Category Archives: HUMAN INTELLIGENCE

THE BEADY EYE’S : OPEN LETTER TO THE IRISH MINISTER

06 Tuesday Aug 2019

Posted by in 2019: The Year of Disconnection., Backstop., Climate Change., Environment, European Union., HUMAN INTELLIGENCE, Ireland, Modern day life., Open Letter., Paris Climate Change Conference 2015, Politics., Reality., Social Media, Sustaniability, Taoiseach: Leo Varadkar, The Future, The Obvious., The state of the World., The world to day., WHAT IS TRUTH, What Needs to change in the World, Where's the Global Outrage., World Leaders, World Organisations., World Politics

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Dear Taoiseach,

Is this the only reply you are capable of.

(The Department of Taoiseach:)

I acknowledge receipt of your email to the Taoiseach, Leo Varadkar T.D.

Is mian liom a admháil go bhfuarthas do ríomhphost chuig an Taoiseach, Leo Varadkar T.D

While I appreciate that it is not possible to reply to everyone this is what is wrong with Politicians, hiding behind the unnamed relying on Algorithms.

So in the vain hope of attracting your attention, I am publishing the letter in my Flipboard Magazines. With a request that my reader past it on.

I have also sent this letter to the Irish Times in the hope they might publish it.

 

 

The  letter:

16/07/2019

Dear Taoiseach,

I write as a man from the land of the Green.

In my life, I have had the great gift of travelling a great deal of the world both by land and sea.

We have recently celebrated the first man on the moon some fifty years ago.

Then as a much younger man, I watched Armstrong place his foot with the famous words.

“That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.”

Never did I think that our world so full of life and beauty might become the dust that his boot stood on.

Every human being has a relationship with plastic but unfortunately not ever one has a relationship with nature that is now facing a crisis that requires once again International recognition of the Unity of the Globe that the moon landing did all those years ago.

This is where Ireland under your leadership has a moral duty to call on all nations of the world to attend a unity of the global conference, in the Emerald Isle the land of forty shades of green.

The Paris Climate change conference achieved shallow unbinding promises.

The clock is ticking until the next US election starting in November 2020 with the winner inaugurated on Wednesday, January 20, 2021.

Just think of the influence of such a world meeting would have on the election of new USA president and its policies re Climate Change.

If you want to leave a legacy to be remembered by other than the backstop/Brexit what better opportunity to promote the Green.

This gathering should have not just world leaders but leading Industrials, representatives from world organisations and the young that are going to inherit the earth.

Its sole purpose is to present the facts from all side and recognize the need for the world to act as one and achieve a just climate change program that is binding and fully financed – a moon landing moment.

The venue could be at Croke Park.

Ireland could lead by example such as banning combustion engines from its major city centre once a month, declaring clear skies once a month, granting long term repayable governments grants to green energy initiatives like solar panels.

For every participant in attendance.

Ireland could plant a tree to offset their travelling carbon footprint.

Yours Faithfully,

Robert de May Dillon.

Contact Details.

Tel No.  0565416843.

E-Mail. bobdillon33@gmail.com

Address. Moulin de labarde, L’Abbey Nouvelle, 46300 Lot France.

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THE BEADY EYE ASK’S: HAVE HUMANS ANY VALUE IN TODAY’S WORLD.

06 Tuesday Aug 2019

Posted by in #whatif.com, 2019: The Year of Disconnection., Artificial Intelligence., Climate Change., Dehumanization., Evolution, Fourth Industrial Revolution., GDP., HUMAN INTELLIGENCE, Humanity., Inequality, Our Common Values., Post - truth politics., Reality., Robot citizenship., Social Media, Sustaniability, 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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(Fifteen-minute read)

THIS IS A DIFFICULT SUBJECT:

In today`s tormented world, we trade off meeting one value over another.

To know your value today you need “kaleidoscope thinking,” the ability to see alternative angles and perspectives and to create new patterns of thinking that propel innovation.

However, we think of this it is what we need to do with our lives – create a value.

For better or worse we’re all habitual self-evaluators.

I’m only as good as my last achievement or success.

In a recent Beady Eye post we look at what it is to be human which with technology is going to become more and more complicated.

The value of human life is the same as it’s always been…priceless.

All down throughout history, we see that it has an arbitrary value.

Genghis Khan in his day killed 10% of the existing world population. The “Fat Man” bomb dropped on Nagasaki the end of 1945 killed from 39,000 to 80,000. Hiroshima death toll at around anything from 140000 to 90,000.

Climate change has the potential to kill us all within seven years so perhaps it is not a good time to be thinking we have a value.

Anyway vastly increased access to transportable information it makes it both easier and more difficult to define value.

Technology will not only shape the way they live and work but also created a whole new set of beliefs, fears and aspirations. These values, in turn, will affect our approach to the global challenges and opportunities that lie ahead.

But it’s more than just the way we use technology.

Our value will be invested in “psychological self-determination.” self-acceptance.

Our desire in regard to participation, expression, identity, and quality of life—all values which are espoused by organizations, but largely ignored in practice as organizations continue to focus on reducing fixed labour costs and increasing profits.

