Quantifying everything: Wolfram alpha and algorithms

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Wolfram Alpha is pretty great:  you type in a problem and it finds a solution.  It does this by transforming the natural language problem into computational elements and entries in its curated data set, and then running the computations.  Ta-Daa!  The solution appears, provided that the problem includes elements that are 1. reducible to computation and 2. include elements that are in the database.  Improving on 2. is easy enough, the argument goes:  simply add more things into the database.  If you want to calculate the likelihood that a word will occur in a Yeats poem, simply add more Yeats poems to the database and eventually you’ll get a meaningful result.

It’s principle 1. that’s potentially more problematic.  It raises the question about the extent to which all knowledge can be quantified.  In other words, it doesn’t explain why the repetition of words in a Yeats poem might be important.

Ahh, you say.  But that’s not science!  True, science is about quantifiablity.  But it is also about inquiry, about determining how to ask questions that are verifiable.  And it is about applying those questions generatively in order to develop new knowledge.  Wolfram Alpha’s founder has written about a new kind of science, which is based on simple rules that can be embodied in computer programs. I’m ready to be convinced, but I’m concerned that the Age of the Algorithm could mean the end of the Age of Inquiry.

My most memorable university exam included a question which asked me to differentiate special relativity from general relativity, and to explain how Einstein developed one from another.  I attempted to get Wolfram Alpha to compute this, but the closest result I got was this.  So far, inquiry is safe.

Free Access, Media Scarcity . . . . and the future of capitalism

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Last week I was wandering around the Pergamon Museum in Berlin, riffing with Wolf (an OII DPhil) about how knowledge gets produced and distributed.  We looked at Greek statues “collected” by the Germans, moved to Russia by the Sovietes for 50 years, and finally on public display – and discussed the radically different ways of knowing made possible in a world of globally produced, distributed, and commented information.  “It’s an amazing privilege” I said to Wolf.  “But what are the long term implications?  There’s always  controlling access to information.  In the middle ages it was all physically locked up in places like Oxford.  Now I’m worried it will come to be controlled in some other way.”

Over the next few days, talks by Lawrence Lessig and Cory Doctorow highlighted how the movement towards free access means that control over information, media (and maybe knowledge) threaten established business models and legal frameworks.  Lessig showed how current intellectual property law is so far out of sync with practices of remix that it is criminalizing a generation of kids who use media like ideas.  For Doctorow,  the key change for media has been the decreasing potential for making money by making media excludable (controlling who gets a copy of something.  Faced with the fact that the “internet is a perfect copying machine”, businesses are responding by trying to make it an imperfect copying machine.  Like Lessig, Doctorow thinks this is reactionary and counterproductive.  He thinks the only viable business models will be based on new understandings of how to distribute media/information/knowldege, and not on controlling its reproduction.  Free access has created unprecedented participation in culture – the current market economy doesn’t work if there’s an oversupply of art and undersupply of demand.

Back in Oxford, my colleague/flatmate Bernie picked up the thread.  He’s been thinking about how capitalism has always depended on scarcity.  Informational capitalism has exploded such that information is no longer scarce – it’s easy to copy and distribute.  So what becomes of capitalism?

These transformations of information/media use and reuse highlight the importance of access.  Access is reconfigured through and with technical changes, practices, laws.  Unlike 500 years ago, you don’t have to travel to Oxford to find information – but instead you have to negotiate licenses, torrents, remixes, and misinformation.  How to sort it all out, and whether this can happen under capitalism, is one of society’s next challenges.  It’s a far cry from determining who gets to store the Greek statues.

What is Privacy, Anyway? PrivacyOS in Berlin

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I’m so happy to be in Berlin with Ian Brown and 4 OII doctoral students, at the European Privacy Open Space.  At the same time as the re:publica media conference, it’s a collection of lawyers/students/private sector vendors.

But what is privacy?  Talk #1 discussed data privacy in terms of its economic value.  Talk #2, by a Microsoft guy designing a U-Prove token, talks about privay as an interface between some one individual and service providers who need to know all kinds of things:  “miniumum disclosure tokens” that provide the ability to verify aspects of someone’s identity without having to tell everything.

More privacy definitions as the conference continues.

UPDATE:  Day 2

Technical presentation on “Selective Access Control in Social Networks” – social networking privacy is facilitated by a layer controlled by public key encryption.  So for example the same profile details would be released to different social networks

Human readable privacy policies – privacy is a set of relationships that individuals have to understand in order to do things (buy, sell, read, write) online.  Therefore, human readable privacy policies and iconography needs to be developed so that people understand where their information is going, who it will be used by, and how. (As Ian points out, if there is no competition, such a proposal wouldn’t be very effective as there would be no reason to choose a company with more easy to read privacy policies).

According to these presenters, privacy can be a negotiation, a layer, an interface or even a value proposition.  But is understanding what we trade off when we spend time online really the same as having the privacy of a home, or the anonymity of public space?  Lots to think about still.

