Modern, technologies, have transformed, our communities, our lives, as well as our planet, from fake news to mass surveillance to, social media addictions. Usually, in a manner we hadn't anticipated at. First hailed. One time as the forerunners. Of a new enlightenment, the Internet as well as other significant. Tools of our networked universe, looked to have stimulated, new kinds, of social, and political division. Misinformation. And, conspiracy. Theory violence. And abuse, in the, middle of lots of information. We, appear to be falling into a new dark era an age, where we are capable to acquire more and more data on our complicated, world and still, appear to know less and less of it we. Have to know how to think critically through, all the doubt more than ever now we, have to consider the technologies, that form, our universe, as well as our thinking and investigate, where they originated, from how, they work and who they work for these. Book chapters, will reveal some of the huge and unanticipated, manners. That modern, technologies. Impact, us and the reason why and how they came to do that, chapter. One contemporary. Computation. Began in military, trials, to control the weather how. Our computers, related, to the weather and how, is weather related, to the military. Everything. For, several decades creating. Strategies. To predict and navigate, the weather was the main issue for Western, armies also. In that project lies, the source of contemporary. Computation. The. Mathematician. Lewis fry Richardson was. The first person, to make calculations. On atmospheric, conditions, so as to predict the weather he did this during the first world war while, he was volunteering, on the Western Front as a first responder. Also. Richardson. Devised a thought experiment, that could be regarded as the first depiction, of a computer, he imagined, a pantheon that consisted, of thousands, of human mathematicians. With, each mathematicians. Calculating. The weather conditions, for a certain, square of the world and discussing. The findings, between each other to make more calculations. Richardson. Imagined, that kind of machine would be able to precisely predict, the weather any, at any, point in time his. Innovative, idea, didn't emerge again until, the Second World War to when huge military research. Spending, prompted, the introduction, of machine computation. A US. Military research. Project, known as the Manhattan Project that, brought about the making of the atomic bomb, is closely related to, the growth of the first computers, a lot of these first computers, like, the electronic. Numerical integrator, and. Computer ENIAC. From, the year of 1946. Were, utilized, to do automated calculations. To mimic the effect of various bombs and missiles under, specific weather circumstances. But, usually. The, military, routes and functions, of the computers, were hidden for. Instance. In 1948. In New, York, IBM, put in its selective sequence, electronic. Calculator, SSE. C in a complete view of the public, in a shop window however. Although the, public was informed, that the computer, was calculating. Astronomical. Locations, for NASA flights it was really working for Hippo a secret, program doing. Calculations. To reproduce, hydrogen, bomb explosions. From. The start the complicated. Concealed, workings, of computers, gave a suitable, cloak for obscuring, their real purposes. Although. Mostly. They, didn't even do their real work really well the, history of computation. Has lots of stories that show how computers, oversimplified. View, of the world their, failure, to differentiate. Between reality and simulation. And poor, data can have extreme, repercussions. For the humans using them for instance. During, the Cold War sage, the u.s. computer, network that was used to incorporate, atmospheric. And military, data is notorious. For its near fatal errors like, confusing. A flock of moving birds for an approaching, Soviet, bomber fleet, chapter. 2 climate. Change as well as modern technologies. Are inextricably. Connected. Climate. Change is what it is referred, to as hyper object, by Timothy, Morton the philosopher, just, like the Internet it's really huge and pervasive something, that we basically, cannot consider, in a meaning full manner rather, we, only see its marks on the world that surrounds us an example. Of those kinds, of intense, mark is the Syrian conflict of, current years explained. By a lot of observers as the first climate, war in history as a, result, of the increasing, Universal, temperatures, between, the years, 2006. And 2011, the, Syrian countryside. Experienced. Huge, unusual. Droughts large. Swaths of farmland, got, unusable, and approximately. 85%, of. Livestock died, the, consequential. Demographic. Pressure of farmers, running to the cities and built, up hatred about President, Bashar al-assad's dealing.
