I have addressed this subject in several previous posts.
You would think that we should learn from previous regulations, like those on the food, pharmaceutical, automobile etc all typically applied after something bad had happened, not in anticipation.
WHEN IT COMES TO TECHNOLOGIES THAT HAVE THE CAPABILITY TO LEARN FROM THEIR OWN ACTIVITIES, with the – possible of impacting on the full spectrum of benefits and risks to humanity ― from the possible development of a more utopic society to the potential extinction of human civilization.
IT IS IMPERATIVE THAT WE HAVE SOME FORM OF CONTROL.
Without unnecessary constraints on AI researchers and developers, fundamental research fields or technologies should not be regulated.
Aspirational principles alone are not enough, if they are not put into practice, and a question remains: is government regulation and oversight necessary to guarantee that AI scientists and companies follow these principles and others like them?
Even today, we’re seeing signs of narrow AI exacerbating problems of discrimination and job loss, and if we don’t take proper precautions, we can expect problems to worsen, affecting more people as AI grows smarter and more complex.
The recently founded Partnership on AI founding document states that:
“Where AI tools are used to supplement or replace human decision-making, we must be sure that they are safe, trustworthy and aligned with the ethics and preferences of people who are influenced by their actions.”
Because these problems threaten society as a whole, they can’t be left to a small group of researchers to address. At the very least, government officials need to learn about and understand how AI could impact us all.
YOU WOULD WONDER WHY, the topic rarely comes up in political discussion.
Let’s ask ourselves: how can we ensure that AI remains beneficial for all, and who needs to be involved in that effort?
THE PROBLEM IS TO DAY THAT WE DON’T KNOW WHAT TO REGULATE, OR AT WHAT LEVEL WOULD WE DO THIS?
This question to me is pointless.
We will never get enough international support lay the foundations for constructive regulation.
CONTROL SHOULD BE IMPLEMENTED LIKE AN LEGALLY REQUIRED MOT.
EVERY ALGORITHM THAT IS INVASIVE OR PROFIT PRODUCING SHOULD BE REQUIRED BY INTERNATIONAL LAW TO LOGE A COPY ITS SOFTWARE PROGRAM OR PROGRAM’S IN A AI BANK.
WHERE IT IS HELD JUST IN CASE OF MALFUNCTION.
THIS NEEDS TO START- soon to have any chance of keeping up with innovation in the field.
WHY?
Because: Algorithms will dominate the coming centuries.
Because: Ascribing human qualities to non-human entities is a minefield.
Because: Algorithms are becoming the single most important concept in our world.
Because: Algorithms are connected to our emotions.
Because: Algorithms are not just particular calculation, but a method followed when making the calculation.
Because: What we call sensations and emotions are all algorithms.
Because: Electronic Algorithms will out perform biochemical Algorithms.
Because: Humans can no longer cope with the immense flows of data.
Because: Algorithms will completely transform the very nature of life transforming the world beyond recognition.
Because: Free –market capitalism and controlled communism are competing data-processing systems.
Because: The Stock Exchange, the economy of the world is already run by high frequency algorithms for profit only.
Because: Algorithms structures will run hospitals. then your faith will be in the hands of the system. What is true of hospitals will be true of armies, wars, prisons, schools, and corporations.
Because: We will need to decide which is a computer and which is the human.
Because: It follows that external algorithms will know you better than yourself.
I am sure you can add to the list.
Algorithms are decoupling us for shared values, with life becoming just data processing.
If this is the sort of world you want to live in stay silent and your wish will come true.
If you can think it, there’s most likely an algorithm for it.
While computer scientists may not be specifically finding better ways to manage your love life, you’d be surprised at how math can play a role as matchmaker. Let’s keep in mind that, during a search, you reach a point when you’ve gathered enough data and a continued search can be seen as both redundant as well as confirming what you know.
Well, how about when finding a parking space?
All human comments appreciated, all like clicks chucked in the bin of data.
( A twenty-minute read, before we are all raped by Algorithms)
Strength from cultural diversity is being eroded by Algorithms.
At the moment while we’ll be striving to understand the impact of “information flows” — shared value is going out the window.
You could say that 99.4 percent of physical objects are still unconnected but algorithms but they are already transforming the world around us — in education, healthcare, manufacturing, commerce, transportation and other sectors.
In the coming years, the Internet of Everything Economy will be run by Algorithms that control smart grid, smart buildings, connected healthcare and patient monitoring, smart factories, connected private education, connected commercial (ground) vehicles, connected marketing and advertising, and connected gaming and entertainment, among others, will rule the world.
If we are honest, we have been living with the ambiguity created by SHARED VALUE for a long time.
The United nations being the prime example.
Its shared ideology values are ignored daily because they do not possess any legal or constitutional power. (They have however attained limited success in generating greater ideological consensus, whether it is the impact on the environment, on society, or in terms of how it governs itself) Now unfortunately it is trying to operate in a world that is in the middle of a technological revolution which is exposing its limits to the point of being relevance.
Technology trends (including cloud and mobile computing, Big Data, increased processing power, and many others) and business economics (such as Metcalfe’s law) are driving the IoE (The Internet of Everything economy.)
The Internet of Everything (IoE) brings together people, process, data, and things to make networked connections more relevant and valuable than ever before — turning information into actions that create new capabilities, richer experiences, and unprecedented economic opportunity for businesses, individuals, and countries.
On the other hand in my opinion it is and will be a mistake to greet every invention with applause and just let it go its way.
There are many aspect to the Technological Revolution that are desirable and needed, but at what sacrifice, and where to draw red lines is not being addressed. You could say its evolution and can not be changed or stopped.
However Artificial intelligence which is run by Algorithms is void of emotional intelligence.
The future will no doubt push for higher level automated capabilities by integrating human spoken and linguistic capabilities with other human skills such as vision, motor skills, and emotions.
This future will bring about a society of human and machine experts, that collaborate together for improved outcomes in complex processes such as decision-making.
These decisions which will be based on vast quantities of data rather than share values. They will be driven by our old friend capitalist profit, managed by platforms that are totally unregulated, unaccountable.
In a world where we are all supposed to be accountable, Artificial Intelligence must also be accountable not just to its algorithms. It must be totally transparent and regulated by an independent Organisation that ensure it enhances our shared values. As we explore all the possibilities these technologies present, it will be critical to place us at the forefront.
The conversations around these technologies, I suppose in the future will reach an equilibrium and we will understand as a society how to use them responsibly or will it be too late.
I think the more interesting thing that’s happening is we’re evolving into a kind of meta organism, which is the whole species on the planet connected through the Web, sharing information, sharing thoughts, sharing ideas.
We are not sharing empathy and sharing emotions, exploring and expanding the boundaries of what it means to be human, today and far into the future.
People will end up having no sense of control over their changing environments other than what their Virtual Personal Assistant lets them know.
The world we live in has and always will have problems because it is impossible of humans to act as one for the general good of all.
Rest assured that Algorithms will also suffer from the same flaw.
If left to their own devices they will destroy any sense of collaboration, reducing us to smart phone workers with no shared values or jobs for life.
We are more and more desensitized by social media platforms that are run by algorithms to ensure we remain so, we are all too busy checking our smart phones to take any notice. Most of us can not recognize our self.
HUMANIZING TECHNOLOGIES: Are smile that fits the lock of everybody’s heart.
Robots are learning how to detect your personality and even your gender with just a handshake, so giving robots a personality is the only way our relationship with artificial intelligence will survive.
We have all experienced “dehumanizing” technology – software or hardware that seems to diminish our ability to communicate with others or to function effectively in the world.
Technology such as Algorithms for profit are creating new boundaries between people rather than erasing old ones, with Touchy-feely robots becoming the false face of the Algorithms, that run them. Capitalize on our unique strengths and weakness, new technologies are and will further integrate themselves seamlessly into our lives.
We are already accustomed to Amazon’s anticipatory shipping practices, where the company identifies items we may want to buy before we even begin our search. Artificial Intelligence is making technology more personal and purposeful than ever before.
I don’t know about you. Just because I bought something, viewed something, commented on something, or sent an email to someone, I don’t want Watson, Google, Facebook or any other platform invading my Privacy with annoying suggestions, as I have no shared values with any of their Algorithms.
If we don’t get a grip of what I call Algorithms for Profit connecting the unconnected: people, process, data, and things we are going to be looking at a very sad world.
