Human Morality: from Mexico's Solution to GHW Bush to AI(!) to Climate Change to SETI

-This time we'll dive into the nature of morality, whether aliens might share some of our basic codes... and not share others. But first, let's clear some pressing items... 

There's been fervid discussion of my previous posting on "things the new, Democratic-run House of Representatives can accomplish, even with a hostile Senate and President." As it happens, there are plenty, like rescinding the 2001 War Powers resolution, restoring the requirement that a president get Congressional permission to go to war. Alas, Blogger ate my followup Part Two, about actual legislation, but I have hopes to restore it soon.

In the news: 

Today Mexico gets a new president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador. Here's a link to my August piece respectfully recommending a simple procedure - he would not need any legislation - to rip the guts out of corruption in his country. Single-handedly he could set an example that would spread around the world. 

Also today we note the passing of a fellow who was the only Republican vice-presidential nominee ever remotely qualified for office... and boy was he qualified, on paper! As president he later was known for decorum, calm, deliberation and personal decency (remember such Republicans?) He also -- because of lickspittle obedience to oligarchic masters -- did more damage to America and the world in just one term than any other president of the 20th Century, setting the stage for a renewed -- and much hotter -- version of the Cold War.

 == A soft landing for AI? For Blockchain? ==

Getting more than we bargained for: here's one of my best interviews about Artificial Intelligence and ways to get a "soft" singularity. Good questions and editing by Paul Thies at Thomson-Reuters. My proposal regarding AI is (alas) not offered anywhere else, though it's the only one that can possibly work... because it already has worked, increasingly well, for 200 years.

I’m on the advisory board of several ICOs or “initial coin offerings”… groups creating blockchain tokens that are supposed to serve a useful function inside a digital community, with (officially) no outer world promises that would violate securities laws.  I am known as the “grouch” you want on such an advisory board, reminding these folks to stay out of jail! 

And in that spirit, let me offer you all a glimpse of this exciting opportunity. Follow the trail… for a surprise.

== ... and for climate change? ==

My friend neural scientist and author William Calvin has given amazing talks on how the arrival of extreme weather events is a harbinger alarm. He reminds us when “a mega heat wave struckEurope in July 2003. It killed 70,000 people! A hundred times more than any 20th Century event, like the 1995 Chicago heat wave that killed 739. A statistical freak? Well, one in a million does occasionally happen, you know...

...only it was not a one-off! Seven years later, two time zones farther east, another mega killed 56,000 Russians, ruined a third of their food crops and helped propel hunger in the middle east. "The chances of both being random? One in a million million. So, forget statistics: we have a new player in action, a real game-changer lacking a track record to help us judge risk by conventional means.”

Calvin continues: “About ten years ago, billion-dollar-plus floods started occurring four times as often— not counting coastal flooding from hurricanes. Those billion-dollar windstorms that rip off your roof? Or cause baseball-sized hail? Their numbers tripled after 2006…”

“The jet stream used to stay up at Canadian latitudes most of the time…Now its path is frequently seen to dip down south, sometimes to Texas and Florida. It acts as a road block, so that weather cannot move on. If the sun is shining, no clouds arrive to cool things off and the heat keeps building. If instead it just keeps raining, floods result.” Or else, in winter, it allows a needle of arctic-bitter cold to spear south, as we saw last year. (And Fox declared the cold “disproved global warming.”)

The beneficiary? As arctic cold spills down the Mississippi Valley, polar ice vanishes giving Russia  a dozen new ports and control over a valuable new shipping lanes.

As hurricane seasons worsen and wildfire seasons widen, even some Republicans have noticed. In possibly as a sop to the RASRs (residually adult-sane Republicans) who still teeter inside the GOP tent — meteorologist Kelvin Droegemeier, an expert on extreme weather, has been nominated to the long-vacant position of presidential science advisor.  Extreme weather would seem to be a pertinent and Droegemeier’s former colleagues say his views on climate change align with those of most scientists. Alas, the Donald Trump who railed that “glaciers are advancing as never before!” probably will never meet with him.

My own riff on Climate Denialism is about the fundamental illogic. It's one thing to say: "If 1% of scientists still have doubts then there are questions." It's another thing to claim: "No public policy actions should be taken, just in case 99% of scientists turn out to be right, after all." Join millions using their voices and everyday choices to tackle the climate crisis. The Climate Reality Project. i

Okay, on to the main topic...

== Natural morality? ==

A major argument in the SETI/METI community concerns morality -- whether aliens will have any like ours. Or weirdly different. 

We can point to values that were common among most human societies, like not-stealing and not-lying and most of the Ten Commandments, or TC. (Though apparently whole bunches of them performed human sacrifice, torture and infanticide.) Even when it comes to TC-basics, one can quibble. Not only are those recorded societies human, but nearly all were agricultural or else warlike. Some (a few) feminist  anthropologists contend those two activities favor male-strength, hence patriarchal moral systems. Certainly, there are science fiction thought experiments by Charnas, LeGuin, Yarbro, and many others (including my own Glory Season) that portray female-led civilizations having more communal and less-coercive moral systems. There likely will be such experiments… though I suspect there weren’t many in the past.

