inequality

I attended a viewing and panel discussion for the final episode of Jeopardy! IBM Challenge in which IBM’s Watson supercomputer beat reigning champions Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter in a 3-night challenge of standard Jeopardy! games. Check out my previous post to read more about the tech behind Watson and what IBM hopes to do with this impressive technology.  This post will focus more on the public perception of Watson, and what it means to have a technology that is credited with producing very accurate conclusions based on complex data.

The panel discussion and viewing event was hosted at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, NY.  In the interest of full disclosure- I am currently enrolled as an M.S./Ph.D student in RPI’s Science and Technology Studies Dept.  It’s also worth noting that Principal Investigator, David Ferrucci; research scientist Chris Welty; and Senior Software Engineer Adam Lally, are all RPI alumni.

I asked a few RPI students, during the preceding reception, two questions: 1) what they foresaw as the first application of Watson, and 2) whether or not they were afraid of Watson.  A group of three guys, Alex, Sean, and Thomas wanted to see this technology replace the Google algorithm or WebMD.  Two women, Anna and Karen, repeated what they’d heard the previous night, that Watson would be a tool to deal with “information overload.”  For the second question, all five students seemed puzzled.  How could a machine that sorts data, be evil? more...

This post originally appeared on one of our favorite blogs, OWNI, 25 January, 2011.

Without indulging into the theories developed by radical sociobiologists, we can reasonably hypothesize that the development of the ego, vanity, and a sense of self-importance were more or less the result of evolutionary adaptations needed for our species’ survival.

THE NATURAL NEED TO EMERGE FROM THE CROWD
In prehistoric times, group survival depended on the level of strength and stamina individuals had in an insecure world where they were powerless against nature. They had to be strong enough to persevere over harsh weather conditions, long migrations, and other dangers in this savage world. They also had to be fit enough to compete against other males for females, thus perpetuating their contribution to the gene pool.

More than just mere strength was needed for survival: The cohesion and solidarity of the groupallowed people to defend themselves against larger animals and organize collective hunts. In turn the group provided food security for everyone, justifying why collective actions were instated as an efficient method for survival. more...

Christina Campbell wrote an interesting piece for change.org promoting a slacktivism campaign that encourages Facebook to broaden the way it defines relationships and to give users the option of a write-in box to describe their own relationships.  She provides several examples of how the rationalization of our lives for marketing purposes via the online profile ultimately serves to privilege some lifestyles while marginalizing others.

Facebook and other social-networking sites subsist on information, though not just any information. These sites have an insatiable appetite for the intimate details of their users’ lives. In fact, your personal information is a sine qua non for social-networking sites on two levels: 1.) People, primarily, use the Web to learn about the people and things they care about (like you). 2.) The same information that draws people to your profile, is useful in targeting advertisements to both you and your visitors.

Because these sites feed on personal information, they develop strategies to elicit such information from users.  For example, you may have to register and build a profile before accessing content.  The result as a sort of pay-to-play system where information is the common currency.  And, in order for this information economy to grow and intensify, it must continuously solicit new information and make more of the existing content public. more...