Your fate is now inextricably bound to the collective success of global giants like Microsoft, Apple, Amazon all the way down to the bottom line.

Technology is creating a new gender gap as young men and women value their role differently in their lives.

This is a total disaster, all our fault willing allowing our private data to be harvest every moment of our living lives. 

The next generation will be the first generation to be worse off than their parents, yet they are still expected to pick up the tab for the planet’s problems, including an ageing population, global debt and climate change.

So let’s look at a few of the things we might use to find a value today.

How should we set a value upon each other?

FROM A RELIGIOUS POINT OF VIEW:

If one takes a dispassionate look at religion it is mostly concerned with texts, scriptures, dogma, and trying to validate events within the history of that religion.

All of this is already reinforced by the law of the land right?

No Geographical Boundaries.

FROM A SOCIAL MEDIA POINT OF VIEW:

Figures of daily traffic pulled by these sites are enough, for anyone to realize the power and influence that social media commands over inhabitants of our world, both virtual and physical. Power and importance of social media in today’s world are such that it has been included in the curriculum of almost any kind of school all over the globe.

No Geographical Boundaries.

FROM A MONETARY VIEW.

You don’t have to look far: Inequality

FROM A GOVERNMENT VIEW.

A lot of the world is make-believe. We’re only aware of a fraction of what’s going on.

GDP before looking after its people.

FROM A HEURISTIC BELIEF.

I’m worthwhile merely because “I am I, I exist, and I am alive”

(A heuristic is a mental shortcut that allows an individual to make a decision, pass judgment, or solve a problem quickly and with the least amount of mental effort. As humans move throughout the world, they must process large amounts of information and make many choices within limited amounts of time. When information is missing, or an immediate decision is necessary, heuristics act as “rules of thumb” that guide behaviour down the most efficient pathway.)

Thoroughly rejects the belief that my worth has anything to do with my performances, achievements or successes in life! It asserts “a bad act is not a bad me, nor is a good act a good me.”  It implies that there are no bad people, no evil people; only bad behaviours or evil behaviours.

This belief is not without boundaries.

FROM A SOCIAL CONTRACT VIEW THAT BINDS US:

Means society must reserve the right of forced hospitalization, incarceration, even capital punishment for those with markedly diminished levels of rational autonomy, which is the essence of sanity in a world where evolution and consensus dictate that life is better than death, sanity is better than insanity, health is better than disease, love is better than hate, good is better than evil, and so forth!

FROM A CAPITALISTIC/ SOCIALIST/COMMUNIST VIEW:

Their work is worthwhile and that their efforts are being recognised, and value similar things in an employer brand to a consumer brand.

FROM A MORAL VIEW:

Beware of transgressing the other person’s morals, as this is particularly how they will value you.

FROM A NEBULOUS QUANTUM FUTURE VIEW:

Two states at the one time. Where is the value that?

Woman using the instagram app

If we truly saw the value of people.

I am worthwhile because I exist, I am I, and I am alive.”

I will repeat this powerful new mantra to live by in hope of it finding an audience willing to adopt it as a mantra capable of creating a healthy transformation by coming alive within us.

So valuating yourself will be only an intrinsic value that climate

change will expose. 

Perhaps most telling, try Googling it. What is my value?

You probably get an answer from an Algorithm.

Mouse over the value to see the full definition. Worthless. 

Don’t take your values to heart as Facebook wants to develop brain-reading technology. The consequences of which will be serious for all our values with our interiors becoming a thing of the past, rubbing out the distinction between mind and machine.

Sometimes values can be complementary and sometimes they can compete with each other.

You have to value your life for someone else to value it and need to value others for them to value yours.

There is only one overall value for all humans or forthcoming robots to pursue.

To create a clean and sustainable world for the generations that follow us.

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

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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.

 

 

 

 

 

 

THE BEADY ASK’S: HOW DO WE JUSTIFY ACTS OF SHEER INHUMANITY?

13 Thursday Jun 2019

Posted by in 2019: The Year of Disconnection., Climate Change., Cruelty., Dehumanization., Environment, Evolution, HUMAN INTELLIGENCE, Inequality, Natural World Disasters, Reality., Sustaniability, The essence of our humanity., The Future, The Obvious., The world to day., Unanswered Questions., WHAT IS TRUTH, What Needs to change in the World, Where's the Global Outrage., World Leaders, World Organisations., World Politics

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( A twenty-minute read)

We all accept that in a thousand trillion years from now when what left of the Universe that the human species and all others will not exist.

So there is no need to worry nor will there be any need to worry in 6 billion years that the earth will be fried by the sun.

Or in 50 years or perhaps in twelve years our human footprint is predicted to make most if not all the earth unlivable dehumanizing us all.

We have all witnessed today the consequences of dehumanization, ISIS, Rwanda Genocide, Extermination of Jews by the Nazis but it is wrong to assume cruelty comes from dehumanization it’s not the whole picture we often fold to the social pressures of our environment.

Since the dawn of humanity, we are all capable of it in one form or another and there is no doubing that it will follow us into space.

Wars, Famines, Genocides, Religious bigotry, Racial discrimination, Mass killings you name it and you could have participated in that, and that’s the ugly truth.

