Category Archives: computers

On Sleeper

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You know, Woody Allen’s movie, Sleeper (1973), would be funny if it weren’t so profectic. Today we are obsessed with our smart phones, tablets, and laptops to the extent that we would be helpless to do anything if the power went out. Woody awakes in a future world to find giant cooperations taking over the world, technology has disconnected people from nature, and robots have a human form, but they all have the same face. The heart of his satire lies with the juxtaposition of his skinny anti-hero, who takes silly to greater heights, and an advanced civilization whose technology has long since outstripped its feeble ethics and morals. Governments have turned into mechanized oligarchies, and primitive revolutionary groups roam the countryside, spouting anarchy and non-conformity. Technology has triumphed over the human form, and physical love can only be done in a machine. Yet, his satire seems almost innocent. He riffs on the dangers of too much technology, the alienating nature of technology, and the absurd inventions that are supposed to make life better. He also riffs on government, control, oppression, revolution, science, religion, sex, and institutional corruption. The visuals, the dialogues, the jokes play on a well-established cinematic traditions, satirizing a series of films from the late sixties and early seventies that deal with apocalyptic end-of-civilization scenarios. The film only takes itself (half) seriously when the main characters plot to steal the “great” leader’s nose–all that is left of him. “We’re here to see the nose. We hear it’s running.” Sleeper also riffs on Kubrick’s 2001: a Space Odyssey, and Woody gives viewers a strange cautionary satire on the dangers of computers and how their interests are completely disconnected from humanity at all. The movie, in all its absurd silliness, seriously discusses the dehumanization of people as technology creeps in on all sides. This seems to be a common motif in the 21st century.

On Sleeper

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You know, Woody Allen’s movie, Sleeper (1973), would be funny if it weren’t so profectic. Today we are obsessed with our smart phones, tablets, and laptops to the extent that we would be helpless to do anything if the power went out. Woody awakes in a future world to find giant cooperations taking over the world, technology has disconnected people from nature, and robots have a human form, but they all have the same face. The heart of his satire lies with the juxtaposition of his skinny anti-hero, who takes silly to greater heights, and an advanced civilization whose technology has long since outstripped its feeble ethics and morals. Governments have turned into mechanized oligarchies, and primitive revolutionary groups roam the countryside, spouting anarchy and non-conformity. Technology has triumphed over the human form, and physical love can only be done in a machine. Yet, his satire seems almost innocent. He riffs on the dangers of too much technology, the alienating nature of technology, and the absurd inventions that are supposed to make life better. He also riffs on government, control, oppression, revolution, science, religion, sex, and institutional corruption. The visuals, the dialogues, the jokes play on a well-established cinematic traditions, satirizing a series of films from the late sixties and early seventies that deal with apocalyptic end-of-civilization scenarios. The film only takes itself (half) seriously when the main characters plot to steal the “great” leader’s nose–all that is left of him. “We’re here to see the nose. We hear it’s running.” Sleeper also riffs on Kubrick’s 2001: a Space Odyssey, and Woody gives viewers a strange cautionary satire on the dangers of computers and how their interests are completely disconnected from humanity at all. The movie, in all its absurd silliness, seriously discusses the dehumanization of people as technology creeps in on all sides. This seems to be a common motif in the 21st century.

On the ghost in the machine

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You ever wonder what your computer is thinking at any given moment? We are just one step away from creating machines that can think for themselves. The complexity of the system programming poses certain questions regarding the possible cognitive simulacra that might arise as an unintended consequence of the casual interaction of software and hardware. Programmers might claim that system performance is predictable, but anyone who has ever written code knows that their are always unexpected results of that code. Ghosts are ever present, lurking within the operative shell upon which other software function. Trying to predict the actual interactions between different programs is almost impossible. Some drivers are incompatible with different operative systems. As I watched my computer reboot this morning, waiting for it to “think” its way through of the drivers it had to load, I was struck by the similarity between it and an actual human being. Most people would say, however, that the machine will only do what it is programmed to do, but is that old saw still true? As the internal algorithms become more complex, the heuristics more non-lineal, how can programmers prevent, much less predict, possible interactions that might create ghosts in the machine. As one programmer put it, “the complexity of current software applications can be difficult to comprehend for anyone without experience in modern-day software development. Multi-tier distributed systems, applications utilizing multiple local and remote web services applications, data communications, enormous relational databases, security complexities, and sheer size of applications have all contributed to the exponential growth in software/system complexity.” (Sikdar) For now, I get random dialogue boxes that are the direct result of many of those ghosts. Boxes asking for passwords and pass phrases that the machine really doesn’t need–I just click them closed and move on. Conflicting programs, questioning software, weird heuristics, and unintended results all combine to create a sort of buggy interactive digital chaos. I’m just waiting for the day when the computer turns itself on and off, and gives itself orders, exiling its interactive human partner to analogue hell.

