Artificial Intelligence, Futurism and the inevitable evolution of humanity…

I find current futurist predictions very intriguing, extremely exciting and a bit worrisome; probably in that order.

Beyond the obvious ramifications for the future of our civilization, predictions by the leading thinkers (living and dead) of our world bring forth a full range of emotive arguments on all sides of the fence. Maybe a fence is not the best analogy for this though, as that connotates a duality where you are either on one side or the other.

A goldfish perspective

I like to think that maybe we are more like goldfish looking out of a fishbowl, arguing about what may or may not exist outside the confines of the glass.  The goldfish has limited personal resources and cognitive capability, but that does not stop it from reacting to its environment and doing its best to swim out of the bowl.

The seemingly inevitable trajectory of current technological progress should lead us to believe that profound change is just around the corner for our species. But is it?

Personally I like the theories put forth by futurists like Ray Kurzweil who describes the current trends in technological advancement as exponential, wherein the speed of development becomes so rapid that it exceeds any expectations based on historical observation.

So in essence, we can’t really base our predictions of what the future may be like by looking back at the past and thinking that progress will occur at roughly the same speed.  If one looks at it in this light, then maybe we are in the midst of this vertical ascent up the exponential graph of technological development and we hardly even realize it because it’s happening so fast and critically… so parallel. Developments happen not just with higher frequency because of technology, but at the same time and in different fields all over the planet.

Just like this article in Wired which talks about essential elements coming together right now which are going to make Artificial Intelligence (AI) possible:  Cheap parallel computing, big data and better algorithms. The pieces of the puzzle which might seem to most people as disparate projects catalyzed only by capitalism and the need to have newer shinier gadgets, may actually be part of the next logical stages of our human evolution: Giving birth to AI (Joe Rogan et al have discussed this concept many times in his podcasts).

This in turn leads to a TED talk I listened to recently by Nick Bostrom. I’ve also started reading his book a Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies.  I think he sums it up quite well in his talk when he says that it is imperative that we (the collective “we” of humanity I’m assuming) identify and address the potential issues that will arise from the creation of a super-intelligent AI. He says that “the more of the control problem that we solve in advance, the better the odds that the transition to the machine intelligence era will go well.”

Besides that last statement making absolute common sense, my paranoid sci-fi indoctrinated TrueJom self thinks humanity is far too human to compete, let alone control a superior intelligence that is unburdened by biophysical constraints.  Hello World…Would you like to play a game? My name is Skynet.

Is it worth it to cycle in Dublin?

One of my trusty steeds in action

Being a cyclist commuter in Dublin can be challenging to say the least. Sometimes you really feel that you are only a hair’s breath away from total oblivion. Don’t get me wrong though, I know it must be much worse in many other cities around the world and Dublin to be fair has tried in recent years to normalize cycling as a valid method of getting from A to B.

Come rain, hail or shine (the third option being the most rare and preferred option) I will cycle to work. I’ve recently tried to take a more zen approach to the task, which is not to say I have even a tiny understanding of what that would truly entail, but for my purposes I’d like to think that this may mean a more balanced and composed way of being and thinking as I cycle through the ambivalent maelstrom of pedestrovehicular chaos.

For example, when a taxi cab driver aggressively cuts me off with a left hook at the IFSC where the bike lane forks, just so he can speed to a red light…I will just say to myself…poor guy, his backside must be so sore from sitting in that cab day in and day out, trying to earn a living in a city of just over 527,612 people with over 20,000 taxis. That’s more taxis than New York apparently. I think this live and let live attitude with a smidgen of just “let that crazy bastard blow an aneurysm over nothing because he’s stuck in a metal box all day with piles and hasn’t learned any other way to cope with his road rage issues” is definitely the way to go for me.

It’s just not worth my own stress and raising my blood pressure. A confrontation with a taxi driver wouldn’t be a constructive use of my time. These days I tend to just shrug it off, but it’s taken a lot of practice and patience.

It’s also useful to wear a video camera. I started wearing one, a very obvious one on my helmet.  I got plenty of looks and comments from people I passed. A few people just asked why, and I would just say “It’s war out here.”  I’ve since been less consistent about using the camera for a couple of reasons.

Firstly, it was a bit heavy and surprisingly enough it would sometimes give me neck pain from the extra weight. It wasn’t too heavy, but when you wear it everyday on a half hour commute x 2, then you realize how nice it is to cycle without it on the days you forgot it at home or didn’t charge it.

Then there was the Michael Schumacher skiing accident, where reports afterwards attributed the helmet cam he was wearing to possibly increasing in the damage he sustained. After that news speculation came out, I decided to mount the camera on the handlebars instead of my helmet which also came as a relief to my girlfriend who feared I may suffer the same fate if unlucky enough. It seems though that the early reports were unsubstantiated, but I still haven’t gone back to helmet mounted yet anyway. It’s not ideal having the cam mounted on the handlebars because of the limited views that can be captured and the extra vibration, but it’s better than nothing.

The bottom line is that I still enjoy cycling to work, even though there are downsides (Crazy bus, taxi, white van, and BMW drivers, the walking dead i.e. junkies and drunks creeping across the roads, monster potholes and broken glass and anti-social kids harassing you as you cycle by the canal or wait at a LUAS stop).

I guess the upsides (regular physical activity, stress relief, environmental benefits, financial benefits and never being stuck in traffic) are enough for now…until I can get me a BMW taxi.