Please, see these charts from Mother Jones on income inequality in America. It's not that the rich are getting richer, its that the super-rich are getting super-richer...and leaving the rest of us behind.
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Monday, 28 February 2011
Friday, 25 February 2011
Boeing Wins, again.
Posted on 08:12 by hony
$35 billion for 179 tankers. I know this is a bit premature, but I would be willing to bet $500 that by the time 179 tankers are delivered to the Air Force, the tax payers have been billed at least $50 billion.
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Thursday, 24 February 2011
TAE's Fantasy World
Posted on 09:34 by hony
In response to this post, on which I am about to expand, I was accused of being a communist. First, this is such a straw man accusation, as the term "communist" is really a cover for "dictatorship by a team" in the modern sense. Kind of like "Intelligent Design" nowadays means Creationism.
And secondly, I'm actually talking about socialism, not communism, thank you very much.
The idea I proposed was hypothetical plan in which an individual's income could not exceed $200,000 gross. If they earned more than that, it was taxed 100%. Now let me expand this, in the face of a growing bout of criticism. First, the number does not have to be $200,000, although I think that is a good amount. It is extreme wealth, if you look at incomes world wide. It is extreme income, for 95% of Americans. You can live comfortably, anywhere in this country, on that kind of money. You can provide a good college education for your children, pay for their piano lessons, take fun vacations annually, and buy nice clothing for yourself. You will not worry about putting food on the table, at any time. You can eat out regularly. These are the luxuries of regular American life: eating out, occasionally buying toys for yourself and family, and traveling across this diverse nation on multiple vacations. These, and more, are easily attainable on 200k. What isn't attainable is living like Paris Hilton. What isn't attainable is attending Diddy's White Party. What isn't attainable is a second home in Boca and a third home in Aspen. Those aren't the luxuries of American life; those are the luxuries of American Gentry, and the winners of lotteries.
And yet, the extreme end of luxury is what American culture defines as desirable. Certainly, its okay to want to take vacations to Aspen. But a whole society measuring "success" as the ability to buy a summer home in Aspen has skewed reality. An annual income of a million dollars is now the low benchmark of true success in this country.
So you can choose any amount you want, really, in my fantasy world of fixed incomes. It could be $200k, or it could be $350k. Under $500k though. Above, it asymptotically approaches absurdity.
Businesses are not hindered by this limitation. Lockheed-Martin can still obtain $38 billion dollars in government contracts as they do now. The only difference is they cannot pay their CEO "a base salary of $1,834,615, a cash bonus of $9,146,000, stocks granted of $2,558,120, options granted of $6,564,800, and other compensation of $369,916." Or rather, the could pay him that, but he would have to immediately forfeit $20.2 million of it to the government. So almost certainly they wouldn't.
Small businesses, similarly, could obtain as much revenue as they wanted. But they could only pay their employees (and owner) $200k a piece max, the rest would either have to be reinvested in the business' growth or divested into other interests and/or equipment.
The immediately argument I received is that this would disincentivize talent from becoming C-level employees of American businesses, as monetary compensation (justified or not) is the primary method by which these companies attract talent. "Talent would outsource itself to less restrictive economies."
To which I add an even more totalitarian creed to my fantasy world: in order for a business to sell goods in the United States, it must have at least 51% of its work force located inside the US border, and must agree to the pay rules in place here.
Obviously, I am delusional. But this is a thought experiment. What would the country look like if companies could not acquire and retain talent via money? How do you create a workplace where people get something from it while not catering to their greed?
And what would people in this country do, if their celebrity base collapsed? Though movie stars could still be movie stars...their mundane lifestyles would be...well they'd be little less entertaining. The "Real Housewives of Orange County" would suddenly be a lot more real.
What would a company, like Lockheed-Martin do, given $20.2 million dollars that it suddenly had that it couldn't use to pad the already exorbitant wealth of Bob Stevens? Instead, they could pay another 202 employees an extra $100,000.
And suddenly my plan starts to make sense. A really, really talented engineer, with maybe 5 years experience, could probably be making close to $100k at Lockheed-Martin. But that engineer could make similar money elsewhere, at some lower-size company with more opportunities for advancement but less revenue/profit. But I imagine that same engineer could be easily retained by L-M given a $50k pay increase! And it is no sweat, for L-M, in this scenario because they simply are obeying the law. The exorbitant, almost unspendably large amount of income their CEO was receiving is instead being distributed to hundreds of employees who now can realize a significantly improved lifestyle, and L-M essentially locks in their loyalty.
Am I so delusional? I humbly submit the idea that a CEO is worth $20.2 million a year but the most talented engineer at that company is worth only 1/100th of that is equally delusional. And yet that is the current status quo, all across Corporate America.
I'm really curious, to be perfectly honest, what are the exact arguments people can make in favor of income levels above $200k. Let's ignore the idea that growth will stop, that is a straw man. The people who argue this are the ones that say the upper class are the primary drivers of the economy, because they have the money to consume in large quantities. Under my radical delusion, less people would make millions, yes, but thousands more would make six figures, and be propelled into this purported economy-driving income stratosphere.
I really want someone to look me in the face and tell me that $200,000 a year is not enough for them to live on. I really want to see their face as they tell me this.
Others might argue that having such an income limit will "hurt small business." Isn't the idea of a small business that incomes are low? If your small business is doing so well that you can pay yourself >$200k a year, you need to write a book about how to start a small business. Something like 95% of small businesses fail in the first 5 years. Perhaps this is because they are paying themselves too high a salary!
But, I could make a pretty fair argument that the "small business is what drives America's economy" is a hokey, pandering comment and doesn't really reflect modern society. If one third of American workers work in the financial sector, as has been reported, then a fair argument would be that publicly traded companies are now what drive Americas economy, or at least what scuttle it.
