The First Defence

Originally published in the Informanté newspaper on Thursday, 2 February, 2017. 

Constitution Day is once again approaching, and as we marvel once again at its remarkable role in our sovereign, secular, democratic and unitary state that secures for us all justice, liberty, equality and fraternity, we should cast our eyes abroad. Because while we recognize that the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is indispensable for freedom, justice and peace, it seems that our young republic needs to cast its eyes upon its older siblings, to see where they went wrong, and how we can keep from following in their worrying path. 

The Economist Intelligence Unit’s Democracy Index for 2016 was released, and Namibia scored 6.31, 71^st in the list, and is ranked as a ‘Flawed Democracy.’  Perhaps more surprisingly, is the that venerable institution hailed at the model for participatory democracy, the United States, has dropped a few places on the list – and is no longer classified as a ‘Full Democracy,’ but also now a flawed one, ranked 21^st alongside Italy. 

While it would be simple to ascribe this drop to the election of President Trump, the reality is that this slump in its rating is not due to his election, but rather that his election is the result of a slump in its democratic values. Indeed, the US election results and the Brexit vote have both been described as the surprises of the year for democratic countries, and yet they had two opposing effects on the rankings of its respective countries. 

In the United Kingdom, the Brexit vote encouraged political discussion and participation to an extent not seen in decades, culminating in a 72% voter turnout, much larger than is usual for the United Kingdom. People are not apathetic to politics – especially when they believe they’ll be able to make a difference. In the aftermath of the Brexit vote, all political parties in the UK experienced an increase in membership, and this moved the UK up to 16^th place in the Democracy Index.

And yet somehow the media and the politicians have interpreted these results as a ‘backlash against the democratic order’ and a threat to liberal democracy. What an odd interpretation. The voters defied the politicians, and this is a threat to democracy? Perhaps it should be seen as a vindication of democracy – these votes were the consequence of the failings of modern democracy, not the cause of it.

This is because over the past 50 years, the political parties have been changing. As they started to lose touch with their constituents, the voters, they’ve tried to regain ground lost by closer to the centre – to the government voted in. Their views began to diverge from the voters they neglected and left behind. In these countries, the old left/right divide in politics began to mean less and less, as the issues voters cared about were ignored, and parties split on issues they themselves cared about, but not the voters. 

As a result, voters felt they no longer had much of a say in government – it was by the parties, for the parties. The failing of that democratic model became evident in voter apathy – lower and lower turnout at elections. This had a corrosive effect on confidence in government. Fewer than 1 in 5 American surveyed believe that the government can be trusted to do what is right, and only 9% had confidence in Congress.

This lack of democracy – the lack of a voice! – provided the impetus for the Brexit vote and President Trump. But before we get complacent, we should consider that the same can and will happen here. We’ve seen it start in South Africa, with lower voter turnouts and the rise of the EFF. Namibia’s scores on the Democracy Index for Functioning of Government is a mere 5.36, showing a lack of confidence, and our score for Political Culture is also low at 5.63. We’ve already seen the signs – the low voter turnout for local and regional government elections, for example. 

In countries with a dominant single party, like Namibia or South Africa, those in power too can become complacent, and lose touch with the issues voters care about. With a declining trust in government, the same sudden challenge from the electorate will come forward, and just like the UK and the USA, the political elite, unused to having their worldview challenged, won’t know what to make of it. 

There, they blame popular ignorance and xenophobia. Secretary Clinton called them the ‘basket of deplorables.’ They call it a backlash against the democratic order – and some are even arguing that democracy is thus not working, and that it is wrong to trust ordinary people to make political decisions. Unfortunately, this reeks of a new institutionalised aristocracy that wants to decide what’s best for you, without your input. 

How does that respect or recognize inherent dignity the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family? Does that sound like it is promoting freedom, justice and peace? They say power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Those in power will contrive of the means or reason to remain there should they lose the consent of the governed. It is why we have our constitution, the safeguard against misuse of the power we grant our government. And that is why we must always remember that the first line of defence for the constitution remains, and always will be, We The People.

I Think, Therefore…

Originally published in the Informanté newspaper on Thursday, 26 January, 2017. 

On 23 June 1912, in Maida Vale, London, a young man was born to a member of the Indian Civil Service of British India, and the daughter of the chief engineer of Madras Railways. Young Alan showed early signs of genius, and even at age 16, when he encountered Alter Einstein’s work, he not only understood it, but also figured out that Einstein was questioning Isaac Newton’s laws of motion, even though that was not explicit in the text. 

Alan later studied at King’s College, Cambridge, where he excelled at mathematics. By 1935, he was elected a fellow at King’s, and in 1936, he published a seminal paper, "On Computable Numbers, with an Application to the Entscheidungsproblem." Here he reformulated the limits of proof and computation via a simple hypothetical device that would become known as a Turing Machine. This “universal computing machine” was proved to not only be capable of calculating any conceivable mathematical computation if it could be represented as an algorithm, but he also proved that any such machine could perform, or emulate, the task of any other such machine. Alan Turing had provided the mathematical basis for computers. But he was not done.

Unfortunately, during the next few years, there was a spot of trouble with the Germans. He worked for His Majesty’s Government at Bletchley Park, in cryptanalysis, and developed a codebreaking machine that enabled the Allies to crack the Enigma Code. This played a key role in enabling an Allied victory, and it is estimated that his work shortened the war by two years, and saved more than 14 million lives. 

