The pursuit of silence

I'm listening to some music right now. Far too loud - even my daughter complained! It's stuff I used to listen to 30 years ago. And by dragging me back 30 years to when life was simpler, well, mine was anyway, it's made me realise something I never understood before. Silence isn't really about sound. Listening to Horlsips blasting out The Man Who Built America at 95dB, my mind is quieter than it has been for a long time. And this kind of silence is wonderful. Maybe this is what all those millions of people who meditate are after. Silence is golden. Hardly news to the world as a whole, but it is to me on a personal experiential level. I always thought it meant absence of sound, but it doesn't, it's about mental silence, inner peace, something I'm not used to. And I like it.

So now I want a new piece of technology that I never thought I'd ever want. I want to be able to switch off part of my mind sometimes. I still want to be able to increase my mental stimulation level on call just as I've always sought to do, using music, games, documentaries or whatever - I'm sure that will always be the way I am, terrified of being bored. But sometimes I want to be able to hide in an inner cave and pull down some internal mental shutters. I don't need to switch off the externals, they aren't the problem, just the endless internal thought traffic. To switch off the monitor circuits, the inner shells of consciousness.

Technology should be able to deliver on this one in due course. Transcranial magnetic stimulation can already deactivate parts of the brain temporarily. What is needed is a little more focus and a little more understanding of the brain so that we can determine exactly what to deactivate, what fields are needed to do so safely to the right level, and the means to deliver the required fields. I guess this will mean electronic drugs in effect, doing in electronics what drugs do chemically. But I don't take drugs, never have (except alcohol), and don't want to start. And I do wnat to achieve mental silence. I want to switch off my monitor circuits and concentrate on pure thoughts, or on enjoying stimulation such as music, without the additional internal noise of all the other mental activities going on that corrupt he enjoyment of experience now.

I guess lots of people reading this will wonder what the hell the problem is, since maybe they do it all the time. But I can't. And I don't want to spend 50 years learning how to do meditation either.  But silence is golden, and I want to experience it again.

The future of zombies

Zombies are coming.They might arrive around 2075.

I like Zombies, or more accurately, I like killing them. I shoot hundreds of them every week on my xbox, in games like Half Life, Oblivion and Dead Space. There are a fair few zombie films around too, so we just love being terrified by zombies. I think perhaps the big attraction is that they are extremely scary (when done right) totally fictional, only a bit human-like, and of course dead anyway, so it doesn't come with any guilt. So, I got to thinking whether they will always be fictional, or whether there is some prospect of them arriving, and if so, what can we do about it? Will it be like the computer games and movies, or different? Here goes. Bear with me, since you need to look first at the basic foundations of the technology platform on which their arrival will depend.

Nanotechnology is feeding in to neuroscience by enabling finer probes that can assist scientists in reverse engineering it. Biotechnology and IT are slowly converging, with insights in AI helping brain science and vice versa, but also in that we can now make rudimentary connections between IT and our nervous systems. Synthetic biology is rapidly getting to grips with basic tools and techniques used by nature, and improving on some of them, replicating others, to make entirely synthetic components of future biological systems. We are already designing bacteria to do specific protein engineering tasks, break down waste, and provide sensory capability So, lots of interesting tech going on.

Listing a few of the important (from a Zombie perspective anyway) outcomes of such research, we can now connect IT to nerve tissue (and the connections are rapidly becoming finer thanks to nanotech). We can modify DNA and simulate and then assemble a wide range of proteins (although this is still very limited and very slow). We are starting to understand some of the basic principles of how to make smart and conscious machines and are already very good at distributed processing, self organisation, sensing and data storage and distribution. In the not too far future, we will be able to enhance human senses by linking various synthetic sensors to our brains. We will be able to link to peripheral nerves to pick up sensations and relay them across networks, stimulating equivalent nerves in other people to create the same or at least similar sensations in them. In IT, we have already progressed some way along the multi-core and distributed processing time-lines, and it is foreseeable that in the far future, computing my well be done by billions of tiny processors suspended in a gel, using optical interconnects. In fact, using progress in biotech and synthetic biology, it is equally foreseeable that this will be done by using bacteria to assemble the IT in their own cells, and using their own energy to power the circuits.

