Chapter Eleven

Intelligent Artificial Systems

Advanced alternative systems will increasingly depend upon the power of information technology and processing to achieve sophisticated integration and complex articulation with the environment. Information processing systems have made tremendous advances in the last couple of decades, and remain at the forefront of the applied sciences. Artificial intelligence is the name we give for  this rapidly developing and multifaceted domain of information sciences. 

The conventional criteria for the evaluation of artificial intelligence has been the von Neuman standard of the Chinese Room--implicit to this criteria has been the model of human intelligent functioning as the goal of  artificial intelligence development. This kind of standard criteria is inherently difficult to apply in an objective manner, and, because it embraces the inherent issues of anthropological relativity, it does not transcend the basic dilemmas inherent to human knowledge and intelligence in the world.

Furthermore, it is quite apparent that machine intelligence has as well certain critical non-human constraints that is inherent to their design and functioning as human made machines. These constraints are the following:

            1. All machine intelligence exists, or functions, in a closed world. This world is one that is built, managed and operated by human beings. Intelligent pattern that is the result of machine intelligence is a product of meaningful design, and may be employed  in the production of meaningful design, but it does not by itself produce meaningful design.

            2. All machine intelligence exists, or functions, in a manner that processes information in a linear manner. It processes strings of information, in series that occur in sequential order. Even parallel processing architectures are essentially the cofunctioning of multiple strings.

            3. All machine intelligence exists, or functions, in a manner in which there is no duality of patterning--the signal string contains the information, and the information conveyed by the string is a part of the string itself. In other words, machine intelligence exhibits no duality of patterning in its signal pattern.

            4. All machine intelligence exists, or functions, in a dead, or non-living state. It cannot be attributed the essential synergistic features of living biological organisms, or of what is referred to as "life." A dead state is one that cannot change itself except entropically. Thus, intelligent machines perform a certain or general kind of work, involving energy transfers and heat as a by-product, that results in the manipulation and production of meaningful pattern. Again meaningful pattern is merely  a by-product of this work.

            5. All machine intelligence exists, or functions, in a manner that can be said to lack awareness, either of the self or of the sense of surroundings.

These constraints all occur  at the same time, and are interrelated to one another in the design of machine intelligence. These kinds of constraints are inherently non-anthropomorphic, as there is not  implicit comparison or contrast to human intelligence in their determination.

Technical reductionists would argue that human intelligence can be analytically reduced to the brain wave functioning of neurons that have an electro-chemical basis. This would not be an incorrect analysis to make. In other words, our own intelligence is machine-like just as much as any computer would  be by this reductionist model, and therefore ought to be subject to the same kinds of design constraints are are intelligent machines. Indeed, too, human intelligence is not unconstrained by basic design features and limitations. A brain too large for instance, or overactive, might face a fundamental problem of heat dissipation.

But, also in a technical way, each of these points can be used to contrast human intelligence with machine intelligence. Human intelligence does not exist in a closed world. It functions in an inherently non-linear manner. It has duality of pattern in its signal processing characteristics. It is a living machine, and it can be said to have an advanced form of awareness of both the self and the world in which the self is situated.

It follows that if these are the basic kinds of constraints that predetermine the possibilities of design for intelligent machines, then the design of more intelligent machines will proceed from understanding and as much as possible circumventing or nullifying these kinds of constraints. We measure the quotient of machine intelligence in terms of the degree of sophistication achieved in its functioning and existence along each of these five sets of points.

We can go further, if we wish to adopt a more anthropomorphic model of machine intelligence, then there are further criteria that we might wish to hold as human intelligence exhibits several other features of design that appear for the most part unique to our species:

            1. We are capable of the symbolization of experience, which is the symbolic definition of experience. Indeed, symbolization is such an inherent aspect of our intelligent design, that we cannot not symbolize experience except in the most rudimentary and impulsive of ways.

            2. We are capable of generalizing knowledge from one area or domain to another, and thus devising means of applying this knowledge to alternative domains to which it is not directly derived.

            3. We are capable of creative concatenation of experience and knowledge, to derive new patterns that have no precedence.

            4. We are capable of the linguistic transmission of information that conveys such experience from one person to another. Hence, we are capable of learning new experience based upon the experiences of other people.

These secondary criteria of an anthropomorphized machine intelligence appear to be most useful to the extent that they involve a human interface in a manner that permits the adaptation and mediation of human communication and activities upon multiple levels. I therefore consider these  to be extrinsic criteria versus the intrinsic criteria of the design constraints listed above.  

