The Harrow Technology Report for Oct. 7, 2002

[Yet] what Backus described as a fantasy is a thumbnail
definition of genetic programming, now a hot field in
computer science [called 'Aspect-oriented programming']."

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,4149,429437,00.asp

The "improbable" or the "impractical," takes only a little longer...

The entire series of articles from the
Sept. 3 PC Magazine and accessible from the
expanding Table of Contents near the top-right
of each page, is a very interesting read.
(With thanks to reader Mike Drabicky.)

Back to Table of Contents

"What's Next," Redux.

More than a few of you commented on last issue's article where we explored Ian Pearson's paper, "What's Next" (http://www.theharrowgroup.com/articles/
20020923/20020923.htm#_Toc20372102). So here's a sampling of your thoughtful commentary, including a response from Ian:

· Are The Machines ALREADY In Charge? -- Commenting on the problems I had with distributing the Sept 23 issue (sending zero copies to some of you, and five or more to others, which we've now determined was caused by a combination of hardware and software issues), reader SF Whitaker uses this comedy of errors to support his contention that, in some ways, the machines have ALREADY taken over:

"As usual, I enjoyed reading [the issue], although the thought of machines running amuck around the world is pretty chilling. Sounds like the next big area in IT security will be to find ways to protect us from our machines.

Maybe there is a "genetic code" that can be built into all of them so that they automatically short-circuit if they get out of hand. Of course, then you get the hackers and the outright terrorists who will be looking at ways to subvert the machines, which increases the danger of it all getting completely out of hand..."

Then again, although not exactly "a machine," reader Grant Perkins points out that:

"The Mayan calendar stops in 2012 I believe, on December 23rd, I think I read.

Now the Mayans did know a thing or two about planetary movement and so on, so maybe we do stand a good chance of being witnesses to the final stage of human development. Perhaps I should stop paying in to the pension fund? ;-)"

Let's hope it doesn't come to any of those disaster scenarios. But as Ian Pearson discussed in his paper (http://www.theharrowgroup.com/articles/
20020923/20020923.htm#_Toc20372102), it just doesn't make sense to play the ostrich game. Making sure we don't engineer our own high tech demise is ALL of our responsibilities!

· Or, Are We ALREADY Their Slaves? -- In his paper (http://www.theharrowgroup.com/articles/
20020923/20020923.htm#_Toc20372102), Ian Pearson commented, in part, that:

"One day there will be little left that only we can do, and by then, machines will be able to do many things that we will be unable to do! It would seem unlikely that human-level intelligence is the maximum possible level, and there is little reason to believe that machines will stop improving when they start approaching human levels. Soon, most knowledge will be machine knowledge, and most of the systems on which we all depend will only be understood by machines."

Reader Stuart MacDonald took some umbrage with this, which is worth exploring. He said:

"This isn't true. Any modern design task can be done without computers, the base information and technology is well-understood. It'd just take a long time.

What the author of the quote is talking about is... well, here's an example:

I read sometime in the last year on the net about some engineers who'd taken an FPGA, given it some basic code which was a genetic algorithm, and let it run. The algorithm "evolved" the unused areas of the FPGA to become a DSP (Digital Signal Processor) of some sort.

After a while, the final chip was quite good at its particular DSPing, and the engineers took a look. They could see different sections of the evolved area doing different things, and off in the corner was this one cell that was powered, but otherwise unconnected. So they removed the power to that cell, and the DSP as a whole stopped working!

They did not understand how the apparently unhelpful cell could cause this change. I hesitate to say that the base software understood it either, but *that's* the sort of knowledge that is only understood by machines.

Come to think of it; this may have been from a previous issue of your report." [It was indeed, in http://www.compaq.com/rcfoc/
20010514.html#_Toc514052813 .]

My response to Stuart:

"Good point Stuart, yet the way I read your comments, I see your views actually supporting Ian's paper, and the FPGA story, when you said:

"...the base information and technology is well-understood. It'd just take a long time."

The point is that without the computers to aid in the design, it WOULD be uneconomic to do the work, and that's just TODAY.

Regarding your point about the FPGA, it solidifies what's going to be happening in near tomorrows -- as you said, we have no idea why that lone cell is important, yet it is critical. And this is just a very simple example of self-programming. What happens when millions or billions of FPGA cells are called upon to solve problems with self-evolving code? I would suspect that the results will be FAR too complex for us to practically understand -- and so how would we be able to validate that there were NOT any rogue elements in the program?

Many experts, such as National Medal of Technology recipient Ray Kurzweil, do expect that the complexity of our machines will pass practical (if not possible) human understanding, because human brains grow only linearly (slowly), while our machines develop exponentially. That means that our machines will continue to approach, and then to widen the gap in their favor, between human intelligence, and their -- well -- machine intelligence...

