Ira explains

Ira explains: machine intelligence

2006-07-07T18:10:00.000-07:00

machine intelligence

2006-07-06T18:36:00.000-07:00

I am interest in Ray Kurzweil’s ideas.

He describes a near future where advances accelerate, particularly in machine intelligence, nanotechnology and robotics.

The advance in machine intelligence, for Ray, involves cracking the algorithm for pattern recognition that animal intelligence has.

One possibility is that pattern recognition is, in part, a function of size . (

Suppose you had ten thousands of computers all connected.. How many choices have to be made before the computer can recognize that a thing is, for example, a book? Suppose you had a bank of computers devoted to just one task; recognizing images of books. A processor devoted to that one question; is this a book? Are they books?

Are there any books in this picture? That is a good way to put it, because what is life but a series of pictures? If you can interpret the picture you can understand life. If you recognize what, in the current picture, is a book you are that much closer to “understanding” what is in front of you.

The brain is a redundant system. It wasn’t built by a programmer. If a method worked it could be repeated and repeated in brute force fashion.

So, what might be achieved by putting tens of thousands of computer components in a single building, attached to a Velcro infrastructure? That’s what Google is doing. Tens of thousands of mother boards stuck to Velcro, attached to the other motherboards via wireless connections. Will google be the first to achieve pattern recognition? I would say that based on the present evidence the answer is, "Yes."

Hail Carbon

2006-05-27T09:04:00.000-07:00

Carbon Versus the Rest of the Elements

Silicon vs Carbon Intelligence:

Carbon is far superior to Silicon when it comes to diversity of possible shapes and composition because Carbon is the only element that can bind with itself and numerous other elements. This is a consequence of the fact that Carbon has exactly four of the allowed eight electrons in its second orbit. Carbon can form chains and rings and can bind with Potasium, Sulpher, Oxygen, Hydrogen, and Nitrogen.

Silicon is good for making glass and switches.

Carbon makes proteins and carbohydrates and esters and enols and ethols, and alcohols and acids and hormones and chlorophyll and hemoglobin and muscle and brain and diamonds and graphite.

There are ten million known carbon compounds. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon ).

Furthermore, proteins achieve further complexity through how it folds and how it crystalizes.

Carbon has proved its superiority as the chemical to first achieve self awareness on Earth.

I am carbon, hear me roar.

Carbon will use Silicon and the other elements to extend its powers, but in all cases intelligence and self awareness will have started and will reside with Carbon.

Carbon is, here on earth, generating a group mind that constantly evolves in knowledge and quality of its algorithms.

The internet, like printed books before it, has become Carbon's repository of knowledge.

Consider Wikipedia. Database grows and is rapidly refined by whomever can make an improvement. It and other databases like it, are the Earth's hive-memory.

Consider the open coding movement. Open coding encryption software is much more likely to be secure then commercially available products. Why? Because the open source coding is, being free, constantly being used, and therefore scrutinized by whatever individual minds that are interested. It is constantly being tinkered with and tested by people who want to use it and therefore have a stake in its state of functionality.

An almost infinite and very fast memory and a steadily improving set of algorithms will not be intelligent or conscious any more than an airplane is intelligent and conscious. Machine intelligence, what ever chemical or atom it is made from, will just be a machine for answering questions. The questions will be asked by carbon based life.

On Consciousness: Consciousness is not strictly speaking a quality of the mind. A good part of consciousness comes from information about our bodies and about our immediate environment. In order to be full conscious I need to know the local temperature, my overall nutritional status, the position in space of my entire body, the safety of my immediate environment, and everything else I need so I can attend to my survival and drives. In order to be considered fully conscious I need to be able to access my memories.

So, nothing but carbon based intelligence will ever be said to be fully conscious.

On Intelligence: Intelligence, too, is not simply a quality of mind. Intelligence is the ability to percieve and manipulate events to one's own best interest. To be intelligent one needs perceptual organs and manipulative organs. Furthermore, one has to know one's own best interest, including the exact state of one's internal organs. That in turn requires drives and hungers often molded by long periods of evolutionary pressure and competition for energy. Hormones and enzymes and millions of other carbon based molecules are needed.

So, only carbon can provide the complexity of structures needed to achieve real intelligence and consciousness. The other chemicals are simply not versatile enough. A simulcrum of a man could not be made of Silicon or any other chemical. You need the complexity that only carbon provides.

More about the Iraqi End Game

2006-03-01T17:24:00.000-08:00

More about Iraqi end game:

Recent reports find Bush's approval rating at 34%, a new low, and warnings that Iraq is at the brink of civil war are everywhere.

