Category: language

Sincerity, Ambiguity and The Automated Web of Inauthenticity

Published November 15, 2010 by cgerrish

During last Sunday morning’s visit to the newsstand, I noticed a story listed on the cover of the most recent issue of the Atlantic magazine. It was the promise of finding out How The Web is Killing Truth that caused me to add the publication to my stack of Sunday morning purchases.

Sometime later I noticed a tweet by Google CEO, Eric Schmidt, that pointed to the same article online. The crux of the article concerns what happens when the crowd votes for the truth or falsity of a web page containing a news story. In particular, it deals with acts of collusion by right-wing operatives with regard to certain stories as they flowed through the Digg platform.

Digg depends on the authenticity and sincerity of its community to ‘digg’ or ‘bury’ stories based on their genuine thoughts and feelings. If the community were to break into ideological sub-communities that acted in concert to bury certain stories based on ideological principles, then the output of the platform could be systematically distorted.

For a time Digg withdrew the ‘bury’ button in response to this dilemma. The ‘bury’ button provided a tool for political activists to swiftboat opinion pieces and stories from the opposing ideological camp. Rather than a genuine expression of the crowd, the platform’s output was filtered through the prism of two ideologies fighting for shelf space at the top of a prioritized list.

Eric Schmidt’s interest in the story may have reflected his understanding of how this kind of user behavior might affect PageRank, especially as it begins to add a real-time/social component. Larry Page’s search algorithm is based on the idea that the number and quality of citations attached to a particular page should determine its rank in a list of search results. The predecessor to this concept was the reputation accorded to scholars whose academic papers were widely cited within the literature of a topic.

Google is already filtering link spam from its algorithm with varying levels of success. But if we examine the contents of the circulatory system of email, we can see where this is going. Through the use of scripted automated systems, it’s estimated that from 90 to 95% of all email can be described as spam. This process of filtering defines an interesting boundary within the flood of new content pouring into the Network. In a sense, Google must determine what is an authentic expression versus what is inauthentic. In the real-time social media world, it was thought that by switching from keyword-hyperlinks-to -pages to people-as-public-authors-of-short-hypertext-messages that users could escape spam (inauthentic hyperlinkages) through the unfollow. But once you venture outside a directed social graph into the world of keywords, topics, hashtags, ratings, comments and news you’re back into the world of entities (people or robots) you don’t know saying things that may or may not be sincere.

1:1 In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.

1:2 And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.

1:3 And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.

1:4 And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness.

1:5 And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.

1:6 And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.

1:7 And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so.

1:8 And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day.

1:9 And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so.

1:10 And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas: and God saw that it was good

And so Google saw the light, that it was good: and Google divided the light from the darkness. The good links that shed light from the bad links that dissemble and confuse. Of course, this is a very digital way of looking at language— a statement is either true or false. And with the exception of the spammers themselves, I think we can all agree that email, blog, twitter and any other kind of spam belongs on the other side of the line, over there in the darkness. When we say something is spam, we mean that it has no relevance to us and yet we, or our software agents, must process it. There is something false about spam.

The purely ideological gesture on a rating service is indistinguishable from the authentic gesture if one doesn’t have knowledge of the meta-game that is being played. Should meta-gamers be filtered from the mix? Ulterior motives dilute the data and may skew the results away from the authentic and genuine responses of the crowd/community. The question here is how do you know when someone is playing a different game than the one at hand? Especially if part of the meta-game is to appear to be playing the same game as everyone else.

The limits of my language are the limits of my world

– Ludwig Wittgenstein

When we limit our language to the purely sincere and genuine, what kind of language are we speaking? What kind of world are we spinning? Is it a world without ambiguity? Without jokes? Without irony, sarcasm or a deadpan delivery? Suddenly our world resembles the security checkpoint at the airport, no jokes please. Answer all questions sincerely and directly. Step this way into the scanning machine. Certainly when we’re trying to get somewhere quickly, we don’t want jokes and irony, we want straightforward and clear directions. It’s life as the crow flies.

There’s a sense in which human language reduces itself to fit into the cramped quarters of the machine’s language. Recently, a man named Paul Chambers lost an appeal in the United Kingdom over a hyperbolic comment he published on Twitter. Frustrated that the aiport was closed down and that he would not be able to visit a friend in Northern Ireland, Mr. Chambers threatened to blow up the airport unless they got it together. A routine Twitter search by an airport official turned up the tweet and it was submitted to the proper authorities. Mr. Chambers was convicted and has lost his appeal. Mr. Chambers was not being literal when he wrote and published that tweet. He was expressing his anger through the use of hyperbolic language. A hashtag protest has emerged under than keyword #iamspartacus. When Mr. Chambers’s supporters reproduce his original tweet word-for-word, how do they stand with respect to the law? If they add a hashtag, an LOL, or a 😉 emoticon does that tell the legal machine that the speaker is not offering a logical proposition in the form of a declarative sentence?

