DNA and Your iPod

I’m not sure if any of you will still be checking this blog, but I read this article today and it fits exactly with a lot of the debates we had in class. I thought it was really interesting, particularly as we discussed AI and materialist views of man. Apparently recent research is starting to depart from the idea of the human as complicated, written code and instead ideas like inherent morality and the soul are becoming more credible.

And for further reading, here’s the essay by Tom Wolfe that they mention.

So we have been discussing for a while now about how computers are becoming increasingly human-like, and the potential of humans becoming entirely obsolete in the years to come. However, I recently began to think about the current interaction between humans and computers, rather than actually looking at each as separate entities.

Oftentimes in nature, scientists classify relationships as mutualistic, commensal, or parasitic. In the first case, two individuals of different species benefit equally by the other’s presence.  In a commensal relationship, one species benefits while the other is not significantly helped or harmed.  Finally, in a parasitic relationship, one organism benefits while the other is harmed.

How would we classify the relationship between man and his computer? Do we both benefit? Surely, computers have helped us an enormous amount in regards to communication, data retrieval, storing information, and the overall evolution of our society (and I’m probably forgetting numerous other positive effects). What have we done for computers? I suppose we have “improved” them by learning more and more advanced technology. Still, a mutualistic relationship seems iffy.

Commensal? At first glance, this seems quite promising. As outlined above, we have gained quite a lot thanks to our computers. The question remains, do you think that our improved technology represents a “significant” degree of benefit to the computer (i.e., the relationship is mutualistic)? Or, do you think that it has no real conscience, no feelings, and it could care less what we do for it (making the relationship commensal)?

Or, do you just plain think the relationship is parasitic? After all, without computers, issues of privacy and intrusion into our civil society and homes would hardly be such a hot-button issue. The Patriot Act would be almost a joke. Viruses could hardly tap into our bank accounts, and hackers could never retrieve our social security numbers. Perhaps, computers have actually done more harm to us than good, without us even realizing it.

In the interest of coming to a conclusion, I would call our relationship commensal. On the whole, we have benefited greatly from computers, while not really giving back to them in the true sense of one “organism” to another. While occasionally this relationship takes a turn for the worse, we overall have the upper hand. In the future, who knows? If computers become the next human race, maybe there won’t even be a relationship to examine.

After reading Ellen’s post and doing some of my own research, I have thought up a few things about “Artificial Intelligence.” As Ellen points out, consciousness is difficult to define so lets go to the dictionary:

Consciousness: an alert cognitive state in which you are aware of yourself and your situation
Source: http://wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn?s=consciousness

Now technically speaking we could create something that is aware of itself and its situation. A machine could be programmed to monitor its environment and when its environment changed, it could respond. A machine could also be programmed to respond when bumped or touched and therefore could be aware of itself. So I believe that “consciousness” is not the problem with AI. Then I thought, “Could we create a machine that is alive?”

Alive: possessing life, active, in operation
Source: http://www.google.com/searchl=en&safe=off&client=safari&rls=en&defl=en&
amp;q=define:alive&sa=X&oi=glossary_definition&ct=title

What is life then? Now obviously people disagree on this as well, but at the end of the day you could say humans are just a bunch of functioning chemicals and electric signals. We know that computers are run by electrical signals and could be defined as being active or in operation. So what is it? What is the gap between humans and machines?

Emotion: an intense mental state that arises autonomically in the nervous system rather than through conscious effort
Source: http://www.google.com/searchhl=en&safe=off&client=safari&rls=
en&q=define%3A+emotion&btnG=Search

What is it to feel? A machine could be programmed to react to a loss of great importance, and it could be programmed to measure and understand that loss. But that is all the machine would ever be: programmed. It could weigh responses and would do the best one. A machine would always do what it should do, never what it wanted to do.

So there is what separates the human from the machine: choice, free will.

I was pondering about the discussion about consciousness we had in class last week, and I stumbled upon a very interesting article. This article is quite old–it was written in 1997–but the topic still seems to be relevant to our discussion. The article basically talks about whether a computer could ever be conscious, and it ultimately argues:

Never mind whether a computer can be conscious. Our [own] consciousness, the most obvious thing there is, may be forever beyond our conceptual grasp.

I may be repeating some of the ideas we talked about in our discussion, but here are my thoughts: In class we talked about how no one can for sure “know” that the other person is conscious. We simply assume that others are also conscious based on their behavior, speech, feelings etc. But how do we know that we are conscious in the first place? As the article above points out, if part of our brain is replaced with a microchip, would we be able to detect it? I’m guessing we would go on with our lives assuming that we are still conscious. Remember Sixth Sense? (I haven’t actually watched the movie, but I know what happens…) How do we know that we are alive, that we are conscious, that we have free will? If we cannot even tell for sure whether we are conscious, how can we possibly make a judgment about others? Even if the technology develops immensely, and we are finally able to produce artificial intelligence and human-like robots, how can we tell if the robots are actually conscious or not? If we can’t determine whether our creations are conscious, is there really a point in trying to develop this sort of “artificial intelligence”?

What I’m trying to get at is that the definition of consciousness is so vague and diverse and unable to verify, that there is really no way of ever finding out the truth. And if we can never find out the mechanism behind our consciousness, it would be impossible to achieve the “artificial intelligence” we aspire. Sorry, the future with AI and robots we dream of is not really possible. Try praying to God, maybe there is a greater power that understands what we will never understand.

