Drones, Anyone?

Things move so quickly nowadays!  Once considered secret operation technology is now part of our daily use in the general public: personal computers, video games, mobile phones and drones.  Drones are used for destructive purposes, as well as, constructive uses.  They are used from law enforcement to taco delivery, take a look at Christopher Schaberg's article (link below), could one of these uses be transporting humans? Maybe.

Our current flying experience is such that one would wish for an alternative to commercial aviation, one would think. Perhaps it is not in the far distant future?  Could we possibly use Drones to transport ourselves?  If Drones have many uses, why not human transport?  We would not need airline reservations, maybe some kind of license, perhaps, and federal regulations for takeoff and landing with a flight plan from the air traffic control folks. Take a look at the article, (link below), courtesy of Alenda:

http://www.salon.com/2012/09/16/will_drones_replace_commercial_air_travel/

Galloway: Gaming

Playing the Algorithm:

Video games change the order of things, if we look back at how cinema affected the viewer we can see that cinema has total control and, with video-gaming, while there are rules to follow and code to discover gaming offers the gamer some control because they are offered the opportunity to change the outcome of a narrative, as long as, they figure out the parallel algorithm.  The control is still there..."controlled mobility", however, autonomously as an active participant.

In Playing the Algorithm by Galloway we see how the informatic age plays a role in today’s society.  He compares how film and video games have affected the viewer/player…with film, the viewer is controlled subliminally, while the effect of video-gaming the control is allegorical.  To know the game, its code, and play by its rule is to win.  This control he refers to as allegorical control:

“So today there is a twin transformation; from the modern cinema to the contemporary video game, but also from traditional allegory to what I am calling horizontal or “control” allegory.  I suggest that video games are, at their structural core, in direct synchronization with the political realities of the informatics age.” [91]

Let's have some cable, Mabel! (Blast from the past)

The story of FLAG made for an interesting read. The complexity and massivity of the engineering needed to create the global telecommunications system weren't really new to me, although I didn't know about FLAG specifically. This is an example of how hugely complex one simple aspect of the digital revolution is; and when you look at the world deeply enough, this level of complexity and massive engineering is everywhere. (The interstate highway system is a good example, but there are many others.) The industrial revolution made the world an order of magnitude more complex, the WWII era increase in industry made it another order of magnitude, and the digital era is doing the same thing again. As the world's superstructure becomes increasingly complex, it's morphing. It's already at the point where it can't be managed without the aid of computers, or at least, not managed as well as we've gotten used to; how long will it be before it's so complex that AI's, or quasi-AI's, are necessary? And in that world, what will humans do? The old story of humans losing jobs to machines has played out for the last 40 years, it certainly won't stop as computers get more and more advanced.

Truth in photojournalism (blast from the past)

Reading the Baradell essay about photojournalism and ethics, and how that's changing as we enter the digital era, made me think of two things. One is this podcast: [http://www.radiolab.org/2012/sep/24/in-the-valley-of-the-shadow-of-doubt/] about a very old example of a manipulated photograph; another is that ethical reform is a great example of trying to solve a symptom rather than a problem. While certain ethical standards are necessary, and a good idea, relying on them to enforce journalistic "truth" is foolish.

The real answer is in the critical audience. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, readers of newspapers knew that what they were reading might be suspect; biased, incomplete, or manipulated in other ways. They knew that for issues they really cared about, they had to do more that accept what was given to them. People were still fooled by things, of course, but the mass acceptance that they were being presented with the truth wasn't there. That critical outlook has been lost, and its rebirth will do more to solve problems of the ethics of digital photojournalism than any amount of rules or standards.