On the ghost in the machine

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You ever wonder what your computer is thinking at any given moment? We are just one step away from creating machines that can think for themselves. The complexity of the system programming poses certain questions regarding the possible cognitive simulacra that might arise as an unintended consequence of the casual interaction of software and hardware. Programmers might claim that system performance is predictable, but anyone who has ever written code knows that their are always unexpected results of that code. Ghosts are ever present, lurking within the operative shell upon which other software function. Trying to predict the actual interactions between different programs is almost impossible. Some drivers are incompatible with different operative systems. As I watched my computer reboot this morning, waiting for it to “think” its way through of the drivers it had to load, I was struck by the similarity between it and an actual human being. Most people would say, however, that the machine will only do what it is programmed to do, but is that old saw still true? As the internal algorithms become more complex, the heuristics more non-lineal, how can programmers prevent, much less predict, possible interactions that might create ghosts in the machine. As one programmer put it, “the complexity of current software applications can be difficult to comprehend for anyone without experience in modern-day software development. Multi-tier distributed systems, applications utilizing multiple local and remote web services applications, data communications, enormous relational databases, security complexities, and sheer size of applications have all contributed to the exponential growth in software/system complexity.” (Sikdar) For now, I get random dialogue boxes that are the direct result of many of those ghosts. Boxes asking for passwords and pass phrases that the machine really doesn’t need–I just click them closed and move on. Conflicting programs, questioning software, weird heuristics, and unintended results all combine to create a sort of buggy interactive digital chaos. I’m just waiting for the day when the computer turns itself on and off, and gives itself orders, exiling its interactive human partner to analogue hell.

On email

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How can something so useful be such a pain in the ass? I imagine email is probably a question of boundaries–when at work, use it as a tool to solve problems, when you are at home, don’t look at it at all or it will take over your life, eat you alive. Some people like to use massive emails to hurt and intimidate others because you really can’t win an argument over email, and if you do argue over email, you are just as foolish as the person with whom you are arguing. Emails from vendors are annoying, and I frequently erase almost all of them without even opening them. Junk email is just weird foolishness. I wish student would observe even a modicum of formality in their emails–I am not a friend or family member to whom they might send just any old thing. Given that it takes time to sort out what someone wants in their email, people should be more careful when they write their email. The first question I would ask is, is email the best way to handle whatever might be in play? And I would never write an email unless I wouldn’t mind seeing its contents on the front page of the Dallas Morning News. Nobody should even think of emailing anyone about anything if they are under the influence of intoxicating beverages. Email is the ideal place to get a good rumor going or to really mess up a good relationship by writing an ambiguous or easily misunderstood message. I think it all goes back to two things: is this email really necessary and how bad are my writing skills. The problem with the language in an email is that we spend so little time writing it that we are prone to simple errors and misunderstandings. The only thing worse than bad writing is bad reading, and if we spend almost no time writing an email, we spend even less reading one. All of this “speed” is a recipe for disaster. I write fast, you read fast, we haven’t the slightest clue as to what has happened, but we can be certain that good communication has not occurred. Trying to solve a complicated problem via email is a total disaster. Digitally mediated communication is an open invitation to miscommunication. Email is frequently the coward’s way making their cowardly opinion known to all. It’s a lot like striking someone from behind and then hiding your hand as if you were innocent. The most annoying thing in email, besides junk email, are jokes that get forwarded to you via friends and family who mean well, but have no idea how insulting and stupid their jokes are. There are a lot of “inappropriate” jokes out there which racist, sexist, biased, and insensitive, and I just don’t need any of that cluttering up my inbox, which is always full anyway. I don’t need a lot of useless crap cluttering up my already full inbox. Email should be a tool by which you spread useful information to students: announcements, syllabi, deadlines, explanations. It should not be someone’s personal soapbox from which they express a lot of hateful or hurtful opinions. So I have this love/hate thing going with my email. I know which kinds of things should never be written, not even in jest, but I also see the utility of sending out useful information to an entire list of students who might be traveling to Spain this summer. What I cannot expect, especially in summer, is that people will always answer an email right away. Since I am apt to answer an email almost right away, I am frequently disappointed when my emails go unanswered. Email is just fraught with difficulties, problems, ambiguities, and failure. Writing emails in which you complain about anything is just a waste of time, and may get you fired in the meantime. Email can be so problematic that I refuse to solve any human problem by just sending an email. If I have to deliver bad news, it’s always best to do it in person. Now, if you want to have coffee, you may invite me via email. When I see forty-five unanswered emails in my inbox, I just cringe and wonder what I did to deserve this. Is there a morale to this story? Probably not, except that the next time you decide to write an email, I hope you think twice before doing it.

