The Bewilderness

Speculation, Extrapolation but not science fiction

I have just checked 'Singularity', the Vingean concept, for the first time in some months on Google News. There is a flurry of articles, reviews and explanations: perhaps inspired by the next iteration of the Singularity University. In the time elapsed, the concept appears to have achieved a new level of scrutiny and debate. Perhaps I am wrong, but there are a number of writings to analyse.

Even the games are beginning to spin their rhetoric on the turn of a coin. Listen to the trailer for the new game: Deus Ex: Human Revolution. There is a clear statement that the game is not science fiction (by which they seem to mean science fantasy). The emphasis is on a gritty and realistic extrapolation of current trends to a near future where augmented cyborgs enter a kulturkampf with the unenhanced.

What the game's advertising symbolises is how embedded such concepts like enhancement have become  in the ordinary discourse of certain media, such as computer gaming. Indeed, the concept is taken for granted, and used as speculation, in opposition to science fiction. The designers think this probably will happen, rather than may happen.

This twist can indicate that the world we live in now resembles a science fiction novel. Not a new insight, but when the science fiction visions of two decades ago become the extrapolative speculations of today, we know that we are living through a fundamental and accelerating period of change.

Will contagion prove a self-fulfilling prophecy?

The Eurozone finance ministers are talking tonight on two issues: providing Greek with further finance and dispelling a possible 'contagion effect' across the markets if this fails. The argument is compressed into the next two days as poltical and financial effects combine. The Papandreou government in Greece is facing a vote of confidence which, if positive, will ensure parliamentary support for the austerity measures. To sweeten the pill and assuage the street, Papandreou is offering to curb some of the perks enjoyed by the political classes (ministerial immunity, political financing, gouging the taxpayer). In tandem, the Eurozone will make a bridging loan, to keep Papandreou's government afloat, although the IMF portion can only be disbursed if they are confident Greek finance is on a medium term foundation.

If these two hurdles are overcome, then the play will enter a new scene: to climax on July 11th. There, the ministerial jugglers will attempt a voluntary restructuring of debt (including private sector participants) without setting off a default event. Since the whole tiresome process hinges on Greek co-operation, I hope that the Parliament puts PASOK out of its misery and faces economic truths: your austerity program will not resolve your debt trap.

If there is a 'contagion effect', this may be viewed as a self-fulfilling prophecy. Market participants expect the dominos to fall, and act accordingly. Another blinding performance from Juncker and the Debt Junkies

Courting the columnists

Trevor Phillips has asserted that Muslims are integrating better into society than Christians. His evidence: they are less likely to take up actions against discrimination than their Christian counterparts. From this omission or gap, Phillips leaps to the conclusion that,

"Muslim communities in this country are doing their damnedest to try to come to terms with their neighbours to try to integrate and they're doing their best to try to develop an idea of Islam that is compatible with living in a modern liberal democracy."

Perhaps Muslim communities are trying to integrate as much as possible, or perhaps Muslims as individuals are integrating. It would be nice to know.

The subtext of this approach is communalism. It is not Muslims as individuals who are cited, but Muslim communities. Again with Christians. You are not recognised without your church or your mosque.

This is the problem for Phillips. He can only infer certain trends from his legal evidence, but his bold assertion to bolster mosques and criticise churches. If an individual feel sdiscriminated against, they have been financed and motivated by their sect. If they are not doing this, then they must be better "integrated".

Instead of seeking to improve access and results from the Equalities Commission, Phillips prefers to pound his pulpit and seek public recognition. If that is his goal, then he can become a columnist, but tendentious arguments will bring his quango into disrepute.

I am always torn when I see this. Of course, the Equalities Commission achieves nothing in aggregate, although individual situatiosn of injustice are addressed. Any system will do some good. Within that schema, I prefer professional public servants who focus upon their service. A concept of public service does exist, though the argument that this is monopolised by the public sector is risible. One more virtuous motivation debased under Leviathan.

Lehmans 2: European Cliffs

Draghi at the European Central Bank wishes to avoid the Greek default, that all now regard as inevitable. The cost of a Greek default is bearable on its own terms, if contagion effects are not taken into account. The ECB is scared that the destabilisation of a default event will suck liquidity out of the banking systems, leaving some dried up hag masquerading as a financial system.

The mess continues to drag on. Conditions in the periphery continue to deteriorate as the ECB compounds their misery with interest rate rises. No comment on the hairshirt devotion to an inflation target whilst national economies implode and the central bank volunteers for insolvency. Now the choice is deferred until July as two camps dance between a structured default and non-default. By the time they compromise, events may have rolled them over.

The Anthem of doomed bishops

The Church of England seems most annoyed by matters temporal and rather less with matters spiritual. Promoting the teachings of their Messiah is a lower priority than kneeling in homage to a flawed concept of social justice that they did not have the intellectual capacity to question during theology class. They confuse the Good Samaritan with the pliant taxpayer.

Bishop Pritchard said he “loved” the fact that Dr Williams was not frightened of debating controversial subjects in public, insisting that the Archbishop was not motivated by party politics.

“He is prepared to put his head on the block, and I back him,” he said. “In our role as critical friends, we can set out principles about the poor and social justice, and that is what a responsible Church will always speak about.”

