Also reading Justin E. H. Smith's The Internet Is Not What You Think It Is: A History, A Philosophy, A Warning. The title is a pretty fair indicator, although Smith is not a pessimist in all respects.
He dates the idea of the Internet to the Enlightenment philosopher and mathematician Gottfried Wilhelm Liebniz. Leibniz lived and died long before the invention of machines that could store and send the data needed for the net. But he did formulate the idea that knowledge, divorced from the personal, could lead to a better and more peaceful world.
Whether or not he would approve, we've followed Leibniz's advice by outsourcing thinking to AI. Or what some have decided to define as thinking. The end result has been a broad depiction of humans as faulty pieces of this technological world. As viruses even. As Smith (the character, not the author( puts it in The Matrix:
There is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern. Do you know what it is? A virus. Human beings are a disease, a cancer of this planet.
Clear enough. But the consequences of regarding humans as viruses--or at least "spreaders"--is just starting to make itself known.
I'd be remiss in not pointing out that Smith (the author, not the character) brings a good deal of wit to his subject. To, uh, wit:
Spotify users were to have the option of integrating their DNA test results into their listener profile, which in turn was to direct the algorithm to bring songs to the playlist roughly reflecting the percentages of the listener's ethnic background. Thus, if the DNA test revealed that a person had 10 percent Irish origins, every tenth song might belong to the thoroughly commercialized genre known as "Celtic folk." An advertisement produced for this new service asked, "If you could listen to your DNA, what would it sound like?" The answer, it turned out, at least for the partially Irish among us, was that it sounds like Enya and Riverdance.
“Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether they could, they didn't stop to think if they should.”
2 comments:
For a long time the general consensus was the idea of an internet where people could communicate with one another freely would be a wonderful development for civilization. Building The Tower of Babel sounded like a good idea at the time too, but whether or not it seems realistc that Yahweh destroyed the tower or it was simply human differences making the destruction inevitable, it appears we have a similar situation now. The plan looked good on paper, the result has been turmoil.
Monetizing the internet was a serious mistake, although the companies and shareholders who have benefited from that would certainly not agree. That's where the algorithms evolved - not AI, since there's no such thing, but the development of algorithms to channel people's thoughts and actions into profitable enterprises. We're very easy to manipulate it turns out and one of those results is the concept of humans as disease, a cancer on the face of the world. I'm pretty sure Leibniz would not have approved, he was a talented and ingenious man who spent a great part of his life as a diplomat trying to reconcile the two branches of Christianity. His better and more peaceful world is anathema to those who control the internet.
But I haven't read the book. I liked reading how Spotify planned to turn DNA results into music one was genetically prepared to enjoy. Sheesh.. Scientists not stopping to think if they should is a constant problem. If only we could take time to consider the longterm ramifications of our bright ideas the world would very likely be a better place.
Btw: Nice title in consideration of the subject.
The Tower of Babel comparison feels strangely apt. Strangely, because the tower was of course a massively tall physical structure, while the Internet is intangible, and in theory horizontal with nobody on top. Of course it turns out there's always someone pulling strings.. But yes, whether it's a tower or a network humankind can definitely build an artifact that dominates in a way nothing should,
Characterizing humans as a cancer on the face of the earth tends to be done in a convenient way. It's never me, it's always all those other assholes. And we get a lot of these lectures from people who are very comfortable. From my impression of Leibniz he would have been impressed by the reach of our technology and initially optimistic, but this would have passed once he saw how it was being used in practice.
It's mostly a good book, although he goes a little goopy on Wikipedia in the last chapter. Wikipedia is a great innovation, but it can easily fall prey to social pressures. To be fair to scientists, it's often financiers and other intermediaries who go really crazy on the latest tech.
Thank you for liking the title. I think I just slapped it on in desperation.
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