But I digress. I don't seriously believe that legislation ever could, or even should be, passed which limits a person's income to $XXX,XXX. I do believe that we as a society have lost touch with exactly how many dollars equals success. I do believe that modern American fiscal law and society has created a scheme where the rich are getting richer directly at the expense of the poor, and the poor celebrate it. Exorbitant wealth seems like it would be pretty awesome, even I admit. I'd love to have a jet-motorcycle like Leno, or a private plane to take me to my private grotto in Bora Bora. But it's pretty naive for me, or 99% of Americans, to believe we'll ever live that lifestyle. And it's pretty goddamn misguided for people making $35k a year to send me hatemail that my theoretical $200k will oppress their freedom. Or that such an income cap would destroy America's economy.
Then again, I can't prove that last statement false. But I humbly submit: if America's economy is completely dependent on the ability of Americans to become exceptionally wealthy, if our economy would be crippled by forcing people to be only "really rich" instead of "massively, absurdly, disproportionately rich" then we need to take a serious look at ourselves and the economic situation in which we've placed ourselves.
Certainly, parts of the economy would suffer greatly if we eliminated the ability to be extremely rich from our society. Places where their economies are the worst in this recession, like Vegas, would be dampened by the inability to attract big spenders. Or would they? Could they potentially be buoyed by the sudden influx of people making six figures due to corporate salary restructuring? Sure, a millionaire might drop a lot of money there over a weekend. But consider whether that millionaire would really boost their economy more in that one weekend than five people making $200k over five weekends. It seems to me that high-end-catering economies might actually be rendered less volatile.
Similarly, the real estate market might flounder, as very few would be buying $750,000 homes anymore. But conversely, wouldn't the housing market actually benefit, as instead of one millionaire home-buyer you'd instead have (theoretically) five $200k people buying homes by moving that salary down the corporate ladder. How would corporate morale change, if more employees could "live like the CEO?" How many C-Level employees would do well to eat some humble pie? The show "Undercover Boss" exists for a reason!
How exactly would an elite US company retain top talent if not with monetary compensation? That is the topic for another post. And it is a pertinent question for me to ask, as I still dream of owning my own engineering firm one day.
_
And secondly, I'm actually talking about socialism, not communism, thank you very much.
The idea I proposed was hypothetical plan in which an individual's income could not exceed $200,000 gross. If they earned more than that, it was taxed 100%. Now let me expand this, in the face of a growing bout of criticism. First, the number does not have to be $200,000, although I think that is a good amount. It is extreme wealth, if you look at incomes world wide. It is extreme income, for 95% of Americans. You can live comfortably, anywhere in this country, on that kind of money. You can provide a good college education for your children, pay for their piano lessons, take fun vacations annually, and buy nice clothing for yourself. You will not worry about putting food on the table, at any time. You can eat out regularly. These are the luxuries of regular American life: eating out, occasionally buying toys for yourself and family, and traveling across this diverse nation on multiple vacations. These, and more, are easily attainable on 200k. What isn't attainable is living like Paris Hilton. What isn't attainable is attending Diddy's White Party. What isn't attainable is a second home in Boca and a third home in Aspen. Those aren't the luxuries of American life; those are the luxuries of American Gentry, and the winners of lotteries.
And yet, the extreme end of luxury is what American culture defines as desirable. Certainly, its okay to want to take vacations to Aspen. But a whole society measuring "success" as the ability to buy a summer home in Aspen has skewed reality. An annual income of a million dollars is now the low benchmark of true success in this country.
So you can choose any amount you want, really, in my fantasy world of fixed incomes. It could be $200k, or it could be $350k. Under $500k though. Above, it asymptotically approaches absurdity.
Businesses are not hindered by this limitation. Lockheed-Martin can still obtain $38 billion dollars in government contracts as they do now. The only difference is they cannot pay their CEO "a base salary of $1,834,615, a cash bonus of $9,146,000, stocks granted of $2,558,120, options granted of $6,564,800, and other compensation of $369,916." Or rather, the could pay him that, but he would have to immediately forfeit $20.2 million of it to the government. So almost certainly they wouldn't.
Small businesses, similarly, could obtain as much revenue as they wanted. But they could only pay their employees (and owner) $200k a piece max, the rest would either have to be reinvested in the business' growth or divested into other interests and/or equipment.
The immediately argument I received is that this would disincentivize talent from becoming C-level employees of American businesses, as monetary compensation (justified or not) is the primary method by which these companies attract talent. "Talent would outsource itself to less restrictive economies."
To which I add an even more totalitarian creed to my fantasy world: in order for a business to sell goods in the United States, it must have at least 51% of its work force located inside the US border, and must agree to the pay rules in place here.
Obviously, I am delusional. But this is a thought experiment. What would the country look like if companies could not acquire and retain talent via money? How do you create a workplace where people get something from it while not catering to their greed?
And what would people in this country do, if their celebrity base collapsed? Though movie stars could still be movie stars...their mundane lifestyles would be...well they'd be little less entertaining. The "Real Housewives of Orange County" would suddenly be a lot more real.
What would a company, like Lockheed-Martin do, given $20.2 million dollars that it suddenly had that it couldn't use to pad the already exorbitant wealth of Bob Stevens? Instead, they could pay another 202 employees an extra $100,000.
And suddenly my plan starts to make sense. A really, really talented engineer, with maybe 5 years experience, could probably be making close to $100k at Lockheed-Martin. But that engineer could make similar money elsewhere, at some lower-size company with more opportunities for advancement but less revenue/profit. But I imagine that same engineer could be easily retained by L-M given a $50k pay increase! And it is no sweat, for L-M, in this scenario because they simply are obeying the law. The exorbitant, almost unspendably large amount of income their CEO was receiving is instead being distributed to hundreds of employees who now can realize a significantly improved lifestyle, and L-M essentially locks in their loyalty.
Am I so delusional? I humbly submit the idea that a CEO is worth $20.2 million a year but the most talented engineer at that company is worth only 1/100th of that is equally delusional. And yet that is the current status quo, all across Corporate America.
