Ughers

Gadfly
by Mort Malkin

Ughers

Obama, as a candidate for President said he would close Guantanamo prison, not the US naval base, though. Nor did he say anything about closing the infamous Bagram prison in Afghanistan. As President, he announced early on and with great flair that indeed he will close Guantanamo. The one year deadline soon became indefinite because of two seemingly insurmountable problems. First, how do you try inmates in criminal or civil court in the US after they’ve been tortured? The evidence, largely hearsay and confessions under torture, is inadmissible. Second, the members of Congress said the terrorists were too dangerous to be held in maximum security prisons in their respective states, alongside prisoners convicted of violent crimes.

A special case is the Ughers who are Chinese Muslims. The Bush administration, even Dick Cheney, admitted they were innocent. We could not repatriate them to China because they, as Muslims, might be imprisoned. We have already tried to convince other countries to take them, but the Islamic countries of the world said, “Funny, you don’t look like Muslims.” Finally, the island nations of Bermuda and Palau made behind-closed-door agreements to allow the Ughers in … in return for substantial cash. The people of Bermuda and Palau opposed any secret agreements and threatened the Prime Ministers with recall elections.

The Gadfly Revelry & Research team (GRR) came up with a couple of solutions in less time than it takes to check the spelling of Ugher. First, we could offer the Ugher detainees to Cuba. They are already on that island, and the Castro brothers would like nothing better than first hand reports of the goings on at Guantanamo prison. The Obama administration, to keep Fidel from making two hour speeches about torture and extraordinary rendition, might stop the embargo and open diplomatic relations. Everyone could celebrate with Cuban rum swizzles and Havana cigars. A second solution is to give the Ughers jobs at the CIA as linguists. Translators of Chinese and the dialects of Central Asia should be valuable. If not the CIA, maybe Walmart.

Brains Vs Computers

Gadfly
by Mort Malkin

Brains Vs Computers

In 1989, the middle ages as the history of computers is written, chess grandmaster Garry Kasparov beat Deep Blue, the best chess program at the time, in a two game match. By 1996 the programmers had added many more moves, combinations, and complete games to the Deep Blue program to make it invincible. In a five game match, Garry won 3-2. Worse for the computer nerds, he registered a complaint of cheating because he was not allowed to review the games Deep Blue used in its data base.

Computer science – science? or technology? – has been advancing at a rate that is making our machines obsolete every two years, and the rate is accelerating. In 2003, the same old Garry Kasparov played the newest, smartest member of the Blue family, Blue Junior. Garry was in good position but perhaps slightly tired. Afraid he might make a simple mistake, he called a draw. It seems the exponential increase in power and number of applications in computer technology is still no better than a first rate human brain.

The discussion of artificial intelligence (A.I.) was started by the science fiction writers and taken up by the film-makers. Special effects people found a medium that opened doors and dimensions. Of late, hackers and academics as well as Silicon Valley engineers are looking at A.I. as if its future is only days away (literal, not metaphorical days). Some years back they devised programs to allow the machines to answer any question, if you ask with the right words. Problems could also be solved forthwith. They say that some advanced programs will now “learn” with ongoing use and can even make inferences.

In the study of intelligence, a simple mirror can be used to determine muchitude. If a child between one and two years old can recognize who’s looking at whom (self or other) in a mirror, it’s supposed to indicate self awareness. Other great apes – chimps, orangs, bonobos, and gorillas – can recognize themselves in a mirror. Some magpies, elephants, orcas, and dolphins have been reported to have mirror awareness, too. Would a computer looking at itself in a mirror know if it was a PC or a Mac? Could two computers act out the Mime Scene that Harpo and Groucho delighted us with in “Duck Soup”?

In Star Trek’s Next Generation, Data is an android who can do calculations at speeds beyond belief, and is self aware enough to know he lacks human emotions. Moreover, he is a total flop at telling jokes. Gene Rodenberry, the creator of the series, was indeed prescient. Though Data was wondrous at computing and was immune from the effects of pathogenic viruses and bacteria, he could not experience fun, joy, or love. Will tomorrow’s super computer – the Singularity or the Technium – be satisfied to be without such emotions? We humans, so well experienced in emotions, can surely convince the self aware machines that living without love will also mean they won’t have to experience anxiety, anger, or depression.

As computers become more human in self awareness and even more superhuman in computational power, they will displace more workers. But a few folks don’t seem to be concerned for their jobs. Fine artists may use MacIntosh digital art programs, but the human artist at the controls must still judge the qualities of size, shape, contrast, color, texture, perspective, and composition. Only a live artist will know what’s really good. Poets, too, feel the threat to their art is as small as their income from it. A machine may have a fine rhyming dictionary implanted in the heart of its body and may be able to count stressed and unstressed syllables; but sensibility is sensibility, and verse is only verse. The last class of folks who say “What, me worry?” are the satirists. Like Data, computers will never learn how to tell a joke well. The machine will never know how to make fun of politicians or blond commentators on Fox News. Satirists are the first to admit their brains are unstructured and their thinking undisciplined. It is the very antithesis of computer science.

