Arboreal codes ⊗ Conceptual models of space colonization ⊗ AI companies trying to build god

Arboreal codes

I don’t think I’ve ever read anything by Shannon Mattern that I didn’t love and the streak is still alive with this one. Here she writes about trees, property, boundaries, and “historical ‘metes and bounds’ methods.” It might not sound fascinating at first, but as usual Mattern goes deep and broad, and unpacks the history, looks around the globe at how these things were done, have evolved, and which forces were at play. In the end, you have something akin to Scott’s “seeing like a state,” and kind of a metaphor for how we’ve stopped considering systems in their entirety, to instead try and systematise a specific part. In this case, using the whole tree to draw boundaries in an organically evolved way, and turning it into arbitrary laws that consider, for example, just the trunk, ignore culture, enclose commons, and exert power.

Feudal contracts in the 14th and 15th centuries and maps from the 17th century commonly identified both standing and fallen trees and stumps of all species – oaks, birches, spruces, pines, aspens, and alders – as boundary markers. In the field, those trees were often marked themselves, with stripes or notches, with the bishop’s crozier and lily, or with crosses. […]

Arboreal law – both that addressing trees as markers of landed property and as property themselves – is about capital, colonialism, commemoration, the commons, and community. It’s also based on establishing trees themselves as bodies, as ontological beings, that mediate the relations between human and social bodies – from neighbors to nation-states – in space. […]

“In the settler mind,” land is “real estate, capital, or natural resources. But to our people, it was everything: identity, the connection to our ancestors, the home of our nonhuman kinfolk, our pharmacy, our library, the source of all that sustained us. Our lands were where our responsibility to the world was enacted, sacred ground. It belonged to itself; it was a gift, not a commodity, so it could never be bought or sold.” […]

The trees themselves clearly refuse this diminution, stretching their roots, poking their branches, casting their leaves, throwing their shade wherever they please, regardless of who owns the land below.

Conceptual models of space colonization

Charlie Stross is “thinking morose thoughts about the practical prospects for space colonization” and tries to sort them out in case he wants to write that kind of science fiction. He raises an issue about the use of the words “ship” and “colony” of course, but also looks at different models; military, homesteader, corporate, “Pilgrim Fathers,” and Polynesian. You can read it as kind of a critical futures exercice, unfolding the background of some of the dreams around space exploration, how they are misguided, and whether what they imply is even possible or desirable.

Ships, in the vernacular, have captains and a crew who obey the captain via a chain of command, they carry cargo or passengers, they travel between ports or to a well-defined destination, they may have a mission whether it be scientific research or military. And of these aspects, only the scientific research angle is remotely applicable to any actually existing interplanetary vehicle, be it a robot probe like Psyche or one of the Apollo program flights. […]

Dilbert Stark’s bloviation about a Mars colony aside, I don't expect we'll see an off-Earth colony that meets the self-sufficiency criterion any time in the next century—at least not without major technical breakthroughs in the life sciences and in automated manufacturing. […]

It might work, in the far future, if the unit of settlement isn’t an outrigger trimaran (or group thereof) but a self-propelled city state with enough millions of people to sustain a technology base (including educating the educators for the next generation of niche specialties).

AI companies are trying to build god. Shouldn’t they get our permission first?

Sigal Samuel argues that society should be involved in determining where AI goes or doesn’t go, since it will change society. Samuel then goes through three common objections that “permissionless invention tech enthusiasts” make against this kind of oversight and debunks each one. My only issue with the piece is that it reads as mostly worried about AGI. I’m not all that worried about AGI springing up anytime soon, so the premise of the article aims a bit too high, in my opinion. Not having AGI doesn’t mean there are no large scale impacts from AI. In other words, yes to all the points in the piece, but it works for all of it, not just dreams of godly AI.

