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Week 2: Response to “Long Live The Web” and “The Strange Geopolitics of the International Cloud” – Taylah Bland

After reading both “Long Live The Web” by Tim Berners-Lee and “The Strange Geopolitics of the International Cloud” by Ingrid Burrington, I found a striking similarity. Whilst we often praise the internets structured existence (in terms of connection points, paths, and information storage) there still exists so much ambiguity within the realm of the internet. This ambiguity mainly stems from an issue that should be at the forefront of our endeavors – internet law. Both articles presented so many issues that pertain to security, encryption, hacking, identity theft, and the profiting of personal information (in the case of social media platforms). Whilst we have internet protocols, we are missing legal protocols that offer individuals protection every time they make use of the internet. 

The issue of legislating the internet becomes very difficult as it falls into international law. International Law as a branch of law doesn’t have an excellent track record of achieving much. Establishing and maintaining clear legal protocols and enforceable sanctions across International jurisdictions is negatively impeded by notions of state sovereignty. In the articles this was referenced as “data sovereignty” and when you have the competing perspectives of individuals, nation states, and companies all vying for the rights to personal data, legalities get very complicated, very quickly. 

It made me reflect upon how grand of a scale the internet is. Data centers are strewn all over the world, deep sea water cables connect continents, and the improvement of national wifi provides connectivity to literally billions of people. Yet, with all these advancements have we become slightly blind sighted to the Pandora’s Box the internet has inadvertently opened? It seems that we are focusing more on the newest IOS update rather than enacting laws to control the ability for corporations to profit of the personal information of individuals. 

Burrington especially in her article presents more pessimism on this topic as she explores the current legal battles of Microsoft in establishing ownership and accessibility of information in foreign data centers. These areas of grey in the law do permeate a sense of fear and anxiety for internet users who are not completely aware of their rights, or if they have rights at all. 

We should be making a conscious effort to progress both our operating systems but also our legislation in regards to protecting the rights of individuals online. In order to achieve, universality, net-neutralism and accessibility, we must also have law and order as a regulator. 

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Week 1: Response to “The Machine Stops” E.M Forster – Chloe Chan

“The Machine Stops” by E.M Forster is a science-fiction short story that projects the dystopic possibilities that technology will ultimately bring upon humanity. The short story takes place in an underground society where each member of society lives in an isolated room whilst worshipping “the Machine” which provides them with most of their daily needs.  The main character Vashti is a representation of the ideal member of this society, she spends her time producing and discussing ideas. Her role in the short story is highly juxtaposed with the second main character of the story, her son, Kuno, who lives on the other side of the world stands out as a pillar of opposition in contrast to the rest of the members of society. 

This short story is an eerie interpretation of our modern world as technology has monopolised our day to day functions, especially with the introduction of apps such as ‘wechat’ allows individuals to isolate themselves in their home, not needing to leave their home to eat, or communicate with friends, or to source out other forms of entertainment. This short story critiques technology as it is “[used] for bringing people to things instead of for bringing things to people” eliminating the need for people to acquire their needs physically. Furthermore, the isolation in the small hexagonal cells also represents the physical isolation that is generated as a byproduct of technology.

Ultimately, the Machine collapses, which leads to the demise of the Earth’s population. The author attempts to convey the catastrophic effects that technology may have to our society encouraging readers to attempt to detach themselves from our devices and to make an effort to interact with the world around us.

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Reflection # 3 – The Game of Life

Synopsis: This is an article from ‘The Guardian’ which using youtube videos gives an introduction to the mathematical recreation and its astounding patterns. The article ends with a video interview with the creator John Conway explaining his thought process when designing the rules.

In short Conway states that the beauty of Life is that it stands to reason that since you couldn’t predict what could happen ever, it is safe to say that anything can happen.

Questions: 

  • After reading The Crucial Experiment the value of this universe is a bit more apparent but still I have to question, what truly is its purpose?
  • Conway stated that the Game of Life came about from a desire to solve the challenge of creating a machine capable of building itself, while I don’t fully understand how Life solves this, it comes into question… can this be considered a rudimentary version of machine learning?
  • If there are rules but the patterns are unpredictable what do the rules prove? 
    • It almost works like some sort of negative induction or null hypothesis
  • A follow up to the previous question would be are there finite sets of rules that don’t develop into a regulated pattern?
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Reflection #2 – The Crucial Experiment

Synopsis: This reading was an except from Stephen Wolfram’s The Crucial Experiment – A New Kind of Science. The except looked at cellular automata* and asked the question “Can Complexity come from Simplicity?” 

Questions: 

  • My biggest question for this reading was, why is this information useful? 
  • What is the different between one dimensional (Game of Life)  and two dimensional (cellular automata)?
  • Why the fundamental idea that nature works like these complex automata in that it all stems from simple beginnings, how can actual rules and examples help us better understand nature.
  • How are these autonomous agents programmed (purpose of the lab I assume)
  • Does a step refer to a change in a cell or a change in a row.

Notes:

  • Cellular Automata is easy to follow since their behaviour must have the ability to be readily presented in a visual way.
  • Fractal Patterns are the perfect balance between complexity and simple repetition
  • The basic phenomenon is ultimately responsible for most of the complexity in nature
  • Even though cells follow the same rules, different configurations of cells will have different behaviour

Thoughts on Lab:

  • Physical computation behaves similarly to cellular automation
    • executing few simple instructions in large numbers generating complexity
    • however this is just one aspect of computation
    • understanding how to generate autonomous agents on through cellular automata, we can apply skills to creating autonomous robots which is basically the foundation of nature’s complexity 

* Cellular Automata is a collection of “coloured” cells on a grid of specified shape that evolves through a number of discrete time steps according to a set of rules based on the states of the neighbouring cells. Rules are then applied iteratively for as many steps as desired.

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Reflection #1 – Fish’n’Robots

Synopsis: Fish’n’Robots was a TED Talk given by Maurizio Porfiri on his findings on Robotic Fish. He hopes to use robotics and biomimetics*  to help better understand and improve nature. 

Questions: 

  • Porfiri used fish because of their similar genetics to humans and their qualities that allow for the robotic fish to be accepted. However how self aware and smart are fish as opposed to other organisms? Will his finding and research stand when applied to larger ‘smarter’ organisms?
  • If these findings are to be developed how realistic must robots become to truly mimic and blend in with nature? How long will this take?
  • If in fact completely realistic robots are invented how will it affect of sense of reality. What are the ethical implications
  • The children naturally added components to the robotic fish such as propellers to make them more like fish. Is it an inherent and general belief then that robots actually should imitate nature but in physique and action?

Reflection:

These questions all stem from a desire to answer – “What are the benefits of Bio-Inspired Robotics?” Should we even be trying to create robots and will this actually be beneficial to nature and not just humans. I believe that Porfiri touches on some good points. By being able to understand nature we can better help preserve it. Since we cannot yet communicate with nature (traditionally speaking) we can at least try to imitate and manipulate it until we better understand it.

*Biomimetics is a field of investigation which seeks to imitate nature to address nature