Bishop Pritchard, you are not a critical friend. Nor has Dr Williams enjoyed either notoriety or criticism for his launch into politics as a friend of Labour. Rather, he has been ignored, his voice preaching to the tiny audience of the New Statesman (not the choice of a bipartisan commentator) Pritchard and Williams could have strenthened their moral coice if they could see beyond their need to pamper the peopke of Islington.

What does Pritchard actually say?

“But the effect is pretty disastrous for many communities, including places like Blackbird Leys in Oxford,” the bishop told his local newspaper, the Oxford Mail.

“There are cuts of all kinds of social provision, including social care and youth work. Social care is being pared back for vulnerable, housebound people and that is something I very much regret.

“And the unemployment level for 18- to 24-year-olds in the country is high and that can be particularly disillusioning.”

What are Pritchard's actions to alleviate the suffering that he is quick to opine about? Will his diocese devote more resources to the poor that he has identified? Will he champion local workfare for disillusioned youth? Let us quote from the hyperbole of the Diocese of Oxford under its Social Justice menu for employment:

For some work is a vocation, for others it is simply a means to an end (making a living), and a drudge. What’s the meaning of work? How are people finding meaning through work? Do we work too hard as a society, and what does this mean for our personal relationships, caring responsibilities and family life? As the originators of the Protestant Work Ethic, what has the church to offer a world where stress and overwork are rife, and where those who work hardest of all seem to earn the least and be accorded the least dignity?

The Church was not the originator of the Protestant work ethic. Nor is there any evidence that those who work hardest are afforded the least dignity. There is plenty of evidence that those who work and are thrifty become penalised if they save through low interest rates and inflation; and by a welfare state that incentivises indolence over effort. But that is a world unrecognised in the ivory towers of the Oxford diocese. There is much evidence of statist rhetoric, little evidence of any justice.

Robots continue to colonise war

Britain is developing its own autonomous robotic systems for war: alongside another forty-six countries. Two unmanned aerial vehicles are utilised: the Mantis for surveillance and the Predator for missile attacks. In development are unmanned ground vehicles: Pointer (a tracked single robot), Raider (a reconfigurable vehicle) and Wraith (a stealth tank). The MOD Developments, Doctrines and Concepts Centre is examining the ethics of robots in warfare though the pressures of competition will no doubt overcome their squeamishness.

More detail is provided by an article in The Engineer. The focus on controls, leaving humans in the loop, remains operationally an ethically key. Moving from a single controlled vehicle to swarms of UAVs or UGVs means that the machines are operating with far more autonomy and the debate centres upon rules of engagement, target identification and, presumably, an 'off switch'. There isn't one.

When it comes to more complex missions, however, the concept of a robot running an artificial-intelligence system is,[Professor of robotics at the University of Sheffield, Noel] Sharkey thinks, unlikely. ’You need human reasoning behind it. You can’t put the Geneva Convention into a computer; it isn’t specified for a computer and it contains ambiguity and apparent contradictions that need human reasoning to make sense of. We have no idea how reasoning works or even where it comes from.’

Perhaps Sharkey is right and there is a role for human engagement due to the shortcomings of artificial intelligence. Yet, it was not so long ago, that the fantasies of Terminator remained on celluloid, not in the dreams of engineers. Yet, as defence budgets shrink, robots are cheaper than humans and never sleep.Their role will only increase.

 

Cameron: worse than Heath

Cameron backtracks on health reforms, backs the Huhnatic demand that the old and the poor have to choose between freezing or eating, and destroys the morality of thrift with inflationary policies. How is this man a conservative?

He may be acceptable to the Guardianistas but he is toxic for the country. 

We are still awaiting the deficit reduction programme that the Chancellor laid out last year. On the ground, public expenditure is out of control and state institutions are making little or no effort to rein it in. 

Since these sods cannot be trusted to meet their promises, they will bring on the tsunami that they wished to avoid. Once the vice like grip of the bond market holds their political futures in the balance, watch for the crisis to concentrate minds and promote true reform, not the pallid illusion that we endure today amongst many parts of the government.

I want a robot maid

Now this is the type of problem that I would like to see robots undertaking.

All snark aside, this is actually an incredibly difficult problem in robotics, and the progress that students have made is incredibly impressive. Here’s hoping it won’t be too long before we finally get the robot maids that The Jetsons promised us.

Laundry, ironing, cleaning: all intensive chores that a robot maid could usefully do in my house. This could also lead to minimum rage, as my anger at cleaning four toilets would abate.

Schrodinger's Gaddafi

Attack helicopters zoom in to the breathless hagiography of the waiting press. In a spontaneous show of support, William Hague pops up in Benghazi, supporting the run-away militias that cling to life in eastern Libya. The whole country has entered a half-life: a political box where Schrodinger's Gaddafi is unable to confirm whether he is or he is not in power.

Two £40 million Apaches, launched from a ship off the Libyan coast, pounded ground defences in a devastating show of strength.

They fired laser-guided Hellfire missiles to destroy a radar installation to the west of the oil port of Braga, then blew up an anti-aircraft gun before their two-man crews returned safely, despite coming under enemy fire from AK47s.

Hague has declared the whatever they are of Benghazi, the legitimate representatives of the Libyan people. Except they aren't really, because the Libyan people are not really flocking to support anyone. So why shore up this faction? Morale boosting symbolism for the rag tag and bobtail jihadist remnants plus local tribes, or a flagging attempt to avoid the Libyans negotiating with each other. 

We have an escalation strategy, not an exit strategy. And if an Apache is shot down....?