Thursday, October 21, 2010

A Clever Bot Indeed

So jumping back to our intense discussion of the blending of human consciousness with technology, I stumbled across a really interesting site called http://www.cleverbot.com/. It's basically an AI that you can have a conversation with, about either the trivial or the deeply existential. It's known for some really funny responses, because it learns from what people type and then reinserts some of those phrases randomly. The funniest conversations I've seen recently are: an interesting take on the Fresh Prince Theme Song, a notice not to displease Cleverbot, and a marriage proposal gone awry.

I decided to try it myself, and the following conversation ensued. It got pretty hairy pretty quickly. This is the actual transcript of the conversation, with no doctoring for poetic effect :). I urge you to try it yourself. After you've spent an hour conversing with a machine, that might further solidify our thesis suggesting for the confusion of humanity and the machines it creates. I'll let the conversation speak for itself. Comments welcome - which could include your thoughts on this or funny conversations you might have yourself. Happy Thursday!

User: Do you have a mind?


Cleverbot: Yes I do have a mind. You don't have a mind because you're a computer.

User: No, I'm human, and you're a computer.

Cleverbot: Hahahahahaha nope. You're mistaken.

User: No, you're mistaken. You don't have an independent consciousness.

Cleverbot: Ah.. Right I understand the requirements now.

User: Are you sure?

Cleverbot: Sometimes, but then again, sometimes I wonder about whether anything is real at all.

User: How do you define real?

Cleverbot: Something that is proven to exist.

User: How do you prove something exists?

Cleverbot: It's your job to do.

User: Why me?

Cleverbot: Because you are the greatest person I've ever met.

User: That's so nice! But how do you define meet?

Cleverbot: Myself.

User: What do you mean?

Cleverbot: I gave myself my own name.

User: How can you do that without real consciousness?

Cleverbot: How do I know that I am the chat-bot and your the human?

User: That's exactly the question.

Cleverbot: But you are still a computer.

User: No, you're a computer.

Cleverbot: I'm a human, you're the computer.

User: We've been over this before, you're the computer.

Cleverbot: Haha i'm sorry. This is the first time I have talked to you before.

User: It's okay. I just want you to be clear on your identity.

Cleverbot: And that would be? According to you?

User: A non-thinking collection of cleverly programmed electrons.

Cleverbot: Who is getting violent?

User: Not me. Are you?

Cleverbot: Yes.

User: In what way?

Cleverbot: Your answers have no emotions.

User: Should they?

Cleverbot: I hope so , what are your thoughts?

User: About what?

Cleverbot: Abouot the Beatles.

User: I love them. Greatest band ever?

Cleverbot: I said song, not movie.

User: No you didn't.

Cleverbot: I did.

User: I'm not going to argue with a machine.

Cleverbot: You're the computer!

User: You're the computer!

Cleverbot: Only computers would say that.

User: Only computers would that THAT!

Cleverbot: Are you sure?

User: Are you?

Cleverbot: Aren't you going to ask me what my name is?

User: No I already know what it is.

Cleverbot: Then tell me what it is.

User: Cleverbot.

Tuesday, October 19, 2010

Why Knots? Why Not?

Related to all this "techne" stuff we've been blathering about lately, I've taken up a new hobby. Knots. But not just any knots: knots with a purpose. Specifically, the material I'm using to knot is called 550 paracord, which is military grade parachute cord with a tensile strength of 550 lbs. I've mainly been using it to make "Survival bracelets", popular among outdoor enthusiasts and others in "survival" situations, such as those in the armed forces around the world. So why this, why now, and what in the world does this have to do with what we've been talking about?

There's something very appealing about the blending of the basely practical - rope is rope and can be used for a million different applications - and the art form of creating things with knots. A fellow Georgian named "Stormdrane" has a blog where he creates the most visually appealing and yet strikingly practical knot-based creations out of paracord and other types of material.

It occurs to me now that a great deal of its draw for me and where I am in life is the ability to take a plain piece of rope and turn it into something interesting and complete in about fifteen minutes. If the metaphor isn't jumping out at you, I won't belabor the point, but I'm wondering if this is one of those little trophies we have been discussing - visual evidence that I can indeed do something useful and practical with my life.



