Misery out of Abundance

Misery out of Abundance

Is the computer boom coming to an end?

In the past, devices such as locomotives, cars, sewing machines or refrigerators were designed to be operated and even repaired by normal home improvement. In the course of the escalating computer mania, things like the simple linkage that connects the gas pedals to the carburetor throttle are replaced by a computer link. And we've had so many solemn praises about computers and their wondrous abilities about us that it's high time for a tangible complaint.

Even the best and most expensive computers have glitches. Where information processing decides about life and death, in American space shuttles, for example, all onboard electronics are never controlled by a supercomputer but by at least four or five independent units. There is a dull stubbornness inherent in the phenomenon of a computer crash, a stubbornness compared to what seems like the stubbornness of a donkey of near Einstein's wisdom. The stubborn reluctance to execute certain commands, and recurrent functional delays everyone knows, who are familiar with the normal computer everyday life.

When publishers were still settling accounts with their authors - who often did not even have a mechanical calculating machine with a crank - the money was usually faster than it is today, even though the supposedly ultra-fast electronic systems should actually accelerate the process. In the end, it is always a solid literary agent that detects bugs in the publisher's accounts. Because computers have reached inaccuracy after - almost everywhere - prevailing opinion, all derailments are always charged to people sitting at the computer.

John von Neumann called the human brain a system made up of uncertain factors. I do not know where to look for the weaknesses in computers and should. However, I know that the need to keep functions as problem-free as possible has triggered a veritable computer mania in a wide variety of areas. Like women or, more correctly, people are not thoroughly bad, because everyone has their advantages, so it is also with computers: you can expect a lot from them, count on some and get a good deal. But just as it would be futile to expect only divine virtues from the wife of Caesar, one hundred percent confidence in the infallibility and reliability of computers has fatal consequences.

There are so many computer programs that it's getting harder and harder to choose the program that's best for a particular task. As is well known, we have various data networks with many nodes, and we have browsers for surfing the net; However, the most important thing is to know how to quickly find what you need in the information thickets that are hidden microscopically on the hard drives. For the less experienced in particular, these searches are sometimes like walking through a giant labyrinth - and then we remember wistfully how easy it was to get the information you were looking for from a book encyclopedia.

In addition to the computers that are currently on the market or are announced with great enthusiasm by large companies soon simple parallel computers and even quantum computers are available. At the moment, the height of daydreaming is a liquid computer presented on a model that represents a glass of coffee - it can also be milked. Numerical tasks or simulation tasks are to be solved by means of an electric control field and by molecules in a magnetic field applied to the glass of coffee from outside.

By no means do I claim that this belongs in the realm of fairy tales. In many areas of life, what our fathers thought was unbelievable came true. However, building a multi-storey building from ordinary playing cards is a simple task compared to building a computer of atomic spin - because atoms or electrons behave reasonably well in the area of ​​absolute zero, that is, where the Bose-Einstein statistic applies. At room temperature, on the other hand, one can only dream of a quantum computer, since at this temperature all configurations of the subatomic states are extremely unstable.

However, I will no longer be nagging at the grandiose pageant of the latest computergenic ideas that are supposed to transform atomic chaos into perfect order. Without naming names, I'm just reiterating the view of experts predicting that the computer boom, which has grown exponentially in recent years, seems to be nearing its limit and thus its end.

We have screens that are flat like a picture on the wall, and we already think a computer mouse is a rather old-fashioned device. The connection of televisions, monitors, computers, modems and fax machines to uniform pseudo-organisms is getting closer. We have devices for right and left-handed people. So it seems as if, at the end of our century, we would endeavor to complete everything in the vast space of information that was left over to construction.

Of course, although specialists have failed the wisdom teeth on the two zeros of the Y2T, this twilight did not mean an end of information technology. It's different, in other words, it's not as bad as I said. We got lost in the traps of the operating systems because they do not understand us or ourselves. Ultimately, it shows that the mind, as the system that works with concepts, can not be completely replaced at the moment. So I bet on the main prize, on what is the hardest to win, though I do not know when it will be ours. We have to go the path that leads our alienated minds back to the mind, no matter how far that way. Even if we risk countless slip-ups and mistakes, there will be no other way in the near future.

Because the future is always different from what we imagine it to be, what I write is shaped by a subjective conviction, which, however, is quite strong. I do not claim nevertheless that I know the future as accurately as the contents of my drawer.

