Will androids dream of sheep data? With Richard Adams

7/30/2019 Will androids dream of sheep data? With Richard Adams

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Will

androids

dream ofdatashee

Richard Adam

@dickyada

Mot


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I have added the text of the talk innote form on blank slides in-betweenthe picture slides so this can be read.


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Science fiction is perhaps the most maligned of literary genres. At various times it has been insulted, ignored, pilloried, renamed and even poss

stunned by phasers. You can see this easily where certain authors create what on every level is science fiction but they refuse to call it that. Fo

example Audrey Niffenegger , who wrote The time Traveller's Wife is reluctant to label the novel as scifi, saying she "never thought of it as scien

fiction, even though it has a science-fiction premise. Similarly, The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood is often classed as speculative fiction r

than sci-fi, despite it being set in a world that Huxley might have created. She had the following to say. "I like to make a distinction between sc

fiction proper and speculative fiction. For me, the science fiction label belongs on books with things in them that we can't yet do, such as going

a wormhole in space to another universe; and speculative fiction means a work that employs the means already to hand, such as DNA identific

credit cards, and that takes place on Planet Earth. But the terms are fluid."

Personally I like Clarkesworlds definition better. http://clarkesworldmagazine.com/submissions/
http://clarkesworldmagazine.com/submissions/http://clarkesworldmagazine.com/submissions/


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Sci-Fi has a history but its primarily a 19and 20th Century form as we know it

Kaguya-hime returning to theMoon inThe Tale of the Bamboo Cutter

Bacon describes the discovery of autopian society based on experimentalscience, including the development of"New Artificiall Metals," vivisection,genetic manipulation, telescopes,microscopes, telephones, factories, aerialflight, and submarines.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tale_of_the_Bamboo_Cutterhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tale_of_the_Bamboo_Cutter


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Another thing to understand with sci-fi apart fro

it not being totally infantile is that it very stronghas an interesting relationship with the time in

which is written and there are clear trends.

Science fiction is a modern era invention. There

were proto science fiction books around andfantasy stories but sci-fi as we know it was a ch

of the technological era.


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It's very interesting when you look atwhat futures are represented when.. was digging around and found these

diagrams that show what era variousdecades concentrate on.


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Time


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One can't help but conclude that scifi does follow the

concerns of the era in which it is written as do othe

art forms of course. Brave new World for example wa

written during an era where eugenics was being

actively proposed as something that could be used.

even set in London AD 2540 or 632 A.F. "After Ford

mass production was the major invention of the age

B N W l
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Londonhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London


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Brave New Worl


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Obviously we are here today to talk about data in science fiction, thare rarely arguments about the way data is represented in sci-fi orwhether its speculative or not.this is a mighty odd subject for a t

really but one I have been concerned with in my own limited waythrough my own work both day job and writing. I guess most peoplewouldnt want to read a sci fi story if you told them it was about datbut some really popular stories were built on data at their hearts.

Data is also a very dry subject - mention it and people run to the hiwith nightmare pictures running through their heads of mutant Exce

spreadsheets trying to tie them in knots for the rest of theirlives.well, whether we fear it or love it, data is a fact of life foreveryone in this room - for those digital experts here it's now almosimpossible to call oneself that without being able to understand theimpacts and scope of data in your workspace.

But the thing is, if you think about it, data can tell a story in its own

right.


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People


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For example the following picture is data interpreted as a person

like this or

http://allthingsd.com/20111229/if-android-were-a-single-person-h

We all know that marketing people for instance invent character

from dataand with more data comes the chance to create muc

more complex characters. Writers use tools to create charactersand stories based on data - we can see that with this with tools t

some writers use such as this

http://www.charlottedillon.com/CharacterChart.html

Rarely do we find characters created from data, but we do find d

at the heart of numerous stories.

