RW_Jordan@Cork.Ireland

AI ≠ Sentience (as in does not equal)

Posted on December 27, 2016 by rwjordan

AI ≠ Sentience. That pretty much says is all, but the dialog about AI almost always seems to really be, not about AI, but about AI’s reaching Sentience. The Killer robot syndrome.

But the future will entail more and varied AI’s than they will need Sentience AI’s. This doesn’t mean that the AI will not converse with you in a manor that most Humans do, it will just fall short of choosing to kill you, just because you cast aspersions on their parentage.

That will open the courts to trying to determine which AI’s are Sentient enough to have legal rights, and which ones merely need to be reprogrammed. And wither the AI chooses to receive system updates or not.

Scary? Maybe, but we will be interacting with AI’s very soon, sooner than most will believe possible. And we will get get used to it, and it’s familiarity will naturally lead to Sentience being the norm.

AI, Artificial Intelligence

The color red, for the Blind AI

Posted on December 6, 2016December 6, 2016 by rwjordan

The diversity of humans and other creatures is often a cause of wonder, and this diversity is often reflected in our understanding of Artificial Intelligence (AI). Huge strides have been made in this field, but somehow the fundamental differences in Humans obscures the commonality of the ‘Human’ experience.

One of these factors is Sight, the act of seeing. While we often overlook this day to day, for an AI, or any robotic devices, intelligent or not, is the vision. This vision, our ability to see what other humans see is a basic element of language and communications. Try describing the Color Red to a blind person, and you will quickly see the issue. No artificial ‘Eye’, sensor or camera in the AI/Robotic world ‘sees’ like we do, nor do any AI or robotic devices share the same ‘vision’ devices.

Explaining ‘Red’ to the blind is the same as two AI’s trying to explain ‘Red’ to another AI. Complex is not a big enough word to explain this.

The solution is problematic, the Technology of Seeing, needs to become a common denominator within the AI community. Current vision systems are at best a mixed bag, and require an upgrade, and a standardization that is currently lacking. And while the vision information obtained from the Human Eye and a Robotic replacement might attain equality, they may never contain the same data due to the differences in the technology. What must happen is that common robotic vision devices (eyes) need to be good enough and be interchangeable so that different AI’s can resolve the color ‘Red’ the same way. Paving the way for a common communication interchange regarding the external world.

Apple, CIA, Encryption, FBI, NSA, Personal

Apple vs FBI: The unspoken Truth on Encryption

Posted on March 9, 2016August 17, 2016 by rwjordan

While one can admire Apple for ‘defending’ it’s customers privacy, while also benefiting with the positive advertising. It is probably a moot, and hollow victory as the NSA and the CIA have already broken Apple security.

Not that it shouldn’t be of high importance, the resources required to do the cracking of any particular extraction of an encrypted message sent with a iPhone would most likely exceed the budget of a small country. Which is exactly the point of encryption, making it hard, and expensive to decrypt. Imagine the joviality at the NSA/CIA after the hours of decryption, that the ‘Important’ message turns out to be a high priority, top secret Cookie Recipe from you mothers cookbook.

And thereby is the unspoken truth of encryption the first one is this: you must either decrypt everything, to find what is being said, because if you can only choose strategic messages, choosing the right ones are tantamount.

During WWII monitoring enemy communication was aided by observing the frequency of communication traffic, when frequency increased, something important was being communicated. Modern military communications is continuous and unbroken, transmitting meaningless message traffic, and therefore not highlighting any particular message in the traffic stream that would be required to be decrypted. This would now be a requirement to decrypt everything, in the military traffic stream.

The second Truth is this; The assumption that you can decrypt all the messages is the hight of arrogance and ignorance. Anyone, yes anyone can create an encryption that will be impossible for a machine of any sort to decrypt, and many of these can be hidden to the point that even a human expert directly observing the message can not decipher.

Imagine hiding messages in the continuous email stream called Spam, which now constitutes more that 80% of all email traffic?

Thoughts like this keep the NSA/CIA/FBI up nights, and no matter what Bull Shit they might tell you about the need to have back doors and encryption keys it will NEVER catch all the potential secret messages that terrorists might choose to pass to each other.

Because the simplest of truths: It isn’t possible.

