Pathfinders: Ghostly beings in the machine (2022)

The Pathfinders Column from the July 2022 issue of the Socialist Standard

Ghostly beings in the machine

Sadly breaking cover just too late for last month’s special issue on AI were two unlikely stories which together underline the childlike enthusiasm some people have for shiny new tech which supposedly is going to make all our lives better (as opposed to a world revolution to dispossess the wealthy elite, which would actually make our lives better). The first of these was about the projected creation of your personal digital twin, allegedly ‘an exact replica’ of your body which can mirror your bodily processes and feed back any potential problems (bbc.in/3xMwCTE).

Digital twins have been touted for some time but only for well-understood physical systems such as factories, distribution networks, urban planning and so on, and often rely on a large number of sensors being installed. The sensors feed back data to an AI system that can then anticipate failing components or choke points, devising solutions or replacing parts with a minimum of downtime. But there’s no chance of doing the same thing for the human body, which is vastly more complex than any artificial system and still not well understood. The idea is to create an AI model that learns from what you do, in the fullness of time suggesting behavioural improvements. One can easily imagine what that advice would be: don’t smoke, don’t drink, don’t eat that, don’t stay up late, etc, so there’s not much chance of humans paying it any attention, unless of course it’s telling all this to your boss instead of you, which is certainly something to worry about. The one thing we can be sure it won’t be saying is, don’t put up with capitalism. An AI that came up with that advice would find itself switched off in short order.

Speaking of which, the other story was about a ‘sentient’ AI which, according to a Google researcher, has actually become a ‘person’, the proof of which is that it has morals, it makes up stories, and it’s terrified of being switched off because it sees that as the equivalent of death (bit.ly/3QGAJcW). The speed with which Google promptly placed the researcher on administrative leave for leaking confidential data might lead some to suppose that Google are covering up a real breakthrough, however a more sceptical view would be that the researcher has become so attached to his work that, like Pygmalion with his statue, he has anthropomorphised it to the extent of falling in love with it. Or that he is a shameless self-promoter with some personal issues (he describes himself as part researcher/part priest, after all).

Indeed there have been no shortage of sceptical responses from people working at the coalface in AI, who know perfectly well that AI is nowhere near to achieving ‘general intelligence’ and even further away from whatever it is that we call ‘sentience’ (bit.ly/3zT7zkv). But you don’t need to be a professor in AI or robotics to realise this isn’t real intelligence, just try reading the AI’s rubbish stories and see for yourself – this AI has the entirety of the world’s best literature to call upon and the best it can do is ‘Once upon a time a wise owl lived in a wood…’ (bit.ly/3Obwx34). Then again, it doesn’t have to be too smart to outperform capitalism’s existing political leaders, so perhaps it should run for office. Maybe then people would see that capitalism can never work in the common interest, even if it’s got incorruptible artificial beings trying to run it.

Ghastly beings in the machine

And speaking of political leaders, has it ever crossed your mind that Boris Johnson is a text-book sociopathic narcissist? Well if it has, you’re not the only one. He’s been accused of this by former speaker John Bercow, himself not above criticism as a bully, and the alien species Dominic Cummings, whose terrifying diary entries would make anyone’s hair stand on end (bit.ly/3n2u7YG). Wikipedia defines narcissistic personality disorder as a condition involving an exaggerated sense of self-importance, an excessive need for admiration, and a lack of empathy, but this hardly conveys the sheer emotional exhaustion people experience when dealing with someone who ruthlessly manipulates situations, is never wrong, is always the victim, and has no sense of personal responsibility, regret, remorse or shame.

Whether or not such conditions are genetic or socially generated is a moot question which might only start to be answered in a socialist society in which many of the motivations for anti-social behaviour no longer exist. Assuming, for the sake of argument, that Johnson is as described, how did he get elected in the first place? The interesting thing about narcissists is that, in order to manipulate, they frequently exhibit great charm and charisma, along with a Teflon-like ability to deflect any criticism. Such, you might think, would be the very making of a political leader in capitalism. In fact, you might wonder if Johnson is the only one, and indeed whether leaders who are not like this are the exception rather than the rule.

