What is Data and What Can it be Used For?

2020 ◽  
Vol 2 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jakob Svensson ◽  
Oriol Poveda Guillén

In this article we describe the rise of a data orthodoxy that we suggest to label ‘data-essentialism’. We question this data-essentialism by problematizing its premises, and unveil its ideological indebtedness to deeper (previous) currents in Western thought and history. Data-essentialism is the assumption that data is the essence of basically everything, and thus provides the ideological underpinnings for the imagination of creating an Artificial Intelligence (AI) that would transform the human race and our existence. The imagination of data as an essence is in contrast to, while often conflated with, ideas of data as traces we leave behind existing in highly connected societies. This confusion over what data is, and can be used for, underlines the importance to engage in questions of the nature of data, whether everything in the universe can be described in terms of data and the implications of subscribing to such a data-essentialist worldview. We connect data-essentialism to a revival of positivism, critique a belief in the objectivity of data and that predictions based on data correlations can be fully accurate. We end the article with a discussion of how some aspects of AI rely on data-essentialist accounts and how these have a history and roots in Modernity.

Author(s):  
Gianfranco Pacchioni

About 10,000 years ago, at the beginning of the agriculturalrevolution, on the whole earth lived between 5 and 8 million hunter-gatherers, all belonging to the Homo sapiens species. Five thousand years later, freed from the primary needs for survival, some belonging to that species enjoyed the privilege of devoting themselves to philosophical speculation and the search for transcendental truths. It was only in the past two hundred years, however, with the advent of the Industrial Revolution, that reaping nature’s secrets and answering fundamental questions posed by the Universe have become for many full-time activities, on the way to becoming a real profession. Today the number of scientists across the globe has reached and exceeded 10 million, that is, more than the whole human race 10,000 years ago. If growth continues at the current rate, in 2050 we will have 35 million people committed full-time to scientific research. With what consequences, it remains to be understood. For almost forty years I myself have been concerned with science in a continuing, direct, and passionate way. Today I perceive, along with many colleagues, especially of my generation, that things are evolving and have changed deeply, in ways unimaginable until a few years ago and, in some respects, not without danger. What has happened in the world of science in recent decades is more than likely a mirror of a similar and equally radical transformation taking place in modern society, particularly with the advent ...


Author(s):  
K. P. V. Sai Aakarsh ◽  
Adwin Manhar

Over many centuries, tools of increasing sophistication have been developed to serve the human race Digital computers are, in many respects, just another tool. They can perform the same sort of numerical and symbolic manipulations that an ordinary person can, but faster and more reliably. This paper represents review of artificial intelligence algorithms applying in computer application and software. Include knowledge-based systems; computational intelligence, which leads to Artificial intelligence, is the science of mimicking human mental faculties in a computer. That assists Physician to make dissection in medical diagnosis.


Author(s):  
Nandini Sen

This chapter aims to create new knowledge regarding artificial intelligence (AI) ethics and relevant subjects while reviewing ethical relationship between human beings and AI/robotics and linking between the moral fabric or the ethical issues of AI as used in fictions and films. It carefully analyses how a human being will love robot and vice versa. Here, fictions and films are not just about technology but about their feelings and the nature of bonding between AIs and the human race. Ordinary human beings distrust and then start to like AIs. However, if the AI becomes a rogue as seen in many fictions and films, then the AI is taken down to avoid the destruction of the human beings. Scientists like Turing are champions of robot/AI's feelings. Fictional and movie AIs are developed to keenly watch and comprehend humans. These actions are so close to empathy they amount to consciousness and emotional quotient.


Author(s):  
Faisal Devji
Keyword(s):  

While Gandhi spoke frequently about humanity and humanitarianism, he was deeply suspicious of any attempt to serve or even speak in the name of the human race. In Hind Swaraj or Indian Home Rule, his manifesto from 1909, he wrote, ‘I am so constructed that I can only serve my immediate neighbours (āspās vastā mānaso in the Gujarati text), but in my conceit I pretend to have discovered that I must with my body serve every individual in the Universe. In thus attempting the impossible, man (mānas jāt) comes in contact with different natures, different religions, and is utterly confounded’ (Gandhi 2008: 42). Gandhi considered the effort to address mankind as a whole fundamentally violent, and often described it as a sin. This was because man’s universality could only become manifest by destroying the social particularities that both obscured and made it possible.


