I’m probably going to show this video to my students over the summer as we discuss various definitions of technology. I’ve used this example before to illustrate technology as manufacturing; for some reason this is the picture in my head when I think ‘manufacturing’. They don’t make crayons like this any more, of course, but I especially like how tactile this video is: lots of hands grabbing bundles of crayons and moving them around really gives you a sense of the weight of the crayons in bulk, and a pretty good idea at the steps involved in crayon creation. I’ve referenced this montage in my 101 class, without having the video handy, under the assumption that enough people have seen Sesame Street and Electric Company to recognize the reference. But maybe I’m just old. Is this video familiar? If it isn’t, and I said “The Sesame Street montage of how crayons are made”, would you at least have a sense of what I’m talking about?

There are just too many great quotes from this article, so just read the whole thing: Bots on the ground The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have become an unprecedented field study in human relationships with intelligent machines. These conflicts are the first in history to see widespread deployment of thousands of battle bots. Flying bots range in size from Learjets to eagles. Some ground bots are like small tanks. Others are the size of two-pound dumbbells, designed to be thrown through a window to scope out the inside of a room. Bots search caves for bad guys, clear roads of improvised explosive devices, scoot under cars to look for bombs, spy on the enemy and, sometimes, kill humans. Even more startling than these machines’ capabilities, however, are the effects they have on their friendly keepers who, for example, award their bots “battlefield promotions” and “purple hearts.” “Ours was called Sgt. Talon,” says Sgt. Michael Maxson of the 737th Ordnance Company (EOD). “We always wanted him as our main robot. Every time he was working, nothing bad ever happened. He always got the job done. He took a couple of detonations in front of his face and didn’t stop working. One time, he actually did break down in a mission, and we sent another robot in and it got blown to pieces. It’s like he shut down because he knew something bad would happen.” The troops promoted the robot to staff sergeant — a high honor, since that usually means a squad leader. They also awarded it three “purple hearts.” Humans have long displayed an uncanny ability to make emotional connections with their manufactured helpmates. Car owners for generations have named their vehicles. In “Cast Away,” Tom Hanks risks his life to save a volleyball named Wilson, who has become […]

I’ve had this thread stirring in my head for a while. I’m still not sure it is entirely ripe yet, but I felt I should put this out there and see what the world thinks. I think there is a real article in here somewhere, and I fully expect to see articles in the press along these lines in the coming months, but I haven’t seen any good commentary on this issue recently. If you stumble across any recent articles on this general theme, please link them here. I’ll do the same, but until then this will just be a repository for some of my scattered thoughts. The inspiration for this manifesto started with the Al Gore interview on The Daily Show a few weeks ago. The interview ended with a discussion of the internet, which Gore called “the single greatest source of hope that we will be able to fix what ails the conversation of democracy.” But Gore followed that up with something that really intrigued me: If the internet had been as strong 6 years ago as it is now, maybe there would have been a lot more attention paid to the real facts and we would not have our troops stuck over there in a civil war. Before we get into a debate over whether Gore’s alternate history is accurate, it is worth taking a few things into account. Six years ago is right at the tail end of the dot com bubble. Google was still the search engine for the nerdy elite and was just beginning the early stages of setting up an advertising model. Wikipedia ran MySQL on a single server. People said “www”, and seeing a web address in a commercial was still something of a novelty. In other words, the internet was a […]

I’m stupid and got involved in another argument over Wikipedia, again. And I’m also vain, so I’m documenting the discussion below. Comments are welcome. D&D: Wikilolocaust (Note: it is a predictably shitty thread, and my comments don’t appear for several pages. Spare the trouble of actually reading it) danno posted: The English-language Wikipedia has 1.67 million articles. For the sake of argument, let’s say that on average an hour of work has gone into each article. Let’s also say that the type of labor that goes into Wikipedia is worth $15 an hour. Multiply and you get $25 million worth of free labor the project has been able to harness. Now I know I pulled those numbers out of my ass, but my point is that Wikipedia isn’t some infant project trying to make its way on the Web. It’s had six years with thousands of people contributing millions of dollars worth of resources. I don’t think it’s unreasonable to start holding expectations as to its quality. I’m hesitant to get involved in this shitstorm of a thread, but- Look, Wikipedia is already a success, end of story. That success isn’t judged on the quality or quantity of the articles, because both those attributes are in constant flux. Individual articles can be criticized in any number of ways, and in any number of dimensions, according to the protocols set forth by the Wikipedia community. And, perhaps most importantly, those protocols are also in flux and can be changed by the community. It is true that these rules are regulated by an insulated community that is strongly resistant to outside influence, and who devalue traditional forms of authority. But it is wrong to say that it does not accept any form of authority; the authority is just nonstandard. As such, it […]