The dilemma of designing and developing more intelligent machines then is the challenge of trying to overcome fundamental, intrinsic and extrinsic constraints of design, that ultimately cannot be overcome in any known manner or by any known means. What is really accomplished in any simple mode is merely an Elizaesque-type parlour trick. Only by means of supercomplex programming and data-base structures might these constraints be approached in any meaningful manner. The challenge is that we do not have a firm idea in any detail of what kinds of designs these may entail, or that may lead us finally beyond the boundaries that conventional machine-like intelligence set for us. One of the best examples of a limited application is in chess and other game playing machines, which machines have increased in sophistication to approach the game-playing capacity of the masters, and even to exceed this capacity in exceptional circumstances. This is a set-piece type of problem, with finite search-solution spaces. The kinds and number of possible moves to be made at each turn are finite and fully determinable, though the number of alternative pathways that can thread through the entire system approaches an astronomical number. This kind of machine-intelligence solution to a limited and deterministic problem set was not achieved easily, but only by  along period of development and application that lead to refinement and sophisticated streamlining of the protocol. To apply a similar kind of complex solution to every deterministic kind of problem set that we can encounter, in whatever area or field of applied knowledge we wish to consider, exceeds by many degrees our greatest supercomputer capacities. This is much more the case if we take into consideration an even broader range of problem sets that do not have deterministic-type solutions, but remain relatively underdetermined in character.

It seems in this regard that intelligent machining in conventional problem solving is most  successful if focused upon narrowly definable goals, and if it proceeds gradually in time from the ground up. The only top-down approach that we can take at this stage is to define a machine-based system of information processing and problem solving that extends the capabilities beyond component machines to incorporate a vast network of machines that interdigitate and articulate with one another in a organic manner. In the construction of such a model, a great deal of unknown problem-solving needs to be subsumed within a critical-path flow-chart that allows an object-oriented and functional partitioning of the general system into a minimal number of component  subsystems. Each system and subsystem must be tackled both separately and interdependently. Each presents its own complex problem set that can be only solved partially and incompletely. Within a larger  system, there will occur deterministic components that define the operational efficiency and intelligent capacity of the system as a whole, though such key components may not be easily or readily identifiable as such.

This type of system puts a premium upon the communicative capacity between machines and operating systems. The  information bottleneck that is based upon the ability for processors to perform a certain speed of operations, is matched by a communication bottleneck that permits different machines to transmit, and receive, processed or raw information only at certain speeds or rates. Generally, in our current state of the art, machines have the be physically connected through transmission lines, and this has posed severe restrictions upon the ability to communicate. The alternative has been a kind of amplitude and frequency modulation of electromagnetic signals. 

Communicative capacity between machines is as much a challenge of devising a language of mutual intelligibility that would permit signals to transmit that were in a synonymous with the kinds of signals occurring within the operating systems of computers themselves. In other words, the encoding of communiques between devices should be in the same programming language as the computer normally operates in anyway. There should be little requirement for translation interfaces or mediation to be interposed between different systems.

The challenge of constructing a distributed information processing system is in solving the communication needs at various levels and in various areas simultaneously. Communication distribution can be seen as a kind of hypergrid, distributed multidimensionally, each dimensional unit having its own channel capacity for communication separate or at least separable from those streams other dimensional units.

Just as computer processing streams are linear, so also do communication streams tend to be linear. Making multi-linear streams of communication are one way of attacking the problem, as is broadening the transmission breadth of the communication signal. A combined stream that mixes multiple signal carriers within the same grid unit, to be filtered separately by each receiving grid, is an alternative solution to this kind of problem. Within hardwired systems, this problem is readily solved by merely multiplying the number of separate lines interconnecting the various components of the system. Such a filter can be nothing but an embedded sequence of key identifiers that can recognize, for instance, every nth point of reiteration.

The challenge of intelligent communication is therefore the  challenge of constructing complex systems of non-wired transmission based upon some range or set of ranges of electro-magnetic radiation, either focused as in laser systems, or broadcast.

A distributed system can be said to be a remotely connected supercluster of multiple  processing systems interconnected by communication lines based upon broadcast transmission of signals of various forms. Clusters and subclusters of such a distributed system can be said to be hard-wire integrated multiple  processing systems within the larger supercluster grid, presumably that perform either generalized or specialized or both hybrid sets of functions in coordination with other operating clusters. Thus, an internet system such as the world wide web, that connects mostly through telephone lines, is largely as yet a kind of cluster network that is not a truly distributed system. 

On the other hand, infrared based transmissions connecting office equipment with computers may be considered to be a distributed system. The scale of the system is not so important, I believe, as is the structural design of the system we are dealing with at whatever level. One of the means for a distributed system to achieve a degree of partial openness is through the development of an effective form of broadcast transmission between units. It can be demonstrated anthropologically that human systems and human intelligence could not have arisen outside of the framework of open linguistic communication.

Wireless systems have developed in relation to satellite communication, and these have grown increasingly sophisticated and powerful, as well as with decreasing degrees of noise and static, though they are far from meeting the standards challenges that would be required of a genuinely distributed system.