I'm really curious, to be perfectly honest, what are the exact arguments people can make in favor of income levels above $200k. Let's ignore the idea that growth will stop, that is a straw man. The people who argue this are the ones that say the upper class are the primary drivers of the economy, because they have the money to consume in large quantities. Under my radical delusion, less people would make millions, yes, but thousands more would make six figures, and be propelled into this purported economy-driving income stratosphere.
I really want someone to look me in the face and tell me that $200,000 a year is not enough for them to live on. I really want to see their face as they tell me this.
Others might argue that having such an income limit will "hurt small business." Isn't the idea of a small business that incomes are low? If your small business is doing so well that you can pay yourself >$200k a year, you need to write a book about how to start a small business. Something like 95% of small businesses fail in the first 5 years. Perhaps this is because they are paying themselves too high a salary!
But, I could make a pretty fair argument that the "small business is what drives America's economy" is a hokey, pandering comment and doesn't really reflect modern society. If one third of American workers work in the financial sector, as has been reported, then a fair argument would be that publicly traded companies are now what drive Americas economy, or at least what scuttle it.
But I digress. I don't seriously believe that legislation ever could, or even should be, passed which limits a person's income to $XXX,XXX. I do believe that we as a society have lost touch with exactly how many dollars equals success. I do believe that modern American fiscal law and society has created a scheme where the rich are getting richer directly at the expense of the poor, and the poor celebrate it. Exorbitant wealth seems like it would be pretty awesome, even I admit. I'd love to have a jet-motorcycle like Leno, or a private plane to take me to my private grotto in Bora Bora. But it's pretty naive for me, or 99% of Americans, to believe we'll ever live that lifestyle. And it's pretty goddamn misguided for people making $35k a year to send me hatemail that my theoretical $200k will oppress their freedom. Or that such an income cap would destroy America's economy.
Then again, I can't prove that last statement false. But I humbly submit: if America's economy is completely dependent on the ability of Americans to become exceptionally wealthy, if our economy would be crippled by forcing people to be only "really rich" instead of "massively, absurdly, disproportionately rich" then we need to take a serious look at ourselves and the economic situation in which we've placed ourselves.
Certainly, parts of the economy would suffer greatly if we eliminated the ability to be extremely rich from our society. Places where their economies are the worst in this recession, like Vegas, would be dampened by the inability to attract big spenders. Or would they? Could they potentially be buoyed by the sudden influx of people making six figures due to corporate salary restructuring? Sure, a millionaire might drop a lot of money there over a weekend. But consider whether that millionaire would really boost their economy more in that one weekend than five people making $200k over five weekends. It seems to me that high-end-catering economies might actually be rendered less volatile.
Similarly, the real estate market might flounder, as very few would be buying $750,000 homes anymore. But conversely, wouldn't the housing market actually benefit, as instead of one millionaire home-buyer you'd instead have (theoretically) five $200k people buying homes by moving that salary down the corporate ladder. How would corporate morale change, if more employees could "live like the CEO?" How many C-Level employees would do well to eat some humble pie? The show "Undercover Boss" exists for a reason!
How exactly would an elite US company retain top talent if not with monetary compensation? That is the topic for another post. And it is a pertinent question for me to ask, as I still dream of owning my own engineering firm one day.
_
Wednesday, 23 February 2011
Echoes can be louder than the original voice
Posted on 06:07 by hony
I highly doubt, when Mohamed Bouazizi lit himself on fire December 17th, 2010, that he thought "this will hopefully spark a democratic revolution in Tunisia." Furthermore, I doubt he thought "and that Tunisian revolution will spread to Egypt, Libya, Yemen, Iran, Algeria, Cameroon, Jordan, Syria, and Bahrain."
But it did. You never know what your one brave little act could accomplish, until after you perform that act. Would that we all could be so brave, so reckless.
A lighthearted version of this, h/t Chris.
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But it did. You never know what your one brave little act could accomplish, until after you perform that act. Would that we all could be so brave, so reckless.
A lighthearted version of this, h/t Chris.
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Tuesday, 22 February 2011
offensive post
Posted on 10:52 by hony
At the risk of offending my massive libertarian following, I must ask: exactly what Bill of Rights-guaranteed freedoms would Americans lose if they were not allowed to make more than $200,000 a year? As in, the tax rate on income over $200,000 was 100%?
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Monday, 21 February 2011
My Dad Makes a Good Point About Human Brain Inefficiency
Posted on 10:29 by hony
Jonah Lehrer thinks the human brain is a super-efficient computer compared to Watson:
Watson's power comes from an electrical power plant, which can run at upwards of 33% efficiency. So (as an oversimplification) for every watt of power Watson requires, three need to be produced. This excludes line losses, etc.
Conversely, to feed Ken Jennings 1 watt, we must produce food. This food is grown in a field or as an animal, which is then harvested or slaughtered, processed, packaged, and shipped to a store. Fertilizer was almost certainly produced, and spread on the field, or hormones and high-quality feed was fed to the animal. This supply chain cost a marvelous amount of calories. An impossible number to calculate, but you get my point. Then consider that when a human consumes food, typically only about 20% of the glucose goes to the brain. In a way, a human body is only 20% efficient at powering its brain.
Just because Watson's energy consumption is explicit and the energy consumption of humans isn't doesn't mean that we're faster - or better.
So sure, Watson is a glowing, copper monstrosity that fills a huge server bank. But newer computers invariably shrink. Brains don't. Only a fool would believe that Watson's capabilities will always require massive server banks. Only a short-sighted person would think that only one person could use Watson at a time. While Watson was playing Jeopardy, much of its time was spent at idle. Could Watson have been playing 6 or 10 simultaneous games of Jeopardy without anyone noticing anything? Probably. Google's servers run millions of searches simultaneously...not doing that would be a waste of resources.
So imagine, 30 years from now, when Watson is now the size of a laptop, and 20 people can access it at a time, and it is half again more efficient than the human brain in terms of capability/joule.
What then?
