a) Refection on the “thinking on thought itself.

” Emptiness as the
intersection of source and destination.
b) Locating the “flexibility” in both language and use of “signatory system”
as communicative method.
c) non-vpn “pseudo-anonymous” browsing https://www.torproject.org
(I remember you asking, not sure how serious you were. This was just
from our favourite Academic Writing lecturer’s sharing.)
d) Tsai, Ming-Liang’s short film [No No Sleep] 33min, 2015
https://youtu.be/Qzbkw6Sg-Wk
e) The contemporary reality of AI: news on 2017 AIindex report
https://www.technologyreview.com/s/609611/progress-in-ai-isnt-as-
impressive-as-you-might-think/
f) The contemporary reality of AI: confession of a seasoned
entrepreneur/programmer

a) “Book- Ethics of the Real: foreword ix”

“In his Critique of Pure Reason , Kant summarises this paradox of cogito
at its purest: ' In the pure thought of myself, I am the being itself [ ich bin das
Wesen selbst], yet no part of this being is given to me thereby for my thought. '

So, in the unique point of cogito as the intersection between being and
thought, I lose thought as well as being: thought, because all and every content
is lost ; being, because all determinate objective being evaporates in the pure
thought - and, for Lacan, this void is the Freudian subject of desire.”

b) “Book- Ticklish Subject (The Absent Centre of Political Ontology): p.223”

“This crucial distinction between simulacrum (overlapping with the real)
and appearance is easily discernible in the domain of sexuality, as the
distinction between pornography and seduction: pornography “shows it all”,
“real sex”, and for that very reason produces mere simulacrum of sexuality;
while the process of seduction consists entirely in the play of appearances, hints
and promises, and thereby evokes the elusive domain of the suprasensible
sublime Thing.”
also this
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fright_of_Real_Tears#The_Fictional_Nature
_of_Reality_and_the_Art_of_Kieślowski
f)
https://www.facebook.com/yijing1/posts/10155365550414495
20/11/2017
(tc’s translation below)

AI, Submarine, and Magic

by Lin, Yi-Jing, CEO/Founder of L Labs Inc. ,
PhD in Computer Science, Brown University
written for Business Next 數位時代

I. AI & Submarine
II. AI and Relational Database
III. Where are the leads for AI?
IV. AI & Magic

I ‘ve never considered myself to be an expert on Artificial Intelligence. But last

couple of days during a catch up with some professors from the Department of
Computer Science at the National Taiwan University, our discussion was moving on
to AI, and one of the senior professors there said all of sudden “Speaking of AI, Lin is
an expert in the field. We should invite him for a talk in the department some day.”

As much as I was flattered, I did not immediately get what he meant. I had a thought
about it and realised only after that MyET, the language learning product of our
company, is a software based on the technology of digital analysis of voice. And such
technology has been considered by many people to be a fundamental element of AI.

However, I do NOT consider our software to be a piece of work of AI. And that is
because I know very well the technical requirement in the development of our
product. I know what it can do, what it cannot do, as well as the flaws and potentials
of it.

A software that I have thorough understanding from top to bottom , to me it is only a

computer program, not to be confused with any sort of “intelligence.” But for the
mass users who have no understanding of the principle of operation of such
programs, it is not a long shot that they might actually experience the “intellect” of
the program.

I. AI & Submarine
With the success of chess playing softwares like AlphaGo and Alpha Zero, the subject
of Artificial Intelligence has been very popular these days. There are not only many
programmers of the younger generation devoting themselves in this field. There are
also a lot of theorist with no backgrounds in software development taking parts in the
discussion on the impact of AI to the world. I’ve even read an article briefing the
algorithm of AlphaGo written by a psychiatrist doctor.
It was some 30 years ago when I was still studying Computer Science in National
Taiwan University we already saw once at the time the kind of popularity AI can
attract. At that time there were sociologists talking about the impact AI would have
on the future society. Economists were concerned about the chance that AI leads to
mass unemployment, and philosophers wondering about the moral issues of AI. There
were even discussions about whether Artificial Intelligence could be considered as
real intelligence at all, whether computer can think.

Finally a mastermind of the software world Edsger W. Dijkstra had enough and
decided to step out and have his say on this topic, “The question of whether a
computer can think is no more interesting than the question of whether a submarine
can swim.”

The saying came out and amused all of us in the same field. It has long been repeated
in history, where the ones that have true understanding of what is going on are always
just busy working on the breakthroughs of technology advancement without trying to
catch the spotlight. In the meanwhile those without comprehensive understanding but
enjoy being famous will be eager to speak to the public and propose some vague and
paradoxical topics to entertain and confuse the mass public. The sophists brought up
a philosophical false issue and Dijkstra simply mocked them with a real philosophical
line.

II. AI and Relational Database

In this case, the imminent revolutionary trend of AI that we are witnessing at the
moment is it all just an illusion?
Of course not. The most significant development of this generation of AI will be the
popularisation of Machine Learning technology. What was a distant, out of reach type
of technology will soon be within the reach of mass public.