It follows that strategies of heuristic design are of paramount importance in the consideration of top-down distributed systems in which  the theoretic components exist in complementary manner to the achieved technology. In other words, even if present state of the art technology is relatively primitive and crude to the challenges and goals of any given problem set, it is in the meeting of ground-up practical solutions with top-down design configurations that progress will be defined.

It is something of a paradox as well that devising distributed, wireless based systems on the criteria of relative openness, may be based as well upon solving several other sets of primary constraints in computing--duality of patterning of a limited form is achievable in distributed systems if these distributed systems can interconnect via a common input-output interface and if this interface includes as well feedforward/feedback loops that include effective environmental monitoring on one hand, and effective motor articulation with the environment on the other hand. I am not referring to the conventionally, anthropoidal robot that walks and talks independently of some human controller. Rather I am referring to robotized systems that function independently to achieve a limited range of functional tasks in relation to its environment--such machines can take any form and perform practically any task. The desire to put these machines to human form is as much a reflection of our own anthropocentrism regarding intelligence as anything.

Achievement of a standard of duality of signal patterning can arise when a common communicative interface can be utilized in alternative contexts to achieve a range of different functional applications by independent and remotely connected machines. It entails the creation of a generalizing symbolic language in intermachine communication that can be adapted to fit a wide and open range of possible applications. This achieves a kind of limited duality that is based upon practical application of general terms to varying contexts. This is normally a trend that is opposite from what is expected with duality of patterning, especially if we adopt a strong psycho-linguistic model of language structure and patterning, though I believe it more accurately replicates what I believe are the actual parameters of communicative design in human language. It emphasizes the social aspects of language function as a communicative system around which cultural and psychological meanings can be built. In this alternative viewpoint, it is the intermediative function of language as a communicative system that is emphasized over the subjective meaning building aspects of any particular language system.

The challenge therefore of building a distributed network supercluster of machines that can perform a wide range of information-based functions in limited dimensions, is two-fold. It is a challenge of constructing a effective system of wireless communication that will permit the long-distance transmission of both large quantities of information at very fast rates, as well as a broad range of different kinds of information transmitted simultaneously or in tandem. It is also the challenge of constructed hard-wired systems as clusters and sub-cluster networks that fit within this multi-dimensional grid structure and that are capable of performing a wide range of alternative information-processing functions simultaneously.

A third challenge arises with the issue of control and coordination structures, in both hard and soft information architectures, that will be heuristically effective in incorporating the entire grid structure in a systematic and synergistic manner. I see such control and coordination as being decentralized and itself distributed at various levels in such a system. Control and coordination remains ultimately a human endeavor, except to the extent that a sense of relative autonomy of function and design can be designed into the architectures of such systems themselves. Self-replication of structure, learning and modification of architectures to fit alternative frameworks would be standards to achieve  in such control structures. Machine systems that are capable of running and managing themselves, with the fewest possible human inputs, and are even capable of  building and repairing themselves, seem to be distant science fiction goals of intelligent design.

There is a sense in this issue, when viewed from the top-down, of a central strategic problem, a general or even universal problem set, that once articulated and fully defined, will lead by deduction and logical inference to the solution of a great many different kinds of problem sets. I do not believe there exists as yet any universal programming language to date that is capable of encompassing all possible logical chaining structures that are typical of intelligent systems. Machines capable of handling such languages would also have to be designed and built, and I do not believe this has yet been accomplished either.

The  problem and challenge of constructing an intelligent distributed supercluster involves  an entire range of problem sets at multiple levels, each of which must be addressed separately, as well as in relation to the entire structure. We do not know yet what the best or most streamlined design or set of designs would be for the construction of such a system. It is apparent that no single kind of programming system, whether neural networks, or object oriented programming, or  Lisp or Prolog programming, will completely  address every dimension and aspect of the entire problem. It entails putting together the common and conventional approaches in Artificial Intelligence research, in the various applied and theoretical areas, into a common problem set that defines a single advanced distributed system. Thus the challenge of visual pattern recognition and vision is as much a part of the general problem of building such as system as would be the problem of voice  recognition, or of symbolic dependency, or learning or decision making or robotic manipulation or circumlocation.

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There occurs a higher level criteria for these kinds of systems. This has to do with the achievement of a degree of generalization of worldview and of self awareness, and what can be called the emergent pattern of mental functioning from mechanical signal transmissions. Grossly, and in an unqualified way, we can refer to this as "consciousness" and we can say that a computer system, however sophisticated in design, lacks intrinsic consciousness. We can attribute  a sense of consciousness to mice and rats, as well as to humans and dolphins. We might even attribute some kind of limited  consciousness to insects and other non-mammalian animal forms. But  we  do  not attribute a state of consciousness to Deep Blue  or to any other supercomputer we have built. The critical question to be answered is "why."

