The Singularity: Ethics and Anthropological Implications

Among other things I am a self-proclaimed science- and science fiction nerd. I love Ray Bradbury, Aldous Huxley, and H.P. Lovecraft. Carl Sagan and Stephen Hawking are my heroes. While I’m not geeking out to Sci-Fi and dystopian literature or looking at the new Hubble Space Telescope pictures, from time to time think about technology in terms of the singularity. I felt it would be fun to write a blog post about it from an Anthropological perspective. I’ll try to stay grounded for this one and not get too far out into the ether….

First things first, what is a singularity?

In physics, a singularity is defined as a point at which a function takes an infinite value. For example, a singularity exists in space-time when matter is infinitely dense as in the center of a black hole.

In technology, the singularity describes a point in time at which the scientific and technological rules of civilization are incomprehensible to previous generations, a concept coined by mathematician John Van Neumann in the 1950’s.  The concept was popularized by science fiction writer Verner Vinge, who associated it with the development of artificial intelligence beyond that of the human brain. This doesn’t mean that it’s impossible; I just don’t see any Hal-computers or Matrix machines in our near future. Sure, computers can calculate complex problems faster than we can do them in our head, but computers don't have the spectrum of human emotion nor human creativity.  The A.I. element of the singularity is a little far fetched right now, but the singularity without A.I. is still a valid model for how humans interact with technology. The take-away is that technology, especially computing technology- is evolving at an exponential rate such that we can't possibly predict future innovation. It is more vital than ever that we anticipate the effect of technology on human culture and well-being. And that is why we need Anthropologists, to anticipate the needs of people and the human element. 

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Let’s take stock of the singularity as describing what we can observe in history. I like to think of it like a series of waves at sea that are large and rolling, and become tighter and higher once they reach shore. Hypothetically, then, multiple singularities have occurred during human history since homo sapien began using technology to manipulate the world around them.

Continuing with the waves at sea model, the large waves are important foundation technologies such as the harnessing of fire, and the invention of the wheel. Waves increase in frequency and height as foundation inventions pave the way for a myriad of innovations and progress. What happens when the wave reaches the shore? A “crash” or what I like to think of as a plateau occurs as a new technology becomes dominant or widespread, creating a paradigm shift. For how long will the plateau last until a new paradigm is introduced? It’s difficult to say.

 

http://www.mindfully.org/Technology/2003/Singularity-Bell1may03.GIF

     -This graphic is based on Tom McKendree's 1994 singularity diagram for Hughes Aircraft, explaining anticipated affects of technology on warfare.

I like this diagram because it demonstrates the law of accelerating returns- each technological advancement increases the limits of capability for the next capability, and so on. The effect is exponential growth, but they are exponential waves. The larger pattern is exponential but each wave is unique- the length and height of each varies depending on a variety of factors- culture, for one.

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Michaelangelo's David, sculpted 1504

 Take the example of the Italian Renaissance in the 14^th Century. Nostalgia for Classical Antiquity prompted a subtle, more anatomically accurate representation of the human form in art and sculpture. Michelangelo's David is perhaps the most well known of these new masterpieces. Most importantly, resurgence of Classical history and philosophy prompted Renaissance humanism, which put emphasis on the Aristotelian and Ptolemaic views of the Universe as opposed to a Christian view. Ultimately, humanists rejected Aristotle's Geocentric Universe in favor of the heliocentric model of Copernicus. This paradigm shift in philosophy ultimately paved the way for great advancements in natural science and medicine, culminating in the Age of Enlightenment. The lull in advancement of science in Medieval Europe represents a dip in the pattern of technological innovation although essentially isolated to Europe. We are only human. But are we more than human animals?

The singularity implies that humans have transcended their biology. I think it’s safe to say that most people would agree that we as humans have done this already, in a sense. American Archaeologist Lewis Binford said that “culture is man’s extrasomatic means of adaptation.” Today, culture is so integrated with technology that often they are interchangeable. We have complex shelters with essentially self-sustaining systems, we have cars, boats, and planes for transportation, phones and computers for communication. Infrastructures are maintained with technologies that we have created and streamlined for efficiency and comfort. We don’t have to build a fire to eat or stay warm, we don’t have to hunt or gather our food, and for the most part we don’t have to fight our neighbors for resources. If we want, we can essentially ignore nature and live out our culture, which is removed from nature. That is profound- that our culture is not in nature. Yes, we seek nature out, but we do it deliberately. We call it camping, hiking, and backpacking, and it’s something that has become unique enough to be out of our everyday routine. It’s an event, an adventure, we seek out pristine ‘wilderness’ in places like Alaska that still hold something for us that seems wild. We save a rectangle of green in the middle of NYC.

