How did it come to this?

Greetings good citizen,

One of the more stringently avoided ‘lines in the sand’ we’ve been encountering with increasing frequency over the past two decades is ‘overkill’ when it comes to dealing with ‘undesirables’.

There has been some recent ripples in the alternative press regarding the, er, ‘extrajudicial execution’ of US citizens by agents of the US government. At what point/circumstances is it permissible (never mind desirable) for our government to assassinate ‘enemies of the state’, especially now that there is no longer a ‘sharp distinction’ between who is and is not an ‘enemy combatant.

The only thing protecting you from defacto ‘summary execution’ is the arbitrary judgement of some unspecified individual…acting in their capacity as agent/proxy for the chief executive.

Not only has this practice never seen the ‘sunshine’ of the ballot box, it hasn’t even been decided by our so-called ‘elected representatives’.

How far removed is this from agents of the King executing colonists suspected of treason without any ‘proof’?

Um, there is one major difference between then and now…back then your accuser/executioner looked you in the eye before they dispatched you…today the coward my look you in the eye but you can’t do likewise because your executioner is thousands of miles away, pushing buttons.

Worse, resistance is futile.

So we arrive at tonight’s first offering

America’s Deadly Robots Rewrite the Rules
February 15th, 2010


Via: Sydney Morning Herald:

The kohl-eyed Hakimullah Mehsud probably is dead. He was the target for a missile fired last month from an unmanned aircraft hovering over the Afghan-Pakistani border – but launched by an operator in the US.

Mehsud was the ruthless mastermind of multiple suicide bomb attacks in Pakistan. He was part of a suicide mission on December 30 at Khost, just across the border in Afghanistan, which killed seven CIA agents who were working on the covert operation that now appears to have ended Mehsud’s brief and brutal leadership of the Taliban in Pakistan.

In the artistry of war, the insertion of a Jordanian double-agent who detonated his explosive vest inside this super-sensitive CIA bunker was flawless. But, in their payback, the enraged Americans confirmed the breadth of a new horizon in modern warfare – launching 15 clinical drone attacks in which more than 100 people died along the border, as Washington’s electronic eyes and guns sought out Mehsud and his Taliban and al-Qaeda allies.

War does not get more radical than this – technically, politically and, perhaps, ethically.

Consider: for the first time ever, a civilian intelligence agency is manipulating robots from halfway around the world in a program of extrajudicial executions in a country with which Washington is not at war. [Worse good citizen, this is an agency that didn’t even exist before WWII!]

Consider, too: the drone wars were initiated under the presidency of George Bush. But it is the Democrat Barack Obama who has given them flight and stumped up sufficient funding to spark serious debate on the end of the ”Top Gun” era of the fighter-pilot.


And there is this: despite decades of American disquiet about assassinations abroad and a shrill Republican critique of him as a security wuss, the professorial Obama is the new killer on the block, authorising more drone attacks in the first year of his term in office than Bush did in his entire presidency.

Hold on a second, before you dismiss this as more ‘Obama-bashing’ check the source again. Last time I looked there weren’t any Republicans in Sidney Australia…

While it is tempting to call the Obama administration ‘Bush’s third term’, it is a bit more disturbing to consider that the D or the R after a politicians’ name has become absolutely meaningless.

As I asked last night, what happened to the ‘good guys?’ Who do we elect to save us when they both suck?

More importantly is just how far ‘off course’ our government has, um, ‘strayed’, although I hardly believe that matters have gotten this far afield totally by ‘accident’.

Which is to ask at what point do we determine that this is no longer a government, by, of and for the people? When did we lose control of those elected to protect us…when did their job switch from protecting us to protecting themselves?

This ‘extrajudicial’ murder is the first sign that things are farther gone than they appear. If we don’t rein in the renegades, they won’t be reined in.

Which leaves another disturbing question…how can we trust those who fail to execute their oath of office faithfully?

Short answer…we can’t.

How bad is it? Let’s have a look at tonight’s second offering for a clue…

Simon Johnson: Goldman Faces Special Audit and Possible Ban in Europe

"The crash has laid bare many unpleasant truths about the United States. One of the most alarming, says a chief economist of the International Monetary Fund, is that the finance industry has effectively captured our government - a state of affairs that more typically describes emerging markets, and is at the center of many emerging-market crises. If the IMF's staff could speak freely about the U.S., it would tell us what it tells all countries in this situation; recovery will fail unless we break the financial oligarchy that is blocking essential reform." ~ The Atlantic Monthly, May 2009, by Simon Johnson


Regular readers will be aware of our thesis that the American Wall Street banks have become dominated by a culture of compulsive sociopaths who are incapable of reforming or restraining their greed. Like all addicts, they push the envelope looking for a new high, emboldened by each successful scam, the weakness of regulators, and the craven support of politicians, going further and further until at long last they go one step too far, with spectacularly destructive results.

Goldman Sachs may have reached that point. And as also suggested here, the rebuke may be coming from European and Asian nations who [have] become weary of the extra-legal antics of the rogue American banks.

