The Breaking Time

"I'm not a robot. I am a unicorn": AI makes baby talk

Hi-larious

So the folks at the Creative Machines lab hooked up their "CleverBot" chatbot to itself. The resulting exchange is comedy gold, as the robots snark at each other, worry about God and one insists that it is, in fact, a unicorn.

Hilarity aside, I've predicted for awhile now, half-joking, that the closest thing to true AI will probably emerge out of spam or chatbots. Amid my laughing, it's almost possible to hear the above exchange as baby talk, nonsense sounding out of words as a prelude to something much more evolved.

Or we've just averted the robot war, because AI will be too busy shouting "I'm a unicorn!" to slaughter humanity en masse.

Who's left in the space race?

An abandoned cosmodrome. Location and photographer unknown. More photos here.

So, Russia's decided to ditch human space travel:

Moscow no longer sees manned spaceflight as its top priority but remains committed to its International Space Station obligations, the head of Russian space agency Roskosmos said on Wednesday.

Russia holds a monopoly on flights to and from the 16-nation station. Soyuz launches from its Baikonur cosmodrome are now the only way to space since the United States retired its 30-year shuttle programme in July.

NASA pays it more than $50 million per flight to send its astronauts to the space outpost.

Roskosmos chief Vladimir Popovkin said Russia was spending almost half of its space budget on manned flights and needed to shift focus to more technology-oriented projects. He added however it would stand by its station commitments.

"Unfortunately manned spaceflight accounts for an unjustifiably large part of the budget: It makes up 48 percent," he told reporters at Russia's flagship MAKS airshow near Moscow.

No, it doesn't mean the end of manned spaceflight entirely, but combined with the end of NASA's shuttle program, it's yet another move in the wrong direction.

So, NASA's bowed out of major human space travel for the foreseeable future, Russia's followed suit. Who does that leave? China? Europe? Weyland-Yutani?

For all the talk that private industry might take over the space race, it doesn't look feasible in the near future. The whole enterprise lacks, so far, the huge returns shareholders generally crave. Long-term planning is not corporate culture's strong suit.

What I'd like to see is an alliance. Instead of looking at expenses and dwindling budgets and going "cut!" space agencies should take a cue the cooperation that's increased since the end of the Cold War. Throw together the reduced space agencies, a few more forward-looking private businesses and some coordinating non-profits with the overall goal of advancing space travel. Split the costs and the potential gains in research and resources. This might even allow rising powers like India, South Africa and Brazil to join in, as they could gain access to existing infrastructure and expertise for an investment, without the huge up-front cost of having to build their own programs. Cash-strapped but infrastructure-rich agencies like NASA and Roskosmos get much-needed funds. Business gets a safer investment, because the odds are better than going solo. The non-profits, especially the scientific ones, get to advance their own goals. Win-win, if it was done right.

Of course, as I observed after the end of the space shuttle program, that solution would require motivation: cultures that viewed space travel as a serious priority. Right now, that's seriously lacking.

When did we stop looking at the stars?

Into the wild blue yonder

Last Friday, the space shuttle Atlantis broke Earth's gravity, headed for the international space station. It marked the last space shuttle launch.

While this is not the end of the space program, Atlantis' final journey marks a major point on a long, downward trajectory, not least for the 25,000 workers who will suffer directly from the program's end. These days, the government spends more on air conditioning in Iraq and Afghanistan than on NASA.

Appropriately, today is the 42nd anniversary of David Bowie's "Space Oddity," the classic lament of a doomed astronaut:

Let's not get too altruistic here, either. The space program's heyday came about in large part because Americans and their government viewed it as part of a greater war against the USSR.

Still, NASA's zenith proved something: we can go to space. We can send people to space. The resources exist. The technology is there. Hell, at this point the technology is old.

The only remaining question is: do we want to? When people look out at their society and think "what do I want us to do?" is "go to space, and keep going" on the list?

Not for a long time. People can talk efficiency all they wish, but governments have proven perfectly capable of spending larger sums on far more questionable things (remember all that air conditioning?). The program's death marked a deeper turn.

Partly, the shift came from space travel's birth, tied to the Cold War and '50s hubris. By the era's end, people were, rightly, tired of the damn struggle, and anything associated with it. "Space Oddity" was one early marker, the increasing skepticism of science fiction another.