Whether its Serb against Croatians or Tutsis against Hutus, ethnic animosities seem easy to stir up even to the point of genocide or civil war.

Since the insurgents have every reason to stir up those animosities, it seems to me communal violence will continue and, as I have predicted before, civil war until the two sides collapse of exhaustion seems likely.

It seems clear that the US is going to shortly begin withdrawing most of its troops, regardless of what transpires. The question that interests me now is whether we will abandon our bases.

If we withdraw our troops, do not leave a cordial Iraqi government in place, and are not able to maintain military bases in the country then the whole Iraqi war will have been entirely devoid of any return. Lives and fortune spent for nothing.

Watch the end game struggle over those bases.

Why Intelligent People shouldn't worry about Intelligent Design and other thoughts about religion, on Dec.3, 2005

2005-12-04T12:13:00.000-08:00

Intelligent design will never be taught in Science classrooms.

Why? Because there is no experiment that can be designed to test Intelligent design.

If you can't do an experiment to test an idea, then the idea is based on belief.

Things we believe to be true on faith can be taught is school, but not in the Science classroom.

A Comparitive Religions course, it seems to me, would be a good idea for American High School.

On the other hand, there are some intriguing experiments that could be designed to predict the nature of a "designer" if you assume one does exist.

For example, you could design an experiment to determine if the "Designer" is loving and benevolent and all powerful. You could, say, predict that a loving and benevolent and all powerful Designer would strike down the evil and the undeserving, while sparing the innocent and the good. Victims of acts of the Designer, like the recent tsunami, could be studied.

Ira explains: Ira explains why Bush is finished. Written at a prescient date of 9-21-05

2005-11-11T19:38:00.000-08:00

11-21-05 Iraq end game

2005-11-11T10:27:00.000-08:00

A polital tipping point was reached in the last week or so.

Suddenly it all became clear to the American majority: Bush has made a mess of things.

The Times today reports that only 40% of Americans believe that Bush is "honest and trustworthy.)

The war situation in Iraq is particularly dismal.

The insurgents are very well armed because we forgot to guard Saddam's weapon supplies. They have rocket propelled grenades and tons of explosives. They seem able to tap into a cadre of men willing to suicide.

Our forces are hunkered down in "Safe zones." When we make sallies out of the war zones, casualties occur and no apparent benefit results.

Shall we begin to pull our troops out, as Kerry suggests, or reinforce them, as McCain suggests or continue as we are, as Bush suggests?

McCain's course would require a draft, of course. Would America support a draft of young people to go fight for a democratic Iraq? Would the young support it? I don't think so.

Bush's suggestion that we continue as we are seems hopeless. His war policies seem aimless. His credibility has been lost.

Therefore, the liklihood seems to be that there will be troop withdrawals.

Amidst much anguished and angry cries we will begin withdrawing troops from Iraq, whether or not Iraq is ready.

Some number of US troops will, I presume, stay in Iraq, to guard the oil and to keep Iran out.

The Kurds in the North will declare independence. They have oil and they have been ruling themselves for ten years. This will make Turkey nervous.

The Sunni and Shiites will emulate Lebanon and divide into religious and state suported factions that fight until they are exhausted.

Ira explains why Bush is finished. Written at a prescient date of 9-21-05

2005-09-21T10:04:00.000-07:00

WHY PRESIDENT BUSH IS FINISHED

Hurricane Katrina has caused the political collapse of the Bush administration, although the collapse isn't fully evident yet.

Katrina revealed that FEMA had been undermined. Inept croney's had been appointed and important positions in FEMA left empty. FEMA had been treated as an unnecessary governmental money waster, an "entitlement" program in the words of its former Bush appointed head, .

Then, of all things, a disaster happened and FEMA wasn't ready! Chaos broke out!

Taken by itself this is an alarming indictment of an administration that has been promising to make us safer against disasters while demeaning and undercutting a number of other seemingly vital governmental agencies.

However, at essentially the same time the situation in Iraq significantly worsened.

The talks on the constitution broke down and a referendum will have to be held. Most certainly three Sunni provinces will vote against the constitution, setting back the polital process by a year at least. Violence continues to escalate and increasingly it is Sunni against Shi'ite. American troops huddle in "safe zones", development has gone nowhere, and the worst possible outcome, civil war in the midst of the worlds largest oil reserves, with fundementalist Islam the likely winner, seems to have begun.

The rising suspicion in some minds that the invasion of Iraq was, indeed, a bad idea gains strength from the Katrina fiasco.

Much of President Bushs appeal comes from well shaped and well spun rhetoric, read slowly and sincerely.