VIDEO: "Jeremy Scahill: The Secret Story Behind Obama’s Assassination of Two Americans in Yemen"

This is pretty good.
http://www.democracynow.org/2013/4/23/jeremy_scahill_the_secret_story_behind


"The Obama administration’s assassination of two U.S. citizens in 2011, Anwar al-Awlaki and his 16-year-old Denver-born son Abdulrahman, is a central part of Jeremy Scahill’s new book, "Dirty Wars: The World Is a Battlefield." The book is based on years of reporting on U.S. secret operations in Yemen, Somalia and Afghanistan. While the Obama administration has defended the killing of Anwar, it has never publicly explained why Abdulrahman was targeted in a separate drone strike two weeks later. Scahill reveals CIA Director John Brennan, Obama’s former senior adviser on counterterrorism and homeland security, suspected that the teenager had been killed "intentionally." "The idea that you can simply have one branch of government unilaterally and in secret declare that an American citizen should be executed or assassinated without having to present any evidence whatsoever, to me, is a — we should view that with great sobriety about the implications for our country," says Scahill, national security correspondent for The Nation magazine. Today the U.S. Senate is preparing to hold its first-ever hearing on the Obama administration’s drone and targeted killing program. However, the Obama administration is refusing to send a witness to answer questions about the program’s legality. "Dirty Wars" is also the name of a new award-winning documentary by Scahill and Rick Rowley, which will open in theaters in June. We air the film’s new trailer. Click here to watch Part 2 of this interview."

Drones

First of all, it amazes me that our global military presence doesn't, in itself, seem unjust to most people.

Somehow the American neo-imperial project is treated as a given - perhaps in the name of "God", or "freedom", or "democracy", or "civilization", or "development" etc. just use whichever euphemism makes you more comfortable - and what is questioned is either its operational effectiveness or domestic legality.

The article "The Predator War" focuses on drone attacks, which have become ubiquitous within the imperial project. The author doesn't spend one sentence questioning the concept of "terrorism" or "terrorists", in fact, he opens up the exposition of the C.I.A. drone program by explaining that it targets terror suspects around the world - even in countries which have yet to accept American troops.

I understand that an article must have a clear focus however I don't think the drone war can be so cleanly separated from American imperialism. The article only briefly outlines the American public's transition into accepting the drone program and at certain points the author refers to "terrorists" as militants.

Then the article transitions into the risks of the covert drone program. 

The author  highlights the secrecy of the C.I.A. drone program (as opposed to the military's version) along with the C.I.A.'s inexperience in murder in contrast to the military. Its seems like the article is suggesting the drone program would be acceptable if it were more accountable. However, what would be the result of such accountability? A public announcement of a program which we all know about anyway? I assume such an announcement would be preceded with a publicity/propaganda campaign. Then the laws would change in order to accommodate it. Nevertheless, it doesn't seem like an official acknowledgement would change anything.

Then there is some discussion about the how the drone attacks produce more "terrorists" since their target population doesn't appreciate the civilian casulaties and the dishonorable nature of such a detached form of warfare conducted by "cubicle warriors".

However, I don't understand what the alternative would be. Would the imperial campaign produce less "terrorists" if the murderers were on the ground killing civilians? It seems like we are defining "terrorist" as anyone who attacks American soldiers stationed in their country and clearly they would only be more successful as "terrorists" if there were any American soldiers on the ground for them to kill. It doesn't seem like any of these people pose an existential threat against me, an American citizen, nor my interests which don't involve any quests for natural gas pipelines, oil, strategic bases against Russia or China, cheap labor etc, so I just can't see how they are "terrorizing" the American public from their house in Pakistan.

Yet, again the cleanest answer to "terrorists" is robotic warfare since that way our "cubicle warriors" are safe to go shopping after they kill a few people across the globe. And this seems to be the conclusion our author reaches since he concludes his article with a quote reiterating "[the Obama adminsitration] doesn't really have anything else".

Invisible Refuse: How Many Miles of Cable Under the Sea?

Nicole Starosielski's "Beaches, Fields, and other Network Environments made me realize how saturated our sea floors must be with cables that provide us with global communication.  What happens to all of that inorganic material that has, or will, become obsolete. Once there is no use for it, it simply stays put...there is no proper disposing of a useless cable, like say for instance, the disposal culture that has developed around 'e-waste' on land, or is there? I wonder what the impact on aquatic life is of all this leftover material.  Is it environmentally-friendly to the ocean and its sea life? Since people are land-based, the fiber-optic cable we use for communication is out of sight under the sea.  The only time we see them is when they come up through manholes at landing points or those that inhabit our parks and cities. Not very many people know what becomes of undersea global communication infrastructure-waste, but it would be helpful to know.  This could open up the possibility of cleaning up the vastness of our oceans.  This would be a mega-undertaking, and it would take a global effort, in my view.