"Fighting the commies" was never the whole reason, of course. Space exploration had real popular appeal for a long time, tapping into a primal grandeur, combined with humanity's explorational urge. But, forever tied to far-off dividends and the conflict that created it, the whole enterprise proved vulnerable to accusations that the only thing all that money created was "garbage floating in the sky," as Ursula LeGuin's infamously dismissed.

Defenders could even point to more immediate benefits, like the ridiculous amount of more down-to-earth devices spawned by space research. It didn't help. This is the kind of popular argument won in the heart, not the head.

The fact is, the populace at large decided space travel wasn't a priority. It lost its glamour, its war, its money and its support. There were other fears, other dangers. Everything that's followed, from the lack of cutting edge spacecraft to the shuttle's end, is all part of that downward spiral.

So here's the question: we decided to give up on space travel. What did we get instead?

Was it worth it?

Open government can survive a resignation

Yes, we'll survive

Apparently, open government is dying. So declares a column from Vivek Wadhwa in yesterday's Washington Post: 

Vivek Kundra’s resignation last week from his post as the nation’s Chief Information Officer is an ominous event.

Kundra’s goal was to set government data free via an expansive Internet effort called Data.gov, and encourage innovation with government-collected data through the Open Government Initiative. He had hoped to slash tens of billions of dollars from the government information technology (I.T.) budget by democratizing who and which types of companies can deliver I.T. solutions to the government. The most radical part of his program was to make public data available to entrepreneurs, allowing them to build new applications that solved problems for the government and their communities.

The program was off to a great start, with hundreds of thousands of data sets becoming available, and entrepreneurs building thousands of innovative applications. Then the ill-considered race to slash the Federal deficit started. The Obama Administration agreed to cut e-government initiative funding from $35 million to $8 million. Never mind that Kundra’s programs had already saved taxpayers $3 billion over the past two years.

Not surprisingly, Kundra resigned. Why preside over a portfolio of shuttered initiatives? In a phone interview, Kundra acknowledged that he is worried about the program’s funding, but told me that he believes that the open data initiative has so much momentum that it is unstoppable, echoing the sentiment issued in his formal statement that he is “confident progress will continue.”

The observation is understandable, if wrong. For all the smarts and individual experience involved, the Gov 2.0/open gov movement remains relatively new to politics, at least compared to other causes that measure their tenure in decades. I've noticed, since 2009, the worrying impression that open government depends on a narrow political window, specifically around the Obama administration's directives and appointments.

An alliance between sympathetic government officials and technologists has remained a hallmark of the Gov 2.0 push since Carl Malamud's work opening up the SEC in 1993. Advocates understandably place a lot of emphasis on that relationship, and I remember the focus at the first Gov 2.0 conference on getting "top people" from the federal government on board.

Kundra's appointment as the nation's first CIO was a big deal for these advocates, and they've invested a lot of effort in rightly defending the programs he's shepherded from shortsighted cuts. He's had an impressive record of accomplishments and his resignation at a time when the early momentum of the federal open government movement is being sorely tested can be disheartening.

Still, I figured something like this would happen, if not with a resignation, with some other setback.

Here, for me, is the rub in Wadhwa's analysis:

But, with Kundra gone, I am not optimistic about the program. Whenever a program loses its key evangelist, it normally dies. The Open Government Initiative is likely to suffer a slow, inevitable death.

No.

Capable evangelists certainly help, but history and experience both teach a very different lesson. Any political cause (and open government is one) throwing all its chips on one person will fail.

Look, we have politics not because we agree, but because we don't. On many things, we won't ever. To many involved, open government is a cause. I respect that and, on many levels, I agree.

But it will never be that way to everyone. For some people it will just be a bargaining chip, one interest among many or something thoroughly expendable when cutting times come.

Securing open government in the face of that requires a succession of leaders, multiple organizations and enough constituencies on board that even those who don't personally care have to take their combined influence into account.

Budget cuts, setbacks and resignations are all part of politics. Every cause suffers them, and the ones that endure do so because they can take the damage and keep on going. The ability to do so depends not on a single person but on the depth of support and the strength of advocates to carry on.

Is that staying power there? That's a good question. The rebuttals to Wadhwa's piece (here's a good one) started cropping up almost as soon as it was published. While still far from a political third rail, open government has certainly expanded, on some fronts, since I began writing on it.

But Kundra's resignation is a good time to look at how open government can grow more resilient in the political fray.

