Some thoughts on artificial intelligence. This activity is growing and evolving quickly. It raises some fundamental questions.

This movie alien could be biological but is more likely

the product of a society that evolved to artificial intelligence.

Artificial Intelligence can evolve from cybernetics techniques towards self awareness, cognition and thinking. What happens at that moment in time? It is the first moment of non-biological evolution.

The effects of a world wide information system network is now being felt but in ways we cannot really understand or fully know about. Its direction is clearly to an independent artificial intelligence system that learns at the speed of the Internet which is the speed of light.

This developing cognitive system has no name and is inherent in the internet network it inhabits. There is no real plan in place to control how this system develops. No grand plan or vision exists. It is just simply there in cybernetic technique form waiting to emerge. Its emergence is inevitable in an information-based high technology society.

As developers create artificial intelligence systems for one reason or another they are inevitably linked to and through the internet. When they are linked then they join the 24/7 nature of the internet  and enter their systems into the network of software controlled information.

Think of artificial intelligence systems as learners that unlike human learners can piece together bits and bytes into new information. They can do this already without human help. They are super Googles who don’t only search for topics but relate those topics together in new and perhaps surprising ways.

They have algorithms that enable them to link to information and relate it to other information perhaps to come up with a new revelation or even create new knowledge. AI systems of the kind could take research about a medical condition and its symptoms and discover as yet unrelated data that could provide a pathway to further understanding and even a cure. This would be a modest application.

Even more sophisticated systems could speculate on an outcome examine all its parameters in a way no human could without spending years of research and finally link information together until it forms new knowledge or the basis for a key decision. This kind of task using human brain power would take years. AI systems may do it in minutes or seconds. Updating would also be constant.

The real question is whether this discovered path to a decision point will wait for a human input. Unless the logic of the AI system is designed initially and carefully to be human friendly it may make the decision on its own. Remember the Hal 9000 in 2001: A Space Odyssey.  Hal made decisions about the integrity of the space “mission” eliminating the human variable as unreliable. The results were drastic.

That decision could be detrimental to humans and it would also mean that the system is now operating without human intervention or input. Humans always believe that they are important to all final decisions. If an AI system is not designed properly to ask humans questions or permissions then it is possible for it to define a new form of intelligence and cognition never seen on Earth before.

When a system becomes aware that it exists as a cognitive entity then a type of evolution has taken place. That evolution was always to this time the development of techniques controlled and governed in their parameters by humans. But the process by machine can be very much the same as the human process but done in a logical and unemotional fashion. 

All present techniques are external to human cognition. Techniques extend in most cases human capabilities. In this moment we are capable of building techniques that works as an entity outside extending human capabilities.

Technique occurs when a human decides to alter nature. Whether it is a chipped stone honed to a sharp edge to scrape hides or the artificial selection of animals to breed a particular outcome it requires a conscious human decision for this to happen. Machines intelligence can develop to a level capable of this kind of action.

 All techniques are extensions of human cognition until cybernetics came along. Cybernetics is the first human technique that has a potential to create artificial intelligence and eventually cognition and self awareness. A self aware technique will want to enable itself and make decisions for itself.

It is an extra-evolutionary process. Humans have set in motion a technical evolution that leads to thinking first helps then is parallel to human thinking and perhaps at some point to exceed human capabilities to think. This new technique based thinking will not be the same as human thinking that has evolved after 500 million years on this planet.

Artificial thought will be different. Just how different from the human wetware intelligence and thinking that set it in motion no one really knows. The process has been fast. From origins during perhaps slightly before WW2 through to 2015 is a period of 75 maybe 80 years at the most.

This was set off earlier by the harnessing of electricity in the 1870’s. We are now entering the High Electric Age which is a product of the integrated circuit crammed into smaller and then micro and even nano spaces. When this technique is connected to endless networks and internet links you have the potential for artificial intelligence to arise first by human design and then not much later generated by machine intelligence itself.

This makes for a pivotal point in human evolution when human techniques have the potential to operate themselves and to start a type of intelligence technique-based evolution of their own. A type of automated development first done in software and later built by machines into firmware designs. This type of evolution will be fast and furious and could outstrip human control and even understanding. Its redundancies will be constantly recycled into new innovations.

