Sinister design - part eight: AI

You can read part seven by following this link.

People polarize even on technological issues. Politics and the media, as usual, are grateful.

Take the debate on the social impacts of so-called artificial intelligence.
As Kate Crawford points out in her Atlas of AI, there are two dominant views of technology: one utopian, the other dystopian.
So people tend to line up, more or less, in the two corresponding camps: on one side, those who see AI as a source of universal solutions to any problem; on the other, those who fear the advent of the so-called "singularity," the superhuman intelligence that will enslave us.

Polarized, as usual. And, as usual, victims of oversimplifications of a complex reality, which, on top of that, doesn't need to wait for some more or less distant future to unleash the chaos it's made of.
The effects of AI, which this polarization tends to distract general attention from, are in fact already here, right now: reckless use of mineral, water, and energy resources, exploitation of underpaid labor, extraction of private data without consent, as well as classification of that same data along dimensions that serve the interests and needs of political, economic, and military power, thereby reinforcing existing inequalities and injustices and generating new ones.

It's the same old story: citizens polarize around appealing, easily understood visions set in the future, while the very thing they're polarizing over gets used against their interests in an underhanded, opaque, and, above all, immediate way.

You can find the other installments of the "Sinister design" saga by following this link.

Drafted from Italian with Blog Translator, then revised by me.

Twenty-five hundred years of philosophy flushed down the toilet

As with domestic politics, international conflicts, even court cases, so with protest marches: same story.

On one side: "The police arbitrarily and systematically charge peaceful people who aren't doing anything wrong. It always happens!"
On the other: "With the police, no ifs, ands, or buts, always!"
That ubiquitous always, used, precisely, always.

Most of the population irreparably polarized along the fault line of a reality simplified in a tragicomically Manichean way. And at every level: from the factory worker to the politician, from the clerk to the executive, from the student to the professor, from the reader to the writer. The teachers indoctrinate and the pupils fall in line: on this side of the rift or that.

There are the good guys (us) and the bad guys (them). Grendizer and Vega. Japanese cartoons. Anyone who stops to think is lost, sidelined, ignored, or laughed at. Twenty-five hundred years of Western philosophy (but also Eastern, Southern, and Northern) flushed down the toilet.

Here they are, our intellectuals: the prophets. And here's the result: their disciples.

Drafted from Italian with Blog Translator, then revised by me.

Simplified Complexity: Politics vs. Technology

Just as politics and the media cater to the ordinary person's need to be reassured, reducing a reality that is in fact complex and hard to grasp to simplified patterns — case (1), so the classification of the data used to train machine-learning systems (that is, AI) simplifies a complex reality to make it more computable, and therefore better suited to the needs of the market, of politics, and of the military — case (2).

The consequences are atrocious in both cases.

In case (1), people who live in this reassuring imaginary layer, simplified by design, build their lives, private and public, on false premises.

In case (2), technological applications, used in the pivotal areas of society, learn and interpret reality on premises that are just as false.

I'll take the liberty of summing up the situation in a few lines of verse with, let's say, a rather popular flavor.

Shit's sour over there (1)
and shit's bitter over here. (2)
Of sweet among this shit (1, 2)
there ain't a single shit. (0)

Drafted from Italian with Blog Translator, then revised by me.

it's their fault!

let's all polarize
let's pry the wound open
let's spread the plague
let's swell the abscess

with hasty judgments
simplify the chaotic
binarize the multiple
manicheanize the binary

let's sniff out enemies
dig deeper trenches
shoot at each other
insults, then bombs

let's plant in the peace
furrowed by war
the seed of a war
for us bored with peace

then as we die
weapon in hand
let's raise our arm
pointing the finger

and with the last breath
that snuffs out the heart
let's scream it out loud:
it's their fucking fault!

Drafted from Italian with Blog Translator, then revised by me.

A couple of hours

In a couple of hours,
or maybe less,
a gray desolation
became a rainbow.

Understanding without enlisting

Let's run an experiment: for a week, let's jot down the topics people talk about around us, at the bar, in the town square, at the office. Gaza and Tel Aviv, Kyiv and Moscow, Tehran and Washington, whatever general is in the news. They've read three headlines and already handed down a verdict. Then let's notice how often people talk about the condo's boiler, the city budget, the waiting list for an MRI. Faraway wars matter, sure, but we have no way of checking them firsthand and no leverage over them — and meanwhile, plenty is going on right here at home.

The mechanism pays off: it generates attention, clicks, viewers, and votes. Politicians and the media chase whatever pays, and debate over a faraway conflict — easy to oversimplify, hard to verify — pays. I call it Sinister design, because the diversion works and the effect is dark.