This is just too smart. Clocky The alarm clock that runs away and hides when you don’t wake up. Clocky gives you one chance to get up. But if you snooze, Clocky will jump off of your nightstand and wheel around your room looking for a place to hide. Clocky is kind of like a misbehaving pet, only he will get up at the right time. At the height of my laziness, I would set two alarms in different corners of my room, set to go off at slightly different times, and with snooze times of 7 and 9 minutes, respectively. The resulting dissonance was usually enough to get me up within 45 minutes of the first alarm going off, but it was a pretty elaborate, noisy process. Clocky seems like the perfect solution. Edit: now with video!

(I reworked the CONOPS post into a D&D thread. Hopefully this gets some responses.) There have been plenty of articles recently published debating the merits of Korea’s soon-to-be drafted Robot Ethics Charter. We had a thread a few weeks ago on this very topic that didn’t go anywhere. I don’t want this thread to be about the charter itself, but about the fundamental issues the charter means to address: how machines ought to behave. I think everyone will agree that the way the media reports technological and scientific news is embarrassing at best and deeply misleading at worst. For example, every article linked above cites Asimov as the primary cultural touchstone for this debate. Everyone has their own opinion on Asimov’s laws, though most people agree that they are terribly out of date and implausible. But I think we can agree with the fact that the Laws represent a poor starting point for a discussion of what machines should and shouldn’t do, given current and near-future technology and the tasks we set for the machines. It is well-known that the US military plans to make at least a third of his combat ground vehicles autonomous by 2015, and such autonomous machines will pay no attention to even the intent of the Laws. So leave Asimov aside. The Naval Surface Warfare Center has recently proposed a CONOPS (Warning: PDF) for the use of autonomous weapons systems: NAVSEA POSTED: Let the machines target other machines – Specifically, let’s design our armed unmanned systems to automatically ID, target, and neutralize or destroy the weapons used by our enemies – not the people using the weapons. – This gives us the possibility of disarming a threat force without the need for killing them. – We can equip our machines with non-lethal technologies for the […]

Even though computers aren’t capable of rational thought and know nothing about morals, yet they have more sense than the most learned atheist. Case and point: The other day while working on a PC, I began deleting unwanted files. There was an html file that showed all of the TEN COMMANDMENTS. Since it was a duplicate file, I decided to delete it also. When I clicked “delete”, the usual message came on the screen that said, “Are you sure you want to send the ‘TEN COMMANDMETS’ to the Recycle bin?” The question struck me very deeply because of how it was worded and for a moment I hesitated to delete the file. After clicking “yes”, a message box came up on the screen that said an illegal act had been performed by a program. Now what atheist or heathen has sense enough to think as correctly as that unthinking computer. Atheists do not think it’s an illegal act to try to destroy the TEN COMMANDMENTS.” From fstdt

http://xkcd.com/c251.html I love when students send me this kind of stuff. Thanks, Sam.