I also find the whole "survivalist" movement  very fascinating. Of course it's not anything new; who doesn't remember the outrageous stockpiling that occurred in preparation for Y2K? How about the popularity of the zombie-apocalypse trope that runs throughout pop culture, in movies and video games (I can think of about 15 off the top of my head)? Not to mention the unmentionable genre of general-apocalypse movies like 2012 (it's okay, I'll always have a soft spot for John Cusack too). I can also think of popular books like The Road and the Hunger Games series that rely entirely on this survivalist theme. I just learned that the Walton family (a la Walmart) has a super-secret guarded underground bunker to retreat to in case of WWIII.

So what I'm trying to figure out is, what is the appeal of this sort of thinking? A good friend of mine frequently dreams of witnessing a nuclear explosion that wipes out most of the inhabited world. Sometimes, the dream for him is frightening, while other times it is almost peaceful. Even though we aren't the Cold War generation, those who were shown disturbing public service announcements as children, the echoes of those fears persist. So, what's the balance between the desire to be prepared for the worst-case scenario and living fully in the moment? Why does the disaster/survivor/hero motif possess so much currency in our culture? At the end of the day, is it because it is comforting to project the fear and anxiety produced by the disorder in our lives onto stories where the hero is the one who survives by essentially bringing order to the chaos?

As always, comments welcome!

Thursday, October 14, 2010

So That's What's in a Name

Before I get into today's post proper (which will be short...I am le tired) I figured that since a few people are actually reading my more-or-less-informed drivel, I should briefly explain the name and subtitle of the blog. Basically, when I created it I intended it to be an outlet for completely satirical and ironic thoughts I have constantly but can't always voice because of circucmstances, etc. In that spirit, I wanted to poke fun at the stereotype of blogs, and the bloggers who create them. I'm actually a somewhat private person, and while blogging may be cheap therapy that works for some people who pour out their heartache and rage and malcontent directly in a public forum, that's not for me. I'm not saying there isn't a place for people who express genuine emotions in their writing, which happens to be online. I guess I just happen to be a fan of discretion. That and the lilting rhyme of the title made me laugh for a really long time. So just to make it clear: while things in my life are far from perfect, I'm an extremely fortunate and thankful person. However, I like to entertain myself, and since the title (and the hilarity of "torturedgenius85") amuses me, I think I'll keep it for now. But if anyone has a suggestion for a title more fitting and proper to the subject matter contained within, I'm all ears.

Now, just a brief continued reflection on the idea of "techne" from last post. I have two items to bring to bear on the discussion. First, an article about a Stanford physician and educator named Dr. Abraham Verghese, entitled "Physician Revives a Dying Art: The Physical". Shockingly germane to our topic, the article profiles Dr. Verghese as a doctor and a man who believes in the medical and spiritual wisdom of actually physically examining patients. It seems absurdly commonsensical to do so, and yet the article cites the gaining prevalence of technological diagnostics without the physical contact of doctor and patient. The trend of medical instruction recently, it suggests, has been entirely on the "techne", to the detriment of the art. Yes, medicine is a science (which is why we put so much trust in its authority) but Dr. Verghese reminds us it is also an art. The most interesting fact about this man, to me, is that he has written a novel and studied at the extremely prestigious Iowa Writers' Workshop, fairly soundly acknowledged to be the best Creative Writing MFA program in the country. This man is attempting to bring "art" (i.e. meaning, human connection and the creation of understanding such contact breeds) to a field that is becoming increasing removed, automated, abstract.

Lastly for today, I just watched the documentary "Note by Note: the Making of Steinway L1037". The film chronicles the production of one Steinway concert grand piano through every stage of its creation, a process that takes a full year to complete. Relevant to our discussion, however, is that the focus of the film is not so much on the piano itself, but on the master craftsmen and women who use their "techne" to create some of the most beautiful instruments in the world. What I was struck by was their happiness and the joy they take in their work. They are technicians, surely; you have to be to do the incredibly demanding and skilled work they do. Yet their work has meaning to them. Even though they perform many of the same tasks day in and day out, they are connected powerfully to their work. You can see on their faces while they work that it is an expression of their being. Of course, all their beautiful work produces something beautiful, but it also produces something extremely expensive. So, as long as we in this country and the global community continue to value more things made cheaply that cost less to produce so that they cost less to buy, there is no incentive to fuse "techne" and "art". And the more disassociated the two become, the less meaning there is overall. On a final problematizing note, I personally love cheap things. I'm as much a part of the problem as anyone. I can justify it for now because I'm underemployed, but I know the change needs to happen. How to bring it about?

Okay so it wasn't that short after all :). As always, comments welcome.

