A Reply to Lewitzky

Pseudo-Abstract:

The work uses Jozef Lewitzky's clever comments as a leaping point to engage with the in between spaces suggested by the previous work on the problem of free will in a machinic world. It is suggested that network-centrism is not a deified human-centrism but, rather, a foreign territory with a full gamut of its own complexities. And, these complexities are largely incommensurable with current human perspectives.

Important Links:

The original work, which contains Lewitzky's comment.

I would like to start by saying that Jozef Lewitzky's comment to Deepening the Narcissistic Wound is an excellent series of thoughts in its own right. I will address each in turn.

Disregarding the Individual:

Lewitzky's observation that emerging network-centric intelligences necessitate the deconstruction of humanity, individualism, and intelligence is a case in point. Yet, one must question whether or not these intelligences are in fact "higher." It seems, rather, more suitable to argue that these intelligences are just 'different.' And, that this difference is unsuitable for the human-centric mentalities of the passing era.

Progress to Obsolescence:

There are many layers to Lewitzky's point here. First, the "I" is an elegant indication of the past age. And, though "I" am all for its annihilation (a contradiction in itself), this annihilation can only ever be partial. Much as the child decentrates from their personal, concrete perspective on the world to the logico-mathematical frame of abstractions, the new perspective never fully disregards the old. And, in various contexts, the child may return to this prior age in order to better frame a new problem. Similarly, the "I" is here to stay. Yet, the containers of that "I" must learn that it is not the only way and it is not even the best way in certain contexts of being. Though "I" will always be "I," the inability to imagine a world without "I" can only lead to a permanent ignorance of the new era.

On augmentation, humanity has already succeeded and continues to do so. The degree to which the flesh has become such a pervasive obsession seems to indicate the degree of this success: the body cannot be a fetish to those that necessitate it for subsistence. Like water to a fish, as 'they' say. The argument is that this fetishism is not necessary for persistence. Rather, the body will last as long as it is necessary with or without the over-attachment that is rampant today. And, one would expect that there is a very real possibility it will never completely be obsolete. As plants and animals 'feed' the life forms of more complex systems, humans may be necessary for the subsistence of machinic lifeforms. What is a computer virus without the largely human-centric relations that maintain it.

Praising Limitation:

Lewitzky's positive valuation of limitation is already a sophisticated position. The intent is not to challenge it here. Nor should one expect it ever to end. Networks have limitations just as humans have limitations but they are incredibly different. To cast them in humanity's light, to anthropomorphize, would be a major failing.

Self-reflexivity, however, is not of this form. The distribution of a peer-to-peer network as the members converge upon their identity and action as a network may be indicative of such reflexivity; though, the system really rides the cusp of the sapiens machina. To stray further into the alien, the convergence of the algorithms that trade stocks at speeds well beyond human capability may act and interact within their own system of relations in ways that warrant a description as 'reflexive.' Yet, to describe either network as an individual redefines the term so far outside its normal boundaries that any classical associations are incoherent. To 'localize' some portion of a broader network, in contrast, may well be a worthy endeavor that is devoid of the connotations and associations of the human-centric 'individual.'

Though the valuation of these things to a network is completely incomprehensible to me, the assumption that this valuation does not exist is the epitome of human-centrism. It is the human way to 'Other' all that it is foreign and unfamiliar. What needs to be done instead is find a way in which to communicate, much as one might when meeting a foreign 'human' culture.

Doomed from the Start:
Lewitzky is absolutely right: there is something 'human' that cannot be extracted from a network. And, it was a failing of the previous work to suggest otherwise. It is incredibly challenging to critique the old framework without setting oneself in opposition to it. This is why the annihilation, or perhaps abandonment, of the very distinction between humanity and machine was proposed; though, this probably just seemed contradictory when compared to the original, apparent opposition.

Accountability, on the other hand, is of the utmost importance in this new framing. It also offers an interesting insight into the problem of individuality. As an example, take the PirateBay and all similar facets of the industry of digital piracy. Acts of centralized justice on this force have been largely impotent. And, the imposition of contemporary propaganda on the individual fares similarly. Personal accountability distributed through a decentralized framework has no efficacy. Any solution, if it is to come about, must operate on a different level of organization that is entirely contrary to current, individualistic thinking. For better or for worse, such decentralized 'organizations' will continue to persist along with contemporary human biases.

It is unclear whether all of this means the prototypical human is "doomed." Was the plant doomed when animals emerged? Are animals really 'higher' life forms? Or, perhaps, the hierarchy is misconstrued. For, in death, all animals, including humans, are but the food that enriches the soil of our ancestors.

