April 2014 – Page 2 – Cubicgarden.com…

Rich, educated and waiting for the Singularity?

Sharing love and happiness makes life more beautiful (CC)

I’m going to link two very different issues together because somewhere in my mind they are somewhat connected. Maybe its a single thread but my post on Single Black Male (which finally got posted yeh! all the previous posts about it have been updated) and watching the film Transcendence.

Warning this is not a review of Transcendence but it may contain lots of spoilers, slotted within the post.

It kind of starts with Imran who tends to be lately the creative spark for my writings on this blog

I do agree with rushkoff’s anti-human stance, there’s a messianic collapsitarianism around singularity geeks that actually reveals more about current anxieties than any insight about evolution.

To which I wrote…

Agreed about the singularity 180k yrs ago. Funny how others disagree and say it trivialities the concept of singularity. Rushkoff is on the money, somehow this ties into my pointers at the lack of diversity. Can’t quite close the loop but there’s something about the anxieties of a certain group of people

What is up with Transcendence? Well its not a bad movie, I gave it 6/10 which is better than most but it wasn’t great. The movie starts with the Depp dying from a radioactive bullet and his wife deciding to upload him to his computer, to keep a version of him alive. The bullet is shot by a group of terrorist/freedom fighters who believe Artificial Intelligence is anti-human and anti-god.

The setup is a bounce back and forth about the limits of technology, and I have to say the film does make some good points on both sides. Even myself was questioning some of the moves by Depp. The biggest move was getting connected to the Internet. This was a little underplayed but the significance was all there. Once online, the market multiplication was in full effect and AI Depp is able to get enough funding to buy a town in the middle of nowhere. Fill it with supercomputers and independent solar arrays. Before long the AI Depp builds controllable nano-bots which can repair almost anything it would seem.

And thats where I felt it jumped the shark!

Before long everything which the bots touched was repairable and under the control of AI Depp. Meanwhile even AI Depp’s wife is freaking when AI Depp takes over a worker and performs the cross over to Flesh bag. There was no mention of Skynet or Robots (say hello to the robots), but heck there might as well have been. Humans controlled by a higher AI? Yes you got it, Bingo… The Zero sum game is locked in place and before you know it there is explosions and people are dying (and being repaired with Nanos)

The only way to end it all is a virus uploaded… Afterwards the world is ridden of this era of technology.

Balls!

But the first hour wasn’t bad. It was hollywood and about the level of Lawnmower man.

I heading back to my original post about the film. Rushkoff is very right.

The singularity to me is this self loathing, anti-human, zombie apocalypse fantasy. The story they tell is the history of evolution is information its self striving to greater states of complexity. Humans are really good, Culture is really good, been good for the last 10,000 years but now computers are better. People are only any good to help machines transcendence the next stage of evolution.

And now the leap and connecting my post from Single Black Male.

This self loathing, anti-human, zombie apocalypse fantasy, I fear might be coming from the lack of diversity in the tech circle. I’m going to go out on a limn and suggest the zombie fantasy may be something which a more diverse and mixed bunch of people wouldn’t come up with.

They may see things in a different light and actually transcend the zero-sum and fear driven ideas of skynet. Building safe guards which are not about conquer, control and simulate, but towards a cooperative arrangement not based on fear.

It reminds me of the Matrix and The Second Renaissance.

One servant bot, B-166ER, overheard its owner planning for it to be scrapped: Not wanting to die, it killed the man in self-defense. Put on trial, B-166ER was found guilty of murder and sentenced to be destroyed, along with the rest of his kind. The trial ignited debate worldwide over Machine rights, and the mandate for termination sparked outbreaks of protests and violence.

The Machines eventually separated from humanity and founded a new city of their own: 01. Due to their technical prowess they took on most of the world’s manufacturing business – 01’s power rose massively, while humanity’s began to drop like a stone. The Machines requested admission to the United Nations, presenting plans for a stable, civil relationship with the nations of man. Their admission was denied, and 01 was subjected to a prolonged barrage of nuclear weapons.

