Dear Bob, & Stan and colleagues, Thanks a lot for the off line comment, and the willingness to share these reflections. I quite agree with you. At the bottom of the problem there seems to be a physicalist misconception of information that at the time being has not been properly solved, perhaps because the biological paradigm of information has not been integrated yet.
best wishes ---Pedro Robert Ulanowicz escribió: > Stan, Pedro, > > Sorry, but I somehow missed the comments on an "algorithmic society". > The danger is enormous, and transcends even ideology. Algorithms are > monistic in their goals. Nature, as I have long argued, is > transactional (dialectic-like). Pursuing a monistic goal in a > transactional mileu is *guaranteed* to lead to a bad end! > > An example is the monistic pursuit of maximal profits and the tyranny > of the efficiency of the market: > > <http://www.cbl.umces.edu/~ulan/pubs/Goerner.pdf>. > > The best to you both, > Bob > > Quoting "Pedro C. Marijuan" <pcmarijuan.i...@aragon.es>: > >> OK, Stan. Seemingly the list is working well. By the way, I want to >> thank you about the contents you sent me off line a few weeks ago. >> See for instance the risks of the "algorithmic society" (see below). >> Quite intriguing a piece... >> >> best >> ---Pedro >> >> Stanley N Salthe escribió: >>> I am having problems communicating with lists, So I am trying to see >>> if this gets through. >>> >>> STAN >>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------ >>> >>> >>> _______________________________________________ >>> fis mailing list >>> fis@listas.unizar.es >>> https://webmail.unizar.es/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fis >>> >> >> http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21128260.400-game-developer-beware-algorithms-running-your-life.html? >> >> New Scientist 2826 <http://www.newscientist.com/issue/2826>, 22 >> August 2011 >> *Game developer: Beware algorithms running your life* >> by Alison George >> >> /Our decisions, our culture, even our physical landscapes are being >> shaped by computer algorithms, says *Kevin Slavin*. He tells *Alison >> George* why we should be worried/ >> >> *You claim that our lives are ruled by algorithms. In what way?* >> Put simply, an algorithm is a set of instructions that a computer >> uses to make a decision about something. They are like an invisible >> architecture that underpins almost everything that's happening. The >> way Wal-Mart prices its goods, the movies you rent on Netflix, the >> contours of the car you drive - they can all be traced back to an >> algorithm. Seventy per cent of trading in the US stock market is >> "algotrading" - executed autonomously by computer algorithms. >> >> *Why should we be worried about this?* >> The pernicious thing about algorithms is that they have the >> mathematical quality of truth - you have the sense that they are >> neutral - and yet, of course, they have authorship. For example, >> Google's search engine is composed entirely of fancy mathematics, but >> its algorithms, like everybody's, are all based on an ideology - in >> this case that a page is more valuable if other pages think it's >> valuable. Each algorithm has a point of view, and yet we have no >> sense of what algorithms are, or even that they exist. >> >> *You believe that algorithms are starting to shape our culture. How so?* >> Take Netflix, which is used by 20 million people to rent and watch >> movies. Of the movies rented in the US, 60 per cent are chosen >> because Netflix recommended them. It does this using an algorithm >> called Pragmatic Chaos >> <http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn17823-photo-finish-for-the-1m-movie-prediction-prize.html>, >> >> which takes into account other movies you like and how many movies >> you rated before you rated your most recent one. The algorithm is >> taking ideas about human behaviour and coding them and reinforcing them. >> >> The danger is that such an algorithm can create a monoculture. But >> this is not the way culture works - it is actually much spikier, much >> less predictable. The movie /Napoleon Dynamite/ >> <http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0374900/>, for example, always breaks >> the Netflix algorithm: people who really should love this movie hate >> it, and people who should hate it, love it. >> >> *Why is it so important that we be aware of algorithms' impacts on >> culture?* >> If you know that machine control is part of the picture, you might >> behave differently. Once you are aware that most of what you are >> renting from Netflix is based on a very specific model of the human >> brain that might not correspond to reality, maybe you would start >> asking your friends what they recommend - which is what we used to do. >> >> It is also important to understand how algorithms shape what you >> learn and know. There's a quiet war in the US between Google and a >> company called Demand Media <http://www.demandmedia.com/>, which >> generates content that is optimised for Google searches. When Google >> changes its algorithm, Demand Media's output becomes worthless until >> it can figure out what Google has done and rewritten its content to >> match. >> >> It used to be that you wrote news for how people read - now it's >> written for how machines read. Imagine if we all had to change our >> handwriting to a certain style so that computers could recognise it. >> That is effectively what is happening, but inside our heads. It is >> shaping our expression and behaviour. >> >> *How else are algorithms changing our world?* >> They are changing the infrastructure and the terrain. Take New York >> as an example. Wall Street became a market centre because this is >> where the ships and goods came in. Later, the Western Union building >> became the communications hub in part because that was where the >> telecommunications infrastructure was. >> >> Today, however, the network hub for Wall Street is in this little >> town called Mahwah, New Jersey, because this was the safest place to >> put the critical infrastructure - within 10 miles of Wall Street but >> as far as possible from nuclear power plants, geological fault lines >> and flight paths. All the buildings going up in the area house and >> refrigerate the servers that run the algorithms - there are basically >> no people in these buildings. They are constructed entirely for >> network topology. >> >> *So algorithms are influencing the planning of towns and cities?* >> Yes, because the speed at which they operate is core to their >> efficacy, and speed is determined by proximity to network hubs. If >> you can make trades before somebody else, you have a tremendous >> advantage. Fibre-optic cables used to be laid alongside railroad >> lines, but that is changing because railroads have circuitous routes >> through cities and that's too slow for algorithms. It is better to >> lay them in a direct straight line. One company, called Spread >> Networks <http://www.spreadnetworks.com/>, has done just that, >> building a 1300-kilometre straight-line network connection from New >> York to Chicago, just to shave milliseconds off trades between these >> two markets. >> >> *Tell me more about these financial algorithms. Presumably they are >> top secret and very valuable...* >> Yes, but occasionally they leak. One of Goldman Sachs's algorithms >> leaked and was in the wild. They had to do a whole investigation to >> figure out how that happened. >> >> *Can algorithms get out of control?* >> Here's an example. A postdoc wanted to buy a copy of a developmental >> biology textbook called /The Making of a Fly/ on Amazon. There were >> 17 copies for sale, starting at $40, but two copies were priced at >> $1.7 million. When he checked later, the price was $27 million. He >> tried to work out what was going on >> <http://www.michaeleisen.org/blog/?p=358>. Basically, two pricing >> algorithms had got caught in a loop, multiplying the existing price >> by 1.3 and offering it again. Because algorithms have the logic to >> raise the price but not the common sense to recognise the value, they >> just kept escalating. >> >> *I guess it wouldn't be so funny if financial algorithms behaved in >> the same way.* >> Right. This was just a pricing algorithm, but the ones used in Wall >> Street are not only determining the price, they are also executing >> against it. The Amazon one is harmless because there is still a human >> on the buying end saying: "That's crazy, I'm not going to spend $27 >> million on a book!" But if an algorithm were buying the book, which >> is the case on Wall Street, the price would keep going up until it >> reached the limit set by the system. >> >> *Has this ever happened?* >> There was this thing called the Flash Crash >> <http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/onepercent/2011/07/high-speed-trading-algorithms.html> >> >> on 6 May 2010, where suddenly 9 per cent of the US stock market >> disappeared in a couple of minutes. One theory is that when one >> algotrader executed an unusually large trade, all the high-frequency >> algorithms tore it apart and kept selling and re-selling to each >> other, throwing the market into chaos. >> >> *Some people might think you are being alarmist about the risks of >> algorithms.* >> I am not saying that algorithms don't have immense value. But I think >> it's important to understand that something invisible is happening >> all around us. I don't think it's the end of the world, but I think >> it needs to be stated in extreme terms to make it visible. >> >> *How extreme could it get?* >> In the science fiction version of this, my friend Russell Davies >> proposed that it's 1000 years from now, there are no humans left and >> no companies, but computer controlled algorithms are still trading on >> a stock market that ran out of stock long ago. >> >> >> Profile >> >> *Kevin Slavin* is co-founder of the New York-based game developer >> Area/Code <http://areacodeinc.com/> (now Zynga NY). He taught urban >> computing and design at New York University, and gave a talk, "How >> algorithms shape our world", at the TED Global meeting in Edinburgh, >> UK, in July. You can see it here >> <http://www.ted.com/talks/kevin_slavin_how_algorithms_shape_our_world.html> >> >> >> --------------------------------------------------- >> Pedro C. Marijuán >> Grupo de Bioinformación / Bioinformation Group >> Instituto Aragonés de Ciencias de la Salud >> Avda. Gómez Laguna, 25, Pl. 11ª >> 50009 Zaragoza, Spain >> Telf: 34 976 71 3526 (& 6818) Fax: 34 976 71 5554 >> pcmarijuan.i...@aragon.es >> http://sites.google.com/site/pedrocmarijuan/ >> ------------------------------------------------- >> >> > > > > -- ------------------------------------------------- Pedro C. Marijuán Grupo de Bioinformación / Bioinformation Group Instituto Aragonés de Ciencias de la Salud Avda. Gómez Laguna, 25, Pl. 11ª 50009 Zaragoza, Spain Telf: 34 976 71 3526 (& 6818) Fax: 34 976 71 5554 pcmarijuan.i...@aragon.es http://sites.google.com/site/pedrocmarijuan/ ------------------------------------------------- _______________________________________________ fis mailing list fis@listas.unizar.es https://webmail.unizar.es/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fis