Civillians

Jane Mayer's article on Drone warfare really made me wonder about the numbers. The sheer numbers of civillian casualties incurred through the use of drone warfare. by this time I'm sure they far surpass the number of American civillian casualties from the attacks of September 11th, the event that opened the floodgates to our use of aggressive predator drone warfare. I think it's likely by the time that Mayer had written her article, the drone casualties had already surpassed our September 11th casualties and that by now, four years later, the number is even greater. I was disturbed to read that so many of the drone targets in Pakistan were targets not even on our list of terrorists, but were referred to us by the Pakistani government, though I can't say I blame their government for trying to make the most out of our constant invasion and attacks on their soil. At least they can put us to work eliminating those they deem threatening to their cause. The comment that "they don't all have to be rockstars" is very telling of how easily the CIA can be prompted to use a predator strike. Just on an economic level, I wonder how many millions it takes to have a drone strike on one of those targets who is not a "rockstar" - a low-level pseudo-militant of Pakistan, perhaps wielding an old rifle. I wonder what a realistic ratio would be for the civillian to terrorist casualty rate from these drone strikes. I fear it would lean far more heavily on the side of civillian. Of children. Their statement that "they don't all have to be rockstars" tells me that they are broadening their definition of "threat" at a rapid rate. Likewise, as they broaden their definition, it seems more and more are given cause to join in arms against our nation because of our constant drone attacks. It recalls the video-game we played in class those weeks ago in which the controlled dropped bombs in a crowded city, aiming for terrorists but inevitably hitting civillians along the way. The more bombs that were dropped, the more civillians were transformed into terrorists. I feel that our continued use of predator drone strikes is perpetuating this cycle of "terrorism", making terrorists out of our government agencies, as well as those peoples under fire.
-James G.

Out of Sight, Out of Mind

Cyber warfare and drone warfare are both effective precisely because they are hidden. Cyber warfare stays invisible until it is too late and even then the effects can be ambiguous. Was it an attack, or simply a failure? Drone warfare appears on one side as a video game and although the effects on the other end are about as unambiguous as it gets, Americans are largely blind to it without Americans on the ground. People react emotionally, so without something physical to stimulate some appropriate emotion, terrible events can go unnoticed. There is a reason that images from the war in Vietnam were so important - they absolutely get people to respond.

The issue of drone warfare and civilian casualties has started raising the troubling question for me of how much a foreign civilian’s life is worth. Clearly we are capable of empathizing with strangers thousands of miles away - just look at the coverage of the Boston bombings. It was very easy for the media to focus on and seemed relevant because we are part of the same country. But just because the casualties were American, why is it so much easier for us to sympathize with the handful who died on the other side of the country last week than the 6,000 who died in Syria last month? To make this fit with the theme of this post, I feel like I should say that it’s because we don’t see it in enough detail, but that doesn’t seem to be it. We don’t care about Syrians in the same way we don’t care about those who die in badly targeted drone strikes. Of course protecting American soldiers is important, but it is disturbing to me that we’re trending towards removing ourselves that much more from the consequences of our national policy. 

Scary stuff, man.

Though the tone of Sparrow's "Predators or Plowshares?" article was cautionary as it explained UAVs, it was also very frighting because the way it discussed them made it clear they were a reality that we need to be aware of and work around to ensure safety. I think part of the reason why these UAVs can be so dangerous is because our society hasn't accepted them as something that exists in our world. There is no going back to the past methods of warfare - these new technologies are here, being used and will only continue to proliferate and advance. The author of the article notes this and asserts that we need to govern and regulate these programs because they are a big unknown currently. Though the article goes through pro/con arguments, the issue isn't really about whether or not we approve of this new type of warfare - many do not - yet it is a reality we face. The New York Times article by Jane Mayer states "The program is classified as covert, and the intelligence agency declines to provide any information to the public about where it operates, how it selects targets, who is in charge, or how many people have been killed." This is a horrifying fact but it also makes me wonder whether or not this information, if released, would be actively sought out by the public. I know I like to think it is something I want to be aware of, but after a while I could see us being desensitized to that information because there is nothing we can do with it. Without transparency, the public feels shunned and assumes the worst of what they do not know, though I don't think there would be anything to do with the drone statistics. I do agree with Sparrow, as I'm sure many do, that it is time to wake up and realize this type of warfare is in our present and we need to regulate sooner rather than later.

