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Economics, Star Trek Style

Jean Luc Picard, spiritually drained from another battle won, still 3 minutes, 15 seconds of show time before the credits, and time for the denouement. The Captain of the Starship Enterprise arises from the seat of command, makes halting steps waving off the advance of Doctor Crusher always hoping help, chagrined by his refusal she turns away wringing her wrists. The door to his ready room opens, and he approaches the Replicator. “Earl Grey and a slab of Bolognium.” The Replicator dutifully responds, creating chains of proteins, fats, and carbohydrates which, when correctly proportioned with water and other inorganic chemicals bring the food we eat, to fruition. But there is a problem. The replicator cannot find Bolognium in its directory of foods, body parts, living things, anything. It shudders emitting clouds of acrid smoke and dies.

What happened? Why the Bolognium problem? Was there a Bolognium agenda of some sort? No. The answer is simple. Bolognium does not exist.

In fact, science fiction sprinkled as it is with Bolognium often appears more like fantasy than science. Some stories have none. The real hard Sci-Fi. The Martian. All real, available science. An exciting story nonetheless results and the audience is drawn in without a hint of boredom.

Some have a little. Ursula LeGuin created the Ansible, a device that allowed instant communication. With travel bound by Special Relativity[i], Kingdoms could handle multiple star governance quickly (as long as the governors stayed loyal.) This was one helping of Bolognium, OK. Her stories were still fantasies (or were they?) but, OK. Sci-Fi still borrowed the device and called it other things and justified it many ways including quantum entanglement. BTW, there is a proposal out for serious study to develop such a system. Maybe de-Bologniumizing instant distant communication.

Then come Star Trek, The Next Generation, and science gets shot to hell. Continue reading “Economics, Star Trek Style”

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An AnCom’s Mixmaster Brain

Here are the words of the Mixmaster mind of the everyday AnCom alone in his room, the everyday AnCom who gave up a good mind for me.

(Sung to the tune of, The Everyday Housewife by Glen Campbell)

I saw this on my Tumblr feed to which I repair every time we run shy of Ipecac. Worked like a charm this time. Next time I will just leave the Hemlock down.

leftist-daily-reminders

What’s the difference between classical liberalism, modern liberalism, and neo-liberalism? Continue reading “An AnCom’s Mixmaster Brain”

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The Apotheosis of Jane Roe and John Doe

Last year, I entered a drugstore in a nearby town, made my way to the pharmacy, and stood in the empty waiting line. An attendant called out, “Hi Mark; it will be a few minutes. I have a slight emergency.”
“No problem!”, I replied. “I’m used to waiting. I had to replace my lost driver’s license yesterday.”
“Hear that. Bet Pam found the license when she got home.”
Chagrined, I sheepishly was about to respond when I heard, in a slight, but audible, voice, “I was in line, sir!”
I could barely hear the exclamation. “Hello?” I said as my head swiveled swiftly. (Yes. It is damn difficult to say. It is also damn difficult to type!) “Where are you?” I implored.
“Back here.” The little echo returned.
“Where here? Can you step to a location where I can see you? That would be very helpful to me.” I was ready to buy a flare gun. Throw a gold carp. Anything to let her know where I was.
She moved away from the wall she was standing near and suddenly appeared, no longer hidden by the outstanding bend in the wall. Ten feet from that corner.
“Why are you back so far?” I was quite interested in this.
“Why, it’s just common courtesy.”
“I agree that it is quite nice, but there was no one in line! To whom was the courtesy being paid?
“Well, I couldn’t tell if anyone was there, so I thought I should stand back here just to be certain.” Her answer, well, that line was odd. I told here she could move to the front of the line, so she began to make her way there. Before she got to the corner, another older lady arrived at the front of the line.
Our Lady, lady one said, “I was here first!”
Of course, lady two, the elder, was rather brusque. “Who the hell are you kidding?” I sought to intervene. The situation was going downhill quickly. The prospect of blood frightened me, and I am not easily intimidated.
Lady two had already assumed a position of power, feng shui anyone, which sent lady one back to her corner saying, “OK. Take your front. I’ll take second.”
“Wait a minute!” I shouted. Lady two just waved her cane menacingly, while lady one stood akimbo looked my way indignantly. My way? All I could see were mental images of me in the local weekly advertisement pick-up being hauled off for inciting violence.
I went to lady one. “Sorry for all this.”
“You should be. People could have been hurt!”
“Yes, ma’am. How far back should I stand?”
“Fifteen feet would be fine.”
“Thank you, ma’am.”
One hour later, I decided to leave, the line having grown. I was still at the rear and now out into the parking lot. Luckily, I was standing next to my car. Continue reading “The Apotheosis of Jane Roe and John Doe”

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#Musk, The Scent of Progress and The End of The Individual

 

I am waiting for Elon #Musk‘s new dark #Comedy.
Arsenic and #Neural #Lace. A Study in #VR #Autocracy.
Appearing in a brain stem near you.