My thanks to Stuart, and to each of you who expands our thinking by commenting on articles in The Harrow Technology Report!

· The Dark Side Of Tomorrow! -- Following up on the previous points, when I was discussing the "AI-Based Crime" section of Ian Pearson's paper, which explores the possible dark sides of the future (http://www.theharrowgroup.com/articles/
20020923/20020923.htm#_Toc20372102), I commented that:

"Intelligent computers that could self-evolve their computer code could revolutionize the still slow, human-intensive, expensive, and "artistic" rather than "scientific" way that we code most computer programs today. But if this task is eventually taken over by computers, will we really know (or be able to figure out) what the program is ACTUALLY doing?

Combine this threat with the growing number of "distributed processing applications," such as SETI@home, and the growing number of "media sharing" networks. Now, imagine adding "exploits" into those distributed programs, either by nefarious human programmers or as unintended side effects of computer-generated code... suddenly, supercomputer power becomes available to perform hidden tasks!"

Well, it didn't take long for something like this threat to materialize in the form of the "Slapper.C" worm that is busily conscripting Linux system into an invisible, worldwide,

"... large peer-to-peer network of other infected servers. Infected servers scan for other Web hosts to infect, and coordinate with other infected hosts using one of a number of UDP ports."

This is not quite the same thing I was talking about in the previous article, since (as far as I know, so far) the Slapper.C worm is not self-evolving. But it is merrily using a flaw in Linux's SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) code to install itself and then 'reach out and touch' other systems to further expand this hidden network. The end result is that this worm already performs one important element of the danger that I was describing,

"Suddenly, supercomputer power becomes available to perform hidden tasks!"

And this is only the beginning -- you might want to develop an ongoing relationship with a GOOD forensic computer security firm!

· Are We "Projecting" Human Emotions Onto Our Machines? -- Finally, reader Joao de Carvalho wonders:

"This idea of machines revolting against humans and killing them is quite naive. We are just projecting human things into the machines. It supposes that the will to dominate is intrinsic to all intelligent systems. Humans just want to dominate because this is programmed in their brains by natural selection."

To which Ian Person responded:

"Hi Joao, thanks for your interest in this. I hear similar objections to AI based threats almost every day but they miss the point a bit. I don't think I'm assuming that machine intelligence will have any predictable biases at all, and certainly am not assuming it will be anything like human intelligence. Because many future machines will evolve, there will most probably be a very diverse range of abilities and 'attitudes' within the many varieties of machine intelligence.

There will not all be a [machine] monoculture as far as their attitudes to humans go. We can certainly hope that at least some future machines will be helpful to us, but we cannot guarantee that all will. If we are really lucky, they might decide collectively that it is their mission in life to assist all lower life forms, but I'm not willing to stake my life on such luck.

There is absolutely no need to assume deliberate aggression, a will to dominate or any other harmful intent before smart machines can become dangerous to us. I don't have anything in particular against the creatures that used to live on the land that my house is built on - they just happened to be in the way and were further down my priority list than having somewhere nice for my family to live. I didn't count their needs and rights as being as important as my own.

Superhuman machines are a potential threat because they will have superior capabilities that are not subordinate to us. We cannot expect to have absolute control over them so we would exist only with their consent - if we compete or get in their way, or if they simply don't like us, we will be at their mercy. It is surely wishful thinking to assume that all possible superior intelligences would be benevolent, so without absolute control, we are taking a big risk.

They might not have human nature, but we have no idea what nature they will have. Suggesting caution in these circumstances is not naive. Hoping that it won't happen and it will all work out well in the end isn't much protection.

Ian"

The bottom line? There are many ways that our joint man-woman-machine future may evolve. But if we don't constantly keep asking these important, critical questions, then the self-evolving machine elements of our future will overtake us with little warning, and with little of our input to provide guidance and control.

Just look at the results of the past 30 or so years of Moore's Law and the resultant exponential technology growth curves -- can you be comfortable that many of the ideas that Ian brought to this table are NOT somewhere 'over the rainbow' of these exponential curves?

Don't Blink!

Back to Table of Contents

"Internet-In-The-Sky -- Crashing Down To Earth."

Image - "Mourning" - ribbon image from a pin offered at http://www.stockpins.com/d09.html .

It's a very sad tale, but after twelve years toward an anticipated "turn-on" date of 2005, the board of directors of Teledesic (the innovative high-flying plan to loft over 200 satellites into low-Earth orbit to provide high-speed, low-latency data across the entire surface of our globe) has effectively put "...the ambitious idea into deep hibernation," according to an Oct. 2 AP story (http://apnews.excite.com/article/20021003/D7MDQ1SG0.html).

