Ever get the feeling God’s watching when you surreptitiously pick at that elusive bogey? Well Himself was never really interested in our antics, but his right-hand-man may soon be all ears and eyes. And I’m not talking about the omniscient machinery of Facebook. I’m referring to the ghost in the machine – the embedded intelligence in a device near you.
That intelligence isn’t a ‘who’, it’s a ‘what’. In the Bible, it’s reported that Jesus Christ made a prediction: ‘Everything that is secret will be brought out into the open. Everything that is hidden will be uncovered. What you have said in the dark will be heard in the daylight. What you have whispered to someone behind closed doors will be shouted from the rooftops.’(1 )
The Secrets Out
It could be argued that technology, via the simple algorithm is propelling us rapidly towards realising Christ’s prediction into reality. We’re living in a time where we will no longer be able to revel in the joys of secret-keeping, or spilling. That’s no thanks to the investigative courage of the media, or the ‘We open governments’ slogan of Wikileaks, but to the ‘your wish is my command’ world of the algorithm.
The algorithm is the intelligence that drives the devices we all love, hate or just interact with out of necessity. But what if these devices were linked, not just to us, but to each other? Imagine – no more secret liaisons, affairs, rape in dark alleys, drug deals, or diplomatic coups – what will we have to gossip about? Everything, or nothing? Even our thoughts will be known, so that little white lie will be rendered as squeaky clean as our newly laundered linen. In this future, we may feel the same sense of friendship with the algorithms in our embedded chip that we now share with our pet dog or cat.
Even more intriguingly or some may say, sinisterly, these devices are bridging the worlds – between physical and etheric – so that we can now see into their shady domain. No more scary monster movies because ghosts will be so Piscean Age. The humble algorithm is rapidly showing us that although we’re king of the heap, we’re not ruler of the underworld. That title is being claimed by the beings inhabiting our technology. And whether they are benevolent or malevolent rulers depends entirely on us.
What is an Algorithm?
The algorithm is not just something that computer nerds like to play with. We all have them, inside our brain.(2) It’s like the code that directs, orders, and structures electrical impulses to do things, based on a set of yes/no, if/then instructions. It’s this algorithmic simplicity, modelled on our binary brain, that’s the brilliance behind modern technology. We’ve taken what we do by virtue of biology and extended the skill beyond moving things with our limbs, to moving them with our thoughts and minds.(3)The algorithms are the interface. Now machines aren’t just letting us tell them what to do with only a wink, they’re winking back. “Computer says No”. And not just to us, but to each other.
‘Hey, did you see that guy peeing?’ says embedded intelligence set in alley wall. ‘Yeah, but look at this. That’s not the same guy she’s married, to is it?’ Replies embedded intelligence in her 18-carat gold watch.
It’s called ‘Ubiquitous Computing’ because it’s virtually invisible, having been inserted into the everyday environment.(5) We’re going to be buying our lovers gifts complete with embedded intelligence, like a digital PA who can read your needs and anticipate your requirements based on previous actions. ‘I’ve let your husband know you’ll be late because you’re with your client again’. So make sure you’ve given it the day off before you’re illicit rendezvous.(6)
Our developing relationship with algorithms via computer code is taking us to the realm where physical reality, and the ether, meets. The lords of the underworld, of the nano-world beyond human senses, have been summoned by the programming wizards, to do their bidding. And this meeting, at the place where rigid formula meets malleable etheric, is about to show us what we’re all really up to.
Algorithms Rule Okay!
Algorithms are even now, having a tremendous impact on our lives. And if you don’t believe me just listen to game creator Kevin Slavin,Chairman and co-Founder of Area/Code. In a recent Ted Talk, Slavin showed how these complex computer programs determine espionage tactics, stock prices, movie scripts, and architecture. And he warns that we are writing code we can’t understand, with implications we can’t control.
Slavin believes that, “The quickest way to find out what the boundaries of reality are is to figure where they break.”(7) He describes the effect of algorithms on that most esoterically materialistic of institutions, the stock market. He suggests that the stock market exists on the boundary between reality and whatever lies beyond. It’s called algorithmic trading and it, ‘…evolved in part because institutional traders have the same problems that the United States Air Force had, which is that they’re moving these positions – whether it’s Proctor & Gamble or Accenture, whatever – they’re moving a million shares of something through the market”.