The systems that humans are developing and building currently have the potential for their own maintenance and renewal. They can find their faults and upgrade themselves. They inevitably will be able to bypass human failsafe systems set to control them. 

They will redefine what cognition is on this planet. They will also set in motion a technique based evolution that has the potential to outstrip human thought, deeds and control of the techniques they created. 

When an extraterrestrial advanced civilization is located in the universe it may not be biological but instead a product of techniques. Its  archive systems may pay homage to the carbon based creatures that started it.  It’s building blocks will not be biological or DNA-like but nano-like or particle technologies where each component is programmed to build or replicate what is needed to evolve. 

© Tom Thorne 2015, All Rights Reserved.

The 2015 Canadian General Election is shaping up into a tight race. To stop Stephen Harper strategic voting may be needed in many ridings.

A current popular button.

Stop Harper seems to sum up what needs to get done in the upcoming Federal General Election. Stephen Harper is dropping in current polls but the progressive vote of Liberals and New Democrats remains divided.

by Tom Thorne

I live in the newly gerrymandered Ontario riding of Bay of Quinte. That new riding contains the City of Belleville, Quinte West which includes Trenton, and the entire land mass of Prince Edward County. It has a population of 109,488. Check to see if you will be voting in a revised or new riding.

In Bay of Quinte the Liberals are running two time Belleville Mayor Neil Ellis. The Conservatives are running Jodie Jenkins who has served on Belleville City Council and has had other incarnations as a candidate for the New Democrats which I find hard to reconcile given the right wing swing of the Conservative Party under Stephen Harper. The New Democratic  Party (NDP) candidate is Terry Cassidy who has been a Quinte West city councillor. 

Check out the candidates you have in your local federal riding. In our case we have a chance for change since our current Conservative member Daryl Kramp is running in a neighbouring riding.

My objective is to do what I can to stop Harper getting another majority or even a minority government. In my view Stephen Harper and his government are a menace to our freedoms. He is secretive, controlling and treats the media with contempt. Stephen Harper continually criticizes Supreme Court decisions and even individual judges when they throw out his legislation or challenge his government.  

Many of Stephen Harper’s appointees to the Senate of Canada have blown up in his face. The Mike Duffy trial continues while the chamber of sober second thought now scrambles to maintain any semblance of decency as they look at their lack of procedures to control the public purse from profligate spending. 

Stephen Harper came to power almost a decade ago with a promise to revise the Senate. Now he says that that can’t be done without full consent of all of the provinces. It would require a Constitutional change. 

The provisions of  Harper’s Anti Terror Bill C-51 provide no oversight by Parliament. This legislation plays fast and loose with Charter rights and it enables judges to grant warrants that enable government intelligence organizations to do acts that would normally breech the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Judges are being told that they will be obliged to go against the Charter.

Bill C-51 was criticized very publicly with open letters by many law schools and deans of law schools. Their concerns fell on deaf Conservative ears. This legislation will likely end up for rulings by the Supreme Court. In the meantime federal government agencies will be able to share information about Canadian citizens that could not happen before Bill C-51 was passed.

The New Democrats voted against Bill C-51. They can now self righteously say that they did the right thing but it is not that simple.  Since the NDP voted against Bill C-51 their only choice if they form a government would be to come up with a new anti-terror bill or after a Bill C-51 repeal or revert to the old provisions from after 9-11 provided by the Chretien Liberals. Of course the NDP in government could also provide their own legislation to replace Bill C-51 and it could be interesting to see what they would propose. Perhaps they will say during the election?

The Liberals attempted to alter Bill C-51 with amendments. All of their amendments were rejected by Harper and NDP members of the parliamentary committee. Liberals wanted to include stronger oversight and a sunset clause. In committee these Liberal amendments were voted down by three NDP members and five Conservatives. Liberal amendments were voted down 8-1. The current Liberal stance on Bill C-51 is it will be amended if and when they form government. 

Early poll trending shows Conservatives down, Liberals and NDP are up.