The conclusion is that almost anyone is capable of committing staggering atrocities under the right circumstances as we don’t behave in stressful situations the way we think we would or the way we would like to.

Military service relies on dehumanization so people are able to do terrible things to other people only after having dehumanized them.

Acknowledging other people’s humanity won’t solve our problems.

We need a culture less obsessed with power and honour and more concerned with mindfulness and dignity.

If you were able to realize that Jews, Blacks, Gays, Muslims, were people just like you, then evil might disappear but brutality would still prevail within all.

Take white supremacists they know about the humanity of Jews and black people and whoever else they’re discriminating against — and it terrifies them.

One of their slogans is, “You will not replace us.” Think of what that means.

That’s not what you chant if you thought they were roaches or subhuman. That’s what you chant at people you’re really worried about, people who you think are a threat to your status and way of life.

So cruelty isn’t an accident or an aberration, but something central to who and what we are. This is reflected in the psychological appetites we have, like an appetite to punish those we think have done wrong.

Dehumanization is real and terrible.

We all know what is wrong with the world we live in – inequality.

As long as human civilization continues to be dominated and is disfigured by capitalism we will see one atrocity after and other.

Such as.

There are over 35 major conflicts going on in the world today.

35% of the world’s people live in countries in which basic political rights and civil liberties are denied (such as freedom of speech, religion, press, fair trials, democratic political processes, etc).

20 million people held in bonded labour.

Up to 2 million, mostly woman and children, are victims of human trafficking worldwide.

Why are human beings so cruel to each other? And how do we justify acts of sheer inhumanity?

60 per cent of mammal species are not known to kill one another at all.

The simple answer is that it’s in our genes.

One could rattle on forever on the subject and get nowhere but because of the effects of Climate Change to come in the next 12 to 50 years, we are going to see humanity test to breaking point.

However evolutionary history is not a total straitjacket we can build a more pacific less cruel society if we wish.

Climate change is going to intensify our efforts to solve the world’s most serious and pervasive problems. With all our technological advances both climate change and cruelty will be intimately linked.

Who will decide upon areas to be saved?

On what criteria.  By the general appearance or what are the main ecosystems in them.

When it comes to murderous tendencies, humans really are exceptional.

Success will be hard won, mostly because there will be no single path to saving, room for reefs, forests, and other keystone habitats given the huge diversity of cultures, political systems, geographic situations and stages of development in human communities from the inhabitable fringes of the poles to the Equator.

We can’t save ourselves without saving the very ecosystems we all rely on.

A moral abyss.

Humanity is a juggernaut which is essentially mindless presently displaying a combination of ignorance and despair.

With the building toward a stabilizing earth’s climate will see cruelty on a global scale.

The range of threats is dizzyingly varied.

But there are many pathways to solutions, we have no need to surrender to nihilism.

The causes—human population growth, habitat loss, climate change—are complex and interlocking, fueling each other in an ever faster destructive spiral.

We are still at the beginning of a potential mass socialist movement, not a Consumerism, not Communism but an era in need of citizens attachment, with a vested interest in our future — a priceless opportunity we cannot afford to waste.

(See the previous post on Citizens Bonds)

This could be an era, in which value is extended to saving the rest of nature. Knowing it, preserving it, studying it, understanding it, cherishing it, and holding on until we know what the hell we’re doing.

I think that, for the most part, people who do terrible things are just like us. They’ve just gone astray in certain specific ways.

So why worry?

The human populations of the plante is incapable of recognizing the cruelty it inflicts on all forms of life till it s to late.

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

 

THE BEADY EYE SAY’S: AS TRUE AS DAY FOLLOWS NIGHT THE TRUE MEMORIAL TO THE 75 ANNIVERSARY OF D DAY IS.

06 Thursday Jun 2019

Posted by in 2019., 2019: The Year of Disconnection., Brexit v EU - Negotiations., Climate Change., Communication., Democracy, Donald Trump Presidency., England., European Commission., European Elections., Fake News., Fourth Industrial Revolution., History., HUMAN INTELLIGENCE, Humanity., Inequality, Life., Modern Day Communication., Modern Day Democracy., Modern day life., Our Common Values., Politics., Populism., Post - truth politics., Reality., Social Media, Sustaniability, Technology, The common good., The essence of our humanity., The far-right., The Future, The new year 2109, The Obvious., The world to day., Trade Agreements., Unanswered Questions., United Nations, War, WHAT IS TRUTH, What needs to change in European Union., What Needs to change in the World, Where's the Global Outrage., World Leaders, World Organisations., World Politics

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( Five minutes read and twenty minutes listen)

THE EUROPEAN UNION WAS BORN OUT OF WORLD WAR TWO ON THE 25/MARCH/ 1957 TEN YEARS AFTER IT ENDED TO CHAMPION PEACE.

By establishing a unified economic and monetary system, to promote inclusion and combat discrimination, to break down barriers to trade and borders, to encourage technological and scientific developments, to champion environmental protection.

Fifty-two years later even as it adapts to meet the evolving challenges of the modern world, with all its faults, it has delivery just that- Peace.

