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With respect, I think most comments here are missing Dyson's point (perhaps because it was somewhat poorly made). I don't think his point is about whether the

by twtw 8y ago

With respect, I think most comments here are missing Dyson's point (perhaps because it was somewhat poorly made). I don't think his point is about whether the integrator and analog electronics will be resurgent in the next century, and analog hardware will be common. I think Dyson is talking about the complex network of the modern world, where humans interact with computing machine, and with each other - humans influence computers, and computers come back around and influence humans. I think his "future of computing" is a future where human society and culture is decided based on the interplay between humans and our machines, and this decision is an "analog computation" made by a massive scale hybrid computer that no one has intentionally designed or understands. You can see examples of this already, with youtube recommendation engines influencing the belief systems of millions (billions?) of people across all kinds of subjects, and with our thoughts frequently dominated by whatever happens to show up on our phones.

usgroup 8y ago
Maybe I’m just simple but couldn’t you say it was always case that the human hive mind is a bit like a giant analog computer ? Not sure why the digital stuff is important for the analogy.
patrickyeon 8y ago
Oh absolutely you're correct here. > In analog computing, complexity resides in network topology, not in code. Information is processed as continuous functions of values, such as voltage and relative pulse frequency, rather than by logical operations on discrete strings of bits. ... > Individually deterministic finite-state processors, running finite codes, are forming large-scale, nondeterministic, non-finite-state metazoan organisms running wild in the real world. The resulting hybrid analog/digital systems treat streams of bits collectively, the way the flow of electrons is treated in a vacuum tube, rather than individually, as bits are treated by the discrete-state devices generating the flow. Bits are the new electrons. Analog is back, and its nature is to assume control. > Say, for example, you build a system to map highway traffic in real time simply by giving cars access to the map in exchange for reporting their own speed and location at the time. The result is a fully decentralized control system. Nowhere is there any controlling model of the system except the system itself. ... > Even in the age of all things digital, this cannot be defined in any strictly logical sense, because meaning, among humans, isn’t fundamentally logical. The best you can do, once you have collected all possible answers, is to invite well-defined questions and compile a pulse-frequency weighted map of how everything connects. Before you know it, your system will not only be observing and mapping the meaning of things, it will start constructing meaning as well. In time, it will control meaning, in the same way the traffic map starts to control the flow of traffic even though no one seems to be in control. In these passages, "The Computer" that's running is the network, a meta-computer, made up of the individual "computing elements" if you will that are the physical pieces of hardware that most anyone would point to and call "a computer". And as you've recognized, that's Dyson's point: No matter what those little elements are made of, the overall picture is analog. If we want to understand how "Algorithms" are influencing the world, we can't think of them as "discrete computing algorithms". And finally, the emergent behaviour out of this can lead to large-scale control effected on our society without being designed in, and even if nobody is thinking to effect control.
- mattnewport 8y ago
  The article seems to be redefining analog and digital to mean something different than what they're traditionally taken to mean. It's not clear to me that the new definition implicitly being proposed is very useful or that if it is useful it is helpful to try and repurpose these words for it.
- TheOtherHobbes 8y ago
  That's no different to conventional history and culture. It just has computers in it. Dyson seems to have only just worked out that evolution, culture, and politics are emergent. Which is why the argument makes no sense. Either digital systems add something new and unique to the mix, or they don't. If they don't, then what's the point of the piece? If they do, blather about analog metazoans is irrelevant. The problem becomes one of understanding emergence without obfuscation and hand-waving. In fact so-called emergent behaviour is not the problem. Not even slightly. The biggest digital systems we have now have been consciously and deliberately designed to monitor and manipulate human behaviour. There's nothing emergent, surprising, obscure, or quasi-mystical about either the outline goals or the specific techniques used to achieve them. Instead of resorting to obscurantism, it would be far more useful to invent a new kind of "digital democracy" where the goals of large software corporations were open to democratic oversight. Of course that's not going to happen while free market excuses and rhetoric are used to keep democratic oversight well away from these corporations.
  - twtw 8y ago
    > no different to conventional history and culture. It just has computers in it. I would argue that it is different, because it has computers in it. > The biggest digital systems we have now have been consciously and deliberately designed to monitor and manipulate human behaviour. They've been designed to make users click on this or that or watch or scroll more, but I disagree that all the consequences of those designs were or are understood. I don't think anyone intentionally designed a system to make kids watch creepy YouTube videos endlessly or not get vaccinated or think the earth is flat, they designed a system to "maximize engagement" and these things happened (maybe or not as a consequence).

