Social Networking and Love

Last Thursday we had a big discussion about how Shirkey mentions that social networking cites and many reason why people are on the internet and these sites in general all relate to love in a certain way.  I found this idea extremely interesting.  You have the people on facebook who post pictures of themselves and say, "Oh it's a terrible picture of me, I look so awful." Then the person gets 20 billion comments telling them that they look, "Sexy", "sooo hottt", etc.  These people make me sick.  When I post pictures of myself, it's not for comments to make my self esteem boost, it's to show my friends and family how I'm doing!  To let them know that I'm alright.  I do, however, understand the emotional attachment we have to love and how the internet can be our outlet.

It's like the idea that we are more comfortable talking to strangers rather than people we know!  Especially on the internet because then you don't even have to look at the person!  Do I think that this is wrong that people use the internet for love?  No, as long as you're not looking for love in all the wrong places.  So you want compliments?  Then post a picture of yourself and post what you were doing in the photo, and see what happens!  If nobody says anything then it's not the end of the world.  I feel like some people take advantage of social networking for the wrong reasons but I hope that in time all the perverts that should be in jail will be locked up.  That was a random thought but that's that.

Transcendent Man

After watching The Transcendent Man I started thinking about what life would be like with all of the new technologies that he mentioned.  The idea that robots, about the same size as our blood cells, would prevent all diseases.  Then I started wondering, "Would we share this technology with third world countries?" I had immediately gone home after class and talked to my fiance about it.  We were both a little freaked out about the fact that something that seems like it's coming right out of a sci-fi movie would be happening in eighteen years!  We'll only be thirty-nine years old!  We'll probably have started our family by then, would we be able to afford the new technology so that our kids may grow up to be healthy?  What if this technology backfired?  What if the robots malfunctioned and the disease prevention technologies released all the diseases that it was trying to prevent into our bodies.  Would we have a massive genocide because of a robot?

I feel like the more that we meddle with the idea of these thinking robots that we may become extinct ourselves.  I realize that this is a huge over paranoid statement but what if robots truly ruled the world?  Can you go one day, let alone one hour, without using a single piece of technology?  Your cell phone, your car, the electricity in your house, the tv, your iPod, all of these things have some form of technology in them.  Electricity doesn't have robots but a lot of houses have alarm systems now, so what if this technology backfired somehow?  How would you get from place to place?  How would you contact anyone to let them know that you're in danger?  Granted these are really paranoid thoughts but it is still something to consider... like where to have your stake out when the zombie apocalypses happens.

I really love technology and if it can grow and change this much to benefit the human race for all these years I still believe it will do so.  Do I think it can change that drastically in so few years?  Not quite.  Will we achieve some of the advancements?  Probably.  However I hardly believe that the human race will basically become bionic by the time my fiance and I have our children.  I don't plan on being and I really can't picture myself being robo-mom any time soon.

Transcendent Man

The “Transcendent Man” struck me as both interesting and frightening. It was interesting because it covered a lot of things that are going on in today’s world that I sometimes take for granted and frightening because of how some of the predictions for the future seemed to be fairly believable. The advanced technology that everyone has available to them, the contradicting opinions and the possibilities predicted for the future made me think more in depth on the concept of whether or not singularity will or already has started.

The Internet hasn’t been around for too long but has already managed to impact the way people live, communicate and socialize throughout society. Texting, tagging, blogging, and much more have taken over the way that we write and communicate with friends, family, etc. One of the things that Ray Kurzweil talked about when it came to singularity was how over the course of these past years, technology has made an “explosion” in regards to advancement and how he predicts that the insertion of computers the size of blood cells in people will just become another step in this process. Kurzweil seems to focus on the optimistic aspects of this working and doesn’t really talk about what things could go wrong if this is done. I believe that implantation will cause a huge debate between people who will embrace this process and people who won’t.

