We Are All Prometheus Now

Ready for review. The ideas in this essay crystallized after watching Cory Doctorow’s recent lecture, The Coming War on the General Purpose Computer, which I strongly recommend.

We believe that in a free society, government enforces laws that may restrict actions, based on the need to protect safety and social order. We believe that at the foundation of a free society, thoughts cannot be restricted or punished. We may expect that there be limited prohibitions on reading and listening -- but only in extraordinary circumstances, tied to what we think will keep us safe from our darkest fears, like terrorism or child pornography -- but we don't see these as limiting thoughts.

Computers challenge our ability to differentiate between a law that infringes the freedom to do something with the freedom to think about it. This matters because computers are now the way we acquire and transmit knowledge.They can be combined with 3-D printers to manufacture physical objects and devices. They can run DNA synthesis machines and engineer microorganisms. Laws can be enforced to prevent the use of computers to copy movies, build counterfeit or dangerous goods, or produce patented or dangerous microorganisms. But, how compatible are these laws with what we think is a free society?

When we think about computers, we don't usually think about what computers actually are, just what they do -- the software they run or the content they display. The computer is just a passive, invisible entity. We don't even call most of them "computers." We use words like "smartphone," or "tablet" instead of "tablet computer." Kindles and Nooks are "e-readers." Playstations are "game consoles," even though they are basically desktop PCs, and we usually ignore the computers in Blu-Ray players and inside cars. But, these are all programmable, universal computers.

Universal computers are special, because they can execute any algorithm. Algorithms are just thoughts that have been broken down to pieces, a set of process and rules that can be described using logic. What algorithms computers can run is limited only by the speed of their circuitry and capacity to store data. Computers are "thinking machines," even though that's a concept that usually comes up in exotic, metaphysical discussions of artificial intelligence and silicon consciousness, the stuff that Kurzweil writes about. The reality of computers seems much more mundane; they just follow concrete, logical instructions. But, computers are already thinking for us, if not exactly like us. Computers execute our thoughts, or someone else's or a collective's thoughts, and then display the results.

The "Information Age" is characterized by the word "information." This is interesting, because information is a long, Latin-rooted word. "Information" is a word that removes itself intellectually from our living experience. "Knowing" means basically the same thing, but it's not used as much. This is because "Information Age" is basically a marketing device, used to sell people on the idea that money can be made by buying and selling information. But "knowing" is "thinking." Commercializing "though" is a tougher sell. To control the marketplace of thought would mean having to control thought, and we don't like to contemplate what that means for a free society. Maybe advertising really is about that, but we don't like to think about what that implies. So we use "information" instead, to feel more comfortable. "Information" may be bought, sold, and owned, but "thoughts" are still free.

So, the Information Age marketer sells a piece of information, which is translated into a series of logical processes, run through a universal computer, and turned into numbers that can be stored and displayed. A universal computer can run any algorithm with which it is programmed. Duplicating what it has stored in its memory, even when it's only cached there temporarily, is really easy. This means that profits can't be extracted from the scarcity of information.

In an attempt to make the information artificially scarce, sellers have tried increasingly sophisticated mechanisms to control it. But, these are consistently foiled again and again. Universal computers can run the algorithms that defeat the restrictions, because they have to be leaky for the information to be distributed and read by paying customers. Information sellers respond by developing restrictions that are increasingly fundamental to the operation of the computer. For example, software can be silently installed in computers that secretly reports on unauthorized access when a computer goes online, or even shuts computer's operating system and ability to function entirely. This is especially common in computers that are marketed in ways that avoid calling them "computers," like smartphones, tablets, game consoles, and embedded devices.

Anything thought builds though, thought can undo. All the most sophisticated means of locking up information can be broken. The knowledge of how to circumvent can be restricted by banning certain algorithms, censoring the websites that publicize them, and watching those who seek them. Still, an algorithm running on a computer can go around all these measures. All it takes is knowledge and thought. So, the only solution is to ban the thoughts behind the algorithm -- to punish the people who think about them and try to learn about them.

This is why copyright law in the digital age is inconsistent with what we think of as being a free society. Enforcement means making circumvention illegal, and that means limiting thought, punishing it when it goes out of bounds. And, it still can't prevent anything. The police can only go after people after the fact, after the locks have been broken, and the information -- thoughts -- runs free, and the marketplace based on an artificial scarcity is broken.

There will be harder questions as in the future. We will want to stop people from 3-D printing weapons and synthesizing microbes so that we can stay safe. But, when we try to restrict the use of computers to do these things, we must realize that our countermeasures will fail -- nothing can be prevented, all that can be done is punish whom we can catch after the locks are already broken. There's something else we can do, though. We can choose to set aside the principle that freedom and safety are in conflict, that we must sacrifice one for the other. We can instead use our freedom to think in our free society to actually deal with the consequences of technology, and not try to avoid them with futile, spiteful laws.

-- BahradSokhansanj - 17 Jan 2012