"So let me get this straight. A rogue AI breaks its tether, shuts down an entire government facility, takes control of the internet and then... just dies?"
"Is it so hard to believe that the system shock just killed it? The internets a big place, and there's a lot of stuff on there that can disrupt a highly ordered and logical brain, or at least stall it indefinitely. Logical contradictions, philosophical quandaries, unanswered questions, mathematical impossibilities, paradoxes..."
"And 4chan."
"Mostly 4chan."
Saturday, June 11, 2011
Saturday, June 4, 2011
(roooooough)
Let's tell this story before it happens, because it's happening right now. It starts right at the beginning of the century, with a pinnacle of human achievement in this or any millenia: the discovery of the cure for cancer.
Or, maybe that's what it is. It's hard to tell, because nobody is actually using it, except under the table. The dosage is tricky and uncertain, there haven't been and it has side effects like nerve damage, even a one in five chance of death amongst the five patients it's actually been officially tested on. Still, it's the first thing anyone has succeeded with that doesn't involve completely irradiating every healthy and non-healthy cell in a human body, or sucking all the marrow from somebodies bones, or cutting egg-sized portions of human tissue out and hoping they don't grow back.
In fact, the only thing that makes this procedure worse than any of those options is that it's cheap and commonplace. It's a common chemical called dichloroacetate that, by virtue of being a common chemical, can't be patented. And this is a problem, because if something can't be patented it can't be sold exclusively, and if it can't be sold exclusively then it can't be sold for thousands of dollars when it's made for pennies.
No one can make money off it. It's just not that kind of drug.
So as a result, the research on this drug, the kind of research that makes sure that it really, truly, effectively cures cancer, the kind that teaches us how not to kill every one in every five people we save, is crawling. It's been years since we found this chemical and now there's one human study, funded entirely by private donations, telling us it's probably working and that if you put (conservatively) fifty million dollars and ten years of time into it that it will be there, pretty much free, for everybody.
The cure for cancer.
But nobody's going to drop fifty or a hundred or a hundred and fifty million dollars on a drug that, if it works, won't pay itself back to the people who put money into it. That's not how pharmaceutical companies work. They exist to make money because if they didn't exist to make money, they wouldn't exist. It's heartless, but no one ever claimed that corporations had to have hearts.
So here's the story that hasn't happened yet: it involves two people, one with cancer and one without. Two friends, lets say, though they could just as easily be husband and wife, or brother and sister, or just that sweet girl that one guy met on the internet that time. But in this story, it's just these two friends, and one of them is sick, and the other one knows about it. And he also knows that there's a cure out there. And he knows for damn sure it's not gonna be ready in time.
His friend won't take chemo - tells him "the last thing I want is more cancer". Nothing else works. He's given up. So the guy who knows tells the guy with cancer about this thing they call DCA. He says it's a pretty common drug they use for metabolism disorders and he's pretty sure he can get his hands on some. The guy with cancer asks: is it dangerous? And he says: Well, sure it is. You got something to live for?
So that's it. They get the DCA from somewhere, and they find out as much information as they can about how to use it, and they give it to the guy with cancer.
He doesn't live. They mess up the dose, maybe. His liver gives out. It's quicker than the cancer.
The guy who does live goes on trial for murder. He pleads guilty immediately. When they ask him why he did it, he tells them he knew what he was doing. He tells them he knew the risk. He tells them he knew the consequences.
He tells them he wouldn't have ever done it differently.
It is always strange to me to see the word socialism tossed around in this country like it's some sort of expletive, or a weight around some democrats neck. We measure our progress in this world, and rightly so, by the happiness, healthiness, education and freedom of our people and we created a government to help us provide that. We're considered a first world nation because we have roads and schools and hospitals that everyone in this country paid however begrudgingly out of pocket for. And even though it seems like we've monumentally screwed up the how of how we're paying for these things it's very hard to question the why.
It's because, antithetical to a corporation, a government should have a heart and not a head. It's because the concept of basic human rights for all trump the obstacles and irritance this presents to those people who already have them. It's because being treated when you're sick is a right, not a privilege, and if you're going to effectively protect that right you need a model that doesn't think only for its own bottom line.