Since the industrial revolution, concerns have been raised about the negative effect of development on human exploitation, inequality, the environment, and by extension, greater society.
Of all the concerns that development brings, environmental damage has a high-profile due to its long, and sometimes cruel, history from business self-interest, to a sense of responsibility, or a combination of both.
Now it is the time to make capitalism more responsive to social challenges, as corporations are directly facing the trade-offs between private costs and social benefits.
The pursuit of profit and increasing shareholder value are the only responsibilities of business.
The inclusion of non-financial issues into investment decision-making must be a priority.
Why?
Because in terms of corporate social responsibility, the long-term risk of damage to the economic system and long-term value creation, and therefore investment returns, is a palpable threat to asset owners.
National identity and nationhood are not principles that can be “mandated and managed from the top”. Instead, the nation is an “imagined reality” that transcends institutions such as government and civil society. Consequently, the citizen creates the nation.
It is the responsibility of the investor to protect an economy’s ability to create long-term value.
Given long-term horizons, diversification, and long duration liabilities, it is beneficial to work together to reduce Artificial Intelligence future risk. To verify if shared value strategies can be found in practice.
This is so that today’s efforts to create value do not impair the ability of future generations to do the same.
Driven by advances in mobile technology the United nations is total out of date.
The importance of the family as a “basic unit of society”, no longer fully address family related issues.
In today’s investment world, there is no Algorithm that is going pre-empt social change and direct it in “suitable” directions.
Artificial Intelligence is making technology more personal and purposeful than ever before. We are trying to leverage data science with natural interfaces to provide solutions tailored to human behavior, attitudes and comprehension, also known as cognitive systems.
So the Question is:
Are these profit Algorithms degrading our humanity.
Today, the most successful technology goes beyond the technical specs and is all about the user experience. The best use of technology is the one people barely notice.
Our emotions influence every aspect of our lives, from our health and well-being, to the way we learn, the decisions we make and how we communicate with one another.
Try telling that to a Digital banking Algorithm. The only point of contact between banks and their customers.
Now we can have a whole new social class system.
Since people can be judged by their emotions, and since a persons emotional state has legal consequences in a court of law, and since corporations would love nothing more than to know how we feel so that they can control our behavior by controlling what information we receive when we are connected, and since we are always connected. ….
Well that couldn’t possibly be a problem, or could it?
We are handing over our privacy and our lively mental freedom, step by step, to the lifeless and emotionless domain of machines. We are becoming more and more dependent upon mechanistic mimicking of human qualities, and call it Machine Intelligence.
“The biggest privacy-invasive is no the way with face recognition applications”.
Why? Because the majority of how people experience each other is through screens.
this will bring a new leveraged on degrees of freedom for smart life.
Just because you want to believe it is true doesn’t mean it is true.
The goal should be making people to become aware of the trends and processes they are being involved by their own deeds and making them to ask important questions
In short:
Predictions are hard, but TRYING to fore see and not being blind to what is already happening is immensely important.
I wouldn’t want “devices” to sense anything. Anything.
Constantly arguing with your device about how you really feel.
What a sick world that is going to be.
Ask google why do people die before their time.
You get many answers: How can we know these things?….We can’t, unless we ask and who do we ask in order to get the correct answer.. not a Algorithm. The basic recipes for Capitalist slavery.
How much messiness should we accept? What balance of the new and familiar is the most fulfilling? These may seem like uniquely human quandaries, but they are not. Computers, like us, confront limited space and time with no shared values.
All human comments ( Not that I will know if they are generated by Algo) appreciated. All like clicks chucked in the bin.
(If you want a future worth living here is a crucial half an hour read)
Most of us know that we are in the middle of a technological upheaval that will transform the way society is organized and the beast we are unleashing can be used for good and bad.
Long before what Elon Musk and Mr Hawking predict there is a much more immediate threat when it comes to AI. The holy grail of AI the microchip will surpass the power of the human, creating a whole new world of Quantum computing, one in which machines think and work in ways indiscernible to the human brain.
Rest assured that Capitalism will concentrate AI global wealth to a few and the disparity effects will be sever and this will happen faster and faster with a massive dislocation in the lower skills in society.
Just imagine an AI that learns to navigate the web environment.
It will not be Twitter voting in Donald Trumps or Social media promoting Populist Parties it will be an army of AI bot web trolls harassing what we now call Social Media to the point that there will be no true public opinion worth its salt.
Putin recently said AI leaders will rule the world. He is right. It will create even larger power inequality.
We are well on the way to one way flow of technology with Data as the rocket engine.
We are already using AI without even knowing it.
The Capitalistic world will come under bigger AND BIGGER cyber security issues, with terrorist acquiring clandestine powers that will be unverifiable.
So I ask the question are we prepared for AIs that start building their own normative systems – their own rules about what is acceptable and what is unacceptable for a machine.
Remember using your face to unlock your smart phone is unlocking your mind. A world with facial ID software is one that will spiral out of control.
Gay, Straight, Terrorist, Left or Right, Lidel or Sainsburys, Male or Female, Criminal or not, Rich or Poor.
Regardless of what we do, what’s clear, is that if we want technology to do what we want it to do we need for all technological advancements to be vetted by an Self Financing, Transparent, Independent World Organisation, other than the United Nations.
The United Nations recently opens a new talking shop center in the Netherlands to monitor artificial intelligence and predict possible threats.
“Artificial Intelligence has both the potential to accelerate progress towards a dignified life, in peace and prosperity, said UN Secretary-General António Guterres.
When in fact it also has the potential to destroy what is left of our world.
The United nations Technology for Development (UN CSTD) acknowledges that many technological and development gaps still remain. A Joke.
The real question is not the gaps but who or what should take control and overlook its development.
It is my contention that the UN is total the wrong Organisation to provide a neutral platform for international dialogue, which can build a common understanding of emerging technologies.
However it is best placed to set up a totally independent Organ separate from the UN that is responsible to the people of the world not to the 5 stock piles of nuclear weapons or the developing technology.
The opportunity to use AI to solve some of the world’s grandest challenges cannot be left to Government Regulation, The Free Market, The arms race, or to Capitalist Greed especially in the form of multi global monopoly corporations, like Apple, Microsoft to name but two.
Why?
Here are a few reasons:
Because algorithms know pretty well what we do, what we think and how we feel—possibly even better than our friends and family or even ourselves.
In fact, we are being remotely controlled ever more successfully in this manner. The more is known about us, the less likely our choices are to be free and not predetermined by others.
It won’t stop there.
Some software platforms are moving towards “persuasive computing.”
In the future, using sophisticated manipulation technologies, these platforms will be able to steer us through entire courses of action, be it for the execution of complex work processes or to generate free content for Internet platforms, from which corporations earn billions.
The trend goes from programming computers to programming people.
These technologies are also becoming increasingly popular in the world of politics.
Under the label of “nudging,” and on massive scale, governments are trying to steer citizens towards healthier or more environmentally friendly behavior by means of a “nudge”—a modern form of paternalism.
This appears to be a sort of digital scepter that allows one to govern the masses efficiently, without having to involve citizens in democratic processes.
The magic phrase is “big nudging”, which is the combination of big data with nudging.
To many, believe that this could overcome vested interests and optimize the course of the world?
If so, than citizens could be governed by a data-empowered “wise king”, who would be able to produce desired economic and social outcomes almost as if with a digital magic wand.
Nobody knows how the digital magic wand, that is to say the manipulative nudging technique, should best be used. What would have been the right or wrong measure often is apparent only afterwards.
Artificial intelligence is no longer programmed line by line, but is now capable of learning, thereby continuously developing itself.
Algorithms can now recognize handwritten language and patterns almost as well as humans and even complete some tasks better than them. They are able to describe the contents of photos and videos. Today 70% of all financial transactions are performed by algorithms.
News content is, in part, automatically generated. This all has radical economic consequences: in the coming 10 to 20 years around half of today’s jobs will be threatened by algorithms. 40% of today’s top 500 companies will have vanished in a decade.
One thing is clear: the way in which we organize the economy and society and the world will change fundamentally.
The automation of society is next.
With this, society is at a crossroads, which promises great opportunities, but also considerable risks. If we take the wrong decisions it could threaten our greatest historical achievements.