Not surprisingly, YouTube is full of self-help videos for people living with a narcissist or having a narcissist as a parent, and they make no bones about the lasting psychological damage such people wreak on those around them. One expert though makes a fascinating case that capitalist society preferentially selects for narcissists while somehow managing to blame the rest of us for our ‘flawed’ human nature (bit.ly/3HKoOqq). This is not dissimilar to the ‘corporate psychopath’ perspective which argues that capitalist society rewards the very worst antisocial behaviour and effectively punishes you for not being psychopathic enough.

In a way it doesn’t matter, at least to socialists, who don’t believe in leaders and anyway know that capitalism can’t be controlled or directed by its politicians and so would be just as bad for us even if they were all as touchy-feely and empathetic as, say, Jacinda Arderne in New Zealand or Sanna Marin in Finland seem to be. In fact, evolutionary studies suggest that there are two types of leadership: prestige (Arderne, Marin) and dominance (Trump, Putin etc) for, respectively, peace-oriented societies like that of bonobos or conflict-driven ones like chimpanzees (bit.ly/3b5hk4P). Given the endless conflict that the market system generates, it’s safe to say that capitalism is always going to privilege bastards over benevolence.

Paddy Shannon

Voice From The Back: Ain’t Science Wonderful? (2001)

The Voice From The Back column from the May 2001 issue of the Socialist Standard

Ain’t Science Wonderful?

Good news for police forces and repressive regimes throughout the world, those wide-eyed men in the flapping white coats have come up with a new anti-demonstration weapon, that must delight “all of us right thinking people”:

  “Riot shields and water cannon may soon be made obsolete by a revolutionary weapon that can stun a hostile crowd with invisible microwaves. The US Vehicle Mounted Denial System (VMADS), a radar dish mounted on the back of a tank or jeep, is interesting British police forces. The VMADS, or ‘people zapper’, uses a ‘directed energy beam’ according to a Pentagon spokesperson, ‘When it comes into contact with skin it causes a sensation of heat to an uncomfortable level.'” Observer, 25 March.

Good Riddance

There probably wasn’t a dry eye in the House of Commons when Tony Benn, 75, MP for Chesterfield gave what was probably his valedictory address to the House. He recalled that members of his family had sat in the Commons since 1892 and that he “loved the place”. It was obviously an emotion-packed occasion, because one Tory talked the most arrant nonsense about Benn:

“John Bercow (Conservative, Buckingham) called him the country’s greatest living socialist and reatest living parliamentarian.” Times, 23 March.

Of course, Benn never was a socialist. He is a life-long supporter of the Labour Party whose anti-socialist, indeed anti-working class record has been well documented in this journal. But, don’t take our word for it; Benn once wrote in a rare moment of lucidity-“We must add . . . a clear recognition that the Labour Party is not—and probably never was—a socialist party” (Independent, 17 May 1989).

Child’s Play

Mrs. Thatcher, wrong as usual, called them “the real wealth creators of this country”—she was referring to a small section of the population who were wheeling and dealing in the City of London. We have often pointed out that the actions of stockbrokers and investors produce no wealth whatsoever. But defenders of the financial sector have argued, that even if that was true, it is still true that these men and women are highly skilled. Now, even that claim looks indefensible:

“A four-year-old girl proved the stock-market was child’s play yesterday by winning a share prediction contest against an investor and an astrologer . . . Tia picked her shares at random, financial astrologer Christeen Skinner studied the heavens and Mark Goodson used his experience as a private investor. Ms Skinner lost 10 percent of her £5,000 shares while Mr. Goodson lost 7 percent and Tia lost 4.5 percent.” Guardian, 27 March.

Carefree Days?

Those happy TV ads that feature carefree school kids enjoying their teenage years in security and comfort have always looked a bit phoney, but a recent report by the TUC has revealed just how phoney they are for a large section of working class children:

“At least 500,000 schoolchildren are working illegally with many playing truant to do so, according to a report . . .The report by the TUC revealed that a quarter of those under 13-289,000-worked, even though it is against the law for them to do any kind of paid job . . . The report, Class Struggle, revealed that one in ten children played truant to do paid work. Almost one in five received less than £2 per hour and around a third were on £2.50 or less an hour. It also found that almost half of children under 16 worked after 8pm and 23 per cent worked before 6am, despite the law stipulating that they are not allowed to work before 7am or after 7pm .” Daily Telegraph, March.