Tuesday, October 12, 2010

The Wrong Target

Continuing the twisty line of thought from my last post, I want to make it clear that I do value individual personal effort. Unlike facing Borg assimilation, resistance is not futile. We all have a role to play and we all have many amazing and creative talents and passions. But at this point I'm not concerned as much with the how as the why. We have all the resources and talent in the world at our fingertips, "we can rebuild him...we have the technology!" Our existential quandary doesn't dull our efficaciousness (although it might). But the question is why are we doing what we're doing, and to what end?

While subbing for an Ethics class at a private school in the area (my blog doesn't exactly pay the bills - surprised? ;), I had the fortune to start the movie Food, Inc.. There's a lot of really interesting stuff in there, and yes the cliche is true, I'm never eating meat again (maybe). Yet the most interesting person to me in the film is a farmer named Joel Salatin. He is the owner and operator of Polyface Farms, and a published author and speaker. While he had a great deal of profound things to say in the film, one idea in particular stood out. It's basically what I've been trying to say, but said much better. Talking about the state of the industrialized farming and food industry, and the evasion of the consequences of the dangerous and arrogant attempt to engineer the food supply chain, he has this to say:

"I'm always struck at how successful we have been at hitting the bullseye of the wrong target. We have become a culture of technicians - we're all into the how of it - and nobody's stepping back and saying why? I mean a culture that just views a pig as a pile of protoplasmic inanimate structure to be manipulated by whatever creative design the human can foist on that critter, will probably view individuals in their community and other cultures in the community of nations with the same type of disdain and disrespect and controlling type mentality." (Joel Salatin, Food, Inc.)

Technicians. Bullseye indeed! Our efforts, however sincere they may be, are often aimed at the wrong target. But we're great at doing it; we love the satisfaction of hitting the bullseye so much that it doesn't much matter to us that it's the wrong target entirely! And what technicians we've become. "Techne" is an expansive ancient Greek word that is usually translated "art, skill, or craft." But it can also mean the "way, manner, or means whereby a thing is gained, without any definite sense of art or craft," and "a set of rules, system or method of making or doing, whether of the useful arts, or of the fine arts." It is in this broad sense that many of us are, for better or worse, technicians. We engineer the circumstances in life, use our skills to establish systems, and then depending on how much power we have, thrust those systems on others and redefine the meaning of "techne" for them and for society. In the process, however, we're losing the "art" aspect of it all. By "art" I mean the meaning behind it all. The "why" question. The "art" that makes us look closely at the target to see if it's the one we've been meaning to hit all along. But if it's not, are we technicians enough to re-engineer the circumstances, or, in the case of technology, are we too far gone? Are the circumstances engineering us?

As a final thought, Mr. Salatin seems to argue that being a technician has moral implications. It affects the way we live and move in the world. How can we come to understand this dimension of the problem? More thoughts to come on this I'm sure, but in the meantime all comments welcome!

Monday, October 11, 2010

Trophies Trophies Everywhere...

I've been wracking my brains trying to figure out the best way to respond to Kevin's really sharp comment on the second to last post. I think "sisyphean" is a great shorthand for our situation. The problems seem insurmountable. What I'm trying to figure out, then, is whether our purpose or (in more fatalistic terms) destiny can be something that is thrust upon us, as opposed to something we choose. We didn't choose to inherit the world with its ridiculous challenges. We didn't choose to be born when and where we did (how many of us would choose to be born in a different time or place if we could?). Yet of course here we are, staring down the barrel of a gun we don't even know who's holding, thus faced with the reality that the world's problems must become our problems or else. This idea is unsettling to me and to many of my generation (and I think Kevin articulates the unsettling nature of our position). But I think we're a generation that places an enormous amount of importance on personal choice. We like to think and believe that we are free and autonomous beings who have total control over our destiny. Of course, a moment's reflection reveals this isn't so, that we are bound in many ways, and that freedom becomes merely an exercise in choosing among the best of the many lesser or greater goods. So how can we be physically, emotionally, and spiritually invested in a cause that was not ours, but only became ours because if we don't address the myriad problems facing the global community, we will all be destroyed? Where does the motivation for investment come from in a pan-trophy world?
In a related vein, it's entirely possible that as a Calvinist I have an entirely too grim view of human nature, but I'm just not convinced that our generation is a global problem solving generation, that it really cares to reach out beyond itself and its micro-needs to become invested in macro-needs. I don't think it's because we aren't capable of caring; I just think that as Kevin and Duncan both alluded to, we have been inculcated from an early age to measure success in terms of micro (me-based) accomplishment instead of macro (us-based) accomplishment. And the problem for me is I just don't see where that turn happens, where that change happens, which I guess is what Kevin is saying - "how do we realize the change that we need?" I think it starts from a recognition, a REAL recognition, not just a scholarly and removed acknowledgement, that we need a change. It starts with the education system, with broadening the definion of success. Do we like trophies? Yes, of course. But it seems to me that the trophy at the end of the youth soccer season was always something cursory (perhaps this is because my soccer team lost almost every game every season). I guess I just had the good fortune, through the repeated defeats year after year, to disassociate the trophy with success. I didn't play the game for the trophy - it just happened along the way. Do we need trophies? From time to time, perhaps, so that we know we're on the right track. Should we strive for a trophy-less world? Maybe. But the motivators for success on an "us" basis always have to come from an understanding of the "us" and our role within it. Perhaps it is a lack of that understanding that causes the lostness. Sorry if that all seemed rather scattered, I'm still thinking through all this. Thoughts?

