that make AI possible, is that they remain in control of what they program.

But are they really? I think not.

The prevailing view among software engineers, who are writing the programs that make AI possible, is that they remain in control of what they program.

Even if true AI is a far-off prospect, ethical issues are emerging every day.

Artificial intelligence or AI is now getting a foothold in people’s homes, starting with the Amazon devices like its Echo speaker which links to a personal assistant “Alexa” to answer questions and control connected devices such as appliances or light bulbs. Echo’s main advantage is that it connects to Amazon’s range of products and services telling devices to tend to tasks such as ordering goods, checking traffic, making restaurant reservations or searching for information. It also connects to various third-party services like Uber and Domino’s Pizza, so you can just call for a car or a pizza delivery by just telling the Echo what you want.

IBM, whose Watson supercomputer systems are offering “cognitive health” programs which can analyze a person’s genome and offer personalized treatment for cancer, for example.

Google recently announced it had developed an algorithm which can detect diabetic retinopathy, a cause of blindness, by analyzing retina images.

Amazon is seeking to put AI to work in the supermarket—testing a system without cash registers or lines, where consumers simply grab their products and go, and have a bill tallied by artificial intelligence.

Facebook just recently introduced its AI-based Deep Text analytics engine which is said to be able to scan and understand the textual content of thousands of posts per second in more than 20 languages, all with nearly human-like accuracy.

Machine learning is already being used extensively in the social networking site to make sense of and translate some two billion News Feed items per day and the company is planning to use AI to recognise images and allow users to search for photos based on the content in those photos.

The artificial intelligence (AI) component in these programs aims to make create a world in which everyone can have a virtual aide that gets to know them better with each interaction.

AI prowess to make smartphones smarter—Google Allo messenger can, for example, suggest a meeting or deliver relevant information during a conversation. To infuse smartphones and other internet-linked devices with software smarts that help them think like people.

The prospect of AI escaping human control is advancing day by day.

Researchers most deeply engaged in this work are more sanguine. The head of Microsoft Research dismissed Gates’ concern, saying he does not think that humankind will lose control of “certain kinds of intelligences.” He instead is focused on ways that AI will increase human productivity and better lives.

At what cost?

No Algorithm understand the unwritten social behaviors used in daily life, which can vary from one culture to another. More work needs to be done to improve “social intelligence,” or understanding the subtleties of our everyday decisions.

However, the real question on everybody’s minds is – is the rush to get to true AI another step towards Skynet, Terminators and HAL 9000?

Just ponder on this for a moment – if a computer could truly be “smart”, it would soon see that humans are basically the cause of most environmental problems and would come up with an extinction solution that would solve all issues in one fell swoop.

Humans are limited by slow biological evolution and would not be able to compete with software that can redesign itself and evolve faster than any human could.

So what is there to prevent AI from gaining sentience and killing us all?Afficher l'image d'origine

How one can manage something that is sentient is another question altogether.

As we already have industrial robots replacing us in tiresome and repetitive jobs, we might ask ourselves if they’re not going to replace us in all domains?

The population with mobile devices now outnumbering and multiplying faster than humans.

AI and automation provide an opportunity to move beyond business as usual. The global affective computing market is estimated to be 9.3. billion $ a year. By 2020 it will be in the region of 50 billion.

It’s no wonder that the darker visions have not deterred researchers and entrepreneurs from pursuing the field.

We need to remain vigilant on the uses and changes of AI, and maybe even prepare ourselves for a new world where a good part of normal, information research work will die out.

Let’s hope that, should this happen, it will be to the benefit of creative arts which remain entirely ours.

We might already be in the midst of creating a conscious entity of a whole new “utterly inhuman” kind.  Now that would be scary.Afficher l'image d'origine

Perhaps the only solution is a whistle-blower Algorithm.

All comments welcome, all like clicks chucked in the Bin.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

THE BEADY EYE SAYS: THE TIME TO BE EMPATHETIC IS TO DAY. THIS MINUTE. NOW..

26 Monday Sep 2016

Posted by in Communication., Emotions., European Union., HUMAN INTELLIGENCE, Humanity., Life., Modern Day Democracy., Natural World Disasters, Social Media., The Refugees, The world to day., What Needs to change in the World

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Our world is quickly becoming a desolate island, a screen that we hold six inches in front of our noses, and it’s a hard pill to swallow.

Because of this, we lose touch with nature, we lose touch with reality, we lose touch with each other. We seem to have forgotten the basic tenets of empathy.Afficher l'image d'origine

We have become such a technology-based society, that we have forgotten how to feel. We have forgotten how to relate. We have forgotten how to connect among other humans, let alone with other sentient animals.