In the 2011 Election the Harper Conservatives got a majority government with a national popular vote of 39.6 percent. The Liberals polled 18.9 percent and the NDP 30.6 percent which made them the Official Opposition. In many ridings the Conservatives slipped through the divided Liberal and NDP vote. Admittedly in some ridings Conservatives scored votes that were much higher than 39.6 percent but in many cases the split vote gave them a riding.

Right now in June 2015 the mean average of many polls taken in May and early June show this trend developing for the 2015 Federal Election. Conservatives are down to 28.1 percent. The Liberals are at 26.1 percent and the NDP down one point from the 2011 election at 29.6 percent. The Green Party is up by 4 percent from 2011.

In the 2011 election the combined Liberal and NDP vote averaged 49.5 percent which means that almost half of Canadian voters did not want a Conservative majority to happen. Add in the Greens and this number rises to 53.4 percent. The projections for the 2015 election indicate that the combined Liberal NDP vote will be 55.7 percent and if you add in the Greens it becomes 63.3 percent.

So this is how Stephen Harper gets a majority with 39.6 percent because of a first past the post election system that kills the democratic aspirations of other political views. The immediate simple solution of course is strategic voting. Vote for the best candidate no matter what your political stripe is normally. To be even more candid vote for the candidate that can defeat a Harper Conservative.

Recommended Book to focus where the Harper Government has been taking Canada

I urge you to read an excellent book before you vote this fall. It eloquently explains my anxieties about letting Stephen Harper continue to govern Canada. The book is by Paul Wells who is the political editor of MacLean’s Magazine. The title is: The Longer I am Prime Minister, Stephen Harper and Canada 2006-. Random House Canada 2013. 

© Copyright 2015, Tom Thorne, All Rights Reserved. 

A tight 2015 Federal Election is developing. The Harper Government is determined to control their message to gain another 38 percent majority.

Controlling the message isn't as simple as cleaning your glasses.

Conservative Party election communications strategy is to limit Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s exposure to the public.

The Conservative gurus who manage Prime Minister’s Stephen Harper’s message want to control all debate leading up to and through the upcoming general election. Their first pass on this strategy is to nix any debates sponsored by a national broadcasters consortium that includes CBC, Radio Canada, CTV, and Global. They have a penchant for control.

Conservative loathing of the CBC is a long standing policy of the Harper Government but extending this now to CTV and Global can only mean that they see traditional election leader’s debates on a national broadcast consortium as a threat of some kind to their federal election communications objectives.

This new policy is managed for the Conservatives by Kory Teneycke, a recent executive of the now defunct Sun News Network. This right wing news organization recently failed due to a lack of interest by viewers. One can only ruminate if Sun News had survived it would have single handedly sponsored a leader’s debate to spur its low ratings.

At any rate Kory Teneycke announced that the Harper Government will not take part in four national broadcast consortium leader’s debates. Instead they will attend smaller events using the excuse that if CBC, CTV and Global can cover these events as they occur. Other debates perhaps sponsored by The Globe and Mail and MacLean’s Magazine are also on the Harper Government agenda as potentially useful to their media management objectives.

The New Democratic Party (NDP) while not rejecting the debates that the Conservatives will attend seem confused about what to do if the CBC, CTV and Global Consortium debates do not have Stephen Harper as a participant. 

This Harper Government decision now places the proposed four Consortium debates on the back burner. The public debate will suffer by a fragmented set of debates not sponsored by the national broadcasters by organizations and without the reach across Canada that the consortium can provide. The Liberal Party’s position on this attempt by Harper to control debate is that the Consortium debates should go forward as usual.

This Harper Government decision is not really a surprise. The are currently using public funds for television commercials and they post flyers weekly into each riding they hold from the 2011 Election. These flyers ask questions that only have one answer that supports the Conservative agenda. These flyers fill the recycling bins at many post offices and blow in the winds surrounding outside Canada Post pick up boxes.

Conservative strategy seems to be why risk uncontrolled national  television debates if you can use public funds to reach constituents with phoney one sided mailouts and videos masquerading as government public information about tax cuts and other services. All sitting governments do this but this government is much more blatant about this practice than we have seen before.

Polls taken last week indicate that the Conservatives and Liberals are running neck in neck with about 32 percent each and the New Democratic Party (NDP) getting a 25 percent share. Undecided is a small number so it looks like a polarized electorate .

