John Ramwell

Apart from editing a bimonthly newsletter aimed at fellow ocean kayakers for over 40 years and writing over long letters to friends and family I’ve never consciously attempted to be a regular contributor for any media outlet; though I’ve have been known to write the occasional indignant letter to my local paper. On one occasion I brought the state of a local stream to my local council. Having seen the stream in question suddenly go a horrible grey colour and develop an awful smell which appeared to emanate from a factory, I contacted the relevant council department by email. They agreed to investigate.

On returning from a six week absence I saw there’d been no change.

‘Ah,’ I thought, ‘I’ll test out the power of the pen.’ And I wrote a carefully crafted letter to the newspaper. This worked. Even had a reporter round to follow the story up.

There was another occasion involving a local landowner blocking a favourite footpath when I managed a similar success.

But I’m not here to cement my status as your ‘Regular Correspondent.’ Perhaps I just felt it necessary to justify my ‘appointment!’

“We’ll get on with it then,” I can hear you all yelling. So I will.

There’s no shortage of material which I imagine will be of interest to you all. So for this edition I’ve chose to discuss the subject of Extrapolation and Artiﬁcial Intelligence, (A.I.).

As each of these subjects have taken up many volumes and exercised the minds of academics I imagine

you wondering about my audacity in bringing these complex subjects to your attention; apart from which they sound pretty boring.

Of course I have no qualiﬁcations on these subjects, only an interest and some information gleaned from Wikipedia and books: books such as ‘Homo Deus’ by Yuval Noah Harari, ‘21 Lessons for the 21st Century’ by the same author and the amazingly interesting book by Azeem Azhar, ‘Exponential.’

I feel it’s important to share my source of information… information supported by an overall interest in the road map ahead faced by my kids, grandkids and, as from three months ago, a great grandson. I know you’ll join me in this rationale for our shared interest in what follows.

We have entered the Exponential Age.

Of course, before you’ll agree to this we’ll need to agree a deﬁnition.

We all know that exponential growth leads to a mathematically astronomical growth. 1 to 2, 2 to 4, 4 to

8, etc. Before we know it, we are in the stratosphere of high numbers.

When we apply this growth to businesses or companies, which this piece is focusing on, we will be asking the following questions …

How does this level of growth happen in the ﬁrst place? How does this matter to us as individuals and society?

How do they maintain this level of growth in order to survive?

Is there anything we (governments) should be doing about such a level of growth?

Here are my stab at answers…

1. How does this level of growth happen in the ﬁrst place?

In a word, ‘Data.’ Data is the new gold. Individually it’s of no consequence. But collectively, when millions of us are contributing around the world, this is another matter entirely.

There are many ways now of collecting this data. Via the internet is the most eﬀective but I’ll share with you my own ‘paraﬃn moment.’ I use the voice control, Alexa. I get a kick out of turning on lights, television and cameras remotely by asking. I simply said to Jenny that I must get paraﬃn for the greenhouse heater. Within moments I was being asked by Amazon to check out their oﬀers on paraﬃn. Coincidental? I don’t think so.

So I’ve got rid of Alexa? Of course not. I’ve nothing to hide and am happy enough to contribute my personal data. In any case, should I have concern, it is possible to keep yourself beneath the ground - even though it takes a lot of eﬀort and a fairly sophisticated understanding of technology.

Who is likely to be interested in our browsing habits, which is our favourite food/drink, what are our interests, who do we bank with, are we savers or spenders, what are our opinions, policies and beliefs?

Once accumulated from us all and made available, with the use of artiﬁcial intelligence, data becomes a miraculous tool which is the reason why extrapolation is able to occur.

My father once told me about the time back in the 50s when he met Lord Leverhulme, then in charge of Lever Brothers and one of the biggest conglomerates in the city. They were discussing the eﬀectiveness and expense of advertising. The fact is, that back then, only 10% of the money spent on pushing soap was eﬀective. Move forward to this year when I was discussing this same issue with a relative who works for Screwﬁx who told me that for every £1 her company spent on advertising resulted in £11 increase in proﬁt.

It’s all about targeting promotions and thereby getting a lot more ‘bang for the buck.’

