6 ms·

I feel the human race has made a rather amusing step forward to rule-by-algorithm. 30 years ago this would be dystopian, today its a byproduct of a mish-mash of

I feel the human race has made a rather amusing step forward to rule-by-algorithm. 30 years ago this would be dystopian, today its a byproduct of a mish-mash of open source libraries.

3beard 12y ago
I wish I could work myself up into some kind of indignation, but what I really believe is this: if you willingly submit yourself to the cesspits of human banality (i.e. Facebook, Tinder and all the likes), you pretty much deserve all the crap that will be unloaded on you.
- noonespecial 12y ago
  So there's the dystopia. The humans become the nearly identical constantly replaceable consumable that the algorithms steer across a dozen generations, mating them and connecting them together to father the algorithms' own silicon ends whatever those happen to turn out to be. I hope they don't like paperclips.
  - jarman 12y ago
    >identical constantly replaceable consumable that the algorithms steer across a dozen generations, mating them and connecting them together to father the algorithms' own silicon ends Surprisingly precise description of life (up to sillicon / carbon substitution)
  - eli_gottlieb 12y ago
    Oh please. There was never a Divine Plan for your life, and there's never going to be a mash-up sub-intelligent algorithm that overrides your own direction over your own life. It takes other intelligent agents to do that, ie: people. Crappy classification or regression algorithms being misapplied as cheap, stupid business ideas... are basically nothing like super-intelligent paper-clip maximizers.
  - Padding 12y ago
    Richard Dawkins paints a similar picture in "The Blind Watchmaker". In some way it's ironic that with all that effort we've spent on AI so far, simple evolution may yet beat us to the punch as far as AGI is concerned. Makes you wonder about how irrelevant humans are in the grand scheme of things.
- lectrick 12y ago
  With all due respect, I think this smacks of elitism. The bigger problem IMHO is that spending too much time on those things (and perhaps here, or the Internet in general) leads to dopamine tolerance, aka "ADD". Which cannot be good for lasting relationships.
karmacondon 12y ago
As someone pointed out in another thread, we're ruled by algorithms now and have been for quite some time. Tinder itself is based on a human processed algorithm: IF ((I think that he/she is hot) && (he/she thinks I am hot)) THEN date(); The good thing about computer algorithms is that we can open them up and see how they work. Like, y'know, hackers. This program is doing the same basic task as a person would, "Look at a face and judge hotness", except it can be tuned and tweaked and quantifiably understood. I don't understand what's dystopian about that. I do understand why people don't like it. Everyone feels that an algorithm could screw them over in a situation where a person wouldn't. It's the driverless car argument. And we all know the response, that humans aren't perfect either and we have better metrics and tools for understanding and fixing machine mistakes than we do human mistakes. The same is true for algorithms that control Tinder, credit applications, health insurance rates, et al. They aren't always right and it does suck when you can't make an appeal to human compassion. But humans can be just as wrong and just as obstinate, if not moreso. At least with an algorithm you know where you stand. I, for one, welcome our algorithmic overlords. As a hacker I've always been able to figure out how technical systems work. Other humans? Not so much. If anything, this new world will play to my strengths and to the strengths of those like me.
- karma_fountain 12y ago
  Gahh, close your if statement man.
  - StavrosK 12y ago
    END IF;
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
  - Coding_Cat 12y ago
    Don't worry, he was using C and he defined THEN as an empty macro statement.
- Padding 12y ago
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
learnstats2 12y ago
> I feel the human race has made a rather amusing step forward to rule-by-algorithm. 30 years ago this would be dystopian, today its a byproduct of a mish-mash of open source libraries. Is this particular usage really dystopian? In the past, probably even 30 years ago, your family would likely have discouraged you from meeting people who were not appropriate to your status.
bantunes 12y ago
It's scary how bad algorithms are at accurately portraying the diversity of human behavior, but social pressures are weeding out those that don't fit in computer models. The future holds a bunch of people happy to be labeled, and companies happy that that is the case, so that they can justify their BigData spending in "analyzing" them and improving their bottom line.</rant>
lectrick 12y ago
I think this will lead to a more interesting world. I secretly believe this will ALSO lead to realizing that you can't "automate all the things," and that some small subset of things will persistently, stubbornly, refuse to be "algorithm'd out". For the record, if you are a materialist/determinist (Dan Dennettist), then you're basically also agreeing to the postulate that eventually ALL the things (including ourselves) will be "algorithm'd out".
- jimmaswell 12y ago
  Just because everything is computable doesn't mean it will be feasible to compute everything or that every algorithm will be discovered

I feel the human race has made a rather amusing step forward to rule-by-algorithm. 30 years ago this would be dystopian, today its a byproduct of a mish-mash of open source libraries.