So, round about the time we figure out how the brain works well enough to connect properly to it, we will also be designing conscious machines and very probably using smart bacteria as the platform for them, creating and powering the electronic components in what is best described as smart yogurt. Looking at the basic physics and maths, it is clear that a smart yogurt could have as much raw processing power as all the human brains in Europe! Already scary, but let's not go all Terminatory just yet, Zombies are much more fun.

Smart yogurt is actually really scary stuff. It would look (and maybe even taste) just like today's. But each cell would contain electronic circuits, that can be connected to the circuits in other bacteria using optical signals (bioluminescence for example) to make very sophisticated circuits for all kinds of sensing, storage, comms and processing. And because they are still viable bacteria, they will be able to survive and flourish anywhere there is a decent food supply.

Being very smart collectively (each with a Euro-IQ), they will be able to genetically redesign their own offspring to capture and colonise other biological niches. They will be able to design offspring so that they can penetrate the human body and bypass the immune system, or to enter and remain in the brain (let's not even call these bacteria, since they are more likely to nothing like natural bacteria when they've finished, they may well be as small as viruses but with much more sophisticated capability). Inside the brain, they might connect to individual synapses and monitor and signal the electrical activity to their external allies. These allies might then create an electronic replica of that person's brain, thereby replicating their mind. They might map out the connections to work out the signals the person uses to move their limbs, to speak or do anything else.

This obviously provides the means to remote control the person's body, and to intercept or over-ride any thoughts they might have. Smart yogurt could take over your mind, over-ride your brain at will, and to control your body as easily as you can. Keeping a person's body alive is optional, but obviously comes with advantages of maintaining its capability. Keeping the brain alive is less advantageous, as the yogurt can take over and replace any and all of its functions. So we are likely to have a few varieties of zombies. Some will be brain-dead, but otherwise perfectly healthy. Others will be fully alive but with their minds under supervision and subject to over-ride. They might know what is happening to them but be powerless to resist. Others will have no awareness at all of the situation and think they are fine even though they have been enslaved. And finally, we may have some that are fully and properly dead, brought back to an animated state by the yogurt taking over all the main electrical functions while the brain itself is potentially even missing. We could even have headless zombies!

Killing these zombies would probably work much like it does in the games and movies. They all need a body to be in at least partial working order, and if they are going to get around, that means they need a circulatory and respiratory system, and legs (or a mobility scooter at least). So you could kill them by fire, chopping them up, or shooting them in the heart, or various other ways.

The headless and dead zombies sound quite disturbing, but they would be in small minority. The great majority of zombies would look much like normal people. More 'body-snatchers' than Dead-Space. How much they will worry us depends mainly on whether they are aggressive. Terry Pratchett wrote amusingly about a zombie being gainfully employed as a solicitor. If they use the technology suggested here, many zombies could be fully functioning, valuable members of the community, even leaders and captains of industry. For a while anyway. But some might be violent. We might try to use zombies extensively in the army or police, for obvious reasons. But if they are as smart or smarter than people, they will soon have their own culture and inevitably come into conflict with regular people. They might rise against us in a war against humans. Trouble is, if they have superior senses and faster brains and more intelligence and can communicate directly across the net, they will be pretty good competition. We will probably lose.

So, zombies are possible, plausible, even likely, given what we already can deduce about the future of technology. And the time-frame for this possibility is sooner than you would hope. Depending on our reactions and adaptations, they could become a threat to human existence. I'm going back on Dead Space to improve my aim!!