Every minute we produce hundreds of thousands of Google searches and Facebook posts. These contain information that reveals how we think and feel.
It is estimated that in 10 years’ time there will be 150 billion networked measuring sensors, 20 times more than people on Earth. Then, the amount of data will double every 12 hours. Many companies are already trying to turn this Big Data into Big Money.
Do we want to live in a point scoring loyalty citizen card China / Singapore world.
Today, Singapore is seen as a perfect example of a data-controlled society. What started as a program to protect its citizens from terrorism has ended up influencing economic and immigration policy, the property market and school curricula.
According to recent reports, every Chinese citizen will receive a so-called ”Citizen Score”, which will determine under what conditions they may get loans, jobs, or travel visa to other countries. This kind of individual monitoring would include people’s Internet surfing and the behavior of their social contacts.
With consumers facing increasingly frequent credit checks and some online shops experimenting with personalized prices, we are on a similar path in the West.
It is also increasingly clear that we are all in the focus of institutional surveillance. This was revealed in 2015 when details of the British secret service’s “Karma Police” program became public, showing the comprehensive screening of everyone’s Internet use.
Is Big Brother now becoming a reality?
Everything started quite harmlessly.
Search engines and recommendation platforms began to offer us personalized suggestions for products and services. This information is based on personal and meta-data that has been gathered from previous searches, purchases and mobility behavior, as well as social interactions.
We don’t want A.I. to engage in cyber bullying, stock manipulation or terrorist threats;
We don’t want Governments to release A.I. systems that entrap people into committing crimes.
We don’t want autonomous vehicles that drive through red lights, or worse, A.I. weapons that violate international treaties.
We don’t want – My A.I. did it. Should not excuse illegal behavior.
We don’t want A.I. systems producing fake tweets, producing fake news videos.
We don’t want A.I. weaponizing, any A.I. must have an impregnable “off switch.” It should be illegal to buy, sell or manufacture weaponized AI.
We don’t want AI High Frequency Trading, Unregulated Drones, Unregulated Genetic Engineering or AI Biological Weapons.
We don’t want A.I. be let out into the wild.
We don’t want A.I. Amazon Echo — a “smart speaker” present in an increasing number of homes — is privy to, or the information that your child may inadvertently divulge to a toy such as an A.I. Barbie.
We don’t want seemingly innocuous A.I. housecleaning robots create maps of our homes.
WE DO WANT.
A.I. system to clearly disclose that it is not human.
A.I. system subject to the full gamut of laws that apply to its human operator. This rule would cover private, corporate and government systems.
A.I. systems clearly labeled as such.
A.I. system that cannot retain or disclose confidential information without explicit approval from the source of that information.
Elon Musk recently urged the nation’s governors to regulate artificial intelligence “before it’s too late.”
He is too late, the A.I. horse has left the barn, and our best bet is to attempt to steer it. We must make the right decisions now, not to-morrow.
An AI Future: It’s Not What You Think.
It will not share the same sense of human empathy.
The emergence of a super intelligence / or full autonomy human fallibility must be taken out of the equation.
It will not supplement natural intelligence, you will not be able to upload your brain to the internet. It’s time to dispel these Myths…a set of relatively small failures combined together to create a catastrophe is on the horizon.
Look at the latest research from cognitive science, translate that into an algorithm, and add it to an existing system.
We are trying to engineer AI without understanding intelligence or cognition first. But as AI designs get even more complex and computer processors even faster, their skills will improve. That will lead us to give them more responsibility, even as the risk of unintended consequences rises. We know that “to err is human,” so it is likely impossible for us to create a truly safe system.
We have not yet come up with a clear idea of what we want AI to do or become. This must be achieved as a matter of grave urgency as today.
Whoever gets to level 6 automation first decides for everyone else what the rules are. Otherwise known as the “Golden Rule for AI”, that is, who owns the Gold, therefore rules!
Can we avoid being wiped off the face of the Earth by machines we helped create?
Diversity has a value all in itself, and that the universe is so ridiculously large that humankind’s existence in it probably doesn’t matter at all.
Fortunately, we need not justify our existence quite yet.
Saying we embrace diversity and actually doing it are two different things—as are saying we want to save the planet and successfully doing so.
We all, individually and as a society, need to prepare for that nightmare scenario, using the time we have left to demonstrate why our creations should let us continue to exist.
If we don’t find a way to distribute our wealth better, we will have fueled capitalism with artificial intelligence laborers serving only very few who possess all the means of production.
Once a new technology is introduced it can’t be uninvented.
If we think in terms of decades then Global warming, inequality and the disruption to the global job market by AI loom large.
AS STATED BY YUVAL NOAH HARARI IN HIS CLOSING OBSERVATIONS IN HIS BOOK HOMO DEUS ( which I quote here below and recommend to all)
” If we take the really grand view of life, all other problems and developments are overshadowed by three interlinked processes.
1) Science is converging on an all-encompassing dogma, which says that organisms are algorithms, and life is data processing.
2) Intelligence is decoupling from consciousness.
3) Non- conscious but highly intelligent algorithms may soon know us better than we know ourselves.
These three processes raise three key questions.
Are Organisms really just algorithms, and is life really just data processing?
2. What’s more valuable- intelligence or consciousness?
3. What will happen to society, politics and daily life when non-conscious but highly intelligent algorithms know us better that we know ourselves? ”
Concentration of wealth leads to concentration of power combined with AI that naturally lends itself to a winner takes all.
All human comments appreciated by a human, all like clicks whether generated by AI or not chucked in the bin.
To maintain international peace and security, and to that end: to take effective collective measures for the prevention and removal of threats to the peace, and for the suppression of acts of aggression or other breaches of the peace, and to bring about by peaceful means, and in conformity with the principles of justice and international law, adjustment or settlement of international disputes or situations which might lead to a breach of the peace;
To develop friendly relations among nations based on respect for the principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples, and to take other appropriate measures to strengthen universal peace;
To achieve international co-operation in solving international problems of an economic, social, cultural, or humanitarian character, and in promoting and encouraging respect for human rights and for fundamental freedoms for all without distinction as to race, sex, language, or religion; and
To be a center for harmonizing the actions of nations in the attainment of these common ends.
A charter represents a document that describes a project, its rationale, its goals and its participants. The purpose of a charter aims at aligning the expectations of all the contributors so that their energy focuses on the project’s priorities.
The Charter is not to be confused with The Universal Declaration of Human rights adopted after World War 11. It is perhaps the closest thing we have to a global Constitution- categorically states that the right to life is humanity’s fundamental value. Death is a crime.
It would appear that from the speeches given by either of the above that they DO NOT fully comprehended the above charter.
In his Sovereignty – centric speech Mr Trump threatened to totally destroy North Korea, called Iran a corrupt dictatorship whose main export is violence.
While Mrs May in her speech threatened withdrawal of funds.
This is not the first time not will it be the last that a World leader has used the UN to criticize other nations. Mr Bush with the axis of evil. Mr Khrushchev trumping the table and calling Filipino some obnoxious name in Russian.
Both Mr T and Mrs M appear to think that the yard stick to measure a nation’s success is GDP. This kind of thinking is driving humankind to make happiness a second goal for the twenty-first century which is highly unlikely unless inequality, war, and climate change disappear.
Surely the UN is not the platform for sovereign selfish nations to be expressing treats to other nations. Stirring up hornets nest is not what the world needs.
Here a few examples from each of their recent addresses to the UN.
MR D Trump first:
“The United States has great strength and patience, but if it is forced to defend itself or its allies, we will have no choice but to totally destroy North Korea. “Rocket Man” is on a suicide mission for himself and for his regime.”
” It has just been announced that we will be spending almost $700 billion on our military and defense.”
Then a raft of contradictions:
” In America, we do not seek to impose our way of life on anyone, but rather to let it shine as an example for everyone to watch.”
” We are celebrating the 230th anniversary of our beloved Constitution, the oldest constitution still in use in the world today. This timeless document has been the foundation of peace, prosperity and freedom for the Americans, and for countless millions around the globe whose own countries have found inspiration in its respect for human nature, human dignity and the rule of law.”
“But we can no longer be taken advantage of, or enter into a one-sided deal where the United States gets nothing in return.”
“As long as I hold this office, I will defend America’s interests above all else.”
