by Douglas Adams

Because the Internet is so new we still don’t really understand what it is. We mistake it for a type of publishing or broadcasting, because that’s what we’re used to. So people complain that there’s a lot of rubbish online, or that it’s dominated by Americans, or that you can’t necessarily trust what you read on the web. Imagine trying to apply any of those criticisms to what you hear on the telephone. Of course you can’t ‘trust’ what people tell you on the web anymore than you can ‘trust’ what people tell you on megaphones, postcards or in restaurants. Working out the social politics of who you can trust and why is, quite literally, what a very large part of our brain has evolved to do. For some batty reason we turn off this natural scepticism when we see things in any medium which require a lot of work or resources to work in, or in which we can’t easily answer back - like newspapers, television or granite. Hence ‘carved in stone.’ What should concern us is not that we can’t take what we read on the internet on trust - of course you can’t, it’s just people talking - but that we ever got into the dangerous habit of believing what we read in the newspapers or saw on the TV - a mistake that no one who has met an actual journalist would ever make. One of the most important things you learn from the internet is that there is no ‘them’ out there. It’s just an awful lot of ‘us’.

by Hans Moravac, who also appeared in the movie Love Machine screened last week.

Our first tools, sticks and stones, were very different from ourselves. But many tools now resemble us, in function or form, and they are beginning to have minds. A loose parallel with our own evolution suggests how they may develop in future. Computerless industrial machinery exhibits the behavioral flexibility of single-celled organisms. Today’s best computer-controlled robots are like the simpler invertebrates. A thousand-fold increase in computer power in this decade should make possible machines with reptile-like sensory and motor competence. Growing computer power over the next half century will allow robots that learn like mammals, model their world like primates and eventually reason like humans. Depending on your point of view, humanity will then have produced a worthy successor, or transcended inherited limitations and transformed itself into something quite new. No longer limited by the slow pace of human learning and even slower biological evolution, intelligent machinery will conduct its affairs on an ever faster, ever smaller scale, until coarse physical nature has been converted to fine-grained purposeful thought.

http://www.metacafe.com/watch/307183/video/

Now if you had been dating a girl for a long time and you liked her, then you found out that she was a cybourg, would you break up with her? Cybourgs are not part of our moral ingroup so the natural thing to do would be to break it off. Similarly, in the 1940’s a white man dated a woman for many years and they fell in love. Then one day he found out that his lover’s great grandmother was black and he broke up with her because of his beliefs. He was white and, that being a different time, he rejected blacks from his moral ingroup. Historically people have rejected the idea of robots in their moral ingroup. Can you love someone that is not a part of your moral community?

We are embodied on the internet. Technology doesn’t simply extend our capacities, but it also changes the kinds of environments in which we act. This in turn changes the kinds of actions that are required for engaging in those environments. Sometimes this results in actions that are very different from the kinds of behaviors we make while engaging nature, but that doesn’t make them any less engaged actions.

It is harder for Dreyfus to make his arguments about technology stick now days, because the technology we use today is literally engaging our bodies in ways it never could before. Take a look at any video on YouTube that shows people using the Wii. These people are clearly engaged with their whole bodies.

But there is a sense in which the Wii example is too easy and superficial. I think it is better to think of the skill required to navigate any complicated website or program. Think about people who use Photoshop, or Final Cut, or any other big, complicated program. It is impossible to doubt that there is a learned skill involved in using this kind of software. It is something that requires practice and training; its the kind of thing that some people are better at than others. But Dreyfus’ argument is that skills are acquired through the use of the body. If he’s right, then we must be embodied when we are using these programs.

Or think about all the social rules and norms involved in interacting with any online community- your favorite message boards; Facebook; MySpace; Wikipedia; this blog. These are all very complicated social environments. We all have some sense of what is appropriate for these environments, and what is inappropriate, and how to behave. Some people do it better than others. MySpace is full of social cues- music, backgrounds, images, links, friends, etc. MySpace is just like a fashion accessory to your online identity.

If these places on the Internet are really environments that take skill to navigate, then you must conclude that we are embodied on the internet. If that’s the case, then the Internet doesn’t pose a threat to our humanity. At most it poses a threat to our current understanding of ourselves and our environment, because in a real sense it changes what we are, and what we interact with. But that doesn’t undermine our humanity; it reaffirms it.

Facebook and MySpace users aren’t examples of people who despise the body, or who think that the body is obsolete. They are people who desperately want to integrate these new possibilities and forms of expression into their lives. They are people who want to make their online identity real and meaningful and relevant. They are people who are trying to find a stable social environment, not just as an abstract mind or identity, but as a real person.

Movies have portrayed the end of the world coming about due to the advancement of technology.  Normally they have something to do with machinces becoming super intelligent and fighting back.  But there are also cases in which it was not a machine making descisions, but humans using obedient technology.  Think about the cold war and how close the world was to total destruction by means of nuclear weapons being fired from both sides.  So technology can help extend possibilities, but sometimes those possibilities lead to destruction.  So i guess the question is this-

WHen you think about the new weapons we are inventing and human nature (which seems to always create fights and wars with other peoples), and then you also think about the scenarios presented by movies like THE TERMINATOR and THE MATRIX where machines become smart and take over, do you think that the technology we invent will ulimately lead to our own destruction?

However, I don’t think there is a single person that would argue that the conductor is the only one who deserves credit for the work, even though the instrumentalists were just ‘tools’ that the conductor used to realize his vision of the song. So why would we credit these musicians who are doing the brunt of the work, when we wouldn’t consider any of the work an instrument is doing? The music would not be possible without the instrument. Furthermore, the song might sound different with a different instrument.

So it is this that leads to the bigger idea. It is my opinion that we should no consider the whole group, artist(s) and tool(s), as a team. There may be one coach, or controller of the project, but his role is just to set the process in motion. A paint brush won’t hang out with some paint and make a masterpiece on their own. They need the coach to set the project in motion. Then, as a team, the work is completed.

In the end, the finished piece is, for the most part, what we admire. No one goes to a Van Gogh exhibit expecting to see cat scans of Van Gogh’s brain during the process, or pictures of him painting. So if the end result, which includes the brushstroke textures, paints, and canvas are what everyone wants to see, then how can all of that credit go solely to Van Gogh. Surely without all of these other contributors the work would not have been completed. Furthermore, abstract pieces where the canvas is left absolutely blank is a perfect extension of Squarepusher’s idea. When humans try to control the tools, instead of working with them, the result is an artifact of human stupidity. The blank canvas is just the artist’s refusal to collaborate with the paintbrush and paint, in my opinion.

Even though class is basically done, I would love to get this dialog going so we can get a good conversation out of this.

Remember, your second 10 comments are due by this thursday at midnight!

Finally, we will have our final screening on Thursday at 7pm. The room has changed: it will be in 113 Davenport Hall. As always, I will bring snacks. Feel free to being your friends, although seating may be limited.
We will be watching the local underground cult class Love Machine. The documentary interviews a wide range of famous philosophers, roboticists, sex experts, and tech wizards to ask the burning question: can you ever love a machine? You can read more about the film in the official press release from the original screening at the Beckman Institute a few years ago. You will definitely recognize some of the names in the film, as well as most of the topics discussed.
Because this movie is so wildly popular, a few other classes might show up. Additionally, a lot of my fellow philosophy grad students are coming to see the film, many for the first time. So be prepared to see some new faces. Hopefully this means we will have a good discussion afterwards.