High Noon for Net Neutrality – EU style

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IPIntegrity reports that the EU’s “trialogues” – debates between the European Parliament, the European Council  and the European Commision are putting the future of the internet at risk: political dealmaking (and the power of the British and the French) risk undermining the current legislation.

Take a look at some of the proposed changes (excerpted from Monica Horten of IPIntegrity):

Framework directive Article 8

Under the European Parliament deal is this   text stays  in

European Parliament Art. 8.4 (fa) applying the principle that end-users

should be able to access and distribute

any lawful content and use any lawful

applications and/or services of their

choice;

if it  agrees to  this text:

Council:Art. 8.2 (b) ensuring that there is no distortion

or restriction of competition in the

electronic communications sector, with

particular attention to the provision of

wholesale services,

instead of this text:

(b) ensuring that there is no

distortion or restriction of competition

in the electronic communications sector,

in particular for the delivery of and

access to content and services across all

networks;

The alternative is you get this text: ( which removes users right to distribute information – a fundamental right under EU law).

Council Art 8.4 (g) applying the principle that endusers

should be able to access and

distribute information or run

applications and services of their choice.

—–

I just delivered a paper in which I argued that the EU treatment of net neutrality was not *too* bad, Not encouraging news for those interested in a free and open net.

“Digital Britain” – where’s real universal access?

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I’ve finally had a chance to read the interim “Digital Britain” report prepared by Simon Carter, the Minister for Communications, Technology and Broadcasting.  The report surveys a vast swathe of issues including copyright, radio spectrum reform, and television.  I was most interested in what it had to say about responsibilities for providing next generation (higher speed, fibre or 4G broadband) access, universal service, and digital inclusion.

Next generation access (NGA) is important because most of Britain’s internet traffic currently runs on copper. Broadband on copper can be slow, and congested. The telecom operators have not invested in fibre in many parts of the country, and that is part of the rationale for spurring investment in NGA.  But the report stays far, far away from any suggestion that rural or deprived areas would benefit:

Competing NGA infrastructures can drive down prices. But they can also drive
availability, particularly as mobile operators seeks to offer users the additional benefits
of mobility at increasingly higher speeds, and make available national offers which
fixed line players have to counter.

If these investments are carried to completion, we can reasonably expect at least half
of the UK population to have access to NGA services and possibly a periphery around
that- perhaps as much as 60 per cent or even more. (p.18)

Hmm, half the population?  As for the actual implementation plans, the report’s Actions mainly concern how to support a market-driven approach.  There is mention of the Community Broadband Network‘s fibre projects, and the creation of an umbrella group to provide technical support to community networks.  This will certainly help community networks get access to technical help, but as lots of research has already shown, there is no “out of the box” recipe for a successful community network.  They often provide benefits beyond connectivity in “market failure” environments.  Ofcom’s Consumer Panel recently published a report describing almost forty community projects aimed at developing local NGA.

So is everyone going to get universal NGA?  Probably not.  The report suggests that there will be a universal service guarantee – but it’s to provide 2.0Mb/second – by 2012.  With all this talk of next-generation networks, that seems a little bit like an advance apology for selling short some parts of the country.  The justification for the 2Mb level is based on British Telecom’s current service level, which leaves 1.75 million people unserved by 2Mb coverage.

All of this suggests a certain level of caution and “letting the market decide.”  But this could mean that Britain doesn’t ultimately capitalize on its potential.  There’s already been lots of criticism of the plan, and I agree that it doesn’t propose clear strategies, instead proposing the creation of “Task Forces” “Agencies” and “Umbrella Bodies.”  The Obama government has made investment in broadband infrastructure a key part of its economic recovery plans.  We should expect a bit more audacity – and forethought – from Carter and the British government.

Civil liberties in the network society

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In yesterday’s post I reflected on how battles for civil liberties were ways for people with less power to try and gain more power.  This is a fairly mainstream sociological perspective on power and the reasons that people engage in collective action. Today I’m going to ask how this changes in a network society.  The theorist of social movements Alberto Melucci writes in his book Challenging Codes that, “a social movement is an actor engaged in a conflict directly or indirectly affecting the distribution of power within a society.”  But I’d like to know:  is there some finite amount of power?  If so, where are the places where it is most concentrated?  What are today’s most significant struggles?

If we think of our society as being characterized by 1.  relationships structured by/through networked forms and networked infrastructures and 2. the high value placed on information, then it is easier to see why today’s struggles over power involve things like media reform and privacy.  Colin Bennett (among other privacy advocates) looks at how privacy is framed as a civil liberties issue.  He writes in The Privacy Advocates that “the protection of privacy has always featured prominently within the agendas of civil liberties organizations, historically concerned with the legitimate boundaries between the individual and state and with the protection of citizens from abuses of power” (p. 35).  One limitation of this perspective, as Bennet notes, is that it focuses on individual rights rather than collective (civil) rights.  We could imagine this perspective as a shield preventing the powerful state from abusing the powerless individual.

