From Aramis, or the Love of Technology by Bruno Latour By definition, a technological project is a fiction, since at the outset it does not exist, and there is no way it can exist yet because it is in the project phase. This tautology frees the analysis of technologies from the burden that weighs on the analysis of the sciences. As accustomed as we have become to the idea of a science that “constructs,” “fashions,” or “produces” its objects, the fact still remains that, after all the controversies, the sciences seem to have discovered a world that came into being without men and without sciences. Galileo may have constructed the phases of Venus, but once that construction was complete her phases appears to have been “always already present.” The fabricated fact has become the accomplished fact, the fait accompli. Diesel did not construct his engine any more than Galileo built his planet. Some will contend that the engine is out of Diesel’s control as much much as Venus was out of Galileo’s; even so, no one would dare assert that the Diesel engine “was always already there, even before it was discovered.” No one is a Platonist where technology is concerned… This rejection of Platonism gives greater freedom to the observer of machines than to the observer of facts. The big problems of realism and relativism do not bother him. He is free to study engineers who are creating fictions, since fiction, the projection of a state of technology from five or fifty years in the future to a time T, is part of their job… They’re novelists. With just one difference: their project– which is at first indistinguishable from a novel– will gradually veer in one direction or another. Either it will remain a project in the file drawers […]

Conscious Machines by Marvin Minsky We humans do not possess much consciousness. That is, we have very little natural ability to sense what happens within and outside ourselves. In short, much of what is commonly attributed to consciousness is mythical — and this may in part be what has led people to think that the problem of consciousness is so very hard. My view is quite the opposite: that some machines are already potentially more conscious than are people, and that further enhancements would be relatively easy to make. However, this does not imply that those machines would thereby, automatically, become much more intelligent. This is because it is one thing to have access to data, but another thing to know how to make good use of it. Knowing how your pancreas works does not make you better at digesting your food. So consider now, to what extents are you aware? How much do you know about how you walk? It is interesting to tell someone about the basic form of biped locomotion: you move in such a way as to start falling, and then you extend your leg to stop that fall: most people are surprised at this, and seem to have which muscles are involved; indeed, but few people even know which muscles they possess. In short, we are not much aware of what our bodies do. We’re even less aware of what goes on inside our brains.

Bruce Sterling, Shaping Things (2005) p 38 All around us we see obsolescence– but our ideas of obsolescence are not supposed to obsolesce.

I should have posted this a long time ago, but it is so damn annoying that I am going to put it below the break. Thanks a lot, Peter.

Google TechTalks July 26, 2006 Tasks like image recognition are trivial for humans, but continue to challenge even the most sophisticated computer programs. This talk introduces a paradigm for utilizing human processing power to solve problems that computers cannot yet solve. Traditional approaches to solving such problems focus on improving software. I advocate a novel approach: constructively channel human brainpower using computer games. For example, the ESP Game, described in this talk, is an enjoyable online game — many people play over 40 hours a week — and when people play, they help label images on the Web with descriptive keywords. These keywords can be used to significantly improve the accuracy of image search. People play the game not because they want to help, but because they enjoy it. I describe other examples of “games with a purpose”: Peekaboom, which helps determine the location of objects in images, and Verbosity, which collects common-sense knowledge. I also explain a general approach for constructing games with a purpose. Here’s some links to the games mentioned, and others that work on the same principles: ESP Peekaboom Google Image Labeler Phetch (multiplayer game) Verbosity (Apparently the server doesn’t work) A few more links: O’Reilly’s short write up on this lecture All in all, a fascinating talk on a trend that I believe is going to be one of the most important any of us will face. As the symbiosis between humans and computers becomes deeper, and at a larger scale, we’re going to see problems that were formerly construed as “hard AI” suddenly broken, not because computers themselves have become intelligent, but because humans and computers have gotten better at working together. We’re only at the early stages of harnessing collective intelligence, and we’re going to see more and more breakthroughs as creative computer […]

Remember BigDog? Well, Boston Dynamics just released its little brother. While LittleDog isn’t nearly as eerie as BigDog, STriDER wins the nightmare dystopic future award.