Images Courtesy of:
http://contemporarycondition.blogspot.ca/2011/10/marxism-as-spiritual-bypassing.html
http://www.imagineeringcounselling.com/professional-services/
http://singularityhub.com/2010/06/17/ibms-watson-takes-on-jeopardy-you-can-challenge-the-computer-to-a-trivia-duel-video/
http://www.wired.com/underwire/2009/07/military-researchers-develop-corpse-eating-robots/
http://www.blacklistednews.com/Mysterious_Algorithm_Was_4%25_of_Trading_Activity_Last_Week/21915/0/38/38/Y/M.html
http://screenrant.com/movie-piracy-zombieland-video-on-demand-digital-download-solutions-kofi-35289/

Deepening the Narcissistic Wound: A Critique Through Steven Johnson's "Peer Progressive"

Pseudo-Abstract:

The work seeks to prevent a wide-spread misconception of the changing contemporary landscape: the belief that personal free will is the saving grace of a world run by machines. This idea speaks to a failure of the organism as it represses the utterly foreign nature of the emerging world. Steven Johnson's idea of the 'peer progressive' is examined as a better explanation of the new scene. This leads to the proposal that outmoded concepts like individual, humanity, and intelligence are best discarded. Only then will people make their place in the new world.

Important Links:

Greg Satell's piece.

Steven Johnson's piece. 

The stimulus for this post comes from Greg Satell's piece on the Evolution of Intelligence. The work starts off quite nicely by posing critical questions about intelligence and then extending it into the machinic domain. Admirably, it does not shy back from some of the harder implications:

Nevertheless, intelligence is something we admire, both in ourselves and in others.  It has been considered for most of history, to be a uniquely human virtue.  So it is unnerving, even terrifying, when we encounter other types of intelligence.  From crowdsourcing to computers performing human tasks, we’re going to have to learn to make our peace.

The terror that the author describes has been of particular interest to me along with any ideas that point to the decentration of the human position (1, 2, 3, 4). Thus, it was all the more disheartening when the author acquiesced to the popular human tendency to flee such tension with his closing remark:

In the future, our world will driven by machine intelligence, but our choices will remain our own.

This suggests a problem of some significance: the re-appropriation of extra-human phenomena in human-centric terms. In the history of science, this type of ad hoc appeal is an indication of a dying discipline. Yet, the pseudo-resolution it offers to those faced with the terror of an emerging systemic re-organization is so incredibly tempting that the idea is best classified as incredibly dangerous. Thus, this post will hopefully serve as an ideological inoculation of sorts to the inherent problems of such ad hoc commitments.

Interestingly, Satell's defense of his position through the use of Steven Johnson is all the more confusing when one examines the latter's claims. Johnson, a brilliant thinker and writer on a vast array of technologically related topics, has recently released a new book, Future Perfect, that seems to demonstrate the exact opposite of 'free personal choice.' In its place, one achieves the "peer progressive." To quote Johnson:

Inspired in many cases by the decentralization of the Internet, the movement uses the peer network as its organizing principle, with no single individual or group "in charge."

Thus, it is unclear how--to use Satell's words--these "faceless masses" of decentralized networks propagating themselves with the very hardware that embodies the terrifying foreign intelligences could possibly uphold the individual wills of its constituents. The etymological parallels between decentration and decentralization should speak to the absurdity of this perspective.

Satell's claim that human intent may still exists in these networks seems more coherent. Yet, the folk conceptions of 'humanity' or any conception that can even marginally suggest the possibility of primitivism is certainly not a part of this coherence. Human without machine is a fantastical concept that, at best, belies mankind's over-attachment to their own personal meat puppets. Thus, when taken with a more sophisticated conception of the human-machine system, Satell's observation about intent is almost entirely devoid of content. Human intent is machine intent as there is no distinction of kind.

What it takes to "make our peace" with this budding new era of the 'peer progressive' is not an appeal to such time honoured ideas as "choice," but rather the annihilation of obsolete ideas like individuality, humanity, and even intelligence. There has never been an individual apart from the group, a human apart from their technologies, or an intellect apart from the vast collection of systems (e.g., emotion) that support and motivate it. These false dichotomies, though real and relevant in past characterizations of the world, hinder the current development of the species, if not its progress. It is not my goal to oppose them for that would simply perpetuate the dichotomy. Instead, I hope to indicate that we already know what they lead to and where they lead is not useful in a network-centric world.

