Tag: governments

Artificially Intelligised

Hamar WilliamsLeave a comment

We’ve all watched or at least know the premise of the Terminator movie franchise. It feeds on a fear we have over the creation of free thinking killer robots. I’m currently watching the series Battlestar Galactica which deals with a similar theme. There are a seemingly infinite number of films or series dealing with this topic to varying degrees of success and infamy. I’ve just watched this video produced by the independent media organisation Double Down News. To suggest it’s intention is to scare you would be unfair but be prepared to be scared.

Worried yet?

What it does do though beyond that is raise an important point on the programming of artificially intelligent robots. It is important to start from the premise that we will not be able to create fully self-aware and conscious robots. We do not understand the brain enough to fully understand consciousness, so being able to create it within a computer programme in actuality is not possible. How the programme is written then is what we need to understand. As the video suggests the computer would be programmed to kill all humans or to convince all humans not to reproduce and ultimately see them die out as a species. Even I could probably write the code for the kill all humans although teaching them to recognise what a human is would be the tough part. Could a computer write that programme, not unless it had been taught the basics in the first place.

It’s the human input we need to be concerned with. The computer may be able to learn but in and of itself it will only learn what and how as it has been programmed. If we want to detach ourselves, it is easy to suggest a little like people. The video raises an interesting point too that I had never considered before. If people can easily create malware to infect your computer, what about the artificially intelligent version of that, or a robot with a virus. We shouldn’t be naïve enough to believe our governments only have our best interests when they produce anything but we should also fear the malware version of an AI robot. What if it simply malfunctions?

And of course there are the nanobots that will land on your head and kill you. Suppressing an unruly populace will be pretty straightforward if you have that kind of technology. As someone who has always romantically believed in the possibility of a good revolution one day that is rather concerning. What then too if someone hacks these miniature killing machines and the virus infecting them leads them to kill everyone. Or more positively the current people in power trying to kill the partisans. Maybe there is hope after all. No matter what one side does it simply forces the other to step up and be creative. Food for thought.

An Actual Pint

Hamar WilliamsLeave a comment

I was going to talk about the football this evening but it was such an absolute shambles of a shit show of a result I would rather not. I’ve felt a bit hungover today and the players played as if they too went to the pub last night for the first time in five months. So I went to the pub for the first time in five months last night then. I didn’t get there until about ten o’clock after I finished work and it was already a little quieter. We sat outside in the beer garden although went inside to order a pint. Had we been earlier we would probably have had to sign in and give some details but by the time we got there it was too late and all the staff appeared shit faced enough not to care. That’s probably not very reassuring lets be honest. I’ll keep an eye on any coughs that develop.

After the first pint I started really enjoying being back in that environment. At first it felt like a slight anti-climax, but thankfully that passed. I had really wanted a pint at some point probably in May but that too passed and I didn’t really give a shit. The idea was to let the idiots all go back first and if everything appeared alright after a while, to cautiously venture in. I kind of did that, probably went back a little earlier than previously planned. In truth though I do enjoy a pub, the feel of a pint of freshly poured beer somehow always tastes better than drinking a can on the sofa. I imagine I’m not the only person out there who started to find that a little tedious.

And that’s that done now. One step closer to what we normally call normality. Maybe this is the new normal the politicians like to refer to. Such a disconcertingly ominous phrase for anyone who’s ever felt slightly paranoid about the potentially sadistic desires of their government. With this mob anything is possible, thankfully an implosion seems more likely but they’ll probably still try to ride out any wave that comes their way. So the new normal it is then. Suspect it’ll just be whatever I decide as usual. At least it was nice to get a pint in me on the way. I also made a barbecue on a wheel barrow today, I enjoyed that, I do enjoy making fire.

We Have A Trac(k)ing App

Hamar WilliamsLeave a comment

How exciting. We have a contact trac(k)ing app. Do you see what I did there? As if this whole pandemic wasn’t contentious enough they’ve only gone actually released the app that tracks everything you do. Well not quite but it’ll know where you’ve been, who you’ve met and what consistency your last poo was. Trust in government has been eroded to such an extent that there is justifiable fear of something which has the potential to save lives. If everyone downloaded this app and used it as recommended, it would most likely stem the infection rate. But then so would testing everyone and providing nurses with PPE, and despite their attempt at creating an imaginary world in which that has been happening, they have instead not fulfilled their end of the social contract. It’s down to us yet again because our leaders are an unfortunate mix of incompetent and corrupt. Incompetent at doing the job we request of them but highly competent at their actual one of being corrupt.

