2017-09-08

By the Corporations, for the Corporations



Let's get this straight: Equifax makes the mistake, but we all have to pay their bill? Equifax had sloppy cut rate cyber security to maximize profits, and as a result millions of consumers will have be diligent for the rest of their lives, investing time and money (paying companies like Equifax!) to make sure their credit rating does not get hurt, and their economic identity does not get stolen. This may result in losses for Equifax, which could result in layoffs of thousands of workers, and perhaps even the end of the company in a worst-case scenario.

All the while, the executives who made the decisions to put profits over security will still get their bonuses. Hell, even if the company folded or they were terminated, their severance packages would still leave them wealthier in a five years than they are today. And certainly no one would see jail time, except perhaps some low level executive who was only following orders. The same is true for the Wells Fargo scandal of opening millions of fake accounts, not to mention the 2008 crash, or basically any white collar scandal you can name. The high level executives always come out wealthier (even when fired!) while the consumers and the workers pay the real costs.

2017-09-06

Theology and Artificial Intelligence

This is a longish quote, but it was nice to read a Christian Theologian who is making these kinds of arguments. The context is an article where he is arguing that the "soul" or "self" is a transcendent emergent property arising out of sufficient patterns of complexity in information processing. Once this pattern achieves self awareness, it become a phenomena in is own right, capable of being embodied in other forms (i.e. organically, digitally, etc) even if it's originating "hardware" (i.e. body, brain) is destroyed. 
This is a bunch of incoherent babble to make us think hard about our incredible love affair with the God of the universe, our astounding infidelities against God, and God's incredible grace to heal and restore us through Christ. Everything on this site is copyright © 1996-2023 by Nathan L. Bostian so if you use it, please cite me. You can contact me at natebostian [at] gmail [dot] com