_
But from this comes an incredibly insightful comment from my dad:
Let’s begin with energy efficiency. One of the most remarkable facts about the human brain is that it requires less energy (12 watts) than a light bulb. In other words, that loom of a trillion synapses, exchanging ions and neurotransmitters, costs less to run than a little incandescence. Compare that to Deep Blue: when the machine was operating at full speed, it was a fire hazard, and required specialized heat-dissipating equipment to keep it cool. Meanwhile, Kasparov barely broke a sweat.
The same lesson applies to Watson. I couldn’t find reliable information on its off-site energy consumption, but suffice to say it required many tens of thousands of times as much energy as all the human brains on stage combined. While this might not seem like a big deal, evolution long ago realized that we live in a world of scarce resources. Evolution was right. As computers become omnipresent in our lives — I’ve got one dissipating heat in my pocket right now — we’re going to need to figure out how to make them more efficient. Fortunately, we’ve got an ideal prototype locked inside our skull.
To support a human brain you can't just factor in the calories consumed. You have to factor in the costs in energy to grow the food, etc.Here's what Dad is driving at: in order to sustain Watson for an hour, you might need 50 kilowatts of power, to pull a random number out of the air. To sustain a Ken and Brad's brains for that same hour, you'd only need 24 watts of power.
Watson's power comes from an electrical power plant, which can run at upwards of 33% efficiency. So (as an oversimplification) for every watt of power Watson requires, three need to be produced. This excludes line losses, etc.
Conversely, to feed Ken Jennings 1 watt, we must produce food. This food is grown in a field or as an animal, which is then harvested or slaughtered, processed, packaged, and shipped to a store. Fertilizer was almost certainly produced, and spread on the field, or hormones and high-quality feed was fed to the animal. This supply chain cost a marvelous amount of calories. An impossible number to calculate, but you get my point. Then consider that when a human consumes food, typically only about 20% of the glucose goes to the brain. In a way, a human body is only 20% efficient at powering its brain.
Just because Watson's energy consumption is explicit and the energy consumption of humans isn't doesn't mean that we're faster - or better.
So sure, Watson is a glowing, copper monstrosity that fills a huge server bank. But newer computers invariably shrink. Brains don't. Only a fool would believe that Watson's capabilities will always require massive server banks. Only a short-sighted person would think that only one person could use Watson at a time. While Watson was playing Jeopardy, much of its time was spent at idle. Could Watson have been playing 6 or 10 simultaneous games of Jeopardy without anyone noticing anything? Probably. Google's servers run millions of searches simultaneously...not doing that would be a waste of resources.
So imagine, 30 years from now, when Watson is now the size of a laptop, and 20 people can access it at a time, and it is half again more efficient than the human brain in terms of capability/joule.
What then?
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Friday, 18 February 2011
Friday Poetry Burst
Posted on 12:37 by hony
A yellow oasis in hell=
premeditated stupidity= A phrenological idol.
The sombre dream of the grey-eyed Corsican
A Brain so small that an animacuale went to view it with a compound Microscope
The wrestling of shadows, a square chunk of carrion with two green eyes held by threads of
gossamer which floats at midnight in bleak old rural graveyards.
Three million miles beyond the limits of the universe where the anglels dare not go
There flies forever from nihil to nihil the foulest demon of the Cosmos
-Thomas Alva Edison
premeditated stupidity= A phrenological idol.
The sombre dream of the grey-eyed Corsican
A Brain so small that an animacuale went to view it with a compound Microscope
The wrestling of shadows, a square chunk of carrion with two green eyes held by threads of
gossamer which floats at midnight in bleak old rural graveyards.
Three million miles beyond the limits of the universe where the anglels dare not go
There flies forever from nihil to nihil the foulest demon of the Cosmos
-Thomas Alva Edison
The Fallacy That Non-Participation Disqualifies Criticism
Posted on 09:22 by hony
I said to a friend today "Thanks Mr. Obama for the extra 40 bucks in my paycheck. It will definitely help me buy Chipotle burritos while we bankrupt Social Security."
Friend responded "You didn't vote, you don't get to complain."
My response: "I don't watch porn, am I allowed to complain about the porn industry? I don't murder people, can I not complain about murderers? Since when is there a barrier to entry in regards to complaining?"
I did vote; I actively voted for no one. In fact, I'd argue that my very act of not voting was in itself a complaint against the modern political machine.
_
Friend responded "You didn't vote, you don't get to complain."
My response: "I don't watch porn, am I allowed to complain about the porn industry? I don't murder people, can I not complain about murderers? Since when is there a barrier to entry in regards to complaining?"
I did vote; I actively voted for no one. In fact, I'd argue that my very act of not voting was in itself a complaint against the modern political machine.
_
Watson and the Future of the Human-Machine Interface
Posted on 08:06 by hony
A reader of Andrew Sullivan writes to him:
And so there lies the genius of Watson: the ability to take human language with its faults and peccadilloes and turn it into a searchable parameter. But can we do better? Many people, after Watson's victory, argued that computers will, as their AI goes from weak to strong, eventually surpass human cognition.
But though Watson's abilities at cognition are impressive...they were written by a human. Watson, and his supercomputer peers, does not contain a single circuit of creativity. He contains 2800 processors, terabytes of data, and requires a huge amount of electrical power. Ask Watson any information about any song ever written and the computer could probably give it to you. But ask Watson to generate a unique song that reminds him of the flight of a sparrow, and he would fail completely. He'd fail miserably.
But a human, even an average composer, armed with a Watson interface, might be able to look up chord structures, watch videos of sparrows, hear other songs inspired by birds, and create a masterpiece for an entire orchestra.
Back in February 2010, Gary Kasparov, the chess legend, wrote about the awesome power of a human armed with a computer:
Which goes back to the brilliance of Watson. If we can continue to improve the way humans interact with computers, our ability to do what humans (uniquely in the known universe) do best (create) could grow as our need to do what computers do best (process data fast) becomes more integral into our daily lives.
