Project 2 - Quot erat demonstrandum

The relationship between the rapid development and influence of technology and the extent of its presence in the future is a controversial topic that has been explored in almost every form of popular media.  Some portray a future controlled by large corporations, exerting their influence over all communications and technology markets, as theorized by Tim Wu in his book, The Master Switch.  Conversely, some see the future where power is still in the hands of the individual such as in William Gibson’s cyberpunk novel, Neuromancer.  While the actual future will probably be a piecemeal combination of both ideals, the future will more than likely look more like Wu’s vision instead of Gibson’s dystopia.  This conclusion can be drawn by the numerous instances of real world evidence that Wu provides, rather than Gibson’s fictional ideas.

The very heart of Wu’s book revolves around the notion of patterns of industrial rises and falls, a process that Wu dubs, “The Cycle”.  The basis for this premise is that the “oscillation of information industries between open and closed” (Wu 6) is caused by a continuous cycle of individual innovation and corporate monopolization.  From his numerous examples, such as “Bell and Watson toiling in their small attic laboratory” (Wu 17-18) to develop the telephone to Edwin Armstrong in “a laboratory at the very top of the new Empire State Building … testing a new radio technology” (Wu 125), Wu supports the fact that the process of technological innovation and enhancement comes from “a lonely room where one or two men are trying to solve a concrete problem” (Wu 18).  It is rather the corporations themselves that stifle innovation in order to keep their power, both through market strength or even government interference, such as the control AM radio had or AT&Ts initial federal regulation of attachments to their products.  This supported notion conflicts with the ideas presented in Neuromancer.  Gibson actually presents the exact opposite idea, where the innovations made by corporations is torn down by hackers like Case.  Advances in technology that are exclusive to the corporations, such as how “M-G employees above a certain level were implanted with advanced microprocessors that monitored mutagen levels in the bloodstream” (Gibson 10) or the AIs, were under constant attack by the individual hacker, just a man at a console in a lonely room.

Wu also makes the claim in support of the Cycle that even the controlling monopolies in an industry always either fall due to the introduction of a new disruptive technology or by government mandated breakups once their influence becomes too great to ignore.  Wu supports this with the pattern of behavior from the past.  The control of the AM industry was greatly diminished when FM was finally allowed to take hold, the telegraph titans fell under the new technology of telephone, and even AT&T was eventually broken up after the government could no longer ignore their size and amount of control.  If the past is any indicator of the future, every corporation that is viewed as all-powerful, every company which is at the forefront of technology, “every consolidated entity may well have only until the next turn of the Cycle before being scattered” (Wu 253).  However, this inevitable destruction of powers is not seen anywhere in Neuromancer.  The main technological titan, Tessier-Ashpool, is a corporation whose main goal was immortality, and according to the novel it had achieved a lifespan far greater than any of the corporations noted in The Master Switch.  Everything from the hundred children of Ashpool to the man’s own cryogenic freezing was designed to ensure the longevity of the company, a plan that is directly contradicted by the evidence that Wu provides.

One point however that both Wu and Gibson do seem to agree on is the expansion of the Internet into every aspect of our daily lives. Granted, Gibson’s idea of a 3D consensual hallucination is far from the state of the current and presumed future Internet, but the notion that a network like this would be so intertwined into our social, and especially our work, experience has already become a reality.  The notion of a desk in an office space without a computer terminal is beyond us, and an employee sitting behind a monitor searching through archives and files is essentially the same as an unnamed worker in a Gibsonian space jacking in.  Wu also supports this idea, noting that “our future … is almost certain to be an intensification of our present reality:  greater and greater information dependence in every matter of life and word, and all that needed information increasingly traveling a single network that we call the Internet” (Wu 7).  Entities like Facebook or virtual gaming worlds are indicators of our future heading towards an ever increasing digital dependence.

However, Gibson also makes valid points that are absent from Wu’s text.  Neuromancer presents a future where the world is not controlled by governments, but rather by the ziabatsus, the multi-national corporations.  He presents the idea that as technology becomes more and more prevalent in our society and the differences between individuals can be bridged by innovations such as the Internet, the controlling entities behind these innovations will have far more power than any government can.  Governments and countries are still present, but actions such as space development in the orbital city of Freeside are undertaken by industry, rather than by the government.  Surprisingly, some aspects of this belief can even be seen by current events happening today.  The uprising in Egypt against President Hosni Mubarak pitted the power of government and the Internet against each other.  Surprisingly, the people were actually able to succeed in their mission and remove Mubarak from power, and their victory was greatly aided by coordination through the Internet.  Now, the Internet is currently an open technology, with no ziabatsu backing it.  Imagine the power that a company would have if it controlled the Internet.  While it may not be enough power to overthrow a government regime by itself, this scale of control can undoubtedly influence the actions of the masses.  Wu actually supports that idea this may be possible in our future.  He cautions that signs of a corporate, closed Internet can already be seen, such as the potential partnership of Google and Verizon.  Our future then could be controlled not by nations, but corporations.