O Thi
http://allthingsd.com/20111229/if-android-were-a-single-person-heres-what-he-would-look-like/http://www.charlottedillon.com/CharacterChart.htmlhttp://www.charlottedillon.com/CharacterChart.htmlhttp://allthingsd.com/20111229/if-android-were-a-single-person-heres-what-he-would-look-like/


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Or This


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Today I'm going to look at just a few

stories - including two by one authorand a TV series

The first story is Foundation by Isaac

Asimov, a story and epic series thatputs data at the heart of the narrative

The foundation Series is one of

Asimov's best loved works

d i


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FoundationThe premise of ththat mathematiciaSeldon spent his l

developing a branmathematics knowpsychohistory, a cmathematical soc(analogous to

mathematical phyUsing the laws ofmass action, it ca

the future, but onlarge scale; it is eon a small scale. Ion the principle thbehaviour of a mapeople is predictaquantity of this mvery large (equal population of the which has a popuquadrillions of huminhabitin millions
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hari_Seldonhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychohistory_(fictional)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathematical_sociologyhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathematical_physicshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_action_(sociology)http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/quadrillionhttp://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/quadrillionhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_action_(sociology)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathematical_physicshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathematical_sociologyhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathematical_sociologyhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychohistory_(fictional)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hari_Seldon


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The premise of the series is that mathematician Hari Seldon spent his life developing a branch

mathematics known as psychohistory, a concept of mathematical sociology (analogous to

mathematical physics). Using the laws of mass action, it can predict the future, but only on a la

scale; it is error-prone on a small scale. It works on the principle that the behaviour of a mass o

people is predictable if the quantity of this mass is very large (equal to the population of the ga

which has a population of quadrillions of humans, inhabiting millions of star systems). The large

number, the more predictable is the future.


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Psychohistor

yPsychohistory dealt not with man, but withman-masses. It was the science of mobs;mobs in their billions. It could forecast

reactions to stimuli with something of theaccuracy that a lesser science could bringto the forecast of a rebound of a billiardball. The reaction of one man could beforecast by no known mathematics; thereaction of a billion is something else

again.Isaac Asimov, Foundation and Empire


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Using these techniques, Seldon foresees the imminent fall of the Galactic Empi

which encompasses the entire Milky Way, and a dark age lasting thirty thousan

years before a second great empire arises. Seldon's psychohistory also foreseealternative where the intermittent period will last only one thousand years. To

ensure his vision of a second great Empire comes to fruition, Seldon creates tw

Foundationssmall, secluded havens of all human knowledgeat "opposite en

the galaxy".

Hi W ld


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His WorldAsimov was born sometime between October 4, 1919January 2, 1920[1] in Petrovichi in theRussian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (near thmodern border with Belarus) to Anna Rachel (BermaAsimov and Judah Asimov, a family ofJewishmillers.family emigrated to the United States when he was t

years old
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac_Asimovhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petrovichihttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_Soviet_Federative_Socialist_Republichttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belarushttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millerhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millerhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belarushttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_Soviet_Federative_Socialist_Republichttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petrovichihttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac_Asimov


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Basically though the world he grew up in was one of great super powers and mablocks - the rise of control economies and new science meant that new ideasabounded and Asimov reflected and distilled these. He also grew up in a time netheories of the mind and behaviour were exploding into consciousness, Freud, Ju

etc. In a lot of ways Asimov's Psychohistory was a a clear mix of this new attitudmind mixed with the new physics of the time but framed by geopolitics.

So is it possible? Well lots of chat on Quora about thishttp://www.quora.com/Is-%E2%80%9Cpsychohistory%E2%80%9D-possible

Thing is that new maths such as Game Theory and so on seemed to render this afairy tale but just recently we have seen moves back to using larger and larger d

sets to predict events for example this in Afghanistanhttp://www.stripes.com/news/middle-east/afghanistan/computer-analysis-predictewhere the insurgency was predicted there was even a talk given by a noted

mathematician in London earlier this year where he discussed the fact that Asimmay have been right. In my day job I'm looking at health and predictive healththrough big data, so for me this is very real. After all, what is Psychohistory but bdata?
http://www.quora.com/Is-%E2%80%9Cpsychohistory%E2%80%9D-possiblehttp://www.quora.com/Is-%E2%80%9Cpsychohistory%E2%80%9D-possiblehttp://www.stripes.com/news/middle-east/afghanistan/computer-analysis-predicted-rises-ebbs-in-afghanistan-violence-1.183131http://www.stripes.com/news/middle-east/afghanistan/computer-analysis-predicted-rises-ebbs-in-afghanistan-violence-1.183131http://www.quora.com/Is-%E2%80%9Cpsychohistory%E2%80%9D-possible


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Now of course that was years ago and things change Asimovs society has evolved into something e

We now live in an era of terror by unseen forces that aim to undermine our lives and souls. The old

certainties have disappeared. Supra national blocks have and are dissolving. Old businesses are bein

disrupted and disintermediated; manufacturing is facing a threat from 3D printing. The end of mass

production that backbone of the twentieth century economy is now starting to face a challenge. We a

live in a era of surveillance from every time you logion to your email down to walking the streets undc0onstant camera surveillance and indeed cameras that can recognise and track you.