Kurzweil talks about how his father continues to be an important aspect of his life and how he (not only hopes) but also truly believes that he will be able to bring him back from the dead through technology. I think it’s safe to say that everyone who’s lost a loved one would want to be able to bring them back but most would say that technology is not the way. It could be argued that humanity would be altered in their definitions of life, death, mortality, and immortality. If these things were to become true and people no longer died but their memories, personalities and thoughts were transferred into a machine, would we still be able to still continue to be human? I don’t think that we would be able to because we would lose the emotional part that makes us human beings. What was frightening to me was that one man who was working on making the AI brain was willing to risk this kind of consequence just to see if it was possible to create such a machine.

I can’t say I believe that singularity is coming but I will agree with Kurzweil’s statement that technology is advancing more rapidly than it has in the past couple years and our generation is a large part of it. However, I don’t think that it is necessary for people to implant computers into their bodies in order to continue with technology’s flight. Kurzweil doesn’t talk about there being any other option besides doing this and it would be interesting to see what goes on with technology in the years to come until his predicted date for singularity in 2029.

Ambiguous findability Repost...

I'm reposting this here so it is easier to find...

I feel there are numerous implications that can be extracted from how our human
interactions are changing, and then these implications can be reduced to stakes
(for better or worse) for the future.My personal opinion is that our
human interactions are changing, and drastically. In one of our recent readings,
Moorville's ambivalent findability, he writes about how we have this perception
that we are exposing ourselves to the outsided world with the web, technology,
and such. However, he acknowledges the fact that all of those channels to the
outside world are open and leave the user just as exposed. He calls this
exposure or ability to be easily accessed ambivalent findabilityI
believe that as a society (as a whole society and as an academic society) it is
very critical to analyze this concept of ambivalent findabilty and the
implications it has for us all. I personally see both the positives and
negatives, and am struggling to weigh them fairly.I see the positives in
this concept such as, ambivalent findabilty creates a world where our children
can be tracked easier and thus are safer from the dangers our our world. Yet I
see the negative side where we are slowly losing our privacy. So I say this is
definately a difficult issue.Finally, I think that no matter what my or
someone else's political coloring may be, it is important to examine how
ambivalent findabilty is going to affect our society.

The Virtous Circle

In Chapter 5 of "Here Comes Everyone" the idea of the virtuous circle is brought up. The idea that Shirky talks about in the book is how Wikipedia became a coordinating resource. "Because enough people thought of using Wikipedia as a coordinating resource, it became one, and because it became one, more people learned to think of it as a coordinating resource". This idea/definition can be seen as a revolving door of such. This revolving door can be seen in many different aspects of life. There is a commercial that talks about why a man doesn't have the life he wants. The main components missing from his life were going to school, having a good job, and not having money. He spends the whole commercial talking about how he can't do one thing without the other too. I made this connection to the "virtuous circle"; the idea that a cause and effect can be based off each other is interesting. Another connection that can be made is by using the episode of Family Guy "The Big Bang Theory". The idea used in Family Guy is the "Causality Loop". The episode states that Stewie was born inside the universe in order to go outside of the universe, in order to create the universe. I believe this is another example/connection that helped me understand the Virtuous circle.

Singularity... kind of.

After watching The Transcendent Man which focused on Kurzweil's predictions for Singularity and the future, I had mixed emotions. The whole thing sounded like it came right out of a science fiction novel. I was feeling skeptical until I learned about how many of Kurzweil's predictions have proved to be correct. So what if this Singularity is to manifest itself into reality? What implications could this bring to us humans?

Education is defined as the process of receiving or giving systematic instruction, especially at a school or university. There would be no need for education. A person (or should I say AI) would just need to have information and data downloaded into them. At the beginning of the AI's life, billions of files and information would need to be downloaded into them. Like Ciara pointed out in her blog post, teachers would become obsolete. Computers will be able to provide the information needed by an AI.