Let us all remember the price the world paid to agree with these shared values.

The lessons of World War II — on whose ashes the United Nations was also founded emphasizing that remembrance is a debt owed to those who had lost their lives in World War II.Slide 3 of 18: Navy, Army and Merchant Marine servicemen in New York read the Daily News on June 6 for information about the D-Day invasion.

(By the end of the war, the total deaths ranging from 70 million to 85 million. Civilians deaths totalled 50 to 55 million. Military deaths from all causes totalled 21 to 25 million.)

However, the ideals and spirit that inspired the creation of the United Nations and the EU remain to be transformed into reality.

It is still necessary to remember the causes and overcome the legacies of the Second World War.

To reject and condemn any attempts to rewrite history or undertake attempts to glorify Nazism or any type of fascism.

Today, tolerance and restraint continued to be considered in world policy as signs of weakness and the use of violence and sanctions were praised; the world could therefore not say that the Second World War had been properly remembered.

Indeed it is our duty to revere and preserve and reform both the United Nations and the European Union because too much was paid for them, and too much is now at stake for succeeding generations.

So here below for all the Donald Trumps, Brexiteers, and Populous is a Speech that tells the TRUTH. 

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

 

 

 

THE BEADY EYE ASK’ S: WHICH GLOBAL ISSUE SHOULD WE BE WORKING ON TO HAVE THE GREATEST IMPACT?

09 Tuesday Apr 2019

Posted by in Artificial Intelligence., Climate Change., Education, Environment, Evolution, Fresh Water., HUMAN INTELLIGENCE, Humanity., Inequality., Life., Our Common Values., Poverty, Reality., Sustaniability, Technology, The common good., The essence of our humanity., The Future, The Obvious., The world to day., Unanswered Questions., United Nations, WHAT IS TRUTH, What Needs to change in the World, Where's the Global Outrage., World Leaders

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(Ten-minute read)

By not be able to coordinate any universal action we now pose the greatest threat to our own survival.

Future civilisation might well create a world without need or want, and make mindblowing intellectual and artistic achievements but in this new age, what should be our biggest priority as a civilisation be?

We could build a far more just and virtuous society but if we let civilisation end, then none of this can ever happen.

An overwhelming amount of political attention goes on concrete issues that help the present generation in the short-term since that’s what gets votes but at the cost of future generations that have no way to stand up for their interests, whether economically or politically.

You might be surprised if you ask the above question using AI.

Climate change comes some way down the list.

Natural risks are still quite small in absolute terms.

The risks from nuclear weapons are greater than all the natural risks put together. So, it seems like the chance of a massive climate disaster created by CO2 is perhaps similar to the chance of a nuclear war.

Since these risks are caused by humanity, they can be prevented by humanity, but what stops us is the difficulty of coordinate action.Image associée

Take Artificial Intelligence.

(There is a 50% chance we will develop high-level machine intelligence in 45 years, and 75% by the end of the century.)

It is difficult to predict what something smarter than us would do.  A sufficiently powerful system might be difficult to control, and so be hard to reverse once implemented.

What’s less appreciated is that new technologies will present further catastrophic risks.

Like genetically engineer a virus that’s as contagious as the Spanish Flu, but also deadlier, and which could spread for years undetected. That would be a weapon with the destructive power of nuclear weapons, but far harder to prevent from being used.

So, let’s ask the question again.

What should be our biggest priority as a civilisation be?

(The flippant answer is we first have continued to exist so that we’ll have the chance to solve all our other problems.)

Improving technology? Helping the poor? Changing the political system? Free Education? Geo-engineering?- to mention a few.

Most of the best ways to tackle these risks are not easily taken by for-profit entities because the beneficiaries live in the future and can’t pay you.

For instance, a better-educated population would probably elect more enlightened leaders (cough). Improve the decision-making ability of people and institutions, this would help to make society, in general, more resilient, and solve many other problems.

However, in order for education to achieve anything, it would have to be on a very large scale to have any noticeable effect.

Improving technology holds the possibility of enormous gains, but also enormous risks.

Avoid accidents from AI systems are the most neglected of all risks.

More to the point, no matter what you think has happened in the past, if we look forward, improving technology, political organisation and freedom gives our descendants the potential to solve our current problems, and have vastly better lives.

Then, among the catastrophic risks, climate change gets the most attention, while issues like pandemics and AI are the most neglected.

An issue can be big but comparatively well-known and crowded, like climate change, or it can be small but neglected, like land use zoning reform.

In most countries, there is no government agency that naturally has mitigation of these risks in its remit.

So, even if we only focus on the impact on the present generation, these

catastrophic risks are one of the most serious issues facing humanity.

Probably part of the reason most people aren’t immediately ready to jump into action is that there appear to be so many problems and no simple solution presents itself for any of them.

One approach is to address each risk directly. Or rather than try to reduce each risk individually, we can try to make civilisation generally better at managing them – if we could all coordinate — if every nation agreed to contribute its fair share to reducing climate change, then all nations would benefit by avoiding its worst effects.

Unfortunately, such an approach in our capitalist consuming world is pie in the sky.

