Many people say there are too many lawyers, too many burecrats, too much corruption, etc. One idea which would bring rationality and science to decision making, and law generation, is to move from static 2d laws, to dynamic law making. This would require a few things. 1. No more privacy, everyone should track everyone, and it should be fed into a super computer. 2. We will need to track everyone, all the time. 3. We will have to rely on computers to make all the decisions or at least provide the rational and legal basis for decisions. Some assumptions which would need to be made for this to work would be that we care about society, we care about security, and we care about ourselves and the environment. If we care about these things, we can allow a computer to scan every human alive and know exactly what impact they are having on their environment, society, and other humans. Laws could be taylored to individuals, as we know for a fact that static 2d laws can and will be broken, and that mistakes can be made, when laws are taylored to individuals based on that individuals impact on the environment, society/community, and other humans, this would allow for the maximum amount of freedom for someone who harms no one. If you don't harm a lot of people, and if you do your best to make the community and society better, the super computer would be able to increase your freedom, give you more responsbilities, and there would be less laws that apply to you as an individual. Now lets say you have the opposite history, if you damage your environment consistantly, if you are constantly acting violent, if you are drinking and driving and doing all sorts of actions of this sort. The computer would then make laws specifically designed for you, for your profile, your personality, and your personal history, and these laws would be designed to limit the amount of damage you can do to the environment, to the community/society, and to other people. If computers generated the laws, or at least assisted law makers in generating rational laws, how would this improve the efficiency and quality of leadership? Efficiency is not based on emotions, or personal feelings, it's based on making the rational decision, limiting damage, and making the decision with the greatest long term benefit. We all know, that all humans are corruptable, to differing degrees and in different ways, but no human is perfect, so we will never have perfect or rational laws. A computer, or even computer software can assist a law maker in making laws which are both rational, and which are efficient. I don't predict this will ever happen, I'm just posting this to see if people want to debate the idea. I don't think this will happen because I think overall most humans would rather go extinct because it feels better, than to work for the survival of the species. When it comes to being rational, no human will ever be more rational than a computer, it's not possible. I say if we can use a calculator and computer to do things like build space shuttles and video games, and predict the weather and run simulations, perhaps if we took leadership as seriously, we'd have higher quality leadership. It seems to work for everything else. I think computers could generate a set of generic laws, which could be designed to limit damage to society, the species, and individuals. I'm fairly sure that a computer could develop a set of laws to do it, and that laws can be generated in a rational sort of code and then debated on, but I don't think humans like the idea of fully taking emotion out of law making. Do we rely on rational accuracy or emotion in deciding the rules? What say you?
I've been a computer professional since 1967, so you can take my word for it when I say that they are simply not that trustworthy. The software is all built and maintained by humans. Imagine how powerful guys like me would be in this scenario and how many temptations and threats would be thrown at us and our families to tweak the programming. This is genuine AI here and yes you laymen all assume that is just around the corner. Come on dudes, you're talking about the industry that brought you Windows! As your girlfriends would say, helloooooo. Even if AI becomes a reality and so does QA in IT, there will always be humans in charge of the machines. And if those machines are that powerful, so will the humans be, even if they don't require hourly repairs to defective algorithms. What you will end up with is concentrated power--concentrated in what will in effect be one single machine, rather than a group of human leaders. Concentrating power has never worked before in human history. Traditionally that has been blamed on slow communication, bureaucratic organization and corruption. But in reality the flaw in concentrated power is that people need, deserve and demand to have power over their own lives, not give it up to a strong central government, much less to a machine. It doesn't matter whether a computer could theoretically rule us better than we rule ourselves. We will not stand for it so we will rebel against any movement to install it. I have always said that progress is the triumph of reason over emotion. But I don't think that will hold true as we approach the absolute limit of pure mechanical reason triumphing over all human emotion.