The one possibly good thing is that as a way of wiping out life on earth, zombies are only one of 150 alternatives that are feasible this century. We might not last long enough to be killed by zombies. Is that good or bad??

thought transmission over internet

Yesterday's Times ran an article on an experiment by the University of Southampton that claimed to demonstrate brain to brain communications. The claim was that 'they have created a system that allows brain to brain communication, sending messages formed by one person's brain signals through an internet connection to another person's brain many miles away. Let's get right to the point here. By typing this blog entry, I am creating thoughts in your brain many miles away via the internet, so that bit at least is not new. So the only possible significance of this experiment is if it were somehow to demonstrate being able to put thoughts into someone else's brain directly without using sensory input, e.g. vision. But as far as I can tell, it doesn't. It uses a flashing LED instead of letters on a screen, but that seems to be the main difference, except that the input uses simple thought recognition instead of typing, also well established now, though sadly still primitive. I explained this to the journalist, and was rather surprised to see he still ran the story. When he first contacted me, it sounded like someone had managed to create specific thoughts in a brain without using sensory inputs, which would have been very exciting.

I was quoted in the article saying that  'in 30 years time you'll think of a message and it will appear on your wife's mobile phone'. Sadly, the other comments I presented to the journalist didn't appear, so for the sake of completeness, and so that I am not misrepresented in any commentary as supporting the claims of the Southampton scientists, here is the text I sent:

"This is not what it pretends to be at all. It is merely using the pattern or intensity of signals from one person's brain to light an LED somewhere else, (trivially easy since about 1995 when it was released as a games device by a company called 'the other 90%'). The second person sees the LED flashing as the imput, it isn't direct brain stimulation at all, and the computer picks up signals from his brain which originate during the visual process, so no conscious interpretation would have been needed. Again, no big deal at all, brain imaging has been doing that for decades. The experiment is equivalent to you triggering activity in my brain by putting visual shapes in front of me, i.e. letters in an email, except that an LED fashes instead of a letter appearing. The message sent across the net was created using simple thought detection using readily available equipment. So this experiment shows nothing new, and is actually quite a poor illustration of misdirection. Some of the viewers' comments (on youtube) show clearly that people are happy to take it as described, yet it is no such thing. But at least one of them saw right through it thankfully."

I would have thought that this was pretty clear and the journalist should really have checked whether or not I was correct before still going ahead with it, reporting the claims as if they were correct. It wasn't actually a story worth running.

To his credit, Dr James (the scientist) admitted it was only a small step forwards towards telepathy and the innovation was 'the transmission of the signals to another person across the internet. However, the freely available Emotiv Epoc headset was designed for using thought recognition for playing computer games, and of course these days we take it for granted that games are often played across networks, so I'm afraid that even that small claim has long since been made elsewhere.

I am looking forward to thought transmission into someone else's brain. Output is already feasible, but brain stimulation so far cannot match up to the task of creating specific thoughts in a brain without going via the sensory route, not even (as far as I am aware) via deep implants or probes. When someone does that, I will be among the first back on my blog writing with excitement.

should content be free

Libby Purves has an article in today's Times arguing that people should expect to pay for content and not expect it for free. She makes one good point: 'until food, clothes, housing and transport are doled out free, content-makers need to be paid'. I would only edit that slightly into 'content-makers need to make a living' but that apparently small difference is key to the debate. I agree that content makers need to survive, so we need money, but I disagree that the payment has to be direct. It isn't necessary that the paper pays, nor that content consumers will necessarily have to pay.

Libby also says quite reasonably that over-reliance on advertising revenue is dodgy ground, since we are all getting better at avoiding or ignoring ads, and she is probably right there too. Advertising can't pay for everything, and certainly, and I have yet to make any money from the ads on my blogs (the main reason I have them there is that adsense produces stats on the hits that I find useful).

She goes on to argue that people will not produce good quality material unless they are paid for it. She says 'blogs are fun, with a pinch of salt'. But like many other bloggers, I put the same intellectual effort into my blogs as I do into my paid writing, and I've received plenty of awards over the years. This blog may be free to the reader, but I think the quality of analysis in my blogs stacks up well against her paid columns, and although some of the blogs out there are frivolous or low quality, there are lots that are very high quality indeed, many that put mine to shame.