This is big: censorship-cracking "internet in a suitcase"

So that's where the internet went

Via Andrew Sullivan, here's a tech innovation legitimately worth getting excited about:

In response to the government suppression of Internet access during the Arab Spring, "Internet in a Suitcase" will allow citizens to bypass censors and help them reconnect in times of government imposed shutdown. A "suitcase" can be transported to dissidents in a repressive country and quickly set up to allow wireless communication over a wide area with a link to the global Internet, thus undermining the despotic governing powers. To track the project, you can follow the Open Technology Initiative on Twitter @newamericaoti.

In accordance with the United Nations decision that Internet access should not be denied to anyone, this project is the Obama administration's attempt at harboring democracy in these repressive countries while exercising a push at furthered free speech practices.The project is funded by a $2 million grant from the State Department.

This is huge. While people get far too excited over apps or augmented reality, this is the exact kind of durable infection that stands a chance of furthering actual, substantial change: reliable, easy to replicate and fulfilling a basic need, in this case communicating in the face of repression.

This segment from Al-Jazeera has more information:

Credit where it's due: for all the terrible government-funded things, this one is really beneficial. Of course, like the AK-47, this is going to spread far beyond the control of the government that started it. These tools need to be widespread, in the first world as well as the third, in slums, countryside and rust belts too. The more of them there are, the more resilient future social movements will be against attempts to totally shut down communication.

Mark my words, these suitcases will inevitably end up used against repressive governments of many stripes, including ones the US supports. That's for the good, and with this development, I think the ability to bring the hammer down on online communication just suffered a major setback.

When etiquette gets harsh: "she texted. We kicked her out."

Also hilarious.

I've talked about phone breaks on here before, as a way culture is accommodating the intrusion of new social devices while still preserving the basic taboos of etiquette.

While there's wiggle room in personal social situations, essential to that incorporation is the idea that some areas, theaters in particular, remain entirely off-limits to cell usage. 

Apparently, the Alamo Drafthouse agrees. Not only did they expel a patron for repeatedly texting during a movie, they proceeded to put up her ranting voicemail in front of all their R-rated shows as a head-on-the-gate style reminder to the rest of their patrons.

Politeness, like any more, relies on breach: even if some people don't like it, social consequence compels them to abide by it most of the time. It's interesting to see the new media variety of public ridicule — boasting publicly about throwing the patron out, and spreading it via YouTube — meet the enforcement of old-school etiquette. This kind of "this far, and no further" act is just as much a part of incorporating technology into the social landscape as phone breaks.

Plans Change: Don't fuck Plan B

Without a Plan B, you end up with this

Come now, you know better than this.

Don't fuck Plan B. 

I see where you're coming from. You have some driving passion you want to see done. You are determined to sweep obstacles out of the way. No doubt you've heard any number of successful people talk about how all kinds of shit fell into place because they pursued their dreams and never once let the thought of failure enter their mind. It's a lot easier to talk this way after one has a large bank account, but that's another story.

You want to burn the ships on the beaches, because there ain't no going back.

Because you're young, and might be in love more with the idea of Plan A than its reality. Hell, Plan B turns out to be a better Plan A many, many times.

Or maybe because you're older, with just enough success to think your ideas are foolproof, and that's stupid.

Have a Plan B.

Because no plan survives first contact with the enemy. Or an obstacle. The world gives you plenty of both.

Because the love of your life may turn out to be a terrible person.

Because determination is formidable, not invincible.

Because one day you might be poor, or are right now. Your stomach, your bill collectors and your landlord don't give two shits how brilliant Plan A is.

Because if you don't have a Plan B, the world is happy to write one for you, and you won't like it.

Because one day you might have some power, and our world is full of terrible problems created by people who assumed their first plan would work out. People who assumed that markets would always rise or that they'd be greeted as liberators, and there are a lot of others out there who really, really wish they'd had a Plan B.

Don't be one of those assholes.

So here's to the stockpile, the reserve, the savings account, the full pantry, the contingency plan. Here's to the second career. Here's to hidden talents and new skills. Here's to rolling with the punches, learning that you're not half as smart as you thought you were, and coming back better next time.

Here's to your editor calling you out on your bullshit. Here's to tempering your dreams in reality, the same way metal is transformed in fire.

Here's to Plan B.

Hey, we live in a world where "look before you leap" and "those who hesitate are lost" are both true. No one ever said it would be easy.

Plans change.

The best to you, and good hunting.

(Thanks to Madeline Ashby for suggesting the title of this post.)

Revenge of the commons

The original gang territory? The medieval center of Siena.

