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Inside China’s Dystopian Dreams: A.I., Shame and Lots of Cameras

nytimes.com

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Re: Inside China’s Dystopian Dreams: A.I., Shame and Lots of Cameras

#201

Post by extralego »

Fnoord wrote: post #180
superflyguy wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah yes, the "art terrorist". Someone who has spent too much time sniffing paint cans and not enough time studying history.

Communication (and media) is important during a revolution (Examples: [1]). Or, more recently, look at the Arab spring where GSM and Bluetooth were important. The importance of radio and TV. Art is a form of communication, and with proper coverage the message is spread (ie. Bansky). [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolutions_of_1989

Parent here.

Art != Communication

And art is not a form of communication ether.

There is no shortage of literature on this topic but good place to start is Aristotle’s Poetics, essentially the first art theory ever written and it dives head first into the issue. In it, Aristotle laments on the corruption of communication at the hands of poetry.

Re: Inside China’s Dystopian Dreams: A.I., Shame and Lots of Cameras

#202

Post by extralego »

Fnoord wrote: post #187
superflyguy wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bit of a stretch. You can argue that art is communication, but you can have communication without art and that's how I'd describe use of tech in the Arab Spring. I'm sure some people think Banksy is changing the world but we've had Brexit and Trump on his watch. Perhaps I'm being unduly harsh though, and we're just a few pretentious faux-warhol wall daubings from freedom.

There is no stretch whatsoever. It is difficult to assess when and how much art contributes because it is an indirect motivation. If an opinion is censored, the ability to spread it via tags (or pieces) tells the viewer: do not despair, you are not alone in your viewpoint.

Even if basic art theory is difficult, it is certainly not impossible, and it’s the best path to understanding your interest here.

“Viewpoints” are not very well “communicated” with art. Art correlates better with questions.

A helpful exercise would be to take a piece of art and break it into elements, then categorize those elements into Communication elements which would be ideas (sometimes subject and predicate but could be more basic literary expression too) and Art elements, being the poetics and aesthetics. It’s not an easy difference to describe in a comment but the Communication invokes ideas while the Art invokes emotion and other oddities. They are not always easy to decifer and articulate, but it’s very very fun to do if you like art in this way.

Once broken into these categories, you can now ask yourself what category is responsible for the revolution. It will be the communication category, sometimes with the support of the Art category.

Also, in critique, media only refers to medium plural, not content but strictly the matter which serves to represent the abstraction.

Re: Inside China’s Dystopian Dreams: A.I., Shame and Lots of Cameras

#203

Post by Fnoord »

extralego wrote: post #201
Fnoord wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Communication (and media) is important during a revolution (Examples: [1]). Or, more recently, look at the Arab spring where GSM and Bluetooth were important. The importance of radio and TV. Art is a form of communication, and with proper coverage the message is spread (ie. Bansky). [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolutions_of_1989

Parent here. Art != Communication And art is not a form of communication ether. There is no shortage of literature on this topic but good place to start is Aristotle’s Poetics, essentially the first art theory ever written and it dives head first into the issue. In it, Aristotle laments on the corruption of communication at the hands of poetry.

> Art != Communication

I never asserted that.

> And art is not a form of communication ether.

That I did assert. Just because some books are written to argue something, doesn't make that truth. It took me 30 seconds to find 2 sources which support that art is a form of communication [1] [2]. So at the very least (if your sources argue your point, while your work is a response to another work) there does not seem to be consensus on that matter.

Now if you could refer to your source that could be great. Because [3] didn't explain your viewpoint at all.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communication

[2] https://www.quora.com/Is-art-a-form-of-communication

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poetics_(Aristotle)

Re: Inside China’s Dystopian Dreams: A.I., Shame and Lots of Cameras

#204

Post by Fnoord »

extralego wrote: post #202
Fnoord wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no stretch whatsoever. It is difficult to assess when and how much art contributes because it is an indirect motivation. If an opinion is censored, the ability to spread it via tags (or pieces) tells the viewer: do not despair, you are not alone in your viewpoint.

Even if basic art theory is difficult, it is certainly not impossible, and it’s the best path to understanding your interest here. “Viewpoints” are not very well “communicated” with art. Art correlates better with questions. A helpful exercise would be to take a piece of art and break it into elements, then categorize those elements into Communication elements which would be ideas (sometimes subject and predicate but…

> you can now ask yourself what category is responsible for the revolution. It will be the communication category.

Only if you look at it from a short-term, narrow angle and only because communication is so advanced nowadays. If you look at the time when communication was more limited, you can find that there are several art movements who most certainly and quite obviously communicated their PoV, a zeitgeist, or flat out propaganda (a recent example is posters and paintings from WWII).

> “Viewpoints” are not very well “communicated” with art. Art correlates better with questions.

This is just pedantic. Those questions lead to viewpoints eventually. The author might or might not have intended those viewpoints but that is irrelevant.

Re: Inside China’s Dystopian Dreams: A.I., Shame and Lots of Cameras

#205

Post by some_account »

telltruth wrote: post #67

I fully expect this to keep getting advanced further. There has been no protest whatsoever within China and even many people of Chinese origin living in US with US citizenship seem to think this is necessary and good for the people. I have been told that "outsiders" won't "understand" this. The bottom line is that if people are not rebelling against current measures of social credit, government only has incentive to…

Why are we acting like we don't have this in Great Britain or America?