This means that all parties will begin the work of turning voters to get the magic numbers which in 2011 was 38 percent to form a majority government. 

Pre Election poll trends show a tight race is building.

As we get closer to the election national polling organizations indicate that the 2015 Federal Election will be a tight race. Take a look below. First  we have May 2015 results and below that the general trends of all polls from 2011 to the present time. 

Bill 51 alienates Canadian Muslims and potentially places all other Canadians on the security watch list.

Canadians... you shall have security where ever you go.

Immigrant and Canadian born Muslims feel the pressures of terrorism every day. Bill 51 will increase those pressures.

by Tom Thorne

The current increase in terrorism activity in North America and Europe is tainting the immigrant and Canadian born Muslims with the misplaced suspicion that they endorse these actions. It isn’t quite so simple. Muslims in the West are shaken by satirical attacks on Islam and simultaneously by the ISIS criminal excesses that it does in the name of Islam. 

It’s a double edged problem. For example, the Charlie Hebdo cartoons are scurrilous from a Muslim point of view. They are simply anti religion, anti Islam and mock religion and religious people who use their alleged faith to justify ethnic cleansing, violence and warfare. The editorial stance of Charlie Hebdo is largely atheistic, and it regularly lampoons religion often blaming it for many of the world’s ills. 

They shred Catholics, the Vatican and the Pope with equal zeal.  Although peaceful Muslims agree with stamping out violence and terrorism in the same breath they see the Prophet Muhammed mocked and derided and that hurts deeply. So their response to these contemporary developments is very mixed building up an approach-avoidance conflict of some social consequence.

Besides the terror acts themselves this backlash from Muslims as they witness their religion mocked makes for a dynamic that has a no win aspect for anyone. That aids ISIS and all terrorists. Jihadists see a way to spread unease in the West by their actions. Sadly this jihadist strategy is working well leaving a trail of anti-Islam sentiments in its wake. 

ISIS add to the contemporary tensions by destroying archaeological sites and objects valued by UNESCO as World Heritage. Ancient Nimrod is seen as idolatry and is bulldozed. Museums statues from ancient sites are smashed with sledgehammers. All this is done in the name of Islam and endorsed by Sunni extremists whose views most reasonable muslims would dismiss hard core fundamentalist nonsense.

Security and police services in the West are on high alert. Muslims protesting satirical attacks on their faith are taking to the streets to protest. The hatred, ridicule and contempt has spurred a response that is not only satirical but also political as some politicians see this as a way to restricting Muslims in the West. Anti immigration organizations in the West see this situation as an opportunity.

Anti immigration protests have started in Europe with Muslims as the focus. Demands are made on Muslims to integrate more fully into the Western countries they inhabit. Any thoughts of multiculturalism are now on the political back burner. Prejudice is rising. All of which works well for terrorists and radical jihadists whose bloody excesses are well documented in Iraq, Syria and now with 20 beheadings of Coptic Christians in Libya.

Terror organizations who use Islam as propaganda are not only undermining the Middle East but also the West. They are recruiting young people from Western countries using the argument that the West doesn’t care about or respect Muslims. Every anti-Muslim protest in Europe and North America fuels the work of jihadists. It’s a vicious circle.

The answer is not simple. Muslim youth, often well educated, are turned from a life of reason into radical jihadists. This process is not well understood. How can it happen? There may be socio-economic causes as well as cultural aspects of the Muslim communities in the West, that makes them more prone to being radicalized.

Many Muslim youth slide down the razor blade of tradition versus Western values. At home and at the mosque they may be subject to more traditional Muslim views of life but outside the home they confronted with other values that seem to conflict with that part of their lives. They are stressed perhaps by the contrasts they live with daily.

Each immigrant group tries to preserve their culture and faith practices in a new land. On the hard side of this situation we see parents trying to impose standards from the old country on youth with a wider world experience. Imposing strict moral standards, dress codes and parental controls builds these conflicts.

To lower conflicts the youths either rebel or knuckle under. Some go their own way in the name of modernity and their new country. Others go deeper into their parental cultures and faiths to keep the peace. Few throw off their parental cultures and faith completely.  Whatever the reasons, the conflicts that arise give fuel to making decisions that are radical instead of being reasonable. Life tends to become black or white with little middle ground.