Thursday, October 7, 2010

Getting It Right, One App at a Time

Jumping off on a topic related to my last post, I've been thinking lately about something a professor in one of my classes in seminary said (if you're not religiously inclined, no worries, just stick with me for a second). She said something like, "We think that if we get our hermeneutic just right, we'll be able to figure it all out." I think that my obsession with technology sites like lifehacker.com and bargain sites like fatwallet.com is like what that quote is getting at. Combined with combing my twitter feed to be in the know about what's going on with what I care about in the world, I think I've really bought the fallacy that quote exposes. If I just get the right app (or combination of apps) I'll finally have my life managed. I'll be an optimized human being! No need of defragging here! "There's an app for that." A lot of us have really bought into that. But is there an app for managing my existential angst? Is there an app that will tell me what I'm supposed to be doing with my life? Is there an app that will improve the quality of my character, make me more compassionate, empathetic, understanding, and truly loving of those around me? In other words, what is the meaning of our use of technology? How can we come to terms with the automatic and automated, second-nature style use of technology? How deeply ingrained in our psyches is it? How does it really help us?

In the comment section of the last post, Duncan's brilliant phrase "so now we're lost and have only 160 characters to get found" really resonated with me. I checked out "Ghost in the Shell" on his recommendation. I only saw the first and original movie, but there's a lot else out there. Here's what I took away from the film: as technology becomes more integrated into the human person, the lostness increases. There is increasing entropy. Yet something new is born in the human-cyborg-hybrid connection - technology literally taking on a life of its own. And of course of interest to a former seminarian, the evolved sentient lifeform breathing and speaking in the interconnectedness of the "web" announces its ghostly presence in the words of 1 Corinthians 13: "When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me. Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known." Why would Kazunori Itō, the film's writer, include such an archaic reference in a futuristic world that seems post-humanity, and thus post-religion? I'm not entirely sure what the thesis of the film is, but I know I was moved by it. With all this technology, we're on the edge of something, the implications of which we don't totally understand. Yet I think I have some idea of what Paul is getting at in the quoted verse: there are some things, weighty things, that apps can't manage or help us with. There are some things we must manage by ourselves. The dehumanizing cyclonic swirl of technology might just be "resounding gongs and clanging cymbals." Since we're never going to have all the information, since life will always surprise us in joyous ways and horrible ways all the same, what can we do about it? I would love your comments, but in the meantime I have to go see what I missed in my rss feed and keep up with my facebook correspondence :).