Like Libby, I've also written for the Times, Sunday Times, most of the other quality nationals and a great many newspapers and magazines all over the world. Sometimes I get paid, sometimes I don't. I've also appeared a good many times on various Sky programmes, another part of the Murdoch empire that is pushing the case for paid-for content, and again, sometimes they have paid me, sometimes not. I write most of my stuff for free, and I only get paid occasionally, for some of my work, by a tiny minority of my audience. But that is enough, and my family stays comfortable thanks to that tiny minority. And to date, there has been no correlation at all between the effort and quality of my input and whether I have been paid, or indeed how much. So the fact is that the vast majority of my audience gets my content for free, and it is every bit as good as the stuff I get paid for. I know that applies to a great many creatives. Libby says 'some creatives give their work free, but that is their choice'. Indeed! I choose to do so, as do many others, and I would resist any suggestion that charging for my content somehow makes it better, or that I work better when I get paid. The other side of the issue of course is 'some creatives choose to charge for their work, and that is their choice'. So let the two live peacefully side by side, and let the consumer choose. The problem at the moment is the lack of adequate mechanisms for ensuring that people cannot steal content for which people want to charge.

The issue of whether content needs to be paid for boils down to that of whether the vast pool of high quality free content can satisfy people's demands. Adding in the related issues around content production, we should then ask how content makers can earn a living; and how to ensure that the makers of free content can exist alongside others who want to charge for their's, without unduly interfering with each other's interests. But I think it is unreasonable for paid-for content providers to assume, as so many seem to, that they should have the right to impose their payment assurance technologies on the market even though they might impede the ability of others to offer their content for free.

Some of the measures imposed by governments and device manufacturers as a result of pressure from paid-for content providers have significantly reduced quality of life. Even if I pay handsomely for a DVD, I will usually be forced to endure a long period of threats and copyright messages before I get to see the film I've paid for. In the past, levies on every cassette tape went to the content industry, whether or not it was used to steal music. If I wanted to give away my content, my customers would still have to pay the paid-for industry a levy. Since then, the pursuit of various forms of digital rights management has created a second class of music owner, where instead of lifetime access, the consumer has relatively restricted rights to use the music on restricted platforms for a shorter period of time, occasionally having to jump through hoops to retain access. At one point, content providers even tried (thankfully failing) to ensure that all files should be restricted by their anti-copying technology, regardless of ownership. As a producer of free content, where my business model is based on the content being spread as far and wide as possible, the behaviours of the paid-for industry directly undermine my interests. Let them charge if they want, but let me give my content away if I want too.

Creatives, as Libby calls us, generate content for all kinds of reasons. We may be paid, or sponsored, or we may be trying to gain commercial, religious or political influence, or it may be a loss-leader for other strands of a business, or it may be a form of advertising, to brag, or it may be for atruistic or malicious reasons, to win praise or to win an argument, for research, to leave a mark, or to become famous, to help gather one's thoughts or simply to record them, to fill in time, or just for fun. It is usually some combination of any of the above. Direct payment is only one of many motivations for content creation, and it should therefore not drive the regulation of content distribution alone. The other interests must be protected and given at least equal consideration. The consumer should be free and able to choose which content to consume.

But the fact remains that free content is not enough. It may be high quality or not, but content in its very nature is unique. If it is meant to be paid for, then no free content will act as an alternative. My commentary might or might not be as good as Libby's but it isn't the same, and though mine if free, I would not argue that hers should be free too unless she is happy for it to be. Reading my blog is not a substitute for reading Libby's piece. If you want that, then you need to buy a Times or get it from their website, which uses a different model. Listening to an excellent band playing their music just for applause will not satisfy your desire to listen to music from another band. It is not about quality in the end, it is about uniqueness. No amount of free content can ever be enough if it doesn't include the specific and unique content you are looking for. The big question is whether it is sufficiently unique and valuable to justify payment. That is the real issue she is addressing when she talks about the Evening Standard becoming a freebie.

There are a great number of business models by which creatives can earn a living. Many have a related 'day job', others get money from totally unrelated areas, others use content to drive other areas that they charge for (like me). The motivations for the content creation may be totally non-commercial. This assures a large and ongoing supply of free content, forever, that will often be as good or even better than paid-for content. But it won't be sufficient. Some of the stuff I want might not be free.