Another aspect of the future that Gibson envisions is an idea not about electronic improvements, but rather physical ones.  Throughout the novel, there are myriads of references to surgical and artificial improvements to the physical limitations of our body.  While perhaps Molly’s razor-sharp flechettes reside more on the side of fiction than reality, a number of these surgical enhancements have their roots within the bounds of current technology.  Ratz’s “military prosthetic, a seven-function force-feedback manipulator, cased in grubby pink plastic” (Gibson 4) is almost identical to the current advanced prosthetic technology.  Molly’s optic lens implants bears a relationship to neural implants.  Even the vast amount of cosmetic surgery seen in Neuromancer may reflect how we as a society may rely on a tummy tuck, implants, or Botox to improve our physical appearance.

Despite these plausible visions of our future, there are still many predictions made by Gibson’s novel that are simply too farfetched to exist in our current future.  The notion of a fully aware, intelligent AI is simply not possible in the way Neuromancer describes.  The technological limitations of computers and the premises that must be fulfilled for an artificial intelligence to be possible is simply nowhere near our current grasp.  Also, while some biological and technological integration may be possible, our current understanding of human physiology makes it far from feasible that a rig like the simstim would ever be possible.  Additionally, while the ideas of a 3D Internet or an organ market may be physically obtainable, society itself has abandoned these ideals.  Currently, we as a culture have embraced the separation that a flat screen gives us, and most of us find the idea of a human chop shop appalling.

Therefore, while aspects of Neuromancer are more than likely to make themselves a reality, there are also many elements that have a very slim, if any, chance that they will become norms in our future life.    However, the evidence that Wu gives to support his claims show that his prediction of the future is at least feasible, although maybe uncertain of its actual fruition.  While the future is more than likely a harmony of both literary works, it would seem that the work of fact will beat out the work of fiction, unless drastic changes that not even Wu could foresee do indeed occur.

Works Cited

Gibson, William. Neuromancer. New York: Ace, 1984. Print.

Wu, Tim. The Master Switch: The Rise and Fall of Information Empries. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2010. Print.

One Life Remaining

Compared to the numbers that populated them even a few years ago, virtual worlds and Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games have grown at an astonishing rate.  Every day, more and more people choose to spend time within a sort of consensual hallucination, trading spending time reality for residence in a virtual one.  The film Second Skin touched on these issues, especially that of those who spent addictive amounts of time immersed within these games.  The general consensus towards those that effectively reside in virtual worlds is that of bewilderment, not understanding how anyone could spend so much of their life on something that isn’t tangible.

The movie resents an interesting perspective on this idea.  Think about the mental image that comes to mind when I say the following:  MMORPG gamer.  I imagine that most of us out there picture what has been depicted as the stereotypical gamer, backed up by real world experience and even media evidence, such as the people depicted in this movie.  Whatever image comes to your mind, there is usually one thing that universal among them:  social outcast.  For whatever issues or handicaps they may have (even physical ones) these people feel more at home in a virtual space than the actual world.  They prefer an idealized existence rather than our tangible, realistic one.

Now, why should you care about this?  Well, as Casanova states in the movie, “What does this say about our society that people want to leave it in masses like they are?”.  Have we made it so unbearable for these people that in order to feel like they belong, they need to escape to a place where there appearance, sex, and personality is whatever they want it to be?  What’s even scarier is the amount of people that some may view we have driven away.  World of Warcraft has over 15 million active players.  Granted, a large majority of them are only casual players, and granted that some people, like in every addiction, have brought this upon themselves.  But how can we explain the addiction of everyone else?  Is it their fault, or ours? 

Just because it's virtual, doesn't mean it isn't real.

$635,000.  Yes, $635,000.  Over half a million dollars was paid for real estate.  Now, that may not be that uncommon during this day and age, but what if we were to consider that this real estate didn’t exist in a tangible world?  What if instead, this real estate existed in a virtual reality, so effectively, someone was paying this sum for lines of code, which, if the developer wanted to, could erase from any existence?  Many hold the notion that it is unfathomable that anyone would pay that amount of money for something that technically doesn’t even exist, but I do completely understand these transactions, even if I wouldn’t make them myself.