by twtw 8y ago

usgroup 8y ago

Maybe I’m just simple but couldn’t you say it was always case that the human hive mind is a bit like a giant analog computer ? Not sure why the digital stuff is important for the analogy.

patrickyeon 8y ago

Oh absolutely you're correct here. > In analog computing, complexity resides in network topology, not in code. Information is processed as continuous functions of values, such as voltage and relative pulse frequency, rather than by logical operations on discrete strings of bits. ... > Individually deterministic finite-state processors, running finite codes, are forming large-scale, nondeterministic, non-finite-state metazoan organisms running wild in the real world. The resulting hybrid analog/digital systems treat streams of bits collectively, the way the flow of electrons is treated in a vacuum tube, rather than individually, as bits are treated by the discrete-state devices generating the flow. Bits are the new electrons. Analog is back, and its nature is to assume control. > Say, for example, you build a system to map highway traffic in real time simply by giving cars access to the map in exchange for reporting their own speed and location at the time. The result is a fully decentralized control system. Nowhere is there any controlling model of the system except the system itself. ... > Even in the age of all things digital, this cannot be defined in any strictly logical sense, because meaning, among humans, isn’t fundamentally logical. The best you can do, once you have collected all possible answers, is to invite well-defined questions and compile a pulse-frequency weighted map of how everything connects. Before you know it, your system will not only be observing and mapping the meaning of things, it will start constructing meaning as well. In time, it will control meaning, in the same way the traffic map starts to control the flow of traffic even though no one seems to be in control. In these passages, "The Computer" that's running is the network, a meta-computer, made up of the individual "computing elements" if you will that are the physical pieces of hardware that most anyone would point to and call "a computer". And as you've recognized, that's Dyson's point: No matter what those little elements are made of, the overall picture is analog. If we want to understand how "Algorithms" are influencing the world, we can't think of them as "discrete computing algorithms". And finally, the emergent behaviour out of this can lead to large-scale control effected on our society without being designed in, and even if nobody is thinking to effect control.

mattnewport 8y ago
The article seems to be redefining analog and digital to mean something different than what they're traditionally taken to mean. It's not clear to me that the new definition implicitly being proposed is very useful or that if it is useful it is helpful to try and repurpose these words for it.
TheOtherHobbes 8y ago
That's no different to conventional history and culture. It just has computers in it. Dyson seems to have only just worked out that evolution, culture, and politics are emergent. Which is why the argument makes no sense. Either digital systems add something new and unique to the mix, or they don't. If they don't, then what's the point of the piece? If they do, blather about analog metazoans is irrelevant. The problem becomes one of understanding emergence without obfuscation and hand-waving. In fact so-called emergent behaviour is not the problem. Not even slightly. The biggest digital systems we have now have been consciously and deliberately designed to monitor and manipulate human behaviour. There's nothing emergent, surprising, obscure, or quasi-mystical about either the outline goals or the specific techniques used to achieve them. Instead of resorting to obscurantism, it would be far more useful to invent a new kind of "digital democracy" where the goals of large software corporations were open to democratic oversight. Of course that's not going to happen while free market excuses and rhetoric are used to keep democratic oversight well away from these corporations.
- twtw 8y ago
  > no different to conventional history and culture. It just has computers in it. I would argue that it is different, because it has computers in it. > The biggest digital systems we have now have been consciously and deliberately designed to monitor and manipulate human behaviour. They've been designed to make users click on this or that or watch or scroll more, but I disagree that all the consequences of those designs were or are understood. I don't think anyone intentionally designed a system to make kids watch creepy YouTube videos endlessly or not get vaccinated or think the earth is flat, they designed a system to "maximize engagement" and these things happened (maybe or not as a consequence).