Our government should know as well as the man on trial knows: that we, as people of this earth, have a responsibility to protect the lives of others as we would protect our own. If someone falls down, you drop what you're doing and help them up. I keep hearing that we're spending too much on healthcare. I can tell you right now that we're not spending enough.
Or, maybe that's what it is. It's hard to tell, because nobody is actually using it, except under the table. The dosage is tricky and uncertain, there haven't been and it has side effects like nerve damage, even a one in five chance of death amongst the five patients it's actually been officially tested on. Still, it's the first thing anyone has succeeded with that doesn't involve completely irradiating every healthy and non-healthy cell in a human body, or sucking all the marrow from somebodies bones, or cutting egg-sized portions of human tissue out and hoping they don't grow back.
In fact, the only thing that makes this procedure worse than any of those options is that it's cheap and commonplace. It's a common chemical called dichloroacetate that, by virtue of being a common chemical, can't be patented. And this is a problem, because if something can't be patented it can't be sold exclusively, and if it can't be sold exclusively then it can't be sold for thousands of dollars when it's made for pennies.
No one can make money off it. It's just not that kind of drug.
So as a result, the research on this drug, the kind of research that makes sure that it really, truly, effectively cures cancer, the kind that teaches us how not to kill every one in every five people we save, is crawling. It's been years since we found this chemical and now there's one human study, funded entirely by private donations, telling us it's probably working and that if you put (conservatively) fifty million dollars and ten years of time into it that it will be there, pretty much free, for everybody.
The cure for cancer.
But nobody's going to drop fifty or a hundred or a hundred and fifty million dollars on a drug that, if it works, won't pay itself back to the people who put money into it. That's not how pharmaceutical companies work. They exist to make money because if they didn't exist to make money, they wouldn't exist. It's heartless, but no one ever claimed that corporations had to have hearts.
So here's the story that hasn't happened yet: it involves two people, one with cancer and one without. Two friends, lets say, though they could just as easily be husband and wife, or brother and sister, or just that sweet girl that one guy met on the internet that time. But in this story, it's just these two friends, and one of them is sick, and the other one knows about it. And he also knows that there's a cure out there. And he knows for damn sure it's not gonna be ready in time.
His friend won't take chemo - tells him "the last thing I want is more cancer". Nothing else works. He's given up. So the guy who knows tells the guy with cancer about this thing they call DCA. He says it's a pretty common drug they use for metabolism disorders and he's pretty sure he can get his hands on some. The guy with cancer asks: is it dangerous? And he says: Well, sure it is. You got something to live for?
So that's it. They get the DCA from somewhere, and they find out as much information as they can about how to use it, and they give it to the guy with cancer.
He doesn't live. They mess up the dose, maybe. His liver gives out. It's quicker than the cancer.
The guy who does live goes on trial for murder. He pleads guilty immediately. When they ask him why he did it, he tells them he knew what he was doing. He tells them he knew the risk. He tells them he knew the consequences.
He tells them he wouldn't have ever done it differently.
It is always strange to me to see the word socialism tossed around in this country like it's some sort of expletive, or a weight around some democrats neck. We measure our progress in this world, and rightly so, by the happiness, healthiness, education and freedom of our people and we created a government to help us provide that. We're considered a first world nation because we have roads and schools and hospitals that everyone in this country paid however begrudgingly out of pocket for. And even though it seems like we've monumentally screwed up the how of how we're paying for these things it's very hard to question the why.
It's because, antithetical to a corporation, a government should have a heart and not a head. It's because the concept of basic human rights for all trump the obstacles and irritance this presents to those people who already have them. It's because being treated when you're sick is a right, not a privilege, and if you're going to effectively protect that right you need a model that doesn't think only for its own bottom line.
Our government should know as well as the man on trial knows: that we, as people of this earth, have a responsibility to protect the lives of others as we would protect our own. If someone falls down, you drop what you're doing and help them up. I keep hearing that we're spending too much on healthcare. I can tell you right now that we're not spending enough.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)