[Plura-list] Dreaming and overfitting; Dirty NYPD cops can't lose

[Cory Doctorow]

Today's links

* Dreaming and overfitting: The Overfitted Brain Hypothesis has a lot of
explanatory power.

* Dirty NYPD cops can't lose: The secret legal defense fund for the
indefensible.

* This day in history: 2006, 2016, 2020

* Colophon: Recent publications, upcoming/recent appearances, current
writing projects, current reading

_,.-'~'-.,__,.-'~'-.,__,.-'~'-.,__,.-'~'-.,__,.-'~'-.,_

🤵🏻‍♀️ Dreaming and overfitting

I'm not the first person to note that our understanding of ourselves and
our society is heavily influenced by technological change - think of how
we analogized biological and social functions to clockwork, then steam
engines, then computers.

I used to think that this was just a way of understanding how we get
stuff hilariously wrong - think of Taylor's Scientific Management, how
its grounding in mechanical systems inflicted such cruelty on workers
whom Taylor demanded ape those mechanisms.

But just as interesting is how our technological metaphors illuminate
our understanding of ourselves and our society: because there ARE ways
in which clockwork, steam power and digital computers resemble bodies
and social structures.

Any lens that brings either into sharper focus opens the possibility of
making our lives better, sometimes much better.

Bodies and societies are important, poorly understood and deeply
mysterious.

Take sleep. Sleep is *very weird*.

Once a day, we fall unconscious. We are largely paralyzed, insensate,
vulnerable, and we spend hours and hours having incredibly bizarre
hallucinations, most of which we can't remember upon waking. That is
(objectively) super weird.

But sleep is nearly universal in the animal kingdom, and dreaming is
incredibly common too. A lot of different models have been proposed to
explain our nightly hallucinatory comas, and while they had some
explanatory power, they also had glaring deficits.

Thankfully, we've got a new hot technology to provide a new metaphor for
dreaming: machine learning through deep neural networks.

DNNs, of course, are a machine learning technique that comes from our
theories about how animal learning works at a biological, neural level.

So perhaps it's unsurprising that DNN - based on how we think brains
work - has stimulated new hypotheses on how brains work!

Erik P Hoel is a Tufts University neuroscientist. He's a proponent of
something called the Overfitted Brain Hypothesis (OBH).

To understand OBH, you first have to understand how overfitting works in
machine learning: "overfitting" is what happens when a statistical model
overgeneralizes.

For example, if Tinder photos of queer men are highly correlated with a
certain camera angle, then a researcher might claim to have trained a
"gaydar model" that "can predict sexual orientation from faces."

That's overfitting (and researchers who do this are assholes).

Overfitting is a big problem in ML: if all the training pics of
Republicans come from rallies in Phoenix, the model might decide that
suntans are correlated with Republican politics - and then make bad
guesses about the politics of subjects in photos from LA or Miami.

To combat overfitting, ML researchers sometimes inject noise into the
training data, as an effort to break up these spurious correlations.

And that's what Hoel thinks are brains are doing while we sleep:
injecting noisy "training data" into our conceptions of the universe so
we aren't led astray by overgeneralization.

Overfitting is a real problem for people (another word for "overfitting"
is "prejudice").

Hoel advances this argument in a fascinating, short, accessible 2020
Arxiv open-access paper called "The Overfitted Brain: Dreams evolved to
assist generalization."

https://arxiv.org/pdf/2007.09560.pdf

The paper demonstrates how the OBH resolves a lot of mysteries from
previous theories advanced to explain dreaming. For example, it explains
why dream-deprived subjects' performance fails on generalized
performance tasks (which require extrapolation) but not rote tasks.

I learned about the paper from Peter Watts, an evolutionary biologist
with a knack for turning scientific concepts into revelatory plot
elements. His depiction (in MAELSTROM, 2002) of human/computer
pathogenic co-evolution haunts me.

http://locusmag.com/2018/05/cory-doctorow-the-engagement-maximization-presidency/

Watts's blog-post on Hoel's paper is a great breakdown of the
explanatory power of OBH, including (especially) why dreams are so weird
- a proposed solution to one of the enduring scientific mysteries that
dreams create.

https://www.rifters.com/crawl/?p=9844

Watts connects Hoel's work to another paper, this one studying lucid
dreaming, in which researchers are able to have two-way conversations
with lucid dreamers while they are dreaming (!):

https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(21)00059-2

In very Wattsian fashion, he wonders what this kind of injection of
rationality into dreams might do to cognition, if Hoel is right and the
irrationality is a feature, not a bug. You can see the beginnings of
another banger of a sf premise stirring there.