Contrast: California county tags gang members with GPS San Bernardino county wants to start tagging gangbangers with GPS transponders. County commissioners have applied to the state to be part of a pilot program that would monitor all offenders who are released from jail after serving time for gang-related activities. The program, which the county has started implementing on its own, is an innovative attempt to tackle the problem of gang violence, but it builds on similar California initiatives already underway. Last year, for instance, California voters enacted Jessica’s Law, which forced all sex offenders to live more than 2,000 feet away from schools and parks. The law also require that all felony sex offenders submit to GPS-based electronic monitoring—for the rest of their lives. That’s right, the bracelets need to stay on even after sentences are served and parole is over. with: California Senate fights RFID tracking for schoolkids California’s state Senate has struck a major blow against the enemies of mankind in the inevitable war against The Machines. Legislation approved Monday would prohibit public schools from requiring the implementation of radio-wave devices that broadcast students’ personal identification and monitor their movement around campus — information the mechanical horrors could theoretically use to turn our children into livestock. … The bill provisions would expire in 2011, giving the state government four years to ponder the implications of forced-implantation of RFID chips into the ID cards and tender flesh of human children, among other threats that are easy to grandstand against.

We find prejudices in favor of theory, as far back as there is institutionalized science. Plato and Aristotle frequented the Academy at Athens. That building is located on one side of the Agora, or market place. It is almost as far as possible from the Herculaneum, the temple to the goddess of fire, the patron of the metallurgists. It is ‘on the other side of the tracks’. True to this class distinction, we all know a little about Greek geometry and the teachings of the philosophers. Who knows anything about Greek metallurgy? Yet perhaps the gods speak to us in their own way. Of all the buildings that once graced the Athenian Agora, only one stands as it always was, untouched by time or reconstruction. That is the temple of the metallurgists. The Academy fell down long ago. It has been rebuilt- partly by money earned in the steel mills of Pittsburgh. -Ian Hacking, Representing and Intervening

I’ve used Wikipedia as my standard example of successful online communities before, but after hearing Craig Newmark’s “This I Believe” essay on NPR this afternoon, I wonder if I’m being too elitist. After all, Wikipedia has very specific epistemological goals that don’t really reflect the needs, wants, and interests of the general public. The marketplace, on the other hand, is something that everyone can relate to. That Golden Rule Thing I used to share the cynicism common to many nerds: that people were frequently malicious and opportunistic. But, of course, you don’t get treated well wearing a plastic pocket protector and thick, black glasses taped together, and now, I get that. Years of customer service have changed the way I think about people. Now I believe that people are overwhelmingly trustworthy and deeply OK. I don’t want to sound sanctimonious or syrupy, but for the past seven years, I’ve been doing full-time customer service for Craigslist, interacting with thousands of people. I see that most people share a similar moral compass: They play fair, they give each other a break and they generally get along. I see that pretty much everyone operates by that Golden Rule thing. When Katrina hit, for instance, people figured out what other people needed. They didn’t ask for permission to repurpose our New Orleans site. They just turned it into a bulletin board for people to find friends and loved ones. Others offered housing for survivors, and soon, jobs were being offered to survivors. Many of us have lost a sense of neighborhood and community, and we really crave that. In today’s culture, sometimes we can find that on the Web. Like, it’s easy to connect with someone who’s just trying to sell a used sofa, and it’s really hard to hate a person who’s […]

Interesting interview with Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google. First: The internet is not the same as Google! Why do you think some people are complaining about Google’s power? Try to understand the motivations of the complainers. Google is one of the companies where advertising is moving to us and from other forms of media. The fact of the matter is, that’s about the Internet, not about Google. We are one of the companies, but we are certainly by no means the only one. The next question is one I wanted to ask Vint Cerf last week when he visited campus, but I thought it would sound silly in the context of his talk. Schmidt is a business man, not a tech geek, so I’m interested to see if their answers differ: Is Google creating a real artificial intelligence? A lot of people have speculated that. If we’re doing AI, we’re not doing it the way AI researchers do it, because they do real cognition. Our spelling correction (on misspelled search queries) is an example of AI. But if you talk of that in an AI class in computer science, they’ll say, Oh yeah, yeah, no big deal. On the other hand, spelling correction applies to millions of people every day. But Larry and Sergey talk about doing a real AI, and there’s the idea that you’re scanning all this stuff on the Web to be read and understood by an AI. That gives a lot of people the willies, because there’s any number of movies such as The Terminator that show the negative aspect. Yeah, but again that’s because they’re using broad and imprecise terms. It’s true that we read the stuff, but in the next few years, cognition, or real understanding, remains a research dream. I’m not sure how […]