You do realize, that elections are already computerized and that guys like you may already be pressured to hack or rig votes. You do realize this is already happening right? If the software is open source, and if the hardware is also open, it can work. I know plenty about computers also, and maybe I have not been around since the 60s, but I know that AI is easily advanced enough. I know hardware is easily fast enough, and I know the open source methology works. Yes all computers are capable of being hacked by viruses, but so are human minds. In fact human minds are more easily hacked. Power is already concentrated, a fact that is not going to change because capitalism is designed to concentrate and protect wealth. I'm not discussing power concentration vs decentralization because a republic such as ours is designed to concentrate power into the hands of the elected few. I'm talking about improving decision making ability and the accuracy of power, not increasing the concentration of it. Just because you have a super computer which can give you good answers, it does not mean you'll only get one good answer, as you'll likely get different good answers from different computer hardware and software setups. The point is computers are already in the political process through e-voting, it's already here and the only option now is how you want to adapt technology to the decision making process. I think technology can aid with the rational calculus of decision making. Imagine a group of lawmakers who, use computers, to draft perfect laws, and then use the super computer to decide the impact of these laws and if these laws will be rational or not. In this case you'd have infinitely greater precision in law making. Make up your mind, either you are for reason or you are for emotion. As we see, humanity has to decide to be reasonable or be emotional, because we aren't good at being both. If we decide to be reasonable, we have options here, if we want we can just remove all emotions through a vaccine, suddenly everyone will be reasonable, but then theres no feelings, and while you might have better leadership, many people would rather die than lose their emotions. The next idea is to simply use computers in a way which helps humans become more rational, as a rationalizing force in human behavior, the computer can be asked, in any situation "What is in society, humanity, and my best interest?". Computers have the ability to aid humanity in making rational decisions, using game theory, and simply math and calculus to figure out which decisions are best. Life is like a game of chess, each one of us is a player, we know from experience that while humans through instinct and emotion can beat most computers in chess, we also know that computers are notoriously more accurate. Emotions are important for drive, and because emotions actually do aid in certain ways, but when it comes to complex problems, puzzles, where there is no easy or simple answer, emotion will not make a good guide. You cannot follow your gut when making laws, I think you know this, our laws aren't (well at least they shouldnt be) based on gut reactions. So, consider that humans are in a situation where we as a species are irrational, and we need to increase our rationality to survive, how could we survive? I think we can use technology to increase the rational decision making ability of the human species. Yes this technology might give leadership more power, but leadership is going to get more power no matter what you or I do, so why not give them ever increasing accuracy with that power?
Believe me, we computer people try not to live in states with computerized voting. It's bad enough that the tallies are computerized. I worked on one in a previous lifetime and I was struck by the fact that, at least at that time, no third party did a random audit of any of the precinct totals. But that software is absurdly simple, even 35 years ago you could trust an audit of the source code. I was responsible for the integrity of the operating system, which was far more complicated. I would have thought that a stand-alone program would have made more sense. I could have written it and it would have been almost as easy to audit as one written in the problem state.
What happens when the power goes out or a terrorist sets off a few bombs and disrupts the system? What happens when some virus infects the system? What happens when some hot-shot kid hacks into the system and fucks it all up ....just havin' a little fun, ya' know? Baron Max
I stopped reading after 'everyone should be watched' People make mistakes. We would all end up in jail if we were busted as soon as we did something wrong. That's a problem of today's society - technology allows us to have a really good memory of our past. Men like Ford would have never been successful if they lived in today's world.
Mistake or not, it's not really about worrying about peoples mistakes, it's about the best decision making. Ford made mistakes, but Ford came from an era where you could make mistakes. You cannot talk about people from completely different era's and discuss how, because mistakes were acceptable then, that mistakes will always be acceptable. The amount of power that a President has now is vast and far greater than the amount of power a President would have had back then, the amount of power politicians have now are vast and in far greater concentration than they were back then, and due ot the polarized political nature, there is little to no bipartisanship. You are correct, we WOULD all end up in jail as soon as we are busted doing something wrong. That 's the point, but there are people who never do anything wrong so they never go to jail. Everyone should be watched, either you support national security or you don't, if you support it then you have to accept the fact that everyone will be watched, including you, and everyone who knows you. It's not a problem that technology can help with lawmaking. It's not a problem that technology can help with crime fighting. It's not a problem that technology can help fight terrorism. It's not a problem that technology can make the world more efficient, and make the world more accurate. If you think these things are a problem, then you don't care about the world, and technology will end up killing us, so it will either be used to help us or kill us and thats the decision you get to choose from, because technology will be in your life either way. E-voting is already here, surviellance technology is already here, technology is already merged into these things we are discussing. The stock market uses technology to predict trends, why shouldnt the law makers use technology? The weather corporations use technology to predict and forecast the weather, and run simiulations, and yes it does make sense to let leaders use technology to be more efficient leaders, or to run more efficient campaigns, or anything else which increases leadership potential and quality. You cannot go back to the days of Ford, it's impossible, make the best of today, because the past is gone forever.