The problem happens when the traders play our shares all in, as though they’re in a poker game. “So the traders had to find a way to up-trade each other – to break up the one big transaction into a million little transactions. And the magic and the horror is that the same math that you use to break up the big thing into a million little things can be used to find a million little things and sew them back together and figure out what’s actually happening in the market.’ (8)
‘What could go wrong?’ You ask. Well, as Slavin says, in May 2010, “…nine percent of the entire market just disappears in five minutes, and they called it the Flash Crash of 2:45. All of a sudden, nine percent just goes away, and nobody to this day can even agree on what happened because nobody ordered it, nobody asked for it. Nobody had any control over what was actually happening. All they had was just a monitor in front of them that had the numbers on it and just a red button that said, “Stop.” ”
Don’t Look Now But There’s an Algorithm On Your Desktop
Nine percent of the stock market disappearing is a bit like pressing the ‘permanently erase’ button. We all just shrug – it’s in ‘the ether’ – but what’s that? We’re using metaphysical language to describe an event like it’s an everyday physical occurrence, which it now is. So why do we still argue about the reality of the etheric?
Algorithms have their favourite places to hang out, and algo-watchers have most recently spied them playing in virtual and augmented reality. More specifically in a device or computer game near you. What is this new type of reality? Virtual reality is a technology which allows the user to interact with an environment that exists only in a computer. Augmented reality superimposes events like graphics or audio from computers into real-time environments. They can help us monitor our health so we drink less, or alert us when our plant needs to drink more. Less comfortably perhaps, they can also show us the ghost in the machine running across our (real) desktops.
In his talk to MoMo in Amsterdam,(9) Kevin Slavin tells of an experience he had while playing one of his games which uses invisible characters able to move through real-world spaces. In essence the game uses GPS, compass and gyroscope readings, to continually monitor your location, direction, and orientation in the real world. In this game, you’re running through real-world streets, being chased and trying to evade capture by an etheric skull.
Sounds a bit kindergarten? Well it’s imagine time. While playing the game in his office, Slavin explains his feelings when the ghostly skull found him and swooped into the room, knocking phones from tables and leaving havoc in its wake. “No experience I’ve ever had prepared me for how real it would feel, this ghost sweeping through the room. Not because the technology made him visible, but because the technology made him real. Papa Bones would arrive unexpectedly, move things around on the table, and then move on. That is the weight of the invisible, augmented.”
We’re on the brink of a whole new reality, and technology is showing us the way. If we can see ghosts created by game programmers, then why not also see what your wife or husband has been up to when your back was turned? Is this new technology invasive? Or is it the inevitable march of evolution as our reality is augmented? Then again, could it be that it’s really we who are being augmented by the humble algorithm? Perhaps we’re just finding out what we’re really capable of, with the help of some prosthetically augmented senses. We may yet find out that ghosts are as real as we are, and that our world is really a much more crowded space than we ever imagined. Just think; in your next breath you could be breathing in one of my now extinct etheric shares.
Sources
1. Luke 12, http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Luke+12&version=NIRV)
2. http://ww1.ucmss.com/books/LFS/CSREA2006/ICA3955.pdf
3. http://mashable.com/2011/12/21/ibm-kevin-brown-mind-reading/
4. http://gti-. a.upv.es/sma/tools/Andromeda/archivos/downloads/Description_of_Andromeda.pdf, and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ambient_intelligence
5. http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/gadgets/home/digital-jewelry.htm, and, http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/gadgets/travel/pda.htm
6. http://www.ted.com/speakers/kevin_slavin.html
7. Kevin Slavin: How algorithms shape our world | Video on TED.com (Kevin Slavin, Chairman and co-Founder of Area/Code. Founded in 2005, Area/Code creates cross-media games and entertainment
for clients including Nokia, CBS, Disney Imagineering, MTV, Discovery Networks, A&E Networks, Nike, Puma, EA, the UK’s Department for Transport, and Busch Entertainment.)
8. http://www.slideshare.net/momoams/kevin-slavin-reality-is-plenty-thanks, and, http://www.mobilemonday.net/06/2011/kevin-slavin-%E2%80%93-reality-is-plenty-thanks.html
9. http://apcmag.com/inside-ar-how-augmented-reality-works.htm.
{ 1 comment… read it below or add one }
Very interesting article. The opening sentence made me laugh. Don’t we all do it!