Re: rage against the machine
Yes, and sorry for being silent so long.
"It would cost a fortune a decade ago to create robotic suicide vehicle bomber,
so humans were used. Today anyone with basic skills can buy one of these and
hack the controls. It's 100% software job. Add some ML and the vehicle can pick
victims on its own ("dark skinned males" or "carrying yoga mat" or "MAGA hat",
etc.)”
Oh, for sure. I can just imagine Charlottesville or London or Paris with an
automatic system. Pick out women with hijabs, or white men with MAGA hats, or
anyone with a color below the paper bag test.
Remember that that a significant percentage of these Western ones are a small
but significant part of a dying hegemony that is feeling it is being
disenfranchised and disemployed, etc. In Charlottesville and Christchurch, the
call was “You will not replace us”. But the more apt critique is that it isn’t
the brown on islamic body that might be actually doing a thing.
It might be the robots, run by their upper class brethren.
> On Mar 18, 2019, at 12:23 AM, John Young wrote:
>
> Safety in the real world is like privacy online, far less effective then
> adveritized. Machines, like buildings and infrastructure, come with inherent
> hazards: Deaths and injuries are acceptable costs of "convenience,"
> "benefits," "jobs," "progress."
>
> Finance and insurance are like autocratic national security, secretive,
> vampiric and bloodthirsty, thriving on misfortune of the unlucky who are
> targeted by global marketing enterprises and profitability (branding,
> influencing, celebritization. FirstLook.media a shining example, gander its
> preening slather underwritten by RU-grade empathy and oligarchy
>
> Professionals, all of them, are predators state-licensed to provide assurance
> the public interest is protected, though casualties are to be expected,
> normalized, in law, medicine, education, construction, incarceration,
> journalism - racketeer-influenced organizations - above all in government
> legislation and regulation subject to predatory practices camouflaged by
> elections and FOI pretense.
>
> .
>
> At 03:48 PM 3/17/2019, you wrote:
>> This is deeply ideological and political issue, not technical one. Inserting
>> code written by middlemen between humans and reality empowers only the
>> middlemen. Humans are presented by fantasy that adheres to reality when and
>> in degree being decided by the middlemen.
>>
>> There is one small step between this and removing all agency from humans (if
>> not already done). It's like company wants to sack someone, first they make
>> sure that the sackee's job is irrelevant (someone else controls and does it)
>> and the sackee cannot do damage.
>>
>> Well, you are being sacked.
>>
>> Note that autonomous vehicles are becoming affordable assassination
>> instruments. It would cost a fortune a decade ago to create robotic suicide
>> vehicle bomber, so humans were used. Today anyone with basic skills can buy
>> one of these and hack the controls. It's 100% software job. Add some ML and
>> the vehicle can pick victims on its own ("dark skinned males" or "carrying
>> yoga mat" or "MAGA hat", etc.)
>>
>>
>>> " But Boeing isn't planning to overhaul its training procedures. And
>>> neither the F.A.A., nor the European Union Aviation Safety Agency
>>>
Re: rage against the machine
Safety in the real world is like privacy online, far less effective
then adveritized. Machines, like buildings and infrastructure, come
with inherent hazards: Deaths and injuries are acceptable costs of
"convenience," "benefits," "jobs," "progress."
Finance and insurance are like autocratic national security,
secretive, vampiric and bloodthirsty, thriving on misfortune of the
unlucky who are targeted by global marketing enterprises and
profitability (branding, influencing, celebritization.
FirstLook.media a shining example, gander its preening slather
underwritten by RU-grade empathy and oligarchy
Professionals, all of them, are predators state-licensed to provide
assurance the public interest is protected, though casualties are to
be expected, normalized, in law, medicine, education, construction,
incarceration, journalism - racketeer-influenced organizations -
above all in government legislation and regulation subject to
predatory practices camouflaged by elections and FOI pretense.
.
At 03:48 PM 3/17/2019, you wrote:
This is deeply ideological and political issue, not technical one.
Inserting code written by middlemen between humans and reality
empowers only the middlemen. Humans are presented by fantasy that
adheres to reality when and in degree being decided by the middlemen.
There is one small step between this and removing all agency from
humans (if not already done). It's like company wants to sack
someone, first they make sure that the sackee's job is irrelevant
(someone else controls and does it) and the sackee cannot do damage.
Well, you are being sacked.
Note that autonomous vehicles are becoming affordable assassination
instruments. It would cost a fortune a decade ago to create robotic
suicide vehicle bomber, so humans were used. Today anyone with basic
skills can buy one of these and hack the controls. It's 100%
software job. Add some ML and the vehicle can pick victims on its
own ("dark skinned males" or "carrying yoga mat" or "MAGA hat", etc.)