Digitalitis

Digitalitis

Is it possible to be happy without a computer?

In a nutshell, but with some malice, one could say that nowadays communication is everything and mind is nothing. Various network specialists delight in the enumeration of the number of bits and their transmission speed on a global scale. As is usually the case with major technological innovations, everything seems to be sunny first, but then spots appear on that Sun.

I confess that I have computerized under the pressure of more convincing facts and tendencies and have bought myself a fax and a modem. I also own a mailbox somewhere for electronic mail. It's just that electronic communications are gaining in importance because they are much cheaper than telephones, especially for long-distance connections.

The number of journals devoted to the digital era at whose threshold we are supposedly located is growing. Maybe you should start with the spots on this new sun. All types of counterfeiting, collusion, fraud, speculation, and intrusion into the most thoroughly and expertly controlled databases find very comfortable beds and hiding places on the Internet because it is easier than anywhere else to preserve the anonymity of the sender. Of course, also stupidities and nonsense can spread thanks to the Internet in a flash.

In Poland, we are only at the beginning of all these crossroads, mainly because network communication, like any other electronic communication, depends to a large extent on the reliable availability of the country's infrastructure. I still remember my arrival in Moscow at midnight at the time when Andrei Tarkovsky started filming my novel Solaris. In the supposedly first-class hotel, we went to, you could only order vodka, wholewheat bread, and black caviar as a meal. It seemed to me then that all standards of nutrition in hotel restaurants were turned upside down.

Attempts to introduce some form of censorship online are being pursued in many states with questionable, if not almost futile, successes. It is safe to protect yourself from the invasion of content, images, and texts of any intensity of pernicious immorality, but it is very difficult because the basic principle in building the networks was and remains their lack of center. Thus, the network was to become insensitive to information technology shocks, which of course was not about saving from pornography, but espionage and military attacks. This puts us in the position of a sorcerer's apprentice who unleashed powers that he is no longer able to master.

As is the case with any universally accessible innovation, breaking into the depths of the nets can plunge the user into a manic dependency - and that actually happens. Without leaving the chair in front of the computer, you can lose a fortune in a virtual casino or even on the stock market. Reality is set up so that inverse effects, ie to acquire assets in an aforementioned way, are less likely. There is a lot of talk about less dangerous sides of digital mania, for example, the renaissance of the writing culture is underlined thanks to electronic mail (email). In fact, many letters are written, and they can literally be sent in all directions at lightning speed, which, however, does not make the contents of these letters a whitewash of letters scribbled on bad paper.

The absence of computer minds and even more the nets is compensated by stored data enabling movement in the chosen direction within the mazes of the nets: for a "digital human" there are approximately 1017 bits accumulated by mankind , According to American fragmentary data, a lady who lacked funds to finance her children's study earns eighty thousand dollars a month. The golden rain that the Internet brought her was simply due to sex. Her database, which revolves around the mentioned topic, contains more than fifteen hundred pornographic offers. Newspapers claim that users of both this offer of contact and the supply of images bring her one million dollars a year.

It is not so much about sex. The major publishers such as Bertelsmann are eager to transfer their copyrights into digital space. This room has already created about thirty new occupations and it is underlined that the best users or operators are minors, ie children. If these children at least corresponded with each other, that would not be the worst, because American research has shown that the little ones, who have been spending a lot of time in front of the television since their early years, have a high degree of deficiency in their mother tongue. These are the passive victims of their brains constantly bombarding image information delivered by the TV. So, linking the networks to education, especially those that activate thinking, is desirable.

There were also various virtual creatures (phantoms) to light, such as the existing exclusively in the computer virtual animals. On the other hand, I do not mention the fears created by the temptation offered by countless single and multi-person games, because many books have already been devoted to the danger of the new mania.

From the network, the user can now derive great benefits similar to the computer. I think of sophisticated programs that can mimic intelligence as well as understanding what one says or write about these programs, and that perhaps even one of these programs could succeed in the Turing test. When talking about such achievements, it is all about the so-called good framework contingency, within which one can seem to move freely. Allow me to explain the matter with a simplified example.

