Plastic, metals and electricity represent systems that think. Culture predicts that these elements will produce the singularity. Kate Crawford takes on this discussion in 21 parts, emphasizing in part XXI "Many of the assumptions about human life made by machine learning systems are narrow, normative and laden with error." Crawford explains in part XIX, "Every form of biodata – including forensic, biometric, sociometric, and psychometric – are being captured and logged into databases for AI training. That quantification often runs on very limited foundations: datasets like AVA which primarily shows women in the ‘playing with children’ action category, and men in the ‘kicking a person’ category. The training sets for AI systems claim to be reaching into the fine-grained nature of everyday life, but they repeat the most stereotypical and restricted social patterns, re-inscribing a normative vision of the human past and projecting it into the human future."
In part XVIII, Crawford explains early forms of AI, "In 1770, Hungarian inventor Wolfgang von Kempelen constructed a chess-playing machine known as the Mechanical Turk. His goal, in part, was to impress Empress Maria Theresa of Austria. This device was capable of playing chess against a human opponent and had spectacular success winning most of the games played during its demonstrations around Europe and the Americas for almost nine decades. But the Mechanical Turk was an illusion that allowed a human chess master to hide inside the machine and operate it." Crawford explains that AI is shrouded in mystery and complexity. Does AI have to be mysterious and complex? Are simple principles of the Theory of Relatively and Gravity complex? Many researchers explain AI as being "complex" and that we just must "accept." Is strict acceptance true understanding?
Footnote: 29 “Containers Lost At Sea – 2017 Update” (World Shipping Council, July 10, 2017), http://www.worldshipping.org/industry-issues/safety/Containers_Lost_at_Sea_-_2017_Update_FINAL_July_10.pdf.
After hours of labor and invested money, cargo containers are lost at sea. In fact one of the the most current articles by the NYT asks "Why are Garfield phones still washing up on the seashore in France after decades?" The answer plain and simple was that a cargo container fell off a ship nearly 30 years ago; and, this leaked container is still gradually 'releasing' Garfield phones onto a French beach. In the applied world, perfection is nearly impossible to reach. Most studies are happy with a 95% confidence evaluation. But, I ask everyone, what about the cases in the 5%? Are they less important? I am partciulary biased to the 5%. My father was a person in the 5% and he has had a survival battle ever since a misdiagnosis. Turns out, those items in the 5% are extremely important; they could be you.