" But Boeing isn't planning to overhaul its training procedures. And
neither the F.A.A., nor the European Union Aviation Safety Agency
Re: rage against the machine
This is deeply ideological and political issue, not technical one.
Inserting code written by middlemen between humans and reality empowers
only the middlemen. Humans are presented by fantasy that adheres to
reality when and in degree being decided by the middlemen.
There is one small step between this and removing all agency from humans
(if not already done). It's like company wants to sack someone, first
they make sure that the sackee's job is irrelevant (someone else
controls and does it) and the sackee cannot do damage.
Well, you are being sacked.
Note that autonomous vehicles are becoming affordable assassination
instruments. It would cost a fortune a decade ago to create robotic
suicide vehicle bomber, so humans were used. Today anyone with basic
skills can buy one of these and hack the controls. It's 100% software
job. Add some ML and the vehicle can pick victims on its own ("dark
skinned males" or "carrying yoga mat" or "MAGA hat", etc.)
" But Boeing isn’t planning to overhaul its training procedures. And
neither the F.A.A., nor the European Union Aviation Safety Agency
Re: rage against the machine
According to NY Times, 737 MAX 8 pilots were trained on (their own?) iPads. What's next? Bring your own cockpit? Like suggested for car sharing interfaces by excited UX students all over the world these days. Such news scare me more than all the AI horror stories together. This banalization or "desktopization"* of high responsibily jobs should be seriously questioned. Even when it is technically possible, even if “magic pane of glass” has more processing power when onboard computer, even if flight deck software is written in Java Script, these are not sufficient reasons for a pilot to have it open in one of her browser tabs, even for training. may complex systems stay complex in the eyes of their operators https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/16/business/boeing-max-flight-simulator-ethiopia-lion-air.html?action=click=Top%20Stories=Homepage "For many new airplane models, pilots train for hours on giant, multimillion-dollar machines, on-the-ground versions of cockpits that mimic the flying experience and teach them new features. But in the case of the Max, many pilots with 737 experience learned about the plane on an iPad." " But Boeing isn’t planning to overhaul its training procedures. And neither the F.A.A., nor the European Union Aviation Safety Agency, are proposing additional simulator training for pilots, according to a person familiar with the deliberations. Instead, the regulators and Boeing agree that the best way to inform pilots about the new software is through additional computer-based training, which can be done on their personal computers." *in 2014 i wrote about desktopization of remote piloted aircrafts for Interface Critique http://contemporary-home-computing.org/RUE/ Olia Lialina wrote >i was rereading today this 5 y. o. article about a decade old accident > >https://www.vanityfair.com/news/business/2014/10/air-france-flight-447-crash/amp > > following are parts of IV. Flying Robots and the article's final statement > >It takes an airplane to bring out the worst in a pilot. >[... ] >Wiener pointed out that the effect of automation is to reduce the cockpit >workload when the workload is low and to increase it when the workload is >high. Nadine Sarter, an industrial engineer at the University of Michigan, and >one of the pre-eminent researchers in the field, made the same point to me in >a different way: “Look, as automation level goes up, the help provided goes >up, workload is lowered, and all the expected benefits are achieved. But then >if the automation in some way fails, there is a significant price to pay. We >need to think about whether there is a level where you get considerable >benefits from the automation but if something goes wrong the pilot can still >handle it.” > > >Sarter has been questioning this for years and recently participated in a >major F.A.A. study of automation usage, released in the fall of 2013, that >came to similar conclusions. The problem is that beneath the surface >simplicity of glass cockpits, and the ease of fly-by-wire control, the designs >are in fact bewilderingly baroque—all the more so because most functions lie >beyond view. Pilots can get confused to an extent they never would have in >more basic airplanes. When I mentioned the inherent complexity to Delmar >Fadden, a former chief of cockpit technology at Boeing, he emphatically denied >that it posed a problem, as did the engineers I spoke to at Airbus. Airplane >manufacturers cannot admit to serious issues with their machines, because of >the liability involved, but I did not doubt their sincerity. Fadden did say >that once capabilities are added to an aircraft system, particularly to the >flight-management computer, because of certification requirements they become >impossibly expensive to remove. And yes, if neither removed nor used, they >lurk in the depths unseen. But that was as far as he would go. > > >Sarter has written extensively about “automation surprises,” often related to >control modes that the pilot does not fully understand or that the airplane >may have switched into autonomously, perhaps with an annunciation but without >the pilot’s awareness. Such surprises certainly added to the confusion aboard >Air France 447. One of the more common questions asked in cockpits today is >“What’s it doing now?” Robert’s “We don’t understand anything!” was an extreme >version of the same. Sarter said, “We now have this systemic problem with >complexity, and it does not involve just one manufacturer. I could easily list >10 or more incidents from either manufacturer where the problem was related to >automation and confusion. Complexity means you have a large number of >subcomponents and they interact in sometimes unexpected ways. Pilots don’t >know, because they haven’t experienced the fringe conditions that are built >into the system. > >[... ] > At a time when accidents are extremely rare, each one becomes a one-off