In the interests of harmony, the Europeans may once again bow to US pressure and continue to permit the Money Center privateers to roam through the interational financial system wreaking havoc, as they have been doing through the domestic US economy. It will be too bad if they do.

If it ever comes to the light of day, the complicity of a few central banks and governments in the actions of one or two of the money center banks in manipulating several global markets may ignite a firestorm of a political scandal.

At the very least, it remains a practical imperative that the banks be restrained, the financial system reformed, and the economy brought back into balance, before there can be any sustainable recovery and stability.

And it is now apparent that Obama and the US Congress, for whatever reasons, are incapable of doing this. And yet, hope remains.

Few tell it straighter than Jesse.

The criminals that nobody is willing to subdue are wreaking havoc around the globe and we, the victims, have no leverage to make those we elected to enforce the laws to do their job…

Which won’t end well…for all parties concerned.

I won’t kid you good citizen, all civilizations rely on trust. If you can’t trust the people in charge you can’t trust anyone…and once you get to that point there’s no turning back.

Um, where do you think we are now? Can we turn back? Is it possible to re-trench and make things right once more?

…Um, yeah, it can be done, but the price is going to be heavy, real heavy.

We HAVE TO throw the entire judicial system in the trash and start from scratch (because nobody ‘in their right mind’ has any faith in the current system!)

Then we HAVE TO scrap the entire electoral process, 230 years of non-performance is proof enough that you can’t ‘elect’ competence (much less buy it!)

And finally we HAVE TO scrap our entire financial system, money is a great idea that has been abused far too long! Luckily, this can be easily fixed.

Thank you for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

Who's outwitting who?

Greetings good citizen,

For as long as there has been machinery, the dreamers amongst us have envisioned utopia, a place where machines do the work, leaving you free to do, um, more important things…

Yeah, that’s the ticket! Naturally, these dreamers think ‘everybody’ will have access to their own personal robot army that attends to their every need…paying for the robots is a minor matter and maintaining them isn’t even a consideration, the robots will fix themselves (or at the very least, each other.)

Soooooo, what do you suppose you’d do for a living in a totally automated world? Design robots?

While we are far from the day when robots think for themselves, it is not unreasonable to pin part of today’s crisis on ‘automated processes’ that have eliminated the need for millions of ‘man hours’.

Yeah good citizen, your boss is only half joking when he quips he could get a ‘monkey’ (or a robot) to do what you do…and robots are once and done. They never need a break, don’t draw a paycheck and only complain when something is ‘really wrong’ (like the parts aren’t coming out right.)

Pretty soon the only jobs will be servicing robots or ‘servicing’ their rich owners…

This is a multi-faceted issue that we won’t delve into fully right now, but those paving the way for an ‘automated future’ have already turned their attention to ‘the killing machine’.

On to tonight’s offering

Scientists Worry Machines May Outsmart Man

By JOHN MARKOFF
Published: July 25, 2009

A robot that can open doors and find electrical outlets to recharge itself. Computer viruses that no one can stop. Predator drones, which, though still controlled remotely by humans, come close to a machine that can kill autonomously.

Impressed and alarmed by advances in artificial intelligence, a group of computer scientists is debating whether there should be limits on research that might lead to loss of human control over computer-based systems that carry a growing share of society’s workload, from waging war to chatting with customers on the phone.

Their concern is that further advances could create profound social disruptions and even have dangerous consequences. [Don’t blink good citizen, we’re already there!]

As examples, the scientists pointed to a number of technologies as diverse as experimental medical systems that interact with patients to simulate empathy, and computer worms and viruses that defy extermination and could thus be said to have reached a “cockroach” stage of machine intelligence.

While the computer scientists agreed that we are a long way from Hal, the computer that took over the spaceship in “2001: A Space Odyssey,” they said there was legitimate concern that technological progress would transform the work force by destroying a widening range of jobs, as well as force humans to learn to live with machines that increasingly copy human behaviors.

The researchers — leading computer scientists, artificial intelligence researchers and roboticists who met at the Asilomar Conference Grounds on Monterey Bay in California — generally discounted the possibility of highly centralized superintelligences and the idea that intelligence might spring spontaneously from the Internet. But they agreed that robots that can kill autonomously are either already here or will be soon. [the US military along with other nations are actively seeking this sort of ‘tool’ (a robot capable of recognizing ‘enemies’.) Mobile weapons platforms have existed for a long time but weapons platforms kill anything that crosses their path, friendly or otherwise…]

They focused particular attention on the specter that criminals could exploit artificial intelligence systems as soon as they were developed. What could a criminal do with a speech synthesis system that could masquerade as a human being? What happens if artificial intelligence technology is used to mine personal information from smart phones?

The researchers also discussed possible threats to human jobs, like self-driving cars, software-based personal assistants and service robots in the home. Just last month, a service robot developed by Willow Garage in Silicon Valley proved it could navigate the real world.

A report from the conference, which took place in private on Feb. 25, is to be issued later this year. Some attendees discussed the meeting for the first time with other scientists this month and in interviews.