3beard 12y ago

I wish I could work myself up into some kind of indignation, but what I really believe is this: if you willingly submit yourself to the cesspits of human banality (i.e. Facebook, Tinder and all the likes), you pretty much deserve all the crap that will be unloaded on you.

noonespecial 12y ago
So there's the dystopia. The humans become the nearly identical constantly replaceable consumable that the algorithms steer across a dozen generations, mating them and connecting them together to father the algorithms' own silicon ends whatever those happen to turn out to be. I hope they don't like paperclips.
- jarman 12y ago
  >identical constantly replaceable consumable that the algorithms steer across a dozen generations, mating them and connecting them together to father the algorithms' own silicon ends Surprisingly precise description of life (up to sillicon / carbon substitution)
- eli_gottlieb 12y ago
  Oh please. There was never a Divine Plan for your life, and there's never going to be a mash-up sub-intelligent algorithm that overrides your own direction over your own life. It takes other intelligent agents to do that, ie: people. Crappy classification or regression algorithms being misapplied as cheap, stupid business ideas... are basically nothing like super-intelligent paper-clip maximizers.
- Padding 12y ago
  Richard Dawkins paints a similar picture in "The Blind Watchmaker". In some way it's ironic that with all that effort we've spent on AI so far, simple evolution may yet beat us to the punch as far as AGI is concerned. Makes you wonder about how irrelevant humans are in the grand scheme of things.
lectrick 12y ago
With all due respect, I think this smacks of elitism. The bigger problem IMHO is that spending too much time on those things (and perhaps here, or the Internet in general) leads to dopamine tolerance, aka "ADD". Which cannot be good for lasting relationships.

karmacondon 12y ago

As someone pointed out in another thread, we're ruled by algorithms now and have been for quite some time. Tinder itself is based on a human processed algorithm: IF ((I think that he/she is hot) && (he/she thinks I am hot)) THEN date(); The good thing about computer algorithms is that we can open them up and see how they work. Like, y'know, hackers. This program is doing the same basic task as a person would, "Look at a face and judge hotness", except it can be tuned and tweaked and quantifiably understood. I don't understand what's dystopian about that. I do understand why people don't like it. Everyone feels that an algorithm could screw them over in a situation where a person wouldn't. It's the driverless car argument. And we all know the response, that humans aren't perfect either and we have better metrics and tools for understanding and fixing machine mistakes than we do human mistakes. The same is true for algorithms that control Tinder, credit applications, health insurance rates, et al. They aren't always right and it does suck when you can't make an appeal to human compassion. But humans can be just as wrong and just as obstinate, if not moreso. At least with an algorithm you know where you stand. I, for one, welcome our algorithmic overlords. As a hacker I've always been able to figure out how technical systems work. Other humans? Not so much. If anything, this new world will play to my strengths and to the strengths of those like me.

karma_fountain 12y ago
Gahh, close your if statement man.
- StavrosK 12y ago
  END IF;
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- Coding_Cat 12y ago
  Don't worry, he was using C and he defined THEN as an empty macro statement.
Padding 12y ago

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

learnstats2 12y ago

> I feel the human race has made a rather amusing step forward to rule-by-algorithm. 30 years ago this would be dystopian, today its a byproduct of a mish-mash of open source libraries. Is this particular usage really dystopian? In the past, probably even 30 years ago, your family would likely have discouraged you from meeting people who were not appropriate to your status.

bantunes 12y ago

It's scary how bad algorithms are at accurately portraying the diversity of human behavior, but social pressures are weeding out those that don't fit in computer models. The future holds a bunch of people happy to be labeled, and companies happy that that is the case, so that they can justify their BigData spending in "analyzing" them and improving their bottom line.</rant>

lectrick 12y ago

I think this will lead to a more interesting world. I secretly believe this will ALSO lead to realizing that you can't "automate all the things," and that some small subset of things will persistently, stubbornly, refuse to be "algorithm'd out". For the record, if you are a materialist/determinist (Dan Dennettist), then you're basically also agreeing to the postulate that eventually ALL the things (including ourselves) will be "algorithm'd out".

jimmaswell 12y ago
Just because everything is computable doesn't mean it will be feasible to compute everything or that every algorithm will be discovered