However, once cynicism sets in, his lofty rhetoric becomes a liability as it simply raises the cynical thought, "there he goes again."

The promise to rebuild the whole gulf coast, while at the same time both fighting and rebuilding Iraq, awash in red ink as we are, certainly evoked that thought in me.

It appears to me that President Bush has run out of luck, having stayed in office a few more years then he should have. And, as at New Orleans, once the dike is breached all kinds of poisonous waters and ugly facts will flood us.
(the Rove scandal and the torture scandal and the Guantanemo scandal all leap to mind.)

I expect the Bush administration will spend the rest of its term beseiged and defensive.

Also, I have a suspicion that Katrina will be looked at in the future as the first of a series of global natural disasters due to global climate change. If so, President Bush's inactivity in the face of global climate change may come to be seen as his biggest blunder.

Post Arafat Peace?

2005-02-14T06:44:00.000-08:00

Ira is proud of himself for predicting that peace could only come to the middle east after Arafat died.

Peace is, of course, not assured, but finally a more moderate palestinian voice can be heard.

All parties were waiting for a signal and the signal happened when Abbas, using Palestinian Authority Forces, militarily secured an area after the area was used as a missile launch site against Israel.

The Israeli's immediately made a number of concessions and as a sweetener there was US talk of money for helping develop a Palestinian state.

Israel halted its "military operations".

(This was a code word for the systematic assassinations of extreme Palestinian leaders. Apparently, as a tactic, this was successful. One Hamas leader was killed when a missile honed in on a cell phone he was using. Enough others were killed so that recently Hamas leaders have been surrounding themselves with women and children, even when they are on the move.

I believe that Israel has spy technology from drone aircraft and can easily monitor from the air what is happening in, for example, the Gaza Strip.)

Now, all the attention will turn to negotiating the exact boundry between Israel and the new State of Palestine. Which settlements will be withdrawn and which won't. Where exactly will the lines be drawn?

I think the movement toward peace is genuine.

Now the bargaining gets underway between two people who are masters at bargaining.

I think they are going to succeed.

Iraqi elections in four days

2005-01-26T16:50:00.000-08:00

Today the NYT reports that pamphlets are being distributed in Iraq warning not to vote or the "streets will be covered with your blood." Also, Iraqi's are being told that if they are seen voting and not killed on the spot they will be found and killed, as will their children.

Who would vote under those circumstances? I wouldn't.

The question is, what percentage of the Shia population will vote?

I predict under 20% excluding absentee ballots from other countries. I predict under 5% of the Sunnis will vote. Most of the Kurds will vote.

Whatever the vote the administration will hail it as a great victory for freedom.

The recent emphasis on spreading freedom across the world in the Presidents inauguaral address strikes me as a post facto rationale for this war that has gone so badly.

Why Bush Won

2004-11-06T08:43:00.000-08:00

11-6-04 Bush won because in a certain significant way the country has become more conservative, and I don't mean morally.

The generation that remembers the Great Depression and the kind of fear it engendered is gone.

What little sympathy that ever existed for the "little guy" or the "poor" is gone.

The understanding that we need to redistribute wealth and have a social safety net are gone.

(If you don't know why we need to redistribute wealth, read Karl Marx. He points out that the wealthy and powerful inevitably create circumstances and laws which enable them to become even wealthier and more powerful. As the gap between the haves and have nots increases the tension in society increases and the liklihood of revolution grows.)

Why this has happened in America and not in Europe is the question that interests me.

The first answer I believe is Racism. Americans have less interest in the needs of the underclass or the disadvantaged because it is primarily made up of people of color. For many americans "civil rights" ,"entitlements" and "liberal" are code for "taking money from me and giving it to a black man."

The Republican Party is the White Man's party, as well as the party of Owners and the Wealthy.

The second answer is the Media. It used to be said that the Publishers were conservatives and the reporters liberal. It might have been true once, but for the past twenty years, or more, the only kind of talk radio that's been available on a major media outlet has been highly conservative. If you don't think that effects peoples opinions then you haven't been talking to average people. Their political opinions parrot the hosts.

Furthermore, since the collapse of communism large parts of the media seem to have given up any pretense of objectivity.

The few media outlets that attempt to be non partisan in the current political environment seem to be constrained to report the news in such a balanced way that they fail to tell the story correctly or fail to connect the dots for people.

Stories that would have rocked the country just a few years ago seem to disappear without much of a ripple. An example: Americans are systematically torturing detainees and there is evidence of complicity by the White House.

Imagine if that had happened when Clinton was in office.

What will happen

Reductions in progressive taxation and the safety net and a redistribution of wealth will result in a much larger disparity between rich and poor. The rich will, of course, get richer and the poor will get poorer.

