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.

Very High Confidence

“There is a rapidly closing window of opportunity to secure a livable and sustainable future for all (very high confidence).”

Very high confidence that we are headed toward disaster, What does it say about us as human beings in 2023?

It is a message from hundreds of scholars studying the climate emergency and approved by 195 countries. It points to the disaster caused by the continuing use of fossil fuels. Those of us in the west - focused on bank failures and interest rates and whining. while we enjoy the prosperity and other parts of the world suffer much more. The UN Secretary is right to see us as sitting on a time bomb.

Despair is not the answer. Any action is better than none. These are the strategies that the studies propose:

• Expand solar and wind power

• Improve energy efficiency.

• Make cities more friendly for walkers and cyclists.

• Reduce nitrogen pollution from agriculture.

• Eat better.

• Reduce food waste.

Every one of these have implications for individual actions. All of them have a relationship with fossil fuels. Every one is related to what we value. It is a reminder that the most powerful countries are the largest promoters of fossil fuels - and we are not far behind. Nature shows considerable power to answer to our treating it as a communal gas station. Will we continue to ignore what we are doing at our peril?

We are members of many communities - neighborhoods, the arts, faith groups, political parties, social action groups. Voices used to be only top down but now they can be raised from the smallest and most surprising places. Let’s use them.

Changes

Two articles really hit home this week showing our changing world.  The first, in the New Yorker describes The End of the English Major. I was one myself, enrolling in the University of Toronto’s English Language and Literature program at Trinity College. There were 14 of us starting out in 1956 – joined by others enrolled in modern languages, history and philosophy. The entire college had an enrolment of about 900 students, about half of whom lived in residence.

There were at least six full professors of English and one lecturer who was finishing her doctorate. The program was based on historical periods, though we did not study them chronologically and very few novels studied in our final year had even been written in the twentieth century. We could walk into teaching jobs at the end of our four years after 15 weeks of training, since there were 3,000 teaching vacancies in the province. Those averse to teaching could continue in graduate studies, though few did.  Some turned to library science or publishing – and a few went on to more glamorous fields like publishing and journalism.

We entered those courses with reasonable preparation in public and private high schools and had to pass entrance exams set by the province. English and history were compulsory subjects every year. Most of us had two foreign languages as well, choosing among French, German, Spanish, Latin and even Greek. There were more options among mathematics and sciences, but chances were that we had encountered at least two years of them in geometry and algebra – leaving calculus and trigonometry to the experts. General science was covered in early years and specialties in chemistry and physics followed. Geography was just coming into its own as a secondary school subject and specialists were in short supply; our high school instructor also taught at the local university. Social sciences and philosophy had to come later.

Fast forward to 2023. The New Yorker article notes that majoring in English has fallen by half in most US colleges and universities. Several factors are in play. Many students are the first in their families to pursue higher education and the focus must be on jobs. Tuition rates have skyrocketed. If one has to go where the jobs are, the fields are those known as S.T.E.M – science, technology, engineering and mathematics. The universities themselves have partnered with commercial enterprises and are strong S.T.E.M advocates. There are still plenty of graduate courses in the humanities – but almost no jobs in the academy itself.

My own journey reflects these changes without my thinking of the wider implications. Teaching jobs became redundant in the 80s and many of my out-of-work colleagues and I became arts administrators – with only on-the-job training. because university based course took until the 90e to catch up.  Fascinated by the PC and later the Internet, I was later a software vendor and a business trainer with no academic training in either area, but  learning on the job and moving with the times to train others in these same things. But I never lost my connection with the humanities through all this – my children pursued similar academic areas. Where they have ended up in terms of employment in most cases is more radically different from their university course work. Grandchildren have even more options – and that will be a subject for the next post.

Gatherings

Gatherings

Historians may one day examine many institutions under the categories of pre-pandemic and post pandemic. Quick development of vaccines created a very different trajectory from earlier plagues.  Many of us, pre-pandemic might have encountered webinars in the business world, or tried new learning on Coursera.  Most of us never heard of live-streaming before the pandemic hit – and suddenly education, performing arts and churches entered a new world.

The kind of streaming we experienced was described technically as OTT – “over the top” was not a comment on the quality of the experience, but instead the ability to receive it from any device with internet access. Suddenly the selection and choices were huge.  We paid less attention to the reality that the performance might be hampered by receiving it via a digital medium.