“The United States is one out of 193 countries in the United Nations, and yet we pay 22 percent of the entire budget and more. In fact, we pay far more than anybody realizes.”
“The United States of America has been among the greatest forces for good in the history of the world and the greatest defenders of sovereignty, security and prosperity for all. Now we are calling for a great reawakening of nations, for the revival of their spirits, their pride, their people and their patriotism.”
“Our hope is a word and (sic) world of proud, independent nations that embrace their duties, seek friendship, respect others and make common cause in the greatest shared interest of all, a future of dignity and peace for the people of this wonderful Earth.”
“This institution was founded in the aftermath of two world wars to help shape this better future. It was based on the vision that diverse nations could cooperate to protect their sovereignty, preserve their security and promote their prosperity.”
The success of the United Nations depends upon the independent strength of its members.
“We do expect all nations to uphold these two core sovereign duties: to respect the interests of their own people and the rights of every other sovereign nation.”
“Today, if we do not invest ourselves, our hearts and our minds in our nations – if we will not build strong families, safe communities and healthy societies for ourselves – no one can do it for us.”
“This is the beautiful vision of this institution, and this is the foundation for cooperation and success. Strong, sovereign nations let diverse countries with different values, different cultures and different dreams not just coexist, but work side by side on the basis of mutual respect. Strong, sovereign nations let their people take ownership of the future and control their own destiny, and strong, sovereign nations allow individuals to flourish in the fullness of the life intended by God.”
We want harmony and friendship, not conflict and strife. We are guided by outcomes, not ideology. We have a policy of principled realism rooted in shared goals, interests and values.
And just as the founders of this body intended, we must work together and confront together those who threaten us with chaos, turmoil and terror.
“We will fight together, sacrifice together and stand together for peace, for freedom, for justice, for family, for humanity and for the almighty God who made us all.”
“Are we still patriots? Do we love our nations enough to protect their sovereignty and to take ownership of their futures? Do we revere them enough to defend their interests, preserve their cultures and ensure a peaceful world for their citizens?”
The UN relies on the independent strength of its members.
Theresa May:
“We face challenges that go right to the heart of who we are as nations.”
“I believe that the only way for us to respond to this vast array of challenges is to come together and defend the international order that we have worked so hard to create and the values by which we stand. For it is the fundamental values that we share, values of fairness, justice and human rights, that have created the common cause between nations to act together in our shared interest and form the multilateral system. And it is this rules-based system which we have developed, including the institutions.”
This statement in the light of Brixit is total hogwash and on we go.
“Indeed, the defining purpose of the UN Charter is to maintain international peace and security, to develop friendly relations among nations, to achieve international cooperation in solving problems of an economic, social, cultural or humanitarian character; and to be a center for harmonizing the actions of nations in the attainment of those common ends.”
“An outward-looking global Britain and the second biggest funder of the UN the UK will remain committed to spending 0.7% of GNI on development and humanitarian support. And that is why we will remain generous in our funding but set aside 30% to be paid only to those parts of the UN that achieve sufficient results.”
It is true to say that the UN needs reform, but it can only become relevant if it is financed to tackle world problems. ( See previous posts)
Both Speeches ignore Climate Change and the need to address inequality that is the spawning bed of all terrorism, driven by the technology of the smart phone.
The world is changing and we don’t have to be prophets to see if we as its intelligent guardians don’t address its underling problems there will be problems that will put all our technology, all our unsustainable greed, all our power of destruction, into the shade.
All comments appreciated, all like clicks chucked in the bin.
Wake up. The Paris Climate Change Agreement which covers the period 2020 to 2030, : A system of voluntary, unenforceable pledges relies on peer pressure for ambitious commitments and the “naming and shaming” of countries that drag their feet, is a JOKE. It’s just worthless words. All major industrialized countries are failing to meet the pledges they made to cut greenhouse-gas emissions.
Climate change is an issue of huge public interest.
One of the biggest problems that the world is facing aside from the economic pitfalls is the unprecedented occurrences of natural calamities. Not only does a calamity bring about massive death and destruction to the country, but it also causes great financial issues.
The exit of the United States could multiply those troubles, or it could provide an opportunity to fix the looming problem of incredible goals.
Time has nearly run out for limiting warming to 2 °C. “If we wait until 2020, it will be too late.”
The talks were rigged to ensure an agreement is reached regardless of how little action countries plan to take. The final submissions are not enforceable, and carry no consequences beyond “shame” for noncompliance — a fact bizarrely taken for granted by all involved.
Demonstrating, yet again, the utter folly of an approach that is attempting to save the world by putting it on a collective energy diet.
Every major climate change initiative to date has gone up in smoke.
The 1997 Kyoto Protocol, which sought to cut emissions 5 percent below 1990 levels by 2012, was doomed from the start.
The 2009 Copenhagen conference to hammer out a Kyoto sequel was an even bigger debacle.
The carbon market is a concept based on “polluter pays” and cap-and-trade principle. The objective is to reduce gas emissions through the use of market law. It assembles voluntary organizations that exchange the rights to issue carbon dioxide.
During the year, if a company manages to emit less than the allowable amount, it can sell the remainder to another company. This transaction doesn’t change the total emissions of the group. Therefore, one company must emit a lower-than-allowable amount in order for another company to emit more.
It works pretty much like the stock exchange. The problem with this system is that it needs rigid regulations and enforcement in order to have a large impact. There is no law limiting the amount of carbon emissions by a company. The carbon market is purely based on volunteerism, which works well for the companies already involved. This system was at the heart of Kyoto.
We watch large global corporations make billions, we watch governments spend billions on arms, we watch drug companies make trillions, energy giants make trillions,we watch Google/Alphabet/Apple/Microsoft/Amazon/ Facebook/Twitter/Algorithms plunder the world, while the United Nations has to beg for funds.
So where are we.
We either spend trillions and sacrificing millions of jobs, to reduce the average global temperature. Or Spend trillions on mopping up disasters and stopping mass immigration.
Or
Place a world aid commission on all Transactions that are Profit for Profit sake, on all High Frequency Trading, on all Foreign Exchange Transactions of $50,000, on all Sovereignty Funds Acquisitions, on all form of online Gambling. Creating a perpetual fund to address the problem and reduce inequality.
Ban all air/road/sea traffic one day a month.
Even if the always-wrong climate change computer models turned out to be right, no one wants to pay the cost.
Recent images bear little resemblance to reality;
Bangladesh underwater, Mexico shaking, Vast areas on fire, West Indies blown away, Wars a bucket full and inequality rampant.
May all those caught up in any of the above survive.
Stupidity consists in wanting to come to a conclusion.
All support appreciated, all like clicks chucked in the bin.
No one really has the slightest idea how the brain changes after we have learned to sing a song or recite a poem. But neither the song nor the poem has been ‘stored’ in it.
The human brain isn’t really empty, of course. But it does not contain most of the things people think it does – not even simple things such as ‘memories’.
For more than half a century now, psychologists, linguists, neuron scientists and other experts on human behavior have been asserting that the human brain works like a computer.
However the state of our understanding today of an integrated plan of brain function remains incomplete. The brain consists of at least several hundred distinct cell types whose complete classification is still at present elusive.
Ever since man walked out of Africa, developed different cultures and different languages we have being using his brains to kill.
To date we have burnt more neurons on self-destruction than survival.
Step back and view our species objectively from the outside, the way a zoologist would carefully observe any other animal, or see us the way every other creature perceives human beings. The brutal reality could not be more evident or more horrifying.
We are the most relentless yet oblivious killers on Earth.
Our violence operates far outside the bounds of any other species. Human beings kill anything. Slaughter is a defining behavior of our species. We kill all other creatures, and we kill our own. We kill strangers. We kill people who are different from us, in appearance, beliefs, race, and social status. We kill ourselves in suicide. We kill for advantage and for revenge, we kill for entertainment:
I would venture to say that there has not been one day — not one single day — since the beginning of recorded history when one human being has not killed another. And I don’t mean by accident. I mean deliberately. With purposeful intent.
Not one.
Single.
Day.
…in thousand and thousands of years.
So is violence in our genes. As Mr Darwin put it; Survival of the Fittest. Evolution requires a struggle to survive, so killing is a must.
Just look at the twentieth century, numerous people were killed in the Armenian Genocide in Turkey, the Jews suffered in the II World War, Ethnic massacres happened in Rwanda and former Yugoslavia.