Homeless people will increase as will alcoholism and drug addiction and crime. Homeless shelters and Jails will house millions more then they do now.

Protest movements will begin. There will be social disruption.

Conservative forces will call on police to maintain law and order.
Liberal forces will try to organize the poor and disenfranchised.

If a frightened middle class can be convinced that forces from within and without are serious enough to give up more civil liberties, then a careful re-read of Orwell's 1984 is recommended.

We will live in interesting times.

why is the race so close?

2004-10-24T13:02:00.000-07:00

10-24-04

The day I write this the Times reports half a dozen surveys that describe the presidential race as essentially tied.

David Brooks wrote an op ed article today speculating on why this is true, after all we have been through. (His answer: partisanship. People are republicans the same way they are Yankee fans, and the closer the race they more they pull for their team.)

However, even brand loyalty and fandom have limits.

Why are so many people still Republicans when the recent behavior of the Republican party is so antithetical to their interests? If the party in power has squandered a fortune on tax cuts for the wealthy, attacked or ignored the environment, and mired us in a middle eastern land war that we never should have gotten into, why is that party a contender for the presidency?

Its the media.

An endless barrage of oversimplified conservative solutions and attitudes are offered to the public, and have been for the last 20 years.

Sunni Boycott possible

2004-10-11T08:57:00.000-07:00

The religious dogma that distinguishes Sunni Muslems from Shiite Muslims is, like the difference between Methodists and Lutherans, irrelevant to an outsider.

However, in Iraq the Sunni minority has been in charge since the 1920's.

They have had the money and and the government positions and the power for more than 80 years.

They look forward to free and honest elections like Mississipians looked forward to free and honest elections after the slaves were freed and given the right to vote.

Now, faced with a US held election they have to decide whether or not to boycott the elections.

It will be interesting to see what they do.

If you are part of the insurgency....that is, either a radical islamicist or a formerly wealthy and powerful Sunni who wants things left as they were..., then you want a boycott. That way, the American elections have no legitimacy, the new government has no legitimacy, and the chance of an eventual civil war and take over by your interest group is better.

If you are part of the insurgency then making it clear that its dangerous to vote is in your interest. Anything that will undermine the legitimacy of the government and precipitate a power grab is good.

If you are an average Sunni, what is best?

Its a dilemma. If the elections take place and stick and the Sunnis don't vote, you will be left out in the cold. No representatives in the new government, no influence, no share of the pork.

Furthermore, the last thing you want is Civil War! You are a business owner or a professional man.

Also, there are a lot of crazy Shiites out there that want to take revenge on Sunnis, for 80 years of repression! Look what happened to the ruling minority in Rwanda during a period of anarchy!

What will the Sunni Mulluhs support??

So, what will happen?

Some Sunni's will boycott, other's won't. Amidst the confusion that will accompany the election and the strict press control the country is under it will be difficult for a while, to tell how many voted and how legitimate the elections were. It will be spun both ways and the legitimacy of the government will be argued. For whatever it is worth, there will be a government in place and it will stay in place as long as American troops stay.

10-8-04 The Second Gulf War

2004-10-08T14:34:00.000-07:00

10-8-04

The real reason we invaded Iraq was because they have the second or third largest reserves of oil in the world.

We foresaw a happy scenario.

Iraq would get free of a cruel and repressive regime.

The US would get another oil rich country that is as grateful to us as Kuwait is.

The new, grateful Iraqi regime would supply us with inexpensive oil and reconstruction projects paid for with oil money. We had expatriate Iraqis already on CIA or State Department payrolls ready and eager to lead such a government.

By going it pretty much alone we would take all the risks but get all the reconstruction projects and oil deals. .

Western style Capitalism would get a foothold in the Arab world.

Our ally Israel would have a threat removed. ( A number of the "neocons" who hatched the Iraqi war plan are Jewish.)

Bush would ride to easy victory for a second term as a victorious war president who freed a people from a tyrant and protected America from WMDs that might have been given to Terrorists.

And it’s not as if this weren’t in the American tradition. We started war after war with the Indians so we could steal most of the continent from them. We started a war on a false pretext with Mexico in 1849 and stole Texas, New Mexico and California. We tried to grab Canada after provoking the war of 1812, but failed.

If we can steal land from Indians and Mexicans why can’t we put in a friendly regime into an oil rich country, by use of force?

I don’t hear anybody agitating that we give back the continent to the Indians or California to the Mexicans, so clearly you can get away with stuff like that.

Some had been picturing this happy scenario since the end of the first Gulf War. All that was needed was a justification.