And it isn't happening at just the supercomputer research facility. Already, my generation has learned to not bother remembering every dang fact we come across. We have wikipedia for that. We don't memorize sports statistics anymore, we have a myriad of stat tracking sites to plunder. We don't even need, really, to memorize science data anymore. I honestly don't remember the last time I did a unit conversion in my head. I have 'online unit converter pro' for that - on my phone.
So the question, to me, of Watson's victory is not whether the machines are going to supplant us, but rather how can we better integrate humans and Watsons together? We asked this question, here at TAE, several different times last year. "All you need is drivers," I rant again and again. Watson's interface requires a specific type of data (a Jeopardy "answer") relayed to it electronically. It really can't go beyond that, too far. On Star Trek (TNG), the crew can interact with the computer via voice or via consoles throughout the ship.
What if they could interact with the computer via direct neural connections? What if they could "plug in" to the computer, interact with it, and then unplug? What if the plug was a wireless connection, and they could be constantly connected? Imagine if you will, the scenario above:
The future, I believe, is one in which we can connect our minds directly to the machines. All you need is drivers.
_
I think this reader is right. It seems like there are three parts of the Enterprise computer that we are talking about: the human-machine interface (i.e. Dr. Crusher and the female computer voice interacting), the voice-recognition software that does what Watson did this week on Jeopardy, and the memory, which contains basically the entire history of several civilizations as well as every science and engineering fact ever known.
I watched the PBS documentary on Watson last week and what struck me most was just how close we are to a Star Trek ship’s computer.
Being a fan of The Next Generation, I loved watching Beverly Crusher go back and forth with her sickbay computer to diagnose a medical issue. You could see flashes of inspiration in Beverly’s eyes as the computer made connections that she had no way of making because it was tapping into to resources and databases her human mind could never store internally (or never even know about). But the “ta-da” moment came from Beverly as she connected the dots herself, and then bounced her logic off the computer to make sure it was sound, sometimes going several rounds before working it all out. Watson seems very close to being able to fulfill that kind of promise.
The documentary touched on a possible new type of “big picture” researcher. A scientist or doctor that uses a Watson-type interface to make connections across various fields of research; connections that specialists might never make because of their narrower focus. As long as a person is trained on how to ask the questions, the Computer can pull answers from all available sources and suggest multiple related items that might never have been considered before.
The potential is extraordinary, right?
And so there lies the genius of Watson: the ability to take human language with its faults and peccadilloes and turn it into a searchable parameter. But can we do better? Many people, after Watson's victory, argued that computers will, as their AI goes from weak to strong, eventually surpass human cognition.
But though Watson's abilities at cognition are impressive...they were written by a human. Watson, and his supercomputer peers, does not contain a single circuit of creativity. He contains 2800 processors, terabytes of data, and requires a huge amount of electrical power. Ask Watson any information about any song ever written and the computer could probably give it to you. But ask Watson to generate a unique song that reminds him of the flight of a sparrow, and he would fail completely. He'd fail miserably.
But a human, even an average composer, armed with a Watson interface, might be able to look up chord structures, watch videos of sparrows, hear other songs inspired by birds, and create a masterpiece for an entire orchestra.
Back in February 2010, Gary Kasparov, the chess legend, wrote about the awesome power of a human armed with a computer:
In 2005, the online chess-playing site Playchess.com hosted what it called a “freestyle” chess tournament in which anyone could compete in teams with other players or computers. Normally, “anti-cheating” algorithms are employed by online sites to prevent, or at least discourage, players from cheating with computer assistance. (I wonder if these detection algorithms, which employ diagnostic analysis of moves and calculate probabilities, are any less “intelligent” than the playing programs they detect.) Lured by the substantial prize money, several groups of strong grandmasters working with several computers at the same time entered the competition. At first, the results seemed predictable. The teams of human plus machine dominated even the strongest computers. The chess machine Hydra, which is a chess-specific supercomputer like Deep Blue, was no match for a strong human player using a relatively weak laptop. Human strategic guidance combined with the tactical acuity of a computer was overwhelming.
The surprise came at the conclusion of the event. The winner was revealed to be not a grandmaster with a state-of-the-art PC but a pair of amateur American chess players using three computers at the same time. Their skill at manipulating and “coaching” their computers to look very deeply into positions effectively counteracted the superior chess understanding of their grandmaster opponents and the greater computational power of other participants. Weak human + machine + better process was superior to a strong computer alone and, more remarkably, superior to a strong human + machine + inferior process.
Which goes back to the brilliance of Watson. If we can continue to improve the way humans interact with computers, our ability to do what humans (uniquely in the known universe) do best (create) could grow as our need to do what computers do best (process data fast) becomes more integral into our daily lives.
And it isn't happening at just the supercomputer research facility. Already, my generation has learned to not bother remembering every dang fact we come across. We have wikipedia for that. We don't memorize sports statistics anymore, we have a myriad of stat tracking sites to plunder. We don't even need, really, to memorize science data anymore. I honestly don't remember the last time I did a unit conversion in my head. I have 'online unit converter pro' for that - on my phone.
So the question, to me, of Watson's victory is not whether the machines are going to supplant us, but rather how can we better integrate humans and Watsons together? We asked this question, here at TAE, several different times last year. "All you need is drivers," I rant again and again. Watson's interface requires a specific type of data (a Jeopardy "answer") relayed to it electronically. It really can't go beyond that, too far. On Star Trek (TNG), the crew can interact with the computer via voice or via consoles throughout the ship.
What if they could interact with the computer via direct neural connections? What if they could "plug in" to the computer, interact with it, and then unplug? What if the plug was a wireless connection, and they could be constantly connected? Imagine if you will, the scenario above:
Dr. Crusher seeks to solve a medical mystery. She sits down in her sickbay, silent. She appears to be concentrating very hard. Little flashes of inspiration cross her eyes. In less than a minute, it is over. She stands and prepares a new hypospray, which she administers to the patient, who immediately recovers. Ground-breaking medicine has become a silent exercise of human creativity directly coupled to raw computational power.