Maybe its possible to think of the individual – or the collective – as having power that can be disruptive.  Manuel Castells argues that any exercise of power also produces “counter-power.”  Any oppression produces resistance.  For example, the consolidation of global capital and information that the internet made possible was balanced out by the development of new social movements that opposed that power using the tools provided (the internet, global interaction).  Now that more of society can be thought of as working like a network, this power/counterpower relationship is developing.  Some of the important questions are:  who figures out how networks of influence and networks of infrastructure are going to operate?  Who makes the rules?

Developing counter-power that restructures how networks work is a good way of framing why media reform has become a big issue — and even why technical standards and protocols are becoming objects of political discussion.  But one of the big challenges of understanding power – and civil liberties – in a network society is actually determining where counterpower or resistance should be directed.  Castells claims that a pressing question is: “against whom do I revolt”?

This is exactly why issues of privacy and media reform are becoming more thorny.  It’s not simply a question of shielding individuals from the burly oppression of the state.  Many forms of power are ways of controlling our uncertainty about the world, and even a surveillance state can do that (the argument for surveillance cameras is often that they make people safer, as everyone is being watched).  It’s a question of determining *where* abuses of power come from -in the multi-layered networks of infrastructure, content, finance, and politics – and *how* to use the same networks to disconnect or route around those abuses.

Would you go to jail for your rights?

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I went to the British Library on Saturday to see the exhibit “Taking Liberties:  The struggle for Britain’s freedom and rights.” Beginning with the Magna Carta (on display!) it showed how unstable British politics have been, and for how long.

I was fascinated by the section on the long struggle to give women the vote.  The movement started in the 1860s, but the exhibit claimed that it didn’t have much success until after the First World War – women over 30 got the vote 1920, and women over 21 in 1928.  The Suffragettes were more organized, and more radical than I thought.  They blew up post boxes, stages rallies in the street, and accumulated criminal records.  In fact, so many of them went to jail in the 1890s and 1900s, and then went on hunger strikes in order to be released, that the government passed a new law.  The “Cat and Mouse” law permitted the government to release a woman after a hunger strike and then rearrest her as soon as she had gained enough weight not to die in jail.

It seems unimaginable now that the suffrage activists would have to go to such lengths to prove that women should be allowed the same democratic rights as men.  But female suffrage was very threatening to the moral and social order of the times.  If women were willing to blow up mailboxes in order to get the right to vote, who knows who they might vote for if they got the chance?

The exhibit was a good reminder that freedoms and rights are often grudgingly given by those with more power to those with less.  Those with less  are often called to put their beliefs on the line.  I started to ask myself, “would I be willing to go to jail for my rights?”  If ever my right to vote were revoked, I would like to belive I would.

Democracy (especially in Britain) sometimes seems wounded and tepid – with too much balancing to truly bring change.  But another amazing event of this week proves that it can still work.  Obama’s inauguration, and the vision of millions of people on Washington’s mall, suggest that people with less power, working together, can still shift the heavy machinery of government.    But we all need to be willing to push.

Starry Starry Night

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A perfect night out:

A river (preferably one of the world’s greatest waterways)
A boat
Lights
Tape to hold the lights on
8 oars
7 friends
Moon (rising)
Stars (Orion hanging just over the horizon)

I am falling into an epic love affair with the Thames. Tonight, the first night outing with my rowing club, was a serene marvel of flat water, sliding oars, stars, and speed. I hope for many, many more.

1/2 a laptop per child? OLPC cuts staff in half

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The Register notes that Nicholas Negroponte’s controversial One Laptop Per Child project is cutting half of its staff. The article mentions the project’s Give One Get One scheme where one laptop is donated to a poor country for every one purchased in a rich country. It’s hard, in this glaring credit-crunch light, not to see the project as a glorified corporate-giving scheme where the have-lots get an excuse to buy another interesting toy . . .

but that could just be my cynicism at the ideas that laptops are somehow necessary and sufficient for eduction.

On Communication as a Right

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My US-based colleague Sascha Meinrath recently published an editorial in the Guardian arguing that universal internet connectivity should become part of a new social contract for the United States. He argues that connectivity, like public safety and public space, should be available to all. After all, parks and other public services are freely available to US citizens, and internet infrastructure is equally important.

The comments on the story by British readers were very revealing about the way people think about public services. One commenter noted that parks were not freely accessible, as due to fears of pedophilia single childless adults were interrogated by park staff. Another compared the internet to a shopping mall – since it is primarily commercial, why provide public support?

These comments helped me to situate the UK’s seeming shortage of community broadband projects (I’m still looking for more of them!). I am still surprised to see how many “public” spaces are privatized (including parks that belong to the Royals). Meanwhile, the perceived erosion of basic public services in the UK seems to be making citizens wary of arguing for connectivity as public service, or – by extension – communication as a right.

The right to speak and to express opinions is the foundation of democracy. In an age when network infrastructure supports many of the ways we express these opinions publicly, equal access must be provided to everyone. This does not supercede the importance of clean water, shelter, and health care. It does ensure that we are free to speak, listen, and dissent – publicly.