Hoel is *also* an sf writer, as it turns out, and his debut novel, THE
REVELATIONS, drops in mid-April: a murder mystery about "neuroscience,
death, and the search for the theory of human consciousness."

https://www.erikphoel.com/


_,.-'~'-.,__,.-'~'-.,__,.-'~'-.,__,.-'~'-.,__,.-'~'-.,_

🤵🏻‍♀️ Dirty NYPD cops can't lose

The NYPD is a notoriously corrupt institution, whose indiscriminate acts
of violence and murder have steadily worsened for decades. A powerful
police union and a cowed City Hall ensure that even the worst cops
rarely have any kind of reckoning.

After a series of legal wrangles - a New York state law, a lawsuit by
the police union, and Propublica's brave decision to publish - we
finally got a glimpse at the buried horrors in the NYPD disciplinary files.

https://pluralistic.net/2020/07/27/ip/#nypd-who

We also learned about the impunity enjoyed by dirty cops, including the
cops who were caught on camera breaking the law to brutalize and maim
protesters in last summer's BLM uprising.

https://pluralistic.net/2021/03/18/news-worthy/#nypd-black-and-blue

However, there are instances of police abuse that are so egregious and
well-documented that the officers involved face some kind of consequences.

For example, Officer Vincent D'Andraia faces criminal charges and a
civil suit after he was recorded brutalizing Dounya Zayer last summer.

https://twitter.com/JasonLemon/status/1266529475757510656

NYC's Law Department has announced that it won't provide D'Andraia with
a lawyer. That may sound like he's being cut loose, but as a joint The
City/Propublica article by Jake Pearson explains, that isn't true.

https://www.thecity.nyc/2021/3/26/22351475/nypd-union-contract-defend-officers-when-the-city-wont

That's because the city's contract with the NYPD's union mandates the
creation and funding of a secretive slush-fund that is used to hire
white-shoe, high-powered private sector lawyers to defend cops so dirty
the City's own lawyers won't touch them.

The deal has been in place since 1985, and it requires the city to
divert $75 per officer ($2m/year) into a defense fund that cops get to
dip into "when the City of New York fails or otherwise refuses to
provide a legal defense."

https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/20509353-pba_civil_legal_representation_fund_8112_73117

Nominally, this fund is off limits in case "directly or indirectly
adverse to the interests of the City," but this is meaningless: when
someone sues over police brutality, the City is usually a co-defendant,
meaning defending the dirty cop is in the City's interest.

The City's contract with the Police Benevolent Association - the NYPD's
union - expired in 2017 and will likely be renegotiated by whomever wins
the upcoming NYC mayoral race.

As Pearson notes, the $75/officer fund has become standard - Rikers'
guards and police brass all got similar deals after the PBA deal was
struck.

These deals mean that even when cops and guards commit offenses so
grotesque the City won't defend them, NYC's taxpayers do.

Police reform is on the ticket in the mayoral race. NYC pays out
hundreds of millions of dollars every single year to settle claims
against its officers, but its contracts with the PBA make those officers
not just un-fireable but immune to *any* consequences.


_,.-'~'-.,__,.-'~'-.,__,.-'~'-.,__,.-'~'-.,__,.-'~'-.,_

🤵🏻‍♀️ This day in history

#15yrsago DRM is Killing Music https://www.voidstar.com/node.php?id=2686

#15yrsago Swisscom WiFi at London conference centre costs $838.73/24h
https://web.archive.org/web/20060329090917/https://benhammersley.com/FCE47259-78BA-4B5E-ABF2-F39B93520C85/Blog/C9043A4D-F791-4B7F-A8A7-3484779B4748.html

#15yrsago Most expensive Google ad keywords
https://web.archive.org/web/20060325094245/http://www.cwire.org/2006/03/23/updated-highest-paying-adsense-keywords/

#15yrsago LA Times slams Marvel for trying to steal “superhero”
https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2006-mar-26-ed-superhero26-story.html

#5yrsago Jerks were able to turn Microsoft’s chatbot into a Nazi because
it was a really crappy bot
https://www.vice.com/en/article/mg7g3y/how-to-make-a-not-racist-bot

#5yrsago What you think about Millennials says a lot about you, nothing
about them
https://www.mic.com/articles/138525/comedian-nails-the-one-simple-thing-adults-can-do-to-connect-with-young-people

#1yrago Sanders on GOP stimulus cruelty
https://pluralistic.net/2020/03/26/badger-masks/#unlimited-cruelty

#1yrago Canada nationalizes covid patents
https://pluralistic.net/2020/03/26/badger-masks/#c13

#1yrago The ideology of economics
https://pluralistic.net/2020/03/26/badger-masks/#piketty

_,.-'~'-.,__,.-'~'-.,__,.-'~'-.,__,.-'~'-.,__,.-'~'-.,_

🤵🏻‍♀️ Colophon

Currently writing:

* My next novel, "The Lost Cause," a post-GND novel about truth and
reconciliation. Yesterday's progress: 682 words (120480 total).