There were all kinds of advantages initially. Social distancing cannot be accomplished in rows of close seating. We could join in from anywhere and visit places we had not frequented in years. We could reach out to people who were ill or house-bound. Rather than leaving home and having to drive or take public transit with several transfers, we could join in an instant with the pressing of a key or button. If we didn’t want to participate at the assigned time, we could even choose one of our own to go to church or attend a concert. Convenience rules

But what was perceived as a short term solution has become a permanent one for many. At the moment we perceive a need to operate in two worlds even though the online one is shrinking considerably while the in-person one may not be growing. Those eager to help us enhance our life streaming presence are now educating us in “online marketing” for church and concert lands. People like to worship or listen to music alone, they tell us. “Going” is a hassle, when it’s so much more comfortable to stay put. More and more people prefer to “watch” online. You can even do it from the coffee shop or at brunch - and on your mobile phone. Video is replacing text anyway – even on FaceBook.

But what about the disadvantages? Is the kind of community experienced when sitting among others a different one?  Is a physical sense of place – school, concert hall, place of worship - important to a community as a living entity rather than a shuttered place - or one with many unfilled speaces? Is moving our bodies out of doors important to maintain our physical, emotional and spiritual health? Are fixed rituals in place and time necessary to experience life fully? Is “watching” the best way to maintain a civil society? What will be the outcome? Will more of us end up sick and shut-in?

Social - Really?

Social – Really?

Remember when you were a little kid when you were daydreaming, and a voice broke through and ordered, “Pay Attention.”  Remember when we were asked to “Stand at Attention”. In those days we would have interpreted such commands as an order to focus.  Now attention is a feature of the economy. 

• When I was musing on the role of social media during the pandemic and why a study in process has more or less ignored it thus far, the first thing to do was to have a look at my own Facebook use.  Since too much scrolling down is wasting time, I limited myself to the first ten entries which were as follows: ·      

• Photos from a son on holiday from his university teaching post in Hong Kong in Vietnam. Well worth seeing.

• Suggested: People I may know.  I don’t.

• Suggested: post from Julia’s Violin Academy. Not an instrument I play.

•  Suggested: An advertisement for a condo coming several miles north of where I live. I am not in the market for a move or purchase.

• Pictures from a woman I know of herself and her sisters from several years back.

• A cartoon posted by someone I know – somewhat funny

• More pictures from the Vietnam visit

• A somewhat sentimental piece from a family member about people he has known.

• Suggested: A grocery store ad

• Suggested: post of famous pianists’ hands

Perhaps 20% of this was worth my attention and time. Half were ads, none of which were appropriate.

Remember when we thought social media was wonderful and would unite us all in peace and “person-hood”.  First we grabbed accounts as individuals and shared our dog, cat and children in photos. After our organizations had websites, we had to add links to social media in the hope that our world would expand far and wide.  We wonder if we should boost our posts to get better readership – instead of thinking of how were are sending even more money to Meta.  But is all our attention to our own bubbles blinding us to how social media has turned us as individuals and organizations into commodities? Do we just think we are promoting our personal or organizational brands while Meta laughs all the way to the bank?

The purpose of social media was never to bring us together in world peace – but to make money. Most it is owned by just one company – Meta – while a few others compete with it. The advantage over conventional advertising is the ability to direct targeted ads to specific audiences. The purpose is not to sell advertisements to us – but to sell us to advertisers.

When we don’t like all those ads they send us, we can pay to omit them or buy premium versions– thereby replacing the revenue lost from advertisers. Then they suggest boosting our organizational posts to wider audiences. Often this will include a headline only – since it is already known that 80% of headlines are the only thing read to get the brand  imprinted in our brains. All the while, these companies are engaging in what is termed “surveillance capitalism” – telling the advertisers how many people are looking at their messages. Twitter apparently makes 13% of its income this way by selling the infomation back. Meanwhile the company tries to get the mix of ads and real messages just right in a Goldilocks arrangement; It looks as though from my own above history that I am a real sucker for ads, since mine start right away after the first message.

Studies have already suggested that social media is as addictive as many drugs.  Younger inexperienced users are far more vulnerable that older ones to bullying and many of us have never had to endure hate messages. But we might ask why we turn to social media?  Are we anxious? Lonely? Or just Bored? Do we need affirmation from others? A need to show off? People I know appear to demonstrate all these characteristics now and then. That’s their choice. But before I log in and scroll down, do I ask myself why I am there instead of somewhere better?