Today, several Islamic terrorist groups like ISIS and Boko Haram are butchering people in the name of Islam, while thousands of Rohingya Muslims flee Myanmar due to ethnic cleansing the shadow of a nuclear war ( that will bring equality to all, save us all from climate change and mass migration, ) can be summed up in one word: BRAINLESS.
Yet there’s no reason to assume that our empty brains will be adequate vessels for the voyage towards that answer.
Humanity has been trying to figure out how to bring an end to war since living beings evolved into self-consciousness on this planet. This effort now involves thousands of researchers, consumes billions of dollars in funding, and has generated a vast literature consisting of both technical and mainstream articles and books.
This latest up tick in the hostilities between these parties is almost irrelevant at this stage. Each side, of course, insists that it is only defending itself. And it is. Seen from each side’s point of view, all each side is doing is defending itself. Aggression is always called defense. Unfortunately every religion thinks it is the right one.
All that matters today is what it would take to end the killing, to end the aggression and counter-aggression that is threatening to embroil a whole region — and even, conceivably, the entire world at some level, if not directly — in a war that could prove unspeakably tragic for the entire human race, turning anyone that survives into an atheist, as there will be no invisible means of support as everything will glow.
But if there is a biological explanation for something, it is impossible to hold someone responsible for it. This is simply untrue.
This is a question that has been asked for many centuries. The Greeks philosopher Plato explained violent behavior by the fact that humans had a dual character because of their greedy nature. The Church always blamed the devil for possessing violent people.
Branding behaviors as incurable is hogwash fortuitously most humans are endowed with a sense of disgust but our kinship is often exploited by nations and religions, not surprisingly they are two institutions that are responsible for most, if not all, wars.
There is no satisfying answer to the question of why we go to war other than it feels good to protect our kinship.
All behavior is the product of the brain, and the brain is a product of genetics and the environment. Genes change at a glacial pace. But territory and society shift constantly and they are molded by man.
So here is what we are not born with: information, data, rules, software, knowledge, lexicons, representations, algorithms, programs, models, memories, images, processors, subroutines, encoders, decoders, symbols, or buffers – design elements that allow digital computers to behave somewhat intelligently. Not only are we not born with such things, we also don’t develop them – ever. We never did, never will.
We don’t store words or the rules that tell us how to manipulate them. We don’t create representations of visual stimuli, store them in a short-term memory buffer, and then transfer the representation into a long-term memory device. We don’t retrieve information or images or words from memory registers.
The idea that memories are stored in individual neurons is preposterous:
Given this reality, why do so many scientists talk about our mental life as if we were computers?
Now here is the good or bad news.
Computers do all of these things, but organisms do not. Computers really do operate on symbolic representations of the world. They really store and retrieve. They really process. They really have physical memories. They really are guided in everything they do, without exception, by algorithms.
Uncontrolled Algorithms will kill us. Now more people have mobile phones than have toilets.
Everything we know about the universe tells us that reality consists only of physical things: atoms and their component particles, busily colliding and combining.
If a smartphone could be conscious, and were it to ultimately prove that the one thing the human mind is incapable of comprehending is itself.
Since anything at all that matters, in life, only does so as a consequence of its impact on conscious brains, could you ever know that it was true?
Our smartphones have become Swiss army knife–like appliances that include a dictionary, calculator, web browser, email, Game Boy, appointment calendar, voice recorder, guitar tuner, weather forecaster, GPS, texter, tweeter, Facebook updater, and flashlight.
The future of the brain and the implications on ethics and human behavior is now in the hands of Algorithms.
Speculating about the ‘algorithms’ of the brain, how the brain ‘processes data’, and even how it superficially resembles integrated circuits in its structure is now all the rage.
In 2013 the European Commission awarded neuron scientist Henry Markram $1.3 billion to pursue an audacious goal: building a simulation of the human brain. It is now in disarray. There’s a fly in the ointment. Although we think we’re doing several things at once, multitasking, this is a powerful and diabolical illusion.
It is the ultimate empty-caloried brain candy.
Instead of reaping the big rewards that come from sustained, focused effort, we instead reap empty rewards from completing a thousand little sugar-coated tasks.
We are sacrificing efficiency and deep concentration. Each time we check a Twitter feed or Facebook update, we encounter something novel and feel more connected socially (in a kind of weird, impersonal cyber way) and get another dollop of reward hormones.
It is the dumb, novelty-seeking portion of the brain driving the limbic system that induces this feeling of pleasure, not the planning, scheduling, higher-level thought centres in the prefrontal cortex. Make no mistake: texting, email-, Facebook- and Twitter-checking constitute a neural addiction to brainless thought.
Because it is limited in characters, it discourages thoughtful discussion or any level of detail. Texting discourages thoughtful discussion or any level of detail, and its addictive problems are compounded by its hyper-immediacy.
Faulty conclusion: All entities that are capable of behaving intelligently are information processors.
It is safe to say that we aren’t completely doomed to continue killing each other, as the advancement of culture appears not to be having a civilizing effect on us.
The enormous industry of print and broadcast journalism serves predominantly to document our killing.
You know who to write to. Write to them. You know whom to contact. Contact them. Right now.Our world’s leaders need someone to lead them. We thought they were going to lead us, but they can’t. Or won’t. So we need to lead them.
With the amount and duration of wars happening right now in 2017, it’s hard not to get desensitized to death and violence. It really is. That means we have to work harder to stay informed.
To day the Internet is a free and lawless zone that is eroding state sovereignty, ignores borders, abolishing privacy and perhaps posing one of the biggest treats to security on many a front.
A decade ago it hardly registered on the radar.
MIXING GOD LIKE TECHNOLOGY WITH MEGALOMANIAC POLITICS IS A RECIPE FOR DISASTER.
By the time bureaucracy makes up its mind about cyber space regulations, the internet has morphed ten times.
We are now overwhelmed with data. Never before have governments being so well-informed as to what going on but they are unable to implement any change without Social Media, the internet and AI.
As we seem void of ANY STATESMAN Artificial Intelligence in the form of unregulated Algorithms are not only plundering the world of economics ( High Frequency trading) eroding Democracy, which is failing to provide a meaningful visions of the future.
DUE TO ITS DIVORCE FROM CAPITALISM.
Leaving all the important decisions in the hand of the free market give our politicians the perfect excuse for inaction and ignorance, which are reinterpreted as profound wisdom.
So let me ask you.
Do we want a small coterie of billionaires ruining the world for profit.
Fortunately even if we did they would not be able to do so as the system is far too complex. There is no getting away from that the free market only does what is good for the market rather than what is good for mankind or the world.
The hands of the market are now blind and invisible due to Algorithms and left to their own devices with machine learning will – FAIL TO DO ANYTHING ABOUT THE DANGERS OF ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE OR CLIMATE CHANGE.
With more than 1 billion users worldwide and 2.5 million apps — and counting it has become an instinctual gesture to turn to our smartphones when we are exposed to an unknown environment.
Thanks to the internet and our feature-packed smartphones, we can not only consume and interact with incoming news, we can also be the first ones to communicate things to the rest of the world if we happen to be at the right place, at the right time. And we’re doing this over devices that just two decades ago would’ve looked at home in sci- flicks.
There is no argument that Artificial Intelligence is penetrating our daily live so new structures will be built.
The Question is who will build and control these structures?
A world run be Google, Facebook, Twitter and their like will be a world without imagination, compassion, and moral ethics of any kind other than profit.
If we think in term of decades, then Global Warming, Growing Inequality and Artificial Intelligence linked together will dwarf and overwhelm all other problems or theological developments.
Combined they will overshadow any political gains or profits. Surpassing all tin pot dictators of the world.
We must not allow global data collection to rest in the hands of world monopolies..
Goodbye, cash. Hallow iPhone’s Wallet apps. Just imagine what this is going to do to what is left of society. Consumer growth will be the only evidence of life.
The rise of apps and social media is changing the way many of the world’s two billion Christians and 1.6 billion Muslims worship – and even what it means to be religious.
Facebook said that in its most recent quarter, roughly 84 percent of its $6.82 billion in ad revenue came from mobile ads.
To claim back power we must turn our shiny mirrors our Smartphones into shields, passports and carriers of personal sovereignty and equality. Smart phone are the new guardians of Democracy and we better start using them wisely.