Which brings me to Person of Interest


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Person of

Interesthttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Person_of_Interest_(TV_series)

Still paranoid after all the
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Person_of_Interest_(TV_series)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Person_of_Interest_(TV_series)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Person_of_Interest_(TV_series)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Person_of_Interest_(TV_series)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Person_of_Interest_(TV_series)


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Still paranoid after all theyears.

POI has a very modern take on Data we all I think saw the Minority Report future but I think POI is a little more real and very very n


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POI has a very modern take on Data we all I think saw the Minority Report future but I think POI is a little more real and very very nconcerns the invention of a computer than can predict crime. The series revolves around a former agent recruited by a mysteriousbillionaire to prevent violent crimes in. The Machine is a mass surveillance computer system programmed to monitor and analyze dafrom surveillance cameras, electronic communications, and audio input throughout the world. From these data, the Machine accuratpredicts violent acts. Under control of the U.S. Government, its stated purpose is to foresee terrorist attacks, allowing the governmeforestall terrorist activity. However, the Machine detects future violent acts of all kinds, not just terrorism. During the development oMachine, Finch created a routine that would pass on the "irrelevant" non-terrorism related data to him in the form of social securitynumbers, via coded messages over a public telephone. Unknown to Finch, his partner, Nathan Ingram, also created a routine, called"Contingency", on the eve of the government handover. It has not been revealed what this program does, or whether it is currentlyactive.

http://www.tv.com/news/person-of-interest-its-getting-smarter-27563/Over the course of each episode, the viewer periodically sees events as a Machine-generated on-screen t display of data about a

character or characters: identification, activit ies, records, and more may be displayed. The viewer also sees a Machine-generated perspecas it monitors New York. Commercial flights are outlined by green triangles, red concentric circles indicate no-fly zones around tall buildingand dashed boxes mark individual people The Machine classifies the people it watches by color-coding the boxes: white for no threat or anirrelevant threat, red or red-and-white for perceived threats, and yellow for people who know about the machine, including Finch, Reese,Ingram, Corwin and Root. The white-boxed "irrelevant threat" targets include the Persons of Interesthat Reese and Finch assist.

http://www.channel5.com/shows/person-of-interest/clips/series-trailer

There was a great episode, "Super", that gave us a flashback for the machine.

The whole show was devoted to flashbacks about the machine and we saw how far the computer has progressed and where it will gnext. The machine was much more basic in 2005 but through the episode we saw how it became smart. Now it's generating three-dimensional wireframes of buildings and tracking people, even keeping tabs on its partners Reese and Finch. Before, it used voicerecognition (and gait analysis!) to spit out information on people in DOS-style font. Now it's registering audio, tapping mobile phoneseven has the decency to block out the whole phone number), and updating threat analysis in real time. It's getting smarter every dabecoming more of an actual character with each episode.

Of course in the UK we had this in Blakes 7 where Orac which was plugged into every computer network and had quite a personality

But any show can make a super-smart computer program that can spy on the population and identify potential threats and victims. WPerson of Interest does differently is show us how that kind of technology relates to the two characters who rely on it. It also shows hthe information the machine processes and spits out is useless without the right people to process it.

Of course there is also a potential wider government conspiracy surrounding this. The most intriguing question for me is whether or the machine is sentient. Of course this is drawing on all the current angst about the Singularity and so on as well as tapping basic fethat the machines are taking over something that goes back to the saboteurs and beyond but feels new again with every technolo

refresh that society undergoes.

M
http://www.tv.com/news/person-of-interest-its-getting-smarter-27563/http://www.channel5.com/shows/person-of-interest/clips/series-trailerhttp://www.channel5.com/shows/person-of-interest/clips/series-trailerhttp://www.tv.com/news/person-of-interest-its-getting-smarter-27563/http://www.tv.com/news/person-of-interest-its-getting-smarter-27563/


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M


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The writing Ive been doing is similarly in this space I won't pretend Im brilliant but Im rapi

improving the first fours shorts deal with the changes in society in the midterm that such

pervasive computing have brought.