Freedom is slavery by Cory Doctorow “Tell me about your hobbies. Are you into model rocketry?” “What?” “Model rocketry.” “No,” Greg said, “No, I’m not.” He sensed where this was going. The man made a note, did some clicking. “You see, I ask because I see a heavy spike in ads for rocketry supplies showing up alongside your search results and Google mail.” Greg felt a spasm in his guts. “You’re looking at my searches and e-mail?” He hadn’t touched a keyboard in a month, but he knew what he put into that search bar was likely more revealing than what he told his shrink. “Sir, calm down, please. No, I’m not looking at your searches,” the man said in a mocking whine. “That would be unconstitutional. We see only the ads that show up when you read your mail and do your searching. I have a brochure explaining it. I’ll give it to you when we’re through here.” “But the ads don’t mean anything,” Greg sputtered. “I get ads for Ann Coulter ring tones whenever I get e-mail from my friend in Coulter, Iowa!” The man nodded. “I understand, sir. And that’s just why I’m here talking to you. Why do you suppose model rocket ads show up so frequently?” Greg racked his brain. “Okay, just do this. Search for ‘coffee fanatics.’” He’d been very active in the group, helping them build out the site for their coffee-of-the-month subscription service. The blend they were going to launch with was called Jet Fuel. “Jet Fuel” and “Launch”—that would probably make Google barf up some model rocket ads. They were in the home stretch when the carved man found the Halloween photos. They were buried three screens deep in the search results for “Greg Lupinski.” “It was a Gulf War–themed party,” […]

You should be listening to Ian’s podcast, loser! The only way it could be better is if it contained more dirty image-based puns.

I posted a doomsday picture of what the end of net neutrality would look like several months ago. Here’s that image: This image caused some panic in a recent D&D thread. I have felt somewhat guilty about posting such a sensationalist photoshop since it has no real basis in reality, and so I felt obliged to clarify why the image is so troubling. That particular model is unmarketable, not because the basic concept is unmarketable, but because we are already so used to having those basic services (YouTube, Blogger, MySpace, etc) that the consuming public wouldn’t stand for their sudden removal from the web. Those services would necessarily be turned into the internet equivalent of ‘basic cable’, like the weather channel or CSPAN. While that particular depiction is unlikely, the basic concept is extremely marketable. It is already how TV (and telephone services) operate, and consumers are used to paying for tiered services. That’s why the image is so uncanny and disturbing, because it is already so familiar. But there is a HUGE difference between a tiered internet offering a YouTubeHD premium package, and a cable service offering tiered TV packages. With TV, content is produced by a network or a consolidated media company, so you get high quality productions that cost a lot of money. To offset those costs, the companies strike deals with cable TV providers to offer their content at certain prices. In other words, the TV providers work in conjunction with the content providers, and this necessarily homogenizes and narrows the scope of media offered. On the internet, on the other hand, there are no centralized sources of content production. There are no networks or media companies that have control of the market. Existing media companies have to compete with small start-up companies, and the existing […]

or: the extended mind for the blind Head-mounted device is the cat’s whiskers

From What the Sopranos taught me about technology: During one of his therapy sessions with Dr. Jennifer Melfi, Tony shares with her that he is flummoxed at A.J.’s behavior of late. She says it sounds like his son has discovered existentialism, to which Tony replies: “[!@%$#%@] Internet.” But Melfi defends the ‘Net, assuring him that existentialism is a European philosophy that was around long before the Web. I really want to do something similar with Dr Katz, but I just haven’t had time to do the video editing.

Jon called me out to celebrate Google’s birthday a few days ago. It wasn’t really Google’s birthday, it was more like its christening; it has been 10 years since www.google.com was registered. I posted the following response, which might not be what he expected, but I thougt was worth posting here. I should start by saying that I like the Google example, not because I think it is the pinnacle of what search should be, but simply because it is an intelligent machine that we interact with every day and don’t give it a second thought. Philosophers like these kinds of ‘its right in front of your nose!’ examples. But the problem of search is much bigger than just Google. One of my profs really wants me to use Searchlight as my core example, but I will always be a PC guy (even if Vista sucks). In any case, it might be instructive in this context to compare Google to other search engines. Take Powerset, for example. The NYT recently had a post\ on how Powerset is attempting to use some fancy natural language processing techniques that came out of Xerox PARC to beat Google at its own game. I’ve often argued that Google is a language user, but Powerlabs is exactly right to assert that Google doesn’t use natural language; it isn’t a user like us. But how much does that matter? My initial reaction is that Powerlabs shouldn’t pretend it is in competition with Google (even if it wants a share of Google’s market); it is really serving a different kind of function. There are certain kinds of questions that Google is bad at answering because of its inability to understand natural language, but there are other kinds of questions that I really just want a machine to […]