Tag: humanism

Algorithmic Reality

In this Ted Talk, Kevin Slavin’s tone of delivery is subtle. He opens his message by showing beautiful photographs by Michael Najjar. But as soon as he captures audience’s amazement of the majestic mountain ranges, he declares that the pictures have been tampered with. Digitally, the peaks and valleys in fact articulate the Dow Jones index. The audience responds with a laugh, as if to admit, the joke is on us. 

What he calls, “metaphor with teeth” comes across less as a warning than a narrative already ensured. Humans are already designing for the “machine dialect”.

The math that we “make” does not extract information or answer our query per se but support machine analysis. Slavin compares the mathematical processes to a break-down of massive amounts of data that humans would not ordinarily be able to decode. Algorithms decipher them to the smallest degree before reassembling them for human interpretation. That is the algorithmic process that he claims “acquires sensibility of truth”. Humans then report the narrative upon a machine decode. Therefore, humans serve machines.

Slavin views algorithms as an almost organic component of human development. He cites examples of how far we have already gone to accommodate algorithmic “needs”. Despite our lack of complete understanding of their inner workings, humans have surrendered control to the point of “running through the United States with dynamite and rock saws so that an algorithm can close the deal”. This, according to Slavin is when the math becomes real. Algorithms shape our reality and forge our world.

Compared to critics like, Jaron Lanier (2010) who cautions against a culture of Singularity where humans abide by the ideologies of machines, Slavin reckons a “manifested destiny” where algorithms not only dictate actions carried out on earth but also the direction of mathematical development based in machine efficiency. 

As such, Slavin designates algorithms as the “third co-evolutionary force”— a recognition so great that only man and nature correlate. The acknowledgement of machine-capability is not new. But the integration of algorithmic contention to the point of equivalency (to man and nature) in such casual manner curtails humanism yet another degree.

Is anyone else alarmed?

Reference

Lanier, J. (2010). You are not a gadget. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.

Are we post-human?

Human consciousness has always intrigued me. Humanity’s greatest achievements in both arts and science are attributed to a unique capacity and intelligence that is solemnly human. However, computation has advanced to where information, automation and digital networks are shifting our roles, responsibility and identity. Who we are has been closely tied to what we do, that is our societal contribution and our relationship with one another. Technological tools that were created to assist us are not only reshaping human relations but also gaining a presence that changes how we think of ourselves. 

According to Dataism (Hariri, 2015), the entire human specie can be seen as single data-processing system where individual beings serve merely as chips. All of humanity’s history can be summarized by four methods of gaining efficiency: increase the number processors, variety of processors, number of connections between processors and freedom of movement along existing connections. We are therefore, mere information at our core. 

If the human experience is unoriginal and humanity’s goal is the Internet-Of-Things, then how would we explain creativity and imagination? Are they too, algorithmic information flow?

Jaron Lanier (2010) claims that as developers of digital technology design programs that require users to interact with a computer as if it were a person, they are asking for our acceptance that at least a part of our brain functions as a program (Lanier, 2010, p. 4). Our exchange with the machine “locks” us into a grid of suppositions based in minimalistic ideals and explicit commands. 

While simplicity in digital designs gets a job done, inexact details that attribute to the whole “human program” may be lost. Peripheral data that does not precisely comply to the task are ignored, resulting in an exchange template based solely in transactional efficiency. Such fragmentation of what Lanier refers to as “personhood” not only reduces our expectations of each other, but also “who a person can be and…who each person can become” (Lanier, 2010, p. 4). 

Lanier (2010) claims that we take for granted the countless ways we are networked, including via social media. We buy into surface proficiency but in truth, networks perpetuate a “program” in us that is not actually (the whole of) us. As we extend our adoption of these technologies, we empower networks through dependency. Information becomes us. We socialize and work (produce) in a “symbolic environment” of “real virtuality” (Castells, 2000). 

While dataists view such developments as human evolution, their potential results alarm others. A cybernetic “posthuman” is interchangeable with the next. S/he (it) applies “lenticular logics” (McPherson, 2012) where nodes are observed without perception of the whole. Perception rises beyond intelligence into consciousness. This is the realm of meaning, understanding and awareness. In the context of human-versus-machine, this realm represents an argument against human as information. Organisms are greater than algorithms. We are complex beings on a quest. 

Johanna Drucker references an “interior life” that is tampered by the “grand narratives” of Silicon Valley (Simanowski, 2016, p. 43). Lanier (2010) points to an augmenting “hive mind” as the result of our alikeness and displacement from the “whole”. Humanity rests at a crossroad where artificial intelligence (AI) propels singularity. Our reliance on AI for productivity must be balanced with the acknowledgement that we are not only in charge but we also reserve an authority and a sovereignty that is uniquely human. Such self recognition requires an awareness that surpasses our roles and responsibility in the social construct. 

If we were mere performances (of tasks) then we are undoubtedly replaceable by machines. Computers can outperform us. But if we are a capacity greater than information flow assigned to transactions, then it is up to us to summon that force within. Lanier refers to it as consciousness “situated in time” (Lanier, 2010, p. 42). It is a context and an embodiment that sustains us outside a performative dimension. It is “us” in a space where no information flows and yet fully defined. 

 

References 

Castells, M. (2000). Materials for an exploratory theory of the network society. British Journal of Sociology, 51(1), 5-24. doi:10.1080/000713100358408

Harari, Y. N. (2015). Homo Deus: A brief History of Tomorrow. New York: Harper, An Imprint of HarperCollins.

Lanier, J. (2010). You are not a gadget. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.

McPherson, T. (2012). Why Are the Digital Humanities So White? or Thinking the Histories of Race and Computation. Debates in the Digital Humanities, 139-160. doi:10.5749/minnesota/9780816677948.003.0017

Simanowski, R. (2016). Digital humanities and digital media: Conversations on politics, culture, aesthetics and literacy. London: Open Humanities Press.