from the how-many-phone-numbers-do-you-remember,-now? dept.
Jane, you ignorant slut.
- Dan Ackroyd, Weekend Update "Point/Counterpoint" on Saturday Night Live
The journalist and author Nicholas Carr has turned pessimistic on technology, and artificial intelligence in particular. This time, it isn't so much that IT doesn't matter, which is what he concluded over a decade ago. In an opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal, in which Carr continues to explore themes covered in his most recent books, he argues that mankind has begun to delegate to machines more and more activities that once required thought, judgement, and practice. Carr acknowledges this isn't a new phenomenon — the erosion of craftsmanship occurred throughout the Industrial Revolution. But the trend has been accelerated by computers, both overt and embedded, which has led to atrophying of expert skills in such diverse professions as airline pilots, physicians, and building architects. Skilled professionals need to practice every day to maintain their edge, and the computers are taking that practice away from them and us, Carr says.
The Scottish novelist Andrew O'Hagan sounds a more positive note about information technology. O'Hagan dismisses the idea that ours is a world where we have hundreds of "friends", but nobody to talk to. Back in the late '70s and '80s, when he was first making his way into the adult world, life was no more soulful or intimate than it is today, says O'Hagan; the main difference was the amount of tedious legwork and days of waiting that is completely unnecessary in today's world where information, music, literature, shopping, and booking of services can be found or accomplished with a few clicks of a mouse and keypad. By analogy, O'Hagan says his mother was perfectly happy to use the invention of the refrigerator to avoid having to negotiate bottles with the milkman each morning; she didn't regret the "loss" of the clunkier way of doing things.
(Score: 1) by sigma on Wednesday November 26 2014, @07:43AM
What was the purpose of the Dan Ackroyd quote? It added nothing to the story.
(Score: 2) by Lagg on Wednesday November 26 2014, @08:22AM
Because the guy is indeed ignorant. And maybe a slut. These people who anthropomorphize digital technology or think it's inherently different from any other tool are getting really tiresome. They're no better than people who think malware is demons possessing their computer. I do hope the trend continues though. It helps me mark the idiots who I can never take seriously. Musk being the latest example before this guy. Granted, Musk never tried to use the "skilled immigrants taking our jerbs" argument.
http://lagg.me [lagg.me] 🗿
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday November 26 2014, @02:13PM
I confess I don't really get Elon Musk's concern about AI that he voiced last week, but he's far from what I'd call an idiot. He has built a successful electric car company that's re-writing the book on what a car is all about (I hear it from my brother who's an engineer at Ford all the time), while simultaneously furiously kicking Big Oil and Big Coal in the nuts with his super-charger network powered by solar panels from his solar company. And remember he made his first money with PayPal, so he knows a little something about IT too. He is consistently 2-3 steps ahead of the status quo, and has either had incredible good luck to get the timing of implementation right or at least has been savvy enough to capitalize on what fortune hands him. As an entrepreneur myself, I admire him. I can't say that about any other CEO in the world.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 3, Informative) by FakeBeldin on Wednesday November 26 2014, @08:38AM
Indeed. The summary makes no attempt whatsoever to link this quote to the story in any way.
How about the story first, and comments from the submitter on the story at the end - and somehow linked to the story?
For those (like me) who are not from the USA and are wondering "what the hell?!!?", some context:
In the popular comedy show Saturday Night Live, there was (still is, perhaps ) a sketch which parodies news shows, "Weekend Update". In '76-'80, Jane Curtis and Dan Aykroyd did this recurring sketch. As wikipedia explains [wikipedia.org]:
SNL's version of "Point/Counterpoint" featured Curtin and Aykroyd making ad hominem attacks on each other's positions on a variety of topics. Aykroyd regularly began his reply with "Jane, you ignorant slut", which became another of the many SNL catch phrases (Curtin frequently began her reply with "Dan, you pompous ass").
This sketch, especially Dan's catch-phrase, entered the American psyche (i.e.: a pre-internet meme). As far as I can tell, that's why this is a somewhat acceptable phrase in the US media, notwithstanding their tradition of flanderization [tvtropes.org] of politically-correctness.
Note: I'd include a link to the sketch, but I only found a 6-second segment with this slur. Anyone got a link to a video with slightly more context?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 26 2014, @08:24AM
My grandfather was fond of remarking that after WWI they could cut tolerances they could not measure before the war. Of course, some of us still know how to hand-lap component parts, basically working in analog.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 26 2014, @08:54AM
Let's pay them less. Hell, let's fire the lot of them. Nobody wants smelly disrespectful nerds in this company. Outsource the shit work to those curry eating scum on the subhuman subcontinent instead. Let's hire some more WASP jocks, buddy! Go team!! Fuck Yeah, America!!!
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Justin Case on Wednesday November 26 2014, @10:42AM
Actually within the information security community a few of us have been discussing the idea lately that computers just aren't any good at keeping secrets (credit card numbers, medical history...) and probably never will be. We were speculating how many oldsters remain who still know how to do things the manual way.
