Thinking About Data

Recently a friend noted that he wanted to talk soon about his use of Chat GPT for better writing and I’ll be interested to see the results = without being tempted to try it out for reasons that follow..  My first encounter with artificial intelligence was through Kevin Kelly’s The Inevitable, Understanding the 12 technological Forces that will Shape our Future,  which I read soon after its publication in 2016. AI came in as number two in a chapter called Cognifying – after a chapter called Becoming – dealing with the inevitablity of always having to upgrade our devices.

I’ve just read a bit of the book again.  I enjoy telling young persons advising me on the latest technology that I first turned on a desktop in 1983, was on CompuServe by 1989,  added the web the next year, and had my own website in 1995 – a one pager with no images. Kelly was a couple of decades ahead of me, but I relate well to his sense of excitement of where we have been – and take seriously his notions of where we might be going.  Like Brian Arthur, he notes that technology frames us after we adapt it for our own purposes and it creates the cultural era.  I look forward to re-reading the whole book again.

Kelly points out that AI technology was already here as a force when he wrote the book – because of the networks of information already in existence. He said, “It will be hard to tell where its thoughts begin and ours end.” He also pointed out how its utter ubiquity hid it from us even then. AI is the ultimate disrupter and suddenly the ability to deal with quantities of data is in our hands. I can remember when a mainframe was the size of a dining room and now I have instant data available on my phone. As Kelly points out, it was the magic of combining computer/phone/internet that has happened during less than half my lifetime.

When the latest New Yorker came through the door, I tried not to add it to the pile of others immediately and turned to the article by Jill Lepore, their excellent staff writer who tackles many current topics. Lepore received her Ph.D. in American studies from Yale in 1995 and is the David Woods Kemper ’41 Professor of American History at Harvard University.  The article’s title is Data Driven and it resonates particularly as I serve as a volunteer secretary for an institution which is reviewing its immediate past and deciding where it wants to go. Online Zooms and surveys have become part the scene and its steering group has been given quantities of data to sort through.  I don’t have to read it, but like the other volunteers, I browse through. From workers recovering from the pandemic, there are many responses of “poor me”. There is also dissatisfaction with reduced revenue and attendance, a typical desire for more from the young and a general sense of foreboding.  It’s hard to find the desired glimmers of hope – and one solution has been to turn the data over to a  bot to sort it out.

Not precisely a bot – it has been turned over to an outside consultant with a bot that attempts to put single words in larger contexts. “Day” is a simple word. “Good day” and “Bad day” mean something different. I was pleased to see the observation that the coding of the data into larger sets was something that she had done totally subjectively. Putting the data through this process was helpful even when the sample of the total population she was drawing from was very small – about 2.4%. But we are encouraged to listen to the data to predict the future. even as we really know we can’t.

Lepore starts her article with an entertaining fantasy of a millionaire trying to develop a new plan for universal knowledge. He recruits 500 college grads to read three hundred books a year for five years. Instead of being paid for their efforts, when they turn up to be paid, their brains are removed and wired up to a radio and a typewriter. Lapore then turns to the latest gismo for universal knowledge, Chat GPT and asks it to write an essay on toadstools. It comes out right away. She liked what she saw, but also imagined a missing shadow side of the instruction to eat them – some toadstools are poisonous.

She  goes on to imagine an old fashioned small steel case, like the one in my closet still holding dcoument-filled file folders and also serving as the base for an all-in-one printer that is used less and less. Her cabinet has four drawers labelled “Mysteries”, “Facts” “Numbers” and “Data”. The labels might suggest the contents are similar but each follows a different logic. She describes them:

• Mysteries are things that only God knows – top drawer because it is closest to heaven. The point of collecting them is the search for salvation and the discipline to study them is theology.

• One collects Facts to find the truth through discernment and in contrast to the previous drawer. they are associated with secularization and liberalism; the disciplines are law, the humanities, and the natural sciences.

• Numbers are associated with the gathering of statistics by measurement, These are associated with administration; their disciplines are the social sciences.

• Feeding Data into computers leads to the discovery of patterns to make predictions. Data is associated with late capitalism, authoritarianism, techno- utopianism – and the discipline known as data science.

All of these, LePore points out, are good ways of knowing – and the best thing to do in any situation is to open all four drawers. But we are now in an era where we tend to want to open only the bottom one. In citing a recent book, How Data Happened, A History from Reason to the Age of Algorithms, by Chris Wiggins and Natthew L. Jones, she notes how statistics, numbers and data have been used to support previous biases in fields like intelligence, race, crime and eugenics. Some of us are old enough to remember sets of Books of Knowledge and Encyclopedia – often bought by parents on the installment plan in the hopes that their offspring would thrive.  Now the alleged cryptologist Sam Bankman-Fried is quoted as having famously said, “I would never read a book”.