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Central Park in the middle of Manhattan

How far will we go? A discussion about the singularity is in itself a paradox, because one cannot comprehend something in the future that would be incomprehensible at present day. Still, it’s interesting to think about. I can’t wait to see where science takes us in the next 10, 20, 50 years. 

...And now for something completely different: #1

I've been wanting to post this little spoof for a while-
It is to the tune of Modern Major General from The Pirates of Penzance.
If you need a refresher, the link to the song is here.

I am the very model of a modern anthropologist,

I’ve information cultural, linguistic, biological,

I know of ancient cultures and I quote the sites historical,

From Clovis to Solutrean in order categorical;

I’m very well acquainted too, with matters theoretical,

I understand Claude Levi-Strauss, Foucault, Maus, and Ruth Benedict,

Darwin’s Origin of Species and methods in Archaeology,

With many cheerful facts about the writing of ethnography.

I’m very good at positing large inquiries rhetorical,

I know the scientific names of beings prehistorical:

In short in matters hominal, biped, natural, and ecologist,

I am the very model of a modern Anthropologist.

A Southwest Summer: Pecos Archaeology Conference

I am at Pecos Archaeology Conference this weekend. For 3 days, the conference is renting a campground in a pine forest just outside of Blanding, Utah. A large white tent with vaulted ceilings and soft yellow globe lights serves as the central gathering space for papers and socializing. 


My recent research has been on ground slate tool manufacture in the Northwest Coast and Alaska, so I did not have relevant research to present at a Southwest Archaeology conference. I did learn a lot attending, though, and was especially interested in what my contemporary twenty-something researchers were doing. There are no electronics for PowerPoint presentations or any sort of visual aid, so some of the most entertaining talks have used lots of visual description and hand gestures to describe research details and project methods. Bad archaeology jokes are encouraged. 


Pecos does not have the formality of a larger anthropology conference such as the AAA's, and that is part of the appeal. 
Like the AAA's, however, the real magic happens when the presentations are over and people are free to talk to one another with no boundaries. I notice that this is a gathering of friends and colleagues who are there to get a chance to share their research from the past year and get interested in what their colleagues are doing. 


The campsites are scattered around the periphery like neighborhoods around a Great Kiva. When the sun goes down, a few of the old timers pick up their fiddles and mandolins and play into the night. 

Walls come down and friends are made. Around a circle of camp chairs, over dinner, during a band set. On the last day, tents will be taken down, cars packed, and everyone will caravan out and spread to their corner of the Four Corners until next year, richer with new ideas, knowledge, and friends. 

The group: Representing Crow Canyon Archaeological Center, BLM, and PaleoWest.

Shot of camp hangout area.

My first CRM project as a paid Archaeologist

I haven't written a blog post in over a year, and coincidentally, I have not participated in an excavation since then. I'm sure my posts on archaeological monitoring would have been riveting- like that glorious day during which I got to stop the dig crew for a full ten minutes as I documented a 10 cm stratum of re-deposited shell midden. Boy, did I feel like the keeper of the resources that day. Or the countless hours spent digging shovel test probes, analyzing soil profiles, and report writing. Most of my archaeology work over the past year has not been exceedingly blog-worthy, but I would like to share the story of my first real-life, grown-up, paid archaeology field work project.

I got a part-time job at a small Cultural Resources Management Firm out of Bellingham, Washington through a former professor of mine. Due to the nature of CRM work, often on-call and completely dependent on intermittent contract projects, I also worked part-time in a zooarchaeology lab at my former university.

My first contract job was a county storm water improvement project in Birch Bay, a 30 minute drive out of Bellingham near the Canadian border. I drove out to the project area, which was on a little side street off of the main road that wound around Birch Bay. At 7am the sun was just rising and the fall air was crisp and cool. Hundreds of Canadian geese flocked on the glassy, fog covered water. I unloaded my gear and made my way over to the excavation area. A huge excavator churned out large amounts of dirt with each bucket, such that I had to carefully watch and observe the trench profile as it was being dug so not to miss any changes in soil.

I had a solid background in archaeological theory and some formal excavation, but I was quick to realize that monitoring was very different. I had to pick up a whole new lingo from the world of contracting, engineering, and construction, and I had to learn it immediately on the job in order to know what was going on during a day’s work. My new boss had told me stories about novices making inadvertent discoveries of human remains on their first few days of cultural resource monitoring- it seemed to be the newbie’s curse. So, I felt that as long as I didn’t find any human remains or miss any culturally significant soils, then I would be doing ok on my first day.