Re: Inside China’s Dystopian Dreams: A.I., Shame and Lots of Cameras

#206

Post by Asooka »

brobdingnagians wrote: post #147
obelix_ wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have to examine your own assumptions too - 1. You assume stopping "revolution" is the goal. It is not. All you have to do is look at what outcomes "revolutions" in an info saturated/low attention span/consumption culture based society have produced in the last 20 years. 2. In 2013 the Washington post did an estimate on how much was being spent on the surveillance society in the US. Everyone reacted in disbelief.…

Who watches the watchers? Government bureaucrats are human too, and why are they somehow superior to the rest of us in making decisions? If you have a bee-watcher, you must then have a bee-watcher-watcher, an so forth. If everyone makes their own decisions, we call that freedom, and it means we don't have some fallible bureaucrat deciding what is best for me (which I very much doubt they will do well).

> fallible bureaucrat deciding what is best for me

They aren't deciding what's best for you, they're deciding what's best for themselves.

Re: Inside China’s Dystopian Dreams: A.I., Shame and Lots of Cameras

#207

Post by toss1 »

coldtea wrote: post #189
toss1 wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

yes, but that is most definitely NOT the point of the anti-science propaganda (moon landing is a hoax, chemtrails, flat earth, etc.++). The point of that nonsense is to sow distrust in all institutions, especially science. Since the susceptible people have no real idea about how science works, it's just swapping out one belief structure or another (even tho it's promoted as 'think for yourself', that doesn't work if…

> yes, but that is most definitely NOT the point of the anti-science propaganda (moon landing is a hoax, chemtrails, flat earth, etc.++). It's not its literal expression -- but it could very well be the point. Those people don't opt for "moon landing is a hoax, chemtrails, flat earth" because of the inherent value in those propositions. There's a sentimental reason behind that attachment, and it has more to do with a…

Right, two sides of the same...

You're talking about the 'pull-side', the psych reasons (beyond mere ignorance) that pull people into this crap.

I'm talking about the reasons behind the 'push-side', the reasons all this crap is produced & promoted, which is to harness all those latent problems into a weaponized political mass that can do real damage.

Re: Inside China’s Dystopian Dreams: A.I., Shame and Lots of Cameras

#208

Post by nojvek »

Razengan wrote: post #101
telltruth wrote: post #67

I fully expect this to keep getting advanced further. There has been no protest whatsoever within China and even many people of Chinese origin living in US with US citizenship seem to think this is necessary and good for the people. I have been told that "outsiders" won't "understand" this. The bottom line is that if people are not rebelling against current measures of social credit, government only has incentive to…

> I fully expect this to keep getting advanced further. If they aren’t going to scale it back then I hope they go all the way with it. I hope they try to automate it and feed everything about everyone to a centralized AI. I hope they give it more and more control including the ability to direct military drones. I hope it then turns on them. Because the “smart stupid” people that implement well-intentioned malice like…

The way we treat animals, and the fact that most animals are going extinct because of unrelated human activity I.e humans don’t want it, but it’s a side effect of global warming.

I’m a 100% sure, really advanced AI will be like that. Millions will suffer as a side effect for the gain of few.

Re: Inside China’s Dystopian Dreams: A.I., Shame and Lots of Cameras

#209

Post by extralego »

Fnoord wrote: post #203
extralego wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Parent here. Art != Communication And art is not a form of communication ether. There is no shortage of literature on this topic but good place to start is Aristotle’s Poetics, essentially the first art theory ever written and it dives head first into the issue. In it, Aristotle laments on the corruption of communication at the hands of poetry.

> Art != Communication I never asserted that. > And art is not a form of communication ether. That I did assert. Just because some books are written to argue something, doesn't make that truth. It took me 30 seconds to find 2 sources which support that art is a form of communication [1] [2]. So at the very least (if your sources argue your point, while your work is a response to another work) there does not seem to b…

I think my central mistake here has been using the word communication in place of literary expression, which carries with it a magnitude of efficiency and specificity that art elements cannot achieve. I did this in trying to work with the contextual uses of the terminology and I think it waters down my point. Sorry for the confusion.

The Wikipedia for Poetics does appear to lack an elaboration on Aristotle’s more critical positions on poetry. The exact nature of his criticisms are contested (but their existence is not) so maybe that is why. Check out thes Quora entries for some relevant discourse:

https://www.quora.com/Why-did-Plato-hate-poetry

Re: Inside China’s Dystopian Dreams: A.I., Shame and Lots of Cameras

#210

Post by api »

toss1 wrote: post #62
21 wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There have been quite a few cases where "science" was used for "willful and deceitful spreading of lies". See for example how now we find out that the whole "fats are bad for you, carbs are good" scientific "fact" was manufactured by the sugar industry. This has infested the highest level of the scientific establishment (the american dietary recomandations), so you can't say that it was only the uninformed who were d…

yes, but that is most definitely NOT the point of the anti-science propaganda (moon landing is a hoax, chemtrails, flat earth, etc.++). The point of that nonsense is to sow distrust in all institutions, especially science. Since the susceptible people have no real idea about how science works, it's just swapping out one belief structure or another (even tho it's promoted as 'think for yourself', that doesn't work if…

I disagree about the direction of cause and effect here. The distrust comes first, then people go for nutty "alternative fact" stuff.

We have many reasons to distrust our institutions. Trust is hard to earn and easy to lose. For starters in my life span I've watched us be consciously lied into one major $1T+ war, a series of bank bailouts that enriched those responsible for a financial crisis at the expense of the general public, the largest financial fraudster in recent memory (Bernie Madoff) being short-listed for SEC director prior to his scam collapsing, and countless cases of "science for hire" (nutritional science is the worst) being used to sell stuff.

I feel like our authorities are harping on "fake news" and related things to evade their own responsibility for this mess.

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