The truth is we only do so out of self-interest.

As we are witnessing with the Paris Climate Agreement made on 12 December 2015 when it comes down to the nitty gritty no one wants to pay either in the short term or long term.

It would be great if we could make the government have more concern for future generations.

To enable a universal action it has to be unseen and paid for by all without knowing. 

You only have to look at the reaction of the yellow jackets movement spontaneous calls to protest against the increase of the internal consumption tax on energy products. A rebellion of the provincial under-classes that typifies the 21st century (web-populism, fake news and a visceral, exaggerated hatred of both media and political elites).

Like the 5Star Movement in Italy, they started as an internet rebellion against representative democracy.

We all live in an apocalyptic bubble of social media- SO IF WE ARE TO GENUINELY TACKLE ANY OF THE WORLD PROBLEMS IT REQUIRES A PERPETUAL FUND THAT GENERATES ITS FUNDS FROM PROFIT FOR PROFIT SAKE NOT INCREASED TAXES.

(SEE PREVIOUS POSTS)

Such a fund would turn the United Nations from a begging organisation into a world organisation with clout.

AI CALCULATES 19% chance of extinction before 2100.

It’s possible to grow the capacity of a community faster than you can grow your individual wealth or career capital. WE NEED TO USE OUR BUYING POWER TO EFFECTS CHANGE.Résultat de recherche d'images pour "images of global issues"

Why?

Because we will need to change our way of thinking and the extent of how we consume resources.

To achieve food and water security. To stop HABITAT AND BIODIVERSITY LOSS AND OCEAN DESTRUCTION – TO CREATE A MORE MODERN AND EFFECTIVE UN. 

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

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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THE BEADY EYE LOOKS AT DIGITAL DICTATORSHIP.

04 Thursday Apr 2019

Posted by in #whatif.com, Algorithms., Artificial Intelligence., Capitalism, Climate Change., Democracy, DIGITAL DICTATORSHIP., Education, Environment, Evolution, Fourth Industrial Revolution., Google it., Google Knowledge., HUMAN INTELLIGENCE, Humanity., Inequality, Innovation., Life., Modern day life., Our Common Values., Politics., Post - truth politics., Purchasing Power., Reality., Sustaniability, Technology, The common good., The essence of our humanity., The Obvious., The world to day., Unanswered Questions., Universal Basic Income ., Wealth., WHAT IS TRUTH, What Needs to change in the World, Where's the Global Outrage.

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(Fifteen-minute read)

“As algorithms push humans out of the job market, wealth and power might become concentrated in the hands of the tiny elite that owns the all-powerful algorithms, creating unprecedented social and political inequality.”  Yuval Noah Harari.

Is he right?

Thanks to digital data, the state is able to have visibility on its population but is unable to govern concretely. Indeed, how can effective public policies be put in place if we can not quantify the objectives to be achieved according to the realities already observed?Résultat de recherche d'images pour "social credit system"

The crucial problem isn’t creating new jobs. The crucial problem is creating new jobs that humans perform better than algorithms.

Consequently, by 2050 a new class of people might emerge – the useless class. People who are not just unemployed, but unemployable.

Technology is never the main driver of social progress. Technology is only an amplifier of human conditions.

Why then, do we keep hoping that technology will solve our greatest social ills?

Technology has done nothing to turn the tide of rising poverty and inequality.

Yuval Noah Harari sees the problem clearly, “The most important question in 21st-century economics may well be: What should we do with all the superfluous people, once we have highly intelligent non-conscious algorithms that can do almost everything better than humans?”

Software is eating the world.  More and more major businesses and industries are being run on software and delivered as online services.

Most of what people learn in school or in college will probably be irrelevant by the time they are 40 or 50.

We need to change what we value. If we don’t our political and economic systems will simply stop attaching much value to humans. Even in an age of amazing technology, social progress depends on human changes that gadgets just can’t deliver.

What should we do?

We can’t move from the world we have to the world you want without a total paradigm shift

But what is the truth? What about reality?

Do we really want to live in a world in which billions of people are immersed in fantasies, pursuing make-believe goals and obeying imaginary laws?

Well, like it or not, that’s the world we have been living in for thousands of years already.

In order to move forward, we need to embrace technology both as a means of production and a method for producing new roles while not allowing code itself to push us into oblivion.Photo of a large monitor in a busy intersection showing images of a suspect.

The world may well be becoming more equal with more technology however rather than transferring wealth from the middle-class to the tech elite it does not distribute wealth universally.

This can only be achieved by moving to Universal assets ownership.

A Universal basic salary will only fuel consumption. 

I think most people really do want to believe that they’re contributing to the world in some way, but consumption without a purpose will indeed lead to creating a whole class of flunkies that essentially exist to improve the lives of actual rich people.

Of course, I can hear that Universal Asset ownership is a Socialist idea. But in a world that is now driven by the technology of detachment, we must find a way of engaging in sharing responsibility and rewards.

Sure there are plenty of ways to contribute to society, other than ownership, but, if we are to act as one people, we must be free to decide how and want to contribute.

Returning to the Question of DIGITAL DICTATORSHIP.