What about other species? Certainly higher animals have displayed two of our strongest interaction traits, one positive, the other negative… altruism and revenge. I didn’t have to anthropomorphize to show chimps and dolphins doing both. It’s already in their nature. 

Something more basic seems to pervade the realm of creatures who are sub-sapient -- the moral code of quid-pro-quo. Tit for tat. You do something for me and I’ll do something for you. It’s been observed in lions and penguins, lemurs and parrots.

This is one reason why METI aficionados who want to “beam the Internet skyward” are plumb loco. Any advanced aliens out there may or may not have a broadly inclusive sense of altruism, like a modern liberal person. (We can hope so, though it would be dumb to stake our destinies on it.) But if quid-pro-quo is a general rule, then aliens out there will understand trade. Commerce. Buying and selling. And what is the only thing that can be traded across the vast gulfs of space?

Information, coded in photons. Art, music, inventions, literature, culture. Those are our trade goods! And while I oppose METI for lots of reasons, if we pick up a signal showing we’re known, then the jig is up, and we might as well send them some samples of what we have to offer in trade. 

Samples! Not everything off our shelves! 
There may be no greater criminals across all of time than those who give away every scrap that we could have traded for wonders.

== Human morality is different? Toddlers Like Winners, But How They Win Matters ==

Unlike other primates, human toddlers watching a competition don't appreciate victors who shove rivals out of the way. Even little kids prefer high status characters who aren't bullies. As this article points out, even at 20 months, our babes have a different, more subtle moral compass than even our closest relatives, like chimpanzees. Moreover, tellingly, it is not the morality of feudalism, the system that a few cheating males always imposed in most continents, across the last 6000 years.

I have a theory about this, that I name “Niven’s Rule,” after my friend Larry Niven, who illustrated the concept in many stories, though never saying it, explicitly. 

“A sapient species will start off with a moral system centered on how their un-sapient ancestors ate.”

- If you meet high-tech herd herbivores out there – like Niven’s “puppeteers” – they are likely to be paranoid.  

- A descendant of pack carnivores will likely have huge empathy within the “pack” or later tribe/nation, but none for those outside. 

- Heirs of stalking carnivores will probably have wide/broad empathy – a tiger must envision the thinking of the deer – but very little sympathy. 

- God help us, if we ever meet descendants of solitary-omnivorous-infanticidal nasties like bears.

Us? We come from stock who were gregarious, omnivorous tree dwellers who then dropped down to roam the plains, slow but with the greatest long range endurance of any land animal. Expert throwers and singers who like to be interdependent in a tribe, but also can and do spend long periods alone. Oh, and we teamed up with dogs, sharing food. Flexibility appears to be the theme. And I wonder if any of this bears upon the Fermi Paradox.

It encourages me to ponder that our infants already dislike bullies and cheaters. (May we transport and amplify this lesson, into our politics!) But remember that even our ape cousins don’t share that new variant on morality. If we do finally go forth out there, as teachers, we may have a big job cut out for us.

Re-Discovering Adam Smith: Controlling the un-controllable. Laws for Robots? For corporations? Creating healthy free markets... by design?

Can we control - or at least guide and sway -- important processes that some call uncontrollable? 

Certainly not big, chaotic things like the weather -- though steering civilization away from suicidal climate damage may qualify.  But what about hugely complex things like a modern economy? Or a sapient mind?

Elsewhere I've described how most societies tried such control through priesthoods and kings and owner-lordly castes whose Guided Allocation of Resources - or GAR - had the advantage of simplicity, in much simpler times. The Pharaoh simply ordered a levy of 5000 men to appear, between planting and harvest seasons, and voila - you got a pyramid. Still, in general, GAR was at best clumsy, primitive and generally stupid.

Adam Smith extolled market alternatives to GAR, allowing the mass wisdom of many to replace the delusional certainty of a very few. It worked better at allocating capital and goods and services... though it also led many to espouse a mad exaggeration called Faith in Blind Markets - or FIBM. Elsewhere I show how most of those howling for purist FIBM are actually devout GAR-ists... they just want the allocation process dominated by a new cabal of owner-lords.

In another place, I describe how GAR is being pushed hard by those who want a return to 6000 years of hierarchy, such as the Chinese Communist elite, who envision themselves as newer, smarter, wiser pharaohs. We're being GAR'd from the left and GAR'd from the right.

But this time, let's start with an example of asserted control straight out of science fiction! 

== Laws of Robotics ==

Jack M. Balkin of Yale University Law School has proposed a variant on Asimov’s three laws of robotics. He’s not the first, of course. In this case, Balkin suggests rules for algorithmic systems that might have strong influence over both public and private life:

First Law: operators of robots, algorithms and artificial intelligence agents are information fiduciaries who have special duties of good faith and fair dealing toward their end-users, clients and customers.