Integration proceeds at different levels and in different ways in the construction and design of distributed architectures. Functions are not completely separable from one another, and there occurs a great deal of overlap that, from the standpoint of informational efficiency, represents a load and a form of noise intrinsic to an underdevelooped and partially unintegrated system.  Components must replicate similar kinds of procedures in the course of normal operation. In the best of possible worlds, each procedure would only need to be performed one time by one machine: the results of this procedure  would then be stored and made  available for use by any other machine further down the road. Often, there are diminishing returns if retrieval of  stored  information, or the storage of information itself, requires a more informationally expensive procedure than reiteration of the original procedure in the first place.

There is  a fundamental trade-off it seems, between the problem of integration on one hand, that combines subsystems into a single hard-wired "cluster" and the problem of distributed processing, which serves to link different systems or clusters into a coordinate network. It seems that we can improve systems integration through hardwiring, but only at the  expense of maintaining truly and remotely  distributed networks. On the other hand, if we wish to extend distributed networks to encompass broader ranges, then the price  we pay is in our ability to integrate  systems as a single operational unit. In a sense, with the problem of distribution, the  challenge of effective communication between different systems becomes paramount over the challenge of processual integration into a single system.

The concept of unit operations is an important approach to  take in applied metasystems and in the design and coordination of different systems. Operational units define unit operations as basic common functional denominators, and provide thus a shorthand for design of more complex systems. A limited number of basic operations, for instance, can be recombined in a countless number of  ways to achieve alternative complex systems.

Automata & Automation

The problem of automata and the problem of automation are not the same, though they are generally confused on an implicit level and often the two terms are used interchangeably. In a sense, automata refer to the theory of automatons, or theoretical machines that are capable of producing a certain kind of modulated output, arbitrarily determined, depending or independent of the nature of the input into the system. Usually the output is determined by a set of rules, or a "discrimination" structure that somehow logically determines the final choices among a range of alternates. 

Automation refers to a machine that is capable of independently performing complex functions, and demonstrating some measure of self control, without direct manipulation or involvement by a human agent or human mediation. In general, automation tends to simplify and remove human involvement from the direct action or consequences of the behavior of the system or machine. With increasing automation, we expect that human involvement in a system becomes less and less directive, and possibly minimized to a point of merely turning such a system on or off or providing basic starting/stopping operations, etc. Of course, an automated system is not merely a "remote-controlled system" though in general it entails some degree of remote control. An engineer on earth piloting a vehicle on Mars surface is primarily an example of a process of extremely "remote" control. Systems automation entails that the system becomes increasingly self-controlling, and the control function of the human input is simplified to the minimal number of choices necessary to make the system fully operational.

The purpose of automation is not to displace workers from the labor force, but to free human activity and interest from the drudgery of performing routine-operational tasks, in order that they may spend their time doing more meaningful work and cultivating more productive life-styles.

Automation has in general proceeded slowly and incrementally one small bit and piece at a time--it is usually articulated in very narrow and tightly delimited contexts. Machines are best at performing one set of functions, over and over again, at very rapid rates. They are not at their best when they are multi-function by design. Conventional CPU's are single processing devices that perform one stream of continuous information processing in a linear but very rapid manner. Creating multi-or parallel processing devices, like the connection machine, associated primarily with supercomputing and the handling of very large informational demands at very high rates of speed, are a kind of solution to this problem, but perhaps we can consider as well non-linear processing functions that work in fundamentally different ways than straight forward parsing of strings of information. Analog and hybrid computing models have been developed that to some extent address these issues, but the problem still remains open, especially if we consider it in light of the challenge of creating human-like intelligence, or machines that can be automated across a fairly broad range of different tasks.

Of course, the two concepts, automata and automation, converge when we think of an automated system that is intelligent, like a fully functioning robot that is self-directive and independent in its behavior. Given time, we may perhaps achieve such models in a manner that would measure up to what we would expect of our current stereotypes of them. The general trend of the future is of course one toward greater convergence, but this convergence is very broad based and comprehensive in form, and proceeds in a relatively self-organized and piece-meal way. It will not come overnight, or even in a year. It will be measured by relative degrees of integrated distribution and achieved progress compared to measures of the past.

It would be expected to see increasingly intelligent automation in areas that involve the greatest and most intensive inputs of human labor, and this is in areas of greater and more reliable complex pattern recognition, manual manipulation of tools to make fine products of varying design, and in possibly genuine "auto-mobiles" that are self-guided and self-steering. Achievement of semi-intelligent automation in any one of these areas, much less all of them, would represent significant advancements in the development of humankind.

The Rise of E-Culture: and the Interdependence of Human Systems and Digital Information Processing Systems.

