Smart fish

Recent finding (1) that archerfish demonstrates facial recognition, likely over and above the most hyped up AI technology, is a constant reminder that humans are not very smart. Their Silicon infused technologies have led them astray and their ego has gotten them blind and incompetent. It is not the count of brain cells nor the ratio of the brain weight to that of the body weight that matters. It is how you use it and the human is the most unlikely candidate for efficient use of her endowment.

As the search, operating system and hardware monopolists with infinite access to capital prove that they can create racism on Twitter (as if that needed proof) and play games like no human has done before, it is important to be aware of basic notions of intelligence. It is not deep mind, however superb that "great," mind is playing star wars, it is not alpha go, however awesome a go player she really is, it is not deep blue, in spite of the domination of arbitrary chess boards and guess game in Jeopardy - intelligence has nothing to do with any of these games that old men and women play. The archerfish can recognize a human face from any angle without any evolutionary specialization and she has very few resources.

Humans appear to be held back because of their own progress. It is an oxymoron, for the contemporary crop seems to have forgotten what got them here. As the whales and parrots mimic human speech, as the great apes sit and wonder what has gone wrong with the universe, as the elephants visit the spot where their companion fell to mourn, as the pigs play and sleep together in a harmonious community, as the dolphins attempt to guide, as the dogs attempt to rationalize, as the octopus hide, as the squirrels save and as the crows make tools, we have a species that hate, kill and destroy their own habitat.

Not too smart.

(1) https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/fishy-smarts-archerfish-can-recognize-human-faces-in-3-d/

Plan S

As ignorant politicians battle against each other to make the world worse, there is a movement afoot that could move humanity closer to a positive slope of advancement. It is ironic as the undemocratic countries sign on to an idea of open science, the "advanced democracies," stay on the sidelines. There are good reasons for this as money make many "scientists," go blind and the rest seek fame, tenure and Nobel prizes by hiding their research, funded by the public.

It is time for Plan S (1). Knowledge should not be bottled up even for money and fame. This is especially true if such money and fame came from funded research by the public. The racket has been widespread - authors, publishers and "peer reviewers," - an in-bred community who do not understand the world at large. They assert they are "elite," and know everything. They attempt to teach at universities with singular metrics for performance that counts the number of "publications." Such manufactured research, akin to sausage making, moves us back and not forward.

It is time for Plan S. For nearly half a million years, homo-sapiens progressed across unknown terrains by sharing information freely. They collaborated, brain-stormed and advanced thinking. The academic sham has put an end to human progress as they protect marginal increments in knowledge to extract economic rents. They pretend to teach but only those who do not understand their "research." They "advise," but only those who do not recognize the shallowness of their knowledge. They "influence," policy as if they can see the future and they look down on the rest.

It is time for Plan S. If you discovered something with public money, it is for the public and not for you.

(1) https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2019/01/will-world-embrace-plan-s-radical-proposal-mandate-open-access-science-papers

Wearing the inside out

A precise definition of consciousness eluded humanity forever. As she stood up in the African Savannah for the first time and took a peak at the star-studded Southern sky, unobstructed by light pollution, she knew there was something more than tactical optimization of a narrow objective function that included food, sex and survival. Consciousness appears to have originated from the individual abstracting herself from the immediate and visible context. Thus, a conscious individual will be more prone to abstraction such as art, literature and music and will be less adept at prescriptive notions as perpetuated by science and technology. It is likely that the industries that drive the economy has less aggerate consciousness compared to society.

As "artificial intelligence," accelerates with a battle being fought on the margins to make machines, "conscious," the technologists have to understand that one cannot impart a property to an object without a clear definition of the property. Consciousness is clearly not appearing, talking and behaving like a human (or a dog), but rather an ability to abstract. Dogs are likely more imaginative than most humans and they are possibly more conscious. A narrow objective function will constrain the originator and most of the world's human population is struggling to cope. The luxury of time to think is an important nourishing aspect of consciousness.

Then, a more important question is whether consciousness is utility enhancing for the individual. A conscious human being will have a higher level of pain as she attempts to optimize within a complex and uncertain context. A conscious individual will not limit her thoughts to countries, religions, races or education. A conscious individual will not extinguish another, be unfair, seek localization and become narcissistic. A conscious individual will seek to unite rather than divide, seek freedom and achieve happiness within a finite time horizon.

Humans do not seem to have very high levels of consciousness nor do they have a definition for it.

Singularity, revisited

As fragmentation rules the status-quo, as hatred defines actions and policies, as incompetence dominates, as ignorance prevails, as uncertainty thumps the known and the deterministic, as science ignores religion, as religion seeks to kill science, as technologists travel to the street for money to invest, as financiers travel to the technologists to fill their sack, as musicians shout and cry without meaning, as cops kill, as the white, black and brown assert why they matter, as the politicians who went to drain the swamp, poison it, as the markets crash, as the homeless shiver, as the sea rises and crashes into the coasts to eliminate life, as the academics write papers of irrelevance, as the doctors attempt to keep their patients on life support, as the physicists make theories of nothing, as the engineers make meaningless inventions, as the graduates of the best schools get elevated in spite of their criminal backgrounds, as the bureaucrat in the lonely island gets lost in separation logic, as the elite drink wine and the rest beer, as the handsome horse rider plans the next intervention, as the purveyor of non-capitalism deals with the one who does not understand capitalism, as the religious leaders lock up their positions by attempting to eliminate those with a different faith, as the ancient island loses humans in droves, as the technologists spread private data as if it is Halloween candy, as the consultants assert they know everything and the investment bankers assert they have all the money, as the universities attempt to recruit the best and the brightest of certain shades, as some dole out tax relief and others take it back, as entrepreneurs struggle and monopolists win, as the young and confused battle against the old and weary, as some try to burn anything that burns and others try to save the burning residue, as the powerful kill those with information and the most powerful stand silently behind, as the world spins in distress in spite of the many exo-planet discoveries, we have reached a discontinuity.

I suspect, this was not the singularity they have been waiting for.