Behind the scenes is a view of the very far future; of planetary networks evolving and beyond

to when intelligence is capable of reaching the stars through being data, not organic bodies. T

next few stories bring the action closer to now and deal with things such as big data dating go

wrong Dark stories tapping that slight paranoia. I also look at the idea that big data profiles

might take on our illnesses, paranoias and other personality traits and reflect them back at us


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There are other terrific ideas around about the nature of information, for example thipassage from Olaf Stapledon's 1930 "Last and First Men" (Chapter XV, Part 4) seemssuggest that thought has gravitational mass. Or something like that.

"You may wonder how we have come to detect these remote lives and intelligences.

say only that the occurrence of mentality produces certain minute astronomical effecto which our instruments are sensitive even at great distances. These effects increasslightly with the mere mass of living matter on any astronomical body, but far more its mental and spiritual development. Long ago it was the spiritual development of thworld-community of the Fifth Men that dragged the moon from its orbit. And in our owcase, so numerous is our society today, and so greatly developed in mental and spiriactivities, that only by continuous expense of physical energy can we preserve the sosystem from confusion.

Of course this notion of information and data as being "something real" is reallyinteresting in some ways this is reflected in the Holographic Principle that posits ththe entire universe can be seen as a two-dimensional information structure "paintedthe cosmological horizon - or even more as data sitting on the event horizon of a blachole.


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Men


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But although these more philosophical pieces exist, most sci-fi tends to reflewhat is happening now but through a mirror of enlargement. For me goodspeculative fiction has the power to reflect to us what we are doing and to

enable us to ingest and process ideas. It always surprises me that a marketiteam can spend so much money on understanding customers and their storthat they dont go further and dont actually create fictions around theircustomers.

Theres been a lot of talk over the last few years around stories andconversations and we are now entering an era where we can get thesepersonalities accurately defined to the point of them becoming virtualcharacters with whom we can interact. Data is empowering this. It's not the oil as some slick commentator once said, in some ways, data is the newmolecular structure of experience and interaction.

Of course someone had to go much bigger than this. To finish off I'd like to ta

about one last short story written in the 50s at the dawn of computing.

The last Question


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The last Question


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From Wikipedia: The Last Question: Isaac Asimov

The last question was asked for the first time, half in jest, on May 21, 2061, at a time wh

humanity first stepped into the light. The question came about as a result of a five dollar

over highballs, and it happened this way...

Opening line, The Last Question

The story deals with the development of computers called Multivacs and their relationsh

with humanity through the courses of seven historic settings, beginning in 2061. In each

the first six scenes a different character presents the computer with the same question;

namely, how the threat to human existence posed by the heat death of the universe can

averted. The question was: "How can the net amount of entropy of the universe be mass

decreased?" This is equivalent to asking: "Can the workings of the second law of

thermodynamics (used in the story as the increase of the entropy of the universe) be

reversed?" Multivac's only response after much "thinking" is: "INSUFFICIENT DATA FOR

MEANINGFUL ANSWER.

All of which reminds us of the Hitchhikers Guide and Deep Thought - which gives us a mo

for all of us working with big data you need to ask the right question!


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Anyway.

The story jumps forward in time into newer and newer eras of human and scientificdevelopment. In each of these eras someone decides to ask the ultimate "last questregarding the reversal and decrease of entropy. Each time, in each new era, Multivacdescendant is asked this question, and finds itself unable to solve the problem. Each

all it can answer is an (increasingly sophisticated, linguistically): "THERE IS AS YETINSUFFICIENT DATA FOR A MEANINGFUL ANSWER."

In the last scene, the god-like descendant of humanity (the unified mental process ofover a trillion, trillion, trillion humans that have spread throughout the universe) watcthe stars flicker out, one by one, as the universe finally approaches the state of heatdeath. Humanity asks AC, Multivac's ultimate descendant, which exists in hyperspacebeyond the bounds of gravity or time, the entropy question one last time, before

humanity merges with AC and disappears. AC is still unable to answer, but continuesponder the question even after space and time cease to exist. Eventually AC discovethe answer, but has nobody to report it to; the universe is already dead. It thereforedecides to show the answer by demonstrating the reversal of entropy, creating theuniverse anew. The story ends with, well, lets listen

Play video from 23.24 minutes

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ojEq-tTjcc0

The last Question
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ojEq-tTjcc0http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ojEq-tTjcc0


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The last Question

Clic


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3 key questions for working w

data

1. Am I asking the right thing

2. What are the real impacts of what I am

doing?3. Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? (Good

Governance)

Richard F Adams on Kindle


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@dickyadams

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Will androids dream of sheep data? With Richard Adams