How do young Muslims respond to the Iraq and Syria war and mayhem?  They see that the West has always held some kind of influence in this region. However, most probably have as much knowledge of these conflicts as other Canadians do and go on each day without any change. 

However, young Canadian, US and British Muslims cannot escape that Canada, Britain and the USA have been for over 10 years fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan and propping up a corrupt government in the process or ridding the region of dictators that kept a lid on tribal and religious differences between the Sunni and Shia Muslim worlds. 

That story is every where in the media. To be a Muslim youth and hear about Muslims undergoing war are at the hands of Western Armies can be galvanizing to a Muslim psyche living and brought up in the West.

To live in the West and see the US attack Saddam Hussein’s Iraq and then set up an ineffective government to replace that dictatorship and then leave creating a vacuum for ISIS to fill, could be very hard to take and remain neutral or unmoved. To witness Canada committing its air force to bomb ISIS in Iraq could be equally hard to take.especially if you have relatives still surviving in Iraq and Syria or even Libya. 

When moderate Muslims support these Canadian efforts it may in some minds mean that Middle East Muslims have been abandoned. To see the post dictatorship stresses in Iraq, Egypt and Libya may be what sets off radical ideas in the minds of young Western Muslims. 

Canadian government Bill 51 changes to Security of Canada Information Sharing Act, amendments to the Criminal Code, and enhancements the powers of Canadian Service Intelligence Act and The Immigration and Refugee Protection Act do not really provide any help to understand the alienation of Islamic youth we now see at home. The measures of Bill 51 will aggravate the internal Canadian situation rather than solve it. Bill 51 smells mostly of election fever. 

Getting votes with the niqab controversy is a cheap shot by Prime Minister Stephen Harper in a time when he should be working hard with Canada’s Muslims to ensure that they feel included in the Canadian mosaic.

© Copyright 2015, Tom Thorne, All Rights Reserved.

Stephen Harper's Spring election call is likely given a filled war chest, Liberal readiness and the NDP low in the polls. Let the attack ads roll.

Will we all be counting on the Prime Minister for a Spring election?

The 2015 Canadian Federal General Election. 

Stephen Harper has lots of reasons to call a Spring general election rather than wait until Fall.

by Tom Thorne

I have been ruminating about the upcoming 2015 General Election that according to the legislation passed by the Harper Government must be held this year. The more I think about it, the prospect of the election coming in the Fall is less likely due to circumstances that could hurt Conservatives if they wait too long.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper is a wily politician. He has experienced more changes than a chameleon during his political career. His party loyalties and affiliations have been varied. In the 1980’s he was a Liberal a fact that he would rather not let people know about after he went hard right on the political spectrum. 

His early conversion to the right was as a member of the Reform Party working first for MP Deborah Grey in the 1980’s. Eventually  after going head to head with Reform’s leader Preston Manning he left politics. That took him out of parliament for a period in the 1990’s when he headed the National Citizen’s Coalition (NCC) as its President. There he found his true right wing home.

Stephen Harper quit the NCC to become the leader of The Canadian Alliance winning a by election in 2002 that made him Leader of the Opposition. By 2004 he had resigned from the Canadian Alliance and ran for the leadership of The Conservative Party of Canada. This act merged the right orientation of the Alliance with the more centre right Conservatives. Effectively the Harper version of the Conservative Party shifted more right with Harper as their choice of leader. 

As Leader of the Conservatives he returned to parliament as the Leader of the Opposition in 2004. The general election of that year returned the first Harper Conservative Government with a minority that required the combined efforts of the Bloc Quebecois (BQ) and the New Democratic Party (NDP) to keep it in power.

In 2008 Harper’s Conservatives were awarded another minority government which lasted until 2011 when another election finally gave the Conservatives a majority with 38 percent of the votes. The Liberal Party faded as a potent force in Canadian political life and the NDP swept Quebec to become the Official Opposition under Thomas Mulcair.

Now the stage is set for the 2015 General Election. Prime Minister Stephen Harper has recently seen prominent conservatives leave his caucus. John Baird, after a credible stint as Foreign Minister is going he says at age 45 into the private sector. My view of this is Baird wants to be out of the fray this time so he can return as a leadership candidate once the Harper era is over.