Anyone starting a journey from a large train station has a huge jumble of converging and diverging tracks, switches, and turntables. Usually, this is so many that it seems to someone who is naive, such as a child, that in view of the variations made by the number of omnidirectional tracks, he can go in any direction whatsoever. Of course, it is not so, no matter how many ways are opened by the number of tracks. However, if somebody wants to know how and when he can travel from Bonston to Paris at the lowest price - here I am leaving the example - it has been made by the computer, also with a synthetic human voice and at the same time with images on the monitor or as an expression , possible to represent all optimal variants of travel connections.

The person asking for advice is not always aware that, in fact, no one had answered him, he is often inclined to answer: I thank you for the detailed information. It makes as much sense as thanking a chair for not collapsing under the weight of our body. There are already programs that recognize the voice and the language and adapt to individual characteristics of pronunciation. The error rate is getting smaller. There are still many potential possibilities, and perhaps the connections of connections, that is, large constellations of modules that lexical data and their syntactical compilations will lead to the imitation of understanding, which one can hardly distinguish from a real understanding by a layman. In this way, a kind of gray misty zone emerges, behind which a ray of intelligence based on thought begins to shine. However, what covers the surrogates of comprehension, as it seems, still does not encompass the authentic capacity of the human intellect. You could say that in the net or computer, even with the best linguistic program, we are still in a perfect wax museum that has a fairly large behavioral autonomy. So, in the end, the process of reviving Galatea could eventually succeed. However, we are currently a long way from this culmination of the specialists' general efforts.

It is inevitable that Internet opponents come to the fore, who are not necessarily and not always simply regressive. Surely you can be happy without a computer. The best proof is that I wrote a few dozen books on a simple mechanical typewriter without any electronics.

The English dramatist John Osborne said: "The computer represents a logical extension of human development: intelligence without morality". It is true that computers do not know anything about morality because they do not understand anything and therefore can not be placed under moral principles. Let's end with the words of Brigitte Bardot, who said, "Computers are unattractive that they can only say yes or no, but they can not 'maybe' say."Time, however, continues inexorably, and the moment when Mrs. Bardot's words had the aftertaste of a prudent aphorism has already passed. Computers that have operating programs based on probabilistic accounting already exist, but a computer that provides its user with only probabilistic statements will hardly make anyone happy.

The Guardianship of the Computer

The guardianship of the computer

The first steps in the development of an "ethicosphere" have already been made

Before I begin with the matter to which I would like to dedicate this essay, I would like to point out in retrospect that I have sometimes succeeded, including in the works of "fantastic" science fiction, future inventions and discoveries, or their future influence on the earthly Foreseeing civilization, but I have sometimes, as I will show the example of the "ethicosphere", also erred and hit like a shooter, but not exactly the black, but just next to it. The phantasmagoria portrayed as narratives and fables should not normally be literary prophecies. I have not sought to unveil any "true" future, but merely to try to imagine what civilization, which reaches a higher level of development, can do, so that it does not freeze and destroy itself.

Whatever I could think of, it was the result of a search for possible solutions in the technical field, and it was very important to me that I could understand their feasibility myself. Even if at the moment they should appear like a fairytale overcoming of society-threatening conflicts that can be defeated with traditional methods as well as how the police together with the military can stop a volcanic eruption or an earthquake and render it harmless.

Part of the great global dangers is known to be actively caused by technological civilization. For example, chemical fumes heat the climate, resulting in the melting of glaciers and dangerous changes in large areas of the atmosphere. It is also known that there are plans against the harmful technologies that are to be combated by "rescue technologies". However, since the cost of the latter would burden the owners of the former, no one is in any great hurry to implement such saving stabilization measures.

I did not think that big deeds entail big costs but wrongly underestimated this obvious link between investment in innovation and capital investment.

I suppose that humanity would not be indifferent to those processes which threaten its existence. Since someone hungry and eating an apple-roasted duck does not swallow either fork or knife, I thought the same would apply to the largest global scale. However, if my duck consumption is indirectly related to my neighbor having to swallow knives or, less metaphorically, knowing that the agony of geese in rearing does not spoil the appetite for goose liver soaked by a painful fattening, then the matter may uncomfortably complicated. The rule: "What you do not want to be done to you, that does not add to any other", is then no longer true.

However, that was just a side note as I wanted to show how I came up with a technological project beneficial to society and how it began to materialize in our own time. I just add that the Chinese - like children who fly kites - had no idea of ​​the air pressure acting on the kite during gliding and also allowed intercontinental flights of several hundred passengers. Sometimes theory advances practice - especially a game practice - and sometimes theory, as in the case of the hydrogen bomb.

