Research computer

Recent work by Emory mathematician, Ken Ono, finds further explanation and meaning in the work of Ramanujan, who died nearly a century ago. Applications stretch in many directions including explaining some behavior of certain types of black holes. This illustrates that ground breaking insights originate from pure imagination even in the absence of a formal education and proven tools. More importantly, it is possible that systematization of education, tools and processes is at the heart of declining productivity in true insight generation.

Most of today’s science is geared toward proving a stated hypothesis. This is akin to manufacturing – execution of a defined and specified process, that includes design of experiments, data gathering, statistical analysis and hypothesis testing. Indeed, humanity is fast approaching the “singularity,” in which computers can be trained to conduct research better than themselves, for the research process is the most systematized and computer programmable than anything else. It is possible that the first type of Artificial Intelligence that may become practical is a research computer, able to design studies, collect data, analyze, test and prove a hypothesis given to it. Such a machine, however, will be incapable of imagination and insight generation. So, it may walk, move objects and conduct research, but it will never sleep, weep or dream.

Perhaps, the “singularity,” that many look forward to is related to a complete elimination of imagination from the human psyche.

Size matters

Recent research from the University of Sweden demonstrates that a larger brain is expensive for biological entities and it compromises the size of the gut and reproductive ability. Using a study on guppies, they show that the increased cognitive abilities of a large brain comes with significant energy demand. Similarly, In humans,the brain that makes up only 2% of the total mass consumes over 20% of the available energy, starving other organs.

Given this data, it is unclear why evolution will push in the direction of aiding the growth of the most inefficient organ in the body, especially if it substantially affects the ability to reproduce. Large brains have unambiguously pushed humans, other primates, dolphins and whales to smaller family structures, increasing the risk of extinction. Humans, for example, was nearly wiped out with less than a few thousand samples surviving through an incredible bottleneck.

Many have considered natural selection, an effective way to optimize systems. Data show this may not be true. Optimizing locally, allowing certain participants to gain advantage over others in short time horizons have long term deleterious effects on the survival of the species. In the case of humans, the large brain seems to have done further damage as individuals in an attempt at maximizing utility locally and within their life spans have accelerated the destruction of the environment, paving the way to extinction.

Size matters – an evolutionary accident and myopic natural selection processes have aided the development of an inefficient and ineffective organ, that will drive the species to extinction.

Bonobo Facebook

Recent research from Duke University shows that bonobos are much more sophisticated in social networking than humans. Past several thousand years of clan behavior has left the humans with distinct disadvantages in the modern world. In every realm, it has been shown that humans prefer to interact and share with those they know. Discrimination and racism – somewhat crude manifestations of the same deficiency – a proclivity to share with known individuals than those who are strangers, may have a significant negative impact on the world economy.

Bonobos appear to be different. They prefer to share (food in this case) with strangers than known friends and family. This allows them to extend their social network faster than otherwise. This is a highly sophisticated behavior that maximizes long term utility, that most humans appear to be incapable of doing. It has also been shown that bonobos are less likely to share anonymously compared to humans. This further illustrates that the behavior is driven by strategy with an understanding of long term and system effects.The behavior of humans in social networking channels further illustrate this handicap. Most connections seem to clump closely, paralleling clan behavior, indicating that it will be difficult for humans to get rid of this baggage. Xenophobia and prevalent resistance to free markets, trade and immigration are also manifestations of the same issue.

Accelerating social software have not improved the human firmware – that is likely to remain rigid for the foreseeable future, capping economic growth and welfare.

Society initiated disease

A recent study from the University of Cambridge that shows a clear link between the incidence of schizophrenia and deprivation, population density & societal inequality poses an important question. Do all mental health issues have an underlying cause? Are the individuals from a sick society more likely to develop mental diseases?

Lack of education, employment and income (deprivation), high crime and  inequality (the gap between rich and poor) are characteristics of urban societies with generally high population density. Although cause and effect cannot be fully teased out, the high correlation seen between mental diseases and these types of habitats suggest, at the very least, a strong environmental effect on mental diseases. Treatment of CNS disorders by chemical means has been controversial. For example, a recent report shows that the perpetrators of the last two dozen mass killings in the US were on medication. If the environment is the primary cause of mental health issues, then, both the diagnosis and the treatment of these diseases need to be rethought.