Technological Warfare

When you consider how wars were fought long ago, we really have come a long way. It used to be that you would have to formally address your opponent, face them honorably in battle, and fight til the last man dropped. It was a lack of strategy, really. Back then, no one dared to try anything outside the established conventions. But what do we care about those now? We have so completely abandoned those rules, we don't even have to physically be there anymore. Now we just tell our super intelligent machines where to go and they take care of it. Sounds like something out of George Orwell's nightmares.

I am all for the strategic use of technology when it comes to warfare. I am thankful for the men and women we have on the front lines, but if we can keep most, if not all, of our people away from the actual war zones, I say full steam ahead. But it seems as we learn more and more about the way our government uses these drones, the more people want them gone, as if the physical drones are the problem. It isn't the technology that creates these moral issues, its the organizations behind them. Machines don't have morals, we do.

Whether or not you have drones that can fly autonomously into enemy areas and wipe out massive amounts of people at the push of a button doesn't change the issue of killing civilians, it only makes it easier to do so. It is impossible to have a war without civilian casualties, especially with the modern state of warfare. Soldiers on the ground with guns kill civilians, tanks kill civilians, missiles from manned planes kill civilians. Is it just because we are killing them from afar that we now have second thoughts?

For me,  it represents a necessary evil. Of course it is terrible that innocent people die when a drone pilot makes a mistake. Whether or not I believe it is easy killing a tiny figure on a screen, when you know for a fact that it is a real person somewhere, is another questions entirely. But the technology is only going to improve. We will only get better at picking out correct targets, minimizing blast radii, avoiding mistakes. Clearly, there is a record that shows that the drone program has been successful in regards to many members of terrorist organizations, it is not as though the program comes with no benefits. And as Mayer says at the end of her article, we really have nothing else to throw at them.

Just Point and Click

Sidestepping the ethical issues raised by the drone program, the technological advancement America has made in drone warfare makes war approximate a video game more so than at any time in previous history. The idea of flying a nano-drone into an open window and firing upon a well concealed target is something that feels straight out of a Call of Duty game. The separation of the killer from the killed seems to be increasing.

I bet the power of computerized calculations really shines when it comes to determining the blast radius of a missile or the likelihood of damaging a school, hospital or religious center. I like this idea because it ventures firmly into the gray. Provided that you believe firing a missile at a confirmed target is generally a good thing, calculating the blast radius of an explosion and being able to save a civilian building from destruction is a step towards progress. Having those better calculations, however, allows for greater confidence in issuing legal strike decisions in the first place, and may enable increased authorizations for deadly force. The technological improvements can be viewed can in this sense be viewed both positively and negatively.

Regardless of the push button nature of drone warfare, it is interesting that some Predator pilots are suffering PTSD symptoms. In a way, the experience of watching your target move around on the ground one moment, and then see the explosion and aftermath the next, is potentially more traumatizing than carpet bombing the vague outlines of a city somewhere off in the distance below. These operators wake up every day and experience high quality, high resolution, live video feeds of before and after pictures of high-powered explosives going off on human beings. It is interesting but unsurprising that there are serious consequences for these armchair warriors pushing the button thousands of miles away.

UAWs, UMSs, UUVs: Is this fair game? Warfighters?

Robert Sparrow's piece on Arms Control raises issues that are difficult to bring up to the attention of those involved in developing this kind of warfare; with so much at stake I cannot help but think that it is a matter of time before these issues are taken seriously, respect for human life.  At prima facie it seems this is the answer to minimizing 'casualties', for preserving our soldiers, but there is more to consider here.  At this time, those who hold the technology have the power over  those that do not.  What happens when those that do not hold this new robotic-type of warfare catch up?
Could a person operating, or controlling, a robotic killing machine get carried away and become so desensitized to his/her target, that respect for human life is completely obliterated?  Although I dare not compare the power of the Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), Unmanned Weapons Systems (UMSs) and the Unmanned Undersea Vehicles (UUVs) to those more destructive ones, Arms Control of these weapons can be a positive even for those that hold the power--it can translate to the survival of everyone.