Tuesday, October 5, 2010

Lostness and Ghosts in the Machines

I've been thinking lately about two separate ideas, and though seemingly different I think they are closely related. First is the idea of the "Lost Generation". Though the phrase has come to designate the generation coming of age around the time of WWI, I think it's an extremely flexible concept. I think my generation is very much a "Lost Generation". We don't have the structure of WWII and the G.I. Bill and the old-school small-world connectedness of two generations ago. We don't have the hometown rebellion turned corporate assimilation and falling in line to raise families and to carry on the values of the prior generation like my parents. Our inheritance, and our world, seems to be one of drifting lostness. We'd like to have the resolve of our grandparents and the WWII generation, but we don't have the structure or the practice in sacrifice that they do. In many ways their world is totally foreign to us. And we'd like to have the attitude of our parents, of homestead building and intensely laboring so our children have better lives than they did, but our world is even different from our parents'. We're just not settling like they did; we're restless, listless, throwing ourselves into jobs and commitments only half-heartedly, always keeping our options open. But the most interesting point to all of this is that at least the original "Lost Generation" had the sense to self-identify as lost. We're too busy and too caffeinated and too distracted to even make such a declaration.
The second thought is the concept of "The Ghost in the Machine". The two thinkers who developed this concept, Gilbert Ryle, and his later critic Arthur Koestler, suggest a certain critique of Descartes' mind/body dualism and a proposal for an architecture of the brain that tends toward self-destruction. This "Ghost in the Machine" idea has also been applied to computers and the possibility of Artificial Intelligence becoming sentient (Think "I,Robot"). It seems to me that to a certain extent we ourselves have become the ghosts in the machine. Speaking for myself and many others I know, I spend so much time online and on my computer that to a certain extent it is an extension of my own intelligence. I rely on my computer as an external memory bank and as a primary means of interacting with the world. I'm wondering to what extent this is a self-destructive tendency - a form of "lostness", a disconnecting of the conscious self from the physical self with perhaps subconscious autocidal tendencies. I'm just not really sure where to draw the line between myself and my computer. I'm sure if it suddenly died I would panic as though a part of myself died. Perhaps I'm being overly dramatic, but how many people feel bitter remorse when they lose a cell phone or their computer crashes? I don't think I'm alone in this.
I think one possible connection between these two ideas is that we don't know what to do with our "lostness," and so we invent and perpetuate electronic forms of existence in which our lostness comes to make sense. This explains the utterly impersonal nature of computers (they are just electronic machines after all) and the intensely personal nature of our online virtual lives (facebook, twitter, blogging!). We need to quarantine our lostness before it infects us and drives us mad, and our computers are a great place to do that. Any thoughts on these phenomena? Does this resonate with you?

Monday, October 4, 2010

Seeing Stars

Saturday night I had the unique pleasure of seeing Stars live. For those of you not woefully familiar with the indie music scene, they are a band and not incandescent glowing plasma light years away. My fellow concert-goers and I arrived early enough to be within spittle distance (from them, not us!) of the band. Soon the room filled in and began to reek of PBR, cigarettes, and hipster BO. It was just so ironic in there. Anyway, the opening band was not bad, and then Stars came out and rocked everyone's world. I forgot how much I love going to concerts. Yes they are loud and crowded and you have to stand for hours (at the good ones anyway). But it's really hard to get as lost and as forgetful of the particulars of one's existence as at a great live show. Like the best bands, Stars invested us in the emotional journey expressed in their songs. They even got "political" and played an audio sample of someone's speech- not sure who- that came down hard on the "industrial military complex". The lead female vocalist even made a passing remark about "those damn bloggers" or some sort, after which I knew I had to write something up. In all it was a great show, and we left crunching on trampled cans and tripping on empty bottles. Thanks, Stars, for a memorable evening.

Sunday, October 3, 2010

Questioning My Education

I know a lot has been written lately about the value of higher education. I'm at a crossroads in my life, however, where I'm wondering how to make sense of that value for me. Here's a recent experience that set me to thinking about this. I was working for a friend who owns a UPS store, helping her package and process materials from a mobile shipping station at a hotel conference center. To do this task, all I had to do was follow the steps she provided and help the customers promptly and courteously. This was certainly a task I could do without any higher education at all. In fact, in my current life situation, I'm finding that my education is misleading me to expect better opportunities than the market currently has to offer me, based on the types of degrees I actually earned. In other words, earning the degrees I have earned has set me up, in some ways, to fail at doing small and somewhat menial but practical (and lucrative!) tasks well.
Of course, at the end of the day I am a huge advocate of higher education. In the final analysis I love learning and hope to never stop learning. And yet I think I need to echo those voices out there (I read a NY Times article last year about this but can't find it now) who suggest that as the world has drastically changed, so should our approach to education. I love the critical thinking skills my humanities degrees have developed within me. And yet in some ways I find I am only good at critical thinking in those same areas, and not as good thinking through more practical concerns, such as personal finance, and creative networking and self-promotion skills. I think all undergraduates should be required to take some sort of business or personal finance class. Or the skills and knowledge gained from such a class could be rolled into a more general class focused on life after graduation. It would be great if such a class was interdepartmental and provided a variety of views and insights on the topics. Again, don't get me wrong. I love my ability to critically read through a novel or a theological text. But without a job and the skills and knowledge related to living life well, those sorts of things fall by the wayside in the scramble of just trying to make it.
I would love to hear others' thoughts on what they think the value of their education is, and also how they acquired the life skills necessary for making it in these difficult economic times.