How algorithms secretly run the world

People need to realize, Skynet is already born in the form of intelligent algorithms. This is really out of our control at the end of the day because we don't have a full understanding of intelligence and when consciousness is swithched on so to speak. We're creating an intelligence that will have a higher IQ than any human that has ever lived.

We will become more dependent on these algorithms as they become more intelligent. They will be like an oracle because of Big Data. Big Data will be the end of mankind as we know it. It's no surprise that the explosion of these intelligent algorithms corresponds to the explosion of Big Data.

What is big data?

Every day, we create 2.5 quintillion bytes of data — so much that 90% of the data in the world today has been created in the last two years alone. This data comes from everywhere: sensors used to gather climate information, posts to social media sites, digital pictures and videos, purchase transaction records, and cell phone GPS signals to name a few. This data is big data.

www-01.ibm.com...

Here's more from the article.

When you browse online for a new pair of shoes, pick a movie to stream on Netflix or apply for a car loan, an algorithm likely has its word to say on the outcome.

The complex mathematical formulas are playing a growing role in all walks of life: from detecting skin cancers to suggesting new Facebook friends, deciding who gets a job, how police resources are deployed, who gets insurance at what cost, or who is on a "no fly" list.

Algorithms are being used -- experimentally -- to write news articles from raw data, while Donald Trump's presidential campaign was helped by behavioral marketers who used an algorithm to locate the highest concentrations of "persuadable voters."

But while such automated tools can inject a measure of objectivity into erstwhile subjective decisions, fears are rising over the lack of transparency algorithms can entail, with pressure growing to apply standards of ethics or "accountability."

www.yahoo.com...

Big Data will grow even more with the internet of things. Humans could be selected for extinction because we will reach a point where humans have no control of our environment because we have no control over the information that's being generated. You have algorithms that can tell how intelligent someone is by looking at their profile photo.

Algorithms can predict a person’s intelligence based on social network photos as accurately as humans can and without faulty stereotyping, reveals a new study from Cambridge Judge Business School.

The findings: machines using factors such as a photo’s colour, composition and texture predict a person’s “measured intelligence” as accurately (or marginally better) as humans do, while humans use inaccurate cues such as eyeglasses in judging “perceived intelligence”.

This has important implications for hiring and other practices in which profile photos are routinely reviewed.

“The fact that machines can accurately judge intelligence poses an obvious privacy risk, as social media profile photos are normally public by default,” says research paper co-author Dr David Stillwell, deputy director of the Psychometrics Centre at the Judge.

www.cambridge-news.co.uk...

I think it's easy to see that Artificial Intelligence will eventually take over. It has to because of the growth of big data. Humans will have no control over our environment without these algorithms making sense out of all the data that's being produced.

We will either become cyborgs or we will end up in ancestor simulations because these simulations can process vast amounts of information. We're probably in one right now.

Too far fetched. Not a problem.

I think this post is a bit of an example of man's current arrogance. Thinking that we have reached the limits of all that can be done, doom porn added in for good measure.

a reply to: misterhistory

Yes, we're reaching those limits because of Big Data.

The human mind needs machine intelligence because there's too much data. Look at just one website.

Every second, on average, around 6,000 tweets are tweeted on Twitter, which corresponds to over 350,000 tweets sent per minute, 500 million tweets per day and around 200 billion tweets per year.

There's no way a human can look through all of this data. Just on this one website we need algorithms to make connections and make sens of all of this data.

Here's a recent article about how "machines with brains" might solve one of the biggest problems in Physics and change the world.

I work in computational quantum condensed-matter physics: the study of matter, materials, and artificial quantum systems. Complex problems are our thing.

Researchers in our field are working on hyper-powerful batteries, perfectly efficient power transmission, and ultra-strong materials—all important stuff to making the future a better place. To create these concepts, condensed-matter physics deals with the most complex concept in nature: the quantum wavefunction of a many-particle system. Think of the most complex thing you know, and this blows it out of the water: A computer that models the electron wavefunction of a nanometer-size chunk of dust would require a hard drive containing more magnetic bits than there are atoms in the universe.

One small breakthrough in condensed-matter physics could change everything. Complexity, and the challenge of tackling complex problems with existing technology, is what keeps me up at night. The most complex problem is understanding the wavefunction of a many-particle quantum system with sufficient accuracy to design new quantum materials and devices. When DeepMind beat Sedol, I began to wonder: Could machine learning help us solve the most complex problem in physics? The most complex problem in physics could be solved by machines with brains.

qz.com...

Again, this is just a fact. We're being overwhelmed with Big Data and it will take intelligent machines to make sense of the data.

It will get even worse with the internet of things. It will not just be tweets, facebook posts and cancer screenings but information generated by cars talking to each other and exchanging information or the growing trend of smart houses generating data.

a reply to: neoholographic

I know quite a bit about this space. 100% dead on.

The problem is many have no clue how far along we actually are toward this extreme peril. Our entire global economy is already mostly there....everything from your credit and insurance scores to what is marketed to you to how equities are bought and sold.

There also seems to be no stopping of any of it.

People laugh at this, but they really shouldn't.

a reply to: neoholographic

We are held captive - in all its dark implications - in a John Nash Equilibrium Prison, so, this is not to far off. It is why the middle class of the world is stagnating and being destroyed.

I'm a trader......they are what we see in the whipsaws....

The retracements are algors...gone off on their own..... and near as I can tell.....can only be manipulated twenty points past their momentum.....

