Tuesday, August 19, 2014

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. 

http://theadvancedapes.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/cadelllast_24600221320536_small.jpg

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.

http://artsnap.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/Screen-Shot-2012-05-23-at-10.44.25-PM.png
Michaelangelo's David, sculpted 1504

 Take the example of the Italian Renaissance in the 14th 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.

http://peterlarson.org/wp-content/uploads/Central-Park1.jpg
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. 









Sunday, August 10, 2014

...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.


Monday, August 4, 2014

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.