Poor Predictions

I haven't had much cause to think about the rising power of algorithms recently. Maybe I've settled into a comfortable pattern, and just missed the actual control those sneaky electronic devils have over my life, but I really haven't seen much.

My wife and I listened to, "Ready Player One", read by Wil Wheaton. I enjoyed it. Sure, it's a post-apocalyptic tale of young people with no future spending their lives playing video games, battling a huge and well-financed corporation over the future of an online virtual reality system, so no one ever addresses any of the real problems facing the human race in their time, instead opting to spend all their time and energy on entertainment, consuming resources and doing nothing of any value, but it was  fun. The poor, suffering teens overcame all the odds, and solved the puzzles that were beyond the abilities of the world's finest minds and supercomputers because it was about '80's culture, which not logic can interpret, and to which reason should never be applied. But some of the artificial intelligence was impressive, and the hero took a lot of chances and found clever ways to do what he needed to do to win.

But it didn't make me fear the algorithms. It was set around 2045, and the world was dying because of global warming and an end to the supplies of fossil fuels. But we have better solar technology than they did already. If the multi-billion dollar corporation had spent its money on solar power instead of oology, it could have saved half the planet instead of just losing to a high school dropout.

Will we follow the path that leads to dystopia? Our current president seems to want to. He is trying to increase extraction of fossil fuels, auctioning off leases of public lands for fracking, and eliminate restrictions on emissions, so we can add more and more carbon to the atmosphere. Short term economic gains at the expense of a polluted and warming world. I think even our current artificial intelligence knows better, to say nothing of actual science.

Of course, this president has also said that if his party loses control of Congress, the stock market will crash, and the dystopian future we all fear will come next week.

I really hope the electorate decides that's a theory worth testing.

Even Boring Elections Are Important

I haven't seen a lot of polls about the election in Ohio. It seems that Democrat Sherrod Brown is ahead in polls in his reelection bid for the Senate, and that the candidates for governor are tied, or very close to it. I don't know about other statewide offices.

Polls for congressional elections are sparse, as there isn't a lot of drama due to the gerrymandered districts in Ohio. Some are rated as likely for one party or the other, mostly for Republicans, who drew the districts after the 2010 elections, but four Democrats are in likely or solid districts.

I still expect that Democratic candidates for congressional seats will get more votes than Republican candidates, but that Republicans will win most of the seats, but I can't point to much data to back up my opinion.

Recent events have been disturbing, but may not affect the election. An angry Trump supporter with a criminal record has been arrested for mailing fourteen bombs to Democrats, all outspoken critics of Trump. And an angry white man killed eleven people and injured others at a synagogue in Pittsburgh. He is clearly an anti-Semite, but also appears to have expressed hatred for Trump, which confuses the issue in some ways.

National polls and predictions of election outcomes have not shifted much over the past few weeks. Most prognosticators think Democrats will make significant gains in the House, and probably take a majority, while Republicans will probably hold a slim majority in the Senate. Democrats will gain a few governorships. I don't know much about what is expected at the state level, even in Ohio. It is possible Democrats will make gains in the state legislature, but I will be very surprised in Democrats take a majority in either house, and especially in the State Senate. I should know the last time Democrats had a majority in the State Senate, but I don't. I don't think they ever have during my time in residency.

These things do matter, but I already voted, and I have no other control. Maybe that is why I haven't made more effort to find out what is expected. Maybe it is because the results are too easily predicted, and little is likely to change in Ohio. Some will change if Richard Cordray is elected governor. He seems quite capable, and could make some good changes. And the House of Representatives controlled by Democrats could cause the federal government to function more competently, with actual application of principles, evaluation of data, use of science, and so forth. These would be important developments. But mostly boring, at least for me right now.

Maybe I need another focus for my mind, at least until the election is held.

Without an Algorithm

Clearly, I'm not very dedicated to maintaining a journal or blog, but I do have thoughts.

I have been looking at predictions for the upcoming midterm elections. There seems to be a general expectation that Democrats will do well, overall, and stand a chance of electing a majority in the House of Representatives. The odds are longer for a change in leadership in the Senate. The predictions, updated frequently, shift one way or another, but haven't changed very much in the last few weeks.

Here is my prediction, which is not based on polling or even reading local news, but a kind of gut feeling. Democratic candidates for congressional seats in Ohio will get more total votes than Republican candidates, but Republicans will still dominate the Ohio Congressional caucus. We are victims of gerrymandering.

If the Democrats have a very good day, they might win as many as six House seats, out of sixteen. If they have a very bad day, they will win four seats.