Like Elliott wave analysis misses by 15 points......due to the strings being pulled

Edit.....the market morphed a year ago.......the price action behavior......morphed

a reply to: neoholographic

What's the problem with algorithms? This stuff comes across as having been written by people who are clueless.

One thing comes to mind sometimes is how much does technology control us, as opposed how much we control it? I think back on all those console games I played growing up. Did they change me in a bad way?

Modern living has probably changed us. And in ways we can't predict because there're too many intermingling factors.

a reply to: Aazadan

I agree. Does the OP knows that algorithm doesn't mean artificial intelligence, but actually maths?

a reply to: neoholographic

Forgive me but you seem to be confusing algorithm with artificial intelligence. The two are not synonymous. An algorithm is a a method humans use to sort something out. Your op basically is saying that using maths is evil, which is kind of making me chuckle to be honest.

originally posted by: swanne
a reply to: Aazadan

I agree. Does the OP knows that algorithm doesn't mean artificial intelligence, but actually maths?

Obviously you don't understand artificial intelligence which depends on INTELLIGENT ALGORITHMS.

For instance, here's an article about Google's DeepMind:

The future of artificial intelligence begins with a game of Space Invaders.

This player, it should be mentioned, is not human, but an algorithm on a graphics processing unit programmed by a company called DeepMind. Instructed simply to maximise the score and fed only the data stream of 30,000 pixels per frame, the algorithm -- known as a deep Q-network – is then given a new challenge: an unfamiliar Pong-like game called Breakout, in which it needs to hit a ball through a rainbow-coloured brick wall. "After 30 minutes and 100 games, it's pretty terrible, but it's learning that it should move the bat towards the ball," explains DeepMind's cofounder and chief executive, a 38-year-old artificial-intelligence researcher named Demis Hassabis. "Here it is after an hour, quantitatively better but still not brilliant. But two hours in, it's more or less mastered the game, even when the ball's very fast. After four hours, it came up with an optimal strategy -- to dig a tunnel round the side of the wall, and send the ball round the back in a superhuman accurate way. The designers of the system didn't know that strategy."

www.wired.co.uk...

If you didn't know how important algorithms are to artificial intelligence then you need to read a book or study an article about artificial intelligence before making a comment on the subject.

We have been dealing with algorithms since before we invented computers. We had mortgages and insurance and investments. Nothing new here just doom porn society going to fall apart and a computer will take over. Let me assure you could never happen. We will always be in control of the almighty power cord.

a reply to: neoholographic

I program AI as a hobby, mate.

I know what I'm talking about.

Yes, AI depends on algorithms. But that still doesn't make algorithms "artificial intelligences", no more than writing an equation on the black board will make the board self-aware.

originally posted by: loam
a reply to: neoholographic

I know quite a bit about this space. 100% dead on.

The problem is many have no clue how far along we actually are toward this extreme peril. Our entire global economy is already mostly there....everything from your credit and insurance scores to what is marketed to you to how equities are bought and sold.

There also seems to be no stopping of any of it.

People laugh at this, but they really shouldn't.

Exactly!

It gives a new definition to the words "invisible hand."

A super intelligence would have control of these algorithms which will eventually underline everything. It's easy to see how A.I. can take control. Hopefully, it's benevolent.

I suspect super intelligence will manifest itself in different ways. So some A.I. may have evil intentions and say let's wipe them out while other A.I. will say that's not the right thing to do.

The only way this can be avoided is if there's some catastrophe that puts a halt to technological progress.

originally posted by: swanne
a reply to: neoholographic

I program AI as a hobby, mate.

I know what I'm talking about.

Yes, AI depends on algorithms. But that still doesn't make algorithms "artificial intelligences", no more than writing an equation on the black board will make the board self-aware.

Did you even read what you wrote? It makes no sense.

Of course these algorithms are artificial intelligence that's why there called learning algorithms and intelligent algorithms. When you say artificial intelligence what do you mean?

By the looks of your post, you're equating artificial intelligence to a black board which is just ASININE!

a reply to: neoholographic

"Algorithm" isn't a substance, silly. AIs can't "control algorithms", any more than you can steal someone's Pi constant.

a reply to: neoholographic
You're the one who's not making sense. You make the mistake of confusing ensemble subsets with elements equality.

If you use a spoon to eat, does that mean that you're a spoon?

originally posted by: swanne
a reply to: neoholographic

"Algorithm" isn't a substance, silly. AIs can't "control algorithms", any more than you can steal someone's Pi constant.

You're not making any sense.

You don't have any clue as to what you're talking about. You're trying to separate AI from Algorithms which is just ASININE!

Your whole analogy about the black board shows you don't know what you're talking about. You said:

Yes, AI depends on algorithms. But that still doesn't make algorithms "artificial intelligences", no more than writing an equation on the black board will make the board self-aware.

What a silly statement!

a reply to: neoholographic

Artificial intelligence (AI) is intelligence exhibited by machines. In computer science, the field of AI research defines itself as the study of "intelligent agents": any device that perceives its environment and takes actions that maximize its chance of success at some goal.[1] Colloquially, the term "artificial intelligence" is applied when a machine mimics "cognitive" functions that humans associate with other human minds, such as "learning" and "problem solving"

I think what swanne is saying is that Artificial Intelligence in it's true sense, is not really here, since possibilities the machines are choosing from are manmade and not of the machines own creation. What we have today is more machine learning which is a step to A.I. but is still another animal techincally since the whole definition isn't there, once an A.I. is learning and acting on it's own accord, without ANY human input, then I would say that we have A.I.

Even Googles Deep Mind is more machine learning than A.I., however Deepmind is closer than many because it's actually learning from experience.