We seem to have forgotten what it feels like to be in someone else’s, or some other animal’s, proverbial shoes.

Here in lies one of the major problems.

Some time ago, (some) humans stopped showing empathy, and started killing indiscriminately — people, and other animals. We kill each other over political differences, racial differences, religious differences, and resources. We kill animals for “research,” or for competition and sport, or for a token.

In a world where there is so much doom and gloom about the state of our environment it’s no surprising that the world has lost 10% of its wilderness areas in the past 20 years. The growth of our modern civilisation, spurred on by technological innovations, has been underpinned by the exploitation of the natural environment. Today, a large fraction of the Earth, once swathed in wilderness, is now monopolised by humans. Although the direct causes of wildlife loss are clear enough, what’s less obvious is why many people seemingly don’t care. Society’s ongoing destruction of the environment can be put down to the fact that not enough people value nature and wilderness any more.

Expanding human demands on land, sea and fresh water, along with the impacts of climate change, have made the conservation and management of wild areas and wild animals a top priority.

For some species, our time to see them is rapidly running out.

The richer we are and the more we consume, the more self-centred and careless of the lives of others we appear to become

Human attitudes towards wild nature and wildlife have, historically, been ambivalent.

It seems to me that there are currently two main approaches to wildlife management.

One: The wise use approach aims to accommodate humanity’s continuous use of wild nature as a resource for food, timber, and other raw materials, as well as for recreation.

Two: The preservationists, whose goal is to protect pristine nature, not to use it, carefully or otherwise. Wild places should be allowed to develop on their own with as little interference from humans as possible.

Neither work:

For years we’ve been told that people cannot afford to care about the natural world until they become rich; that only economic growth can save the biosphere, that civilisation marches towards enlightenment about our impacts on the living planet. The results suggest the opposite.

There is only one way to protect what is left.Afficher l'image d'origine

Protected areas, like national parks and wildlife refuges, are the cornerstones of global conservation efforts.

We must pay for it.  Either by buying the land or paying the locals to maintain it.

Why is it so difficult to persuade people to care about our wonderful planet, the world that gave rise to us and upon which we wholly depend?

Because we lack empathy. Empathy is defined as: the capacity to understand or feel what another being (a human or non-human animal) is experiencing from within the other being’s frame of reference, i.e., the capacity to place oneself in another’s position.

Without it we all have different values that give rise to conflicts or dilemmas.

The way in which these different values are prioritized will determine policy of conservation in the future.

For instance, there may be a conflict between sustaining certain human livelihoods and preserving a particular species, or there may be a dilemma between the protection of wild nature and animal welfare.

The question, then, is how we should address such dilemmas and disagreements. The first thing to note, in trying to answer this question, is that the rich anglophone countries are anomalous. The more we consume, the less we feel.

Our erroneous belief that we are more concerned about man-made climate change than the people of other nations informs the sentiment, often voiced by the press and politicians, that there’s no point in acting if the rest of the world won’t play its part.

Our refusal to stop pumping so much carbon dioxide into the atmosphere is pure selfishness. The more harm we do, the less concerned about it we become. And the more hyper consumerism destroys relationships, communities and the physical fabric of the Earth, the more we try to fill the void in our lives by buying more stuff.

In modern debates about wildlife, however, other values have become increasingly important. We don’t know exactly how ecosystems will respond to climate change but you may rest assured that with rising sea levels nature will be the last to be rescued.

Sustaining interest in this great but slow-burning crisis is a challenge no one seems to have mastered. Only when the crisis causes or exacerbates an acute disaster – such as the floods – is there a flicker of anxiety, but that quickly dies away.

So the perennially low-level of concern, which flickers upwards momentarily when disaster strikes, then slumps back into the customary stupor, is an almost inevitable result of a society that has become restructured around shopping, fashion, celebrity and an obsession with money.

It’s hard to understand how anyone could imagine that economic growth is a formula for protecting the planet.

How we break the circle and wake people out of this dream world is the question that all those who love the living planet should address.

Just look at the United Nations:

For the first time in UN history, candidates seeking to replace the organisation’s secretary-general have held a live debate, presenting the case for their candidacy and taking questions from UN member states on key global issues.

All previous secretary-generals were chosen behind closed doors by the UN’s permanent five members: the US, China, Russia, France and Britain.

This remains so:  The permanent five UN Security Council members still fix “who is going to be selected behind closed doors. Don’t think for a moment that the permanent members are going  give up powers they won after World War II readily. Hand-picking the UN secretary-general is still one of their trump cards.