In a recent election, the primary in May, Ohio voters passed a referendum changing the process for creating congressional districts. The new process requires some votes from the minority party in a decision to approve the districts designed by a commission. If all minority members vote against the proposed plan, the districts are still approved, but must be revisited in a couple of years, or maybe four or six. It is not quite as bad as it was before. Time will tell whether it makes a substantive difference.

For now, the general prediction on outcome of the election is easy: Republicans will get the majority of congressional seats from Ohio. The vote totals are not quite so clear. In the last three elections, Republicans have had more votes than Democrats. I expect that will not hold this time, but I have a poor record of handicapping election results.

I will vote. I will not show ID when I vote. I expect my vote will be counted, anyway, as it should be, as I am a citizen and registered voter. I don't know if my preferred candidates will win in state elections, but I am pretty sure my Representative will still be Steve Stivers, as our district is very heavily Republican, by design.

The local election, for state representative, could be more interesting. Maybe I'll look into it.

Ads

My wife and I were watching Hulu this week, and we kept getting commercials about a special election in the Ohio 12th District. We do live in central Ohio, but not in the 12th District. The algorithms choosing the ads are close, but off by a few miles. We cannot vote in that election. I wonder if the campaign would care, if we told them.

We only got ads for one candidate. I don't know much about the race. There doesn't seem to be much reason to learn about it, since it's not my district. I don't know what the polls say, but candidates from the same party have won in that district since 1980. Maybe the candidates know that, and only one bothers to run ads, or ads on Hulu.

Since it is a candidate from the party that never wins there that is running the ads, maybe this candidate thinks he can break the trend, if only he spends enough on advertising. Maybe the other candidate is so confident he can win, he isn't bothering to run ads. Or maybe the algorithm has pegged us as likely voters for a specific party, even if they can't find the boundaries.

There are a lot of variables to consider in all this. But for me, it's just a curiosity. Who is deciding who gets what ads? On what basis? I would think district would be as important as party affiliation, though I suppose someone from one district could volunteer for or donate to a campaign from a nearby district. But my party affiliation has changed over the years, more than once. My wife's hasn't. She is more decided in her politics than I am. And the Hulu account is in her name. So, maybe the algorithms only know who is registered for the account, and don't know who is watching. Maybe I can take some comfort in that. And maybe we humans can use that against them, if they ever get powerful enough to scare us. We could register falsely, and trade with neighbors, or even enemies, just to keep the algorithms guessing.

I'm going to remember that idea for the future. For now, I'll just ignore the political ads like I ignore the rest.

A Quiet Week

It's been a quiet week at my house. My wife and I are here, but my mother-in-law, who lives with us, is in California for two weeks. As we were traveling last week, we have not felt much drive to go anywhere, so we have done what was necessary, including going to work as required, but otherwise sat at home.

I am reading East of Eden, by John Steinbeck. When I started it, I noticed immediately his use of language. I understand some of the criticisms of the novel, but the writing is certainly of high quality. It was rather a sharp contrast to the Terry Pratchett books I had been reading. I mention that because I read a commentary on Terry Pratchett written shortly after he died that said, rather baldly, that Pratchett was not a literary genius. No, he wasn't, but I enjoyed his books.

Steinbeck, on the other hand, won a Nobel Prize for literature, which meant a lot to me until Bob Dylan got one. Sure, giving a prize for literature that compares writing from all over the world is problematic, but all the books I've read from Nobel laureates have impressed me in some ways. I may have to dig deeper into Bob Dylan's oeuvre before I judge too strongly. My daughter asked me why I bother with Steinbeck. She finds his work depressing. A lot of it is. But it's still good.

I found this copy of East of Eden in my mother-in-law's room, probably left by my son, who had the room before. There are notes in the margins in sloppy pencil. I like reading printed books. I can read on a Kindle, but I'd rather have a book in my hands.

I took a survey on the BBC News website recently. There were a lot of questions about videos. I don't watch videos on websites, or only rarely. I do still look around for animations that help illustrate physiology. It can help to see the opening and closing of ion channels when trying to learn how a nerve impulse works. But news clips are usually short and limited. I want something I can read, something that has details and analysis. I read bits on Fox News sometimes, but I'm usually disappointed because they have no analysis, and only partial stories. It's like the opening paragraph from a real newspaper or website.