I’m suggesting a more diverse group of people would have thought things through better. So ultimately I’m saying diversity of ideas, thoughts and people is critical for the continuation of human kind…

Ok its quite a leap but I really think its important to look at the bigger picture, its too easy to get caught up in the smaller picture… Maybe over time it will be come easier to explain or become self evident.

Storytelling through different types of frames

As part of my investigations into Perceptive Media, myself and other colleagues are deconstructing storytelling down to its most logical parts. Part of this is understanding the history of storytelling and other aspects of storytelling which are outside the mainstream consciousness.

It was the other day I spent extra long in the shower listening to NPR’s TED radio hour, as it was all about stories.

In this hour, TED speakers explore the art of storytelling — and how good stories have the power to transform our perceptions of the world.

The one which struck a chord with me was Chimamanda Adichie’s TED talk on the dangers of the single story. Chimamanda gives a great example to start.

So I grew up in a small university town in Nigeria, and started reading quite early. And I read a lot of British children’s books, which was not unusual. This was the norm for children like me. And so when I started to write, I was writing exactly those stories. All my characters were white and blue-eyed. They played in the snow, they ate apples, and they talked a lot about the weather – how lovely it was that the sun had come out. Now this, despite the fact that I lived in Nigeria, I had never been outside Nigeria. We didn’t have snow, we ate mangoes, and we never talked about the weather because there was no need to. My characters also drank a lot of ginger beer, never mind that I had no idea what ginger beer was. And for many years afterwards, I would have a desperate desire to taste ginger beer.

In Chimamanda’s own words…

What this demonstrates, I think, is how impressionable and vulnerable we are in the face of a story, particularly as children. Because all I had read were books in which characters were foreign, I had become convinced that books, by their very nature, had to have foreigners in them and had to be about things with which I could not personally identify.

The power of the story is that powerful. And I conclude listening to her talk and the other TED talks on the show. Mass publishing/broadcasting is partly to blame for this.

Of course in my usual way, I wonder could Perceptive Media could/would make this situation better? I believe so, but how?

In this case, personalisation could be a good thing. Yes the fears of echo chambers and filter bubbles, have to be wary of but on the other hand a well written story is adaptable to almost any culture. Its the inflexibility of the medium which is causing African women to grow up thinking white blue eyed ginger beer drinking kids are part and parcel of the medium. Yes you can point the finger at globalization but its deeper than that. Its inherent to the medium of publishing and broadcasting… in my honest opinion.

If Perceptive Media can remove or even dislodge the dangers of the single story, I would be very happy. As Chimamanda finishes her talk saying…

Stories matter. Many stories matter. Stories have been used to dispossess and to malign, but stories can also be used to empower and to humanize. Stories can break the dignity of a people, but stories can also repair that broken dignity.

Interaction, one reason why women avoid tech?

I had the pleasure of going to Manchester Tech Nights, which is usually clashing with the Manchester Werewolf Chapter. Thankfully not this one, good work Chris sorting this one out.

The bit which stood out for me was a talk from Elizabeth Clarke who talked about the interaction between males and females in the work place. I didn’t know what to expect but before long Elizabeth was asking questions of the audience which was 75% male. Her point is the way we interact is different and knowing the differences could be part of the reason why females feel uncomfortable in the male dominated tech world.

Her background is fascinating, and makes a lot of sense based on her view point.

I’m very sure many women in the tech industry have some bad stories of when guys have invaded their personal space, have felt uncomfortable and the communication has gone a rye. Saying so always reminds me of the key reasons why Girl geekdinner was such a success.

It was refreshing to see and hear. Reminding me very much of the things I tried to do with Relationships 2.0 and Geeks Talk Sexy. Little bit of knowledge can not only help aid the interaction between workmates. But also help gain confidence outside of work. And many could really do with a dose of self confidence.

I’d love to do something with Elizabeth in the future, but we shall see if I can convince her back to her flirting advice days.

Funf + Perceptive Radio, imagine the possibilities

Video streaming by UstreamEver since I saw Funf at Quantified Self 2013, I have wondered about what things we could do with it.