In the novel "Der Lokaltermin", which I started writing in 1970 and published in 1982, you can find the following section:

"Any community that appropriates the forces of nature is beset by dramatic shocks, the desired wealth brings with it undesirable consequences, violence and coercion acquire new forms and reinforcements in the new techniques, and the following relationship seems to arise: the greater the power over the Nature becomes, the greater the social degeneration - and indeed it is so - to a certain limit, which results even from the order of discoveries, that is, from the fact that it is simpler, from nature, its destructive power than its friendly (...) The potential for destruction is becoming a value that can be acquired - this is a new historic threat ... "

The fictitious heroes of my book, the Entians, have begun to use their planet to use nanotechnology to enhance the environment to become their perfectly safe protector.

"With us," says a learned Entian, "there has been a synthesis of the new solids and the new forms of their surveillance, the two pillars of our civilization, we call their union the ethicosphere."

It's about the "molecules of good," that is, "intelligent molecules" that work in such a way that no one could do anything to his neighbor that would be uncomfortable to him, such as driving someone down the street, hitting someone, but killing himself, crushing his vehicle on a concrete pillar, etc. But let's let the Entian continue:

"The saving change is the creation of a system of knowledge that is accessible in its entirety - but not for living beings, since none of them would be able to carry this immense size." (I would add that this is the vision of an Internet containing all the information.) "None of the speckles (the" intelligent molecules ") are single, taken in isolation, universal, but taken altogether are universal. (Protective, SL) Universalism is accessible to everyone, if necessary, these powers can be invoked at any time like a jinn in a fairy tale, but no one can do it directly, because that can only provide 'intelligent molecules' do not use this invisible colossus against another ... "

The "intelligent molecules" are in the book, so to speak, a kind of extension of the universal laws of nature. You can not gain energy out of nothing and you can not exceed the speed of light. The "ethicosphere", on the other hand, means that you can not torment, murder and detain your fellow man against his will. You can not do that to any people on the planet. The "intelligent molecules" even try to resist the forces of nature, eg during a flood. The novel portrays many attempts to outwit "the intelligent molecules" so that they can be abducted, killed or terrorized. But enough here now about "Lokaltermin". If someone wants to know more about the ethics' action methodology, he should use the book himself.

Of course, there is no ethicosphere under the rule of Bill Gates and his empire (Microsoft). These narratives are pure fantasy. But approaches can already be found today. The first flight across the English Channel was ended with a landing in the water, but not quite a hundred years later, the globe could be turned around in one fell swoop. Although the ethicosphere itself hides dangers that are difficult to eliminate completely, the first examples of such "rescue technologies," the first pioneers of the "ethicosphere" and the "intelligently refined environment," appear on the scene. In what shape?

In real shape, for example, as placed on the edges of the highway, computer-controlled systems that send oncoming cars signals that are invisible to the driver and unnoticeable by small onboard computers in the car (which would be just as obligatory as the brake system would be) received, so no vehicle to exceed the speed set for that section of the road. Lawning and overtaking would be impossible, and if an unseen commandment commanded to drive at walking pace, the car would obey, even if the driver ate the steering wheel. Police and emergency vehicles would, of course, be exempt.

There are already devices that determine whether the driver is sober or if he has alcohol in his blood, but the equipment of the vehicles is not compulsory for manufacturers. Similarly, thermal sensors operate in buildings that set fire sprinklers in motion when it becomes alarmingly hot due to the outbreak of a fire. It has also come up with sensors that monitor whether the driver is not drowsy. With the control to observe the eyelids, a corresponding mini computer is busy, which steers the car with the dormant driver on the edge strip and stops. There are many types of immobilizers, but anyone can know how to develop a method, as thieves and experts know. In Saudi Arabia, there has been a heightened level of theft by radically separating the thieves from one hand, which has allegedly helped. I emphasize that I do not advise, but only want to notice that an audible alarm in the car can yell until the battery is empty. A car can be towed backward in a blockage of the transmission stick.

If such passive methods of car protection turn out to be in vain, then active protection arises - single examples for it can be found also in my "Lokaltermin". For example, if a stranger tries to start the car, it can be filled with a milky, opaque smoke. A phone booth will give the one who tries to rob them a neat one on the pear. Incidentally, I do not intend to multiply these actions here, because then it would be about "molecules of beating," that is, "libel," not "intelligent molecules," atoms of ethics that prolong the continuity of the laws of nature.