“Downloading the app will save peoples lives” says a Health Secretary who routinely shows he doesn’t give a shit about peoples lives but tries to guilt the populace because he knows generally we do. Fuck him, but it’s not about him. Am I selfish for not downloading this app. I don’t know. I have no answer for that because I guess it depends upon how much of a real danger you believe people are in. Does that trump the very real danger of corrupt authority? Probably not and that’s the overriding argument for me.

And I’ve still not heard talk of what I believe to be the elephant in the room. Hypothetically, what would happen if you downloaded the app, discovered you had crossed paths with someone who has the virus, were instructed by the app to quarantine for seven days but didn’t and someone you then crossed paths with in the supermarket potentially caught it off you and died. Surely that’s manslaughter, or at the very least some kind of negligence. Someone died because of you actions. What is the legal liability? It’s not enough to say people should know better, or right from wrong. Are there legal protections? Are people blindly entering a situation in which they’re risking committing a crime and having it recorded. It would be a criminal offence and at the very least the family of the deceased could take you through the civil courts. This seems like something people should be discussing. This could become a very real issue.

Let’s be honest though, governments and bored teenagers in their bedrooms have been able to follow your movements for years through your phone. The idea that we’re not being tracked is naive. Most people have their location services on and those who don’t can still be followed if people want it enough. That’s nothing new, though risks like this are and maybe I’m being selfish but fuck that, I am not entrapping myself because I was desperate for toilet roll. It’s not what being a responsible member of a grown up and mature society would do though, but that’s not realistic as I’m neither responsible nor is society grown up and mature. At least we’re all going down together.

A Trojan Of A Virus

Hamar WilliamsLeave a comment

History will tell us any event of a large enough scale will have an effect capable of making changes of if not a permanent basis then ones which last for a considerable length of time. The First World War for example set in motion a series of events that led to our present day societies, that was a huge moment but one which can show the long term effects of something we can never go back on. In more modern times the attacks in New York on the eleventh of September have led to an entire region of this planet being completely destroyed and changed, in many ways it is a before and after event.

When you have such moments there are inevitably changes within your own society and in the immediate aftermath of this the Americans allowed their government to push through a series of draconian spying laws. These were justified on the basis that they would offer protection against another attack. How they are now in reality I don’t know but I doubt they have disappeared, more likely it’s just an example of shifting baseline syndrome. We in the UK had similar and this was amplified after we had a few bombings, the government introduced the Snoopers Charter as it was known by everyone except those trying to push it.

On a less invasive level, in China during the SARS outbreak; one Chinese businessman recognised the necessity of a new approach to online shopping which revolutionised how the Chinese interacted with shopping online. With this Coronavirus the Chinese have relaxed laws around online pharmacies so that not only can you get medicine but you can chat to doctors online and get prescriptions too. This is proving to be incredibly popular and successful, and while it is unclear yet how this online industry will operate once Covid-19 passes, it is highly unlikely they will return to how it was prior to the outbreak.

While I may no be sure of the veracity of the Coronavirus, it is undeniable that it is becoming a worldwide phenomena if it isn’t one already. I’m not denying it’s potential seriousness but I don’t doubt it will pass. What though will the long term results of it be. Italy is currently in lockdown, it is almost inevitable Britain will be in quarantine at one point. We have no idea what it will do to the local economies let alone the world economy. What affect will it have on the supply chain. Will people reevaluate how they store food and supplies. Will we view governments with any credibility when they try to convince us they’re capable of upholding their end of the social contract. Are we just witnessing a New World Order Trojan Horse moment as I saw on a meme today. I have no idea to any of these, but if it continues at it’s present pace there is no doubting there will be some permanent changes we can only recognise in retrospect. These don’t have to be sinister, they could be innocuous, innocent and boring but it will be interesting, assuming I survive, to be able to look back in ten years and observe the changes. I doubt we’re witnessing a before and after moment but certainly there will be something that exists after the event that wasn’t here before.