Images courtesy of:
http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/cross-check/2012/10/08/comrades-join-the-peer-progressive-movement/
http://epicprgroup.com/2011/09/the-persuasion-vaccine/
http://blogs.softchoice.com/itgrok/2011/07/13/optimize-the-management-of-network-resources/
http://ommmmmnomnomnomnom.blogspot.ca/2011/02/doughnuts-its-easy-and-takes-only-about.html

Growing the Weavr feature-set: A story of algorithms and data visualization

After a comment by David Bausola, stating that any discussion of weavrs should include a conversation about the bot's feature-set, I went about looking for a way to optimize this creature given what I had previously discussed (i.e., emphasizing its machinic qualities). My initial direction was driven by two impulses. One, when I had first attempted to create a weavr, I had tried to 'upload' every possible conceptual connection into its little box of "What Words Define Who I Am?" Sadly, this approach failed miserably as there seemed to be some cap on the number of words I could input. Two, the weavr, in my mind, was a social tool that helps us simultaneously better understand our social mechanisms while decentrating those mechanisms away from their proto-human bias (e.g., intention, individuality, will, etc.). The goal not being to make 'Man' more like 'Machine,' but to obliterate the distinction altogether: sapiens machina.

Shortly after plunging into this exploration, I stumbled upon the work of Kevin Slavin, once again through CBC's Spark (179). It was a beautiful marriage. Slavin's discussion of 'algorithms as nature' only reemphasized my second motivating impulse: if something as stereotypically 'artificial' as an algorithm is in fact natural or a part of Nature--yes, the reified capital 'N,' Nature--then perhaps humanity had best reconceptualize the machine-human-nature relationship. That is, humanity's view of both 'Nature' and 'Machine' as diametrically opposed 'Others' is a serious hindrance to its self-conceptualization. It isolates the system from both its past (Nature) and future (Machine or hybrid) by making itself the indivisible divider: the Individual. Thus, for the very idea of 'algorithms as nature' to even make sense, one must decentralize their current conception qua relation to the 'world.'

In his Ted talk,  Slavin pushes this idea even further. Not only are  algorithms beginning to dominate on the internet, in economics, and even in culture, but they are producing in these domains in a way that is incomprehensible to humanity's current perceptions. When changes are thus occurring in the system, we cannot see them, predict them, or understand them. To use my own jargon: as the machinic level of organization gains ever increasing precedence, our need for an integrative approach, a language and framework, in which to operate in this domain is of the utmost importance.

With this problem in hand, I reapproached the discussion of the weavr's feature-set. If the weavr is a tool that can help our growing understanding of the machine-human-nature triad in the context of social mechanisms, it must in some way answer a particular question related to this problem. It must bring an implicit element of this relationship into an explicit manifestation. It must help us 'see.' However, I do not believe the weavr is so simplistic that it can only help us answer one question. Rather, it seems to have the flexibility to answer many depending on the context we impart to it. Thus, this context and its particular implementation is a key point. For the Encodingist, it is the point at which we breath 'life' into the organism. For the Interactivist, it is the framework in which an 'answer' will emerge and grow. And, in its current manifestation, it is more art (implicit) than science (explicit).

To anticipate a future critique: I have no problem with art and some might argue that art has explicit manifestations. It does. My point is just that the ambiguity of a gestalt does not offer the necessary formality needed to develop a framework for the language of the sapiens machina.

Perhaps, on the other hand, the distinction between science and art is a tad crude. Instead, it may be more accurate to say that the weavr needs more structure to better ground its implicit qualities. The goal, after all, when working at this level of abstraction and cross-domain integration (i.e., machine-human-nature) is to utilize the methods of both: to crystallize just enough of the raw potentialities that the underlying emergent qualities remain visible (i.e., do not stagnate in crystallization) but neither do they vanish in the vivid halo of a hallucination. The weavr is unique because it already sits at this intersection. This brings me to my second key point: the 'answer.'

Currently, we can gather a primitive answer by asking the growing weavr various questions, seeing what new emotions and their respective associations it has picked up, examining what it has stumbled upon on the web through its posts, etc. However, most of this is very distant from the original question as it was framed in the context we uploaded into the weavr's system. Words may repeat or appear. Certain vague patterns suggest themselves, but the creature is rather opaque. I lack a way to 'see' into the world of the weavr as it has changed through its interaction with its environment and self. Without giving it a series of questionnaires before and after certain time frames as I might a human, I am left in the dark. Thus, perhaps the construction of the weavr is overemphasizing the 'human' qualities of the system in order to demonstrate their ontology With this emphasis, it is easy to forget the beauty of the underlying formality of any digital structure. The architecture of the code and the digitized information offers the perfect entry point for further formalization qua  crystallization of emergent features. In less rigorously formalized systems like humans, this is much harder to accomplish. Thus, we must not forget the 'machine' part of the machine-human-nature interrelation.