So what we are left with is the certainty that some people will create content that they want to be paid for, and there will be people who want to consume it. The big problem is ensuring payment where it is required. And doing so without undermining the many other interests. At the moment, with technology induced turbulence, it is very difficult to reliably protect information from being copied and distributed, especially without disrupting other interests. Until such technology exists, paid-for content providers will suffer theft of their materials. It would be quite wrong to impose systems to guarantee payment if they undermine the free distribution of free content, and at the moment that would appear unavoidable.

So I think that the paid-for content industry must find alternative business models and adapt. Perhaps some companies can't adapt enough and they will die. It's a tough world, and we will probably lose some unique and valuable bits of the content creation. Some companies will vanish, some newspapers, even some writers will not be able to adapt. But content creation itself will certainly not die. Paid-for content is only a small part of the whole economy, and a reducing part of content overall. Companies that sell content should not be allowed to drive regulation. In the information world, price is a very poor measure of value, and protecting old business models at the expense of the new is unwise. Creatives are valuable people, we need them, we want them, and though the business models will change, and even though we might not want to pay them directly, they will still earn a good living - they are creative. One day, when the technology catches up, the models will change again, and we might once again see a system where payment can be demanded and assured without wrecking it for everyone else. Sometimes when it's really good, we might even be willing to pay for it.

Nobel peace prize for Tim Berners-Lee

Among a great many other people, I was rather surprised to see yet another politician, albeit a popular one in Barack Obama, getting a Nobel peace prize. He may have done great things, but at that level, he is more than adequately rewarded already - for a US president trying to cultivate world peace is, or at least should be, essentially part of the job.

I am very happy that tweetspace is buzzing with the idea that Tim Berners-Lee should get a Nobel. Let's look at the impact he has made on world peace, and let's also bear in mind that he didn't patent the idea of the World Wide Web. He perhaps could have done and if so could have become extremely rich, since the web has become probably the most useful tool for positive change in my lifetime.  (The hyperlink idea was actually already patented by Prestel, but the WWW brings that idea and links it to several others, so should be patentable too.)

The World Wide Web has been and will be an enormous force for human wellbeing generally, and more specifically I would argue that it is easily a more important contribution to world peace than the work of any politician to date, including Obama, though possibly excepting Gandhi.

Firstly, the web has enabled people to make links all over the world. People have friends now in every continent, and know on personal experience that people in another country can be just like them. And when you know a people is not so different, it is hard to get involved in a war against them. It becomes much harder for war-mongerers to raise support for their causes.

Secondly, it is much more difficult now to hide nasty regimes, because the web has allowed people to blog and tweet and get the message out, often in spite of great efforts by the authorities to prevent it. When people are oppressed, the whole world knows very quickly, and can apply pressure.

Thirdly, thanks to the world wide web, globalisation has accelerated greatly. With business, commerce and politics now increasingly globally interwoven, wars are now largely contained in the least connected parts of the world.

Fourthly, the world wide web also makes it much easier for people to become educated. A great deal of knowledge is available on the web for free, and the virtuous circles of technology development have helped make it available everywhere. Education makes people less likely to engage in warfare, since again they are more aware of the truth and less vulnerable to propaganda and prejudice.

Finally (there are probably lots of other factors I have forgotten here), the web has empowered people at grass roots level. It is easy to form large groups of people to pressurise leaders and companies in support of a cause, and so far at least it has mostly been good causes that have benefited from this power.

And on that point, I hope that my grass roots contribution will add a little weight to the many others that support rewarding Tim Berners-Lee with a Nobel Peace Prize. Failing that, by creating the platform that has so greatly accelerated so many other fields, he has earned the right to be considered for one in physics, chemistry, medicine and literature. He has made a huge contribution to human wellbeing and peace on earth, and unlike many with such ability, gave it away for the benefit of all instead of using it to become personally rich. He deserves a Nobel prize.