[NetBehaviour] a moveable feast

[BishopZ via NetBehaviour]

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/dialogues-the-david-zwirner-podcast/id1400997563?i=1000520452017

a nice conversation about NFTs, digital art, and the US gallery market.

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Re: [NetBehaviour] Work in Progress: Blockchain Temporalities

[BishopZ via NetBehaviour]

rhea, wonderful, thank you. a few thoughts-

I've been looking at Iota lately. While coinbase and others describe Iota
as a
blockchain, their documentation says they are not a blockchain, but rather
a different form of distributed ledger. They claim they're not a blockchain
because each block refers to multiple parent blocks. In a tangled
blockchain
like Iota, blocks can share the same height.

I wonder about a theoretical blockchain where the number of parents
approaches
the total number of blocks. While technically impossible, as a thought
experiment
it seems like such a thing would collapse the temporality by bringing all
blocks
to a block height of 1 and 2. Each block simultaneously being the genesis
block
and the first child block.

>From the perspective of any block on this impossibly tangled chain,
it would be the most current description of the state of the chain,
and every block, including itself, would be the combined origin of
the entire chain.

I know a block can't hash itself and no one can be their own grandpa,
but it seemed like this thought experiment shared some characteristics
with multiplicity and other things.

--

There's also something interesting about the space between the blocks.
In the same way that motion is a perception our brains construct when
multiple static images are shown in quick succession.

Seems like the succession of transactions in bitcoin is a kind of
montage of value exchange, and it makes me curious about what
other mental models we're perceiving in the space between.

with admiration, bz

On Tue, Jun 8, 2021 at 7:34 PM rhea via NetBehaviour <
netbehaviour@lists.netbehaviour.org> wrote:

> Bitcoin secures itself by rewarding the people who run it with payments in
> Bitcoin. To get the rewards for publishing new blocks of transactions to
> the Internet every ten minutes (on average), Bitcoin miners compete to
> solve simple but time-consuming cryptographic puzzles. When Bitcoin
> launched, miners could use desktop computers. But as Bitcoin became more
> valuable it became worthwhile to use more and more powerful hardware in
> larger and larger amounts to continue competing for the block rewards.
> Bitcoin was written to handle this. Its difficulty algorithm creates a new
> target schema for the block reward puzzles This algorithm targets ten
> minute block times, and it will make the block puzzles as easy or as
> difficult as is required to do this.
>
> That singular objective, pursued without concern for externalities, means
> that Bitcoin's difficulty algorithm is a paperclipper. Its ever-increasing
> energy usage, which has caused such moral panic, *would* boil the oceans
> if it thought that the difficulty had to go that high - but then what
> wouldn't? This is the purpose that it embodies in unbounded cryptoeconomic
> incentives. For Bitcoin, securing the metronomic
> heartbeat/pulse/breath/throb of ten minute blocks of transactions is all
> that matters. Bitcoin exists to secure the value of those transactions over
> time. To nestle in that temporality is to subject oneself to blockchain
> temporality as surely as Stelarc's "Ping Body" was subjected to internet
> geometry.
>
> Block height is a clock. I've met people who have timed meatspace events
> to it. Block height has a calendar of "halvenings", block reward changes,
> that are treated as festivals, along with scheduled protocol forks and
> activations. It's more complex than that, though. Cyclical and linear time
> interplay in the blockchain as they do in capitalism, which is hardly
> surprising given Bitcoin's anarcho-capitalist roots. The different temporal
> scales and intensities folded into the blockchain in order to produce it
> make it a Deleuzean egg. Which, through a deliberate misreading, makes it a
> world. We can call it a *welt* if it helps, which it doesn't.
>
> The word "blockchain" does not appear in Satoshi Nakamoto's 2009 Bitcoin
> Whitepaper. Instead the pseudonymous creator (or creators) of Bitcoin talk
> about the creation of a *timestamp server* to ensure the succession of
> events (transactions) within a system. Time, for Bitcoin, is pure
> succession just as number is pure succession for X. It is in this
> sense that time on the blockchain is non-relativistic (as per Nick Land).
> Worse, that time occurs *in* time, breaking XX's argument that it
> cannot. We can recover from this a little by pointing out that it does not
> occur within itself, but in an outside temporality, and a reassuringly
> relativistic one. Still, it occurs in time, and produces a time of pure
> succession.
>
> Bitcoin is the technonomic instantiation of Deleueze’s fourth synthesis of
> time. *It is an empty repetition determined by the future.* For Bitcoin
> that future is the block height (not the date or the Unix timestamp) when
> all 21 million Bitcoin will have been minted, and the reality of that
> future determines its present - a hyperstition secured with an increasing
> fraction of 

Re: [NetBehaviour] Links

[BishopZ via NetBehaviour]

Yeah, it seems like they do a good job.