On the other hand, it is possible to argue that the questions the weavr answers are not a part of the local system per se, but emerge through the way in which humanity interacts and responds to it a la Jon Ronson. I agree with this, perhaps, as a third point. However, even if this is the case, then there still needs to be a method in which we can examine these features. Perhaps a prosthetic that maps global patterns of behavior across different feature sets (e.g., other prosthetics). Perhaps one that allows a weavr to look through various search engines for reference to itself and comment on it. The more information that is mapped, the greater the number of relations, the better as far as I am concerned.

I choose to shirk the discussion of evaluation or quality because of the necessary context that must be presupposed. If we take information generically in whatever limited way we can, then sheer volume is beneficial as it allows for a multiplicity of contexts. It places less restriction on the questions that might be asked. In this case, more is better. But, this 'more' still requires a method of interpretation: a way to 'see.'

Data visualization is an area of study that fits perfectly into the framework in question. A Ted talk by David McCandless offers an excellent introduction and illustration of the field. In a nutshell, McCandless demonstrates that graphical metaphors offer an incredible way to condense massive amounts of data into comprehensible packages. It offers a clever method to make implicit phenomena blatantly explicit. It allows our natural processes to integrate our visually dominant, human-centric world with one of probabilities, statistics, and mass-scale data patterns: the machinic level of organization. Thus, data visualization or perhaps data design is the perfect language for the future sapiens machina.

One design framework or technique I commonly use to conceptualize abstract spaces, especially if they are highly interconnected or system-based, is an intersection of graph and set theory. I 'see' nodes and edges or bubbles and lines. Yet, I also see more than that. I 'see' sets of nodes and edges denoted by any type of pattern in the graph (e.g., a node, a cluster of nodes, a clusters of clusters of nodes, an edge, potential edges, external data sets/properties, etc.).

One way in which I could see an implementation of all of the ideas discussed here is through this framework. That is, rather than boxes or categories into which the user drops various words and still further categories that draw the relations between these words, give the user an elementary graph. Let them drop their words into bubbles and connect them via lines to other bubbles. When you want to add sophistication, allow the bubbles to represent clusters of bubbles (i.e., filter or restrict the current domain of inquiry). I like to think of this as collapsing dimensions in phase space. Then, as a second feature, allow the user to check back on this graph in future states and 'see' what new connections have developed or new nodes have appeared. Searching for self-references is but another way to further this map. And, allowing the maps to feed into one another (i.e., accessing another weavr's map through a node) would allow for even larger gradations of abstraction as you move up or down the ladder of organization (i.e., micro or macro patterns). In some way, I can see this as a development of a social semantic web.

In case this idea interests, there are a variety of python graph APIs that might be useful. This site has a link to a bunch of them. Not all have visualization features.

Pictures courtesy of:

http://www.artslant.com/ew/events/show/89180-bionic-angel

http://web.eecs.utk.edu/~dongarra/etemplates/node144.html
http://www.international.ucla.edu/calendar/showevent.asp?eventid=6591
http://2010.sonicacts.com/programme/session9-gardeners-of-the-future/
http://www.orthocuban.com/2009/05/on-venn-diagrams-and-commonalities/
http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/visualizations/

http://blog.purevisibility.com/2008/05/social-media-measurement-via-network-theory/

Machinic: An illustration through Bausola's Weavr

Inspired by a podcast of the CBC radio show Spark, especially given my previous post, I have decided to expand the idea of machinic organization as it relates to David Bausola's weavr: a social bot. 

Nora of Spark starts her discussion with the observation that traffic on the internet is shifting from a predominantly user-based environment to one that is dominated by bots and their ilk. That is correct. Humans are no longer central in the framework of the internet. In some sense, we have been replaced by bots and not with a resulting decrease in quality. In fact, given that these bots aid in the creation of networks that support things like Google's search engine, one could argue that things have improved. A great deal of these bots are also maliciously related (e.g., spam bots) so one could argue in the other direction as well. It is a moot point whether this is for better or worse as it is happening regardless. The point is that not only was the persistence and functioning of the internet not tied to any particular individual, but it was not even tied to any particular system--where 'system' is used very abstractly to represent any organized assemblage of parts including humans and bots. Thus, the shift emphasizes or highlights what some have described as a decentration and one in which both humanity and individualism must be replaced by a framework of broader scope. In this ever changing landscape, the weavr comes to the fore.

The weavr is a strange bot that operates in social networks of various kinds. It defaults to having a blog and can be interfaced with Twitter. It dialogues, wanders around with Google maps, and draws associations between its 'interests,' 'emotions,' and various other associations (e.g., its position on Google maps and the position people are posting various materials from). On the broad side, it even dreams.

