Month: May 2018

Shall not be infringed

I’ll try to keep this as sane as possible; it’s difficult with some of the arguments being thrown around.  Let’s first set the stage, I am pro-gun.  All the firearms I own are legal.  I have a license to carry a firearm in the state of Texas.  I exercise that right a lot.  None of the firearms that I own have been used to harm another human being and to be clear, I hope that I am never put in to a situation where that would change.  I try to make it to the range on a regular basis to maintain a level of proficiency with the firearms that I own.

There is a narrative across media outlets that is hell-bent to demonize anyone like me.  Every time some of these people get screen time they revive tired old arguments that, despite any and all previous disproval or rebuttal, they claim goes unanswered.  So; let’s put things back in to context.

The term Assault Rifle:

  • Defined by Encyclopedia Britannica as; military firearm that is chambered for ammunition of reduced size or propellant charge and that has the capacity to switch between semiautomatic and fully automatic fire. Because they are light and portable yet still able to deliver a high volume of fire with reasonable accuracy at modern combat ranges of 1,000 – 1,600 feet (300-500 metres), assault rifles have replaced the high-powered bolt-action and semiautomatic rifles of the World War II era as the standard infantry weapon of modern armies.
  • Defined by Mirriam-Webster as; any of various intermediate-range, magazine-fed military rifles (such as the AK-47) that can be set for automatic or semiautomatic fire; also: a rifle that resembles a military assault rifle but is designed to allow only semiautomatic fire.
  • Defined by Google as; a rapid-fire, magazine-fed automatic rifle designed for infantry use.

 

That’s interesting, isn’t it?  Mirriam-Webster is the only one that defines a rifle that looks like a military assault rifle as an assault rifle.  In fact, looking through weapon classifications through the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) there is no actual designation of an Assault Rifle except as it pertains to the proper name of specific firearms (AK-47, MP-43, MP-44 and STG-44) Everything else refers to what is defined above as a “Machine-Gun” or “Machine Pistol”.  Funny how the governing body doesn’t use the term Assault anywhere in regulations.

This raises 2 important questions;

First, who brought the term Assault-Rifle in to the narrative?  We harken all the way back to World War II where Nazi Germany coined the term Sturmgewehr (loose translation Storm Rifle, or Assault Rifle).  A more apt term to consider is ‘Assault Weapon’ which has been narrowed down to pretty much any semi-automatic weapon that looks like it could be military issue.

Second, why is a dictionary allowed to push political agenda?  It’s been my understanding that Mirriam-Webster is a de-facto standard for word definition, and now they’re attempting to alter the meaning of a word (or two in conjunction in this case) in accordance with social and political landscape.  I don’t know about you, but I think that should put Mirriam-Webster in the same league as Wikipedia.  Still mostly valid, but cross reference with another source.

Gun-Crime vs Violent-Crime

There is a willful disconnect between Gun-crime and Violent-crime when the statistics start flying.  There are always claims that after a ban on guns goes in to effect, gun-crime goes down.  Nobody likes talking about violent crime.  In fact if you compare the two, the only thing that changes after a ban goes in to effect is the weapon of choice.  The reality is usually somewhere in the middle, while I will concede that having a gun someone determined to cause a lot of damage has less hindering them if they have a gun, but far more devastating atrocities have been achieved without guns.

It’s easier to buy a gun than a …

This is where things get funny.  To legally obtain a firearm, one must fill out an ATF Form 4473, and pass an FBI Background check.  It’s neither quick nor is it easy.  Not to say that the 4473 is equivalent to the SAT, but it is comprehensive and falsifying information on the form is punishable by up to 10 years in prison and/or up to a $250,000 fine.  I frequently ask anyone who thinks purchasing a firearm is as easy as getting a coke to actually take a look at the 4473 form.

A gun’s only purpose is to kill human beings

Well, no, and in the same vein, yes.  There are some gun’s whose sole purpose is to be accurate for target shooting.  But that’s an outlier.  Of course, we’re talking about the AR-15, and similar rifles.   You’re right, it’s primary function is to kill human beings.  Unless you’re hunting small game, it’s not a great choice.  But the ownership of said rifle is usually not for hunting, it’s for defense, be it from a home invader or some other threat to one’s liberties.

 

After only scratching the surface that’s all that’s there it’s an argument between the two sides.  Since this is the United States, there must be two sides, and we must be polarized against each other to maintain our way of life.  Look the only way to truly put the whole thing to bed is stop the mud-slinging, and have an adult conversation about all the contributing factors.  Some takeaways from the narrative to consider; Most people want less murder (on both sides), most want to keep guns out of the hands of those who wish to commit evil.  Lastly there is not nearly enough education about firearms in the world today.  I don’t even pretend to have all the answers, I just know that we’re trying to achieve the same goal, maybe we should work together.

So preoccupied with whether they could..

I will be completely frank here, AI is a terrifying thing.  Sure, some of the more harmless implementations are cool, but if you look down the road AI is on, you’ll surely see the problems.  It’s great to conceptualize and implement an app on your phone that will automate tedious phone calls (See Google Duplex).  But considering what else is emerging in technology it’s not hard to imagine what the future will bring.  I want to believe that everything will be used solely for the benefit of all humanity, but I realistically know that’s not going to be the case.

So, let’s paint the landscape.  AI can be classified in one of two buckets; Narrow, and General.  Narrow can be defined as a machine (or computer) producing human-like results or decisions in a small subset of tasks (e.g. image recognition).  General can be defined as a machine (or computer) producing human-like results or decisions in a greater set of tasks (e.g. autonomous interaction with the world).  To be clear most of the implications of AI that make it to the news are narrow.  Some examples; would be Siri, Google Assistant, and Cortana, these applications are good at listening to your voice and returning results that you are asking for.

By in large Narrow AI is mostly benign, until of course you start applying it to teach General AI.  Some other terms thrown around when talking about AI are Machine and Deep Learning.  Both terms are essentially a method to teach machines or computers how to make decisions on their own.  A third term that pops up is Big Data which is just an extremely large data set.  Developers and companies will use Big Data to teach Narrow AI.  You’ve probably seen the captcha images that ask you to select the portions of the image that have a specific object in it, these are usually used for machine learning to teach a Narrow AI.  If you feed a trillion images to a fledgling AI that do or do not have a cat in them, eventually the AI will be able to recognize any picture’s feline content.

Tin-Foil-Hat Warning.

Now, the scary part; We’ve been made comfortable with the fact that we’re identifying roads for self-driving vehicles, but what we haven’t even thought of is all the surveillance data collected by the NSA.  This is largely our behavioral information, and since it was collected in a method we would think of as unethical, it’s not a stretch to think that the data will be used in an unethical manner as well.

Then you’ve got the big names collecting an absurd amount of information on people.  Facebook, Google, Amazon etc.  These companies are using that data to build AI.  Unfortunately, these companies are in business to make money and fiscal partnerships are bound to happen.   The prompting of this particular post is just one of those partnerships; a partnership with Google and the Department of Defense (Project Maven).  The idea is to assist our unmanned drones better identify their targets.  What nobody is saying out loud is this is attaching an amount of fire power to AI.

Let’s move on to the truly terrifying; AI doesn’t have the conscience of a traditional human and will follow orders given to it so long as it is adhering to programming.  Meaning that an AI will act on instructions that a soldier simply will not.  Coupled with the people in control of the instructions may or may not have the best intentions in mind.  With both sides of the political argument throwing around collusion with an outside source, and some notable people of power having their data / information leaked or taken over.  The technology is cool, and I’m curious to see what we can achieve with it.  The problem is, of course, who’s driving it?