As for communication, speech would become an archaic method. Typing would be the best way in the beginning to communicate, but eventually I think that a sort of code between AI's would arise and take over. Sounds a bit Orwellian (Newspeak anyone?) but I could see it happening. If these AI's still have any bit of human to them though, they will need physical interaction. Isolation can make people go insane. I think that there are somethings that are permanently human and cannot be suppressed. Here's a random thought: would relationships (love interests) become unnecessary? Without physical interaction and only Internet communication, would marriage become archaic as well?

In my last paragraph, I touched a bit on language by mentioning the sort of code that would come about. Language would forever be altered. Would detailed words be necessary anymore? I think that with Singularity, the idea of aspects of our current life as unnecessary is very prevalent. Anything extra that distracts from the gaining of knowledge would not be as necessary. That is why I'm saying that a basic code would be needed for communication instead of long, detailed conversations.

I do believe that Singularity is a possibility for the future, although I think that Kurzweil is being a bit too optimistic about the idea. Humans have certain permanent characteristics that cannot be changed, like the need for physical interaction and the need for love. I do not think that he will be able to bring back his father from the dead in one sense or another. Although he is a very intelligent man, he is still a human and humans are not God. I think that Singularity will be only somewhat accomplished and there will be many complications that come about with these innovations with technology. I think that there will be an uprising of people against the Singularity and that the need to become a hybrid of computer and human will not be completely necessary to survive in the world. It is an interesting concept for a book, but not very realistic to me although the world's intelligence on technology is growing at amazing amounts.

Kurzweil and Singularity

First of all, the movie Transcendent Man was mind-blowing. The number of changes that would occur if we entered an age of Singularity would be endless. Singularity is a serious subject that should be approached with seriousness and respect. It will have serious implications on all aspects of life, but this blog will focus on education, communication, and language.

I do not claim to be any kind of expert on Singularity, let alone, have accurate answers on how it will affect education, communication, and language. However, I will try and make some predictions on how Singularity might affect these things.

Education is usually the same across the world; that is to say, there is usually a teacher or teachers conveying knowledge to a student or group of students. I believe that Singularity may put teachers out of a job, because there will be no need for physical interface between people. If Singularity does not affect the jobs of teachers, it will affect how students are taught. I believe that students will no longer travel to a building or establishment, they will just log onto the internet in real-time (possible through virtual reality) and have class there. So, there still may be teachers, just no need for school establishments. Also, if Singularity does affect the need for teachers, it will be because AI will take over the jobs of teaching since AI will be so much more advanced than humans. Thus, this will fundamentally changed how education is provided to students.

Next, communication will be hugely affect by Singularity. It might be possible that we will have the capability to communicate without speaking. If everyone is essentially a computer and is wired to one system (like the internet) then we would all be connect, mentally, to one another. This could possibly mean then that we could read one another thoughts, since our thoughts would all be linked into the system. I'm not saying that there wouldn't be any privacy, but it is definitely possible that our thoughts would not be as private or inaccessible as they are now.

Lastly, language would vastly change. For example, most people do not use the word Singularity now it has not become a part of our reality. However, if these things occur, and we enter the age of Singularity, then we will need new words, or old words with new definitions to describe the phenomenon that is happening around us. For example, the computer change language when it was introduced into the mainstream populace. We did not have words in the first three-quarters of the 20th century like internet, twitter, facebook, podcast, youtube, the list goes on. Because technology changed, our language had to change with it to convey what it is the word means. However, language may change to where we may not need written or spoken language. As I wrote before, in the future we may communicate in such a way, that we do not need written or spoken words. Communication may become just the sharing of electrical impulses that cannot be defined by terms we use today (possibly we cannot even fathom because we are not that advanced yet).

Regardless of how accurate my perdictions are, Singularity is a definate possibly for the future. And as respobile citizens, we all need to mediate on how Singularity may affect our lives, our childrens' lives, and the lives of everyone in society.