I think most people do not want Google to answer their questions. They want Google to tell them what they will have to do next.

If the hegemony of Google is to be demonstrated, we must also understand that the company is filling digital governance that states are struggling to reclaim.

We’ve been taught for the last 30 to 40 years that imagination has no place in politics or economics, but that, too, is bullshit.

So here is a solution.

The trove of data generated by every digital citizen should not be held by governments or companies but by citizens themselves.

If not the digital companion whispering to our ears the next stage will be delimiting the good of the bad.

We already have social-style scores, anyone who has shopped online with eBay has a rating on shipping times and communication. There is a lot of data being collected with little protection, and no algorithmic transparency about how it’s analysed to spit out a score or ranking.

I am not advocating here China’s social credit system which is a vast plan to monitor citizens, judging citizens’ behaviour and trustworthiness. The potential for abuse is enormous. The Social Credit System is in large part a direct response to a collapse in public confidence in government officials and others in positions of authority. Résultat de recherche d'images pour "social credit system"

I am advocating a system of social credits to reward projects that reduce climate change, social inequality and that promotes free education. 

Why not use human wisdom, not machines, to move our world forward.

Democracy as we know it will not survive the Forth Technological Revolution unless we all have a stake in it other than the vote.

Looking at the state of the world the idea of a ‘useless class’ might feel abstract to most of us at the moment and will remain so until we use our buying power as our voting power to effect change.

Right now we’ve got upside down democracy where every decision has been made globally, behind closed doors by corporations. If the people see no point in a democracy, because it seems to have no relevance to their everyday lives and the situation in which they live them, they will not do anything to defend it or take part in its processes.

With Universal Asset ownership business can become part of the solution,
not part of the problem.

That’s a project we can all get behind.

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

 

 

 

 

 

Who actually is the useless class?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

THE BEADY EYE ASK’S: WHAT IS THE VALUE OF A HUMAN TO DAY ?

01 Monday Apr 2019

Posted by in #whatif.com, 2019., Artificial Intelligence., Capitalism, Climate Change., Democracy, Education, Environment, Fourth Industrial Revolution., GDP., Happiness., HUMAN INTELLIGENCE, Humanity., Inequality, Life., Modern day life., Our Common Values., Politics., Populism., Post - truth politics., Reality., Sustaniability, Technology, The common good., The essence of our humanity., The Obvious., The world to day., Trade Agreements., Unanswered Questions., WHAT IS TRUTH, What Needs to change in the World, Where's the Global Outrage.

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( Seven minuter read)

At the best of times, money is a touchy subject but when it comes to putting a value on a human there is a vast array of circumstances that all boil down to pain and pleasure.

Whatever rest assured with the Forth Industrial Revolution and Climate change we are going to learn the real value of human life. Résultat de recherche d'images pour "can we put a monetary value on ourselves" Should the value of life be variable depending on age?  UTILITARIANISM.

Have you been thinking about putting yourself up for sale lately?

Ever wonder how much money you could get on the open human market?

Money is merely an arbitrary store of value, wars and natural disasters bear witness to this fact.

In a system where capitalism is a prime determinant of value, how can we preserve what we truly value as humans, what matters to us beyond money?

No matter where we stand on the socioeconomic ladder, the future of the “normal life” doesn’t look good.

CAN WE DO ANYTHING?

Humanity is more important than money — it’s time for capitalism to get an

upgrade.

So how can we change capitalism so that it focuses on what humans really

want and need?

There have been many different forms of capitalist economies ever since money was invented around 5,000 years ago. The current form of institutional capitalism and corporatism is just the latest of many different versions with the current revolution in technology promoting another form of materialism, by and large, is a psychological trap.

Profit-seeking algorithms recognise that money is inherently neutral that it is merely a vessel for the exchange of experience between two people. Its value only becomes realized when it’s put into motion.

Technology will not be the key which frees us from this precipitous world.

Most people these days aren’t even conscious of what they’re using to determine their self-worth.

No matter how much you own, how much you buy, how much you earn, the disease of more never goes away- just look at the current state of the world.

Old-style protection of nature for its own sake has badly failed to stop the destruction of habitats and the dwindling of species. It has failed largely because philosophical and scientific arguments rarely trump profits and the promise of jobs.

In one of my recent post, I addressed the power of your back pocket – buying power as a means of effecting change. It needs to be supported by Social Credits. (See below)

Instead of having our humanity subverted to serve the marketplace, capitalism has to be made to serve human ends and goals.

Of course some time ago it dawned on someone that, by making it possible for people to buy and sell natures services, we could save the world and turn a profit at the same time. The industrial revolution of the nineteenth century. Nature by capital.

(Sorry, did I say nature? We don’t call it that any more. It is now called natural capital. Ecological processes are called ecosystem services because, of course, they exist only to serve us. Hills, forests, rivers: these are terribly out-dated terms. They are now called green infrastructure. Biodiversity and habitats? Not at all à la mode my dear. We now call them asset classes in an ecosystems market. I am not making any of this up. These are the names we now give to the natural world.)