Technocrats – chiefly engineers – promised a new world following the depression, though it fell out of favour in the 40’s. As data storage became more available and information became digitized,  data science has started to be perceived as the only tool in the storage case.

But should it be? Tatum Hunter notes three things that everyone is getting wrong in an article yesterday in the Washington Post. One thousand people have asked AI experiments like these large language models to slow down – though Kevin Kelly would probably wish them good luck. There may be other necessary ways to deal with them.

First and most important, we should not project human qualities on AI.  When my Iphone really basic AI prompts me to change a word as a write, I’m tempted to say, “Don’t be stupid, that isn’t what I mean” – as though I am talking to another human being.  Instead I should be saying, “This platform’s algorithm is not sound in the information it has searched for.” I’m not ever likely to look to AI for emotional support. Sadly the most vulnerable are those that receive their information from questionable real people and they are the ones likely to put their faith in words drawn from equally questionable sources by a machine.

Second, what is coming down the pipe is not one technology but a whole sequence of them with different building blocks. Who the builder is and what the purpose is will vary.  Different AI platforms will have different values, rules and priorities. Some specialized ones may indeed have their positive uses. Some will start well with high values and become commercially greedy.  Hello Facebook, Hello Google.  We are not very good right now at holding the creators of algorithms to account for all those advertisements on the social media platforms we use every day. That might not be a bad place to start educating ourselves.

Third – and following from this – always be skeptical.  As I learn today of the indictment of a former US president. I can only imagine what a chatbot might come up with as an answer to a question about it. The danger that I see immediately in an amalgamation of information, neatly returned in good English and paragraphs is to trust its accuracy when it looks so professional. I use Google all the time to research a topic, but at least I can see the source it is drawing from, and I can make judgments about the source. I won’t say that I am without bias, but at least I know what the source is. Tatum Hunter at the end of her article rather optimistically states these sources as reliable ones – newspapers, government and university websites, academic journals. Sometimes, yes. What she might add in all these cases is to look for a diversity of views within the sources themselves and clear attribution.  As I write, you can at least see mine.

Combining

As I have already said, I’ve been pondering a planning exercise with a logo, slogan, and title that comes from a story in the Bible.  It’s certainly not an unusual way to go for strategic planning in church land.  It’s designed to suggest a new direction coming out of a pandemic.  I wonder though, if it is missing something when asking about where we are and where we are going. This was the time that our institution, along with our schools, our workplaces and our law courts became digital. You can’t start from there and get to here.

People complain now that their buildings are burdens.  They were doing so before the pandemic hit because of the cost of utilities, mortgages and aging infrastructure – but at least the churches were open then. Many places of worship have been locked and mostly dark for months on end. One that I know did put a small altar inside at the entrance – and some people walked up to the closed doors to see it and said their prayers.  The only other time I have observed similar behaviour was when I visited the Czech Republic during its last year under communist rule. Church vestibules were open but further entry was blocked by glass barriers. I frequently saw parents taking small children inside and whispering to explain what the spaces were about. Sometimes there were elderly ladies on their knees saying their beads inside; they must have entered defiantly through side doors but were assumed to be harmless to the regime.

For about 24 months, we couldn’t sing.  Part of my working life has been administering an organization that supports choirs and I have been a lifelong chorister myself. For many, singing in any choir is a lifeline to connecting with other people; we sit physically close to one another; we listen to the nearest voice and try our best to make a blended sound. The pandemic cut the lifeline. To compensate, some singers recorded a few lines on their phones singing at home alone –  heard how that single voice croaked and sounded terrible without the others – and sent a small tape to someone technically sophisticated enough to compile several files into one after dozens of hours – to be sent back out into the world as a one minute recording.

We couldn’t worship together. Clergy read lessons, preached in an empty space, conducted services with one person present and sent recordings one after another into the world. Alternatively a gathered grid of familiar faces appeared on screen. When they spoke at the same time it was a small cacophony of voices. Zoom changed from an active verb to a passive noun. You became joined to Tube – the latter used to refer to a TV screen – but no more. Or nothing happened at all.

Now we say we are coming back to normal.  But what is normal about still singing or preaching through a mask? What is normal about preferring to wear pajamas while watching church online, drinking coffee and checking email at the same time? We are grateful for technology as we advertise our online services. But are we pausing to ask – who are we now?  What is our work now? Where are we going? How are we using technology for our purpose?  How is technology using us?

Mimicking Four Footed Friends

Something stolen from the late Robert Genn when he was talking about inventiveness and creativity.