This piece of property wasn’t just any plot:  it was the largest asteroid in the virtual online game Entropia Universe.  By this very nature, it existed in a status of exclusivity, of scarcity.  Nearly nobody could obtain this virtual land. This existence of supply and demand creates an economy that is no less real than our own.  “The minute you hardwire constraints into a virtual world, the economy emerges” (Dibbell 43).  Because such an economy is created, it follows principles that all other economies follow, namely that of the paradox of value.  If you think about it, the most valuable entities to us on the planet, namely air and water, are either completely or virtually free due to their large quantities.  Rather, some of the most useless objects on the planet (save for scarce scientific purposes), diamonds, have insanely large value due to their rareness.

This same principle applies to scarce objects in virtual worlds.  Even though they are useless, even though they don’t even technically exists, if they are rare, individuals will want them and take extreme measures to have them.  Think about this even in our physical world.  A Honus Wagner card in mint condition, nothing more than an unmarred piece of cardboard, can sell for prices up to $2.8 million dollars.  Yet, this doesn’t have the stigma attached to it of buying these virtual goods.  I ask of you then, what truly is the difference?

http://www.digitaltrends.com/gaming/virtual-asteroid-club-sold-for-record-setting-635000/

Quod erat demonstrandum (Draft)

The relationship between the rapid development and influence of technology and the extent of its presence in the future is a controversial topic that has been explored in almost every form of popular media.  Some portray a future controlled by large corporations, exerting their influence over all communications and technology markets as theorized by Tim Wu in his book, The Master Switch.  Conversely, some see the future where power is still in the hands of the individual such as in William Gibson’s cyberpunk novel, Neuromancer.  While the actual future will probably be a piecemeal combination of both ideals, the future will more than likely look more like Wu’s vision instead of Gibson’s dystopia.

The very heart of Wu’s book revolves around the notion of a pattern of the rise and fall of industry, a process that Wu dubs, “The Cycle”.  The basis for this premise is that the “oscillation of information industries between open and closed” (Wu 6) is caused by a continuous cycle of innovation by the individual and monopolization by the corporation.  From his numerous examples such as “Bell and Watson toiling in their small attic laboratory” (Wu 17-18) to develop the telephone to Edwin Armstrong in “a laboratory at the very top of the new Empire State Building … testing a new radio technology” (Wu 125), Wu supports the fact that the process of technological innovation and enhancement comes from “a lonely room where one or two men are trying to solve a concrete problem” (Wu 18).  It is rather the corporations themselves that stifle innovation in order to keep their power, both through market strength or even government interference, such as the control AM radio had or AT&Ts initial federal regulation of attachments to their products.  This supported notion is conflicted with the ideas that are presented in Neuromancer.  Gibson actually presents the exact opposite idea, where the innovations made by corporations is torn down by hackers like Case.  Advances in technology that are exclusive to the corporations, such as how “M-G employees above a certain level were implanted with advanced microprocessors that monitored mutagen levels in the bloodstream” (Gibson 10) or the AIs, were under constant attack by the individual hacker, just a man at a console in a lonely room.

Wu also makes the claim in support of the Cycle that even the controlling monopolies in an industry always either fall due to the introduction of a new disruptive technology or by government mandated breakups once their influence becomes too great to ignore.  Wu supports this with the pattern of behavior from the past.  The control of the AM industry was greatly diminished when FM was finally allowed to take hold, the telegraph titans fell under the new technology of telephone, and even AT&T was eventually broken up after the government could no longer ignore their size and amount of control.  If the past is any indicator of the future, every corporation which is viewed as all-powerful, every company which is at the forefront of technology, “every consolidated entity may well have only until the next turn of the Cycle before being scattered” (Wu 253).  However, this inevitable destruction of powers is not seen anywhere in Neuromancer.  The main technological titan, Tessier-Ashpool, is a corporation whose main goal was immortality, and according to the novel it had achieved a lifespan far greater than any of the corporations noted in The Master Switch.  Everything from the hundred children of Ashpool to the man’s own cryogenic freezing was designed to ensure the longevity of the company, a plan that is directly contradicted by the evidence that Wu provides.

One point however that both Wu and Gibson do seem to agree with is the expansion of the internet into every aspect of our daily lives. Granted, Gibson’s idea of a 3D consensual hallucination is far from the state of the current and presumed future internet, but the notion that a network like this would be so intertwined into our social and especially work experience has already become a reality.  The notion of a desk in an office space without a computer terminal is beyond us, and an employee sitting behind a monitor searching through archives and files is essentially the same as an unnamed worker in a Gibsonian space jacking in.  Wu also supports this idea, noting that “our future … is almost certain to be an intensification of our present reality:  greater and greater information dependence in every matter of life and word, and all that needed information increasingly traveling a single network that we call the Internet” (Wu 7).  Entities like Facebook or virtual gaming worlds are indicators of our future heading towards an ever increasing digital dependence.