I clicked save instead of publish, so here is my post:

I heard or read this the other day—I can’t remember where—but I thought it made a lot of sense. Up to now, we’ve been great at having computers mirror left-brain functions but terrible at having it imitate right-brain functions. To cite Wikipedia (because Wikipedia ROCKS!!!):

Left brain functions - Right brain functions
sequential - simultaneous
analytical - holistic
verbal - imagistic
logical - intuitive
linear algorithmic processing - holistic algorithmic processing
mathematics: perception of counting/measurement - mathematics: perception of shapes/motions
present and past - present and future
language: grammar/vocabulary, literal - language: intonation/accentuation, prosody, pragmatic, contextual

Basically, left brain handles mathematical/logical functions, and right brain handles artistic/spatial functions.
Up to now, computers have been left-brain machines. Maybe the future of computing lies in imitating the right brain? Theoretically, it should be possible. And then our demise at the hands of computers will be complete.

We become less safe when we engage in racial profiling, because we only look for one type of person, when in fact others who may commit crimes are under less scrutiny. Moreover, racial profiling creates a divide between people that is actively detrimental to both our notions of unity and equality in America, as well as a divide that is detrimental to our own safety and well-being. Crimes are committed against us because people don’t like America, and as we create further divides within our own country, more people are going to find reasons to hate us.

Timothy McVeigh committed the single deadliest act of terrorism within the United States until 9/11. He was a white male. People in class argued that the reason why people are more wary of Muslims after 9/11 than white men after the Oklahoma City bombing is because the terrorists’ being Muslim directly contributed to the reasons behind their attacks. People cited the matters of jihad in the Koran, an overwhelmingly peaceful book, as evidence to show that this is true. Timothy McVeigh was a white supremacist. His being white was an inherent part of this. Now, because when white people enter buildings, there is no telling who is actually a white supremacist, it would follow that we should also pull every white person to the side to search their bags each and every time they enter a building.

The argument would be that there are too many white people to search everyone in hopes that we find the few white supremacists among us. There are fewer Muslims than white people, as they are a minority, and this makes them easier to pick out of a line-up.

The moment it is clear that we are treating people differently because they are a minority is the moment that it is clear there is a problem.

As I’m sure all of you are delightfully familiar with in your own lives, I am currently working on a research paper for my Writing Seminar. I’ve had to do big research papers frequently throughout my education, and this one is essentially the same. Choose your sources, gather your information, write your paper. The main difference that I’m noticing this time around is that I haven’t had to turn a page once. I’ve cited newspaper articles, journal entries, books, and studies, all without touching a book. All my research has all been done digitally from the discomfort of my desk chair.

I admit this has made my life remarkably easier. I just have to search for the exact phrase I am looking for, read the page it is on, and then move on. If, as I am writing, I find myself in need of more evidence to substantiate a point I am making, it only means a few clicks of the mouse, not a whole trip the library. The internet and the digitalization of thousands of printed sources have completely revolutionized the process of research.

Why do I feel the need to share this? For a couple reasons.

1) Because it makes me question the necessity of the Science Library we are currently building and libraries in general. The current trends suggest it is no longer essential to have an entire building for bound copies of thousands of books when they can all exist in a single server. Also, although purists hate the very thought of it, the digital age has moved the intellectual from the library to the coffee shop. Bookstores like Barnes & Nobles and Borders have put coffee shops in their stores, creating lounge atmospheres with wireless internet. There is already a coffee shop in East Pyne, two in Frist, and people are even talking about putting one in Firestone. While I don’t advocate this, I do understand the thought behind it. On a given night, I bet only about 10% of the people who go to Firestone actually are going there for books. Personally, I love holding and reading printed booksand I think there will always be a demand for them, but I think research has evolved beyond that.

2) Because I read this article a while ago, and I really liked it. In case my attempt at being hip and discretely linking it didn’t work, the article is called The Chicken Soup Chronicles and it’s on nytimes.com from January 13, 2008. (To prove my earlier point, back in the day you’d have to go to the library archives just to read it, but now hopefully it’s a click away). I think it’s a funny/cool article about the potential unforeseen costs of Google and other modern tendencies. With my paper, I avoided learning new things by doing all my research online. I was able to find exactly what I was looking for without having to look through or read anything else. But don’t get me wrong, no matter how much learning I missed out on, I definitely preferred the online method.

Phishing? All too real? What do you think? If it’s not real, what’s one tip-off? (Answer in the comments). Ironically, if you receive this email, you’re in trouble either way. On one hand, you could be one step away from a phishing scam. On the other, it’s real and you’re receiving a subpoena from the US Court system. Talk about being caught between a rock and a hard place.

Well…

This image is a screenshot of an email received by many top executives that was, in fact, a scam. It’s got a lot of people worried. Hope you weren’t fooled.

In class the other day we discussed the ethical and moral dilemma of racial profiling, but what about the idea of lifestyle profiling? I stumbled upon this article from 2005 about the phenomena of “price customization”. Basically, companies like amazon.com use the cookies you’ve installed unto your computer when sign up as a regular customer to pin point the products you’re mostly likely to buy and raise the prices. Here is personal ancedote about price customization (via Livejournal).

The question we discussed in class as to whether or not racial profiling is fair applies to “price customization” as well. Statistically it makes sense, the sellers are making it easier for the consumer to get to the products they may be interested in. So who cares if they adjust the prices a bit and make a little profit? But as an article in the Washington Post suggests, this idea of profiling not only breeds resentment, but mistrust in the whole consumer market leading to an almost Orwellian view of things. If racial profiling is the price to pay for security, is “price customization” the price to pay for easier access to our consumerist desires?