From: natashavita@earthlink.net
Date: Wed Oct 16 2002 - 15:44:23 MDT
From: Eugene Leitl
>On Wed, 16 Oct 2002, natashavita@earthlink.net wrote:
>>Jim Halperin writes _The Truth Machine_. "Such a machine, for example,
>>would facilitate a totally redesigned criminal justice system, and
>>politicians would have to be extremely honest and forthright, as would
>>society as a whole. In short, it would completely change civilization
>>as we know it--a paradigm shift of epic proportions." (Paul M.
>>Heffernan)
>I don't think such a machine is really possible. Lying does involve
specific activity patterns in the brain, but this looks like something
requiring expensive hardware, extensive subject-specific calibration, and
have a high false positives rate. The technician would also be a
vulnerable element in the loop.<
____________________
An indifferent AI could solve the engineering problem of technician
interference and/or self-interest. Yes, falsifying information is inherent
in humans for survival. more sophisticated ability to alter information
become inherent in trans-posthumans for survival.
>Moreover, people in power would find ways to not expose their internals to
the world. The deployment of a truth machine would warp the shape of the
society around it, instead of making things as a whole more transparent.
Those low in the hierarchy will be made sure to be screened at every
opportunity. Consider drug tests. Is this something a CEO would do, unless
she knows she's safe, and it's good for the worker morale? Shit, no.<
____________________
Precisely. The only way a truth by truth society could survive is if
everyone, and I mean everyone, told the truth, eliminating any hierarchy or
need for privacy.
>>We have debated the idea of living in a world in which everyone tells the
>>truth. An "I will if you will" scenario.
>I have no idea what would happen to society if lying became transparent.
For everybody, every time. It is something profoundly unnatural to all
living things. Chimps cheat. Everybody does.<
______________________
I'm not so sure a transparent society would not be an inviting climate to
adapt to. Enlightenment certainly leans toward a course of honesty. I
think that it could be a healthy boot camp for self-discovery.
Last night I went to a seminar (WITI - Women in Technology) on negotiating
and the speaker (Tessa Albert Warschaw, Ph.D (best selling author) talked
to us about all sorts of deceptions in negotiating - business and personal.
Even on this level, speaking "truth" was more advantageous to the person in
the long run.
>>How do we measure privacy in a psychology of open source and truth?
>Open source has objective advantages. It's pants-down full disclosure,
tends to provide systems that earlier into their life cycle have higher
quality, less bugs, and discourages pointless innovation (i.e. change for
the sake of profit maximization). It encourages more benign forms of
cooperation, fostering a form of 'digital communism' and prestige
accounting by low-cost altruism.<
__________________________
I wonder if in the pants-down full disclosure if something therein is still
kept under the pantyline. There may be an open source and a very
privileged business strategy in coopetition.
>I don't see how else it chimes in with 'truth'.<
_________________________
I'm not sure. I think that the definition of "truth" is going to change.
First, because all values change over time and, second, because we need to
alter the meaning of truth to compliment our future selves.
Natasha
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