The Ghost in Wall Street’s Shell
May 6th, 2007I’ve written several stories about how I’ve dabbled with this stuff. Here are a few colorful examples:
Insider Crimes, Funny Money and Options Rackets
U.S. Dollar Index Breaches Significant Weekly Supports
Now, here’s an interesting article that looks at the efforts of the people who play these games with billions of dollars on the line. Notice a frightening similarity between their antics and my past antics (besides the amounts of money involved)?
For one thing, I don’t have a PhD. And for another, I never showed up to “work” in anything resembling a suit. So there!
Via: Bloomberg:
Way up in a New York skyscraper, inside the headquarters of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc., Michael Kearns is trying to teach a computer to do something other machines can’t: think like a Wall Street trader.
In his cubicle overlooking the trading floor, Kearns, 44, consults with Lehman Brothers traders as Ph.D.s tap away at secret software. The programs they’re writing are designed to sift through billions of trades and spot subtle patterns in world markets.
Kearns, a computer scientist who has a doctorate from Harvard University, says the code is part of a dream he’s been chasing for more than two decades: to imbue computers with artificial intelligence, or AI.
Note: In case you don’t get the Ghost in the Shell reference:
The setting of Ghost in the Shell is cyberpunk or postcyberpunk, similar to that of William Gibson’s Sprawl trilogy and other post/cyberpunk works. However, Shirow’s work is focused more tightly on the ethical and philosophical ramifications of the widespread merging of humanity and technology. The development of artificial intelligence and an omnipresent computer network set the stage for a reevaluation of human identity and uniqueness.
In light of your reference to Ghost in the Shell, and its theme of cybernetic possession, an interesting question emerges: will AI’s be even better vessels for possession than the humans who created them, or will they become just another competing force (among the many that have existed for aeons) in the struggle to occupy the real estate of the human soul?
I’m in danger of veering far off the subject here, but Slomo touches on a question I’ve pondered occasionally. Though I cannot conceive of a fully ‘tech’ machine ever reaching true AI status (consciousness) I could conceive of such occurring in a machine which had neural tissue as its CPU. I’ve sometimes wondered whether such a machine could be possessed by, shall we say, non-corporeal entities. I hope this doesn’t get me banned from posting comments. Probably wouldn’t mention this were it not for the fact I’m posting after two and a half Elephant beers and a great conversation with my friend sitting on the grass under the stars in the front yard. Yeah, I know, even more off topic…Good night 🙂
will AI’s be even better vessels for possession than the humans who created them, or will they become just another competing force (among the many that have existed for aeons) in the struggle to occupy the real estate of the human soul?
I would say the latter is more accurate, already humans devote large portions of their brainpower to carrying out algorithms.
A corporation is a resource-allocation algorithm that runs on a human substrate. (Egregore to some of you) It’s function is to optimize the profit curve.
Depending on your definitions, you could say the modern corporation represents an example of a self-optmizing and reinforcing process of the type described by Eliezer Yudkowsky as potentially being singularity seeds. Good thing the clock rate is so slow.
Oh yeah, Charlie Stross’ Accelerando talks about corps as machines, too.
Dennis, I take responsibility for opening up the OT non-corporeal entity question. But once you accept the idea of non-corporeal (or extra-corporeal) intelligences, whatever their substrate, several possibilities emerge: (1) the purpose of the legal fiction of the corporation is to give legal status to nc beings; (2) the purpose of computing and communications infrastructure, and the holy grail of AI, is to give free corporeal range-of-motion to these beings.
There is a tendency in circles such as this one to assign agency in our fucked-up situation to a small number of so-called elites. A personal working hypothesis of my own is that the situation is more complex, and possibly more sinister: that the most powerful decision-making human beings on this planet are possessed (consenting or not) by larger forces that have an agenda all their own. This is really just a subtle shift in perspective, but I believe it clarifies a number of issues.
I think you’re right in that it is not the human elite that holds the latimate power over our trajectory but the mega-machine. the cybernetic meta-being being the brain, and the entire industrial/electrical infrastructure its body
Slomo, I’m intrigued by your angle on how corporations law opens the door to legal status for NC beings and the possibility of their scope of influence being greatly enhanced via tech-based communications systems.
On the matter of possession I think there are many whose characters or personalities are sufficiently corrupted as to not require continued influence. Being of corrupted mind they can be left to function autonomously and still serve a ‘useful’ purpose. Of course, the more darkened a psyche the more opportunities that exist for fruitful influence by a (not so nice) NC entity but the flip side is that once the damage is done such influence may not always be required to any great extent. Wind ’em up and watch ’em go.
I guess the point I’m trying to make is that someone can be under a very powerful influence without being possessed per se. I imagine those in strategically very important positions of power, rank or social standing would be jealously guarded and groomed for their role as mediums of expression and agents of change but that this may be accomplished by covert rather than overt means and perhaps what we call possession is actually something which occurs by degrees.
But what do I know?
On the subject of possession, I’m going off a model I first encountered at Ran Prieur’s site, e.g. his recent statement “But a large part of human nature is to be an empty vessel for possession.” I can’t quite remember what Ran’s influences are on that subject, but they could, in part, be D. Jensen’s more recent work.
To truly appreciate what I’m getting at, you have to see that these entities (or “programs” if you want to remove the woo-woo factor) have a very long time horizon, e.g. centuries. Some people are possessed their entire lives, living out a predetermined algorithm, all the while thinking they are autonomous. In fact, probably most people fall in that category. Think in terms of cellular automata.
I personally believe the true dimensions of this lie outside time, i.e. we are living on a chessboard organized by “acausal” entities. In fact, I don’t really believe that time exists outside human (or perhaps mammalian) consciousness. But this is too much Wellsian weirdness for some people, so I generally try to keep discussions relatively grounded.
It seems I have a different worldview but it’s striking how on some matters there is agreement despite differing terminology. It seems from your last post and a cursory look at Prieur’s website that you see these entities are essentially memetic.
I think memes are primarily means of influence and not the source itself even though, in interaction with the human psyche and society over time, they develop into other forms (as a seed of unknown origin eventually grows into its adult form subject to the environment in which it grows), that time is real (though not absolutely so) but intra-dimensional (it’s evidenced by change), and that there is only one truly acausal (in the sense of ‘without cause’ Entity.
Your allusion to a chessboard reminded me of the last chapter of C.S.Lewis’s ‘The Great Divorce’:
http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/m759/2003/11/12
Correction: 4th line ‘as’ not ‘are’.
Haha, Dennis, the Great Divorce is a good book, I admire C.S. Lewis’s work even though I consider myself neo-pagan, not a Christian. But, if you choose the right entity mapping, you can arrive at similar conclusions about the nature of the world from either viewpoint. Problem is that Christianity has been used in the service of some of the most hostile entities/algorithms.
I don’t really have a strong opinion about what these entities are exactly, just that they do indeed seem to exist and have a life and mind of their own.
I may be veering off-topic (Kevin seems to hate that) so I’ll stop for now. I’ve written out some of my thought processes in the blog I’ve just attached to my name if you want to see where I’m coming from. Cheers!