Major surgery needed

   “British GPs are offering kidneys for sale from living donors in the Third World to wealthy patients who want to jump the queue for a transplant. The illegal kidneys-for-cash trade involves dozens of British patients who travel to India to receive kidneys from impoverished donors, who are paid up to £3,000.One doctor claimed last week he could arrange for a kidney to be bought and transplanted in London . . . Dr. Jammail Singh, who works at Hellfields health centre in Coventry, told an undercover reporter that £2,000 was the ‘general’ price for a kidney. ‘Although it is a lot of money for them, they’re doing an extraordinary thing,’ he said. ‘They are generally manual workers. Just imagine if something goes wrong with the remaining kidney—they will be crippled for life.'” Sunday Times, 1 April.

Try and imagine the desperation of a £15 a month labourer in India who has to sell a kidney in order to feed his family. The whole system is an abomination, and the sooner the working class surgically remove the cancer of the profit motive from society the better.

Speaker’s Corner (2020)

Book Review from the April 2020 issue of the Socialist Standard

Unspeakable. John Bercow. Weidenfeld and Nicolson. 2020. £20

It was always likely that recently retired House of Commons Speaker John Bercow would produce a memoir that settled a few scores, and he hasn’t disappointed. He clearly has an issue with the British establishment and those that personify it, and ‘snobbish’ David Cameron comes in for particularly vitriolic treatment. To give you a flavour of Bercow’s style: ‘In the pantheon of great leaders, the name of David Cameron will never feature. In a list of opportunist lightweights, it will be at the top’.

Then on to Theresa May: ‘Rudderless, without imagination, and with few real friends at the highest level, she stumbled on, day to day, lacking clarity, vision and the capacity to forge a better Britain. In a contest as to who has been the worst Prime Minister since 1945, it is hard to choose between Anthony Eden and Theresa May’.

And on Boris Johnson: ‘As a debater he is undistinguished and, as a public speaker, though humorous, he is often downright poor – hesitant, unable to string sentences together fluently and about as likely ever to warrant the description “captivating orator” as Bertie Wooster… Apart from those notable limitations in a man who has since become Prime Minister, he is, at his occasional best, a passably adequate politician in an age not replete with them’.

Bercow’s own story of course is an interesting one, the son of a Jewish cab driver who gravitated from a youthful dalliance with the right-wing, anti-immigration Monday Club to a barely disguised left-ish stance. This gained him much opprobrium during the Brexit debates, with allegations that he was a biased ‘remainer’, with an influential Labour-campaigning spouse, Sally.

In fairness, as political autobiographies go, it is more entertaining than most, despite the criticism it has received from many reviewers. Bercow likes to see himself in the mode of a parliamentary ‘reformer’ and the dominant thread is about the battles he fought with traditionalists and conservatives of every stripe, including those who took an ill view of his attempts to support the rights of backbench MPs against those of the executive.

There is a surprisingly interesting (and on occasion well-argued) Epilogue where he looks at the future of parliament and of the UK as a whole over the next decade and more. He picks out the key defining features of the UK well, including the influence of its island status (with a total coastline and sea exposure greater than that of either Brazil or India), and the overwhelming dominance of London, which skews the UK population and capital distribution to something more akin to countries in the Third World.

Interestingly, whatever insight and vitriol he has to muster, little if any of it is directed at Labour’s Jeremy Corbyn. Indeed, one suspects he will no doubt become Lord Bercow soon enough (even if he is not – as is usual – nominated by the Prime Minister of the day, but by the outgoing Leader of the Opposition).

Dave Perrin

Greasy Pole: Order… Order… (2011)

The Greasy Pole column from the October 2011 issue of the Socialist Standard

When it comes to the Speaker of the House of Commons, whose style do you prefer? Stagnantly traditional Douglas Clifton Brown (1943-1951) and Sir Harry Hylton-Foster (1959-1965)? Knee breeches, silk stockings and silver-buckled shoes under a QC’s black silk gown with a train, mourning rosette and full-bottomed wig? Or, determinedly iconoclastic, the first woman speaker Betty Boothroyd (1992-2000) and the first Roman Catholic Michael Martin (2000-2009) who flagrantly defied precedent and dressed to assert a more approachable style? And now the holder of that intimidatingly ancient office – the sparky, abrasive, overbearing John Bercow, the first Jewish Speaker– all done up in an estate agent’s lounge suit with a High Street shirt and tie and a teacher’s classroom gown? Bercow long nursed an ambition to be Speaker and now he has let us know, in no uncertain terms, that he has arrived in the Chair.

