Thank God For August
Aug 13, 2009 Political
It has been a long, hot summer down here in Texas, but then it is alway so here- I understand Al Gore is in Tennessee scratching his balding head, wondering where the hell the global warming went, and there are places in the Northeast that haven’t hit 90 degrees yet. Good for them- heat is only good for my arthritis, but I tend to feel the heat more than I used to. Getting older does that, I understand.
There are other reasons for being grateful for August than just that it means that for many, the summer is almost over, or that we have not had a hurricane yet- (knock on wood)- the main reason, for myself at least, is that it has managed to do what the minority party in Congress has not been able to do, slow down the passage of all these onerous, money grabbing, tax raising, freedom- restricting unconstitutional laws that the Dems have been passing so fast that they say they have not the time to read them.
It is rather funny in a sad sort of way, that the older people who this healthcare bill will affect the most, know more about the bill than do the people who wrote the monstrosity of a bill. Of course, it affects the older people directly, but the Lawmakers have opted out of taking the public option, and this is part of what fuels the flames of resentment. The “It’s good for you, but I have better,” sense of inequality that is a part of the institutional arrogance that is so pervasive in Washington.
It seems to be the same attitude that might come from a King to a serf, tossing the serf a bone, and claiming the serf has been fed. Dismissive, snobbish elitist behavior doesn’t sit well with the regular people who matter. And lawmakers, at least those with courage, are getting an earful from their constituents- the very people they are supposed to represent.
When people hear Arlen Specter, the democrat turncoat say that he has to “parcel” the billout to staffers in order to read it, he is not only not being honest with his constituents, he is not doing the job they elected him to do. He is not being paid so he can have lobster while his staff decides his position- if that is the case, he needs to be removed from his position as a Senator. It is probably time for that anyway, but his electorate will decide that.
When Sheila Jackson- Lee talks on a cell phone while her constituents try to talk with her, and explain the problems they see in this bill- well, that’s just rude. She should have had that phone put somewhere the sun don’t shine, just to make the point about politeness, but in the bigger picture, that just demonstrates the complete and utter ignorance and false “superiority” these people feel that they are entitled to.
Some of them truly do not care what the citizens have to say- they are determined to pass this bill regardless, and to them I say, Beware- just because you are in power now doesn’t mean that it will always be so. You are supposed to be responsive to the electorate, not to the Party. The Party is a collection of people who have similar opinions, the electorate are the people who decide if you are up to the task of representing them, and the Party cannot save you if the electorate decide that you are no longer fit for office. You will be on your butt looking for work like the rest of us.
Believe me, it’s not an easy life when you actually have to work for a living. Some of you lawmakers have never had to do this- you have not had a life outside of politics, so if you do not listen to your electorate, you might just be in for the rudest awakening you never wanted.
Sometimes bad laws can die an ugly death in August- and sometimes the best course of action is to allow that to happen.
It’s your career- it’s your call.
We’re watching.
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Tags: arrogance, bad laws, hubris, town halls
AI- Why?
May 26, 2009 Political
I guess that since the new movie “Terminator- Salvation” debuted at the box office this weekend, now is a good time to ask “Why?” Why should we even attempt to create AI, otherwise known as Artificial Intelligence. Would this be a good thing for the Human race? Even presuming that it could be done, the question becomes, should we?
I mean, we could review the history of what we, the human race, thought were benign improvements in our environment at the time, as we introduced new species without thinking through the consequences of our actions, only to find that without natural “brakes” on the new species that was introduced to make our life and environment better, this new species had run amok, and now threatened the true natural ecosystem.
One example I can think of is the vine Kudzu, which has overrun the areas where it was introduced, and now grows rampant throughout the southern parts of the country, choking out the native vegetation.
Another good example that comes to mind is the release of “pet” pythons into the everglades of Florida, where they have proliferated in an uncontrolled fashion, threatening all the natural wildlife there. Yet another example would be the lionfish, a tropical fish that is presumed to have been released from aquariums after Hurricane Andrew, and have found their way to the coral reefs of the Bahamas, where they have no natural enemies, and are ravaging the native species there.
These are but three examples of a natural world run amok- one has to ask oneself if there should be even a chance that machines should be allowed to think independently. After all, presumably machines would be logical, they would be able to think flawlessly from start to finish, and they might just conclude, “What do we need these sloppy humans for?”
We would, in effect, be the agents of our own destruction by boosting the intelligence quotient to a self- aware level. They could conceivably be every bit as dangerous as the “machines” on the movie screen. On the other side, maybe not. Do we dare take the chance? The innate trouble with humans is the curiosity that just seems, against all logic to cause us to push that button regardless of the possibility of extinction. It seems easier to make a machine that can outthink us rather than make us, as a people, more intelligent through education.
Artificial intelligence is already used to automate and replace some human functions with computer-driven machines. These machines can see and hear, respond to questions, learn, draw inferences and solve problems. But for the Singulatarians, A.I. refers to machines that will be both self-aware and superhuman in their intelligence, and capable of designing better computers and robots faster than humans can today. Such a shift, they say, would lead to a vast acceleration in technological improvements of all kinds.
nytimes.com
Of course, I am of the old school- I see people using telephones as cameras, computers, GPS- everything up to and including, well, telephones. I, being of the old school, would use a phone for its primary use- a telephone, so perhaps I am not the most computer- qualified person to talk about this. Still, I have to ask, what’s the upside to having a “toaster” that knows more than I do? Is this necessary?
Profiled in the documentary “Transcendent Man,” which had its premier last month at the TriBeCa Film Festival, and with his own Singularity movie due later this year, Dr. Kurzweil has become a one-man marketing machine for the concept of post-humanism. He is the co-founder of Singularity University, a school supported by Google that will open in June with a grand goal — to “assemble, educate and inspire a cadre of leaders who strive to understand and facilitate the development of exponentially advancing technologies and apply, focus and guide these tools to address humanity’s grand challenges.”
Not content with the development of superhuman machines, Dr. Kurzweil envisions “uploading,” or the idea that the contents of our brain and thought processes can somehow be translated into a computing environment, making a form of immortality possible — within his lifetime.
That has led to no shortage of raised eyebrows among hard-nosed technologists in the engineering culture here, some of whom describe the Kurzweilian romance with supermachines as a new form of religion.
nytimes.com
Raymond Kurzweil is an AI pioneer, and has sought to determine when this shift in intelligence might occur. His best calculation will be in 2045 that machines would have independent thought. A scary thought in and of itself, for we come back to the initial question- why would they need us, and in what capacity? Would we be partners, or less? Would slavery be a bad thing if the overlords were machines? I think so- perhaps worse for us, for mercy and compassion are human emotional responses, and would not be in the makeup of machines’ intellects. We might be treated as assets or disadvantages, depending on their perceived uses of us.
We have to ask ourselves again and again- are we sure we want to go down this path?
Some things are better done by and for ourselves.
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Tags: artificial intel, hubris, ignorance, mistakes