For one thing, this sophisticated form of targeting and 'expiring' targets seems a bit unethical as there are no values attached to it.  Is it honorable to kill without courage? Without a real fight?  As Sparrows' mentions in his piece of "Predators or Plowshares?", Psychological Distance:

"Psychological Distance
The first and in some ways the most obvious reason for concern about the development of unmanned systems is the possibility that they will undercut warfighters' respect for human life by facilitating "killing at a distance" [41]."

The technology is nice to have for urban and civilian purposes, like search and rescue efforts in natural disasters, especially with earthquakes and hurricanes; however, in war, I am not so sure this is fair game if only one side can use it. What is the point of even declaring war on the other side?

Learning from Past Military Mistakes

With unmanned missiles and weapons systems becoming an increasing reality, the future for a world with autonomous war weapons is an urgent political and ethical concern. Robert Sparrow’s article, Predators or Plowshares?, illuminates the very real threat of a weapons system that can initiate conflict on “accident” as soon as this is considered an advantage. However the current model for war turns human soldiers into similarly autonomous machines that are trained to kill without considering consequences. This industrial nature of converting humans into machines seems exacerbated by removing all sensibilities of having to perform violent tasks behind a computer screen across the world. Many of these fears are similar to the same concerns following the Vietnam War with popular action films such as Rambo or Robocop that would pit this kind of war industrial complex against the rationality of human consciousness. These UAV systems will be forced to be held under global control otherwise countries that ignore the ethical consequences of creating an autonomous army will have the capability of unplanned and accidental destruction of regions of the world. Military responsibility must become an issue that the world population must begin to acknowledge similar to the fears surrounding nuclear weapons following World War 2. Hopefully UMS arms control can become a reality before these types of weapons are tried in a war simply to understand potential consequences. Hiroshima and Nagasaki should serve as ongoing reminders that massive destruction during warfare is not necessary to assert dominance in the global community. While the rest of the world seems to be racing in order to develop their own nuclear weapons, Japan has refrained from creating this kind of weapon to demonstrate a more peaceful stance in international negotiation. Although some argue that they are only in this position because of protection from countries that possess these weapons, Japan advocates diplomatic resolution over engaging in further military industrialization. Hopefully the rest of the world can abide by a similar goal for the future rather than furthering their necessity to grow economies off of the profits from a military complex. 

Shortcuts and “The Easy Way of War”

            In many instances throughout human history mass killings of people (innocent or not) were done for a certain purpose by the hands psychopaths, Kings, rulers, authoritative figures, or by people who have the belief it’s for the common good. We’ve learn from our past that those methods may not be the correct response to delicate situations such as what’s going on the Middle East, however we still don’t utilize those teachings. Using drones have employed a way for American soldiers to be safe during harmful combatant situations, and initiated a way for death strikes on high profile threats. Those achievements are commendable. However, the deaths of innocent who were there at the wrong place at the wrong time are not because it devalues human lives. The idea of killing 4 to 5 people just for 1 target seems not only murder, but also an in violation of human rights that the USA government holds dear. What was shocking for me is without a positive ID on a target, a kill order can be given where potentially innocent civilians killed. In recent years a stereotype for many Muslims, Arabs, and other Middle Eastern groups have been called “barbaric”, but what the USA government allows these death strikes on significant amount of innocent civilians seems to be more Barbaric.

            What has to change is the communication between USA and Pakistan/Afghanistan; to reduce the use of drones. Technology makes it easy for America to have an upper hand between them and their enemies. However, this shortcut can’t stop the war and cant stop the distrust towards America from other countries. In the Islamic perspective, if one is wrongly killed, the victim’s family has the right for compensation from the accused killer. The fact that American personnel are those who give the order and pulled the trigger cant be accountable, the family of the victim will resist any efforts to support them. In fact, most likely going to create more “terrorist” as retaliation. Understandably the drones are important tool for the army to use for surveillances and combat situations, paraphrasing that they are the only tools they have, it is disturbingly wrong to use drones as a direct approach on War on Terror. It is inaccurate that we Americans have drones as our only tool; we have another tool called our voices.  