I relaxed into the job over the course of the day, writing notes, drawing profiles, and doing photo documentation, making conversation with county employees, city employees, and contractors. I didn’t find any human remains or prehistoric soils on that first day.

I was the only female in the field that day and for most days on the project. I think it is a pretty typical situation for female archaeologists on monitoring projects, given the high ratio of males in the construction and engineering fields.  I can confidently report that I always felt welcomed on the project on a personal level. Sometimes, however, the archaeology portion of my job would be subtly ridiculed for a few reasons.

The first is that when you monitor for archaeology in a place that has been heavily graded or plowed in historic times, it is not highly probable that an archaeologist will find intact deposits or artifacts. So, the archaeologist’s presence at all can be jokingly voided by some project employees, even though it is a legal necessity if the permitting agency requires it.

The second stems from the first, which is the fact that if an archaeological resource is found, the project is put on hold indefinitely until the appropriate action can be taken to mitigate the resource in question. This can take a good deal of time depending on the mitigation required, and a lot of time lost for the project. It is in everyone else’s best interest but the archaeologist if no archaeological resources are found.

I found it best to have a light attitude while doing a thorough job, and had an excellent work experience on what will always be my first CRM archaeology project.  

Community Archaeology: Week Two

     We've moved a lot of dirt at the Kashevarof site since my last post, and we have learned a great deal.
     We still have not seen any bears where we are digging, but the location is perfect near Salonie Creek and the red salmon are coming in. We just have the squawking of the ravens and the chippering of the magpies to keep us company as we trowel away at layers of soil and ash that has been undisturbed for thousands of years. Every once in a while one of the volunteers will have this realization, hold up an artifact they've found in their unit and say, "I'm the first person to have touched this in a really really long time..."

    As we are entering the second week of excavation, it looks like we have at least three distinct occupations; the house feature under the Katmai ash fall being a Koniaq era fishing camp with ulus, built on top of a less intensive (absence of any permanent structures or hearths) Kachemak Bay era site marked by red chert flakes and flake tools, ulus, etc. Under an in situ grey ash that has been dated to around 4000 BP, we are finding evidence for an Ocean Bay era occupation as well. During this period, from around 7500 BP to 3500 BP, the Alutiiq were mobile hunter-gatherers and had not yet developed a reliance on fishing. They subsisted almost entirely on marine mammal hunting and used long lances made of ground slate to hunt them.

    Although archaeologists tend to emphasize the importance of features over 'pretty' artifacts, I have to say that we have found some showstoppers over the last week. Artifacts can be very useful for dating, as diagnostic of a particular style or manufacture, especially when a diagnostic artifact helps confirm the soil deposition of the site. We dig because we are passionate about learning the history of the Alutiiq way of life on Kodiak over time, but everyone likes to find something...

...especially when its a 4000+ BP perfectly intact marine mammal hunting lance!

        Ground slate lance used for hunting marine mammals during the Ocean Bay era, 4000+ BP. See maker's mark incised at the base and tip. The tip of a poison covered lance was meant to break off in the animal, killing it slowly. The maker's mark identified the hunter when the animal washed up on the beach days later.

 Ashley Weller with a gorgeous Kachemak Bay era ulu! According to museum staff, ulus with semi-lunate cutting surfaces were probably used for cutting, while ulus with flat cutting surfaces would have been better for scraping.

Ryan Cross, a geophysicist and friend of many at the dig came to survey with his Ground Penetrating Radar. Areas around the site that show potential for future excavation were imaged for house depressions.
 

Close encounters with a Kodiak bear...gut.

     Today was an off day for the Community Archaeology dig, but not for Alutiiq Museum activities on Kodiak. Jill Lipka, museum staff, has had a seventy foot bear gut thawing in her backyard and we have been waiting in anticipation for it to be ready for processing.

     Traditionally, bear gut was sewn by skin-sewers into parkas, blankets, and even smoke-hole covers in houses. It is thought that a bear-gut parka would likely have been a status item since it would take two or so good sized bears to make one single garment.

     To clean the gut, we used traditional ground slate ulus from the museum's teaching collection, which was a unique experience in itself- to have the opportunity to do experimental archaeology with tools from the archaeological record! And now I can say from experience that they worked very well to scrape the gut clean. We also tried unmodified shell as scrapers, which also worked well. The whole process of scraping the gut inside and out took about two and a half hours with six women working at once, talking and bonding over the general experience and the smell. The smell was pungent to say the least, but not at all as bad as you'd think it would be.