The conference was organized by the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence, and in choosing Asilomar for the discussions, the group purposefully evoked a landmark event in the history of science. In 1975, the world’s leading biologists also met at Asilomar to discuss the new ability to reshape life by swapping genetic material among organisms. Concerned about possible biohazards and ethical questions, scientists had halted certain experiments. The conference led to guidelines for recombinant DNA research, enabling experimentation to continue.

The meeting on the future of artificial intelligence was organized by Eric Horvitz, a Microsoft researcher who is now president of the association.

Dr. Horvitz said he believed computer scientists must respond to the notions of superintelligent machines and artificial intelligence systems run amok.

The idea of an “intelligence explosion” in which smart machines would design even more intelligent machines was proposed by the mathematician I. J. Good in 1965. Later, in lectures and science fiction novels, the computer scientist Vernor Vinge popularized the notion of a moment when humans will create smarter-than-human machines, causing such rapid change that the “human era will be ended.” He called this shift the Singularity.

This vision, embraced in movies and literature, is seen as plausible and unnerving by some scientists like William Joy, co-founder of Sun Microsystems. Other technologists, notably Raymond Kurzweil, have extolled the coming of ultrasmart machines, saying they will offer huge advances in life extension and wealth creation.

“Something new has taken place in the past five to eight years,” Dr. Horvitz said. “Technologists are replacing religion, and their ideas are resonating in some ways with the same idea of the Rapture.” [If you’re not frightened, you should be.]

The Kurzweil version of technological utopia has captured imaginations in Silicon Valley. This summer an organization called the Singularity University began offering courses to prepare a “cadre” to shape the advances and help society cope with the ramifications. [Understand that the single largest ‘ramification’ will be being made ‘redundant’.]

“My sense was that sooner or later we would have to make some sort of statement or assessment, given the rising voice of the technorati and people very concerned about the rise of intelligent machines,” Dr. Horvitz said.

The A.A.A.I. report will try to assess the possibility of “the loss of human control of computer-based intelligences.” It will also grapple, Dr. Horvitz said, with socioeconomic, legal and ethical issues, as well as probable changes in human-computer relationships. How would it be, for example, to relate to a machine that is as intelligent as your spouse? [Let’s take that thought one step further and make the machine your boss, how would you ‘deal’ with that turn of events?]

Dr. Horvitz said the panel was looking for ways to guide research so that technology improved society rather than moved it toward a technological catastrophe. Some research might, for instance, be conducted in a high-security laboratory.

The meeting on artificial intelligence could be pivotal to the future of the field. Paul Berg, who was the organizer of the 1975 Asilomar meeting and received a Nobel Prize for chemistry in 1980, said it was important for scientific communities to engage the public before alarm and opposition becomes unshakable.

“If you wait too long and the sides become entrenched like with G.M.O.,” he said, referring to genetically modified foods, “then it is very difficult. It’s too complex, and people talk right past each other.”

Tom Mitchell, a professor of artificial intelligence and machine learning at Carnegie Mellon University, said the February meeting had changed his thinking. “I went in very optimistic about the future of A.I. and thinking that Bill Joy and Ray Kurzweil were far off in their predictions,” he said. But, he added, “The meeting made me want to be more outspoken about these issues and in particular be outspoken about the vast amounts of data collected about our personal lives.”

Despite his concerns, Dr. Horvitz said he was hopeful that artificial intelligence research would benefit humans, and perhaps even compensate for human failings. He recently demonstrated a voice-based system that he designed to ask patients about their symptoms and to respond with empathy. When a mother said her child was having diarrhea, the face on the screen said, “Oh no, sorry to hear that.”

A physician told him afterward that it was wonderful that the system responded to human emotion. “That’s a great idea,” Dr. Horvitz said he was told. “I have no time for that.”

There’s a lot of ‘yin and yang’ here good citizen, perhaps it is best to remain mindful that the developers of these technologies are primarily interested in profiting from them.

It is the ‘human condition’. Profits first, safety afterwards.

Um, some less scrupulous, er, organizations have been rather aggressive in their pursuit of profits. You know Monsanto is, er, deeply disappointed by the rejection of their innovations in food technology.

Ironically, it’s not too big a step to go from food that is more ‘productive’ to food that is actually addictive…but I digress, we were on the subject of robots and in particular, killer robots.

Machines don’t have to become a lot ‘smarter’ than they are now to destroy the global economy. Their ability to produce faster than we can consume has already upset economic ‘flows’.

Let us return briefly to our ‘dreamers’ that imagine a brighter future through robotics…the loose wheel in this idea is not everyone will be able to afford to purchase, much less deploy, an army of robots to do their bidding.

Worse, imagine Napoleon or Hitler with such an army of ‘automatons’ at their command.

I mean, why develop killing machines if you don’t intend to use them?

They want these machines (that won’t refuse commands nor turn squeamish when it comes to firing on say, unarmed civilians…) they aren’t pursuing this technology solely because they can. Soldiers that will follow any order without question are every despot’s dream…and robots are the answer to that dream.

Every technological development is pursued on the basis that it will make life better for us all…this time around it looks like we have a development on our hands that is intended to benefit the chosen few.

Not that we possess the means to stop those determined to command such forces for themselves.

In a world that has repeatedly placed profits over people, this is an extremely disturbing development.

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner