The Casual Blog

April 16, 2011

Artificial intelligence, The Most Human Human, and a walk at Crabtree Creek

I’m still feeling odd and shaken by Watson’s victory over the human champions of Jeopardy. It is truly awe-inspiring that our greatest software engineers have created a program that behaves in some ways like human intelligence, but, at least as far as raw knowledge and research is concerned, much better. What’s unsettling to me is not just the economic implications of this new generation of artificial intelligence, but also the moral/ ethical ones. The new AI is getting very good at the sort of intelligence that we’ve always considered the crowning and distinctive feature of the human race. It’s now clear that our destiny is not to be the most intelligent beings in the universe. So then, what is it? What do we do?

Like Ken Jennings, the former Jeopardy champ who acknowledged defeat with becoming humor and grace, I also welcome our new computer overlords. They already are making daily life better in some ways. I recently had an encounter by telephone with a computer dealing with a travel reservation problem that performed substantially more efficiently than some humans. Later, when I found myself in a phone conversation with a human on another routine matter (activating a new credit card), as I tried to understand the person’s accent and waited for a sales pitch to conclude, I thought affectionately and longingly of my dear computer. Our computers are getting to be good clerks, and I expect they will soon be good scientists, doctors, and lawyers. The trend is clear.

So, what’s left to aspire to? I’ve been reading The Most Human Human: What Talking to Computers Teaches Us About What It Means to Be Alive, by Brian Christian (in the Kindle edition). Christian treats the implications of artificial intelligence for humanity in a lively way. He takes off from his participation in an annual competition for the Loebner Prize, which involves the Turing test. Human judges converse (via networked computers) with both humans and AI programs, and the annual prize goes to the program that does the best job of convincing the human judges that it is human. There’s also a prize for the humans that talk with the judges, and Christian competed for this: the most human human.

The success of some programs points up how much of human discourse is routine and predictable. The weaknesses of the program show that there’s still some human behavior that is creative and (so far) unpredictable. Christian uses the Loebner Prize as a jumping off point for an entertaining, though jumpy and digressive, introduction to AI and its philosophical implications.

As Christian notes, humans are distinguishable from programs with respect to the physical world. We have bodies that are, in their non-rational way, intelligent. Our cells are connected with each other, and our individual bodies are connected to other humans, other species, and the earth, the air, and the Sun. We depend on all these connections. As obvious as this sounds, we still as a race we have trouble keeping in mind our connection to physical reality.

This may be part of the explanation for the right-wing attack on the environment. In the NY Times today, there’s a front page story by with the headline Push in States to Deregulate the Environment. As the story notes, Republicans in North Carolina are proposing enormous cuts to the budget of the NC Department of Environment and Natural Resources. I’d been monitoring the NC story, but learned that the same thing is happening in other states. At the same time, the Republicans in Congress are looking to cut the EPA and gear back environmental regulation.

What is the matter with these people! In the midst of ongoing extinction of entire species and global warming that threatens entire human populations, there should be no debate about the need for new and more effective conservation of natural resources. I have assumed that the opponents of science and environmental regulation are either unbelievably ignorant or unbelievably greedy and cynical, concerned only with immediate short-term gain and without concern for future generations or the earth itself. But to give them a slight benefit of a doubt, perhaps the problem is that they’ve really lost touch with their bodies and the earth.

Anyhow, in addition to enjoying new AI tools, I’ve been trying to make a point to spend a little more time outside. This morning I went to the swamp area of Crabtree Creek off Raleigh Boulevard. It was overcast and windy, but there were hundreds of birds singing and flying. I walked along the boardwalk at the side of the swamp. There were six great egrets, several great blue herons, and numerous swifts and swallows. I saw a black-and-white warbler, a phoebe, a yellow-rumped warbler, cedar waxwings, and heard, along with the common residents, a parula, and a hooded warbler, as well as a handful of songs I couldn’t identify. I love the spring migration season. It’s good to just clear out the mind and just look and listen.

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April 10, 2011

Golfing at Pinehurst and Paradise Lost

This week I finished reading Paradise Lost and played a round of golf on the storied Pinehurst Number 2. Both were challenging, and at times vexing. And both were, in the end, unique and beautiful.

The experiences actually tie together more than I expected. The beautiful garden of Eden from which the poem derives its name is a feast for the senses, like Number 2, and most every golf course — they’re special purpose gardens. And the work of Adam and Eve is, before the fall, uncomplicated, playful, and fulfilling, which is, at times, like golf. Needless to say, things in paradise changed dramatically, after Satin tempted the happy couple, and the human condition grew complicated in painful ways. So it sometimes goes with golf.

In recent years, I’ve generally abandoned books when the enjoyment quotient dipped into negative territory. Paradise Lost was certainly no walk in the park, but I decided to stay with it. Like most modern humans, I do not typically read syllable by syllable, savoring the language, and I’ve never attempted to do so on the epic scale of Milton’s great work. But I did get better at it as I went along. At the end, I experienced a deep, long, powerful aesthetic shiver.

Finishing Number 2 was not as dramatic, but was also deeply satisfying. I was the happy beneficiary of a business golf outing, with a caddie who knew the course and the game well. We walked, which is the proper way to play. The course has recently been restored to reflect its original design, which involves more native species and waste areas in place of rough. I found it much more playable than formerly. I made enough good shots to keep me hopeful, and did not lose a single ball.

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April 2, 2011

Religious intolerance in Afghanistan and Raleigh

I’m not a big fan of either the Bible or the Koran, though I don’t think it’s a good thing to burn either of them. Burning any book as an expressive act seems angry, hateful, and benighted. I imagine that if I thought a book contained unusual insight or beauty that meant something to me, I’d be pissed off if someone burned it.

But I wouldn’t murder them! Much less join a mob to murder random people who had nothing to do with the burning! In Afghanistan this week, hundreds of Muslims have rioted and killed several United Nations employees and injured hundreds of westerners. The reason? First, a plainly disturbed fundamentalist preacher in Florida burned a copy of the Koran a couple of weeks ago. Then political and religious leaders in Afghanistan publicized the event.

What’s up with these rioting Afghanis and their random killing? Do they mean by this to show the world their love of Islam? Their hatred of invading westerners? Are they expressing their anger at the violence, corruption, and poverty that engulfs them?

Harnessing religious zeal, ignorance, and intolerance for political purposes is nothing new. In this case, it appears that Hamid Karzai, the beneficiary of billions of American taxpayer dollars, has again shown his appreciation for this benevolence by encouraging the most radical elements of his society toward anti-western violence. This raises yet again the good question: what in the name of all that’s holy are we doing sacrificing our children’s lives (1,521 so far) and almost $400 billion in Afghanistan? But I’ll shut up. Nobody seems to want to talk about this, I guess because it’s depressing. But isn’t the solution here really simple?

Moving on to more cheerful news: our local paper, the News & Observer, ran a front page, above-the-fold story this morning about North Carolina unbelievers coming out of the closet and attempting to build a more positive image. A billboard campaign with pro-humanist messages has been rolled out by the Triangle Freethought Society. A few local citizens who are otherwise unfamous have lent their names, photos, and four or five words, like “Science is my co-pilot!” or “Freethinking moves America forward!”

It will be interesting to see whether this helps promote tolerance, which would be good. It could certainly serve to smoke out intolerance, of which there is plenty. An example: the North Carolina Constitution officially disqualifies from public office any person “who shall deny the being of Almighty God.” This provision should be held invalid under the U.S. Constitution (Art. 6), though I’d hate to have to test that before a Bible-believing federal judge. The point is, there’s a long, strong tradition of intolerance in these parts for non-mainstream views on religion.

Hatred of atheists is almost certainly much stronger than, say, hatred of minority races or gays. And so it’s not surprising that most non-believers in these parts keep a low profile. But views on minorities and gays have changed in the direction of greater tolerance in recent years (which is not to say the work is done). It’s possible that there could be a quiet increase in tolerance for non-believers. Hats off to the brave souls willing to test that proposition with their own names on billboards. I hope they stay happy and safe.

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March 26, 2011

Technology, new art forms, food, and ballet

I’m fortunate to have a ring side seat as information technology is transforming the world, but it doesn’t always look pretty. It makes me wonder, at times, whether, as machines get smarter, humans on average are becoming more and more like the race depicted in the wonderful animated picture Wall-E: fatter, lazier, and dumber. But I haven’t given up all hope, and there are some signs pointing the other direction.

A case in point: this week when my son Gabe (pictured here at Alta last week) sent along his first self-produced short video, which is here. He shot it with a tiny body cam over the course of 3 days skiing in Telluride, CO. The finished product reminded me strongly of some of the beautiful skiing we did together. It’s hard to describe the complex sensations and emotions of skiing far from away from the crowd when its steep and deep, but Gabe managed to convey some of it. The flamenco score heightens the sense of edginess — wild joy with stabs of fear.

Good skiing sometimes seems like art, almost like dance, but the work is seldom shared with other humans by the skier-creator. Until recently, filming the experience was a costly and difficult undertaking. In the past couple of years, though, video cameras have gotten much cheaper as well as tinier, and easier to use, and the software for recording and editing has become highly accessible. The tools for communicating the work instantly and almost cost-free over the internet now exist. The learning curve for use of all this technology is short. And so a new class of artist is being born — the skier-auteur. Technology advances are likewise enabling new types of musical expression, and undoubtedly many other artistic expressions. Perhaps the day will come when everyone will be an artist.

Is food art? I argued about this years ago with my friend Tom, a gourmand who took a strong position that great chefs were artists. Over the years, I’ve moved closer to his position. A great restaurant is a multi-media experience, with sets, lighting, sound, and actors, and also smells and tastes.

Last night Sally and I tried a new Thai restaurant off of Moore Square — Fai Thai. It has replaced the Duck & Dumpling, an Asian fusion spot that was one of our favorites, and that we were sad to see close. The emphasis is less on standard Thai fare than on local ingredients and variety. The decor changes involved colorful parasols and lanterns, which were engaging. The menu had fewer vegetarian options than we hoped, but enough to get started. We found the three dishes we tried each quite different and delicious. The spiciness hit the Goldilocks point — not too much, not too little. Our waiter was friendly and attentive, and the manager took some time to talk to us about the aspirations of the place. He appeared to take on board our suggestions for more attention to vegetarians. Thai food fans should try it.

After dinner, we saw the Carolina Ballet perform Carmen. This is the third time we’ve seen the company do Weiss’s ballet, which is one of our favorites in the repertory. Bizet’s music is unforgettable, and the story is sort of perfect for ballet — love, jealousy, death. For all my admiration of Peggy Severin-Hansen’s great talent, I had my doubts about her as Carmen, who is a sensual, cynical heartbreaker. Peggy’s long suit is purity and innocence — the perfect Firebird. Her Carmen was sweeter than normal, not completely cynical, but this turned out to give the tragedy a new bit of bite — more tragic in a way. Richard Krusch as the Toreador was highly serious, and convincing. He’s a fine dancer who keeps getting better. As always, the story ended with a violent shock, but the production was wonderful.

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March 24, 2011

A difficult but ultimately satisfying swim, beautiful blossoms, and some good news regarding veggie burgers

It seems that the greater the struggle to swim some laps, the better I feel afterwards. At 6:00 a.m. this morning, I got to the pool with a plan to swim 40 lengths of freestyle (more than half a mile), and felt my heart racing uncomfortably after the first 4. But I struggled along, finished the 40, and then did 8 kickboard laps, 8 backstroke, and 8 breaststroke, and then 15 minutes of yoga. The endorphins were excellent! Driving home, I just couldn’t get over how beautiful everything looked! Blossoming dogwoods and cherry trees, blooming azaleas, and thousands of dewy green buds.

For breakfast I made myself a green smoothy in the blender with rainbow chard, apple, and banana, with some orange juice and soy milk. It tasted earthy — not delicious, exactly, but satisfying as a kindness to the body. And, reading the NY Times, along with frightening and disturbing news (nuclear plant catastrophe in Japan, mayhem in Libya), I found a cheery story: veggie burgers are getting better and more popular. http://tiny.cc/p97hm Admittedly, veggie burgers have a checkered history, but the ones in the Times story sounded delicious. According to the story, there was a 26 percent increase in menu items labeled vegetarian or vegan between the late 2008 and late 2010. That’s a remarkable increase.

I’ve been a committed plant food eater for about 15 years now, and my personal experiment has been highly successful in this respect: I feel happier and healthier than I did 15 (or even 30) years ago. But as a social matter, the veggie life has been a challenge. My non-veggie friends don’t get the point, and there’s way too much friction in figuring out ways to eat out together. It’s cheering to think that help may be on the way, in terms of increasing numbers of veggie menu items. Cheering also to think more people are eating plant-based diets that will help them be healthier.

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March 19, 2011

A bird walk

It’s spring in Raleigh. The redbuds, forsythia, and pear trees are blooming, and the hardwoods are budding. With sunny skies and temperatures in the 70s, I had a powerful yen to get outside yesterday, but stayed hunkered down in my office dealing with a series of conference calls. But today is Saturday! I celebrated with a walk in the woods at Swift Creek Bluffs.

I haven’t been birding for a while, even before the winter doldrums, and had almost forgotten how pleasant it can be at sunrise on a beautiful day. The cardinals were particularly vocal this morning, perhaps still working out their spring pairings. Most of the birds I saw and heard were typical NC residents, but I was happy to get a good view of a magnificent Pileated woodpecker. I got some of the rust off my binocular skills in preparation for the arrival of the spring migratory birds.

But leaving aside the birds, it was good being out in the woods, walking along the path by the creek. It was enlivening but also peaceful.

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March 12, 2011

A White House meeting and a Black circus

On Friday I flew to DC for a meeting at the White House. I joined top lawyers from three other technology companies to speak with four of the President’s top advisors on economics and technology about patent reform. Addressing the serious damage invalid patents are doing to innovation is a cause near and dear to my heart, and the chance to discuss it directly with Administration officials was one of the high points of my career.

My cab ride from Washington National (or Reagan, as some call it) was driven by an older African American with a mellifluous voice. I asked him about the weather so I could listen to his lovely baritone, and he answered with enthusiasm. Then he began reciting poetry. The poem concerned how each minute of life is valuable. In response, I recited Rudyard Kipling’s If, which builds toward the idea of filling “each minute / with sixty seconds’ worth of distance run.” My cabbie was delighted, and asked me to read along to check his accuracy as he recited a poem by Maya Angelou. He was nearly perfect. I suggested that he get a copy of Harold Bloom’s The Best Poems of the English Language, and he asked me to write the title down. At the end of the ride, he said he was so glad I got into his cab, and I told him, with feeling, it was a great pleasure.

I was really looking forward to looking inside the White House. It turned out the meeting was in the Old Executive Office Building next to the White House, but I guess a meeting with White House personnel qualifies as a White House meeting. The meeting room reminded somewhat of my days as a clerk at the Supreme Court, where the inner sanctums have a similar old-fashioned clubby opulence. Everyone there was surprisingly young and incredibly smart. We covered several big ideas very quickly. It was invigorating. And the officials seemed to appreciate that we have a big problem with patents that hinder innovation. It gave me hope for the future.

Back in Raleigh that evening, Sally and I went to the UniverSoul Circus. It’s basically a an old-fashioned, under the big top, African-American circus. Lots of the performers, and practically all of the audience, were Black. The music was urban accented (lots of hip hop) and very loud. I enjoyed, among other acts, the African-American tight rope walkers, the Chinese girl trick bicyclists, the Trinidadian stilt boys, the Columbian motorcyclists in the globe of death, and the African female contortionist, who appeared (I’m still unable to believe this is possible) to set on her own head and also (I’m less certain of this) to rotate her hips 180 degrees.

But I also really enjoyed the audience. They actively participated in the show, singing, dancing, and shouting their approval. Being in a racial minority for a couple of hours was bracing, and being with these folks was really fun. I couldn’t stop smiling.

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March 11, 2011

Artificial intelligence, vanishing legal jobs, and art

Is technology rendering humans obsolete? The answer is, as to some activities, yes. But could it help us better understand our true nature? It could.

Last week the NY Times reported that new computer programs were able to do legal review of electronic documents more accurately and much cheaper than human lawyers. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/05/science/05legal.html?scp=1&sq=computer%20legal%20document%20review&st=cse This is a milestone in technology, and one with big implications for the legal profession, and other professions, too.

In my professional capacity at Red Hat as a purchaser of legal services, I’m happy to consider using these money-saving tools. And having as a young lawyer spent hours doing dreary document review, I’m happy to think that humans may be able to hand such drudgery off to computers and do more stimulating things with themselves. But lots of law firms survive and thrive by selling document review services. Automating such work will cause painful dislocations, as many legal jobs go down the tubes.

It’s strange to think of part of lawyering going the way of the gas station attendant. As computer-driven technology replace partially or completely entire categories of work, such as huge swathes of manufacturing, educated professionals have assumed that they were immune. But that is clearly wrong. The triumph of Watson on Jeopardy a couple of weeks ago and the success of legal document review programs shows that more change is on the way.

This is somewhat frightening. But it also forces us to confront the interesting question of what we can usefully do, other than the logic-driven work that computers are now taking over. Since Peraclesian Athens, we’ve assumed that human reasoning was the crowning glory of creation, but we need to revisit that understanding of nature, and human nature.

A few months back I read The Science of Fear, by Daniel Gardner, which offers some interesting thinking on the inherent flaws in human rationality. Gardner focuses on how we systematically underestimate some risks, like the risk of highway accidents, and overestimate others, such as the risk of terrorism and violent crime. Our journalism establishment is heavily invested in promulgating scare stories on such subjects, and we seem in general to like such stories, or at least eat them up. Gardner discusses the psychological basis of this odd characteristic, and the possibility that with more quantitative analysis we could work around the problem. I’m in favor of more careful quantitative analysis of problems, but I doubt that will much affect how human minds work.

David Brooks wrote a surprisingly thoughtful (especially for a conservative) column in the Times this week about human nature. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/08/opinion/08brooks.html?_r=1&src=me&ref=homepage He posited that various kinds of scientists are coming to think of humans are fundamentally social, and that it’s a mistake to think of them as isolated individuals. He also emphasized that our unconscious, emotional capacities are more important than our reasoning. In other words, the way our minds work is mostly non-rational. We aren’t just poorly fashioned reasoning machines, but a different kind of being.

This is worth a lot more exploring. There are various things that humans do that are non-rational, but not unintelligent. Artistic activity is a prime example. When we sing or dance, we’re connecting to our selves and others in a way that is richly human. Telling stories in various media is a constant of our lives. These are things that we as a species are really good at, and we enjoy. They aren’t peripheral to our lives and culture — they’re central. Our computers may get at making art, but they can’t replace us in those activities, because we realize ourselves in them.

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March 6, 2011

New dancers, and a new restaurant

On Saturday afternoon we went to the Carolina Ballet to see the same show we saw three weeks back, but with different dancers. The first work, the Ugly Duckling, by Lynn Taylor-Corbett, is a bright, jazzy ballet. It’s plainly engineered with children in mind, but the sweetness is balanced by stabs of darkness and menace. We saw Lara O’Brien, the original UD, at the beginning of this run, and on Saturday saw Lindsay Purrington in the title role. It was an interesting contrast. Lara was both regal and comic. There was never a question, though, that she was a swan. Lindsay brought to the surface more of the pathos of the story — the moments of confusion, hurt, and fear — and her transformation into a swan was a difficult journey. I found it surprisingly touching.

Margaret Severin-Hansen and Richard Krusch performed a pas de deux entitled Flower Festival in Genzano. It was very classical, and very beautiful. For moments the law of gravity seemed to be suspended, and the dancers seemed to be impossibly light, almost floating. Peggy is such an awesome technician that she makes you forget about technique, and get to the essence. She projected innocence, charm, and love.

Robert Weiss’s newest ballet is entitled Grieg: Piano Concerto. I played a version of the piece as a young piano student, and have never been overly fond of it since. But Weiss has put its somewhat diffuse Romanticism to good use. The ballet is in parts fast and furious, with dancers shooting about both horizontally and vertically. The allegro ensemble sections seem almost frighteningly complex. There are some wonderful quiet, tender moments as well. On Saturday, Lara O’Brien, Jan Burkhard, and Lola Cooper took the principal female roles, and were lovely. Lola performed the role created for Melissa Podcassy, which includes a long adagio solo. She radiated confidence.

After the performance, we talked for a while with Lola and her father, Brian, who was visiting from New York. She described days of five-hour rehearsals for the next show followed by a two-hour performance in the evening, and then the same again the next day. Grueling, clearly. But she wasn’t complaining.

That evening we ate for the first time at Market, a relatively new restaurant in Raleigh’s Mordecai neighborhood. It features fresh, local ingredients, and has a simply furnished dining room that makes you think organic. The service was friendly and helpful. The had the sweet potato latkes and the vegetarian stir fry, neither of which were like anything I’d ever eaten and both of which were delicious. We split a piece of pumpkin cheesecake, which was also unexpectedly delightful. We liked the place.

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March 5, 2011

Paradise Lost — surviving air travel with some good books

On plane rides to and from Dallas this week, I experienced above average travel headaches — absurdly slow security checks, bumpy air, noisy talkers all around, and somebody who had beans for lunch. But the fast metal tube is a good place to read, and I made substantial progress on Paradise Lost. John Milton’s great poem is intimidating in several ways – long, complex, and religious. But sweet Jocelyn had spoken of it with animation during her studies, which inspired me to sample it in Harold Bloom’s poetry anthology. It was beautiful, and so I decided to begin at the beginning.

It creates a world that is at times fantastically vivid. And there is a powerful music to the language. Parts of it are part of our vernacular, and it’s pleasant to come upon them. Other parts are highly obscure, and challenging in their complex syntax. But it moves forward with confident, powerful authority, telling a really big story, bejewelled with glittering details.

I thought I might be put off by the religious subject matter, because I generally have a strong allergic reaction to such ideas. It’s true that Milton uses the Genesis story for his basic material, but he makes it into something much more dramatic and thought-provoking than the original. His transformation of early religious writings into drama is similar to what Wagner did in the Ring cycle with the Norse myths. The Creator is just one character in the drama, and hardly the most interesting one.

I also spent some time reading A Culture of Improvement by Robert Freidel. Freidel traces the elements of technology that transformed ancient and medieval life. I used to think that technology changed little between the Romans and the eighteenth century, but there are all sorts of interesting things that happened earlier. His chapter on medieval cathedrals addresses both why and how they got built. Lots of trial and error — like technology today.

My kick back book was Sabbath’s Theater by Phillip Roth. I think Roth is the best living American writer of fiction (and I know of no better in other languages), and I was pleased to see that President Obama honored him with the National Humanities medal this week. Sabbath’s Theater is a masterpiece of a dyspeptic sort. Sabbath is an aging former puppeteer and theater director who has left his callings and devoted himself primarily to seducing women. His enthusiasm for each new female is at first humorous, but it gradually becomes clear that he is deeply disturbed. It’s like Portnoy’s Complaint as King Lear. I would not recommend Sabbath’s Theater as an introduction to Roth, or to anyone uncomfortable with sexual subject matter. But for some readers, it will open doors.

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