However, Gibson also makes some valid points that are absent from Wu’s text.  Neuromancer presents a future where the world is not controlled by governments, but rather by the ziabatsus, the multi-national corporations.  He presents the idea that as technology becomes more and more prevalent in our society and the differences between individuals can be bridged by innovations such as the internet, the controlling entities behind these innovations will have far more power than any government can.  Governments and countries are still present, but actions such as space development in the orbital city of Freeside are undertaken by industry, rather than the government.  Surprisingly, some aspects of this belief can even be seen by current events happening today.  The uprising in Egypt against President Hosni Mubarak pitted the power of government and the internet against each other.  Surprisingly, the people were actually able to succeed in their mission and remove Mubarak from power, and their victory was greatly aided by coordination through the internet.  Now, the internet is currently an open technology, with no ziabatsu backing it.  Imagine the power that a company would have if it controlled the internet, enough power to overthrow a government regime.  Wu actually supports the idea this may be possible in our future.  He cautions that signs of a corporate, closed internet can already be seen, such as the potential partnership of Google and Verizon.  Our future then could be controlled not by nations, but rather corporations.

Another aspect of the future that Gibson envisions is an idea about not electronic improvements, but rather physical ones.  Throughout the novel, there are myriads of references to surgical and artificial improvements to the physical limitations of our body.  While perhaps Molly’s razor-sharp flechettes reside more on the side of fiction than reality, a number of these surgical enhancements have their roots within the bounds of current technology.  Ratz’s “military prosthetic, a seven-function force-feedback manipulator, cased in grubby pink plastic” (Gibson 4) is almost identical to the current advanced prosthetic technology.  Molly optic lens implants bears a relationship to neural implants.  Even the vast amount of cosmetic surgery seen in Neuromancer may reflect how we as a society may rely on a tummy tuck, implants, or Botox to improve our physical appearance.

Despite these plausible visions of our future, there are still many predictions made by Gibson’s novel that are simply too farfetched to exist in our current future.  The notion of a fully aware, intelligent AI is simply not possible in the way Neuromancer describes.  The technological limitations of computers and the premises that must be fulfilled for an artificial intelligence to be possible is simply nowhere near our current grasp.  Also, while some biological and technological integration may be possible, our current understand of human physiology makes it from feasible that a rig like the simstim would ever be possible.  Additionally, while the ideas of a 3D internet or an organ market may be physically obtainable, society itself has abandoned these ideals.  Currently, we as a culture have embraced the separation that a flat screen gives us, and most of us find the idea of a human chop shop appalling.

Therefore, while aspects of Neuromancer are more than likely to makes themselves a reality, there are also many elements that have a very slim, if any, chance that they will become norms in our future life.    However, the evidence that Wu gives to support his claims show that his prediction of the future is at least feasible, although maybe uncertain of its actual fruition.  While the future is more than likely a harmony of both literary works, it would seem that the work of fact will beat out the work of fiction, unless drastic changes that not even Wu could foresee, do indeed, occur.

Works Cited

Gibson, William. Neuromancer. New York: Ace, 1984. Print.

Wu, Tim. The Master Switch: The Rise and Fall of Information Empries. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2010. Print.

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Texting.  A form of communication that appears to dominate over actual phone conversations for a majority of our quick communications need.  A form of communication that has brought with it a wealth of controversy over its use in the workplace, schools, and while driving.  A form of communication that has become synonymous with my generation and is assumed to play such a prevalent part in our lives.  But, how dominant really is texting in my everyday communications?

To find out, I recorded every text that I made over the course of a single day.  But just not any day:  Super Bowl Sunday.  The results were quite surprising.  Over the course of a day, I sent 12 text messages and received 13.  That’s it.  Just 25 texts.  This amount is far from the associated norm of hundreds of messages daily for a person of my age.  So am I the exception or is the amount of time we spend hammering away at tiny keyboards imagined far greater than it actually is?

Perhaps more insight could be drawn from looking at the conversations.  There were 3 main text conversations I had that day.  The first one was a short request to some of my friends for lunch, the second was a quick check in with my parents, and finally the bulk of my conversation was harassing my friend at WVU after his Pittsburg Steelers lost (which incidentally mirrored a similar conversation regarding one New York Jets the week prior).  A trend can start to be seen here, as the majority of my text messages weren’t utilized to contact my friends here at the University of Richmond, but rather those that were miles away from me.  The people who I normally interact with on a daily basis, the people some reason I would need to text constantly, are rather communicated with simply by a walk across the hall and a knock on the door.  Even though the ability to quickly communicate with them is readily available, I would rather sit down and have an actual conversation with them, and the proximity of most of my friends allows me to do so.