It might be hard for younger programmers to imagine, but 40 years ago Relational
Database was already a full visionary but untouchable technology. It was in the
1970’s when Edgar F. Codd of IBM already developed all of the mathematical
theorems that are required for the development of Relational Database. It was a
commonly approved theoretical framework but the capacity of computers at the time
was so limited that any processing of Relational Database will slow the computer
down to as if it has crashed. It is then no wonder that the application of Relational
Database was not commercialised at the time.

As the capacity of hardware evolves, even personal computers became capable of

handing Relational Database in the 1990’s and the use of SQL codes drastically
lowered the entry barrier of Relational Databse usage to allow for common
application. Today the utilisation of Relational Database is considered to be only a
fundamental skill.
Machine learning, similarly, was also some far out of reach kind of technology just
10 years ago. Any models of machine learning work would have almost paralysed
computers and the coding of machine learning was so sophisticated that other then a
handful of true experts on AI, most people would not be able to comprehend let alone
coding the programs.

What we are seeing now, however, is an extensive application of GPU (Graphic

Processing Units) in the training stages of machine learning. The processing capacity
of GPU is 10 time, 100 times, even 1000 times that of CPU, which allows the
development of machine learning programs taking place on personal computers to be
a real feasibility. The birth of development pools that are meant for the programming
of machine learning, such as TensorFlow and Keras, has further simplified the
programming work of Machine learning.

In my own case, it only took me a couple weeks of time to install and be oriented
with those development tools, enough to start coding certain simple facial
identification applications. And it was done while handling my usual work load and
finding spare time to run through the orientation.

It is rather complicated to manufacture a car, but it is not difficult to learn to drive. To

compile a system of Relational Database or a platform for machine learning, such as
Keras, is a daunting task. But to code an SQL database or to program with Keras is
not at all difficult.

That is why the real revolutionary significance of this generation of AI is going to be

the popularisation of machine learning technology. With another 10 year passing the
knowledge of machine learning codes could well be like what Relational database is
to programmers nowadays, just another fundamental requirement of programming
skill-set.

III. Where are the leads for AI?

The greatest force behind this generation of AI development is without much doubt
the coming of GPUs. And the story was in actuality a beautiful accident since GPU
and AI were totally unrelated concepts from the beginning. In the past several
decades their respective development have all been on their own terms. But since
GPU utilises the processing framework of SIMD (Single Instruction, Multiple Data),
and the Nearal Net computing of Machine learning is also some sort of SIMD, some
scientist decided to use GPU in Machine learning applications.

The fast processing speed of this application came as a surprise and NVIDIA, the
market leader of GPU, followed suit and further developed compatible drivers and
models to allow the Machine learning programmers of TensorFlow and Keras a
convenient access to the immense processing capacity of NVIDIA GPU. The great
success of this strategy can easily be told by the continual raise of NVIDIA’s share
price on the stock market.
In terms of software application, the most capable work of Neural Net is in sorting,
identifying and forecasting, especially in the processing of voice and image the
technology has entered the mature phase. However the process of machine learning
requires training material of higher quality, the access of which is not easily
manageable when it comes to sound data. Though it is now a common thing to have
high resolution imagine data. Therefore the sorting, identifying, and forecasting of
images will be the area that can be most easily applied to for Machine learning, as
well as the chances of commercialisation.

There are now teams working on the machine learning programs for X-ray result
reading, with an eye on replacing radiologist. There are also teams working on the
quality control identification of motherboard, circuit board, and chips, wishing to
replace the visual inspection work of quality controllers on the production line. Then
there are teams working on the reading of stock market diagrams, to be used in
financial market operation.

IV. AI & Magic

Magic is never real magic. Magicians only create illusions so that the audience
believes they have magic power and make unbelievable happenings. Artificial
Intelligence is still not yet intelligence. At least at this stage it is very true. The
programmers of AI are only creating the tillusion for the users so that they feel the
programs are intellectual and unbelievable.

Take Siri for example. Some year ago when it was made public there were a lot of
people who felt Siri was intellectual. The conclusion was draw on the fact that Siri
could answer questions such as “how old are you? Are you married? Would you be
my girl friend?”

I did not work on Siri. But I would easily imagine that the developers of Siri expected
users to ask those questions and in the process of development focused on the
training of such type of question.
But once you get acquainted with Siri, I guess there are only a few that still feel Siri
possesses real intellect. It could make phone call for use, tell us the weather forecast,
and order pizza for us. But once beyond certain extend, all that Siri does is search on
Google and feed us a link on the internet.

For the promotion of a product and marketing purposes, AI software needs to have an
impressive outlook, just as presenting itself as magic so we get a feel of intellect from
it. With the popularisation of AI, once we get familiarised with its capabilities we
will probably also come to the realisation that it is not all that amazing nor smart. In
other words, when we come to the realisation that AI is not intellectual, that will also
mark the time when AI has truly changed the world.