The digital information revolution has engendered what we can call a new kind of knowledge revolution--this knowledge revolution is altering our collective worldview and shared symbol systems, and is a revolution of transformation of our collective conscious. Eventually it is leading to dramatic changes in our shared cultural and social patterns as well, and most remarkably, to the rise of a new global e-culture that has its own unique and historically unprecedented patterns.

At the outset, I would be the first and the last man on earth to claim that both these revolutions, the information revolution and the knowledge revolution, are based upon, and leading us toward, a systems-based way of thinking and behaving in the world, and we may without equivocation assert the claim that the larger trends of transformation of human reality are part of a general systems revolution, or a general revolution of human systems as these are patterned, articulated and developed on earth.

The main object of this article is to suggest that there is no clear dividing line between human knowledge, as defined phenomenologically in terms of human consciousness and shared awareness, and the digital information systems that modulate and store signals in meaningful patterns and transmit these signals over multiple networks. These different forms of knowledge constitute parts of a large system, a human articulated knowledge system, that depends increasingly upon the digitization of information in external forms. Digital information has come to largely replace the primary functions of print media as the vehicle/medium for the storage and transmission of information. Larger institutional structures and infra-structural systems have come to depend critically upon computer-based informational systems, in a manner that they cannot function properly without them. Increasingly as well, the individual human being is enmeshed in a web of electronically generated and controlled patterns that carry significance for them on many different levels, given rise to a new form of global literacy, e-literacy, that entails the capacity to effectively "read" and manipulate these signal patterns.

E-Culture can be defined as that cultural patterning of human adaptation that is based upon digital information patterning and processes in communication and transmission of information, and in the articulation of behavioral adaptation by human beings. We can say certain things now about E-culture: first, it is global in scope, by definition. It can therefore be said to transcend effectively traditional or ethno-national cultural boundaries and patterns of adaptation that characterized humankind before the rise of widespread e-literacy, and its consequence will be to continuously erode and eliminate, or at least to further "embed" these kinds of constraints in our common, shared adaptation in the world. Secondly, we can say that it is leading to a common equi-final "streamlining" of human civilization in a manner that serves to relativize many differences. Thirdly, it provides a common framework for the sharing of information and adaptive patterning on a global basis, which patterns of sharing will tend in the long run to alter the structural patterns of the distribution of resources on the earth.

Conventional AI practice and theory is based upon a fundamental philosophical dichotomy of the mind-body problem, and separates clearly the problem of natural intelligence from that of artificial intelligence. AI is founded upon a framework of inter-disciplinary science that triangulates between Psychology, Philosophy and Computer Science. Left out of this formula has been the important role played by the knowledge context and the social and cultural construction of knowledge systems, and their modes of articulation in typical behavioral settings. 

At the heart of this issue lies a fundamental interdependency between human learning, cognitive adaptation, and the primarily social environment in which this naturally occurs and becomes normally reinforced. More to the point, human intelligence, by virtue of its complexity and long learning requirements, is intrinsically dependent upon the behavioral/adaptive settings upon which it must be articulated. Piaget recognized this in a fundamental way in terms of his theory of child cognitive development and the requirement of "cognitive/adaptive equilibriation" with the environment that this development depends upon.

The cognitive dependence of humankind upon externalized reference coordinate systems goes back a long time before the advent of computing and digital information technologies. The hyper-development of certain regions of the human brain, as a consequence of extended hominid evolution, in coordination with the development of nerve & muscular structures in the facial-nasal-pharyngeal region and the hands especially, was based upon a certain generalist pattern of cultural-behavioral adaptation that served interests of human survival and reproductive success and that permitted wide-spread adaptive radiation across many different eco-systemic niches.

With the advent of the Age of Computers, the fact and necessity of this interdependency of Human knowledge upon the world in which it is voiced, through which it articulates and functions, and upon which it is referenced, becomes so central and so vital to our everyday patterns of adaptation, that it is no longer so easy to ignore or overlook.

I would make a further claim that in the articulation of knowledge this interdependency cannot be ignored, and that it is increasingly affecting what and how we do things, even on a very personal and individual level of articulation. It is predictable that the information revolution will tend to have greatest effect, and consequence, among younger age sets than upon older generations, and that there will therefore be a very flat pyramid of distribution of e-literacy/e-culture distributed mostly at a very broad base of younger individuals, and narrowed to a short and shallow peak at the other end of the age-developmental continuum. As a further consequence, we can expect a kind of built-in pattern of delayed effect from this process of e-globalization, because of the delay in child development and maturation that is normal to the human societies and increasingly postponed in more developed societies.

In our rising digital, electronic culture, our E-Culture, there is no further strong dichotomization to be had between the medium or the message, between the subject and the thing, between the word and its reference. The way we symbolize the world, how we see it, parse it up, and respond to it, is changing structurally in fundamental ways. Dialectics will increasingly serve the purposes of a more comprehensive and relativistic framework of interaction that does not ignore complexity in problem solving, but embraces it. 