* A cyberpunk noir thriller novel, "Red Team Blues." Yesterday's
progress: 1000 words (40443 total).

Currently reading: Analogia by George Dyson.

Latest podcast: Free Markets
https://craphound.com/podcast/2021/03/22/free-markets/

Upcoming appearances:

* Launch for Brian David Johnson's Future You (Powell's Books), Mar 30,
https://zoom.us/webinar/register/5716148038801/WN_psgDGchIRfaUQOJyvLnvzw

* All the Teachable Things I Know About Writing, Apr 13,
https://www.changinghands.com/event/april2021/virtual-writing-workshop-cory-doctorow-all-teachable-things-i-know-about-writing

* Interop: Self-Determination vs Dystopia (FITC), Apr 19-21,
https://fitc.ca/presentation/interop/

Recent appearances:

* The Right to Repair Movement, Monopolies, and Solarpunk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mmosdDCrL-4

* The surveillance state, digital monopolies, and why we should be
worried (Podsongs)
https://anchor.fm/podsongs/episodes/Cory-Doctorow-on-the-Surveillance-State--digital-monopolies--and-why-we-should-be-worried-eso43k

* Conspiracy Theories (Utopian Horizons):
https://soundcloud.com/utopianhorizons/conspiracy-theory-w-cory-doctorow

Latest book:

* "Attack Surface": The third Little Brother novel, a standalone
technothriller for adults. The *Washington Post* called it "a political
cyberthriller, vigorous, bold and savvy about the limits of revolution
and resistance." Order signed, personalized copies from Dark Delicacies
https://www.darkdel.com/store/p1840/Available_Now%3A_Attack_Surface.html

* "How to Destroy Surveillance Capitalism": an anti-monopoly pamphlet
analyzing the true harms of surveillance capitalism and proposing a
solution.
https://onezero.medium.com/how-to-destroy-surveillance-capitalism-8135e6744d59
(print edition:
https://bookshop.org/books/how-to-destroy-surveillance-capitalism/9781736205907)
(signed copies:
https://www.darkdel.com/store/p2024/Available_Now%3A__How_to_Destroy_Surveillance_Capitalism.html)

* "Little Brother/Homeland": A reissue omnibus edition with a new
introduction by Edward Snowden:
https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250774583; personalized/signed copies
here:
https://www.darkdel.com/store/p1750/July%3A__Little_Brother_%26_Homeland.html

* "Poesy the Monster Slayer" a picture book about monsters, bedtime,
gender, and kicking ass. Order here:
https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781626723627. Get a personalized, signed
copy here:
https://www.darkdel.com/store/p1562/_Poesy_the_Monster_Slayer.html.

Upcoming books:

* The Shakedown, with Rebecca Giblin, nonfiction/business/politics,
Beacon Press 2022

This work licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license.
That means you can use it any way you like, including commercially,
provided that you attribute it to me, Cory Doctorow, and include a link
to pluralistic.net.

https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Quotations and images are not included in this license; they are
included either under a limitation or exception to copyright, or on the
basis of a separate license. Please exercise caution.

_,.-'~'-.,__,.-'~'-.,__,.-'~'-.,__,.-'~'-.,__,.-'~'-.,_

🤵🏻‍♀️ How to get Pluralistic:

Blog (no ads, tracking, or data-collection):

Pluralistic.net

Newsletter (no ads, tracking, or data-collection):

https://pluralistic.net/plura-list

Mastodon (no ads, tracking, or data-collection):

https://mamot.fr/web/accounts/303320

Twitter (mass-scale, unrestricted, third-party surveillance and
advertising):

https://twitter.com/doctorow

Tumblr (mass-scale, unrestricted, third-party surveillance and advertising):

https://mostlysignssomeportents.tumblr.com/tagged/pluralistic

"*When life gives you SARS, you make sarsaparilla*" -Joey "Accordion
Guy" DeVilla


-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 195 bytes
Desc: OpenPGP digital signature
URL: <http://mail.flarn.com/pipermail/plura-list/attachments/20210326/87fdb26a/attachment.sig>