Imagine a filter that designated as nonsense all spam, ambiguity, irony, hyperbole, sarcasm, metaphor, metonymy, and punning. The sense we’d be left with would be expression of direct literal representation. This is unequivocally represents that. Google’s search algorithm has benefitted from the fact that, generally speaking, people don’t ironically hyperlink. But as the language of the Network becomes more real-time, more a medium through which people converse— the full range of language will come into play.

This learning, or re-learning, of what is possible with language gives us a sense of the difference between being a speaker of a language and an automated manipulator of symbols. It’s this difference that is making the giants of the Internet dance.

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Electronic Yellow Sticky Routing Slips: Tweets As Pointers

Published August 1, 2010 by cgerrish

After all this time, it’s still difficult to say what a tweet is. The generic form of the word has been expressed as microblogging, but this is the wrong metaphor. Blogging and RSS advocates see Twitter as a short-form quick publishing platform. What blogging tools made easy, Twitter, and other similar systems, make even easier. Given this definition, the 140 character limit on tweets seems to be an unnecessary constraint— microblogging could simply be expanded to miniblogging and a 500 character limit for individual posts. Blog posts can be any length, they are as small or large as they need to be.

“All my plays are full length, some are just longer than others.”
– Samuel Beckett

But Twitter didn’t start with blogging or blogging tools as its central metaphor, it began with the message streams that flow through dispatching systems. The tweet isn’t a small blog post, it’s a message in a communications and logistics system. There’s a tendency to say that the tweet is a “micro” something— a very small version of some normally larger thing. But tweets are full sized, complete and lack nothing. Their size allows them to flourish in multiple communications environments, particularly the SMS system and the form factor of the mobile network device (iPhone).

The best metaphor I’ve found for a tweet is the yellow sticky. The optimal post-it note is 3 inches square and canary yellow in color. It’s not a small version of something else, its size is perfect for its purpose. There are no limitations on what can be written on a yellow sticky, but its size places constraints on the form of communication. Generally, one expects a single thought per yellow sticky. And much like Twitter, explaining what a yellow sticky is to someone who’s never used one is a difficult task. Initial market tests for the post-it note showed mixed reactions. However after extensive sampling, 90% of consumers who tried the product wanted to buy it. Like the tweet, the post-it note doesn’t have a specific purpose. Arthur Fry, one of the inventors of the post-it note, wanted a bookmark with a light adhesive to keep his place in his hymnal during church choir. The rapid acceptance of the yellow sticky, in part, had to do with not defining what it should be used for. It’s hard to imagine someone saying that you’re not using a post-it note correctly, although people say that about Twitter all the time.

One thing people use yellow stickies for is as a transmittal. I find a magazine article that I like and I pass it on to you with a short message on a yellow sticky that marks the page. I might send this package to you through the mail, use inter-office mail at work, or I might just leave it on your desk. More formal routing slips might request specific actions be taken on the attached item. Fax cover sheets are another example of this kind of communication. And Twitter is often used in a similar way. The hyperlink is the adhesive that binds the message to article I’d like to pass on to you. With Twitter, and other directed social graph services, the you I pass things on to includes followers, potentially followers of followers and users who track keywords contained in my message. At any given time, the who of the you will describe a different group. The message is passed on without obligation, the listeners may simply let it pass through, or they may take up the citation and peruse its contents.

Just as the special low-tack adhesive on the back of a yellow sticky allows you to attach it to anything without leaving marks or residue, the hyperlink allows the user of Twitter to easily point at something. Hey, look at this! Rather than a long explanation or justification, it’s just my finger pointing at something of interest. That’s interesting to me. It’s the way we talk to each other when the words aren’t the most important part of the communication.

This model of passing along items of interest is fundamentally different from web syndication. Syndication extends the distribution of published content to additional authorized contexts. Some may argue that the mostly defunct form of the ‘link blog‘, or an aggregation of link blogs, offers exactly the same value. The difference is that the tweet, as electronic routing slip, exists in a real-time social media communications system. It operates like the messages in a dispatching system. There’s an item at 3rd and Webster about cute kittens, here’s the hyperlink for interested parties. Syndication implies that I think what I’ve published is valuable, I’ve extended my distribution area and you should have a look at it. With a tweeted electronic routing slip, the value is assigned by the reader who decides to pass something along and the readers who choose to take it up within a real-time (instant) messaging system. Value is external to the thing being evaluated.