There is therefore a sense of convergence between what may be called by some hermeneuticists the "term" and the "thing" that the symbol represents, where the difference between the two is no longer as clear cut, and much, much more convoluted, than it has been at any previous time in our human cultural development. This is both a good and a potentially very dangerous thing--because on one hand as we develop powerful knowledge tools by which to effectively liberate us from the ages-old constraints of our own ignorance, often culturally constrained, we are also prone to develop, at the same time, new techniques for knowledge manipulation and misinformation, with potentially far more destructive consequences.

What this process of informational development betokens for us is a transformation of our shared consciousness, of our collective worldviews, the symbolisms used to articulate and reinforce our worldview and our sense of order, and the behavioral patterning of response that we will adopt and adapt to in relation to one another. We are discovering new ways of thinking about the world, and in the process the forms of knowledge itself that we value are thereby becoming transformed in turn. I think we are moving away from a mind-set and worldview that implicitly regarded knowledge as a collection of facts, a library of books, a set of recorded archives or records, and more toward a working model of a dynamic, self-maintaining, automated data-base structure--more of a flow-process over a network of alternative pathways. In short, we are taking knowledge and breaking up its traditional paradigmatic structure, and reassigning values and references in a more dynamic way, both from a functional standpoint of increased utility and efficiency value, but also in a symbolic way to apprehend more relevant meaning to our world. Knowledge becomes not so much a collection of data or facts, but a process of knowing and manipulating patterns of information into various assemblages, a "fact" or "bit" of information taking on value and significance depending on what current position and context it occupies. We see this when we update and "defragment" the hard-drives on our computers--we shuffle around the file-systems and references in a way that organizes them, from the computers point of view, rather than from our own. 

We would like to think somewhat hopefully and naively that all this will be for the better, in the long run, and we know it could be, but we also must maintain our reservations that we must always accept the good with the bad.

Scale-Free Horizontal Transmission Systems

Scale-free horizontal transmission systems, especially when they are provided for free or minimal cost, provide a new communications infrastructure for human systems of unimaginable scope and potentiality. The bottom line of scale-free horizontal transmission systems--any information, anywhere, anytime, on demand. Not just superficial, popular, sex- or violence laden information, but expert, detailed, refined knowledge. A university, no even more, the entire common stock of human knowledge, available at anyone's finger tips, any time-zone, anytime of the day or night. 

A free and free access Internet is part of this formula, it should go without saying. Another important part, increasingly, is wirelessness of systems that mean they and we can be mobile and can go anywhere, anytime--they are no longer bound by the wires that tie them to the wall and to one another.

The next step of course would be to build an infrastructure around this, in which any thing, good or service, can be delivered by the fastest and shortest route possible, to any place on the earth, hopefully at least cost. Cut out the middle-men--producer direct. Short of a Star Trek transporter system, we haven't figured this second half of the equation out just yet, but Federal Express seems to be getting better at what they do. "Scotty, beam up my vegetables and my new car."

The implications of this are enormous. They lead to a human knowledge revolution, which should in time generate a human systems revolution as people, armed with the total global stock of knowledge, come to demand to achieve greater self-realization and social systems that permit such self-realization. 

Of course in the free-range chaos of New Frontiers, there is plenty of room to screw things up and plenty of opportunity for "winner takes all." Major attractors in such networks come to function like "magnates" that grow disproportionately well connected compared to the vast majority of other nodes in such networks, and in the process the system as a whole becomes more, not less, vulnerable. Perhaps these developments are, from the standpoint of systems, inevitable, but there is something to be said for increasing the number of connections between all possible nodes.

We are in a situation where the number of nodes are virtually unlimited, but the number of connections between nodes are limited by built-in channel capacities, and especially, by built-in human limitations. It reaches a point where there is just too much information to process, to many possibilities to deal with. Humans can't afford to always function with a min-max game strategy, and, must, to achieve some sense of satisfaction, adopt a "satisficing" strategy. Thus people don't buy a newer better computer every year or even every other year, and they don't always need to get the newest and most up to date software to run in their system.

So on one hand, we can expect significant increases in channel breadth and overall carrying capacities of channels. At the same time, we should expect to see the development of more effective programming systems and interfaces that render information processing technologies more available to the average and relatively untrained user. Though there will always be these kind so of extrinsic and intrinsic limitations to horizontal transmission systems, even with virtually unlimited processing and storage power, it seems that these kinds of constraints can be eventually obviated for most intents and purposes.

We can state, from the standpoint of  the development of a global meta-culture, that this global meta-culture will be in the first and final analysis a kind of "e-culture" that is based upon the effectively unlimited capacities for sharing of information of all kinds made possible within a completely scale-free horizontal transmission system. No longer is the lack of information a critical obstacle to the challenges of human development, as long as there is access to the Internet in a consistent, reliable and uncensored manner. Increasingly, in the future, it will become limited access to energy, and to other real resources, and not information, that will serve as the rate-determining factor and the primary limiting factor for human development.