9-11 got Americans angry enough to overlook the fact that we were attacking people who hadn’t attacked us.

The WMDs we expected to find would cause people to also overlook the fact that the Iraqis had never even threatened us. If necessary, it would be argued that Saddam was evil and had weapons of mass destruction. He would have given them to the terrorists who would attack us.

What Went Wrong?

In its eagerness to invade Iraq the US and British misread and misinterpreted the intelligence about WMD. Apparently there were no such weapons. Not even factories for making them have been found. Saddam Hussein was telling the truth when he insisted there were none. This undermined the main justification for the war.

It was expected that US troops would be greeted as liberators. Enough troops were sent to defeat the Iraqi army, but not enough to occupy and pacify the country. It was hoped that occupation and pacification wouldn’t be necessary. This was naïve.

We overlooked the fact that there are two big losers in our scenario and that they were likely to be our implacable enemies.

First is the party-group-religion that lost control when Hussein was overthrown. These are the Sunni Muslims, formerly a minority in control. Like people in control anywhere, they will fight like demons to maintain their power.

The second are the Islamic fundamentalists who have declared war on western style capitalism. (Why they feel so threatened by the West is a subject for another blog.)

Both are heavily armed. The Iraqi army hid their weapons and melted into the population after the American invasion.

Apparently an insurgent army with assault rifles and rocket propelled grenades can hold its own against the US in Urban settings, as long as the US feels obliged to avoid hurting civilian populations with its own WMD.

What will be the outcome in Iraq?

It seems likely that we will try to cut our losses.

The initial rosy scenario will have to be abandoned. We will not leave a friendly, grateful, western style capitalistic state in Iraq. The most we can hope for is a stable Islamic fundamentalist state.

Probably there will be an election in Iraq and an elected government will be formed. A new army for Iraq will be built and the US will withdraw, except for “peacekeepers” we leave behind to bolster the new Iraqi army.

What will happen to that regime?

It depends how honest the elections are. If open and honest the Mullahs will be elected and there will be a new Islamic Fundamentalist state, full of terrorists and ethnic and religious tensions. There is great likelihood of either another highly repressive state or a civil war. Certainly war with the Kurds is almost inevitable.

If somehow a western friendly regime were to be established in Iraq it would be widely castigated as an American puppet. Again, there is a great likelihood that the political system would become highly repressive or that a civil war would result. The Islamic fundamentalists, the Sunni’s and the religious Iraqis would all be opposed to a government of this sort so its hard to see how it could succeed.

Whatever kind of government emerges in Iraq it will have to be a rather repressive and heavy handed regime, at least until all those assault weapons and RPGs are recovered.

What are the other possibilities? What if we decide not to cut our losses, but to persevere in our effort to put a western style state in place?

If so, we will need a draft of our son's and daughters with escalating loss of american life and increased war expenditures. This would be politically impossible unless there were another, serious, terrorist attack and our leadership chose to use the second attack as justification for a stronger effort in Iraq.

So, hope for a Fundamentalist Islamic Regime that bears us some slight friendship, in view of the fact that we did overthrow Hussein.

What about El Queda?

They are capable of doing great harm, but may not be all that capable. Many countries, east and west, are united against them. Also, they are amateurs. The 9-11 plot was pathetic.

They sent Arabic men to private US flying schools to learn to fly Airliners. More than one of them aroused suspicion by making it clear that they wanted to know how to steer but not how to take-off or land. (They must have wanted to be stopped.)

One flight school became concerned enough to call the FBI. The local FBI was alert enough to send alarming messages to Washington. If one agent had been authorized to query US flight schools about any suspicious Arab men taking flying lessons the whole plot would have been stymied.

Another hi-jacker group in Florida so alarmed a neighbor with their appearance and stealthy coming and going late at night that she reported them to the police.

This was not a highly sophisticated group and it’s amazing that it succeeded as well as it did.

However, if our Islamic fundamentalist enemies are able to put together a nuclear weapon or a “dirty” bomb then they won’t need much sophistication to injure us badly. Hence, the importance of rounding up and accounting for all nuclear weapons, particularly in the former Soviet Union.

How bad a blunder did we make? It is a blunder of historic proportions.

The enemy that attacked us (certain Islamic Fundamentalists) have been strengthened by our incursion into their territory and by our ham handed efforts.

A formerly repressive but secular Arab state will, at best, be converted to an Islamic fundamentalist Theocracy. At worst, civil war and violence will erupt in the heart of the world’s major oil reserves.

$200 Billion dollars, and counting, have been lost.

1000+ American lives and counting, have been lost.

We will be years extricating ourselves from Iraq and will widely be perceived as having lost another war.