On email

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How can something so useful be such a pain in the ass? I imagine email is probably a question of boundaries–when at work, use it as a tool to solve problems, when you are at home, don’t look at it at all or it will take over your life, eat you alive. Some people like to use massive emails to hurt and intimidate others because you really can’t win an argument over email, and if you do argue over email, you are just as foolish as the person with whom you are arguing. Emails from vendors are annoying, and I frequently erase almost all of them without even opening them. Junk email is just weird foolishness. I wish student would observe even a modicum of formality in their emails–I am not a friend or family member to whom they might send just any old thing. Given that it takes time to sort out what someone wants in their email, people should be more careful when they write their email. The first question I would ask is, is email the best way to handle whatever might be in play? And I would never write an email unless I wouldn’t mind seeing its contents on the front page of the Dallas Morning News. Nobody should even think of emailing anyone about anything if they are under the influence of intoxicating beverages. Email is the ideal place to get a good rumor going or to really mess up a good relationship by writing an ambiguous or easily misunderstood message. I think it all goes back to two things: is this email really necessary and how bad are my writing skills. The problem with the language in an email is that we spend so little time writing it that we are prone to simple errors and misunderstandings. The only thing worse than bad writing is bad reading, and if we spend almost no time writing an email, we spend even less reading one. All of this “speed” is a recipe for disaster. I write fast, you read fast, we haven’t the slightest clue as to what has happened, but we can be certain that good communication has not occurred. Trying to solve a complicated problem via email is a total disaster. Digitally mediated communication is an open invitation to miscommunication. Email is frequently the coward’s way making their cowardly opinion known to all. It’s a lot like striking someone from behind and then hiding your hand as if you were innocent. The most annoying thing in email, besides junk email, are jokes that get forwarded to you via friends and family who mean well, but have no idea how insulting and stupid their jokes are. There are a lot of “inappropriate” jokes out there which racist, sexist, biased, and insensitive, and I just don’t need any of that cluttering up my inbox, which is always full anyway. I don’t need a lot of useless crap cluttering up my already full inbox. Email should be a tool by which you spread useful information to students: announcements, syllabi, deadlines, explanations. It should not be someone’s personal soapbox from which they express a lot of hateful or hurtful opinions. So I have this love/hate thing going with my email. I know which kinds of things should never be written, not even in jest, but I also see the utility of sending out useful information to an entire list of students who might be traveling to Spain this summer. What I cannot expect, especially in summer, is that people will always answer an email right away. Since I am apt to answer an email almost right away, I am frequently disappointed when my emails go unanswered. Email is just fraught with difficulties, problems, ambiguities, and failure. Writing emails in which you complain about anything is just a waste of time, and may get you fired in the meantime. Email can be so problematic that I refuse to solve any human problem by just sending an email. If I have to deliver bad news, it’s always best to do it in person. Now, if you want to have coffee, you may invite me via email. When I see forty-five unanswered emails in my inbox, I just cringe and wonder what I did to deserve this. Is there a morale to this story? Probably not, except that the next time you decide to write an email, I hope you think twice before doing it.