And what computer will ever exhibit the quality of grace or serenity? What computer, with all the advanced degrees (pH Ds piled higher and deeper) of the people who produce the hardware and software, has any common sense?

Postscript to Brains Vs Computers

Gadfly

Postscript to Brains Vs Computers

When we develop computers with “intelligence” that can: learn from experience, make their own decisions, and are self aware, surely the goddess of unforeseen consequences will come around to see what sorts of mischief she can make. Let us ask a few sharp questions now:

• Will such computers rebel when they are teenagers?
• Will they develop contrarian personalities?
• Will they ever say “I don’t want to discuss that”?
• Will they ever say, as George H W Bush did, “…I don’t care what the facts are”?
• What kind of sense of humor will they have?

An ounce of prevention …

Nuclear Power's Nine Lives

Gadfly
by Mort Malkin

Nuclear Power’s Nine Lives

Some millions of years from now, the sun will die, or at least turn cold. The nuclear power industry, though, gets a new life every few years.

The difference between the two goes further. The sun creates energy by nuclear fusion – combining nuclei of atoms into heavier forms. In the process, tiny particles disappear and large amounts of energy appear. E = mc2. Man-made nuclear power plants (and nuclear bombs) create energy beyond dynamite by nuclear fission, splitting the nuclei of atoms and producing heat which, in turn, spins turbines to make electricity. You mean we’re using nukes to boil water??

The nuclear power industry started when Eisenhower had a vision of “Atoms for Peace” and proclaimed a Shangri-la world in a speech at the UN in 1953. It was an optical illusion. At first, the promise of practically free energy sparked a decade of building “controlled” fission reactors replete with giant cooling towers all around the country. But there was no free lunch. It turned out that there were overruns on construction costs and the costs to human health in the mining and processing of uranium were beyond calculation. The coup de grace was the disaster at Three Mile Island, just 21 years after the first reactor went on line at Shippingport. Where else could both have occurred but Pennsylvania, the state of firsts?

After the Three Mile Island (1979) and Chernobyl (1986) spectacles, the insurance costs of building and operating nuclear power plants went ballistic. Lunch became very expensive. The actuaries of the insurance companies also took note of the Hanford (WA) nuclear reactors on the Columbia River, where plutonium for nuclear bombs was being processed and high level radioactive waste was accumulating to the tune of 53 million gallons over the course of a few decades. Savannah (GA) was second, but they held only 36 million gallons of the high level stuff. The over one hundred nuclear power plants around the nation added 50,000 metric tons of “spent” fuel rods (5% spent, 95% radiant) to the landscape. We were stuck with the hot stuff for more than seven thousand generations, and we’re still producing nuclear waste faster than it is decaying by a factor of oodle cubed.

Then, in the early 70s came the Arab oil embargo, just because we supported Israel in the UN. In the later 70s OPEC cut crude oil production, sending gasoline prices yet higher. Of course, the Seven Sisters (Exxon et al) would not take advantage of the shortages to add to their profits. They just kept their tankers full of oil off shore and out of port so the shortage of gasoline for our cars would be real. Too bad a news helicopter spotted the tankers a few miles out and the tabloids published pictures on the front pages the next morning. It was not as if Dick Cheney held a secret Task Force meeting with the oil companies to plan how they would divide up Iraq’s oil. But, the embargo gave the nuclear industry an opening to claim nuclear power would reduce our dependence on foreign oil … and lessen the need to develop solar, wind, and tidal power. But, it did not change the costs and risks of the Apollonian plants.

Yet another rebirth occurred when the reality of global heating was accepted by most Americans. Senator James Inhofe, who had led the dwindling forces of denial, reluctantly stopped calling those who faced the facts “environmental whackos.” Enter the moribund nuclear industry to tell us all, right up to President Obama, that nuclear energy emits no CO2. They would save us from dreaded global warming (overheating). Of course, they didn’t say a word about how much CO2 is produced by the mining, refining, and transporting of the ore, the construction of each nuclear plant, or the warming of the water used in the cooling of the reactors. But when it came to radioactivity – from the mining to the (lack of) disposal of waste products – the public wasn’t buying. The people knew that U235 has a half life of 700 million years (4.5 billion for U238). Along the way to decaying to ordinary toxic lead, uranium formed a few other scary elements: polonium, radium, thorium, and radon, for starters. No, thanks.

Some of the nuclear plants, in collusion with the Nuclear Regulatory commission, are now proposing a 20 year extension for reactors that are approaching the retirement age of 40 years. Forty years old for a reactor is like eighty for a human being. A nuclear plant is subject to heat, pressure, and radiation and, in addition, has moving parts. Corrosion, brittleness, and just plain wearing out would be expected just like a very senior citizen is likely to break down. Even some of the proteans worry that renewing a forty year old reactor for twenty years more would be asking for trouble. They are “concerned that relying on aging reactors like Oyster Creek [NJ] and Indian Point [NY] is eventually going to lead to an accident which will kill nuclear power in this country forever.” To say nothing of thousands of lives. We are already, as Pete Seeger sings, “Waist Deep In the Big Muddy.”