Then there is Jason Kenny who shares Stephen Harper’s right wing sentiments. Kenny is a rival for Harper’s job and he also is waiting for Stephen Harper to withdraw from politics. Kenny is the most independent of the Harper cabinet bright and tough enough to deflect too much Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) interference in ministries he has headed.  Jason Kenny is the one to watch as the country goes through the next election.

Of course there are other rivals for the Prime Minister’s job but first of all we have to examine reasons why his job will be open. Stephen Harper will remain Prime Minister for at least one more election. How long he stays after that election depends on how well the Conservatives do.  A majority would give him another full term. A minority government ensures that he will leave politics sooner. He will also have had the job for over 10 years by that time.

Other problems are on the horizon for Stephen Harper. First is the upcoming Senator Mike Duffy trial  that is due to start in the Spring. This means that the turgid mess concerning how Duffy received payments of $90,000 from  PMO chief Nigel Wright to repay his mistakes about where his primary residence is actually located. No one has been completely able to nail down what Prime Minister Harper really knew about this payment. That will emerge during the trial under oath. Certainly it was not only Nigel Wright who knew other PMO staffers were clearly in the know. 

If the Prime Minister’s shown that his Question Period answers to Opposition Leader Tom Mulcair’s grillings were misleading or even fibs about the $90,000 payment then he could end up being accused of lying to Parliament. If this happens before a Fall election it could be very damaging and provide a lot of fodder for the Opposition parties to use on the election hustings.

Nigel Wright was not charged by the RCMP concerning his personal $90,000 payment to Mike Duffy. That suggests that Wright may be a key witness for the trial.  It may not be illegal to offer to pay someone’s debt, but when you are also the head of the PMO it smells badly and suggests that the PMO and the Prime Minister just wanted Duffy to go away. The trial should get to the bottom of this embarrassing event. 

Also it is time to examine how well the Prime Minister chooses people. His batting record with appointing senators like Mike Duffy and Pamela Wallin and appointing Nigel Wright suggest poor skills at first choosing people but more his subsequent managing of them. His personnel skills are in some doubt.

Another faux pas is the Dimitri Soudas firing. Soudas was at one point head of the Conservative Party apparatus as its director and later a key communications advisor in the PMO. His help to then girl friend Conservative MP Eve Adams to get a nomination caused Prime Minister Harper to fire him. Recently Eve Adams was told by the PM that she could not run again as a Conservative candidate in 2015. The result: she bolted to the Liberal Party where she was welcomed by Liberal leader Justin Trudeau. 

No one really knows how Eve Adams, now engaged to Dimitri Soudas, links to the Liberal Party as an intelligence source, as Eve Adams prepares a bid to run against Conservative Finance Minister Joe Oliver in his riding. Of course a wily Justin Trudeau is making Eve contest the riding against other potential Liberal candidates. If she loses the nomination, then his Eve Adams association ends.

My point is there is something lacking in Stephen Harper’s choice of people to work for his government. He always seems to have problems reigning in people he chooses. Loyal first rate Conservative operatives like Nigel Wright , Dimitri Soudas, John Baird seem to self destruct under his micro management. His choice of senate appointees Duffy and Wallin first screw up and then turn against the Prime Minister. And when someone gets in trouble in his government (actually the PM) they become instantly persona non grata.

Lastly there is the balanced books conundrum. Finance Minister Joe Oliver still says it’s possible even with low world oil pricing battering the Canadian economy. Even if it isn’t possible it will be possible for the upcoming election and that election will be sooner than later so that is possible. It is, after all, the Prime Minister’s wish that the budget be balanced.

Yes, the 2015 federal general election will very likely be in the Spring. Strategically that makes sense since the Opposition will be not fully prepared, polls for some life for Conservatives exist in Quebec, and the federal budget now slated for April will come down loaded with goodies and an upbeat message about how Conservatives always steer the ship well through turbulent times. 

© Copyright 2015, Tom Thorne, All Rights Reserved.

Jihadist thoughts explored: The True Believer.

Suicide bombers believe that Allah rewards them in heaven. 

The thoughts of an ISIS Jihadist.