Singularity

IEEE Spectrum's June issue is dedicated to the topic of Singularity. This is an idea put forward by Vernor Vinge but is probably best known through the book The Singularity is Near by Raymond Kurzweil. Here's an excerpt from an interview with Rodney Brooks, the roboticist at MIT:

Will machines become smarter than us and decide to take over?

I don't think so. To begin with, there will be no “us” for them to take over from. We, human beings, are already starting to change ourselves from purely biological entities into mixtures of biology and technology. My prediction is that we are more likely to see a merger of ourselves and our robots before we see a standalone superhuman intelligence.

Our merger with machines is already happening. We replace hips and other parts of our bodies with titanium and steel parts. More than 50 000 people have tiny computers surgically implanted in their heads with direct neural connections to their cochleas to enable them to hear. In the testing stage, there are retina microchips to restore vision and motor implants to give quadriplegics the ability to control computers with thought. Robotic prosthetic legs, arms, and hands are becoming more sophisticated. I don't think I'll live long enough to get a wireless Internet brain implant, but my kids or their kids might.

Here's an alternative view from Vernor Vinge:

In human history, there have been a number of radical technological changes: the invention of fire, the development of agriculture, the Industrial Revolution. One might reasonably apply the term singularity to these changes. Each has profoundly transformed our world, with consequences that were largely unimagined beforehand. And yet those consequences could have been explained to earlier humans. But if the transformation discussed in this issue of Spectrum occurs, the world will become intrinsically unintelligible to the likes of us. (And that is why “singularity,” as in “black hole singularity of physics,” is the cool metaphor here.) If the singularity happens, we are no longer the apex of intellect. There will be superhumanly intelligent players, and much of the world will be to their design. Explaining that to one of us would be like trying to explain our world to a monkey.

Bush "security"

Here's an article from the Guardian newspaper by Bruce Schneier that points out that the Bush Administration's idea of "security" is guided by watching too many movies. The restrictions that Homeland Security is putting on taking pictures is nonsense:

Since 9/11, there has been an increasing war on photography. Photographers have been harrassed, questioned, detained, arrested or worse, and declared to be unwelcome. We've been repeatedly told to watch out for photographers, especially suspicious ones. Clearly any terrorist is going to first photograph his target, so vigilance is required.

Except that it's nonsense. The 9/11 terrorists didn't photograph anything. Nor did the London transport bombers, the Madrid subway bombers, or the liquid bombers arrested in 2006. Timothy McVeigh didn't photograph the Oklahoma City Federal Building. The Unabomber didn't photograph anything; neither did shoe-bomber Richard Reid. Photographs aren't being found amongst the papers of Palestinian suicide bombers. The IRA wasn't known for its photography. Even those manufactured terrorist plots that the US government likes to talk about -- the Ft. Dix terrorists, the JFK airport bombers, the Miami 7, the Lackawanna 6 -- no photography.

A New Perspective on Classical Music

Here's the Zurich Orchestra and you've never SEEN them before...

George Johnson's "The Ten Most Beautiful Experiments"

I did not find this book as compelling as I had hoped. He met expectations in terms of arcane details and interesting facts. But I didn't find the stories compelling and I didn't get a feel that the book as a whole satisfied. These are just ten snapshots done with interesting details, but I didn't come away feeling I had learned any great insight into physics, these scientists, or any larger picture. It was entertaining but not enough to recommend it. I've enjoyed other books by George Johnson, so I was disappointed with this one. Maybe I'm just getting crotchety as I get older. Maybe I know "too much" for these tales to be riveting. Maybe I just plain expected too much. I don't know. I would recommend it as a read for somebody who is between high school science and college. But if you've had university level science classes, this book is too much cute historical detail and not enough meat-and-potatoes science.

Augusten Burroughs' "Running with Scissors"

The story of a young gay kid raised in a dysfunctional family, pawned off to a dysfunctional doctor's family, and involved in a number of dysfunctional relationships. It should be unremittingly grim, but he writes it with a bit of humour and a lightness that makes the story tolerable. Apparantly this is a very honest account. I've read his brother's autobiography, Look Me in the Eye by John Elder Robison. The two share a quirky personality. But they are at two extremes otherwise. Robison suffers Asperger's Syndrome but manages to succeed admirably in normal society. Burroughs is flamingly gay and unable to cope in normal society. They both tell horrible tales of abuse at the hands of mentally disturbed parents.

The book is a good read. It does show how a person can succeed despite crushingly bad circumstances, so it can be used to raise hope. It certainly lets those of us with more normal lives to say "Thank God but there go I".

Inside a Collapse

Here is a good accounting in the NY Times of how the Bear Stearns collapse occurred. I find it fascinating because it shows that management is out of touch with the workers on the floor. I'm not surprised. I worked in a small-to-medium size corporation and saw the same thing.

Part 1 -

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121184521826521301.html?mod=Leader-US

Part 2 -

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121193290927324603.html?mod=Leader-US

Part 3 -

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121202057232127889.html?mod=Leader-US

False Professionalism

This is yet another post by me against models. It isn't that I'm a wacko. I worked with models for predicting computer performance and know their limitations.

Here is an essay pointing out how economists and financial professionals are misled by their models for risk. Read the article if you want the details. The humourous intro to the article provides the essential insight:

A well-known American economist, drafted during World War II to work in the US Army meteorological service in England, got a phone call from a general in May 1944 asking for the weather forecast for Normandy in early June. The economist replied that it was impossible to forecast weather that far into the future. The general wholeheartedly agreed but nevertheless needed the number now for planning purposes.

Similar logic lies at the heart of the current crisis.

Statistical modelling increasingly drives decision-making in the financial system while at the same time significant questions remain about model reliability and whether market participants trust these models. If we ask practitioners, regulators, or academics what they think of the quality of the statistical models underpinning pricing and risk analysis, their response is frequently negative. At the same time, many of these same individuals have no qualms about an ever-increasing use of models, not only for internal risk control but especially for the assessment of systemic risk and therefore the regulation of financial institutions. To have numbers seems to be more important than whether the numbers are reliable. This is a paradox. How can we simultaneously mistrust models and advocate their use?