The commons has received much praise as a powerful model for our own era, but mostly forgotten is how those extolled structures were actually run, and what they did to their rivals.

Some fascinating information in this article on medieval communes:

Because much of medieval Europe lacked central authority to provide protection, each city had to provide its own protection for citizens both inside the city walls, and outside. Thus towns formed communes, a legal basis for turning the cities into self-governing corporations. Although in most cases the development of communes was connected with that of the cities, there were rural communes, notably in France and England, that were formed to protect the common interests of villagers.

Every town had its own commune and no two communes were alike, but at their heart, communes were sworn allegiances of mutual defense. When a commune was formed, all participating members gathered and swore an oath in a public ceremony, promising to defend each other in times of trouble, and to maintain the peace within the city proper.

What did it mean for a commune member to defend another? If a commune member was attacked outside the city, it was too late to call for help, as it was unlikely anyone would arrive in time. Instead, the commune would promise to exact revenge on the attacker, the threat of revenge being a form of defense. However, if the attacker was a noble, safely ensconced in a castle (as was often the case), the town commune could not muster the forces to attack him directly. Instead they might attack the noble's family, burn his crops, kill his serfs, or destroy his orchards in retribution.

"How do you govern a community?" is an old question. The rise of towns and cities as a counterbalance to aristocratic authority was a major factor behind the Renaissance and, by extension, the modern world. In some ways, the urban rise hasn't stopped; most of humanity now lives in a city.

The medieval commune busts the stereotypical version of medieval history that, if it considers the peasantry at all, considers them mostly as oppressed masses, focusing instead on the culture and fights of the nobility. Turns out that peasants were plenty active in trying to develop ways to make their own lives less dangerous and hurt those that hurt them. Furthermore, they began independently adapting this basic structure once it proved successful elsewhere.

The medieval commune began by addressing the most basic need: physical protection. It then follows to the most basic way of deterrence: revenge. It is revealing that, in such an anarchic environment, peasants and artisans had an extremely no-bullshit idea of what would protect their own independence, and on what principles their rivals operated.

Interesting too to compare the way the word "commune" has changed over the centuries, from a revenge-based structure of expedience to a byword for egalitarian experimentation. 

In function, the medieval commune was more like a gang than a utopian social movement, not striving for any higher ideal than "don't fuck with us and let us run our own affairs." Which, for a medieval peasant, was a big deal. Notice that this relied on organized banditry — including the slaughter of serfs — to protect its own independence.

Like a gang or tribe, anything outside its orbit was expendable, and it focused on striking where its enemy was weak.

Of course, the communes didn't stay that communal, because ad-hoc organization is usually a precursor to more formal hierarchy. The Siena commune, one of the most successful, was ruled by an oligarchy of nine local leaders by the late 1200s. In Italy and Switzerland, where communes had the greatest success, they formed the foundation for more structured city-state republics.

Widespread disorder was a major reason for their existence in the first place, and the formation of centralized states both reduced that issue and created standing forces capable of subjugating the more rebellious communes.

Nonetheless, an interesting wrinkle here: contra the modern narrative, the communes were cooperative and competitive, with the threatened destruction of their foes (or their lands) a major reason for their existence. At the same time, their example shows that the most enduring structures start with an effective structure for a basic need and build from there.

Want to help spur a dark age? Close a library

My hometown library, thankfully not shuttered yet.

I woke up this morning to this heartbreaking post by Charles Simic:

All across the United States, large and small cities are closing public libraries or curtailing their hours of operations. Detroit, I read a few days ago, may close all of its branches and Denver half of its own: decisions that will undoubtedly put hundreds of its employees out of work. When you count the families all over this country who don’t have computers or can’t afford Internet connections and rely on the ones in libraries to look for jobs, the consequences will be even more dire. People everywhere are unhappy about these closings, and so are mayors making the hard decisions. But with roads and streets left in disrepair, teachers, policemen and firemen being laid off, and politicians in both parties pledging never to raise taxes, no matter what happens to our quality of life, the outlook is bleak.

---

I don’t know of anything more disheartening than the sight of a shut down library. No matter how modest its building or its holdings, in many parts of this country a municipal library is often the only place where books in large number on every imaginable subject can be found, where both grownups and children are welcome to sit and read in peace, free of whatever distractions and aggravations await them outside.

I've written here before about the decay of public infrastructure for some similar reasons, though it focused on nuts and bolts like roads and street lamps. Libraries are just as vital a piece of infrastructure.