Work on the first two satellites has been halted, and even its well-heeled investors such as Bill Gates and Craig MCaw have thrown in the towel, given current market conditions and the telecom meltdown.

Personally, I'm saddened by this, because Teledesic was SO ambitious, and had SO much potential to spread the Internet far beyond today's wired infrastructure; it would have been a world-changing service. But perhaps there is still some future hope. According to telecom research firm The Carmel Group's VP Sean Badding,

"Teledesic still has tremendous amounts of potential in the future... In the next seven to eight years it clearly is going to be a different story."

I do hope this story is rewritten in that manner, because Teledesic certainly has the power to help "first-world" countries.

But perhaps even more importantly, it holds even greater potential to give the citizens of developing countries an opportunity to share in the Internet, and hence in the global wealth.

I wonder -- might this be a showcase project to be funded and shepherded by the United Nations?

Back to Table of Contents

Your Feedback is Important!

I'd like to understand your interest in The Harrow Technology Report, how you make use of it, and the value you feel it provides to you, your career, and to your company.

Please send your comments to me at Jeff@TheHarrowGroup.com .

I look forward to hearing from you!

And, if you know of other folks who might find value in "The Harrow Technology Report," I'd appreciate your letting them know that they can subscribe at http://www.theharrowgroup.com/signup.asp .

Jeff Harrow

Back to Table of Contents

"All Thumbs."

Finally, if you've ever felt clumsy, or "all thumbs," then consider the plight of video game players who diligently and furiously exercise their thumbs on game controllers. According to a March 24 article in the UK's "The Observer" (http://www.observer.co.uk/Print/0,3858,4380633,00.html), a study conducted in nine cities worldwide by Dr. Sadie Plant of the Cybernetic Culture Research Unit of Warwick University, has found that serious gamers' thumbs are now "…the hand's most muscled and dexterous digit." She continues,

"The fact that our thumbs operate differently from our fingers is one of the main things that defines us as humans. Discovering that the younger generation has taken to using thumbs in a completely different way and are instinctively using it where the rest of us use our index fingers is particularly interesting."

The Corporate Side.

Of course "corporate types" are not immune to this change to the human form -- "keypadders," or those using their thumbs to send Email or text messages through devices such as the Blackberry or mobile phones, are displaying a similar trait.

The Human Culture Side.

Japan has taken to mobile phone messaging through "thumbing" tiny keyboards, in a big way. So much so that the under-25 set calls themselves "The Thumb Generation!"

Change, Where We Might Least Expect It.

So where will this lead? Will natural selection eventually result in changes to our genome favoring better developed thumbs? It might, considering that in some countries, text messaging has already become part of the mating ritual. In others, you might "get noticed" more for a spiffy cell phone than for a racy convertible.

Human culture doesn't change as quickly as the exponential technology growth we've come to expect, yet these examples do demonstrate that the ever-faster technological changes do cause cultures to change far more rapidly than in our past.

Who said that technology doesn't change things human? It seems, rather, that Technology's Moore's Law exponential growth does indeed, if indirectly, speed up changes to human culture, as well!

About "The Harrow Technology Report."

"The Harrow Technology Report" explores the innovations and trends of many contemporary and emerging technologies, and then draws some less than obvious connections between them, to help us each survive and prosper in the Knowledge Age.

"The Harrow Technology Report" is brought to you by Jeffrey R. Harrow, Principal of The Harrow Group. http://www.TheHarrowGroup.com .

Where To Find "The Harrow Technology Report:"

Via Email -- Sign up for automatic delivery of this journal (which you can also use as a notification that a new issue is available on the Web, if you prefer to read it there), by one of these methods:
- The fastest and easiest method is to go to this Web page http://www.theharrowgroup.com/signup.asp and follow its instructions.

Or,

- Send an Email message to TheHarrowGroup@SendMeMore.Net with the word SUBSCRIBE in the Subject line.
On The Web -- You can, of course, also read this journal directly on the Web at www.TheHarrowGroup.com .
- Additionally, to support automated access schemes, the most current issue of the journal will always be available at this persistent link: www.TheHarrowGroup.com/current.htm .

Copyright (c) 2001-2005, Jeffrey R. Harrow. All rights reserved.

Jeffrey R. Harrow maintains that all reasonable care and skill has been used in the compilation of this publication. However, he shall not be under any liability for loss or damage (including consequential loss) whatsoever or howsoever arising as a result of the use of this publication by the reader, his/her/its servants, agents or any third party.

All third-party trademarks are hereby acknowledged.

LISTEN To This Issue.

Quote of the Week.

"What's Next," Redux.

"Internet-In-The-Sky -- Crashing Down To Earth."

"All Thumbs."

About "The Harrow Technology Report."