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

Augmented reality 2.0

It seems that I was previously mistaken. There are a number of groups that are implementing preliminary hardware and software for mobile and otherwise that is beginning to collapse the divide between our cyber and material worlds.

It's hard to comment on all of this stuff as I am a tad overwhelmed. Nevertheless, here are some preliminary thoughts.

For the games, I would like to see some gaming classics like PacMan get reinterpreted. It would also be nice to see someone explore the current limitations of our hardware so that we have an idea of where the boundary is in this domain. I think the explosion of excitement in this industry, though wonderful, had best be reined in. The domain is potentially infinite, but currently has some solid limitations in our hardware and software design. Rather than see programs and apps that really push the limits, I would like to see some slightly more modest but functional attempts. Take one facet of the infinite potential and develop it until it has some obvious practical usefulness. And, though I love these ideas (1 2), wearing a giant suit or helmet is... not feasible.

In this vein, I think I am following other thinkers. The importance of finding ways in which augmented reality, given its current limitations, can legitimately reinforce or support our current existence in our environments is pertinent. That is, given a camera, gps, a small screen or primitive glasses (1 2), an accelerometer and/or gyroscope, a live feed to the internet and the cloud, audio input/output, and a touch screen, what can be implemented?

The cloud offers the ability to extend our memory capacity if we can find a seamless way to 'recall' the information or begin to implement triggers (e.g., visual, auditory, etc.). If someone could find a way to integrate this with multilingualism (i.e., by having a list of common phrases, etc.), I think traveling would become much simpler.

The accelerometer and gyroscope offer an alternative to touch screens. Just hold your phone and swipe it around like a computer mouse. In fact, I'm surprised I have not seen any software implementing smartphones as UI for standard computers. Though, I have heard of other countries using it for UI more generically. And, actually, the idea of being able to graphically scan anything and have my smartphone find where I can buy it, virtually or otherwise, is certainly worth exploring.

This software has some interesting uses socially. I can see a time when people have clothing that encodes their 'avatar' (i.e., appearance) in cyberspace so that they are seen as such through AR. Subcultures, I'm sure, will be able to integrate this as an interesting form of identification. There are possible consequences here for gangs, etc.  as well as the police. On the extreme end, machines could be seen in a more anthropomorphic frame, which might have interesting repercussions for our relationships with them and we may be able to project our avatars to new places in order to send cues, or even interact with the world. Imagine your phone's 'ring tone' was the person appearing in your peripheral vision and waving at you. Interesting implications for the research I have heard on less invasive forms of human-computer interaction.

Actually, this would be an interesting way to implement some of the ideas I discussed previously. I could have it such that messages or social cues, interests, etc. are encoded right on my person (e.g., approachable, busy, single, etc.). If people start doing this with tattoos, that would certainly be fascinating. And, to forecast a future post, the ability to tag others given a particular network or context would be fascinating, too, especially with ratings.

Images courtesy of:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2010/mar/21/augmented-reality-iphone-advertising
https://t.co/5jjnouAY
http://strangehorizons.blogspot.ca/2011_06_01_archive.html

A method for posting comments

Hello hypothetical readers,

A (possibly) innovative way of posting comments to my blog presented itself in place of the usual forms. My idea is to urge you to create a blog of your own--a surprisingly easy task--by whatever means you see fit (though, I must say Google has done a wonderful job with this blog platform...). In this new private blog of your own you can create a comment to one of my posts and then link to it. I will then see your link (after you or someone else clicks it) in my stats and, assuming it is at all relevant or interesting, will likely respond with a comment and link in turn.

I like this idea for a few reasons. First, it reminds me of the old school process of writing letters, journal articles, or books in such a way that they create a dialogue among peers, but in a contemporary context. Second, or furthermore, blogs of relevant dialogue will begin to create a mutually supporting network or interface of connections, readers, and topics. Third, everyone's blog is still independent and can be edited, adapted, etc. at their own discretion, which leads to... Fourth, there's a sort of evolutionary progression as the useless bloggers (and those that would issue spam, etc.) are filtered out from the network as well as from each others individual blogs. I should also add... Fifth, down the road (or now), a bit of relevant advertising could help sustain our dialogue (and bellies).

Now, the wisest among you might say... "But Mike, this is already the role of blogs and the internet at large!" And I most heartily agree. However, the difference and distinction (despite, obviously, removing a comment box) is that we (or at least I) are (am) now consciously and deliberately operating in this framework. I comment so as to create links to the people I deem significant as well as the networks they support and others do the same for me.

Thus, I must add, O Bloggers, by commenting (i.e., linking) you are buying, my fellow consumers. Not necessarily a product you can set on your dresser, eat, or otherwise materially enjoy. No. You are buying future posts, peers, and networks of the same quality.

Buyer beware.