As we start to look at new applications like Flipboard, an app that collects routing slips from your social network and lays them out into a magazine format, it’s important to understand the basic unit from which the experience is built. We’re used to a newspaper filled with a combination of syndicated wire stories and proprietary ones. We know about magazines where all the stories are proprietary. A few of us are familiar with web syndication aggregators that allow us to pull in, organize and read feeds from thousands of publication sources. Building an electronic publication from sets of real-time routing slips is a fundamentally different editorial process than we’ve seen before. Of course, it could be that you don’t find the stories that your friends pass on to be very interesting. In the end, this method of assembling a real-time publication will be judged based on the value it provides. A magazine with a thousand stories isn’t really very useful, just as a Google search result with a million answers doesn’t help you find something. Can you imagine a real-time magazine that captures the ten stories that are worth reading right now? Can you imagine a time when such a thing didn’t exist?

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The Enculturation of the Network: Totem and Taboo

Published April 26, 2010 by cgerrish

Thinking about what it might mean to stand at the intersection of technology and the humanities has resulted in an exploration with a very circuitous route.

The Network has been infused with humanity, with every aspect of human character— the bright possibilities and the tragic flaws.

On May 29, 1919, Arthur Stanley Eddington took some photographs of a total eclipse of the sun. Eddington had gone to Africa to conduct an experiment that might determine whether Newton’s or Einstein’s model was closer to physical reality.

During the eclipse, he took pictures of the stars in the region around the Sun. According to the theory of general relativity, stars with light rays that passed near the Sun would appear to have been slightly shifted because their light had been curved by its gravitational field. This effect is noticeable only during eclipses, since otherwise the Sun’s brightness obscures the affected stars. Eddington showed that Newtonian gravitation could be interpreted to predict half the shift predicted by Einstein.

My understanding of the physics is rather shallow, my interest is more in the metaphorics— in how the word-pictures we use to describe and think about the universe changed based on a photograph. Where the universe lined up nicely on a grid before the photograph, afterwards, space became curvaceous. Mass and gravity bent the space that light passed through. Assumed constants moved into the category of relativity.

The Network also appears to be composed of a neutral grid, its name space, through which passes what we generically call payloads of “content.” Each location has a unique identifier; the only requirement for adding a location is that its name not already be in use. You can’t stand where someone is already standing unless you displace them. No central authority examines the suitability of the node’s payload prior to its addition to the Network.

The universe of these location names is expanding at an accelerating rate. The number of addresses on the Network quickly outstripped our ability to both put them into a curated index and use, or even understand, that index. Search engines put as much of the Network as they can spider into the index and then use software algorithms to a determine a priority order of the contents of the index based on keyword queries. The search engine itself attempts to be a neutral medium through with the nodes of the Network are prioritized based on user query input.

Regardless of the query asked, the method of deriving the list of prioritized results is the same. The method and production cost for each query is identical. This kind of equal handling of Network nodes with regard to user queries is the search engine equivalent of freedom, opportunity and meritocracy for those adding and updating nodes on the Network. The algorithms operate without prejudice.

The differential value of the queries and prioritized link lists is derived through an auction process. The cost of producing each query/result set is the same—it is a commodity—but the price of buying advertising is determined by the intensity of the advertiser’s desire. The economics of the Network requires that we develop strategies for versioning digital commodities and enable pricing systems linked to desire rather than cost of production. Our discussions about “Free” have to do with cost-based pricing for digital information goods. However, it’s by overlaying a map of our desires on to the digital commodity that we start to see the contours, the curvaceousness of this space, the segments where versioning can occur.

We’ve posited that the search algorithm treats all nodes on the Network equally. And more and more, we take the Network to be a medium that can fully represent human life. In fact, through various augmented reality applications, human reality and the Network are sometimes combined into a synthetic blend (medium and message). Implicitly we also seem to be asserting a kind of isomorphism between human life and the Network. For instance, sometimes we’ll say that on the Network, we “publish everything, and filter later.” The gist of this aphorism is that where there are economics of low-or-no-cost production, there’s no need to filter for quality in advance of production and transfer to the Network. Everything can be re-produced on the Network and then sorted out later. But when we use the word “everything,” do we really mean everything?