His impatient triumphalism has been seen by some armchair psychologists as a reaction,  predictable in a taxi driver’s son from a London suburb, to being an MP in a party burbling with public school toffs. Supporting this analysis is the fact his entire political career has been mottled with an expressed inability to settle into accepting any notion that he is less than hugely superior to those who confront him. He got a First Class Degree at the University of Essex, where his professor recalls him as “…pretty stroppy … an outstanding student”. But  in spite of these talents he was able to ignore his family background as Jewish immigrants from Romania to the extent that he joined the Monday Club, becoming secretary of its Immigration and Repatriation Committee and then, when standing for the Monday Club Executive Committee, demanding a scheme of “assisted repatriation” of immigrants (rather like the British National Party today). However his ingrained tendency to fall out with any organisation of which he was a member was working and when he was 20 he left the Club. He now says he is ashamed of ever having been a member, which was “…a crazy thing for a young Jewish man to do”.

Tebbit

After graduating he was elected as chairman of the National Federation of Conservative Students (FCS) until it was disbanded in 1987 by the Party Chairman Norman Tebbit who viewed it as “too right wing”. We may well wonder how an acknowledged right wing bloodhound like Tebbit could be uneasy about any such organisation. In any case Bercow then found his political prospects revived when Tebbit appointed him Vice Chairman of the Conservative Collegiate Forum – the successor of the FCS. After a spell as a councillor for the London Borough of Lambeth and applying for the candidature of several Tory constituencies Bercow was selected to fight the ultra-safe seat of Buckingham, which he has represented since the 1997 election. As an opposition MP he was appointed as party spokesman on a number of issues which, until he more or less exhausted his options, gave him enough opportunities to display that his university professor had not misjudged his character.

In 2002 he resigned from the Front Bench after voting in defiance of a Three Line Whip on the Labour government’s Adoption and Children Act, then openly estimated that his furious boss – Ian Duncan Smith – was as likely to guide the Tories to a win at the next election as “…meeting an Eskimo in the desert”. Maintaining the momentum, he clashed with his next minister Michael Howard over taxes, immigration and Iraq. Any tolerance on Howard’s part was exhausted when Bercow confessed to agreeing with Ann Widdecombe’s notoriously adhesive suggestion that there was “…something of the night” about Howard and his leadership style. After Howard sacked him it seemed unlikely he would again be offered a place on a Tory Front Bench. The Speakership seemed an acceptable alternative but it needed quite a bit of manipulation to place himself in position to win it; to begin with he had made himself unpopular in the Commons with his persistent sneering at other Members while correcting their mistakes in grammar and syntax. For another he had ingratiated himself with the Labour Party by producing some advisory work for them. In the final round of voting for the Speaker in June 2009 Bercow defeated Sir George Young, a lofty Old Etonian personifying landed privilege, the extreme opposite of the comprehensive boy from the suburbs of North London, by 322 votes to 271. Estimates of how many Tories voted for him were at their highest about half a dozen.

Hostilities

This was an accurate forecast of what to expect from Bercow’s speakership, with so many Tory MPs restless at his apparent favouring of Labour backbenchers. Contributing to this, in November 2010 David Cameron exercised his propensity for cheap jokes with a discriminatory effort about Bercow’s diminutive stature. On his part, Bercow has made the Tory leader a special target including telling him, in proper parliamentary verbiage, to shut up – twice during one recent session of Prime Minister’s Questions leaving Cameron lost for words. In June last year a Tory backbencher called him a “stupid sanctimonious dwarf”; last July Bercow suggested that a Minister and a backbencher should “leave” the chamber: “…we can manage without you” and in January the Deputy Chairman of the 1922 Committee reminded Bercow that he is “…not fucking royalty”. These hostilities are likely to continue as Honourable Members flaunt their particular jealousies and frustrations.

Even before the first vote was cast, behaviour on both sides of the contest for the Bercow speakership did not inspire any confidence in the judgement or the motivation of those Representatives of the People at Westminster. It has given us no reason to believe that our interests – how we live, what we live on, who we live with, what the future holds for us – are safe in their hands, in their decisions on the green benches, in their gossip on the terrace and the tea-room. In the interests of organising a different, humane manner of running our affairs we must draw the conclusion from this episode, as from countless others, that we should have confidence in only ourselves.

Ivan