At the end of the day, Dr. Crusher unplugs herself from the system, and puts the external component of her human-machine interface (the power supply and antenna) in a charging socket. Though it can provide her with days of power, she likes the act of plugging it in every night. She likes to disconnect herself (she feels it helps her retain her 'humanity'), and she likes the antiquated notion that daily recharges are still necessary.Is it really so far-fetched? Why are we spending countless hours developing better and better human-machine interface software, like Watson's interface, when we could be potentially circumventing the need for it by developing better human-machine interface hardware?
The future, I believe, is one in which we can connect our minds directly to the machines. All you need is drivers.
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Wednesday, 16 February 2011
Gates on Defense
Posted on 11:32 by hony
So apparently Bob Gates says that if we want to cut the Defense budget, we need to end the war in Afghanistan first.
Which seems logical.
However he suggests we do this around 2015, when we are "scheduled" to get out of Afghanistan.
TAE has a better solution: just pack up and leave, now. Right now. Right freaking now.
Remember when we fought in Vietnam for a decade, and then we left, and everyone was afraid communism was going to sweep across the globe, it was the most evil of all evils...and then communism didn't go anywhere, and it didn't spread across the globe?
Um, I don't have a PhD in anything, especially not geopolitics, but I have to wonder: if the U.S. of A. just walked out of Afghanistan today, and let the radical Islam (you know, that evil above all modern evils) have the country...would radical Islam sweep across the globe? Or would it stall, just like Communism, and never much threaten the U.S. again?
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Which seems logical.
However he suggests we do this around 2015, when we are "scheduled" to get out of Afghanistan.
TAE has a better solution: just pack up and leave, now. Right now. Right freaking now.
Remember when we fought in Vietnam for a decade, and then we left, and everyone was afraid communism was going to sweep across the globe, it was the most evil of all evils...and then communism didn't go anywhere, and it didn't spread across the globe?
Um, I don't have a PhD in anything, especially not geopolitics, but I have to wonder: if the U.S. of A. just walked out of Afghanistan today, and let the radical Islam (you know, that evil above all modern evils) have the country...would radical Islam sweep across the globe? Or would it stall, just like Communism, and never much threaten the U.S. again?
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Deep Thought
Posted on 08:17 by hony
Could I set up my email so that when I send an email to an incorrect address and get an "address unknown" daemon email from my server, the address unknown email is autoforwarded to the incorrect address?
Would this cause a gravitational collapse and destroy the Earth?
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Would this cause a gravitational collapse and destroy the Earth?
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Tuesday, 15 February 2011
The "Let's Slash the EPA but Increase Defense Spending Plan"
Posted on 10:25 by hony
President Obama's proposed budget released this week suggested a 13 percent cut in the EPA fund. A bold move amongst many to try to cut all the parts of the budget that he can without offending anyone who might scuttle his reelection campaign.
The House Republicans answered with their own proposal, suggesting 13 percent was a mere starting point, and went further, opening a 29 percent slash in the EPA budget.
Meahwhile, Obama suggested a 22 billion dollar increase in the Defense budget. The House Republicans only asked for a mere 11 billion dollar increase in the Defense budget.
Of course, protecting Americans is a priority. Right? Certainly a higher priority than protecting the environment in which Americans live. Because really, what good is the environment if we aren't free to enjoy it. We need to focus on our real priorities. Priorities like maintaining and expanding huge bases in other countries. Priorities like developing jet fighters we almost certainly will not use. Priorities like prosecuting endless wars. Priorities like maintaining a large and apocalyptically powerful nuclear arsenal which protects us from no one. Priorities like developing technologies to spy on Americans like never before. Priorities like spending more on our military than the next six largest countries combined. Priorities like maintaining a prison where suspected terrorists are held indefinitely without charges or trial.
These are the real priorities on which we should focus the next fiscal year. Certainly not things like subsidizing student loans for graduate students, maintaining our National Parks, or building wind and solar energy infrastructure.
In any case, the Obama budget refers to itself as the Path to Fiscal Sustainability. Like I said before: the environment will always take a backseat to the economy. Always.
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The House Republicans answered with their own proposal, suggesting 13 percent was a mere starting point, and went further, opening a 29 percent slash in the EPA budget.
Meahwhile, Obama suggested a 22 billion dollar increase in the Defense budget. The House Republicans only asked for a mere 11 billion dollar increase in the Defense budget.
Of course, protecting Americans is a priority. Right? Certainly a higher priority than protecting the environment in which Americans live. Because really, what good is the environment if we aren't free to enjoy it. We need to focus on our real priorities. Priorities like maintaining and expanding huge bases in other countries. Priorities like developing jet fighters we almost certainly will not use. Priorities like prosecuting endless wars. Priorities like maintaining a large and apocalyptically powerful nuclear arsenal which protects us from no one. Priorities like developing technologies to spy on Americans like never before. Priorities like spending more on our military than the next six largest countries combined. Priorities like maintaining a prison where suspected terrorists are held indefinitely without charges or trial.
These are the real priorities on which we should focus the next fiscal year. Certainly not things like subsidizing student loans for graduate students, maintaining our National Parks, or building wind and solar energy infrastructure.
In any case, the Obama budget refers to itself as the Path to Fiscal Sustainability. Like I said before: the environment will always take a backseat to the economy. Always.
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Thursday, 10 February 2011
Climate Science vs. Climate Economics
Posted on 06:17 by hony
Maybe you are getting tired of the climate ranting I'm doing. If so, here's David Roberts:
Give the whole article a read. Basically, he writes a less depressing version of my thoughts here. The climate is finished, at least...the current climate. The climate will change, he argues, but humanity will adapt and change too. Our increased wealth will offset the increased costs of a less-hospitable world. Here's hoping, I guess.