Transition: Manual/Electric/Digital, Personal Experiences

Our earliest lecture, "Introduction to Technology and Culture", brings me to comment on my first experience with technology, specifically office technology and the digital.  As I still consider myself 'technology challenged' I could not comment on this lecture early on in our class -- I had to learn how to blog.  I have been getting better at it and still discovering features and what to do with them on www.blogger.com--my first blogging experience.  For me, this has been a long journey with my start in office technology--my background (well, one of them).  It took me from manual, to automatic/electric, and finally, the digital.

Manual:
By manual I refer to what was commonly called 'the manual typewriter'.  I learned to type on an old 'clunker' called a Remington Typewriter.  This manual machine was of an army-green color made of metal and was very heavy to lift.  Our instructors were strict nuns, if we made a mistake on our exercises, we had to start from the beginning, we could not use 'whiteout', eraser, nor did we enjoy the luxury of that nice button what we now know as 'delete'. The keys were deep to push down on, and we had to use 'muscle' to make the type-letter strike on the roller/carriage--that was a challenge.  By the time we were done, we were good typists, for the most part, and employable (also for the most part).

Automatic/Electric/Analogue:
Still in school we were fledgling bi-lingual secretaries and had internship jobs that took us out to various American corporations in Monterrey, Mexico and mine was the 7Up Bottling Company.  They showed me to my desk which happened to have an 'automatic' typewriter--OMG!  How do I work this thing?  I had learned on an older generation Remington.  I was given a short introduction and started to figure it out.  The 'backspace' key (now the delete button), was a variable key, if one needed to correct a typographical error, one needed to count and remember how many 'backspaces' to strike so that the key would hit the typo using the correction tape (a white strip of paper lined with a white substance that would cover the typo to correct it when placed in between the paper and the key), this process varied depending on the letter on the keyboard, they were all different. I believe that was an IBM electric typewriter circa late 1960s early 1970s.  It was amazing to see them in operation, our typing was faster on them.  I was, however, relieved to go back to my manual Remington circa mid 1950s at school.  In the ensuing years the manual phased out and I would find myself learning to use various automatic typewriters, happily to know that not all of them had the variable 'backspace' key.  I remember using the IBM Selectric model and several of its offspring. My favorites were the IBM Selectric with the self-correcting tape feature and the IBM Wheelwriter with a recording feature.

From Electric to Digital:
I worked for a major international airline in several capacities, Secretary, Ticket Agent, Reservations Agent and Airport Operations; as Secretary in the Regional Sales office my function was, among other things, to take dictation in shorthand, in two languages, Spanish and English, a way of recording business correspondence, minutes of meetings, and whatever else was needed.  I could take dictation at 60 words per minute, in both languages, then transcribe the dictation into texts exactly as it was dictated to me depending on the language.  It has been many years since then, and I had many challenging dictation sessions--there is no such thing today!  What has taken the place of this activity, I believe, is now called "Voice Recording Technology" minus the taking dictation part.  The person only transcribes (independent of how fast or slow the person dictating speaks into the device) into text files from these audio recordings.  It is so much easier now.  My office had antiquated machines where I once again encountered the 'variable' backspace key and soon after I transferred to the Reservations Department, they had nice equipment.  This was my first encounter with the digital.

Digital:
It was March of 1980 when I transferred to the Reservations Department and found myself wondering what a computer was as my new job required its use.  I was to construct flight itineraries for passengers using this machine people called a computer.  Initially, my introduction to this technology was short and I had to learn quickly.  I had no time to ponder on what the machine was or how it stored the information I was telling it to save; however, I realized I was learning a computer reservations system that allowed me to book airline reservations, a system that gave me information by retrieving it, stored what I wanted it to store based on what the reservation called for, and helped me make transactions as I could collect payment via a credit card.