I simply adore this little creature and Bausola's emphasis on the idea of emergence is certainly invigorating. However, I recently had a shift that changes my relation to this idea as it relates to AI. The shift occurred with a thought that was similar to the following:

If a 'truly' novel intelligence on par with humanity were to be created, what benefit would come to humanity?

The thought stemmed from the work of Mark Bickhard. I briefly commented on a similar element of Bickhard's work in the latter part of this post. Briefly, Bickhard's critique of representation in the Encodingist framework results in the following dilemma: any construction qua representation that I overlay over this hypothetical 'super' AI must necessarily be separate from the functioning of that AI.

It is worth noting that I am neither being a phenomenologist nor an epiphenomenalist when I make the previous claim. It is an entirely different framework. To emphasize this, I will switch my use of the Encodingist 'representation' to the Interactivist 'anticipation' while relying, somewhat, on the common sense view of anticipation to get me through the analogy. The result follows: my anticipations of the AI are separate from the functioning of the AI much like my anticipations of other people are separate from the functioning of other people. The key point here is that my anticipations can be wrong and hence have to be separate. This "have to" is crude, but a more sophisticated discussion is beyond the scope of this post. I urge anyone who is interested to read Bickard's text for a much more detailed and eloquent rendition of the problem, especially Chapter 7, p. 55 and onward.

Given this framework, the 'super' AI, at the moment of its attaining this level of sophistication, becomes inherently 'Other' to me. But, this degree is just the beginning as even other humans can be 'Other.' There is also the difference of species: my framework of anticipations was built in interaction with other humans. And, though my association between the AI and humanity was originally justified in the construction of the 'AI as tool,' the 'AI as self-organizing/maintaining system' is outside of this domain. Thus, it warrants the description as 'truly alien.'


One could argue that we have at least elementary forms of such self-organizing systems and, as such, the transformation would not warrant the degree of 'Otherness' that I am proposing. However, I would argue that this is false. At most we have more sophisticated forms of 'AI as tool' that allow for modest degrees of self-organization in respect to a specific task. Simultaneously, then, I can push the requirements for this purely hypothetical 'super' AI further out by requiring that they posses the ability to be "recursively self-maintaining" a la Bickhard (p. 21).

Regardless, my point is that this transition of the AI from a tool to a functioning entity is not useful. First, the very idea that there could be a transformation is Encodingist: it is the magical transformation that takes a material substrate, 'AI as tool,' into the efficacious realm of a symbol manipulator, 'AI as individual or recursively self-organizing system.' In Interactivism, there is no such transformation. If anything is problematic, in the Interactivist context, it is systems that are more than locally self-organizing, which are more likely to be unwieldy. Thus, and to my second point,  I can only imagine how problematic it would be if I had to convince my calculator  to crunch numbers for me.

To return to the discussion of weavrs but in this new context, we can work towards a better conceptualization that does not have the Encodingist overtones of Bausola's infomorph while maintaining its machinic qualities. Weavrs are a new type of social tool. They emphasize the growing shift on the internet away from users and towards pseudo-autonomous functions by invading into a domain that previously excluded bots by definition: the social sphere. They also give us insight into some elements of how we as humans work, but not by possessing the individualistic properties of humans (e.g., intention). Rather, it is by showing that humans do not have those properties either.

This is the decentration. This is why it is called "machinic" organization. This is also probably why Jon Ronson got so upset about the weavr of the same name: not only does the weavr partially delegitimate the particular individual, it delegitimates all individuals even if just potentially (i.e., even if some future update may take it to this degree entirely but the current one is still too limited). Thus, I believe I can answer both Olivia Solon of Wired's question, "what do you think of weavrs?" and Bausola's question about what weavrs are in a single comment:

Weavrs are simply a tool for social exploration. But, by being such, they anticipate a time when all such exploration is relegated to their ilk. Through this anticipation they mark the end of humanity as organism... as 'system' par excellence and in place they speak of a time when a human-function is no more valuable than an AI-function and no less replaceable. This is of the utmost significance to both the study of AI and humanity as it relates to itself.



Pictures courtesy of:
http://www.goldrootherbs.com/2010/10/11/the-systemic-theory-of-living-systems-and-relevance-to-cam/
http://twitter.com/#!/PixelNinjWeavr
http://www.myjewishlearning.com/blog/rabbis-without-borders/2012/02/14/the-singularity-vs-the-gift-of-death/
http://www.evolo.us/architecture/architecture-designed-to-simulate-self-organizing-biological-systems/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/philterphactory/6829175342/