For sharing baby videos with the grandparents, sure, computers are fine. Just don't give them any information you wouldn't want to see on a billboard. They can't be trusted. Oh hypothetically they can in a perfect world, but there are too many dumbasses, lazy losers, and hostile parties in the mix to ever fix everything that's wrong with the real digital world.
I mean the number of new security vulnerabilities that come out every day is to the point where you can hardly read them all much less act on them. Meanwhile so called "web developers" will defend with their lives their "right" to spew out an unending stream of vulnerable web sites. Why just the other day, where I work, we lost 4,000 web servers in a single attack! The bad guys are winning, and certain government agencies are not on our side either.
Time to hire thousands of bookkeepers to work for the banks, which will go back to closing at 3PM so they have time to post the day's transactions.
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Wednesday November 26 2014, @01:28PM
Bug found!
"Meanwhile so called "web developers" will defend with their lives their "right" to spew out an unending stream of vulnerable web sites."
Only use software for critical tasks where you can read the source. If it's too big or complex, it's a warning sign.
And air gapping has it's benefits.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 26 2014, @04:09PM
However apostrophe gapping should be restricted to those places where its use doesn't violate the rules of the language.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 28 2014, @08:42PM
scratching my head. you just described like 99% of all web development
(Score: 1, Redundant) by PizzaRollPlinkett on Wednesday November 26 2014, @11:52AM
We've got five weeks of these non-articles left in the year. Get ready for the questions about black-and-white extremes, top 10 lists of 2014, and all the rest. Once you start seeing them, you can pretty much skip the news until after the New Year's holiday.
(E-mail me if you want a pizza roll!)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 26 2014, @08:53PM
Amusingly modded redundant, just like the things it is complaining about.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by bookreader on Wednesday November 26 2014, @12:08PM
This all sounds a bit like in the Foundation [wikipedia.org] - we would get dumb and forget how nuclear plants work, and still use them.
Experts skill are still here and we would not lose them. Where is the knowledge about developing software for flying airplanes and building houses coming if not from human experts? The expert knowledge is there in the scientific and military circles, and would remain there.
(Score: 1) by lizardloop on Wednesday November 26 2014, @12:33PM
Exactly. The idea that somehow we won't have a medical industry because "computers made doctors forget how to be doctors" is ludicrous. All that happens is people become more specialized. Due to technology instead of your doctor having to know the ins and outs of a heart bypass he can simply pass you and your medical records to an expert in heart bypasses. Your chances of survival will be much better than your own doctor carrying it out. And if they made a machine that could do the heart bypass even better, as that machine would encapsulate the knowledge of the expert and reproduce it an almost limitless number of times.
I remember reading somewhere a fantastically applicable quote. "The ancient people taught their kids how to kill with bows and arrows, it was a real art form. I'm glad that we don't have to teach our kids how to kill with bows and arrows."
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 26 2014, @05:10PM
No, we will go from doctors who know how to take patient's vitals. To doctors who will have no clue how to if their 'computer controlled automatic sensor device (tm)' suddenly stop working.
And if ibm gets their way, doctors who just know how to input data into their office's watson clone only to follow exactly what it tells them to do with little to no thought about why.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Thursday November 27 2014, @05:33PM
You'd be amazed how much medicine has forgotten, though it isn't computers that made it happen. At one time, a doctor was EXPECTED to have a 5 or 10 minute conversation with the patient while listening, observing, perhaps checking reflexes and looking down the throat and in the ears. Then he was expected to determine what was wrong. Blood work and other tests were mostly for confirmation only. It was mostly affordable without insurance.
Ironically, this has happened due to HMOs which were supposed to make healthcare more affordable than ever.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday November 26 2014, @12:42PM
we would get dumb and forget how nuclear plants work, and still use them.
Until we run out of experts and the computers stop working. I think the concern is a bit overwrought, but it's not that hard to conceive of such a situation. Happens all the time in the business world where the guy who was the only one doing some really important thing leaves.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 26 2014, @04:13PM
How many people know how to make fire without matches or lighters? I think we should forbid matches and lighters, or else we will risk the art of making fire to be totally forgotten!
(Score: 2, Insightful) by khallow on Thursday November 27 2014, @12:03AM
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 28 2014, @08:48PM
true. knowledge would not vanish. those who possess it would shrink in numbers. knowledge is power, right? there is the danger. we're headed for a techno-feudal society.
(Score: 1) by zugedneb on Wednesday November 26 2014, @12:19PM
I give a simple answer to a complicated problem.
Look at it like this: statistically speaking, every person has a basic container type in the head, the one that is statistically more dominant.
The container range from object type to entity type.
Type 1. For the ones that the dominant container is entity type, the perceive everything as semialive, but have difficult to imagine objects and processes. Everything is alive and there is a ghost in the machine... They can feel it...
Type 2. The ones where the dominant container is object or process oriented, may have difficult to see ghosts everywhere.
To work in the "humanist" fields, like journalist, writer, actor you should be Type 1... I like these people... The world is a softer and better place because of them...