The neutral medium of the Network allows us to disregard the payload of contents. Everything is equivalent. A comparison could be made to the medium of language— anything can be expressed. But as the Network becomes more social, we begin to see the shape of our society emerge within the graph of nodes. Sigmund Freud, in his 1913 book entitled Totem and Taboo, looks at the markers that we place on the border of what is considered socially acceptable behavior. Ostensibly, the book examines the resemblances between the mental life of savages and neurotics. (You’ll need to disregard the archaic attitudes regarding non-European cultures)

We should certainly not expect that the sexual life of these poor, naked cannibals would be moral in our sense or that their sexual instincts would be subjected to any great degree of restriction. Yet we find that they set before themselves with the most scrupulous care and the most painful severity the aim of avoiding incestuous sexual relations. Indeed, their whole social organization seems to serve that purpose or to have been brought into relation with its attainment.

Freud is pointing to the idea that social organization, while certainly containing positive gestures, reserves its use of laws, restrictions and mores for the negative gesture. The structure of societal organization to a large extent rests on what is excluded, what is not allowed. He finds this common characteristic in otherwise very diverse socio-cultural groups. Totems and taboos bend and structure the space that our culture passes through.

In the safesearch filters employed by search engines we can see the ego, id and superego play out their roles. When we search for transgressive content, we remove all filtering. But presumably, we do, as a member of a society, filter everything before we re-produce it on the Network. Our “unfiltered” content payloads are pre-filtered through our social contract. Part of the uncomfortableness we have with the Network is that once transgressive material is embodied in the Network, the algorithms disregard any difference between the social and the anti-social. A boundary that is plainly visible to the human— and is in fact a structural component of its identity and society, is invisible to the machine. Every node on the Network is processed identically through the algorithm.

This issue has also been raised in discussions about the possibility of artificial intelligence. In his book Mirror Worlds, David Gelernter discusses a key difference between human memory and machine memory:

Well for one thing, certain memories make you feel good. The original experience included a “feeling good” sensation, and so the tape has “feel good” recorded on it, and when you recall the memory— you feel good. And likewise, one reason you choose (or unconsciously decide) not to recall certain memories is that they have “feel bad” recorded on them, and so remembering them makes you feel bad.

But obviously, the software version of remembering has no emotional compass. To some extent, that’s good: Software won’t suppress, repress or forget some illuminating case because (say) it made a complete fool of itself when the case was first presented. Objectivity is powerful.

Objectivity is very powerful. Part of that power lies in not being subject to personal foibles and follies with regard to the handling, sorting, connecting and prioritizing of data. The dark side of that power is that the objectivity of the algorithm is not subject to social prohibitions either. They simply don’t register. To some extent technology views society and culture as a form of exception processing, a hack grafted on to the system. As the Network is enculturated, we are faced with the stark visibility of terrorism, perversity, criminality, and prejudice. On the Network, everything is just one click away. Transgression isn’t hidden in the darkness. On the Network, the light has not yet been divided from the darkness. In its neutrality there is a sort of flatness, a lack of dimensionality and perspective. There’s no chiaroscuro to provide a sense of volume, emotion, limit and mystery.

And finally here’s the link back to the starting point of this exploration. A kind of libertarian connection has been made between the neutral quality of the medium of the Network and our experience of freedom in a democratic republic. The machine-like disregard for human mores and cultural practices is held up as virtue and example for human behavior. No limits can be imposed on the payloads attached to any node of the Network. The libertarian view might be stated that the fewest number of limitations should be applied to payloads while still maintaining some semblance of society. Freud is instructive here: our society is fundamentally defined by what we exclude, by what we leave out, and by what we push out. While our society is more and more inclusive, everything is not included. Mass and gravity bend the space that light passes through.

The major debates on the Network seem to line up with the contours of this pattern. China excludes Google and Google excludes China. Pornographic applications are banished from Apple’s AppStore. Android excludes nothing. Closed is excluded by Open, Open is included by Closed. Spam wants to be included, users want to exclude spam. Anonymous commenters and trolls should be excluded. Facebook must decide what the limits of speech are within the confines of its domain. The open internet excludes nothing. Facebook has excluded the wrong thing. The open internet has a right to make your trade secrets visible. As any node on the Network becomes a potential node in Facebook’s social/semantic graph, are there nodes that should be taboo? How do we build a civil society within the neutral medium of the Network? Can a society exist in which nothing is excluded?

In the early days of the Network, it was owned and occupied by technologists and scientists. The rest of humanity was excluded. As the Network absorbs new tribes and a broader array of participants, its character and its social contract has changed. It’s a signal of a power shift, a dramatic change in the landscape. And if you happen to be standing at the crossroads of technology and the humanities, you might have a pretty good view of where we’re going.