One final thought. Roberts writes:
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Or contemplate this: To reach even the more modest target of 450ppm, reports David Biello, the IEA says humanity would have to build the following every year between now and 2050:He goes on, discussing the economic implications of that project:... 35 coal-fired and 20 gas-fired power plants with carbon capture and storage; 30 nuclear power plants; 12,000 onshore wind turbines paired with 3,600 offshore ones; 45 geothermal power plants; 325 million square meters-worth of photovoltaics; and 55 solar-thermal power plants. That doesn't even include the need to build electric cars and hydrogen fuel cell vehicles in order to shift transportation away from burning gasoline.
From what economists tell us, it looks like the worst thing policymakers risk on climate change is somewhat slower economic growth. One way or another, we're getting wealthier.
This represents what is perhaps the foundational faith of modern economics: a faith in human adaptability and ingenuity. Especially via the distributed decisionmaking represented by open markets, humans can master almost any circumstances given time. (For a recent example of this optimism on Grist, see economist Matthew Kahn.)
Nowhere in these models will you find any hint of Diamond- or Lovelock-style apocalypse. Instead, future people will be much wealthier and, because of that, better able to cope with the problem.
Give the whole article a read. Basically, he writes a less depressing version of my thoughts here. The climate is finished, at least...the current climate. The climate will change, he argues, but humanity will adapt and change too. Our increased wealth will offset the increased costs of a less-hospitable world. Here's hoping, I guess.
One final thought. Roberts writes:
We are stumbling around in the dark, in an area where scientists tell us some very, very nasty beasties dwell. In that situation, it seems to me the overwhelming bias should be toward action -- getting lean, mean, and nimble enough to handle ourselves no matter what slouches our way.So if the politicians tell us there are very, very nasty beasties in the dark, we attack immediately, without hesitation and without proof of the beasties actually being there. But if scientists tell us of beasties in the dark...politicians demand more proof.
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The People Who Make Sustainability Impossible, Ctd
Posted on 05:42 by hony
From an article on New Scientist:
righteousness rightness, by extension).
It seems to me that (in a sane world) elected officials who doubted (with or without good reason) the credibility of some scientists or the veracity of their claims should respond by either asking for more information and/or providing funding in order to further explore the topic until a strong enough consensus has been formed (both among the scientists themselves as well as the community at large) that the elected officials can write and pass reasonable legislation which both follows the recommendations of the quorum, but also leaves itself open for adjustment, if later advances in science cause the topic to be modified.
And yet, here in the United States, the general consensus has been reached. The climate change scientists, with all the alacrity they could muster, have appealed to both the public as well as the government to enact legislation. But here we are: the Republicans in Congress apparently.
So I would stop here, and say "the people who make sustainability impossible are Republicans in the House." But that would be unfair. The simple truth is that I suggested above that legislation should follow both the recommendations of scientists but also the quorum of a free society. And a sickening trend in the last three years has been the rapid rise of climate change skeptics in America. This shudder-inducing set of polls from Gallup last year points to the problem: a growing number of Americans either don't believe in global warming, or they are pointedly apathetic. Still more disturbing: a rapidly growing number doubt the credibility of climate scientists.
How do you convince 150 million skeptical people that radical changes in their way of life are necessary in order to achieve global sustainability? You don't.
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The new cadre of Republicans in Congress is packed with climate change sceptics, several of whom have promised to use their power to cast doubt on the underlying science.Seriously? "several of whom have promised to use their power to cast doubt." I don't know about you, readers, but I never voted for an elected official yet who had "the power to cast doubt" in their job description. The obvious implication here is that not only are the scientists who have provided evidence of anthropogenic global warming absolutely wrong, but also it is the imminent duty of the Republican Congresspersons to show that wrongness (and their own
It seems to me that (in a sane world) elected officials who doubted (with or without good reason) the credibility of some scientists or the veracity of their claims should respond by either asking for more information and/or providing funding in order to further explore the topic until a strong enough consensus has been formed (both among the scientists themselves as well as the community at large) that the elected officials can write and pass reasonable legislation which both follows the recommendations of the quorum, but also leaves itself open for adjustment, if later advances in science cause the topic to be modified.
And yet, here in the United States, the general consensus has been reached. The climate change scientists, with all the alacrity they could muster, have appealed to both the public as well as the government to enact legislation. But here we are: the Republicans in Congress apparently.
So I would stop here, and say "the people who make sustainability impossible are Republicans in the House." But that would be unfair. The simple truth is that I suggested above that legislation should follow both the recommendations of scientists but also the quorum of a free society. And a sickening trend in the last three years has been the rapid rise of climate change skeptics in America. This shudder-inducing set of polls from Gallup last year points to the problem: a growing number of Americans either don't believe in global warming, or they are pointedly apathetic. Still more disturbing: a rapidly growing number doubt the credibility of climate scientists.
How do you convince 150 million skeptical people that radical changes in their way of life are necessary in order to achieve global sustainability? You don't.
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Monday, 7 February 2011
The People Who Make Sustainability Impossible
Posted on 09:01 by hony
So above is this great little video of Bill O'Reilly explaining that you can't explain things, and therefore God exists. Normally, I try to not to let these people get any blog time, but you know, based on the title of this post, that someone is going to get mentioned.
The really eerie thing about this isn't O'Reilly; his exhortations are easily enough dismissed. No, what scared me was when I showed this video to a friend and he immediately denounced the video, and O'Reilly, as "an entertainer just doing what he can to entertain." Further, when I suggested that all professions, engineering, plumbing, acting, entertaining, politicking, accounting, whatever-ing, are bound by ethics and morality, and that Mr. O'Reilly was lying to people - blatantly - he suggested, defensively, that "the global warming people" are liars too, and for the same reason as Mr. O'Reilly.