The possibility of  the United Nations getting an energetic idealist to shake up the world body by streamline archaic UN systems, to stand up to the big powers and do more to end wars, and fight poverty is as remote as ever.  It will remain both bloated and overstretched with its staff more interested in winning promotions than fighting malaria, climate change and regulating poverty or stopping wars, not to mention protecting what’s left of nature.

So long as it has to beg for funds it will remain a worthless gossip shop.  ( See previous posts)

There will be no easy answers.

As Leonard Da Vinci said,

” Learn how to see. Realize that everything connects to everything else.”

Empathy is about being we-focused rather than I-focused and understanding that, collectively, we are better off when we step outside of our silos. As a leader, you must emphasize value, not just transactions; people, not just processes.

Empathy brings the big picture into focus.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

THE BEADY EYE ASKS: IS YOUR SMART PHONE INTERFERING WITH YOUR LOVE LIFE.

27 Saturday Aug 2016

Posted by in Artificial Intelligence., Emotions., Facebook, Humanity., Modern Day Communication., Social Media., Technology, Unanswered Questions., What Needs to change in the World

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( A Beady eye though less than twenty-second read)

Technoference:

A smart phone is a modern-day distraction that is so common, it’s hardly noticed any more, demanding our attention multiple times a day.Afficher l'image d'origine

We are becoming irrevocably immersed in our digital lives, prioritizing the virtual world over anything else.

We are losing the personal touch, losing the art of conversation.

You can measure romance by the number of words you can type per minute.

Relationships only seem to be real once you make it Facebook official.

There Is no doubt that those dedicated to their smartphones put up a barrier between people. Compulsively carry our smartphones with you wherever you go can make you a very boring person.

You need to set some boundaries for your smart phone usage.

It is not some magic self-defense tool capable of protecting you from all that is evil in the world.

By allowing technology to interfere with or interrupt conversations, activities, and time with romantic partners – even when unintentional or for brief moments – individuals may be sending implicit messages about what they value most, leading to conflict and negative outcomes in personal life and relationships.’

We can let these devices overrule our entire lives if we allow it.

Social networking doesn’t count as socializing.

Anger can be too easily impulsively shot out in an email or text.

You don’t receive smiles, hugs, laughter or touch or the sound of voices. See each other, hear each other and touch each other. And that can never be conveyed over technology of any kind.

The mystery of getting to know someone is gone. Sometimes that’s a good thing, but the fact that it’s a forgotten practice is a little sad.

The percentage of phones dropped into toilets has risen dramatically over the years. That’s a scientific fact.

Put your damn phone down and look people in the eye. Have a conversation. Don’t worry about what you are missing on Twitter. It will still be there when you are done socializing with actual humans.

I do think we’re all kind of in this big, worldwide reality television game and it will seemed like terrible unlucky to be dead on Facebook.

THE BEADY EYE ASKS. DO YOU EVER WONDER WHY YOU WONDER?

31 Saturday Oct 2015

Posted by in Emotions., Google it., Humanity., Life., The Future, Unanswered Questions.

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He who knows it not and can no longer wonder no longer feel

amazement is a good as dead.

“If you worry about what might be, and wonder what might have been, you will ignore what is.” Unknown.  

Awe can rock our world, making us reassess our beliefs and revise our theories of how things work. 

What may sometimes appear to be devious or deceptive, is, in the end mysterious, and (almost?) magical. 

Wonder is the accidental impetus behind our greatest achievements.

 

There in may lie the power of priests, doctors, politicians, psychoanalysts, and, (dare we say it?) teachers.

We are creatures of boundless curiosity.

For example: To think or speculate curiously; To be filled with admiration, amazement, astonishment, or awe; To doubt; something strange and surprising; producing puzzlement or curiosity; the reverse of what might be expected are disappearing down a Smart Phone or a Google Search.

These days everything is awesome.

We marvel at mundane everyday experiences and not objects that evoke mystery, doubt, and uncertainty.

For most city-dwellers, the night sky is merely a murky orange haze. We are becoming estranged from natural sources of awe with electronic media becoming the only source of awe.

Image of night sky

One can’t say when, in our evolutionary history, our ancestors first got blown away by something immense or amazing.

SENSE OF WONDER  n.

A feeling of awakening or awe triggered by an expansion of one’s awareness of what is possible or by confrontation with the vastness of space and time, as brought on by reading science fiction or standing on the top of Everest.

The sense of inspired awe that is aroused in a reader when the full implications of an event or action become realized, or when the immensity of a plot or idea first becomes known, or (Not that I have ever stood on the summit of Everest) the view of the Himalayan peaks.