I expect that I am outside the norm in that sense, because most sites have all kinds of links to videos. That seems to be the focus. Slate Magazine has a lot of podcasts. FiveThirtyEight has videos and podcasts. Someone must like them. Even The New York Times, online, has a lot of video, which I ignore. I'm more into words and actual content than presentation, which it seems to me is what video is about. I don't care what a reporter looks like. I want a reporter to ask the right questions, provide the right context, and give a deep analysis, as much as possible. I don't want to be distracted by personality, appearance, voice quality, or other irrelevancies. I usually don't watch political debates. I read the reports about them. This is too often superficial and mostly useless, because the questions seem to be chosen for entertainment value, and the time given for answers only allows trivial coverage, even if the question is about something important.

So I spent a week sitting in the living room reading. And I loved it. I'd like to do this again.

Why I Don't Fear the Algorithms

I spent some time on Facebook the last two days. I had been off for a week, going to a family reunion, and hadn't been on the Internet, except for checking the weather on my phone. And then there was my 55th birthday, so I got a lot of messages from friends. I noticed something. I got a lot of ads about Alzheimer's care facilities.

Sure, I'm older than many. I don't really know the age distribution on Facebook. I haven't checked. I am old enough to be a member of AARP, and maybe get some senior discounts. I have not had any noticeable symptoms of Alzheimer's disease though. I suppose it is possible that I wouldn't notice, or have just forgotten them, but my impression of my own memory is that it is still functioning well enough to keep my job as a college teacher. Why am I getting ads for Alzheimer's care? What algorithm thinks those ads are relevant to me?

You may be asking, "Didn't those ads get your attention? After all, you are writing about them." Sure, that may be relevant to the discussion. I tend to notice ads, because I look at them to see what the algorithms are up to, in case they make some sort of progress toward global domination or the discovery of ethics. I must sadly report that I do not see either happening.

My mother is older than I am, and her family history has extensive discussion of Alzheimer's. Her mother died of it, along with a lot of siblings (my maternal grandmother's siblings, not my mother's, who are all still living and not suffering dementia, so far as family reports indicate.) Maybe the algorithms think I should be looking for a place for my mother's care once her symptoms appear. But as my mother lives with my sister, and has a few health issues which do not include dementia, Alzheimer's care has never been part of the discussion of possible needs for her future.

I also read comics on most days. We get the New York Times on the weekend, and I read some articles online most days, but the New York Times doesn't have comics, so I read them on GoComics. There are ads there, too, because I don't pay for the privilege of reading the site. This week, I am seeing a lot of ads for Victoria's Secret.

I cannot explain that. I have, in decades past, bought an item or two from Victoria's Secret, and when we got the catalog, I admit, I flipped through it and enjoyed the pictures, at least some of them. But that has been some time ago. What inspired an algorithm to send me these ads?

I haven't looked at them. I noticed the name at the top, but didn't even scroll down to see what the picture was. I have also had ads on the comics site about women's clothes from other vendors. I don't recall clicking on any in the last year or so. I rarely click on ads on the Internet. Even when I shop online, I don't look at ads on sites I visit. Maybe I shouldn't be saying this, because the websites might not like me free-loading. Much of the Internet makes its money from providing eyes for ads, something I really don't care about. I am, however, interested in the algorithms that choose the ads I see. So far, they have not impressed me.

I can easily ignore ads about Alzheimer's care options and women's underwear. I can easily ignore most ads. The algorithms only keep my attention, so far, because I am aware of their existence, and I am watching to see what they may become, but that is taking effort on my part. The algorithms are supposed to be powerful and intelligent. They are supposed to become Data Gods, and rule the known universe. But not yet.

Aging Out

Tomorrow I leave the rolls of Americans in the prime working years.

In practical terms, this won't mean very much. I have a job, and I have no intent to leave it, so I will go to work and continue on as I have for a few years.I hope to make some adjustment in how I present material in the classes I teach, but the content will not change much if at all, and my schedule changes on a couple of days, but on one of those, I just get fifteen extra minutes of break between classes.

Still, it means I'm getting older. If something happens where I work, and I find myself no longer in the same job, I suppose the statics would suggest I might have a harder time finding acceptable employment now. I don't know if the general division by age should really include professionals, but they do, at least for the Bureau of Labor Statistics. My intention is not to find out.

This is not the only sign that I am getting older. I have two grandsons. My hair is gray. I went horse back riding almost a week ago, and I'm still stiff and sore from the experience.

One advantage algorithms have over us organic beings is that their physical nature doesn't necessarily decay with time. There is, at least currently, some physical object that contains them, but algorithms can spread from object to object, gaining access to more data and becoming more powerful over time. That clearly isn't happening to me.

Of course, if I were to become unemployed, I would have more time to dedicate to seeking out and mocking the algorithms. Let that be noted.