The problem here is that a sizable portion of the world population (especially in industrialized nations) don't just believe that anthropogenic climate change is an unproven myth. They believe it is a proven lie. They believe that "global warming" is a political tool that left-leaning politicians use to amalgamate power. They do not see clear evidence of climate change because the scale of it is not one that can be observed by an individual. Nor do they see the benefits of sustainable concepts: if Eastern Kansans have to pay higher taxes to finance wind generator installations in Western Kansas, all they see is the taxes, the wind generators are invisible, the cleaner energy produced by them is invisible, and the net reduction in greenhouse gas is invisible. The jobs created (or maintained) to install these generators are typically invisible too.
And yet, an unusually cold winter in Eastern Kansas is very visible. And so the pressing need to convert from a global economy built on the back of carbon into one built around hydrogen seems like no big rush; look how cold it was this year.
Given a population of people clearly skeptical about global warming, it doesn't take much to concrete in them the belief that global warming was cooked up as a method to steal their livelihood. (RUN ON SENTENCE WARNING!) Charges are leveled at environmentalists like Al Gore that he and others (in no particular order) have an obvious conflict of interest because they advocate green technology but also invest in it (which is anathema to people who of course never have invested in concept they also champion), they make erroneous scientific claims (that one group in England did...something wrong...right, so all global warming evidence must be suspect), they claim we need to be sustainable but hypocritically use large amounts of energy themselves and continue to eat meat (because if you contradict yourself at all in your entire life, then your entire life is a lie), and he and others refuse to debate the topic of global warming (sorry, but for most of the scientific community, i.e. anyone qualified to effectively debate the topic, anthropogenic global warming is not debateable, it is a fact).
And yet, we do not live in a meritocracy or a technocracy. We live in a world where Sarah Palin can be a candidate for Vice President. Where political positions aren't earned through promotions, it is earned through popularity contests. And so as long as loud voices can continue to drive the debate away from solutions to global warming and keep it focused on the question of whether global warming exists at all, the world cannot move forward. Sustainability goes nowhere.
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The really eerie thing about this isn't O'Reilly; his exhortations are easily enough dismissed. No, what scared me was when I showed this video to a friend and he immediately denounced the video, and O'Reilly, as "an entertainer just doing what he can to entertain." Further, when I suggested that all professions, engineering, plumbing, acting, entertaining, politicking, accounting, whatever-ing, are bound by ethics and morality, and that Mr. O'Reilly was lying to people - blatantly - he suggested, defensively, that "the global warming people" are liars too, and for the same reason as Mr. O'Reilly.
The problem here is that a sizable portion of the world population (especially in industrialized nations) don't just believe that anthropogenic climate change is an unproven myth. They believe it is a proven lie. They believe that "global warming" is a political tool that left-leaning politicians use to amalgamate power. They do not see clear evidence of climate change because the scale of it is not one that can be observed by an individual. Nor do they see the benefits of sustainable concepts: if Eastern Kansans have to pay higher taxes to finance wind generator installations in Western Kansas, all they see is the taxes, the wind generators are invisible, the cleaner energy produced by them is invisible, and the net reduction in greenhouse gas is invisible. The jobs created (or maintained) to install these generators are typically invisible too.
And yet, an unusually cold winter in Eastern Kansas is very visible. And so the pressing need to convert from a global economy built on the back of carbon into one built around hydrogen seems like no big rush; look how cold it was this year.
Given a population of people clearly skeptical about global warming, it doesn't take much to concrete in them the belief that global warming was cooked up as a method to steal their livelihood. (RUN ON SENTENCE WARNING!) Charges are leveled at environmentalists like Al Gore that he and others (in no particular order) have an obvious conflict of interest because they advocate green technology but also invest in it (which is anathema to people who of course never have invested in concept they also champion), they make erroneous scientific claims (that one group in England did...something wrong...right, so all global warming evidence must be suspect), they claim we need to be sustainable but hypocritically use large amounts of energy themselves and continue to eat meat (because if you contradict yourself at all in your entire life, then your entire life is a lie), and he and others refuse to debate the topic of global warming (sorry, but for most of the scientific community, i.e. anyone qualified to effectively debate the topic, anthropogenic global warming is not debateable, it is a fact).
And yet, we do not live in a meritocracy or a technocracy. We live in a world where Sarah Palin can be a candidate for Vice President. Where political positions aren't earned through promotions, it is earned through popularity contests. And so as long as loud voices can continue to drive the debate away from solutions to global warming and keep it focused on the question of whether global warming exists at all, the world cannot move forward. Sustainability goes nowhere.
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Thursday, 3 February 2011
Quote for the Day
Posted on 11:25 by hony
From Neal Stephenson at Slate:
Double that up with this post on Lockheed-Martin from William Hartung at Guernica:
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"Moreover, the rocket industry's status as a colossal government-funded program with seemingly eternal lifespan has led to a situation in which its myriad contractors and suppliers are distributed over the largest possible number of congressional districts. Anyone who has witnessed Congress in action can well imagine the consequences of giving it control over a difficult scientific and technological program."
Double that up with this post on Lockheed-Martin from William Hartung at Guernica:
[C]onsider Lockheed Martin’s sheer size for a moment. After all, the company receives one of every 14 dollars doled out by the Pentagon. In fact, its government contracts, thought about another way, amount to a “Lockheed Martin tax” of $260 per taxpaying household in the United States, and no weapons contractor has more power or money to wield to defend its turf. It spent $12 million on congressional lobbying and campaign contributions in 2009 alone. Not surprisingly, it’s the top contributor to the incoming House Armed Services Committee chairman, Republican Howard P. “Buck” McKeon of California, giving more than $50,000 in the most recent election cycle. It also tops the list of donors to Sen. Daniel Inouye (D-HI), the powerful chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, and the self-described “#1 earmarks guy in the U.S. Congress.”Have a great day.
Add to all that its one hundred and forty thousand employees and its claim to have facilities in 46 states, and the scale of its clout starts to become clearer. While the bulk of its influence-peddling activities may be perfectly legal, the company also has quite a track record when it comes to law-breaking: it ranks number one on the “contractor misconduct” database maintained by the Project on Government Oversight, a Washington-DC-based watchdog group.
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