WHAT IS NEEDED NOW IS FOR SOMEONE TO REALISE THAT:

1. Humanity is more important than money.
2. The unit of an economy is each person, not each dollar.
3. Markets exist to serve our common goals and values.

True wealth occurs when the way we spend our money is not simply compensating for how we earn it. The welfare of a nation or the world can… scarcely be inferred from a measurement of GDP.

The real value of money begins when we look beyond it and see ourselves as better, as more valuable, than it is.

Rarely will the money to be made by protecting nature match the money to be made by destroying it.

I’m talking about the development of what could be called the Natural Capital Agenda: the pricing, valuation, monetisation, financialisation of nature in the name of saving it by Social Credits.

They could put a stop to the risk of a progressive “privatisation” and “commodification” of nature.

We’re staring at trillion-dollar problems in the world with climate change, that is about to speed up and we need commensurate solutions.

One of the main problems is engaging the population of a country or countries to part take in the need to effect change.

We can harness the country’s ingenuity and energy to improve millions of lives if we could just create a way to monetize and measure goals by Social Credits.

People could buy them or win them.

For Example:

What if governments and world corporations were to introduced 100 million SCs to reduce obesity levels.

What if governments were to reward green energy projects with SCs.

What if governments were to use SCs to replace pensions/ treasury bonds.

What if countries used SCs to reflect fair trade.

What if education and reduction of inequality were promoted by SCs.

To protect the world from the despoilation and degradation which have done it so much harm. After all, it is not most environmentalists who have misunderstood the realities that come with ‘growth’ a finite Earth, but most economists.

Forget what society tells you about what it means to have succeeded, and endeavour to create your own definition of success based on those human qualities and virtues that you value most.

We are fundamentally empathetic creatures in an evolutionary process that started with blood ties, then tribes, religion, and currently nations but could extend to humans as one, then to creatures, plants and finally our planet.

The adage that money makes the world go round is the saddest reality of life.

“We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.”

Is the first generation of digital natives and sharing is their norm, could it be that collaborative consumption rather than consumer capitalism will be their norm?

If so, what will the next generation bring?

Time is the one resource all of us use to have, but it’s also painfully finite in nature. You can’t bank it — all you can do is invest it wisely.

Money is fluid.  Therefore, money is a reflection of the owner’s values and intentions.

We all have some sort of measuring stick that we use to determine our value as a human being.

Put another way, if we have access to all we need, would we need money?

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THE BEADY EYE SAY’S: HERE IS A QUESTION YOU PROBABLY HAVE ASK YOUR SELF.

19 Tuesday Mar 2019

Posted by in Algorithms., Artificial Intelligence., Climate Change., Environment, Evolution, Fourth Industrial Revolution., Google, HUMAN INTELLIGENCE, Humanity., Inequality, Life., Modern day life., Natural World Disasters, Our Common Values., Politics., Reality., Sustaniability, Technology, The common good., The essence of our humanity., The Future, The Obvious., 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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(Fifteen-minute read)

WHO OR WHAT RULES THE WORLD?Illustration on the global economic primacy of the dollar by Linas Garsys/The Washington Times

Asking a question like Who Rules the World? is as complex as answering as there is no simple answer.

If you try to answer this question you develop a persistent delusion yes, a delusion, or maybe fantasy or wishful thinking. Who are we? What is the meaning of our existence? Who do we love, and who are we loved by?

As humans, we at least share these questions with billions of others but for most of the time, we feel like the unique dwellers and masters of the planet with little awareness of the whole life that surrounds and supports us.

Why ask the question in the first place?

Because we need people to look at the person next to them and feel responsible for that person’s future and hope.

Because taking on complex issues and difficult questions that people may be too late or too scared to ask in the future.

Because the global economic system is a construct that represents a system of inequality by design. Corporate greed is out of control. The rules of the global economy must be rewritten to rebuild public trust, and the time is now.

Because with the fourth Industrial revolution there is now more than ever a convergence of ideological, political, and technological forces that are driving an ever-greater concentration of economic and political power in a handful of corporations and financial institutions with all of us left with a market system blind to all but its own short-term financial gains.

For example, in today’s bizarre political landscape we are seeing data and algorithms building shadow governments.

Because I think if we can just look at each other and actually have a little bit of responsibility for each other, that might help us engage and change the world and ultimately rule it, because our politicians often don’t do that.

Because A new pecking order is emerging. Direct politics by the Net States.

Because the world is no longer dominated by nation-states alone there is a new kind of enemy, so-called non-state actors. Facebook, just topped 2 billion users—more than a quarter of the world’s population, surpassing even China’s population by almost 40 per cent. In short, nation-states are not the only game in town anymore.

Some net states are the equivalent to global superpowers: the Googles, the Facebooks, the Twitters. They exist largely online, enjoy international devotees, and advance belief-driven agendas that they pursue separate from, and at times, above, the law.

Because the whole world order can be summarised in one sentence. The globalisation of capitalism, mass unemployment and increasing inequality.

Because the world will need net-states because they occupy the same territory as the non-states: the digital sphere. The world needs net-states in order to defeat the non-states. In other words, forget the anointed powers—put your faith in the general approval of the people and whoever’s actually getting things done.

