The Information Review

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Can AI Dream of a Social System?

Apr 15, 2023

I fed the following prompt to the OpenAI Playground text generator: "Write an essay justifying the need for creating an actual, material social system." In response, it generated the following text. The need for creating an actual, material social system is essential for a healthy and functioning society. A social system is a complex network of interdependent relationships between institutions, organizations, individuals, and groups. It is a way to connect and organize different parts of society in order to provide a structure for how it operates. The creation of a material social system is essential for many reasons, including the ability to provide equal access to resources, support social mobility, and promote social cohesion. The most important reason for creating a m...
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A Permanent Relief Funding Mechanism

Mar 15, 2022

Does capitalism work? This question should not be considered only as a foil to the question ‘does communism work?’ These two ideas, both with their own history of spectacular failures, have to be unentangled. Capitalism does not work for all of the people all of the time. By that simple and fundamental measure, it is not a good social system. That capitalism persists is forwarded as proof that the people have chosen it over communism. This is not true. If we remove the forced dualism between capitalism and communism, we can observe that capitalism persists because one among its many flaws is that as a social system it does not provide a mechanism for precipitating systemic change and thus becomes a self-perpetuating enterprise. People with no other option than to live within s...
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Ending Violence

Oct 12, 2021

A lot of policy rhetoric speaks of reducing violence in society. But an important question is when can we end violence? Can we design an anti-violence machine? This is not a rhetorical question. Can we devise tools that can intervene directly in the neuronal networks of any person(s) engaging in violence? Brain mapping, brain-machine interface (BMI), brain-to-brain interface, and machine learning technologies can be used to develop infrastructure to detect and stop violence at the neuronal level. Our nascent ability to induce movement in a hand from a distance could be used to stop the movement of a hand engaged in undeniably undesirable actions like violence. The obvious question is how such a task could be implemented. The cumulative result of brain mapping research has been our abilit...
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Economics is Not a Mathematical Science

Mar 09, 2021

A lot of science is merely mathematical speculation. Only when verified by experimental observation in the real world is any new mathematical model of reality accepted. For instance, string theory is still speculative but finds a lot of traction with respected minds in the field. Such physicists will have to keep trying to devise experiments that may one day potentially prove string theory by demonstrably reconciling it with real-world observations. Meanwhile, reality does not bend itself around their wishes and make their theory true even if they fail to conclusively establish their speculative assertions. Economics is not a mathematical field. This fact too often gets shrouded in debates on whether its reiteration is inspired by communism or its denial motivated by capitalism. Claims of...
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Discursive Incoherence

Mar 09, 2021

We live in circumstances that should not exist by the very definition of civilisation. A lot of situations that are looked upon as social problems in need of a solution should simply just not be because the very founding and guiding principles of our social systems preclude them in their definition of a just social order. As we blog furiously or empathetically in response to each other's opinions, we must not forget that these word strings on such computers will never be sufficient, will never do the urgently needful. Yes, richer social discourse creates freer, better societies. But using that as a reason to continue cyclical arguments over repetitive social failures undermines the very sincerity which lends credence to arguing for a truly just and equitable society. If material circumst...

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