What do we really desire from our future technologies?

We claim that just as in life, it should assist us in solving problems and improving our everyday efficiency. However, we could further argue that technology also must prompt us to think, be curious, and wonder.

If we fail or, worse yet, ignore this vital design space of wonderment for technology, we are almost certainly doomed to live amongst emotionless, servant-like, lifeless, problem solving, scientific systems.

We deserve more.

Feelings of wonderment are difficult to measure and nearly impossible to assign a value. Nonetheless, these episodes are part of our lives and as such deserve a place within the discussion of our future digital technologies.

We still need to understand how conviction and belief actually arise in a human being.

How far have I walked today? How many people have ever sat on that bench? Does that woman own a cat? Did a child or adult spit that gum onto the sidewalk? These are all feelings of what we call “wonderment” that color and enrich our lives.

Step back with me for a moment. What really matters?

Everyday life spans a wide range of emotions and experiences – from improving productivity and efficiency to promoting wonderment and daydreaming.

Our successful future technological tools, the one we really want to cohabited with, will be those that incorporate the full range of life experiences.

We are at an important technological inflection point.

The value of invisibility, but does not make it visible.

It is this important element of human mystery and curiosity that is underrepresented as a design practice for technological interactive systems.

Currently our mobile phones are doomed to live out only short product lifespan. As these fully functional objects fail to satisfy our technological fetishes and trends, they are replaced by I Pads, by Watches, by Glasses, by Virtual Reality.

Changing people’s sense of control can influence the kinds of scientific explanations they prefer: if you feel that you don’t have control, you’ll be more drawn to explanations that promise order and predictability.

People have become more individualistic, more self-focused, more materialistic and less connected to others.

To reverse this trend, I suggest that people insist on experiencing more everyday awe, to actively seek out what gives them goose bumps, be it in looking at trees, night skies, patterns of wind on water.

While as I have said it is difficult to place quantitative measurements on wonder in terms of enjoyment, benefit, or even improved quality of life, it is indeed a essential element of daily human life.

We need to understand two elements of belief:

Suggestibility and Surrender.

“These are not only elements of religious conviction, they are part and parcel of the experience of learning and teaching, of certainty and persuasion, as much as they are part of various social strategies to modulate and sooth doubt and anxiety, as well as strategies meant to shock and gain influence.” (Frank 1974, Galanter 1993).

Education comes in all different forms and many people believe if they can look up information on their phone, including current news, then they are learning and expanding their mind. So what’s the problem?

Although mobile apps and texting have made our lives easier, some question the impact they’ve having on the relationships we have with one another.  The use of texting and Facebook and Twitter and other sites as a form of communication is eroding people’s ability to write sentences that communicate real meaning and inhibit the art of dialogue of the impossible.

We will soon have a generation that has no clue how to read any of the cues of wonderment.

Wonders never cease!

Nine days’ wonder:  No wonder: Time works wonders: Gutless wonder: Wonder about: Wonder at: Wonders will never cease: A one-hit wonder: A chinless wonder: Little wonder: Wonder Drugs: Wonder boy.

The sky would have been the most pervasive natural influence of wonder now it’s the Mobil Phone. There ringtones have a private meaning but are a public experience. They are as expressive as the clothing we wear and an obvious extension of our public presentation of self.

Ringtone sales are a $4 billion market worldwide. Now ain’t that awesome.

Wonder is sometimes said to be a childish emotion, one that we grow out of.  But that is surely wrong. Wonder might be humanity’s most important emotion.

Wondrous things engage our senses.

Wonder is what leads us to try to understand our world. 

Knowledge does not abolish wonder; indeed, scientific discoveries are often more wondrous than the mysteries they unravel. 

Wonder, then, unites science and religion, two of the greatest human institutions.

Art, science and religion are all forms of excess; they transcend the practical ends of daily life.  Science, religion and art are unified in wonder. 

Without wonder, it is hard to believe that we would engage in these distinctively human pursuits. 

We needed to master our environment enough to exceed the basic necessities of survival before we could make use of wonder.

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Art, science and religion are inventions for feeding the appetite that wonder excites in us. They also become sources of wonder in their own right, generating epicycles of boundless creativity and enduring inquiry.

Each of these institutions allows us to transcend our animality by transporting us to hidden worlds.

In harvesting the fruits of wonder, we came into our own as a species.

Personally I wonder who read this blog.

For those that do:

I leave with a wonder of all time but don’t spend too long contemplating the wonder.

Infinity.

It’s enough to drive anyone mad, as well as a good point at which to bring to an end this blog.