On Thu, Apr 18, 2019 at 12:57 PM Rob Myers  wrote:

> On 2019-04-17 7:51 p.m., BishopZ via NetBehaviour wrote:
> > Rob, I always love your links emails.
>
> Thank you! :-)
>
> > How was your experience of the Gray Area Festival?
> > were they nice to you?
> My experience was that they were very good at communicating in the run
> up to the event and that they ran things very smoothly. When the artwork
> of mine that they were showing had technical trouble they fixed it
> quickly. And the bit of the event that I saw had a wonderful variety of
> speakers and perspectives with a very engaged audience.
>
> - Rob.
> ___
> NetBehaviour mailing list
> NetBehaviour@lists.netbehaviour.org
> https://lists.netbehaviour.org/mailman/listinfo/netbehaviour
>


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Re: [NetBehaviour] Links

[BishopZ via NetBehaviour]

Ruth, you spoke too.

How was your experience?

On Wed, Apr 17, 2019 at 8:51 PM BishopZ  wrote:

> Rob, I always love your links emails.
>
> How was your experience of the Gray Area Festival?
> were they nice to you?
>
> On Tue, Apr 16, 2019 at 8:39 PM Rob Myers  wrote:
>
>> Currently playing ;-) -
>>
>> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vimZj8HW0Kg
>>
>>
>> New Ways of Seeing -
>>
>> https://twitter.com/jamesbridle/status/1117728872999596033
>>
>>
>> "Autoglyphs are the first “on-chain” generative art on the Ethereum
>> blockchain." -
>>
>> https://www.larvalabs.com/autoglyphs
>>
>>
>> "Some Definitions and References for terms I used frequently" -
>>
>> https://medium.com/@michaelzargham/jargon-party-e3616cd16a9
>>
>>
>> " a majority of the imaging libraries used for the picture of the
>> #blackhole were #GPLv3'd" -
>>
>> https://twitter.com/o0karen0o/status/111779149146834
>>
>>
>> "Toronto doctor “prescribes” income to poor patients" -
>>
>>
>> https://ottawacitizen.com/news/local-news/toronto-doctor-prescribes-income-to-poor-patients
>>
>>
>> Painter by Numbers dataset -
>>
>> https://www.kaggle.com/c/painter-by-numbers
>>
>>
>> "I Yelled at Strangers About M Because a Token Told Me To " -
>>
>>
>> https://breakermag.com/i-yelled-at-strangers-about-mms-because-a-token-told-me-to/
>>
>>
>> Using cryptocurrency and smart contracts to change basic game theory -
>>
>>
>> https://medium.com/@virgilgr/ethereum-is-game-changing-technology-literally-d67e01a01cf8
>>
>>
>> "Who owns IP on the blockchain? CryptoKitties give glimpse into
>> less-cute crypto concerns" -
>>
>>
>> https://pitchbook.com/news/articles/who-owns-ip-on-the-blockchain-cryptokitties-give-glimpse-into-less-cute-crypto-concerns
>> ___
>> NetBehaviour mailing list
>> NetBehaviour@lists.netbehaviour.org
>> https://lists.netbehaviour.org/mailman/listinfo/netbehaviour
>>
>
>
> --
> ((º Ω º))
>
> http://bishopZ.com
> ___
>


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Re: [NetBehaviour] Links

[BishopZ via NetBehaviour]

Rob, I always love your links emails.

How was your experience of the Gray Area Festival?
were they nice to you?

On Tue, Apr 16, 2019 at 8:39 PM Rob Myers  wrote:

> Currently playing ;-) -
>
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vimZj8HW0Kg
>
>
> New Ways of Seeing -
>
> https://twitter.com/jamesbridle/status/1117728872999596033
>
>
> "Autoglyphs are the first “on-chain” generative art on the Ethereum
> blockchain." -
>
> https://www.larvalabs.com/autoglyphs
>
>
> "Some Definitions and References for terms I used frequently" -
>
> https://medium.com/@michaelzargham/jargon-party-e3616cd16a9
>
>
> " a majority of the imaging libraries used for the picture of the
> #blackhole were #GPLv3'd" -
>
> https://twitter.com/o0karen0o/status/111779149146834
>
>
> "Toronto doctor “prescribes” income to poor patients" -
>
>
> https://ottawacitizen.com/news/local-news/toronto-doctor-prescribes-income-to-poor-patients
>
>
> Painter by Numbers dataset -
>
> https://www.kaggle.com/c/painter-by-numbers
>
>
> "I Yelled at Strangers About M Because a Token Told Me To " -
>
>
> https://breakermag.com/i-yelled-at-strangers-about-mms-because-a-token-told-me-to/
>
>
> Using cryptocurrency and smart contracts to change basic game theory -
>
>
> https://medium.com/@virgilgr/ethereum-is-game-changing-technology-literally-d67e01a01cf8
>
>
> "Who owns IP on the blockchain? CryptoKitties give glimpse into
> less-cute crypto concerns" -
>
>
> https://pitchbook.com/news/articles/who-owns-ip-on-the-blockchain-cryptokitties-give-glimpse-into-less-cute-crypto-concerns
> ___
> NetBehaviour mailing list
> NetBehaviour@lists.netbehaviour.org
> https://lists.netbehaviour.org/mailman/listinfo/netbehaviour
>


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http://bishopZ.com
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Re: [NetBehaviour] Positive AI

[BishopZ via NetBehaviour]

Alan, as always love your comments.

