[FRIAM] the arc of ai (was Re: Whew!)

[glen ☣]

On 05/05/2017 09:24 AM, Marcus Daniels wrote:
> I intended to make a different point than what I think you may have concluded.

Heh, yes, I know.  That was partly the point of referring to it in this context. >8^D  Nonetheless, the point I inferred is still there.

> To certain technologists, there is the view that our culture is made up of rule-based parts that act much like software.  They are not personal (in your terminology), they are abstractions that take on a significance of their own.   If one can get voters to embrace a set of slogans, or go to a building on Sunday to hold their head down periodically, or throw someone in prison because of an interpretation of a law, then it is not personal.  It's a generalized abstraction that some advocate like a priest or legislator threw-up and managed to get to stick.  The view that "knowledge is power" is another form.   Free software advocates like Stallman are well-aware of the thinking of scholars like Chomsky.   And certainly folks like Assange crossed paths with the free software movement (in the Stallman sense) on several occasions.   So, rather than handing out weapons, they hand out tools and information because these technologists believe that is the basis for power in the world, or soon will be.

I disagree.  These tools are personal (I'm OK if you'd prefer a different term... "local" perhaps, "concrete"?) and are definitely not abstract.  When you put your life (as you know it) at risk submitting classified information to Wikileaks, that's personal.  When you spend 1/2 your day futzing with dependencies so you can use open source tools to edit the ROM on your phone, that 1/2 day is personal.  And when you spend hours reading through really boring e-mails from and to someone like Podesta or some banker in the Cook Islands, that's personal.

That these certain technologists _think_ such tools are somehow reified, self-extant, abstractions is a fundamental flaw in their thinking ... and provides evidence for my position.  Tools are only tools if they are used.  And there is a tight coupling between tool and user.

-- 
☣ glen