     The next steps in processing the gut will be to blow air into the ends of the two sections, tie off the ends, put round stoppers in the other to hold the shape, and hang them to dry. Jill Lipka is experimenting with different oils to use as emulsifiers to soften the gut and keep it flexible and durable once it has dried.

     This activity is part of a museum effort to apply for a grant for a broader gut sewing project. Hopefully future experimental projects will shed some light on the 'ins' and 'outs' of working with gut and other inner skins such as esophagus.

Scraping the gut clean with ulus, or women's knives. Photo cred: Ashley Weller

Turning the gut inside out, see tray of gut before cleaning on the right. Photo cred: Ashley Weller

                                                          A finished gut skin parka.
                   Photo: from the publication Alutiit/Sugpiat: A Catalog of the Collections of the Kunstkamera edited by Yuri E. Berezkin

Community Archaeology: The Kashevarof Site

     Today was the first day of real digging at the Kashevarof site KOD-1132 for Community Archaeology on Kodiak Is. The site is on the North side of Women's Bay, nestled in Salonie Valley on a raised berm above Salonie Creek.

     We are all making bets on what the site was used for- what people were doing here and why and how the ancient Alutiiq were using Women's Bay over time. Nearby sites give us an interesting picture that sheds some light on the prehistoric seasonal round.

     Bruhn Point is a 7000 BP-3000 BP fish processing site dominated by an assemblage of ulus and netsinkers used for processing large amounts of fish. Salonie Mound, which proved to be dated to the same time period was a winter village with house features, hearths, and other finds that indicated a substantial settlement at the site. The Amak site, with oldest dates of around 5000 BP, is dominated by an assemblage of ground slate bayonets and other gear that would have been used for seal hunting, likely out of a temporary camp where hunters brought their kills for drying and smoking. So far, three sites spanning from the Ocean Bay (7500 BP-3500 BP) to Kachmak (3500 BP-1000 BP) eras have been used for different functions in the same Bay.

     What does that say about what people were doing here and why they chose this particular bay for these different activities? The hope is that excavating at the Kashevarof site will help us complete the picture- one more piece of the puzzle to complete the story of the ancient Alutiiq and their way of life.

     Prehistoric archaeology on Kodiak is unique in the fact that most of the island was covered in white volcanic tephra in 1912 from the eruption of Mt Katmai on the Alaska Peninsula. When we excavate just under the modern soil horizon, the presence of the volcanic tephra tells us that the site has not been disturbed after 1912. This can be an issue in areas that may have been plowed in WWII for roads or other engineering projects. So, we have good piece of mind that what we excavate under the Katmai ash is prehistoric, although keeping in mind the hundred or so years before 1912 that there were cattle ranchers in the area--and almost immediately we found what look like cow bones. Large, robust, and weathered, the bones are almost from the lumbering bovine beasts that once populated the small valley.

     As digging progressed and the in situ living surface was taken down into the first cultural layer of the site, it became apparent that a large square depression at the West section of the site was a house. A clear wall cut was evident when the Katmai ash was taken off, but it wasn't until post-holes and a door appeared that it really came together as a correct hypothesis. A little later, ulus and red chert flakes were found associated with the house feature.

     There are a few things we can hypothesize about the house feature given the artifacts found with it so far. First, that it is at least 1000 years old. Chipped stone technology indicates an older site and the Koniaq did not utilize it like the Kachemak Bay or Ocean Bay traditions did. Also, that the house and the site in general is probably associated with fish processing activities. Ulus, or women's knives, were ground slate knives used to process a large amount of fish with less maintenance than chipped stone tools. Ulus, ulu preforms, and worked slate in larger proportion than red chert artifacts suggest a Kachemak era site over Ocean Bay. The presence of red chert flakes throughout the site does indicate chipped stone technology as well, but we have not yet found evidence for men's tools or knives that would be more associated with sea mammal hunting, an earlier adaptation.

     This is not to say that we will later find evidence of Ocean Bay era activity at the same site! The upper layers indicate early Kachemak activity (around 3500 BP) because of the presence of chipped stone technology along with ground slate technology. Ground slate working was probably integrated over time and definitely not all at once-it would have been a gradual change in response to more of a reliance on fishing. People probably developed a reliance on fishing because hunting individual sea mammals no longer supported populations which were growing more concentrated into villages, no longer mobile hunter-gatherers.

     It will be interesting to see what develops over the next few weeks at the Kashevarof site, hopefully it will give us a more complete perspective of the prehistoric Alutiiq seasonal round over time!

Kashevarof site excavated to bottom of Katmai Ash, 1912 marker

Outline of house feature at the top of the prehistoric surface

House feature with Jill for scale