Heard a fascinating talk last week by Jaron Lanier (futurist, technologist, and early founder of "virtual reality") at Kepler's Books in Menlo Park. The occasion was the publication of Lanier's latest book "Who Owns the Future?" (The talk was videotaped and reportedly will appear on CNN.com)
Jaron began by noting how the early idealism that technology would make life better for all has not worked out in practice. Rather to date, the benefits have accrued to a few at the expense of the many. He used the metaphor of "Maxwell's Demon" - a physics/thermodynamics thought experiment wherein a little "demon" separates low energy and high energy molecules, one at a time - thus appearing to create free energy. However this fails in practice because the demon itself requires energy to function.
Jaron pointed out that this same principle is currently used in the "Big Data" world, where public information is obtained for free, then used to exploit that public for private gain. The goal is to sort out the value and avoid the risk. This demon strategy works initially, creating great fortunes for those with access to big computers/big data - but at a cost to society that manifests as growing inequality, growing numbers of people excluded - and ultimately a system that cannot be sustained. Health insurance and finance were cited as prime examples.
It is not necessarily evil people who are doing this, but "information is like heroin" - and it's easy to be drawn in to the game and lose sight of the larger picture. And this situation arises due to the illusion that information is free - whereas it was actually created by human effort, not by machine algorithms. (For example, automated language translators do not work by calculation but by statistical analysis of actual speech fragments from actual people.)
Jaron's solution: pay for big data. Not to do so is "accounting fraud". Though he is sympathetic to Open Source, this has commonly been a way to obtain free resources that can then be exploited for profit. Jaron believes that free systems ultimately cannot work due to the negative elements of human nature, therefore the excesses can perhaps be reigned in by "democratizing" commerce and money by compensating exchanges of information with micropayments (I'm not sure he used that term). He speculates that monetizing information sources like Facebook could create a new Middle Class "hump" in the economic distribution. "The Middle Class has to be robust enough to out-clout/out-spend the elite."
The first half of the new book is a critique, and the second is intended to be proposed solutions. Jaron acknowledges that at this point, the solutions are somewhat naïve, but it's a starting point for the discussion that he hopes will ensue.
He concluded with the thought that Big Data has not yet connected to truth, and therefore can be used for corrupt purposes. He feels this is irrational, since every time science has been applied to the algorithms of Big Data, they are shown not to work. Jaron feels that if information cost money, we would use it more responsibly. If we fail to do so, our very survival is threatened.
Q&A: During the question period, someone asked whether Air B&B or services where people rent their car or give rides for money are examples of economic democratization. Jaron says no, this is another instance where central organizing entities profit while the risk is externalized. "Even every time you Tweet, you are enriching the 1%"
The future can be hopeful, but we've got work to do.
-Bill
Jaron began by noting how the early idealism that technology would make life better for all has not worked out in practice. Rather to date, the benefits have accrued to a few at the expense of the many. He used the metaphor of "Maxwell's Demon" - a physics/thermodynamics thought experiment wherein a little "demon" separates low energy and high energy molecules, one at a time - thus appearing to create free energy. However this fails in practice because the demon itself requires energy to function.
Jaron pointed out that this same principle is currently used in the "Big Data" world, where public information is obtained for free, then used to exploit that public for private gain. The goal is to sort out the value and avoid the risk. This demon strategy works initially, creating great fortunes for those with access to big computers/big data - but at a cost to society that manifests as growing inequality, growing numbers of people excluded - and ultimately a system that cannot be sustained. Health insurance and finance were cited as prime examples.
It is not necessarily evil people who are doing this, but "information is like heroin" - and it's easy to be drawn in to the game and lose sight of the larger picture. And this situation arises due to the illusion that information is free - whereas it was actually created by human effort, not by machine algorithms. (For example, automated language translators do not work by calculation but by statistical analysis of actual speech fragments from actual people.)
Jaron's solution: pay for big data. Not to do so is "accounting fraud". Though he is sympathetic to Open Source, this has commonly been a way to obtain free resources that can then be exploited for profit. Jaron believes that free systems ultimately cannot work due to the negative elements of human nature, therefore the excesses can perhaps be reigned in by "democratizing" commerce and money by compensating exchanges of information with micropayments (I'm not sure he used that term). He speculates that monetizing information sources like Facebook could create a new Middle Class "hump" in the economic distribution. "The Middle Class has to be robust enough to out-clout/out-spend the elite."
The first half of the new book is a critique, and the second is intended to be proposed solutions. Jaron acknowledges that at this point, the solutions are somewhat naïve, but it's a starting point for the discussion that he hopes will ensue.
He concluded with the thought that Big Data has not yet connected to truth, and therefore can be used for corrupt purposes. He feels this is irrational, since every time science has been applied to the algorithms of Big Data, they are shown not to work. Jaron feels that if information cost money, we would use it more responsibly. If we fail to do so, our very survival is threatened.
Q&A: During the question period, someone asked whether Air B&B or services where people rent their car or give rides for money are examples of economic democratization. Jaron says no, this is another instance where central organizing entities profit while the risk is externalized. "Even every time you Tweet, you are enriching the 1%"
The future can be hopeful, but we've got work to do.
-Bill
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