Similar protections are now proliferating since the network communications of banks, brokers, stock exchanges, corporations, or corporations have devoured billions in investment, and it has since become clear that an Anglo-Saxon rascal "playing" with millions of dollars across continents is destroying an entire consortium can drive. Here you would need programs that work on the well-known Lenin principle: "Trust is good, but control is better." Of course, the software would have to be secure, and in our vale of misery and scandals, it would quickly turn out that we would then enter into a regressus ad infinitum of ever higher control systems. Incidentally, I was by no means only positive sides of the environment improving "Ethikosphäre" demonstrated in the "Lokaltermin". It also has to bring significant negative innovations. If there were no safes, there would be no safe corkers. Even a small child understands that.

I had a comrade in my Lviv grammar school, an athletically trained repetitee, who benefited from our breakfast by always grabbing the best, like the ham or the fruit. So I took a big red apple that I extracted from my father's syringe as far as I could and replaced it with a solution of kitchen soap. During the break, I could watch as the schoolmate flushed foam from his mouth under the tap. Obviously, the idea of ​​protecting food from such attacks already tormented me at that time. I mention this not only as a mere gimmick, as it comes in addition to abductions or death threats to kidnappers, for example in Germany more often attempts to blackmail millions under threat of poisoning of foods (mayonnaise, spices, juices, etc.) in supermarkets. Tiny little objects that cause a loud alarm when someone tries to carry some garment out of the store have been in use for many years, but even counting these alarming elements as "pre-intelligent molecules" is problematic.

There are now chains in use that can not be removed by a convict. The place where he is right now is always visible on the police computer. The human technoethical ingenuity must struggle with human meanness because otherwise there is no solution. Nevertheless, one can already observe today the first approaches, the individual "feelers" of the world under surveillance, supervision, and care of a plethora of computers. At the moment, there is no "computer-craze", that is, a government-machine machine (machine à gouverner) that the Dominican Father Dubarle had derived from Viennese cybernetics as a possibility in 1948 in "Le Monde". Also, there is not yet the Nanobots (Nanoknirpse of Drexler), who are dedicated to the employment of doing good things everywhere.

But let's wait. Intel is already working on the production of chip prototypes that are 100 times smaller than the smallest today and have a bit capacity that is 1,000 times greater. The computing power should be subject to a sudden increase, which would make Deep Blue something of a scooter compared to a Formula 1 car. In addition, the power of Bill Gates has already been endangered by some consortia. The point is, Gates wanted about 40% of the US-equipped households and companies connected to the network using modems to go without their computers. They represent the most expensive part needed to surf the net. Everyone would just have a keyboard and a modem with them. He would have access to computers and operating programs on the network.

The idea is this: not everyone has their own power plant, as it is enough to have a connection to the mains. I have my own small power plant, ie a generator in the garden because the Krakow power plant is rather unreliable. And if you have a lot of devices that are powered by electrical energy, a power-generating device is necessary. For me, the reason is that many overseas television crews come to my house to do interviews, and sometimes the electricity is suddenly "gone." So on this principle, Bill Gates wanted to cheapen the use of the network. However, it was countered with an even cheaper in the implementation idea. After Bill is still a monitor required, but his competitors said: Not necessarily! More than 60% of households in the US have televisions that turn their screens into Internet monitors, and instead of a keyboard, a small console with just a few buttons is enough.The TV screen shows links for programs (banks, travel agencies, etc.) and the user will click on what he needs with a cheap mouse. You would probably need to buy a modem or just borrow it. The difference in costs would amount to a few hundred dollars. These battles in the electronic services market, however, leave me cold: I know that my computer will soon be outdated, because the innovative trend is so fast at the moment. In any case, I think that you can already follow the sprouts of the ethicosphere.

Why do I dare to introduce the external speed limiters (which are the administrative imperatives of road traffic engineering), the weapons smuggling "defeaters" (security entrances) at airports or the "driving inhibitors" of the drunk drivers as the groundbreaking beginnings of the "ethicosphere"?Because we are surrounded by more and more devices that monitor us and that reduce personal freedom and thus the extent of individual responsibility for our actions. We are slowly coming under the tutelage of computer systems that seemingly increase our space of freedom, but in reality - supposedly for our benefit - reduce it.

Written in October 1997