Tags
Algorithms trade., Algorithms., Artificial Intelligence., Big Brother., Big Data, Colonization., Community cohesion, Digital Citizen?, Digital Colonization., Digital Divide., Globalization, Inequility, Technology, The Future of Mankind, Visions of the future.
( 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. 
This colonization is presently happing between China and the USA.
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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 “
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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.
When it comes to Robots.
The Three Laws are:
- A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
- A robot must obey the orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
- 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.”
Basically, we’re entering the era of machines controlling everything.
If we want to create new different societies with human dignity for all we need to do something about it.
The difficulty of predicting the future is not just a cliche, it’s a basic fact of our existence. Part of the hypothesis of Singularity is that this difficulty is just going to get worse and worse. Yes, creating AGI ( Artificial General Intelligence) is a big and difficult goal, but according to known science, it is almost surely an achievable one.
However, there are sound though not absolutely confident arguments that it may well be achievable within our lifetimes.
If artificial general intelligence is on the not too distant horizon, surely we should be ensuring that it is not owned by anyone corporation and that at its core it respects our core values.
If we think in months we focus on immediate problems such as the present-day wars, the Covid crisis, the Donald Trumps, the economy, if we think in decades, climate, growing inequality, the loss of jobs to automation are all presenting dangers. But if we look at life in total, science is converging on data processing and AI that is developing itself with algorithms.
When intelligence is approached in an incremental manner, with strict reliance on interfacing to the real world through perception and action, reliance on representation disappears.
It won’t be long before we will not be unable to distinguish the real world from the virtual world.
Since there is only one real world and there can be infinite virtual worlds the probability that you will inhabit this sole world is zero.
So it won’t matter whether computers will be conscious or not.
Is starting to feel like it’s every man for himself, Is possible that right now, a global crisis is upon us, Without even knowing… And the virus may not be the biggest threat, but the crisis that follows, Everyday goods that keep us alive will be gone, I’m talking, food, freshwater, medicine, clothes, fuel…
Intelligence is decoupling from consciousness and soon rather than later it will be consigned to Google, Facebook, Twitter, Smartphones, and the like to make decisions that are not possible to reverse.
You might think that the above is stupid but it won’t be long before we will be witnessing the most unequal societies in history.
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We humans will soon be living with robots that process data without any subjective experiences or consciousness or moral opprobrium.
As we watch robots, autonomous vehicles, artificial intelligence machines, and the like slowly (and sometimes rapidly) permeate our world, it’s not hard to imagine them going from permeating to taking over.
Algorithms are increasingly determining our collective future.
It will only matter what they think about you.
We are already halfway towards a world where algorithms run everything.
This is why many of the issues raised in this post will require close monitoring, to ensure that the oversight of machine learning-driven algorithms continues to strike an appropriate and safe balance between recognizing the benefits (for healthcare and other public services, for example, and for innovation in the private sector) and the risks (for privacy and consent, data security and any unacceptable impacts on individuals).
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WHAT CAN GOVERNMENTS DO?
Please regulate AI, this is too dangerous.
Given the international nature of digital innovation, governments, should establish audits of algorithms, introducing certification of algorithms, and charging ethics boards with oversight of algorithmic decisions.
Why?
They are bringing big changes in their wake.
From better medical diagnoses to driverless cars, and within central governments where there are opportunities to make public services more effective and achieve long-term cost savings.
However, the Government should produce, publish, and maintain a list of where algorithms with significant impacts are being used within the Central Government, along with projects underway or planned for public service algorithms, to aid not just private sector involvement but also transparency.
Governments should not just simply accept what the developers of algorithms offer in return for data access.
To this end, Governments should be at the forefront of the creation of a “statutory building code”, which describes mandatory safety and quality requirements for digital platforms.
Social networks should be required by law to release details of their algorithms and core functions to trusted researchers, in order for the technology to be vetted.
This Law should enable the enforcement of,
If we are not careful they will have no notion of self, existing only in the present unaware of the past or future, and therefore will be unable to consciously plan for future eventualities.
Unconscious algorithms in our brains rather than conscious images in a mind.
If you are using a smartphone, it indirectly means that you are enjoying the AI knowingly or unknowingly. It cannot be modified unknowingly or can’t get disfigured or breakdown in a hostile environment.
We should not be regulating technology but Artificial Intelligence.
It is so complicated in behavior we need to be regulated it at the data level.
In lots of regulated domains, there is this notion of post-market surveillance, which is where the developer bears the responsibility of how the technology developed by them is going to be used.
As William Shakespeare wrote in – As you Like it.
” All the world is a stage, and all the men and women merely players, they have their exits and entrances. ”
Sadly with AI, Machine Learning Algorithms no one knows or for that matter will ever know when they enter or exit.
Probably like AI learning is actually an ongoing process that takes place throughout all of life. It’s the process of moving information from out there — to here. Unfortunately with the brain, has its own set of rules by which it learns best, unlike AI, the information doesn’t always stick. Together, we have a lot to learn.
Humanity is in contact with humanity.
All human comments appreciated. All like clicks and abuse chucked in the cloud bin.
(A Banshee is an Irish female spirit who wails outside a home to warn of the imminent death of a family member. Often heard before she is seen, her wailing is that high-pitched that nobody willingly dares to attempt to witness this terrifying spirit.)