My first computer at work was a CRT, Cathode Raytheon Tube.  It had green text and I looked at it all day, but I could make on average eighty reservations that contained several flights around the world, we called them segments.  We learned several reservations systems as my airline changed systems a few times.  One of these was called "SystemOne" used by the now defunct Eastern Airlines.  Among these systems today, there is Sabre used by American Airlines.  United Airlines used their Apollo system until March 3, 2012 due to the recent merger with Continental Airlines, I believe.

These computer reservations systems operated using vast networks that allowed reservations agents to book airline reservations simultaneously in different parts of the country and the world.  If one was competing over a 'last' seat on a flight one had to be quick to grab it for the passenger because anyone could take the seat and book it for their purposes, especially during peak seasons like holidays.  These systems were confined to airlines and one needed an "agent sign" issued by management in order to access the system.  Every airline reservation had a history that the agent could look up for information.  When the agent ended the transaction, the computer responded with a code called a 'passenger name record', 'PNR' for short.  It usually consisted of letters and numbers and that would be the reference code for a particular reservation.  This system allowed us to pull up airport codes, local times for cities worldwide, it gave us statistics of all the transactions we did throughout our work shift, like how many reservations we booked, how long it took us to make each reservation and at what time, it was a sophisticated system.

I have seen technology improve over the past quarter century, starting with my exposure with the airline industry.  Airline reservations computer systems have expanded to include making one's own reservations using websites like Travelocity, Kayak, Priceline and many others.  Initially this was good for consumers since prices would go lower than ever before because airlines were able to reduce their overhead.  At one point a person could fly to Europe from San Francisco for about $600.00 on a roundtrip ticket.  However, with mergers taking place among airlines, good prices might be difficult to find in today's world.  What was once thought of as exclusively for airline reservations agents has now been extended to the general public in becoming more participatory in these transactions due to technology advancement of the digital. Today's consumers are savvy users of computer systems with user-friendly technology.  People can look up their own medical records such as with the Veterans Administration: myhealthevet website.  The veteran can keep track of their own medical appointments and their health.

Our lives have been impacted with the advancement of computer technology.  We have come to depend on our laptops, our mobile phones, and our electronic mail for business and personal matters and I suspect we will continue to do so for a long time.

The Surge Towards a Mechanical Mind

According to the reading, computerized warfare was initially the most prominent champion of the development of artificial intelligence. This seems reasonable, as automated warfare should at least in theory be far more efficient. The perfect warrior could be construed as a mechanical mind which mimics that of a brilliant human being but which is uninhibited by emotional modulation, hormonal and neurochemical changes in the brain, and various other types of distraction. Where the Turing test created the theoretical model for a universal machine, the development of artificial intelligence allowed that idea to take form on a level which is both more complex and more practical. While the perfect military mind in mechanical form may not yet be completed, the development of symbolic mimicry of machines finds widespread use in our culture. Predictive behavior is central to many computational algorithms in everything from our Pandora stations to our search engines.

As computer languages became more complex, modeling of human consciousness became more obtainable and the progress towards efficient variations of artificial intelligence developed. It is interesting to remember that all levels are reducible to machine code, which is operationally very similar to Turing’s theoretical machine. In hindsight, it’s easy to think that the development of compiler programs was a logical next step that should have required little debate. The reality of course is that engineers, who dealt primarily in hardware, were horrified by the idea of compilers. It’s easy to imagine a room filled with furious engineers arguing about inefficiency. Considering that multiple levels of computation took manual priming and ate up a lot more time initially, they had an excellent point considering the hardware of their day. This and many other similar examples we’ve covered in this class continuously remind me that the technological viewpoint we have today has radically evolved in very recent history.

Artificial Intelligence and Intelligence Defined - The Turing Test

Artificial Intelligence to me is a very interesting topic.  For the most part, it intrigues me because, based on my knowledge of programming, you cannot design a robot that responds "intelligently" to all situations, questions, conversations, etc.  An intelligent response to me means taking in the various things around you, the things you're responding to, your past experiences, and most importantly, your intent, to come to a decision about how to act/respond.  Humans don't always do this, and a lot of the time, they might do it without fully 'thinking' about it, for example, a human might not recall a certain past experience that relates to a current scenario right then.