3000 posts and still writing

I just posted my 3000th blog post according to my wordpress install. This is the 3001st post…

Its shows how great the internet is and what it can empower in each and everyone of us. If your in the Manchester area, you might want to sign the broadband petition.

I think I saw you on Tinder?

To be honest its happened a few times, not just tinder but other virtual places like my experience with TV and dating.

It could be awkward for many. But to be honest for myself, as I’m deadly truthful its doesn’t come as a shock that it is.. really me.

The last time this happened was at FutureEverything’s opening party. Unfortunately I was rushing off, so the women in question said hi and pointed out our friend in common.

Other people have come up on dating sites and I have recognised them and learned a tiny bit more about them. Of course no names… But people from work and other places. The tricky part is pretending they didn’t come up and saying nothing?

Some of them have lied about different things like height, age, where they work, etc. A couple I have spoke to and asked them why they feel the need to tell little and not so little while lies? My thoughts is something to do with a mix of social pressures and self-esteem issues. Its a shame really.

The tainted eyes of the beholder

At breakfast today with Chris and Kat, we were talking about previous people we’ve been out with and the question of chemistry. I mentioned the eye of the beholder and how everyone has a different things they like. Therefore the chemistry is going to be different too.

Kat agreed and gave a great example, which I hadn’t ever thought about.

Do you think people who you found attractive become almost ugly at certain times? Like if they cheat on you…?

And she makes a great point. Perception is a interesting thing. Someone which seems great, then becomes tainted because of their actions. And I think Tainted is the right word too, because it becomes impossible to see them as attractive again ever after. No matter what people say or think.

Freemium dating gone horrifically wrong

Lunch time at work is a interesting experience. Somehow we got into a discussion about online dating and Elizabeth asked me what kind of sites I’m on, out of curiosity. I mentioned I only do free dating sites and before you knew it we were on to a discussion about freenium dating sites vs paid sites.

The logic seems to conclude that a paid for sites would attract a better match, however in my own experience this is not true. Actually the opposite seems to apply, with the tricks the paid for dating sites pull on you. But we started wondering… If you were really evil or lack in moral judgment, what kind of things would you do?

Here’s some suggestions,

Default all profiles would be ugly (there was a suggestion of green on brown with comic sans) unless you pay for colour changes and font faces changes.
There would be a charge for every character over 320 characters (it was suggested 140 actually). Bit like plenty of fish’s extended profile.
Depending on the time of the month certain words would cost less and more. Of course there would be a algorithm working out the most likely used words in profiles. But the cost would be reversed, as to charge the most for those words in their prime like selfie. Likewise Phrases go down in price depending on over use of the word across the site.
There would only be allowed one photo like eBay use to have. More photos can be added at a cost of course. Oh and the one photo would be restricted to 256 colours and a size of 640×480. If you need colour, you can choose a animal photo which best represents you. One photo to impress… make it a good one.
Messages can only be accessed on the site or the application. There will be strict limits of 10 meg storages and of course all messages will be monitored and fiddled with. So there will be no swearing, rude or lude content (lots of dating sites do this to kill off email and phone number exchange in messages). It would also have the right to change words and sentences to aid with communication. Well I say aid but expect all type of nonsense and mucking around.
All messages will start at 200 characters maximum and grow by 10 characters based on the messages exchange. You
Matching algorithms will be switch depending on paid membership. If you want the super-dooper algorithm you got to pay. And remember you have no idea how good it is till you try it out, at which you are offered the mega search for another upgrade in membership… Of course this time it includes advance options, thankfully. Okcupid already has multiple methods/algorithms for search and some are only accessible to paid members.
Conditions for using the site is allowing the site to have access to your Facebook account. Not just for authentication but so it can read and write to your friends. If you want to stop the spamming, you need to pay for the yearly membership. Remember when Plaxo and many others did this to convince your friends to join?
Don’t even get me started on adverts, you never seen adverts like this before, well maybe. Not only will you see them on the site, but also in your facebook timeline because you allowed us to do so, duhhh stupid…! Of course we could hijacking your cookies for even more fun, unless you pay the subscription money but that would be so… wrong!
Feeling the pitch when it comes to the matches, well don’t worry most of them will be automated bots sent to lure you into paying even more or at least another few months of subscription. Hummm where did I hear this before?
Of course our starred profiles will be ranked highly and you will need to digg through those before you get to the cheapskates. As a free user, you will have to do this with no sort and no option of how many users per page. Good luck with that…
Did I forget to say, how our search doesn’t work correctly for free users. You will have to search through male and female users from all over the world till we can find a way to fix it. Of course paid users get access to the beta server which does support these (some people say) essential things.
Random username allocation. Don’t like your username which was randomly given to you? Well if you pay the money, you can change it. Don’t pay, and you will have to put up with snugglemuffin666 or even snddjoidjidb81.