Not all changes brought by the mobile revolution have been positive.
In fact, for certain groups of people from around the world, the explosion of mobile has brought misery and exploitation.
Events in one country now have almost instant implications for the rest of the world. We see footage shot with smartphones in mass-media almost every day now.
It’s now a question of who gets heard, not what is heard.
In my opinion, we are living through a transition period triggered by a dramatic change in mobile networks in the last decade. This transition periods will be painful. But sooner or later things will stabilize and everyday liberties enjoyed by leading Western countries will spread out throughout the world. Surely, the mobile networks are speeding up this process.
From one perspective, the dependence on mobile technology is pathetic, but on the other hand it surely makes it easier for people to explore foreign cultures.
It is highly likely that someday, as more people interact and connect with foreign cultures, borders between countries will start to dissolve and the world will become a united planet. Smartphones and mobile networks will be at the heart of this evolution.
The biggest social networks (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn) and media sharing sites (Instagram, YouTube, Snapchat), along with maybe a handful of others like Pinterest and Google Plus are all a catch-all platforms whose functionality is constantly evolving.
As more networks add rich features like live streaming and augmented reality, the lines between their feature sets continue to blur and change faster than most people have time to read up on the changes.
Look beyond those social media juggernauts and you’ll see that people are using many different types of social media to connect online for all kinds of reasons.
There are anonymous social networks a step back toward the wild-west early days of the internet.
It is the social media sites that are the carbuncle on society’s backside, not smart phones.
We are becoming symbiotic with our computer tools, growing into interconnected systems that remember less by knowing information than by knowing where the information can be found. The always-on lifestyle suggest future generations will have different priorities about what they choose to remember.
Smartphones — and the connection they represent to a global social network — is becoming more than just a device in our pockets but something closer to a digital extension of ourselves.
Apps spawned industries that couldn’t exist without smartphones but smartphones spawned the Arab Spring in the Middle East in early 2011.
The smart phone quickly demonstrated itself as a powerful tool for driving social revolution.
Smartphones helped protesters to quickly share information with observers outside the region, which in turn helped drive political pressure during the revolution.
The potential benefit of taking things to the general public, again made possible by mobile networks and smartphones for all initiative purposes is in its early stage of development.
With joint collaborative efforts their status as an indispensable item in the 21st century
If anyone has a suggestion as how we can get the world of Smartphones to collectively come together as a unite to create a new dynamic network of compassion I am all ears. Smartphones and social media will the last chance for a compassionate world.
It begins with you.
How the social media further impact our life in our society and where do social media and the Internet technology take us in the next few decades is really an interesting question, or perhaps a mystery or a challenge for human themselves.
But one thing should stand is we ought not to be controlled by technology, we control them! If we are not already to late.
Democracy is the process by which we get ourselves organized to perform capitalism.
To claim back power we must turn those shiny mirrors our Smartphones into shields, passports and carriers of personal sovereignty.
The good news is that for hundred of years humankind has enjoyed a growing economy without falling prey to ecological meltdown but the margin for error is narrowing with global warming. All the talk, all the conferences, all the summits, all the promises and protocols have so far failed to curb emissions.
Why?
Because despite all our achievements we are under constant pressure to produce more and more stuff. We risk the future on the assumption that technological will come up with a solution’s in the future.
What is the price going to be?
If every thing is for sale the connection between capitalism, democracy, and liberalism is in the process of being broken.
The new modern deal is Humanist.
Soundless revolutions, silent reformations, undreamed ideas, new religions, must not be neglected, if we would grasp the unity of history in its highest sense.…The unapparent future….bids us to consider the whole sequence up to the present moment as probably no more than the beginning of a social and psychical development, where of the end is withdrawn from our view by countless millenniums to come.
However the world does not come to an end when the nine billion names of God are uttered. Freedom of speech is not over when we have uttered a certain thing.
We are the ultimate source of meaning, and free will is therefore the highest authority of all.
This is for this reason that democratic elections give expression to the ultimate political authority the People. It will end when we final hand our future to AI.
Whoever determines the meaning of our actions – whether they be good or evil, right or wrong, beautiful or ugly, also gains the authority to tell us what to think and how to behave.
If we are not careful (because human opinion is necessarily fragile and ephemeral) absolute truths and the meaning of life, not to mention the Universe will soon be based on some external laws from some superhuman source other than God.
Creating meaning for a meaningless world will become impossible without Artificial Intelligence (AI) in all its forms of Algorithms that will and are already affect every facet of daily life.
WE MUST DETERMINE BY OURSELVES WHAT IS GOOD, AND WHAT IS EVIL, WHAT IS RIGHT AND WHAT IS WRONG, WHAT IS BEAUTIFUL AND WHAT IS UGLY, WHAT IS IGNORANCE AND CORRUPTIBLE, WHAT IS TRUTH AND WHAT IS FALSE. NOT A MACHINE. Knowledge = experiences x Sensitivity.
IF WE LOOSE OUR FEELING THERE IS NO POINT IN BELIEVING ANYTHING.
Over the last century, capitalism has repeatedly revealed its worst tendencies: instability and inequality and its failures have turned democracy against liberalism. Across Europe, economic interventionism, nationalism, and even open racism have exerted a greater attraction for those casting their democratic votes than the causes of freedom, deregulation, and equality before the law.
Free markets have not only enlarged the gap between rich and poor, but have also reduced average incomes across the developed and developing worlds.
In turn, liberalism’s intellectual self-identity has been left in tatters.
Liberal theorists are now desperately trying to keep the ship afloat. But instead of addressing the challenges head-on they have turned to the past for solace and validation. While this new liberal historicism may have a certain rhetorical appeal, it fails to convince.
At root, liberty is a concept grounded in the individual.
It is the freedom to be all that one is, to actualize the fullness of one’s potential as a human being endowed with the capacity for creativity and the ability to make autonomous value judgments for ourselves. However surrounded by the confused, jargon-ridden babble of political commentators today, it is perhaps easy to forget that liberalism is defined by a commitment to liberty.
While each of us may wish to be free as an individual, individual freedom is dependent on us all being free; and that means that we all have to cling to our shared humanity, our shared dignity and not to be manipulated by profit seeking un-vetted Algorithms.
The world was moving toward a politically border less and highly interdependent global economy that might have foster prosperity, international cooperation, and world peace. This is no longer true. Now thanks to un vetted Algorithms we are witnessing a world characterized by intense economic conflict at both the domestic and international levels. Today we are returning to the huge 19th-century-sized gaps between the richest 1 percent and everyone else.
Rescuing the “disappearing middle class” has become every aspiring politician’s slogan, but this is also coming to an end with targeted Social Media Profiling, (conducted by Algorithms) that are and will produce extreme inequality that will infect all of society, as rich corporations that own these Algorithms move to protect their positions, by buying the politicians, mass media and other cultural forms that are for sale.
Capitalism is today’s version of the what and democracy is the how.
Capitalism does not say that “all men are equal”; it even has difficulty in saying that we are all “created equal.”
If we truly want to move beyond capitalism we have to break away from the employer-employee core relationships. It means no longer assigning a relatively tiny number of people inside each enterprise to the employer position of exclusively. It means that every worker has an interest in the enterprise, a share in its profits its loses and decision-making.
While democracy is a consensual hallucination of people concerned with how to divide opportunity fairly or democracy is a process for ensuring that each gets an equal session with the eye while capitalism fosters a desire to keep the eye and not share it. An end in itself, not a means.
Democracy as a rule book is not intended to operate only until a particular individual or class has enough money. It is hard to govern the human heart with rules. The democracy rule book, though it hovers above our laws has not succeeded in making humans cherish democracy.
A Martian visiting earth would not be able to see democracy. It is intangible, a rule book we have agreed to which says that no-one shall be denied opportunity, freedom of speech, or the due process of the laws.
Democracy denies the Hobbesian war of all against all, (Thomas Hobbes sawpeople as weakandselfish,andthus in constantneed of thegovernancethatcouldsavethemfromdestruction) and capitalism, pretending to prophecy it, creates it and enshrines it at the center of our pantheon, as the true, the human, the only way to live.