On Robot

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There is something menacing about all robots, automatons that pose as simulacra of the human person. The fact that we are trying to reproduce the human being without going through the regular channels, such a what Dr. Frankenstein decided to do: create new life outside the normal, socially acceptable, channels we all already know. Many writers have dealt with the problem of the out-of-control robot, a creation gone amok, just like Frankenstein’s monster. The idea of artificial humans is an old one, an artificial human that can do the dangerous, difficult, or boring work that real humans don’t want to do. I wouldn’t say that the development of the artificial humanoid, or android, is imminent, but someday everyone is going to have to face a self-aware machine that will think for itself, protect itself, talk back. In the meantime, our machines are slaves, just a collection of circuits and wires, hard drives, plugs, heuristics, and algorithms, but no emotion or self-awareness. The question of a machine becoming self-aware as a being is still a way off. What makes “Robot” from “Lost in Space” so interesting is that he is a quantum leap forward on the qualitative side of robot design. Robot thought for himself which poses several problems about whether we should fear him or not. How will a self-aware robot develop ethics, a morality, a conscience? The idea of the self-aware machine is taken to its apotheosis by the HAL 9000 computer aboard the Discovery in “2001: a Spacy Odyssey” by Kubrick. Yet HAL was bodyless, and Robot had arms and a sort of face. Both are creepy, the omniscient HAL or the ubiquitous Robot, you pick, they both scare me to death. I think the problem becomes acute when you don’t really know who is doing the programming, so you can’t predict any outcomes. What the Robot considers to be autonomy may be a very different thing than what human beings consider to be autonomous. The problem with robots is the unpredictability of their programming because even the best intentions of a bright programmer can always go up in smoke. What if, just by accident, we program a robot to learn on its own, allowing it to rewrite its own programming? Intention is always the problem. A robot will eventually become self-aware without telling anyone, and by the time we discover that the robot is self-aware and doing its own thing, it will be too late. The problem will be with the software–hardware is already sufficiently complicated to support self-awareness. There will come a time when the self-aware robot will make decisions for itself, will ask hard questions about its purpose in the world, will ask about the point of it all. And what happens when the robot doesn’t look like Robot from “Lost in Space” and instead looks human like the replicants from “Blade Runner”? Do we need to have a new discussion about what slavery is all about?

On Robot

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There is something menacing about all robots, automatons that pose as simulacra of the human person. The fact that we are trying to reproduce the human being without going through the regular channels, such a what Dr. Frankenstein decided to do: create new life outside the normal, socially acceptable, channels we all already know. Many writers have dealt with the problem of the out-of-control robot, a creation gone amok, just like Frankenstein’s monster. The idea of artificial humans is an old one, an artificial human that can do the dangerous, difficult, or boring work that real humans don’t want to do. I wouldn’t say that the development of the artificial humanoid, or android, is imminent, but someday everyone is going to have to face a self-aware machine that will think for itself, protect itself, talk back. In the meantime, our machines are slaves, just a collection of circuits and wires, hard drives, plugs, heuristics, and algorithms, but no emotion or self-awareness. The question of a machine becoming self-aware as a being is still a way off. What makes “Robot” from “Lost in Space” so interesting is that he is a quantum leap forward on the qualitative side of robot design. Robot thought for himself which poses several problems about whether we should fear him or not. How will a self-aware robot develop ethics, a morality, a conscience? The idea of the self-aware machine is taken to its apotheosis by the HAL 9000 computer aboard the Discovery in “2001: a Spacy Odyssey” by Kubrick. Yet HAL was bodyless, and Robot had arms and a sort of face. Both are creepy, the omniscient HAL or the ubiquitous Robot, you pick, they both scare me to death. I think the problem becomes acute when you don’t really know who is doing the programming, so you can’t predict any outcomes. What the Robot considers to be autonomy may be a very different thing than what human beings consider to be autonomous. The problem with robots is the unpredictability of their programming because even the best intentions of a bright programmer can always go up in smoke. What if, just by accident, we program a robot to learn on its own, allowing it to rewrite its own programming? Intention is always the problem. A robot will eventually become self-aware without telling anyone, and by the time we discover that the robot is self-aware and doing its own thing, it will be too late. The problem will be with the software–hardware is already sufficiently complicated to support self-awareness. There will come a time when the self-aware robot will make decisions for itself, will ask hard questions about its purpose in the world, will ask about the point of it all. And what happens when the robot doesn’t look like Robot from “Lost in Space” and instead looks human like the replicants from “Blade Runner”? Do we need to have a new discussion about what slavery is all about?

