Last night I was lounging around with some friends. Longfellow had a computer and was surfing blogs to some jazz. Among the several entertainment items that surfaced was clip from Enthiran, the most expensive Indian movie ever made. The –dare I say- film, is centered around a scientist who creates a seemingly uncontrollable android, the robot, or terminator as some have tagged it, upgrades itself and the 2.0 version is able to self replicate. The rouge machine grows to massive proportions, and slithers into some of the most ridiculous action scenes produced this side of “Turkish Star Wars” in this clip the most impressive action begins about two and a half minutes in, take a look:
The clip was the catalyst for a conversation about the concept of singularity, and the possibility of sentient technology. The idea of singularity, in broad strokes, is that one day the intelligence of machines will surpass that of humans. The concept has several branches that stretch into spirituality utopia and dystopia. It is not a ridged principal. One school of thought sees singularity occurring when machines gain the intelligence to reproduce and design themselves- as seen in Enthiran. Another camp believes singularity will occur when computing power becomes integrated with human power, creating a breed of super intelligent human machines- also seen in Enthiran.
Among my fellow watchers was Clemens, a student headed for a top tier computer science grad program. He brought up an argument against singularity that is also employed by Jaron Lanier in his book, “You are not a gadget” Lanier stresses that singularity is mostly a fantasy. Clemens agreed, arguing that without humans computers are just a collection of bits, that don’t know what to do. Lanier compared singularity to the rapture. Coyly writing that maybe a form of it will happen, in biological sense, but it might be awhile.
What?! Is this really what the experts think?! Have they seen the Matrix? Read Phillip K. Dick, USA Today? –okay, so few read that paper unless their desperate, but seriously, most computer experts have seen SOMETHING about how the machines are about to take over. It took warehouses full of programmers to create the graphics in Enthiran. What were they thinking as they tinkered with the pixels? Did they render with fear of what could be, or hubris in the beauty of what only they and their human peers know how to create?
Lanier says, “A computer isn’t even there unless a person experiences it (P26).” I disagree. Ontology aside, there have already been a number of examples of systems operated by computers that have impacted prices, traffic, and yes even something that would be around without us, the environment, on their own (for details of these comp-events stay tuned for future posts) . Computer systems designed by humans, are often made to do what the humans cannot do, like trade stocks in milliseconds, or what humans think could be done better, like regulating power plant emissions. Often these systems are built with the on the premise that once in place they will run without problems, and not require human supervision. Such advancements have done wonders in terms of productivity.
However, there have been some glaring examples of where the technology, left to its own devices has caused massive upheaval. Did you watch the Enthiran clip? You should. If that does convince you look up the “Flash Crash” which happen on May 6, 2010, when computers caused a mass selloff on the Dow Jones, causing it to plunge 600 points in five minutes. The loss was recovered by human traders about twenty minutes later, but the index lost about 1000 points on the day, and market jitters rippled around the world for weeks, as no one knew why the drop had happened. A subsequent investigation found that a computer algorithm, unable to account for the days irregular volatility caused much of the selloff. It was not the first time computers roiled the markets.
It worries me that Clemens and Lamier brush off singularity with such ease. In posts to follow I will continue to explore this issue. For now, as Enthiran and the stock market show: Watch out!