Under the democracy rule book, we meet as the village council; our concern is how to preserve the commons for our children’s children. All right, shift paradigms: we are now under the capitalist rule book, meeting as the board of directors of the Intercontinental Sheep-Grazing Company run by Social media ruled by Algorithms owned by Google, Apple, etc. Their discussion, abruptly with technology is about how to maximize shareholder value, by extracting every last possible dollar from the commons this fiscal period.
Our grandchildren are nowhere in the conversation; they are not shareholders.Under the separation of powers implied by the two rule books, we are relieved of the necessity of thinking about the future, because it is someone else’s job.
The substantive corrupts the procedural, when the love of things corrupts the spirit of fairness.
So it not surprising that any ambitious youngster, perceiving the differences between the two rule books, will prefer to give his allegiance to capitalism, because it offers quicker personal progress than democracy. Democracy preaches incremental change, but capitalism offers overnight transformation, the opportunity to sell something a day after you bought it for ten times what you paid.
It was not healthy for our two divisions ( Capitalism versus Democracy) to savage each other.
Cooperation is the key feature of democracy, but capitalism is usually thought of (it need not be) as a zero-sum game in which, if I have more, it is because you have less. Versions of capitalism, like the one I believe in, in which we all grow together, are less interesting to the ambitious, because they too closely resemble democracy.
Everything seemed to suggest that only liberal capitalist democracy allowed people to thrive in an increasingly globalized world, and that only the steady advance of laissez-faire economics would guarantee a future of free, democratic states, untroubled by want and oppression and living in peace and contentment.
Humanity imposes upon us the same basic needs. By virtue of our nature, we all require food, shelter, clothing, security, and a range of other basic goods necessary for sufficiency and survival.
Though deceptively simple, these implications have profound meaning when we consider how individual liberty is to be translated into a social and political construct. If the liberty of each person is to be maintained and maximized, the principles of equity and the common good must be embedded in the structure of society.
And since society is structured above all by law, the law must reflect these precepts. It is only if everyone recognizes the dignity of the human person that they will recognize the inherent value of equity and the common good, and strive to defend and preserve not only their own liberty, but also that of all others in their society using law.
It lies not in economics, or the tides of history. It lies in the recognition of the worthiness of humanity itself. Not wealth-creation which depends on the protection of private property, the “capitalist creep” will invariably demand greater legal protection for individual rights.
In a world still divided by rival national ambitions in which economic factors in effect determine the fate of nations, many conclude that international economic affairs will become increasingly filled with conflict. We are witness the tectonic plates of Nature, democracy, disappearing under automation of AI algorithms.
We make a colossal mistake taking it for granted. We mistakenly believe that capitalism begets inevitably democracy.It doesn’t.
The last battle between democracy and capitalism will be fought on the field of political campaign contributions.
There is a solution:
It is possibleto separate fully the political sphere from the economic sphere,so as to confine the democratic process fully in the political sphere,leaving the economic sphere —the corporate world, if you want —as a democracy-free zone.
The answer lies in the political choice that we shall be making collectively.It is our choice,and we’d better make it democratically because the system we have now is even worse than capitalism. Nobody wants to leave the certainty of the devil they know, or think they know, for something that promises to be worse.
We have run out of world to commodify. And now commodification can only cannibalize its own means of existence, both natural and social.
What all of us make is intellectual property, which from its point of view is all equivalent and tradable as a commodity.
Of course it is always a tough argument to propose common interests among subordinate classes. Counter-hegemony is hard. Hackers, like workers or farmers, are distracted by particular and local interests. Class consciousness is rare among hackers. Most of us are rather reactionary — even in the nontechnical trades. But than class consciousness is always a rare and difficult thing.
Finally at the start of this post I advocated that: To claim back power we must turn those shiny mirrors our Smartphones into shields, passports and carriers of personal sovereignty.
Of course this can only be achieved if we can form a world on line pressure group, using the combined power of Smartphones to affect change.
Once the greatness of a nation could be judged by the way its animals are treated now its the power that moves through the smart phone that can be instrumentally conceptualized and strategically deployed, accounted for, and resisted is the driving force that judges.
Democracy is using your social media channels to engage and provide feedback.
The perception of the public, how people view what you do, is just as important as what you do.
I am all ears as to how we can capture the collective power of our phones to lobby the direction of democracy.
To that end, if scholars, activists, and commentators are to contend with the political potential of devices such as the smartphone camera, then it is imperative to account for the simultaneous processes embodied in its mechanics alongside the cultural and social conditions as these devices are often celebrated for disrupting rather than unifying.
The Gap between Democracy and Capitalism is widening.
All comments appreciated. All like clicks chucked in the BIN.
These question have plagued mankind down the ages.
While some may consider such a discussion a waste of time, more and more people are coming to the conclusion that preparations of some sort are warranted in our current troubled environment — on many fronts.
What exactly are the “existential risks” that threaten the future of our species;
How do we measure them; and what can we do to prevent them?
Or to put it another way: In a world of multiple fears, what precisely should we be most terrified of?
Any single event or combination of events could cause terrible and debilitating circumstances for a short or long period of time: but what is the one to most likely to wipe us out?
The Philosophical answer is:
For the most part that mankind itself is the by far the most threatening threat to our existence we creating two more in the last blink of evolution. A cursory glance around the world reveals that, given the enormous problems facing our planet, it would be surprising if climate change did not crack a list of the top 10 immediate concerns.
Perhaps threat is not climate change, nor pandemic, nor nuclear winter; it is the possibly imminent creation of a general machine intelligence greater than our own.
However the rise of the machines isn’t the biggest threat to humanity.
It’s climate change, extreme weather and other environmental factors.
To be sure, the machines, rise of illiberalism, income inequality and a raft of other problems all could disrupt the global order, but they will not destroy it.
Here is my list:
The single biggest threat facing humanity is Climate Change > in terms of water crises, fresh air, food shortages, constrained economic growth, weaker societal cohesion and increased security risks resulting in large-scale involuntary migration.
The impacts of climate change are becoming clearer with each passing day as we continue to pour carbon pollution into our atmosphere at an unprecedented pace.
What are we doing about it?
Little or nothing. We appear to be passing the problem on to Technology.
Next: We have Technology. Not in itself but the unregulated software called Algorithms
What are we doing about it?
Nothing. We are in a hype cycle with expectations far beyond the technical reality.
Happy to hand our future to the black box of machine learning systems. Plug and play while we allow algorithms exploit the world for profit creating technological black holes around the globe.
Sophisticated algorithms can complete tasks we once thought impossible. Whether they decide to pulp us into human meat paste, or simply make our work completely unnecessary we will have to wait and see. ( See previous post re: A new world Organisation to vet all Technology to ensure it abides by our core human values)
Next: The terrifying rise of multi-drug resistant bacteria, as well as the ever-present threat of deadly viruses going pandemic, such as influenza and MERS.
What are we doing about it. Creating genetically modified crops, fiddling with DNA. Antibiotics do not create resistance per se.The rate of development of new antimicrobial agents has failed to keep pace with the “ingenuity” of bacteria to mutate and become resistant to antibiotics. When we should be minimize antibiotic usage and sneezing into our elbows.
Next: Nuclear proliferation, terrorism, weapons of mass destruction.
What are we doing about it. Not much. Nuclear warfare is not necessary to cause a breakdown of our society.Our society is so fragile, so dependent on the interworking of things to provide us with the goods and services that you don’t $1.25 r warfare to fragment us anymore than the Romans needed it to cause their eventual downfall. What is more likely is a coordinated cyber-attack. Money becomes worthless. We should ban all countries that sell arms from Trade deals.
Next: Poverty. One of the $1.25 realizations you see firsthand as you travel extensively worldwide is the extreme wealth, extreme poverty, and extreme corruption that exists in all of its world flavors. About 1.3 billion people don’t have electricity never mind food.
What are we doing about it.
We turn a blind eye to High frequency trading, and Sovereign wealth funds that are blundering the earth resources.
We raise the poverty line from $1.25 to $1.90. Just over 900 million people globally lived under this line in 2012 (based on the latest available data), and the project that in 2015, just over 700 million are living in extreme poverty. According to the most recent estimates, in 2013, 10.7 percent of the world’s population lived on less than US$1.90 a day, compared to 12.4 percent in 2012. That’s down from 35 percent in 1990. This means that, in 2013, 767 million people lived on less than $1.90 a day, down from 881 million in 2012 and 1.85 billion in 1990. Moreover, for those who have been able to move out of poverty, progress is often temporary: economic shocks, food insecurity and climate change threaten to rob them of their hard-won gains and force them back into poverty. It will be critical to find ways to tackle these issues as we make progress.