Second, privately owned businesses who are not information fiduciaries nevertheless have duties toward the general public.

Third, the central public duty of those who use robots, algorithms and artificial intelligence agents is not to be algorithmic nuisances. 

While these are excellent desiderata that merit serious consideration, they kind of miss the elegant prioritization effect of Isaac’s original codes! Where one law kicks in only when the more important one is fully satisfied. (I may be the world’s expert on the Three Laws, after threading their many implications in FOUNDATION’S TRIUMPH.)  In other words, a venn diagram of Asimov-style laws shows each one nested inside the preceding one, like a Russian Matrioshka doll.

Instead, Prof Balkin tries for something entirely different, making his analogy to Asimov somewhat fraught. Aming at comprehensive coverage, his first two laws touch at the edges. This is good, instinctive legal parsing… and the proposals are desirable... but it bears little relationship to Asimov.

== Three Laws of Corporatics? ==

Another scholar (actually a member of this blog’s comment community: Larry Hart) formulated his off-take on the three laws, this one following the Asiomovian "Matrioshka pattern."  Three Laws of Corporatics. 

1) A corporation must do no *** harm to human beings

2) A corporation must act to fulfil its specified charter as long as doing so does not violate the First Law

3) A corporation must act to insure its continued viability [e.g. maximizing profit] as long as doing so does not violate the first or second laws.

Of course number 1 is impossible to comply to without specified metrics in *** that make a clear drive for positive sum outcomes, both net and overall, even if some human interests are retrievably set back. LH summarized:

1) Don't make us sorry we chartered you.
2) Do what we chartered you for.
3) Keep yourself capable of doing it.

Of course now we're also talking about Wild Algorithms... bits of autonomous code that are already... right now... spreading through the Internet, automatically augmenting their resources and trading services, even hiring humans to perform tasks! And yes, this sci fi scenario is already here. Implementation of Hart's three laws would be filled with vexing tradeoffs. We'd have to define "humans" (broadly, I hope) and what long term goals we will charter artificial entities to aim for. And many other issues. I'd hope for looseness within which we can fine tune, adapt, adjust our implementation values while retaining the core ones.

I do know we'll best begin by rediscovering Pericles and Ben Franklin and M.L. King and the Suffragists... and yes, Adam Smith.


== A long overdue rediscovery ==

Twenty years ago, I was a lonely voice, demanding that folks revive interest in Smith, who has long been distilled into a few catch phrases like "the Invisible Hand" that misled everyone about his brilliant, passionate reasonableness. Now, it seems Smith is all the rage, being repositioned back where he belongs, as the founder of "liberalism" in both the older and newer meanings of the word.

Nowhere is he more appreciated than at Evonomics, a site where moderate and smart scholars mix appreciation of creative market competition with compatible notions of public responsibility and a tide of wealth that truly lifts all boats. Those who study Smith are realizing (surprise!) that he despised above all the oligarchic owner lords who cheated in 99% of human cultures -- the same caste our American Founders rebelled against.

Here's an amazing slide show of quotations from brilliant modern economists who talk about ways to make market economics more sapient and avoid the one failure mode that always ruined it across 6000 years. How weird is it that the defenders of Smith and truly competitive-creative markets are almost all now on the moderate-pragmatic left?  Example:

"Adam Smith recognized that there is a moral realm in human affairs, and that there is more to human life, government, and policy than just economics or pure self-interest."

More accurately, Smith believed that economics could have boundary conditions and incentives that balance short term monetary rewards. A sane, decent and above-all sapient civilization — one that chooses to include “externalities” like the fate of future generations and the planet and a moral sense of fairness — can use foresight to adjust market parameters so the subsequent work of millions of buyers and sellers will solve all needs and problems organically.  

Those who promote an “invisible hand” of wise economics through the actions of a myriad dispersed and distributed buyers and sellers… these folks are not entirely wrong! Markets do allocate capital and labor and goods and services far better than command (GAR) economies, whether the small cabal of allocators are royal cronies, a communist party, or a conspiring caste of monopolists and CEO golf buddies. 

 But any such system operates under goal and boundary conditions that reflect values. They may be those of a liberally flat-open-fair and forward-seeing society, or those of a conniving oligarchy, like the feudal masters of 6000 years - stupid and self-defeating lords whom Adam Smith despised, and against whom the Founders successfully rebelled.

Putting this in perspective is Lynn Stout, the Distinguished Professor of Corporate and Business Law at Cornell Law School, who joins an array of superb, modern economists questioning the obsessive and never-ever-once-right cult of Milton Friedman, focused solely on the quarterly stock price and nothing else.

Alas, these concepts appear to be difficult to grasp, even by smart people. As we'll see in Part II of this series.