With The issue eventually. Brought about the armed conflict that, turned out to be intense to the West as the refugee crisis, however. It's, not only old in technologies. Such as agriculture. That are impacted, by fluctuating. Weather conditions, also. Modern. Technologies. Such as the Internet are impacted, by climate change. Although. We have a tendency, to consider, the worldwide, web as a non-physical, cloud, data, transmission. And storage depends, on a wide physical, network of fiber optic, antennas, cables. As well as servers an infrastructure. Extremely. Susceptible to severe, weather conditions for instance. The, power and effectiveness of, Wi-Fi, or believed to reduce with higher temperature, also a, lot, of computational. Devices totally. Fails in severe heat on the. Other hand digital, technologies, add to the climate, disaster, as well only, the world's, physical, data centers, make use of nearly, three percent of, the globe's electricity. Causing, nearly 2 percent of worldwide carbon. Emissions, as our digital, culture gets faster, it will need extra resources, still to sustain, them if we, think of the energy prices for the transmission, and storage of streaming data for an hour of Netflix, in one week it used more electricity, yearly, than two new refrigerators. Then, it is not a surprise that the quantity, of energy utilized. To store and transmit our data is predicted, to triple, in the following, four years. Also, although modern, technologies, let us gather massive, amounts, of measurements, and data on the crisis, climate, change itself, might make us completely, unable to incorporate. These entire, data in a meaningful, manner in the, year 2015. Atmospheric. Carbon exceeded. 400. Parts, per million or parts, per million of the, atmospheric, constituent. At 1,000. Parts per million of co2 a, proportion. Of summand or regions in urban centres frequently. Surpass human. Cognitive, skill reduced by 21%. Chapter. 3 the scientific, research has been dived into disaster, by vast data fallacy. If you. Know a bit about the world of computation. You'll probably have heard of Moore's law the, notion, that the raw computing, ability of our devices increases, by two fold, every two years since. The time of its first invention, in, 1965. This law has existed, nearly correct however, as you can possibly confirm. From casual, observation. The reality, that technology. Is becoming ever smaller and faster, doesn't essentially, signify, that it's making our lives become, easier, tech. Optimists. Who quote Moore's law regularly, do that in the spirit of computational. Optimism. They, assume that more computation. Is usually, better and also the, more data we gather and process, the world the, more our knowledge, of it grows in, science. This, idea, has brought about a research, system, that value is automated, testing that produces, lots of data over more, disordered, human empiricism, for, instance, in drug, research the.
Duty Of human scientists, is now usually minimized. To programming. And supervising. The work of machines involved, in a process known as high-throughput, screening, the. Computer, checks the impacts, and communications. Of thousands, of chemical compounds, per day in the belief that it will ultimately come. Across a combination, that is beneficial, in treating a certain disease the. Issue as this, method doesn't appear to work every. Nine years since, the year 60s, the quantity, of new drugs permitted, for human use for each billion, US dollars, in spending on research and, growth has reduced by half, commentators. Have skeptically, begun referring, to this effect as a rooms law Moore's, law backward, the, huge data fallacy, that promotes quantity, over quality is, obvious, in all of science although. The number of scientific. Studies papers, and journals have been rising gradually over, the last decades, as well, as the number of errors, plagiarism. And deception. In scientific. Research, experts. Are progressively, discussing. The replication, disaster. Of contemporary. Science this. Talks about the reality, that when a lot of scientific, studies, are done for a second, time by another group of researchers, they, cannot reproduce the actual, findings, for. Example, in the year 2011 the. University, of Virginia, repeated, five landmark, cancer, studies, of current years just. Two experiments, could be effectively, copied, the, other two studies were indecisive. At another, one failed totally, while. Scientific, research, is collecting, more and more data about, the universe, the speed of scientific. Innovation, is really decelerating. Rather, than showering, us with a good understanding of. The universe, the present, overflow of data is impacting, our ability to process what's, happening around us negatively. Chapter. For technology. Pushes inequality, as a tool of capitalism. Apparently. Slough, is a very unexceptional. Small, town few 25, miles outside of, London but, unknown. To the majority the, numerous, huge and secret, warehouses, that line its key Road formed the physical base of part of the most significant. Aspects, of our digital world for. Instance one. Of them called, the unassuming, named LD, for stores. The data servers, of the London Stock Exchange the. Fiber-optic, cables. That connect to and from LD, 4 transmit, financial, data of nearly unbelievable. Value, carrying. And getting it to and from other financial information, centers. Across the globe at the speed of light this, very speedy, network between firms, markets. As well as investors. Has brought a a new kind of financial exchange. High-frequency, trading. Currently. Financial. Traders can respond, virtually, immediately to drops and increases. In the market in order, to do that within milliseconds they. Recruit the assistance, of algorithms, and BOTS that observe prices, make simulated, proposals, and shadow transactions. To mislead other traders and also, scan as well as read news, headlines, to predict the economic, impacts, of key occasions, across, the globe, however. It's getting, increasingly obvious, that even insiders, can't continue with the sense of their computers, in the hyperaccelerated. Globe, of digital finance for. Example on, the 10th of May 2010. The Dow Jones went. Through a remarkable, 600, point crash a loss, of approximately, six billion dollars, then all of a sudden recovered. Minutes after those, kinds, of flash crashes. Are rising more, common, and no, one is able to identify the actual, reason behind them although, machines progressively, confuse, humans, in some aspects, they substitute, us absolutely, in other areas consider. Behemoth, Amazon, which, is already making use of fleets, of robots to keep categorize. And select. Products, where, it still makes use of human, Pickers Amazon. Does that out of financial incentive. And basically, uses, those employees, just as robots, the, employees, are directed, and supervised through. A handheld. Device which. Transfers, them to various places in, the warehouse in a way that maxes, out efficiency. And reduces, socializing. With colleagues. Disturbingly. Firms, as well as politicians. Are offering. A small view, on what social, security system. Could substitute full time work, therefore. Technology. Unlike, being the great equalizer, that we've been assured is only, a different, tool for putting a few in control. Chapter. Five machine.