More importantly, society has to assess the total cost of design and redesign. If the status-quo designs lead to segmentation in which certain parts of the system unavoidably pick up higher levels of deprivation, density and inequality and related high costs due to mental diseases, it is important to consider alternatives. The self reinforcing nature of sick societies leading to sicker inhabitants means that breaking this cycle is hard. Investing into improving these environments and their characteristics could have high return to society if all costs are considered.

The apparent connection between mental health and societal characteristics is an important notion. Both researchers and policy-makers need to consider this in their work.

Error correction

A recent study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences demonstrates that birds are able to correct small errors in their songs but not large ones. In fact, a threshold fault can be demonstrated beyond which there is no recovery. If we abstract this for complex systems, it points to many different implications.

Arrival of errors within certain thresholds, is easier for complex organizations to correct. This seemingly obvious conclusion has many practical applications. It has been shown that small errors in airplane cockpits happen on average once every 10 minutes, giving ample time for correction. So the best way to avoid catastrophic failures is to divide aggregate error in chunks and feed to decision-makers so that correction is optimal. This is true in airplane cockpits, companies and policy-making bodies. The inability of the bird brain and presumably the human brain to correct large errors should be considered in all available designs.

Decisions can be optimized by dividing aggregate error into packets of manageable size spread over manageable time.

Stable pairing

The Gale-Shapely algorithm that showed stable and optimal pairing in a multi-period game was the basis of this year’s Nobel Prize in Economics.  This demonstrates that experiments and thought processes based on market economics is the best way to advance knowledge. Market design and game theory have much to offer for better policy-making as well. Corrupting theory with such artifacts, however, is a dangerous but necessary game.

The current stalemate in Washington, over an artificial and over-articulated fiscal cliff is the case in point. Although policy-makers are not equipped with a level of competence that will make the game possible, what is needed here are better auctions. Mechanisms have to be designed for auctions of policy priorities within the policy-makers’ sphere of influence and the country at large. What is at stake is a trade-off, a transfer of wealth across generations and uncertainty in growth patterns that can be influenced by allocation of capital among private and public users. A market price of policy alternatives has to be revealed and a pragmatic auction process needs to be designed to move toward better outcomes.

Leaving complex policy choices to a handful of idiots in the nation’s capital is neither optimal nor practical.

The elusive truth

A recent colloquium conducted by the Kavli Institute for Cosmological Physics at the University of Chicago seems to take much relief from the fact that more physicists take the research on dark matter seriously. Some have also expressed hope that we are closing in on the answer. Such optimism may be premature.

Dark matter, energy and flow – mere abstract plugs to make the equations work within the accepted framework to account for observations – may be simply delaying the inevitable. Exponentially growing data have been aiding the feeding frenzy and every budding experimentalist around the world has been striving to find the predetermined truth – the verification of the existence of “dark matter.” Just as the Higgs Boson appeared out of the blues – some even willing to sweep aside the fact that the measurements do not quite agree or may point to a duality – it is almost certain that dark matter is about to pour out of the collection bins, spring loaded for an ejection. Such is the state of science, that questioning theory has become unfashionable and accepting uncertain experimental evidence for the stated hypothesis, the norm.

As the world nourishes another generation of tacticians, willing and able to prove the obvious and unwilling and unable to challenge the questionable, we simply sink to higher ignorance.

Removing the human

A recent report from the National Research Council asserts that a lack of national consensus on the priorities of NASA, has held the agency back. This is certainly true as this has resulted in both uncertainty in funding and reduced objectivity in the selection and design of programs. The problem faced by NASA is nothing new – the agency requires a top-down portfolio management process that maximizes societal utility, assuming that is the objective function to maximize.

Take the human spaceflight program for example. NASA has not been able to demonstrate the need and the value of such programs but traditionalists both inside and outside the agency always introduce these designs into the portfolio without any valuation criteria. The current objective of landing a human on an asteroid is bizarre and it points to picking design features to satisfy all participants – scientists, politicians and propeller heads. Dumb politicians want to send people to the Moon to mine and others to Mars to colonize. What is disappointing is that the level headed scientists and engineers at the agency will play along with these ideas just to capture the funding.

It is time NASA was held to a higher standard – that of market based economics. It has to show how value to society is maximized by the portfolio of programs it is pursuing. This valuation has to consider significant tail risks that exist for humanity from an asteroid collision as well as the huge benefits that can accrue from understanding physics more deeply. Sending a human to an asteroid with a pick-axe is unlikely to fit into such a portfolio.