Look, I'm not saying we should only worry about what's on our own doorstep. There are structural problems we can check for ourselves, and politicians have to answer for them. Artificial intelligence and robotics, for example: we all use them, and we can already feel their impact on society. And then there's the future of the job market, of pensions and wages. There are no sides to root for here, just issues to be managed. If we sweep them under the rug because they don't lend themselves to polarization, sooner rather than later we'll find ourselves facing an emergency, with decisions already made by others.

So before we raise our voices about a topic, let's ask ourselves three questions.
Are we giving credit to a claim whose validity we can verify directly, without relying on secondhand sources? If the answer is no, we have to suspend judgment.
Are we trying to pick out the good guys and the bad guys inside a tangle? Two-line explanations reassure us more than they hold up, whereas accepting chaos is exhausting but keeps us from falling victim to obsessions, dystopias, and assorted spin doctors.
Does this news inform us or stir us up? If it leaves us outraged, moved, or ready to pick a fight, it may be recruiting us instead of helping us understand: it's emotional (dis)information. And that goes for mainstream and anti-mainstream alike.

But then why always and only the same sides? There are plenty more in the world. That certain crises touch us more than others — for reasons of history, energy, alliances, or borders — may well be true: the subject matter concerns us. That this entitles us to root for Palestinians or Israelis, Russians or Ukrainians, Iranians or Americans, no. Justice and rights don't have a passport. Other wars and other minorities stay out of the main event, and not because they're a second-rate matter, simply because they draw a smaller audience. That isn't justice, or defending rights: it's self-interested selection. Learning more about certain crises — as subject matter that touches us — makes sense. Picking a side doesn't.

Here's my advice. If an issue fails the three tests above, let's not give in to cynical indifference, but let's not swallow partisan propaganda either. Understanding the subject is fair game; rooting for a side isn't. As for the time to choose and act, let's spend that on what we can verify.

I'm writing a saga about this, Sinister design. Start from the first installment or filter them all by label, then make up your own mind: don't let yourself be influenced, not even by me.

Drafted from Italian with Blog Translator, then revised by me.

The cheap excuse of age

City life is tailor-made for the young, especially after a certain hour. And that's as it should be. That's the tendency, not a hard rule.
Here's the problem I see: people of a certain age read this tendency as a ban, a prohibition on taking part in the city's social life, especially the nightlife.

This holds true even for those who, while no longer young, aren't exactly old either, and who still have a real emotional and psychological need — and the human right — to enjoy social activities of every kind. Not just the usual four couples of friends in the living room or down in the basement rec room. I mean really throwing yourself into the fray, among strangers, music, colors.

To justify themselves, they invent excuses, fooling themselves more than whoever's listening: I'm old, I'm tired, I'm not into the music, I can't handle alcohol anymore. And yet they risk a heart attack running or cycling in the hills on Sunday morning, polish off bottles of wine and whisky alone, and sink into drunken, melancholy thoughts in front of the fireplace, listening to Albano, Ricchi e Poveri, and Pooh, blubbering out of despair more than emotion.

I don't give a damn. I know the city is made for the young. But by law, IDs get checked to keep minors from drinking, not to ship fifty-year-olds home. If it isn't forbidden, I claim my right to take part. Not always, but not too rarely either. Mind you, I don't sneak into college parties like I did thirty years ago. I pick places, venues, and occasions, and if they pass the test, I jump in.

At times it feels like everything and everyone is telling you to go back home, you pathetic old shit. It's a feeling: it's our damned, dysfunctional, misplaced sense of inadequacy talking. Just shut it up. And if someone really does look at you that way: walk on by, he's the asshole.

Hang in there, don't give up. Sometimes, at some point, something happens, a small thing maybe, but one that hadn't happened in a long time. Then you realize that the kid you used to be, you still are to this day. When you get home you find yourself elated: "So it can still happen!" In front of the fireplace you pop open a cold beer, the last one, the umpteenth. You crank up Moby or Daft Punk. And what's slightly salting your beer are tears of joy.

Like I said, I don't give a damn, and I keep at it. If no place inspires me, worst case I take a nice long walk: Italian cities at night, without bewildered tourists or busy residents, are even more beautiful. I'll stay home when my brain or body has turned to mush. When I no longer need a cheap excuse to stay stuck in bed or in an armchair.

P.S. In Bangkok, it has to be said, it's easier than in Padova.

Drafted from Italian with Blog Translator, then revised by me.