Learning, And codes are former, bias and takes it into our future there's. A folklore, about an AI created by, the US Army that shows the risks as well as boundaries, of machine, learning by, which is intended training. Computers, how to. Supposedly. The army attempted to teach a computer to identify. Disguise, tanks, in a forest, in order, to do that they, showed it an image after image of, forests, with tanks concealed, in them and image, after image of, forests, that don't have a tank till the AI had been taught to determine, the test pictures, at part well however. In the field da I failed, woefully, it, wasn't, more efficient, than a human at predicting, if there was a tank in a certain forest or not a person. Detected. Only after, that the entire training images, with tanks, had been captured, during a sunny day whereas, the entire images, that didn't have tank had been captured during a cloudy day the, machine hadn't been taught how to differentiate, between a, forest, with a tank and a forest that doesn't, have a tank it had been taught to differentiate, between a sunny and a cloudy day, this. Narrative Illustrated. To us that when we teach machines, how to reason we, cannot imagine them to reason like humans, in a lot of situations we. Might never be able to know how is it or the reason they got to their decision, at all, computers, form their own multi-dimensional. Simulations, of the universe, that are completely, different from the manner humans, experience, it however. More, than only a notion worth thinking of the, strange nature of a machines mind, can as well be utilized to validate, the deductions, they come to even, when these are contentious, or risky, in, the year 2016. Two researchers, from the University, in Shanghai caused, a commotion when, they asserted to have made software, that could differentiate, between, a criminal and a non criminal face, when. Their test was condemned, on the grounds, that the software would certainly over represent, marginalized, groups they, asserted that they had made it only for academic, aims and that it and machine, learning as a whole was, inherently, free of bias the, notion that computation. As well, as algorithms. Our free, of bias is believed by a lot of AI supporters. Something. They failed to recognize is, that machines. Have a tendency, to be taught with data and we only have data from past time because. Our past is filled with racism. Justice, and violence. Injustice. Regardless. Of whether we mean to or not the, machines we teach with this data are going to imitate that racism. Injustice. And violence, and project, them into the future for. Instance, as currently. As a few years ago Asian, Americans, unsuccessfully. Attempted, to take family images, with their nikon coolpix s 630, whether. Than taking, an image the, smart camera constantly showed. The error message, did a person blink, chapter. 6 our technology.