My experience of programming isn't extensive, but I feel that programming a fully "intelligent" thinking machine would be far too much programming to be at all realistic, perhaps even impossible, I simply think that there are too many responses and too many inputs to have a machine respond "intelligently," or by human standards.  It's interesting that the Turing test tests for all human behaviors, regardless of their intelligence.  I like that the test is for machines imitating human behavior, but in many contexts, a machine's ability to reproduce human error seems useless for the purpose of why a machine might be created.  The Turing test is interesting in this way, but in terms of its practical use, I think a different test for intelligence, with a narrower view of thinking and intelligence might be used.

Turing Tests

I am a big fan of Alan Turing and his work, and the possibility of AI within my lifetime is intriguing. I have a problem, however, with the conclusions drawn from the Turing Test.

The Turing Test has become the gold standard of AI researchers; there is at least one annual contest to build a program that can win it, and the entrants are on the cutting edge of intelligent computing. The question, or objection, I have, is that the test seems to have a very narrow and specific goal in mind, and therefore a very narrow definition of "intelligence." To use an extreme example; imagine a program built on statistical analysis and rules regarding previous conversations (or even previous Turing tests). Built around some algorithm that allowed it to produce reasonable responses to conversations; but nothing more. Such a program could probably pass a Turing Test, but it wouldn't be an AI. It seems the only solutions are to say that a) the narrow definition of Intelligence is intentional, and correct, or that b) The Turing Test, while valuable, isn't enough to detect Intelligence.

Kubrick and Science Fiction

HAL 9000 in 2001: A Space Odyssey is a symbol of the worst-case scenario of artificially intelligent computers and their relationship with Humanity.

 In which the narrative serves theme.

I think the concern of resistance to AI begins before the digital age itself.  If we look to Science Fiction writing we can find

 early doubts and uneasiness with mans relationship t machines. The doubts in the minds of a generation of writers have echoes of distrust of the Modern and from the rise of the Atomic Age, sci-fi dealt with annihilation by machine (although certainly this is countered by what we can label “optimist” sci-fi; star trek, etc.)

AI is commonly associated with an ultimate evil. A central theme of Science Fiction writing is that rational thought without emotion is dangerous.   The human mind, untethered from the body-and by extension the web of psychological, social, and emotional need-will eventually rely only on its intelligence, breeding arrogance, hubris, a revolt against what is human, and deny any connection to their human counterparts and set about destroying them.  This is really an old parable about hubris and over-dependence on technology (Icarus rejects his father, took refuge in technology, falls to earth, while Faust casts his lot with the scientific and pays with his soul).

I enjoyed how Kubrick grounded the narrative in a sleek contemporary aesthetic, a slightly hyper-real  version of everyday life in 1968. While the stewardesses in pillbox hats and the back-slappin' bonhomie of the characters-Somewhere between a Brylcream ad and a stroll through Bedford Falls seems corny to us, pretty gosh darn cool in 1968.  More importantly it was entirely plausible that the future would look familiar to us, a staple of many Sci Fi narratives, and the obvious set-up for the final act when Hal rebels. In a setting where nothing could possibly go wrong and superintelligences have sorted out all the problems, the likely thing to go wrong is a machine itself.

And when it learns, it becomes a Superintelligence. It will accumulate a base of knowledge the builds upon itself, eventually knowing more than humans, though nurtured by humans, evolves beyond the comprehension of humans and lacking any empathy, turns on them.

2001 is a work of fiction, and Turing's influence on Kubrick is evident. 

The link between2001 and Turing is well established.  I.J. Good, who worked under Turning as a cryptologist (enigma machine stuff in England during World War II) he went on to publish several articles and consulted with Kubrick on the "design" of HAL 9000.

The interesting thing here is that the concept of an “Intelligence Explosion” was pioneered by (guess who?) a science fiction writer. Vernor Vinge came up with the idea of superintelligences, both AI and via human biological enhancement.

Good takes it further, stating:

 "Let an ultra intelligent machine be defined as a machine that can far surpass all the intellectual activities of any man however clever. Since the design of machines is one of these intellectual activities, an ultra intelligent machine could design even better machines; there would then unquestionably be an 'intelligence explosion,' and the intelligence of man would be left far behind. Thus the first ultra intelligent machine is the last invention that man need ever make."

Enter HAL9000 stage left.