It strikes me that one of the best (and possibly worst) things that can be done is to hook as many people in as many areas as cheaply as possible to the Internet. But one might ask somewhat rhetorically and ironically, what good is the Internet if one is still starving to death? This seems, increasingly, to be a dilemma shared by many people, from both rich and well connected regions, to those large swaths of the earth where the Internet still is something for the future.

Communist  China, take heed, and fair warning, as the future is advancing rapidly. All efforts at total control and censorship of the web are ultimately doomed to failure, unless of course China-net becomes, through force-of-arms, Global-net.

Developing a Global Interface

Those who are wise and on-top of the new business world (i.e., the global information economy) have set their focus on the development of general and global interfaces that serve to reconcile basic software conflicts between different operating systems and working software programs. There is good reason for this emergent interest--integration that is the basis of the information revolution depends critically upon the development of such an interface. Streamlining software entails a convergence of systems to a common programming lingua franca, and an optimal set of programming solutions.

Work on a global interface has proceeded here on a part-time and somewhat distracted basis over the last year, with several years of a previous runway to get going on. My interest has been as much theoretical and philosophical as it has been in terms of developing a real working system that makes sense to everyone. The greater significance of the development of such a common programming framework must be grasped. Informational integration of infrastructure and articulatory systems is truly revolutionizing pan-human civilization, at a quickening pace that is quickly rendering most of what we had before somewhat obsolete and archaic.

The problem in my mind has taken many different dimensions. Technical concern over the compatibility and complementariness of a multiplicity of operating software systems has not been on my priority list. It strikes me that in the long run many of these systems will fall by the wayside and other systems will emerge that will not just take their place, but subsume all that came before. 

Given my leverage (and critical lack of leverage) in the larger world, my concern has come to focus more on the human dimensions of interactivity in the problem. Any interface, to be a true interface, must not only be capable of switching between different software systems, but, more importantly, facilitating human access, learning and activity within such systems.

The bottom line seems to be that as computing capacity grows exponentially at a phenomenal rate, tending to make the effective life-span of any program or software solution that is not regularly updated relatively brief and ephemeral, is that the human counterpart to such systems have remained largely stagnant and the same. The result seems to be computing systems of massive, almost "super-computing" power, and human users who remain no more competent or capable of working these systems than they were a decade previously. We have massive computing powers and potentials, but most of this goes wasted in the average system as the users who deploy these ultimately do not have the lifestyle logistics needed to overcome the learning curves need to optimally utilize these systems. 

People want one touch/one button programming solutions. They want the program that does it all with minimal effort expended. They want to watch the fireworks by lighting a simple fuse. They are not really interested in how the fireworks are made or put together.

The tendency I have noticed at least in what I do is the trend for things soft to grow increasingly complex and complicated, and in the process, the human dimensions of the solution set become buried beneath the somewhat obsessive preoccupation with details. This tendency must be always resisted, but there is a need as well to find real solutions to the proverbial programming bottle-necks that they represent--simplicity must subsume complexity, not obviate it.

The human side of the global interface is a larger problem than the technical programming side, and we must eventually come to terms with it if we wish to achieve a kind of meta-systemic paradigmatic unity to the global Internet and all it represents.

It is recognized for instance that one of the most important obstacles to overcome is that of human language differences. English seems to be the most common and preferred language on the web--largely due to the fact that most Internet activity originates from English speaking countries. Chinese would be more relevant, but the Communist Chinese government is one of the greatest enemies of a free and open Internet, and their China-net is essentially a "Big Brother Web" in which all out-going or in-coming transmissions are being monitored and censored. Other world class languages play an important part and carry a significant portion of the total web and it is primarily the translation between these world-class languages. 

Automatic translation is largely context insensitive and connotatively superficial--the challenge in any language is mastery at a level that one can work intuitively with words and phrasal expressions that are not just make sense, but carry some greater significance in the world, about the world. This is not to say that automatic translation is not worthwhile, especially for some kinds of communication that are relatively context independent and concrete in reference.

Developing soft-ware systems that are multi-lingual is good, and to some extend obviates the need for automatic translation. This fits within the larger capacity framework of the Internet and information revolution. We can afford to maintain multiple parallel operating systems, side-by-side, and concurrent to one another, rather than aiming for a single common system. The challenge becomes then, like the human languages upon which they are based, is to make each of the alternate possible systems sufficient to its capacities and equivalent to one another.