Researchers conclude that animal activities are based on both inherited traits and observational learning. Further, creative and inventive tendencies run in families and species. For example, the comprehension records for dog vocabularies — 400 words or more — are held by Border collies, a breed traditionally involved in sheep management, where continued employment depends on the accurate hearing of a master’s commands. These dogs learn words quickly — ball, stick, keys, doll, Frisbee — and fetch the object called for. Alert and cooperative, they can be called upon to identify dozens of individual humans by name.

and there is more:

Creativity is closely related to invention. Other factors include the love of play and the ability to use tools. Studies of animal behaviour are constantly finding new evidence of play and tool activities. Creativity is not just the property of Homo sapiens. Apes select from a supply of different lengths of prepared sticks to dig grubs from crevices. Dolphins leap for joy and perform self-motivated tricks in unison. Invertebrate octopi toy with plastic bottles by squirting them with jets of water. Closer to home, kittens and puppies show innate tendencies to play..

Playfulness helps us to deal with solving wicked problems. It takes some of the pressure off taking ourselves so seriously - and as Jane MxGonigal says in her new book - only available in digital format so far but still well worth a buy - it is one of the best ways to start to imagine our future.

A New Start for our City

The City of Toronto where I live has spent the last five years addressing climate change:

• In 2017 the City Council unanimously approved a long term climate strategy to reduce local greenhouse gas emissions and improve health - also considering economic and social well being.

• Two years later in 2019, the council declared a climate emergency. Emissions were 38% lower that year than they were in 1990.

  On December 15, 2021, the Council Approved the TransformTO Net Zero Strategy. It includes the following goals for 2030:

  • Homes & Buildings

    • All new homes and buildings will be designed and built to be near zero greenhouse gas emissions

    • Greenhouse gas emissions from existing buildings will be cut in half, from 2008 levels

    Energy

    • 50 per cent of community-wide energy comes from renewable or low-carbon sources

    • 25 per cent of commercial and industrial floor area is connected to low carbon thermal energy sources

    Transportation

    • 30 per cent of registered vehicles in Toronto are electric

    • 75 per cent of school/work trips under 5km are walked, biked or by transit

     Waste

    • 70 per cent residential waste diversion from the City of Toronto’s waste management system

    • Identify pathways to more sustainable consumption in City of Toronto operations and in Toronto’s economy

    City of Toronto Corporate Goals

    • City of Toronto corporate greenhouse gas emissions are reduced by 65 per cent over 2008 base year

    • All City Agency, Corporation and Division-owned new developments are designed and constructed to applicable Toronto Green

    • Standard Version 4 standard achieving zero carbon emissions, beginning in 2022

    • Greenhouse gas emissions from City-owned buildings are reduced by 60 per cent from 2008 levels; by 2040, City-owned buildings reach net zero greenhouse gas emissions

    • All City-owned facilities have achieved zero waste

    • Generate and utilize 1.5 Million Gigajoules of energy from biogas

    • Approximately 107,700 tonnes CO2e per year are reduced through Organics Processing with Renewable Energy and Landfill Gas Utilization

    • 50 per cent of the City-owned fleet is transitioned to zero-emissions vehicles

    • 50 per cent of the TTC bus fleet is zero-emissions

    • Greenhouse gas emissions from food the City of Toronto procures are reduced by 25 per cent

• It includes a directive to everyone.

The suggestions in this short video may not apply to everyone directly - renters for example - but even here, tenants associations can play a role. Most of the suggestions are actionable by families and bring participation down to the local level. Cities are where we live and work. They are also the places where we have the most impact on local policies. I commend all local councillors - and especially two who send regular newsletters I have signed up to receive. I’ve met in person with both on occasion. In the amount of noise in the news, it’s good to go back to local sources and see that citizens can have an impact.

New energy creation

As oil and gas companies lobby in the US to do anything to delay changing our reliance on oil and gas, the world around us is full of floods, fires, and droughts - all affected by the climate crisis. Profits might just matter less if we don’t have a world that is habitable.

But in other places, there are attempts at solutions. We are familiar with the large towers with huge blades either from travel or pictures. I saw some of these in upstate New York in wilderness environments and they even had a majestic look as they moved slowly. I can understand why some might object to noise if they lived too close to them - but we are entering a world where costs and benefits are always going to compete.

Nevertheless many of these towers are offshore - and that means they have to be in places where the wind is greater and also where it is challenging to build wind farms. A typical turbine is composed of a pole and three huge blades. The design is based on windmills. It reminds us that when we create something new we tend to model it on something that we know - like the design of early automobiles that looked somewhat like horse drawn carriages. The poles have to be tethered to the seabed - and that has meant that the can’t necessarily be positioned where the wind is the strongest. What if the turbines could float instead?

Enter the Norwegian company, Wind Catching Systems. Starting in 2017, it wondered if there might be an alternative design. Could a collection of smaller turbines do the job as well. They tried out a model on a sailboat. They have now launched a prototype that is 1000 feet high and has 100 small blades. The turbine can be anchored in deeper water and can generate five times as much energy as a current pole and blade model.

It’s good to have some news like this. Let’s hope that prescient investors move away from oil and gas. This means you, governments and corporations!