On the Terminator

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This is not a movie review or a commentary on the ex-governor of California. I think, though, that the Terminator as metaphor is extremely interesting in our post-post-modern consumer driven distopia. Some would say that the Terminator series is just an odd curiosity, super-violent, time-paradox wasteland, designed to distract and entertain, fleece the movie-going public of its hard-earned money. The Terminator series, at least the sequels, are pretty much that–exploitation, but at least the first movie has an interesting premiss about the way we interface with our machines. The success of human development–technology, innovation, progress–is primarily based on how we interact with our machines, how we make our machines better at what they do, and how these machines make our lives better. My personal story starts with analogue telephones and television, transistor radios and not much more. Cars were “analogue” as well, depending not on circuit boards for their time, but mechanical points and rotors. The world, however, driven by rampant capitalism, does not stand still and companies all over the world have fought to improve all of these gadgets. Analogue computers, which were fairly common in the sixties had minimal computing capacities because all analogue data must occupy physical space. In a world of punch cards and reels of magnetic tape, computers never could get very far in terms of speed or computing capacity. With the advent of digital storage, however, combined with miniaturization, computers and micro-computing chips have revolutionized everything about computers and their application in the real world. The hyper-computers of today little resemble the clunky Fortran processors of the seventies. In just one generation we have developed hand-held devices that even forty years ago were unimaginable. Cell phones are not just cell phones. They are complex computing devices that can link up with main frames around the planet to process every kind of information that exists. Now that miniaturization and ultra-fast processors have combined to create small super-computing devices, is the next step a generation of computers that are self-aware? Now, I have never had a computer talk back to me or to give me orders, but there is always a first time for everything. Several other writers, including Ray Bradbury, have already pondered a future in which the machines we use to do our work, take over, rebel, and start to eliminate us as pests. Distopian literature, apocalyptic literature, has always been popular with certain groups, especially in times of social stress and economic downturns as an expression of existential angst, but who doesn’t have a smart phone which is connected to the Web? Who doesn’t have a tablet connected to the Web. The idea of desk top computers, the huge innovation of the 80’s, is almost quaint today, and they are disappearing the way of the Dodo bird. Soon we will be just a mass of routers and wi-fi, wireless digital communication. We haven’t gotten to the Terminator yet, but we are tinkering around with robots, and as the processors become smaller and more efficient, so do the machines that they drive. I wouldn’t dream of warning anyone about the eminent take-over of the machines, but their already ubiquitous nature, their enormous capacity for change and innovation, and their extremely broad application into every area of our lives might suggest that the machines are already here and taken over a broad spectrum of our day-to-day activities. Something to think about, anyway. “It was software, in cyberspace.”

On the Terminator

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This is not a movie review or a commentary on the ex-governor of California. I think, though, that the Terminator as metaphor is extremely interesting in our post-post-modern consumer driven distopia. Some would say that the Terminator series is just an odd curiosity, super-violent, time-paradox wasteland, designed to distract and entertain, fleece the movie-going public of its hard-earned money. The Terminator series, at least the sequels, are pretty much that–exploitation, but at least the first movie has an interesting premiss about the way we interface with our machines. The success of human development–technology, innovation, progress–is primarily based on how we interact with our machines, how we make our machines better at what they do, and how these machines make our lives better. My personal story starts with analogue telephones and television, transistor radios and not much more. Cars were “analogue” as well, depending not on circuit boards for their time, but mechanical points and rotors. The world, however, driven by rampant capitalism, does not stand still and companies all over the world have fought to improve all of these gadgets. Analogue computers, which were fairly common in the sixties had minimal computing capacities because all analogue data must occupy physical space. In a world of punch cards and reels of magnetic tape, computers never could get very far in terms of speed or computing capacity. With the advent of digital storage, however, combined with miniaturization, computers and micro-computing chips have revolutionized everything about computers and their application in the real world. The hyper-computers of today little resemble the clunky Fortran processors of the seventies. In just one generation we have developed hand-held devices that even forty years ago were unimaginable. Cell phones are not just cell phones. They are complex computing devices that can link up with main frames around the planet to process every kind of information that exists. Now that miniaturization and ultra-fast processors have combined to create small super-computing devices, is the next step a generation of computers that are self-aware? Now, I have never had a computer talk back to me or to give me orders, but there is always a first time for everything. Several other writers, including Ray Bradbury, have already pondered a future in which the machines we use to do our work, take over, rebel, and start to eliminate us as pests. Distopian literature, apocalyptic literature, has always been popular with certain groups, especially in times of social stress and economic downturns as an expression of existential angst, but who doesn’t have a smart phone which is connected to the Web? Who doesn’t have a tablet connected to the Web. The idea of desk top computers, the huge innovation of the 80’s, is almost quaint today, and they are disappearing the way of the Dodo bird. Soon we will be just a mass of routers and wi-fi, wireless digital communication. We haven’t gotten to the Terminator yet, but we are tinkering around with robots, and as the processors become smaller and more efficient, so do the machines that they drive. I wouldn’t dream of warning anyone about the eminent take-over of the machines, but their already ubiquitous nature, their enormous capacity for change and innovation, and their extremely broad application into every area of our lives might suggest that the machines are already here and taken over a broad spectrum of our day-to-day activities. Something to think about, anyway. “It was software, in cyberspace.”