This one hits home for me. The main family heirloom, passed down by my great-grandfather, is a set of 1912 Harvard classics. My mother, a schoolteacher, found ways to make sure that what ever else went on in our lives, whatever lack of money we were struggling with, there were always books around. Frequently, that was possible because of a public library.

For the short-sighted, it's an easy target. Books, after all, will still exist and, besides, goes the dismissal, there's the internet.

Yeah, no shit. Undoubtedly even the occasional Victorian street urchin had some access to books and outside knowledge, but that misses the damn point.

Libraries' greatest service isn't for the well-off, who can get education and information relatively easily in any era. Instead, its crowning achievement is opening up knowledge to those large parts of society — the unfashionable neighborhoods, the rural swaths — that the tastemakers and futurists usually ignore.

Ignored doesn't mean nonexistent, of course, and for those populations, libraries are a major resource. One, that unlike a lot of other services, doesn't lecture. We're open, read what you want. 

It is the best kind of egalitarianism: available to everyone, relatively cheap, and rewarding initiative. Libraries don't require the upfront cash or monthly bills that internet access does, and are open to non-tech savvy parts of the population. Often, they include local collections or obscure texts that the internet has, for the large part, ignored. Hell, they even open access to that same new media to those who can't afford it.

As if all that wasn't enough, libraries complement the education systems in place, because even if those are magically reformed, tomorrow, there's inevitably things their curriculums will leave out.

Even at points in my childhood when public education was lacking, access to a library took up some of the slack. Thanks to them, I first learned about dueling political theories, Alexander the Great, Chinese history and evolution, to name just a few.

If you think I'm drawing too much from my personal past, consider that there are millions out there who owe the same debt.

The presence of a library, even in the smallest community, is a reminder that the world is more than what's right in front of you, and that ideas aren't just the province of the rich.

History, from one view, can mark catastrophes by the destruction of libraries. For the power-hungry and zealous, the rooms full of books were a threat, or expendable.

Today, we don't need invaders. Just a smug belief in our own advancement, and a blind refusal to pay the bill.

Fragmented plurality: An interview with Gabriella Coleman

Photo by Simon Law

Gabriella Coleman moves between a lot of different worlds. She's an assistant professor on media, culture and communication at NYU, a writer on digital culture, and an anthropologist by training. Her work, specifically on the (in)famous collection of hacktivists known as Anonymous, combines an admirable skill for tackling new trends while bringing the best traits of an academic background to bear, better placing the cutting edge in a larger context.

In this interview, she discusses the multifaceted beast that is Anonymous, and how digital culture and political activism collide.

How did you first become interested in Anonymous and hacktivism?

I've been working on computer hackers and software informally since 1998, more seriously since about 2001.

How I started to work on Anonymous was really accidental. I started to do research on free software, and during that time period people would raise the question of Scientology quite a bit. It always intrigued me, but I sort of didn't know what to do with it. People had mentioned that they would protest the church or were on some BBS critical of the church . Then I went to the University of Alberta for a year as a post-doc, and there's the largest Scientology archives in the world. Now I understood why they protest the Church of Scientology, it's kind of a perfect nemesis.

When Anonymous in 2008 began to protest the Church of Scientology, I followed them there, because it was in that lineage of geek and hacker protest against the Church of Scientology.

You originally come from an anthropological training and background, how do you think that helps you undersand the evolution of digital culture?

I think it helps quite a bit. While there's technical forms of organization and power — those with technical knowledge often have more authority — when you have a grouping like Anonymous that is really premised on this anti-leader, anti-celebrity ethic, certain cultural and behavioral norms are the ways in which you can find consistent order. If you don't have an eye towards that, you might miss some of those dynamics at play.

Driven by norms instead of leaders; it almost sounds like a tribe

No, not really. In academia we're also driven by norms, and certain types of ethics and so it's kind of implicit in so-called modern forms of life that are not tribal, we just choose not to think about those elements in modern society because there's such a commitment to individualism that we tend to not focus in on them, but they exist. They exist in the workplace, they exist in religious organizations, they exist in unions, they exist in many places.

I don't like the language of "tribal" because it makes it seem like it's lower on the totem pole, and makes it seem like so-called modern society doesn't have some of those elements as well.

In your perception, what's the biggest misconception the general public has about Anonymous?

The biggest misconception is that they're kind of angst-ridden pre-teens who are socially isolated who are working out their anger, born through their isolation, through forms of juvenile politics.