As Well as data is progressively. Dominated. By intelligence. Agencies and governments. In a. Former, chapter, we, considered, the hydrogen, bomb simulation. Computer sec, which performed, its top-secret, calculations. In complete, sight of the public since. The Second World War. Intelligence. Agencies, like the CIA and. NSA have used millions of dollars on creating, secret, technologies, the, presence, or real goal of which the universe just becomes, privy, to decades, after, the reality, if ever for instance. It was the CIA and, not the US Army neither the airforce that, made the first drones, years, before they turned into a staple, in contemporary, warfare, but. It's not just futuristic. Technologies, that are put away in a classified, world vast. Amounts of our history are gradually, vanishing, into hidden vaults each year, the, US government, marks approximately. 400,000. New documents. As top secret an amount, that's increasing. Gradually, in the, UK the, condition, is not that better in the, year 2011, when. A group of Kenyan survivors, eventually, won the freedom to charge, the British government, for the torment they had suffered when the colonial, authorities were in charge during the 1950s. It became known that in Kenya, approximately. 1.2, million, documents. On the British concentration. Camps, were stored away in a secret government department, part, of those documents, a lot were destruction, certificates. Of other documents, confirming. To an even larger number of lost records and deleted, history. This, illustration, informs. Us that although now we have more allegedly, unbiased. Data on the universe what, gets to us is still selected, and regulated. In the, situation, of the Kenyan concentration. Camps, the concealment, as well as the destruction, of significant. Historic, documents, by the British government have, successfully. Hindered, the country from properly, reckoning, with its colonial, past data, collection, is a different, means Intelligence, Agency's, rule the world that surrounds us in the, year 2013. The, NSA's, widespread. System, of mass surveillance became. Clearly seen with the disclosures, of whistleblower. Edward, Snowden also, a few months after related. Programs, to spy on the communication. Of normal, inhabitants. Were revealed, in every other Maine nation, in Europe and the Americas. Although. The, rage of the public, died down immediately also in, the year 2015. The, Freedom Act enacted by the United, States as a reply, left the NSA's, surveillance rights. Mainly, untouched, much. Related, to climate change mass, surveillance looks. Just too huge and complex, a threat to ponder, on Chapter. Seven conspiracy. Theories offer the ease of simple stories, in a complicated globe. Since. The start of history, humans, had the tendency to change complicated. Situations. Into simple narratives, to understand, the world somehow. Our idea, of history is itself an illustration. Of, oversimplification. Definitely. None, of these stories, can never include, the complete. Multi-dimensional. Fact however, in our, connected, information. Saturated. Present, a lot of narratives, people, say to themselves about, the universe, appear really far from the mark than ever part. Of the ancient, and most pervasive of conspiracy. Theories, that appear in every area, of the internet, nowadays is chemtrails. Supporters. Of this theory assume that there is a network of military planes, or commercial, sprinkling, chemicals, in the air so as to bring about diseases, mind, control, people, or perform, some other kind, of diabolical, strategy. Definitely. Man-made, chemical, clouds, are really real the, chemtrails, that humans notice, in the sky are really exhausted, fumes as well as condensation. From the planes however. Far. From being worried, about the actual danger of the carbon emissions produced, by the aviation, field chemtrails. Literalized, their overall fear into a meat and debatably, unhinged, theory of governmental, mind-control. A different. Group of conspiracy. Theorists, considers, themselves, to be controlled, by gang stalking, surveillance. And mind-control. By evil objects, thinking. About what we now understand, about the NSA's, system, of mass surveillance this. Simple, view is not really far detached from what's really happening, however. The, conspiracy. Theorists, simplified, form of the narrative, the narrative that, depicts, an obvious, black-and-white, image, of the universe and involves, them personally, as well as directly still, looks very easy to understand, than the existence, of a huge global system, of mass surveillance that, has no obvious perpetrator.
Or Aim definitely. The Internet's echo chamber, effect supports. The spread of strange, theories, about the universe, wannabe. Conspiracy. Theorists, are effortlessly. Drawn into self confirming. Supportive. As well as interactive. Online groups, that direct them to ever more extreme opinions. Right-wing. Populists, s-- and religious, fundamentalists. Make use of our yearning for simple stories, in a difficult, time even. Donald Trump has tweeted about how climate change is, a conspiracy. Against, American, business created. By the Chinese also, a, lot of his campaign, assurances. Like, the border wall to Mexico, were, obviously, stimulated. By Alex Jones of the website info, wars the, well known online, conspiracy. Theorists, even. Though conspiracy. Theories, offer the ease of minimizing. Our terrifying, disordered, universe, into, a simple, story these can become just as terrifying. Chapter. 