A related area is the "one in all" software system--the one program that does everything, if not well, at least half-ass. These seem so far not to have been very successful, and I think the solution was largely abandoned in favor of more advanced and expert-type systems that were specialized on key functional areas. But computing capacities have advanced to a sufficiently level that it is feasible once again to reconsider the notion of a "one program fits all" kind of solution.  I get frustrated when I'm writing and I want to do some spread-sheet calculations and must switch out to get it done, or when I want to draw something or diagram for a web-site and I need to switch out from a web-site development program to a drawing or image-manipulation program. I've gotten better at this kind of thing of course, but I still don't understand why all these functions cannot be bundled into a single software tool-bag, sharing a common window frame, with all the tools and functional capacities one might need no further away than a drop-down menu or a collapseable tool-bar.

The other side of developing a global interface, I believe an aspect of the entire phenomenon that has been largely over-looked, is the extension of the practical and harder side of the thing. In other words, I find the tools for extending the web in applications that are beyond a key-board or a mouse to be somewhat lacking and largely overpriced. Palm tops are part of this kind of solution, of course, and as they become more powerful and versatile, will become more a central part of computing system frameworks. For instance, why are direct drawing tools so primitive on computers? Why can't a mouse point become a laser point or a ball-point that works like a pencil, and that has the same control as a real pencil in the hands of a would-be artist. Why can't there be a direct drawing surface, somewhat like a mouse-pad that allows on to draw a straight line, or a nice cross-hatched curve on the computer screen.  I do not understand why the functions of an advanced pocket calculator are not readily available on any computer key-board, and why key-boards themselves cannot offer a range of alternative programming functions at the touch of a finger.

In fact, I see the old-fashioned key-board as a bit more than a converted typewriter interface. It is rather potentially a dashboard to the future--it provides a direct form of empowerment for its user. So why do we need to remain stuck in old-fashioned key-board templates? In fact, I can see pre-processing and co-processing even in key-boards themselves. What I would also like to see are potential relay plug-ins for instance that would allow us to set home systems, lighting systems, coffee makers, etc., on timers or that can be controlled from the key-board.

What else should I add to the shopping list of the future--Dick Tracy, hold on to your hat. How about full audio-visual communications and self-programming systems. Automatic programmable systems, where the most the human user need be concerned about is answering a few dowdy questions that pop-up on the computer screen, seems to be part of  the final solution for a free and unfettered future.

My other brilliant idea is an full in-house university system, complete with wall-sized three dimensional high-resolution imaging systems and room-round effects including lighting, sound, even weather. I would include with this an electronic globe-sized electronic crystal ball, that can bring up detailed satellite maps of anywhere in the solar system, and, eventually, beyond. But then I see nothing wrong with solar-panel power sources that can be stuck on a roof or just outside one's window and used to power a computer.

I've not been too interested in anthropomorphized or zoo-morphic "Robbie the Robots" that can vacuum or wash dishes or "androids" or "Cyber-Insects" that walk and crawl, but I find the idea of automation and robotization of working systems fascinating and important, especially when it may come to things like management and control of human habitation systems. I see this more in industrial and other work contexts.

This brings up another area that I feel is overlooked and neglected in the development of personal and home based computing systems. This is ultimately systems of advanced environmental monitoring, that might include, by the way, the ability to monitor things like a person's heart rate, blood pressure, breathing, etc.

I see no reason either not to imbue home-based systems with real super-computing power, by allowing them the become "multi-processing" or "parallel processing" units. Of course, this may aggravate the challenges of coming up with a global interface that is suitable for a wide range of users and user's systems, but still I see it as part of a more general kind of solution set that is part of the problem of developing a global interface.

My main concern over development of a "global interface" has really been in terms of a defining a programming language, complete with a compiler, that is powerful enough to perform any possible function with a computer, and friendly and facile enough to be scripted and used by almost any person with only a minimum in educational preparation. I found the "pseudo-language" Hyper-script, compatible to the old Mac systems, to be the closest thing I've come to to such a common "interface" language. But it did not go far enough in the right direction, and somewhere along the way got side-tracked.

What I am suggesting is that we rethink our computing systems from the ground up, starting with the basics, with the idea that they are useful and good only to the extent that they make life easier, not harder, for the humans who depend upon them. If figuring out a simple programming procedure to get something "virtual" done takes a day and a life-time, it is simply not worth it. If figuring out how to network two computers, or getting them to talk on the same digital wave-length, takes a team of technical experts and multiple telephone calls, it is simply not worth it. If getting one's web-site to fly on the Internet and to attract significant surfers who are really interested in what you have to say or sell requires a long-term, ultra-full term commitment, it is simply not worth it. If using a new soft-ware program takes an extended learning course on what to do and how to do it, it is simply not worth it.

A big part of the Internet revolution is the lowering and reducing the net number of hurdles the average information user must jump over before they get what they want from the computer. If the number of hurdles only increases and each gets higher, then the Information revolution becomes nothing but a new form of cybernetic tyranny.

Human Systems

by Hugh M. Lewis