UPDATE: and now the E.U. politicians are talking about it. European Officials To Discuss Anti-Encryption Measures.

history, IT Issues, Personal, Software

I.T. as street vendors

Posted on November 27, 2015November 27, 2015 by rwjordan

Yesterday while talking with a colleague, I was trying to get a cross the idea the most ‘programmers’ don’t understand what goes on inside a computer. And his response was, “Does it matter any more?” and while it took me back, I had to respond, “No!” After sleeping on it, I came to a revelation of sorts.

Current IT is equivalent to being a Hot-dog vendor on the street.

And while we IT/CS folk might try and elevate our profession to that status of demigod status we are merely vendors of what the computer can DO!‘ We don’t create the computer, we splash condiments on the hot-dog, and sell it as computing. We don’t even make the condiments anymore, call them libraries, functions written by gnomes in dark caves. And don’t even mention the buns, the dressing ,the cover, beyond us.

In the early days of computing, the common question was, what do I use my computer for. And the first answer often was, you could put your cooking recipes in it. Creating the first cookbook you needed to plugin. The computer is still the same, just that the cookbook has gotten more sophisticated.

I have harped for years that the ‘hardware’ of computing has crippled real advances in computing, more and more systems are opting for generic in their selection of Hot-dog instead, choosing to dress it up with more and intriguing spices and toppings, things like AI and Neural Networks. While these latter are more sophisticated and sexy, they are more or less toppings on the same Hot-dog.

Amazon, Amazon, AWS, Cloud, Database, DBA, MariaDB, MariaDB, MySQL, MySQL, RDS

Amazon RDS for MariaDB

Posted on October 9, 2015 by rwjordan

Amazon RDS for MariaDB Finally! I have been broadcasting for sometime that the reason that Amazon has not moved RDS MySQL from it’s 5.6.x version, was due to the belief that Oracle was intending to charge an arm-and-a-leg from AWS for the privilege of doing the upgrade to 5.7.x. I was of the opinion that this was the initial reason for AWS Aurora, to have an alternative both to arm twist Oracle into a better deal for MySQL 5.7, but also a fallback position should Oracle refuse to bargain.

Now that whole subject has been rendered null and void with this announcement. The MySQL community will now have a direct replacement, with improvements, from the 5.6.x installations into MariaDB 10.x and the Oracle (toll booth) issue can now be side stepped entirely.

I have already indicated to my management that this move should be undertaken as soon as is viable.

Cloud, history, Internet, Networks

The Expenditure of TCPv4

Posted on July 7, 2015 by rwjordan

While working on an TCP/IP problem today, I was finally struck by the fact that we have for all intents and purposes expended the entire TCPv4 addressing space. I knew it was coming, years ago, but now while testing IP addresses, it dawned on me.

You can now pick any arbitrary set of numbers nnn.nnn.nnn.nnn and expect a response. Ping them, probe them, something will be there, or it’s being held. All gone, this is the equivalent of spitting in the middle of an ocean while swimming, you are going to hit ocean.

4,294,967,296 (2³²) addresses gone, 4 Billion addresses in use…..

Economy & Business, history

The Coming Apocalypse

Posted on May 8, 2015 by rwjordan

On an entirely different subject …

I just had a Revelation;

in the coming Apocalypse,
The first person to create more Toilet Paper
Will be King!

Personal

The Rudder

Posted on April 8, 2015April 8, 2015 by rwjordan

I have been doing IT for more than 35 years, and on my birthday, I was inspired by my past, I remember almost everything that has brought me here.

Then I see the new people in my current company and wish that they would look around them, and remember what they see and do. This is a rudder they are seeing. Every thing they are thinking, doing, deciding on is their rudder, it will lead and point them in a direction. And I want to remind them that this rudder is behind them, and if they do not take hold of the rudder, it could lead them where they are not dreaming of, and not wishing for. But a rudder is behind the boat, you have to choose to steer your boat towards what you want to be, where you want to go.

Fate will handle your rudder and could take you astray if you let it, be aware of short term thinking, and dream big.

Amazon, Cloud, RDS

Amazon Aurora Testing

Posted on February 25, 2015 by rwjordan

I’m testing Aurora, and now I can’t talk about it. But I believe I understand why its named Aurora.