8 paired, with financial incentives. Algorithms. Generate, alarming, cultural, goods have. You for one spin in a YouTube spiral, clicking. From one recommended, video to the other you, see yourself, in the ever weirder angles, of the video platform, that hardly ranked as human, entertainment. One. Of the causes why there are a lot of self-made. Entertainers. Vloggers. And progressively. BOTS, competing, for your concentration. On YouTube, is that videos that are successful, can make a huge amount of money from advertising. For. Instance, the, viral music, video of the Korean pop hit titled Gangnam, style, made, 8 million, dollars from just its first billion, views, kids. Entertainment. Has been showing an especially, profitable. Area of the platform, kids, as young as age, 2 are using, more and more time, being online with. Colorful, and loud videos, which, they usually watch continuously. It is easy to target and engage them a lot. Of these alleged, children's, videos, are produced by BOTS make by companies, trying to make fast money for. Instance, little, baby bum which is one of YouTube's, most successful. Channels, has produced thousands, of BOTS made animated. Sing-along, videos with, all of them having the exact same simple, melodies, and patterns. Usually. These firms, make use of algorithms. To make the most of YouTube's, own ones the. Outcome, is ridiculous, names like this. 150. Giant, surprise eggs kinder, cars Star, Wars Marvel Avengers, Lego, Disney Pixar, Nickelodeon. Peppa, however. Asides, from the obvious copyright. Violation. Of these videos, their, content, can be completely, disturbing. One, illustration from. A list of millions of other related. Videos are, given the name wrong, heads Disney, wrong ears wrong legs kids learn colors finger, family, 2017. Nursery rhymes in the, video the, removed heads, of casts from Aladdin are moving around the screen when. A head joins itself, to the correct body the, small girl from Despicable, Me shows in a corner of the screen and cheers if the, head does not fit with the body she, does a short automated. Wail maybe. Even more disturbing, is that YouTube's recommendation. Algorithms, can't differentiate, between actual. Children's, shows and videos, intended. To parody, them the parody, videos can be violent for instance. In one Papa, Pig a favorite, animated, character, is presented, going to visit the dentist and the dentist tortures. Her by removing, her entire teeth the. Majority. Of these videos, aren't aimed at children however with. Small to no content, or age restriction. By YouTube, itself, they unavoidably, do due, to that the, significant, mixture, of predatory, algorithms. And capitalist, incentives, supported, by technology, has produced an entirely, new type of systemic, violence. Chapter. 9 for, us to live with purpose in a new dark era we have to leave computational. Optimism, and accept complexity. During. A Google zeitgeist conference, in, the year 2013. A yearly, meeting of tech aristocracy's, and politicians. Which talks about the state and future, of technology CEO. Eric, Schmidt made, a surprising, assertion. If camera. Phones had been in existence in the year 1994. The alarming, Rwandan killing of that year would never have taken place since people would have had the capacity to record and share information about, the killings happening. Schmidt's. Notion, is fixed, in a belief shared by a lot of his colleagues that, by making a thing visible, it automatically, solves, it and also, that.
Latest Technologies. Are making the globus safer better, and easier, to handle place, as we've. Understood, in, the former chapters this, couldn't be far from the fact just. Give a closer, inspection at. Schmidt's illustration. Of the Rwandan killing, in the, year 1994. During, the course of 100 days, an approximated. 1 million, Rwandan, population. Were killed in a cruel genocide. Prompted, on by inter-ethnic. Tensions whereas. The remaining of the world stood by and didn't do anything apparently, due to the reason that they were not aware of it however. Since, that time. Examinations. Have shown that various, NGOs, international. Embassies. As well, the UN were closely observing the matter for, instance, the, government of the u.s. was monitoring, the growths through high-resolution. Satellite images. Different. To what Schmitt proposes, the, killing that happened in Rwanda was, not backed by a lack of understanding, however. Rather, by a lack of doing. Apathy. As well as inaction in the face of overwhelming data. Is now, a state known to everyone of us hence, instead of, assisting, us to understand, the universe data, as well as computation. Have only made situations. More difficult, clive humpy, the British mathematician and. Architect. Were implying, at the shortcomings. Of computation. When he mentioned, the word data is the new oil in, the year 2006. In his, actual word he, went further to clarify, that just like oil data, cannot be utilized in, its raw state for. It to be of value it has to be divided and analyzed, rather. Than concentrating, on, gathering, gradually. More information. So as to predict progressively, complicated. Situations. We have to know how to reason consciously, and critically, about the origin, of our data its purpose and the owner we, have to closely look at the worldwide, technological. Networks that, make and utilize, this data and the manners we can transform, them for good by, doing this that, is the only means, we can bring significance. To this new dark era of our making new. Dark Age technology, and the end of the future by James bridle, book review, although. New technologies, of the digital era let us connect gather, and share data they're leading us into a new dark era where, the universe, looks more complicated, and perplexing. Than ever before, the reason is that as, illustrations. From ancient science. History. And computing. Show, more, data doesn't usually yield good outcomes. Furthermore. When, recent, technologies, are utilized, for capitalist, purposes, they have a tendency to continue, and deepen current power structures. This, is the reason if we wish to live significantly. In the present, we have to begin asking questions, about the root purpose, and function, of our technologies.
2020-04-02