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The Innerworld of the Outerworld of the Innerworld

Published January 4, 2010 by cgerrish

As we consider ourselves in the flow of the day, we pause, once again, to consider identity. During the rush of the day we move through a thousand states. We flow from this to that as a result of our actions. Our many identities spring from the scenes we string together: the moment when we stop to shield our eyes from the sun; the quick turn of our heads when we think someone has called our name; the curse under our breath as the bus we’ve been waiting for arrives full and passes without stopping. They’re signifiers and contexts that circulate, they flow around us— around the things we do. They assign us a role within the never-ending series of stories that collect around us as we move through the world.

As we attempt to understand identity on the Network, we seem to crave a unified identity— a single container to hold all of our masks. And while we are beginning to transition from the static file to the real-time stream, we still want to draw a solid line around identity. The objects of the Network have been injected with time; we place the cursor here in the stream, a bread crumb to mark the spot, to provide reference for the next time we dip in. The artifacts of Internet identity are, of course, the outerworld of our innerworld— snapshots along the way.

In the book by the same name, there’s a poem entitled: “The Innerworld of the Outerworld of the Innerworld.” This phrase is a condensation of the style of Peter Handke’s early writing. We can plainly see the outerworld of the innerworld, these are the external artifacts of our internal stream of consciousness. But those objects of the outerworld have their own innerworld (a flux of time). Handke effects a change of perspective, a change of context— from the inside out to the outside in, and then to the inside of that outside. But it’s a poem with a different title in this volume that clarifies this complex perspective: “Changes during the Course of the Day.”

Changes during the Course of the Day
by Peter Handke

As long as I am still alone, I am still alone.
As long as I am still among acquaintances, I am still an acquaintance.
But as soon as I am among strangers—

As soon as I step out on the street— a pedestrian steps out on the street.
As soon as I enter the subway— a subway rider enters the subway
A soon as I enter the jewelry shop— a gentleman enters the jewelry shop.
As soon as I push the shopping cart through the supermarket— a customer pushes the cart through the supermarket.
As soon as I enter the department store— someone on a shopping spree enters the department store.

Then I walk past some children— and the the children see an adult walking past. Then I enter the off-limits zone— and the guards see a trespasser enter the off-limits zone. Then I see children running away from me in the off-limits zone— and I become a guard whom the children flee because they are unauthorized persons in an off-limits zone.

Then I sit in the waiting room as an applicant. Then I write my name on the back of the envelope as a sender. Then I fill out the lottery ticket as a winner.

As soon as I am asked how one gets to BLACK ROAD— I become someone who knows his way around town.
As soon as I see the incredible— I become a witness.
As soon as I enter the church— I become a layman.
As soon as I don’t ignore an accident— I become a busy-body.
As soon as I don’t know how to get to BLACK ROAD— I am again someone who doesn’t know his way to BLACK ROAD.

I have just consumed the meal— already I can say: We consumers!
I have just had something stolen from me— already I can say: We proprietors!
I have just placed the obituary— already I can say: We mourners!
I have just begun to contemplate the universe— already I can say: We human beings!

I read the novel in the mass publication— and become one among millions.
I don’t fulfill my duties toward the authorities— and am no longer a dutiful citizen of the state.
I don’t run away during the riot— and I’m an inciter of riots.
I look up from the novel I’m reading and observe the beauty opposite me— and we become two among millions.

Then someone does not leave the moving train— someone? — A traveler.
Then someone speaks without an accent— someone? — A native.
Then someone has a vis-à-vis— and becoma a vis-à-vis.
Then someone no longer only plays by himself— and becomes an opponent.

Then someone crawls out from under a thicket in the park and becomes a suspicious subject.
Then someone who is being discussed becomes an object of discussion.
Then someone is recognized on a photo— and becomes an X.
Then someone takes a walk in the country— someone? A wanderer.

And then the car makes a sudden stop in front of me— I become an obstacle.
Then I am seen by a figure in the dark— and become a figure in the dark.
And when I am then observed through binoculars— I am an object.
Then someone stumbles over me— and I become a body.
And when I am then stepped upon— I become something soft.
Then I am wrapped up in something— and become a content.

Then one notices that someone has run barefoot over the dirt road and that a right-hander has fired the shot and that someone whose blood group is O has lain there and that I, judging by the my shabby looks, must be a foreigner.

As soon as someone challenges me then— the one who’s been challenged doesn’t stop when challenged.
As soon as I am then far enough away from the observers— the object is nothing but a dot.
As soon as I, as an observer, challenge someone— I give the one who has been challenged quite a fright.

Then, finally, I meet an acquaintance— and a single person remains behind alone.
Then, finally, I am left aone— and a single person remains behind alone.
Then, finally, I sit down next to someone in the grass— and am finally someone else.

From The Innerworld of the Outerworld of the Innerworld by Peter Handke, translated by Michael Roloff

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