Jason Wilson: Australians are asking how did we get here? (re: Christchurch) (The Guardian)
original to: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/mar/17/australians-are-asking-how-did-we-get-here-well-islamophobia-is-practically-enshrined-as-public-policy Australians are asking how did we get here? Well, Islamophobia is practically enshrined as public policy Any 28-year-old Australian has grown up in a time racism was quickly ratcheting up in the country’s public culture Jason Wilson, The Guardian, Sun 17 Mar 2019 Australia has indulged in a ‘decades-long drumbeat of xenophobia and Muslim-hate, which has issued from some of the most powerful institutions in the country’. The worst terror attack in New Zealand’s modern history took place on Friday, and the alleged perpetrator is an Australian. Appropriately, this calamity has started a process of deep reflection in the man’s home country. Everywhere, decent Australians are asking, how did we get here? Do we own him? There has been extensive, international discussion about the role of the online subculture of the far right in these events – the codes, memes and signals of internet-mediated white supremacy. There’s been less reflection on the fact that any 28-year-old in Australia has grown up in a period when racism, xenophobia and a hostility to Muslims in particular, were quickly ratcheting up in the country’s public culture. In the period of the country’s enthusiastic participation in the War on Terror, Islam and Muslims have frequently been treated as public enemies, and hate speech against them has inexorably been normalised. Australian racism did not of course begin in 2001. The country was settled by means of a genocidal frontier war, and commenced its independent existence with the exclusion of non-white migrants. White nationalism was practically Australia’s founding doctrine. But a succession of events in the first year of the millennium led to Islamophobia being practically enshrined as public policy. First, the so-called Tampa Affair saw a conservative government refuse to admit refugees who had been rescued at sea. It was a naked bid to win an election by whipping up xenophobia and border panic. It worked. In the years since, despite its obvious brutality, and despite repeated condemnations from international bodies, the mandatory offshore detention of boat-borne refugees in third countries has become bipartisan policy. (The centre-left Labor party sacrificed principle in order to neutralise an issue that they thought was costing them elections.) The majority of the refugees thus imprisoned have been Muslim. It has often been suggested by politicians that detaining them is a matter of safety – some of them might be terrorists. Second, the 9/11 attacks drew Australia into the War on Terror in support of its closest ally, and geopolitical sponsor, the United States. Australian troops spent long periods in Afghanistan and Iraq, fighting and killing Muslims in their own countries. The consequences of this endless war have included the targeting of Australians in Jihadi terror attacks and plots, both at home and abroad. The wars began with a deluge of propaganda. Later, the terror threat was leveraged to massively enhance surveillance by Australia’s national security state. Muslim Australians have frequently been defined by arms of their own government as a source of danger. Two years after the war in Iraq commenced, the campaign of Islamophobia culminated in the country’s most serious modern race riots, on Cronulla Beach in December 2005, when young white men spent a summer afternoon beating and throwing bottles at whichever brown people they could find. Cronulla was a milestone in the development of a more forthright, ugly public nationalism in Australia. Now young men wear flags as capes on Australia Day, a date which is seen as a calculated insult by many Indigenous people. Anzac Day, which commemorates a failed invasion of Turkey, was once a far more ambivalent occasion. In recent years it has moved closer to becoming an open celebration of militarism and imperialism. Every step of the way, this process has not been hindered by outlets owned by News Corp, which dominates Australia’s media market in a way which citizens of other Anglophone democracies can find difficult to comprehend. News Corp has the biggest-selling newspapers in the majority of metropolitan media markets, monopolies in many regional markets, the only general-readership national daily, and the only cable news channel. Its influence on the national news agenda remains decisive. And too often it has used this influence to demonise Muslims. On Anzac Day 2017, a prominent young Australian Muslim woman, Yassmin Abdel-Magied, posted on her personal Facebook page, “LEST.WE.FORGET. (Manus, Nauru, Syria, Palestine…)”, which appeared to draw an equivalence between the suffering of Muslims around the world today, and that of Australia’s diggers during the first world war.