2000 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-19 ◽  
Author(s):  
François de Blois

Since the time when the human race first began to speculate about the origin of the universe there have been two cosmological models that have seemed particularly attractive to its imagination. One has been to derive everything in the world from a single primal origin, out of which the cosmos, in all its apparent complexity, evolves. The other has been to view the history of the universe as a battle between two opposing forces which contradict and undermine each other. The two views can be called monism and dualism. They are not the only possibilities. There have been systems that posit three, four or an indefinite number of principles, but most of these have also tended to assume one basic pair of opposites with one or more neutral or intermediate principles beside them; this too can be seen as a form of dualism.


Author(s):  
Jerry Kaplan

Over the coming decades, Artificial Intelligence will profoundly impact the way we live, work, wage war, play, seek a mate, educate our young, and care for our elderly. It is likely to greatly increase our aggregate wealth, but it will also upend our labor markets, reshuffle our social order, and strain our private and public institutions. Eventually it may alter how we see our place in the universe, as machines pursue goals independent of their creators and outperform us in domains previously believed to be the sole dominion of humans. Whether we regard them as conscious or unwitting, revere them as a new form of life or dismiss them as mere clever appliances, is beside the point. They are likely to play an increasingly critical and intimate role in many aspects of our lives. The emergence of systems capable of independent reasoning and action raises serious questions about just whose interests they are permitted to serve, and what limits our society should place on their creation and use. Deep ethical questions that have bedeviled philosophers for ages will suddenly arrive on the steps of our courthouses. Can a machine be held accountable for its actions? Should intelligent systems enjoy independent rights and responsibilities, or are they simple property? Who should be held responsible when a self-driving car kills a pedestrian? Can your personal robot hold your place in line, or be compelled to testify against you? If it turns out to be possible to upload your mind into a machine, is that still you? The answers may surprise you.


Xihmai ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 5 (9) ◽  
Author(s):  
Manuel Alberto Morales Damián

2012:  IDEAS  MAYAS  ACERCA  DE  LA  RENOVACIÓN CíCLICA DEL UNIVERSO. 2012:                MAYA‟S    CIVILIZATION     IDEAS   ABOUT    THE CYCLIC RENEWAL OF THE UNIVERSE.       Resumen El pensamiento maya con respecto a la astronomí­a y el calendario poseen una gran originalidad y corresponden a una forma de entender la realidad completamente  diferente  a  la  del  pensamiento  occidental.  Los  mayas conciben que el tiempo está sujeto a recurrencias cí­clicas (dí­a-noche, año solar, perí­odos de 52 años), cada una de las cuales supone la destrucción y renovación del cosmos. Por otra parte, las supuestas profecí­as mayas acerca de un evento astronómico el próximo 21 de diciembre de 2012, en realidad no son acordes a la cosmovisión maya prehispánica, coinciden sin embargo con temores milenaristas propios del pensamiento occidental que se agudizan en una época de crisis global.   Palabras Clave: Mayas, religión, astronomí­a, profecí­as del 2012.   Abstract Mayan  thought  in  respect  to  astronomy  and  the  calendar  have  a  great originality and correspond to a way of understanding a complete different reality to the one of the western thought. Mayan people conceive that time is subject to cycle recurrences (day-night, solar year, and periods of 52 years), each one supposes destruction and renovation of cosmos. On the other hand, the supposed Mayan prophecies about an astronomical event next December 21st  2012, do not in fact agree with the view of the world of the pre Hispanic Mayans, however they coincide with millennial fear proper of the western thought that worsen in this times of global crisis.   Key words: Mayans, religion, astronomy, 2012 prophecies.      


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