I could go on but frankly you go the picture. Some sounds a little crazy while others you may recognise from being on paid for dating sites. Free dating sites are rarer than they should be, but the freemium sites are going to be the next big thing. Don’t believe me? Look at Tinder.

Targeted for being connected?

Little news which slipped under the radar in the UK was Kevin Rose the guy from Diggnation, founder of Digg and now one of the people involved in Google Ventures. Was targeted by a number of protesters over the anti-tech tensions in San Francisco.

The Digg founder said the protesters raised a banner reading “Kevin Rose Parasite” and handed out pamphlets to his neighbors that read, in part: “Kevin directs the flow of capital from Google into the tech startup bubble that is destroying San Francisco. The start-ups that he funds bring the swarms of young entrepreneurs that have ravaged the landscapes of San Francisco and Oakland.”

The rapid growth of the local tech sector has sparked a series of protests in recent months, as concerns grow over economic inequality, evictions and neighborhood gentrification.

Gentrification… its that word again. Remember when I wrote about gentrification in a post a while ago?

Of course its bad Kevin was targeted, but the protesters certainly picked the wrong person. Having dropped out of education at college age, he worked his way into the tech scene by appearing on TV and clawing his way up the ladder before taking the risk with a few initiative’s.

The irony of the protests wasn’t lost, as Kevin pointed it out for them shooting on Google phones.

Maybe its time to refresh the post which still isn’t up at Singleblackmale. This seems like a good opportunity to give more emphases to my point about the rich, educated and connected…

They are feared, with their weird glasses geeky, electric cars and new data ethic. They use cafes as workplaces, bars to conduct meetings and workplaces to “chillax”. They don’t believe in business hierarchies and believe you can quantify everything from relationships to sex…

Highlights of FutureEverything 2014

Another year another good Future Everything festival. It seemed to fly by so quickly and partly because I was roped into the Radio 4 Character invasion day and Vision 2022,thanks for the tweet Julius. So although I was back and forth between different conferences, I did get to soak up some of the good events at Future Everything.

Adrian Hon

Adrian was also involved in the character invasion day and his book History of the Future in 100 Objects made up part of the festival. I have to admit everytime I hear Adrian talk, he spurs a number of ideas and thought. Such a smart guy and plenty of interesting thoughts. My evernote was overflowing from the conversation with him.

Anab Jain

I had not really come across Superflux but Anab delivered a stellar keynote in place of Anthony Dunne. Not only did she talk about the serious disconnect between what Snowden uncovered. But she also touched heavily on privacy, social compliance and the invisible war over autonomy. Not only a great keynote (which I can’t believe was all last minute) but she also delivered a good fireside chat just like Adrian Hon did.

New shape of things panel

I just got back from Future 2022 and caught the tail end of the new shapes panel. Its always impressive to see people you know very well talking on a panel. Dan W, Tom Armitage, Alexandra DS and Claire Red moderating. Wish I could have heard the whole thing but it was full of interesting discussion about the nature of the maker scene to the unnecessary maker projects going through kickstarter recently. It was certainly one of the better panels I’ve heard in a while.

Liam Young

Liam’s talk was certainly interesting but the sync from the laptop caused the output to fail a lot and sometimes go out of sync.

Future everything had a lot of potential but for me didn’t quite pull through mainly because of my own hectic schedule. Must remember to give it more time in the future. Well worth attending and still very reasonably priced.