2. How does this matter to us as individuals and society?

Consider how our world has changed. One of the obvious examples is our shopping habits. As we’ve noticed our town and city shopping centres suddenly decline, we see such as Amazon, the company known to everyone, able to deliver anything to anywhere. They are devout disciples of technology as ascertained by any of you who make use of it as I’ve done. Need anything, no matter what, ask Alexa to arrange and next thing the Ring App. notiﬁes there is someone at the front door and, even when away from home, you can talk to the delivery guy and ask him/her to leave the parcel where ever. We’ve come a long way in a short time and, apparently, we ain’t seen nothing yet!

3. How do they maintain this level of growth in order to survive?

In a word, ‘technology.’ More precisely, A.I. or artiﬁcial intelligence. Put these two together then you have

a powerful tool that permits all ‘paraﬃn moments’ like mine as mentioned earlier to occur.

At its simplest form, artiﬁcial intelligence is a ﬁeld, which combines computer science and robust datasets, to enable problem-solving. It also encompasses sub-ﬁelds of machine learning and deep learning, which are frequently mentioned in conjunction with artiﬁcial intelligence.

Some say the exponential age started with computing in the 1970s, and that it continued on and quickened with the rise of global markets and the astounding way all new technologies are combined to generate more innovation. Look at how shipping, ports and the whole distribution system has changed within our times. No longer do we employ thousands to unload cargo vessels, no longer do we rely on shopping (please don’t remind Jen, my wife) when we can ask Alexa to order it and it (what ever ‘it’ is, be it fast food or replenishment of toilet paper) will be delivered to your door within the hour … okay! … depending on where you live.

Last but not least, powerful network eﬀects inﬂuence all aspects of the economy and our lives. Between faster computers, better software and more data, ours is the ﬁrst era in human history in which technology is constantly accelerating. Technology is developing at an increasing, exponential rate. But human society - from our businesses to our political institutions - can only ever adapt at a slower, incremental pace. The result is an 'exponential gap' - between the power of new technology and humans'

ability to keep up.

4. Is there anything we (governments) should be doing about such a level of growth?

This exponential gap can explain our society's most pressing problems. The gulf between established businesses and fast-growing digital platforms. The inability of nation states to deal with new forms of cyberwarfare. And the sclerotic response of liberal democracies to fast-moving social problems. Some also agree that this exponential gap is not inevitable. Drawing on ﬁelds as varied as economics, political science and psychology, it has to be possible to harness the power of tech to serve our real needs - fostering new ways of doing business, innovative forms of politics, and fresh approaches to national defence.

Yet if we take the really grand view of life, all other problems and developments are overshadowed by three interlinked processes:

1. Science is converging on an all-encompassing dogma, which says that organisms are algorithms and life is data processing.

2. Intelligence is decoupling from consciousness.

3. Non-conscious but highly intelligent algorithms may soon know us better than we know ourselves.

These three processes raise three key questions, which I hope will stick in your mind. Are organisms really just algorithms, and is life really just data processing?

What’s more valuable - intelligence or consciousness?

What will happen to society, politics and daily life when non-conscious but highly intelligent algorithms know us better than we know ourselves. When any organisation starts to accrue such size when it, itself, requires control or else … we’re all in trouble. Of course I know that none of this comes as a revelation to any of you but only by a universal acceptance can we have a joined up approach to coping with it at worst or dealing with it at best.

These changes are occurring around us at a speed that is diﬃcult to keep pace with. Are they …complex - yes: relevant to each of us - certainly; boring - never.

A ﬁnal footnote..

I got the most recent Fitbit watch for Xmas which has Alexa built in. I’m now able to go in the back garden and speak into my watch to turn on the pond pumps, the shed lights, the house heating & lighting, the cameras, the toilet ﬂush, listen to my book, add to my shopping list, play music, listen to the radio, etc. etc. Who’d have thought it?

I’ve always been interested in this use of technology to remotely control things.

Of course modern technology doesn’t rely on Alexa to collect data on each and everyone of us. Street cameras, on line shopping, use of devices/laptops/PCs/mobile telephones, are all used to soak up data from us. You’d need to escape to a deep hole to be unlikely to contribute to this modern use of technology to collect personal information.

I realise it is all insidious but it’s the way of the world.

P.S. only joking about the toilet ﬂush!