Next: Global financial panic. Derivative, debt crisis, economic collapse and/or bond implosion will cause currencies to implode and governments to topple.
What are we doing about it. We are propping up Finical Institution with quantitative easing while subjecting the rest of us to Austerity.
Next: Problems with the exploration, deliver
y, or production of oil, the lifeblood of modern economies is coming to an end.
What can we do about it. Nothing, except to go back to bartering.
Next: Religion Beliefs.
What can we do about it. Adopted Dave Allen saying, “goodnight, thank you and may your God go with you”
Next: Asteroid Impact or an Electromagnetic pulse event.
What can we do about it: Get rid of all our nuclear weapons in an attempt to destroy or deflect the Asteroid. Electromagnetic pulse event. Nothing.
Last: The Sun.
What can we do about it. Sweet Fanny Adam, other than have left earth as transhuman.
With any of these scenarios listed above (and there is a host of others I have probably not even thought about), you could have localized, national, or global unrest and even war for an indefinite period of time depending on the scope and duration of the event(s).
The world in general seems afflicted on so many different fronts.
When you look at the list above, any rational person could easily see one or more of these scenarios occur within their lifetime. Aside from the geophysical things that seem to be going haywire, and could be explained simply as the planet’s cycles, there are plenty of man-made catastrophes that loom on the horizon…
Take your pick.
Never has the planet had as many people as it does now. With increased population numbers, there is increased pressure for resources, like water for example. As a result we are beginning to see the rise of extreme political parties as a consequence of the total and utter desperation of the populace.
However the main event is staring us in the face, and the whole of the world has front-row seats. Climate Change.
If things unravel at the core we can kiss our arse good-bye, Donal Trump nor religion will preserve life.
So I will sign off this post with this thought.
These events are never properly covered by the news media, Social media, (what a surprise!) my intent is to at least get you thinkingabout the most important things.
Individuals can still hope for the best (that things can and will eventually work out), but what good is your prosperity going to do if you don’t have anything to eat or a safe place to hang out for an extended period of time?
Risks appeared to be rising. After the shit hits the fan people will not behave normally. There’s no place like home. Most risks are rising. It’s a riskier world right now.
No matter how you slice it, things worldwide are getting very strange very quickly.
Ayn Rand: “Man’s mind is his basic tool of survival.”
USE IT.
Otherwise, robots may end up owning the world after all.
Feel free to add to the list. All comments appreciated and needed. All like clicks chucked din the bin.
By the way this is what home looks like from 1.5 billion kilometers away complements of Cassini.
You might be asking yourself like many why it is that we are inflicted by the like of Donald Trump, Madame La Pen, Brexit, ect.
Any fool on the street can tell you that technology is changing at a whiplash-inducing pace. What’s much more difficult to predict is which technologies specifically are about to hit big.
To me it is obvious: Artificial Intelligent.
Platforms that serve manipulative interests of political elites, in which leaders do most of the conversing and democratic discussion is reduced to campaigning for elections and the casting of votes.
The result of elections and referendums are becoming more individualistic than they are democratic with Democracy becoming, trivial, incoherent, or manipulative across all sorts of domestic debates, military interventions, consumer advertisements, and television specials.
Democracy use to stirred up by:
The public relations agencies, the direct-mail companies, and opinion-polling firms work in concert with the infrastructure of think tanks, tax-exempt foundations, and other centers. With the press and television industry as the principle gatekeepers of political debate. Other channels of political information are almost nonexistent.
Today, tremendous changes in advanced computing technologies are giving rise TO A NEW DEMOCRATIC EMPOWERMENT, THAT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH VOTING.The smart phone rules as to which party is the best in more way than one.
On-line computer services and networks, which are oriented toward spontaneous communication among citizens is limiting their exposure only to the affairs that match their interests. Populist appeal.
The application of Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology will and is expanding this type of public involvement with information-driven politics, the politics of knowledge, not necessarily the politics of winning elections.
But does the public really want a daily digest of political information?
IN WHICH IT HAS LITTLE OR NO SAY.
We are witnessing an ominous trend toward political dysfunction as the number who vote in national elections continues to slide below fifty percent.
One possible reason for this trend is that many people believe that political representatives have little to offer in terms of solving the immediate daily concerns of employment, health care, education, housing, transportation, drugs, crime, social decay, injustice, and so on.
Maybe, if the right tools were available, people would have a better chance to communicate with representatives, know and protect their own rights, engage in deliberation, test hypotheses, discover knowledge, discuss theory, and better understand world events
At the moment AI is all about analyzing the content of candidate appeals and making informed guesses about candidates.
Obviously, merit exists in the public becoming more politically astute and “awakening from the dormant state.” Success may depend partially on whether participation can be achieved in such a way as to impinge minimally upon the matters of private life.
The old politics often depicted as canned debates and public spectacle is becoming unacceptable to an intelligent populace.
New politics demands semantic understanding and identifying the chains of reasoning. These goals require building new tools and networks for the next generation of machine politics.
We are in the middle of a technological upheaval that will transform the way society is organized. We must make the right decisions now.
Every minute we produce hundreds of thousands of Google searches and Facebook posts. These contain information that reveals how we think and feel. Soon, the things around us, possibly even our clothing, also will be connected with the Internet. It is estimated that in 10 years’ time there will be 150 billion networked measuring sensors, 20 times more than people on Earth. Then, the amount of data will double every 12 hours.
Many companies are already trying to turn this Big Data into Big Money.
Soon we will not only have smart phones, but also smart homes, smart factories and smart cities.
Should we also expect these developments to result in smart nations and a smarter planet? ALL EVIDENCE POINTS TO THE OPPOSITE.
Today 70% of all financial transactions are performed by algorithms.
This all has radical economic consequences: In the coming 10 to 20 years around half of today’s jobs will be threatened by algorithms. 40% of today’s top 500 companies will have vanished in a decade.
Society is at a crossroads, which promises great opportunities, but also considerable risks. HERE I A NOT TALKING ABOUT CLIMATE CHANGE BUT OUR INABILITY TO EXPRESS OURSELVES AT THE BALLOT BOX.
If we take the wrong decisions it could threaten our greatest historical achievements.
Super-intelligence is a serious danger for humanity.
Search engines and recommendation platforms are beginning to offer us personalised suggestions for products and services.
But it won’t stop there.
Some software platforms are moving towards “persuasive computing.
These platforms will be able to steer us through entire courses of action, be it for the execution of complex work processes or to generate free content for Internet platforms, from which corporations earn billions.
The trend goes from programming computers to programming people.
These technologies are also becoming increasingly popular in the world of politics.
Under the label of “nudging,” and on massive scale, governments are trying to steer citizens towards healthier or more environmentally friendly behaviour by means of a “nudge”—a modern form of paternalism.
Singapore is seen as a perfect example of a data-controlled society.
It won’t be long before Every chinese citizen will receive a so-called ”Citizen Score”, which will determine under what conditions they may get loans, jobs, or travel visa to other countries.
This will be a sort of digital scepter that allows one to govern the masses efficiently, without having to involve citizens in democratic processes.
Would this overcome vested interests and optimize the course of the world?
If so, then citizens could be governed by a data-empowered “wise king”, who would be able to produce desired economic and social outcomes almost as if with a digital magic wand.
God forbid.
Lets hope we remain influenced by issues as much as by perceived.
Democracy is not for Hire or Sale. In order for us to retain control of our lives, these networks should be controlled. I am talking about Google, Twitter, and Facebook.
All technology and associated algorithms should be given a World Health Certificate in as much that they are serving the common good and human values.( See previous Posts)
Creation of computer applications to enhance democratic discussion is now a pressing problem.
Echo’s ability to represent “aggregate behavior” might be useful.
All Common Sense comments appreciated. All like comments chucked in the Bin.
WE CAN NO LONGER OR AFFORD TO LEAVE COMMON SENSE LYING IN A DORMANT STATE.
Starry-eyed cyber optimism [which suggests] a new form of technological determinism according to which the Internet would be the hammer to nail all global problems, IS BULL SHIT. SAY NO TO:
The smart phone rules as to which party is the best in more way than one.
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