— Mark E Deardorff (@medeardorff) February 20, 2017

DATELINE 1970: THE WORLD. COLOSSUS – THE FORBIN PROJECT

Large mainframe computers proliferated in the 1960’s. Industry after World War II put demands on computation that could no longer be handled entirely by rows human calculators with slide rules, adding machines, or Burroughs Comptometer.

The public-at-large knew little other than what the wagging televised tongues and wrinkled words on fading newsprint bespoke of the world less run by the electrochemistry of organic man and more by the artifice of minds leaving many of them behind to toil as their support and not, they believed, as equals.

Hollywood, just as much then as now, take an opportunity to exploit fear to turn a profit. Profiting itself is not the problem. The fact is that Hollywood was prescient. The science-fiction community was and always has been, for the most part, very farsighted.

There were the idealists like Wells who saw great things that man would evolve away from in The Shape of Things to Come (1933) or Clarke who, twenty years later, believed that interdiction was the only way. Aliens steal humanity’s children in Childhood’s End. Wells, no friend of liberty it should be noted, argued for the pacification of religion. Continue reading “#Musk, The Scent of Progress and The End of The Individual”

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A New Study From Google’s DeepMind Shows What Happens When AI Gets Selfish

 Devin Klos From OUTERPLACES.COM

As our world becomes more and more reliant on artificial intelligence, a vital moral question crops up: if two or more AI systems end up being utilized together, will they choose to cooperate or conflict with one another? In much the same way that humans ultimately have to decide whether it’s better to work as a team or go it alone, the same holds true for AI. The key difference, of course, is that if the AI is left to its own devices, the choices it makes will be out of the control of humans to try and alter it, or to instill any form of empathy in the decision-making.

To understand this concept more fully, researchers at Google’s AI subsidiary DeepMind published a study that explored whether they could predict how AIs would respond to various situations involving socially conscientious variables—essentially, they wanted to see if two different AIs would choose to compete or work together as a predictive test. The tests were partly based on the famous game theory scenario known as the prisoner’s dilemma and took the form of various games where cooperation and self-interest were pitted against each other.

The first game, called Gathering, has two AI’s compete by retrieving apples from a central location. The AI’s can choose to just gather the apples or can use a laser to tag the other AI, which temporarily removes them from the game, allowing the remaining AI to gather on its own.

The testers found that when there were plenty of apples, the two AIs tended to ignore each other and gather, but as the supply became scarce, the lasers started firing. This is probably to be expected, as the law of supply and demand seems to make most people compete more fiercely. Black Friday, anyone?

What was more interesting, though, was that when a slightly more computationally savvy AI program was introduced into the game, it seemed to just want to fire the laser at the other regardless of the number of apples. The testers theorize that the phenomenon might be because firing the laser took more skill and ability, which the more advanced AI simply might have found more challenging.

A second game, called Wolfpack, revolved around two AIs essentially trying to corner and hunt the third AI through a course with obstacles involved. What’s interesting is that points are given not just to the player that catches the prey, but to anyone that is also close by—so it could actually be helpful to work together.

https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/0kaIqz6AvwE

The testers did, in fact, find that in the second game the AIs worked together more often, but again, it could stem from the fact that cooperating and planning were actually the more challenging and computationally stimulating choice.

What the testers more or less concluded was that AIs respond to the context and rules of the situation and that determines whether they will act as individuals or work together for the betterment of the whole. Apparently, the key to keeping AIs from making cold, logical, and selfish choices is to always establish a context and set of rules that make the choice of working together both the most stimulating and most rewarding choice.

Perhaps someone should tell that to Sarah Conner.

Source: Science Via Markets

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Welcome to Science Via Markets

My name is Mark E. Deardorff. I believe that in an age when waste abounds, and the needs of science in the life of Humanity has never been greater, it is the time for the course the path of science to seek its level. Rather than bureaucrats and congressional Luddites, science must be guided by need rather than by politics, fame, jealousy, and optics.

The purpose of this site and blog is manifold. Through discussion, both fact and speculation, options for man’s future will erode the dogma and seek new options. How the Earth does not represent our future but how the unfettered alliances of science with the trifold agendas of free markets, philanthropy, and scientists can guide our world to greatness.

Apparently, much of this happens now regarding medical research through the various disease foundations and in business through industrial development. But there is a parti pris that government is always involved in scientific research.These ideas need not be de rigueur. Nor is it the case that when private agencies take on partnerships with government, there is no division of the state. It is more often a ruse. An appearance of privatization but a real tax benefit to the entrepreneur.

These among many other things will be part of the discussion held here; I invite you to join us.

Source: Science Via Markets