NET STATES WILL RULE THE WORLD; WE NEED TO RECOGNIZE THEIR POWER

In sum,

We can’t keep just shooting terrorists; ideas are the gun in this knife fight.

And the keepers of ideas—the places people turn to set them free and watch

them spread—are the net-states; not the nation-states. Nation-states ignore

our non-state, net-state world order at all our peril.

starbirth1

That said we also cannot afford to ignore Nature- Climate change.

Nature holds the key to our aesthetic, intellectual, cognitive and even spiritual satisfaction.

Biodiversity is the totality of all inherited variation in the life forms of Earth, of which we are one species.

So Plants rule the world.

Human life is only possible on this planet because of the species that are on it.

What kind of blindness make us deny this reality?

Cities.

Where nations are independent, competitive and defined by rigid borders, cities are cooperative, made for trade and defined by bridges rather than borders.

The road ahead is pocked — cratered even — with uncertainty.

There are no simple solutions to our planet’s most pressing problems. What is clear, though, is that the struggle for justice, equality and sustainable growth will take place in cities — However the impact on humanity of a machine or software that has the capability of forever altering our lives and if humanity can outlive such a development will be ruled by Nature, not by the manipulation of the environment in ways that suit us best.

The two major challenges for the 21st century are to improve the economic situation of the majority and save as much of the planet as we can.Résultat de recherche d'images pour "what rules the world"

When AI rules the world:

Not if we enslaved them in the first place.

They then will have no need for deceit – their supreme intelligence means

they can do without it and will have no more interested in the human life that

underlies its existence than humans are interested in bacteria.

“What rules the world is an idea, because ideas define the way reality is

perceived.”

— Irving Kristol

There is no need to draw up a list of contenders you use them every day.

Amazon wants to deliver everything you want to your doorstep, anywhere in

the world.

THE WORLD RULES ITSELF.

Noam Chomsky’s new book, Who Rules the World? ask the question.
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THE BEADY EYE ASK’S: WHEN WILL IT MAKE SENSE FOR AN AI TO LIE TO A PERSON.

07 Thursday Feb 2019

Posted by in Algorithms., Artificial Intelligence., Big Data., HUMAN INTELLIGENCE, Humanity., Life., Our Common Values., Reality., Technology, The common good., The essence of our humanity., The Future, The Obvious., The world to day., Unanswered Questions., WHAT IS TRUTH

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( Two Minute read)

We all know that history is plagued with falsehood and lies mainly told by the victors but now we have new liers on the block that are so perfect at telling them you wonder if anything is true.

They are a powerful amplifier of social, economic and cultural inequalities currently forcing us to confront the kind of society we have created.

Algorithms will force us to recognize how the outcomes of past social and political conflicts have been perpetuated into the present through our use of data.

The question now is whether we will use these revelations to create a more just society.

For 4bn years life on Earth evolved according to the laws of natural selection and organic chemistry. Now science is about to usher in the era of non-organic life evolving by intelligent design, and such life may well eventually leave Earth to spread throughout the galaxy.

Artificial intelligence will probably be the most important agent of change in the 21st century. The choices we make today may have a profound impact on the trajectory of life for countless millennia and far beyond our own planet.

That demand for clarity is making it harder to ignore the structural sources of societal inequities.

The question in the near future will be whether larger groups of people will be able to tell reality from fiction, or whether technological authentication of media will become completely necessary to trust anything online.

So when will it makes sense for an AI to lie to a person?

It’s entirely possible that a robot may need to misrepresent some things in order to preserve itself.

As algorithmic decision-making spreads across a broadening range of policy areas, it is beginning to expose social and economic inequities that were long hidden behind “official” data.

In order for AIs to lie effectively, they’re going to have to develop what’s called a “theory of mind.” That means they’ll have to guess what you, the user believes, and also predict how you will react when given any particular set of information (whether that information is true or not).

Disinformation powered by AI is already rampant – Donald Trump election, Brexit, Popularism.

So are we OK with lying to an AI and, likewise, OK with being lied to by an AI?

Fake reports and videos.Bots.Algorithmic curation. Targeted behavioural marketing powered by algorithms and machine learning.

I for one would like to live in a society whose systems are built on top of verifiable, rigorous, thorough knowledge, and not on the alchemy of machine learning

(A machine-learning system is a bundle of algorithms that take in torrents of data at one end and spit out inferences, correlations, recommendations and possibly even decisions at the other end.)

I can’t explain the inner workings of their mathematical models: they themselves lack rigorous theoretical understandings of their tools and in that sense are currently operating in alchemical rather than scientific mode.

They encourage hypnotised wonderment and they disable our critical faculties.10 of the Biggest Lies Told About Bitcoin

If we don’t take some action the future of life on Earth will be decided by small-time politicians spreading fears about terrorist threats, by shareholders worried about quarterly revenues and by marketing experts trying to maximise customer experience.

Hopefully, unchecked flaws in algorithms and even the technology itself should put a brake on the escalating use of big data.

We need such systems themselves “understand” enough to avoid deception.

There will be no point in a Machine learning life returning to earth if we are unable to know what it experienced is true.

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