Lara, I am a programmer that works on Machine Learning, AMA

__HOW__

The term 'AI' has gotten diluted with pop non-sense. People in the industry
call it Machine Learning.
CV Computer Vision, Deep Learning and Big Data Analytics are all forms of
Machine Learning.

All of them are based on one simple idea, pattern matching.
One could say that even human intelligence is based on pattern matching.

To create an AI, you only need two things, some data and a success
condition.
A program like Wekanator will take those two things and insert an AI into
anything, arduino et al


__WHAT__

I like the direction your are going. Personal Assistants have been pretty
well explored.
The movie Her comes to mind.

Most of the times people talk about combining AI and Humans, they are
talking about
augmentation. The same way people talk about combining Machines and Humans.
Augmentation with advanced pattern matching, rather than metal. I think
this touches on
your Replacement problem. Every Cyborg must lose a little flesh to
integrate the metal,
and the result is somehow less human than before.

Some artists (Fringeware/Re:Search) have attempted to give chatbots life, a
soul, or
some kind of self-determination. One artist downloaded all recordings and
writings of
Alan Turing into a chatbot- to see if the bot could fool itself into
thinking it was human.
Combining a living AI and a Human, would be a marrage of identities.

Honestly, I think your question comes down to asking, What is a Human?

Happy hunting!



On Wed, Jan 17, 2018 at 12:00 PM, Alan Sondheim via NetBehaviour <
netbehaviour@lists.netbehaviour.org> wrote:

> Hi Lara, coming to this a bit late. As far as bees go, it's not a
> question, as far as I know of gardening; there are pathogens and
> insecticides involved and what has to happen, has to happen on the level of
> legislation - the same thing with the overall decline in insects around the
> world. For personal AI, there's a lot of research being done in creating
> and working with robotics embedded in small fuzzy 'animals' that tend to
> their owners in a variety of ways; I think they're going to be employed in
> Alzheimer's patients and among people who are lonely in general - as you
> know social media tends towards loneliness among large segments of the
> population. If you look at Tamagotchi, you can see the effect of something,
> with minimal AI, that needs tending to continue functioning - these were
> incredibly popular twenty years ago. They relied on the owner's tending; it
> wasn't reciprocal, except for the feedback that the Tamagotchi was all
> right; with Alzheimer's or nursing homes or anyone bed-ridden, current AI
> animals respond in kind and can look after patients' or owners' needs.
> These are the closest, I think, that one might go at this point - the
> companion AI pets are designed to look like kittens or other animals,
> although there are some that look more traditionally robotic - one
> characteristic they share, I think, is that of cuteness, kawaii, which
> people strongly relate to. This might be more than your project can handle,
> but even a small animal-like shape with a bot in it, run by Adruino or some
> such, might be relevant. In any case, these approaches seem really
> necessary as so many people are struggling for companionship; companion
> animals work well (both for animals and humans) of course, but have limited
> ability to engage in some aspects, and have to always be tended.
> It's interesting, because the AI would be based 'across,' not only the
> programming, but also the container, the shell-image itself, bridging AI
> and animal or human appearance. -
> Hope this is useful,
> Alan -
>
> On Tue, Jan 16, 2018 at 5:59 AM, Lara Stumpf  wrote:
>
>> Dear NetBehaviour,
>>
>> I am a design and art student and have been working on my graduation
>> project with the topic *Artificial Intelligence*. My approach is
>> creating an AI-something to support an everyday activity. However, I am
>> lost. I have done a lot of research and most of the time I am very
>> critical: A lot of power is given to algorithms and them working with
>> statistics creates a big and dangerous mainstream (like those big data
>> algorithms deciding what we see online), some inventions are dangerous
>> (like self-driving cars) and most of the time inventions could be cool, if
>> we ignored the evil people behind them.
>>
>> But I don’t want to create a critical art object, I want to create
>> positive AI. Something to support us (with a prototype). How could AI
>> support us while *not* replacing us? As Joseph Weizenbaum states, a
>> computer cannot be human; but right now, all those AI developers try to
>> make a human AI happen. I don’t want deep learning algorithms to analyse
>> movies with their trailers and success statistics in order to find *the* 
>> solution
>> for *the perfect* trailer in order to replace creativity by mainstream
>> in