However I consider them batshit insane and do not give a crap about how they perceive technology, artificial intelligence and computers...
The main reason for that is: there are no such objects in the known universe...
old saying: "a troll is a window into the soul of humanity" + also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Ajax
(Score: 1) by zugedneb on Wednesday November 26 2014, @12:32PM
now to answer my own post...
I have found that you can actually hurt these "entity type" people more or less badly if you kill of the fantasies and misunderstandings in their had by actually explaining things to them...
Things like how a processor works, how an algorithm makes the colorful pictures, how the set if integers and associated functions is not enough to harbour life and that the computer will not come alive and tell them something...
So pay the no mind, and let them write they little articles and essays...
old saying: "a troll is a window into the soul of humanity" + also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Ajax
(Score: 1) by zugedneb on Wednesday November 26 2014, @12:59PM
"So pay the no mind, and let them write they little articles and essays..."
I regret writing this...
If we ever come to the point where we can actually make some sort of "designed" mind in a computational device, these kind of people would be the ones fighting for the right to live of those little minds...
So pay them lots of mind...
old saying: "a troll is a window into the soul of humanity" + also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Ajax
(Score: 1) by fritsd on Wednesday November 26 2014, @05:44PM
There's a difference between "magical thinking" and the belief in emergent properties (holism vs reductionism debate).
Could you have predicted the forming of a hexagonal Bénard cell [wikipedia.org] when you want to hard-boil an egg?
What, it's a straightforward result of the differential equations and the Raleigh number, right?
I expect lots of surprises in the machine learning field. Maybe negative ones, like when Minsky and Papert unintentionally dissed perceptrons as being fancy least-squares. Maybe positive ones, like when Rumelhart and McClelland resurrected them with the logistic activation function.
I just hope I can keep up with the most dumbed-down and accessible literature on the subject.
(Score: 2) by pnkwarhall on Wednesday November 26 2014, @08:07PM
The main reason for that is: there are no such objects in the known universe...
...says zugedneb, disembodied text-voice on the computer screen.
Lift Yr Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 28 2014, @08:54PM
dude, you're the one that sounds batshit crazy
(Score: 3, Interesting) by VLM on Wednesday November 26 2014, @12:42PM
mankind has begun to delegate to machines more and more activities that once required thought, judgement, and practice
In the past the execs mostly delegated that to their proles. Now it goes thru the proles to the computer, or directly to the computer. Not really seeing a problem here.
Also most IT of the "TPS report header" variety is meaningless, its just primate dominance rituals producing stuff nobody ever reads and doesn't need.
Skilled professionals need to practice every day to maintain their edge
A big problem is crashing the pyramid. You used to have a pool of noobs with "eh" judgment practicing their crafts and a ever tapering pyramid of higher skilled, mostly just more experienced, practitioners going up the pyramid. The bottom of the pyramid has plenty of real world time to learn the higher functions and decide if they want to climb the pyramid anyway. Then you have computers and/or outsourcing destroy the bottom rungs of the pyramid, and start wondering why the upper rungs are getting deskilled compared to the guys in the same position in the old days, or outright disappearing. Well, duh?
(Score: 3, Funny) by metamonkey on Wednesday November 26 2014, @03:07PM
An Egyptian legend relates that when Thoth revealed his invention of writing to King Thamos, the good king decried it as the enemy of civilization. "Children and young people," he said, "who hitherto have studied to memorize their lessons will fail to exercise their memories and become slow and stupid."
All that modern technology. Been ruining civilization since civilization began.
Okay 3, 2, 1, let's jam.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Jeremiah Cornelius on Wednesday November 26 2014, @06:48PM
Grain agriculture. It signaled the end.
Along came the advent of material surplus, and the need to organize and mange this.
Accumulation began, along with sedentary living and hierarchically managed society and unequal distribution with residual consequence.
Wars were invented to defend surpluses from other communities grown over-large and also depended on graineries.
Weapons technology grew from the need to first create farm implements.
Add to that, obesity, diabetes and heart disease.
Grass seed should have been left to the birds.
Now, let's sup up that last Guinness before they call hours.
You're betting on the pantomime horse...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 26 2014, @03:48PM
Corporate and governmental (if you still think of them as separate entities). It's after all what funds today's information technology. Not a day goes by without me wondering whether my existence would be happier if I took the hammer to my computer for good. Unfortunately we would all have to do it as a society for it to have any meaning...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 26 2014, @04:45PM
And not a day goes by that some tiresome asshat like yourself has to make a spying/NSA reference into every fucking story and thread on this web site.
Look, we get it. You are currently infatuated with your adolescent black/white view of the world. When you mentally mature a bit more and start to appreciate nuance in a position, then you'll feel a little less need to spam these web sites.
(Score: 1) by UrstMcRedHead on Wednesday November 26 2014, @06:11PM
Yeah... I don't really feel like listening to the techno-sociological viewpoints of a person who cant roll their own kernel.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 26 2014, @08:57PM
Why should anyone listen to your words, as you can't produce an award winning novel?