In a recent survey, many young people said they wish social media platforms were never invented, but given that these platforms do exist, they feel pressure to be on them. […]

This is a myth. In fact, there are lots of technologies that we’ve decided not to build, or that we’ve built but placed very tight restrictions on. Just think of human cloning or human germline modification. The recombinant DNA researchers behind the Asilomar Conference of 1975 famously organized a moratorium on certain experiments. We are, notably, still not cloning humans.

§ There seems to be another wave of “we need to go back to a more human web” sentiment and action. A few reads: It feels like 2004 again by Anil Dash ◼ A peasant woodland by Mandy Brown ◼ You should be using an RSS reader by Cory Doctorow ◼ Into the wreck by Erin Kissane.

§ Three Future Frames - Quick Introduction. Short video by John V Willshire. The flow from one frame to the next and back again is not something I’ve seen before, I love the idea and the visuals. “After seven or so years of using the Experiential Futures Ladder in client work and teaching, it occurred to me that I wanted to find a way of explaining the Scenario-Situation-Stuff relationship in a way that made people keep going back through their work to improve it, rather than view it as a ‘design process’ with a final step of ‘make stuff’.”

Futures, Fictions & Fabulations

• What is futures literacy, why is it important for youths? “When you choose to initiate or attend a Futures Literacy workshop with your community rather than, let’s say a coding class: you are making certain assumptions on what will be an important skill to develop for your community, or for yourself in a close or far away future. This pamphlet will guide you through an introduction to Futures Literacy and the different ways you can use it.”
• Imagination Meets Future Scenarios: The Future Custodians. “Rewilding Possibilities with Multidisciplinary Futures, Artificial Intelligence, Hybrid Artforms and Speculative Design with Samar Younes and Geraldine Wharry”
• Dubai Future Forum 2024. “The 2024 Edition will shine a spotlight on the critical domains of health, longevity, and the holistic well-being of individuals, societies and our planet, under the themes of Optimising Health, Transforming Humanity and Futuring Nature.”

Algorithms, Automations & Augmentations

• Apple study exposes deep cracks in LLMs’ “reasoning” capabilities. “The fragility highlighted in these new results helps support previous research suggesting that LLMs use of probabilistic pattern matching is missing the formal understanding of underlying concepts needed for truly reliable mathematical reasoning capabilities.”
• This AI tool helped convict people of murder. Then someone took a closer look. “Global Intelligence claims its Cybercheck technology can help cops find key evidence to nail a case. But a WIRED investigation reveals the smoking gun often appears far less solid.”
• Google to buy nuclear power for AI datacentres in ‘world first’ deal. “The US tech corporation has ordered six or seven small nuclear reactors (SMRs) from California’s Kairos Power, with the first due to be completed by 2030 and the remainder by 2035.”

Built, Biosphere & Breakthroughs

• Trees and land absorbed almost no CO2 last year. Is nature’s carbon sink failing? “The sudden collapse of carbon sinks was not factored into climate models – and could rapidly accelerate global heating”
• End of the oil age beckons for the International Energy Agency. They “reaffirmed projections that demand for all fossil fuels will stop growing this decade as the world’s energy system shifts toward electricity. The organization also added a new element Wednesday, predicting that oil and gas prices will wilt during the next few years as surplus supplies build up.”
• California gets approval for nation’s third-largest marine sanctuary. “Created by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. It is also first designed with the involvement of Indigenous groups and the first in 30 years in California.”

Asides

• 👏🏼 📚 ‘I love the whole atmosphere and can spend hours browsing’: how did bookshops suddenly become cool? “A new survey suggests that young people are shunning AI algorithms and online retailers to experience the joy of visiting bookshops”
• 😍 📸 🌳 🏭 Ruin pr0n. Jonk’s new photo book explores nature unfurling in abandoned architecture. “In Naturalia III, his tenth book, Jonk documents a range of striking locations from Portugal to Georgia to Japan.”
• 🤔 🛫 🚄 🚗 Google Docs are the ideal travel guides. “Although Google Docs and Maps are simple to share, the creators who spend years perfecting their magnum opus docs are often selective about who gets access.” (Via Kottke.)