A favorite topic of mine today. A favorite word, too. I hope you get a chuckle even if the machines don’t. (I wonder, do machines chuckle?)
As technology’s ability to manipulate reality improves, we’re all searching for the truth.
Ahhh yes: truth; authenticity; technology; machines. All of those machines out to “manipulate reality”. Take a picture today (with your phone vs. a camera no less) and the little machine inside will manipulate that image just about any way you want. Yes, yes, I know… still photographs, Gary? That’s so last century. Show me the video! Well, last century Yawed Karim did; in front of the elephants.
And to think; it all started with a trip to the zoo.
Chad
Hurley and Steve Chen, together with a third friend, Yawed Karim, had come up
with the idea at a dinner party in early 2005.
They chose the name during a brainstorming session on Valentine’s Day.
Over
the next few months, they designed it in their garage. After successfully testing the service in May
of 2005 they received funding from a venture capital firm to cover their
start-up costs.
In
December of 2005 they opened for business (Month 12).
10
months later (September of 2006, less than 24 months end-to-end) they sold for $1,650,000,000.00!
Nicolas Carr
What do you think? I mean if a 19-second video of zoo animals can lead to billions of dollars, is that reality? Do we mere mortals stand a chance of finding truth?
I blame it on that vague and nameless group of very smart people commonly referred to as “programmers”. Are their programming practices questionable? I mean, are they “searching for the truth”? If not, whose accountable if they are “manipulating reality” and bypassing the input editor with bad input?
Peck's
Programming Postulates
· If more than one person has programmed a malfunctioning routine, no one is at fault.
·
If
the input editor has been designed to reject all bad input, an ingenious idiot
will discover a method to get bad data past it.
Unknown Sage
How did we succumb to the machines, anyway? When did we capitulate? Why? Capitulate certainly have:
Western
society… has accepted as unquestionable a technological imperative that is
quite as arbitrary as the most primitive taboo:
not merely the duty to foster invention and constantly to create
technological novelties, but equally the duty to surrender to these novelties
unconditionally, just because they are offered, without respect to their human
consequences.
Lewis Mumford
“Surrender to these novelties unconditionally…” Welcome to the modern century.
A lot is being said and even more is being written about the machines; aka artificial intelligence; aka “AI”. Adding insult to injury, these writings are even being written by the machines about the machines. (ChatGBT ring a bell?) Not only that, but now we find ourselves talking to our machines? You know, “Siri, tell me a joke.” It’s when the machines answer back to our texts, chats, and voices – posing as humans – then I get worried.
I have hope, however. Humans are (finally) starting to question the authenticity of information offered up by AI. We’re finally realizing that videos can be (and are being) manipulated; deviating from reality; “truth” is not always being taken for granted. Who knows? Maybe “authentic” will even repeat as the 2024 Word of the Year.
I have hope.
GAP
When life gets tough we could get a helmet… or…
we
could leverage the peace and share the power of a positive perspective.
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