It is this preference for personal interaction I think then why I believe that a fully immersive 3D consensual hallucination is not a prevalent part of our everyday life as it is in Gibson’s Neuromancer.  Despite the convenience a system like this would deliver in interacting with those around us, I feel that we as humans, we as social creatures, still crave personal interaction with one another.  Despite the immersion a 3D simulation like this would provide, I think that a perfect simulation of reality would still bring with it the knowledge that that is all it is: a simulation.

Perhaps I am the exception to this norm.  Maybe it’s true that many other individuals my age greatly overshadow my daily texting rate.  I certainly cannot represent every demographic that would have to be tested for a true conclusion to be formed.  However, I do feel there is some merit to the notion that while technology is becoming more and more prevalent in our everyday lives, there will always be the need to meet in person.  Perhaps this is proven by the notion that despite how far we have progressed, we rarely hear about virtual reality.  Instead, the headlines are filled with new means of communication, whether it be smartphones or social networking sites, that allow us to connect with those we can’t physically reach, not interfere with those we can.

Fear No AI

In the critically claimed novel Neuromancer, William Gibson depicts a futuristic dystopia that he intended as a warning towards our ever increasing dependence on technological advancements.  Instead though, to his horror, many of those who read the book were inspired and sought to create a world similar to one he depicts.  The physical surgical “improvements” that are prevalent throughout the book can be seen through our development of advanced prosthetics or neural implants.  The three dimensional internet he depicts is currently under development, and three dimensional interaction can already be seen in the technology in Microsoft’s Kinect.  Even the space city of Freeside already inspired orbital living as shown by the International Space Station.  However, one of the advancements that we most likely do not have to fear, or, as some view this future, embrace, is that of a fully independent artificial intelligence.

The driving plot of the story is a direct result of the involvement of the two AI’s, Wintermute and Neuromancer, and yet it may actually be impossible to create a synthetic entity that has this degree of aptitude.  Yes, “impossible” tasks have been achieved before, such as human flight or space travel, but the very nature of computers prevents them from achieving this level of intelligence.  There are two main arguments that back up my claim, the first being P vs. NP.  Without diverging into a tangent about the intricacies of this problem, I’ll try to give you a brief overview about why this is fundamental in AI.

P vs. NP stands for algorithms that run in polynomial time versus those that run in non-deterministic polynomial time.  An algorithm is runs in polynomial time can provide all the solutions for a given problem, while one that runs in non-deterministic polynomial time is one that can be verified quickly.  As an example, take the problem of finding a set of integers that, when added up, equal 0.  This problem is NP, as a solution can either very quickly be shown to be true or false, as with the set of {-1,0,1}.  It is impossible however to get every single possible combination of all integers that add up to 0, as they are infinite.  The question is can we then find solutions and efficient algorithms for all NP problems, showing that P = NP?  This is deemed the most important unsolved problem in computer science, and the Clay Mathematics Institute will even pay anyone that proves or disproves this theory one million dollars.

How does this affect AI?  Well, the necessary code that would allow computers to be truly independent is code that runs is NP time. Proving P = NP is then required to even show that there are any algorithms that would allow computers to develop what we view as true AI.  This has not been achieved to date, and many computer scientists seriously doubt that P = NP.  Until this is proven, then AI can never truly exist.

My second argument against AI is one that has arisen through my own research into artificial intelligence here at UR:  computers are incredible stupid.  These machines are often viewed as all-knowing entities, but in reality they are incapable of understanding anything other than what we tell them to.  Computers are incredible adept and speedy at one thing: pattern matching.  When you input 2 + 3 into any kind of machines with a calculator function, that machine simply references a list incredibly fast and returns the pre-programmed pattern that 2 + 3 = 5.  The machine is incapable of determining why this is true, just as it is incapable of realizing that 3 + 2 is an equivalent statement.  Because they are limited to their original programming, it is very improbable that machines’ intelligence will result in anything more that more and more complex pattern matching.  This can be seen even in current programs that appear to be intelligent, namely Cleverbot.

Now, some of you reading this may disagree with me.  The argument could be posed that just like with all other developments, the technology just has not been developed yet.  This may very well be the case, just as it was for so many other advancements.  But these two great hurdles of P vs. NP and the very nature of current computing must be cleared, and unlike other unsolved problems where there lies promise, I do not find AI in the foreseeable future.