After that spot of bother, Alan turned his mind back to the mathematics of computational devices. In 1950, he published a paper in Mind, titled “Computing Machinery and Intelligence.” Based on his previous paper, where he proved that digital computers are ‘universal,’ in that they can in theory simulate the behaviour of any other digital machine, Alan Turing asked that seminal question that would drive the imaginations of computer scientists for years to come. Since Computer A could simulate the behaviour of Computer B in an imitation game, well, "Let us fix our attention on one particular digital computer C. Is it true that by modifying this computer to have an adequate storage, suitably increasing its speed of action, and providing it with an appropriate programme, C can be made to play satisfactorily the part of A in the imitation game, the part of B being taken by a man?"

In other words, can a computer isolated from a judge so that she or he cannot immediately tell whether she or he is communicating with a person or a computer, convince this judge that it is human? Can a computer think? Or, as the case may be, act indistinguishably from the way someone who can think acts? And thus, the field of Artificial General Intelligence was born. 

Many people have tried in the intervening 65-plus years to invalidate his original proposal with various arguments, the most common of which I alluded to in the previous paragraph. John Searle, for example, proposed the following analogy – suppose an artificial intelligence is programmed that passes this test, and understands Chinese. Then suppose he is in a closed room and has a book with an English version of the computer program, along with sufficient materials to run the program manually. He could receive Chinese characters through a slot in the door, follow the program as written, and produce Chinese characters as output through the door. If the program could pass Turing’s test, so could he – but he still wouldn’t understand Chinese! And neither, ipso facto, would the computer.

And yet, this is the same problem we as people face. Given that we can only observe the behaviour of others, how can we be certain that they have minds that can think? Behaviour, as shown above, does thus not guarantee that a thinking mind exists – we can only ever be certain our own minds exist. The Turing test, it seems, would not prove that a thinking computer would exist, but for all practical intent and purposes, it would be indistinguishable from one that does…

Of course, simply knowing it’s possible does not make it easy to achieve. The limitations of computer power at the time left it to a mostly theoretical science. Yet as computational power grew, so too were the attempts to realise what Alan Turing had theorized. Trying to reach that elusive goal of Artificial General Intelligence in one go was soon abandoned, but the fields of research into its specific sub-sections have borne fruit.

Fields like machine language processing, and translation opened up. Expert systems were created than when input with data, would follow expert reasoning to give solutions to a problem at hand. Games were amongst the first to gain artificial intelligence, as when the first available commercial computer was released in 1951, both chess and checkers had AI to play them written almost immediately. It took a while to mature, naturally, but by 1997 computers were able to beat grandmasters at chess for the first time, and by today, even chess AI running on mobile phones can beat most human players.  

By 2016, computer AI was able to beat the best humans at Go, considered one of the most computationally challenging games to win, and even now, artificial intelligence programs are inching ever closer to being able to beat humans at poker. But it is not only games – in the 1960’s, Captain Kirk’s verbal querying of the USS Enterprise computer was considered science fiction and over 200 years in the future, and yet today, we carry mobile phones that can do the same thing. Apple’s Siri, Google’s Assistant (and predecessor, Google Now), Amazon’s Alexa and Microsoft’s Cortana are all intelligent assistants available on a variety of computing devices that respond to your voice and perform actions. 

Slowly the parts are coming together, and Turing’s test will become relevant as never before. Sadly, Turing was gay, and chemically castrated in 1952 for Homosexual Acts, leading to his suicide in 1954 before his 42^nd birthday. One of the greatest minds and pioneers in computer science had his life cut short due to intolerance and the world is worse off for it. It took the British government until 2009 to offer a public apology for its appalling treatment of a war hero, and in 2013 Queen Elizabeth II granted him a posthumous pardon. 

Let us hope that this is not how we act when we finally meet these new children of humanity. It is our responsibility as people to make ethical decisions based on reason, empathy and a concern not only for ourselves, but also other conscious, sentient beings, wherever they may come from. And perhaps, after welcoming them into our global community, we can offer them a glass of champagne.

Gross Domestic Recession

Originally published in the Informanté newspaper on Thursday, 19 January, 2017. 

During December, the Namibia Statistics Agency released the third quarter GDP figures for Namibia, and they were, well, if not unexpected, certainly a disappointment. For the second quarter in a row, our country had experienced negative growth. Namibia has entered a technical recession. 

I know! Sounds scary! But what is a technical recession? I’ve previously covered our Gross Domestic Product, and that figures in here. A technical recession is when GDP growth is negative for two quarters or more. That neatly defines it, and yet doesn’t actually tell us what it means – what its effect will be on our lives. To start with, it helps to know that a recession refers to a slowdown of economic activity – quite reasonable, given that GDP is an indicator of economic activity.

It’s effects, however, spread beyond simply that – whereas a simple reduction in economic activity can be countered simply by a better quarter later, a recession has psychological effects that can trap the economy in a negative feedback loop. When companies see a recession approaching, they tend to ‘buckle up’, getting ready for tough times. Excess employees are trimmed, and instead of investing in new ventures, they will start saving money. 

This can result in what is called the paradox of thrift or the paradox of deleveraging. After all, these excess employees trimmed are no longer employed, and their consumption no longer fuels the economy, driving growth lower. The money saved, and not invested, is unproductive – not being put to use, that further slows growth. 

This translates down personally as well. When ordinary citizens start feeling economically pressured, they tend to save more and pay down debts to prepare for hard times ahead. Yet every dollar spent, is one that is active in the economy, paying wages and suppliers. Ironically, by saving, growth is reduced and a recession can linger. 

Let’s have a look, then, at the state of the economy in our recession. Inflation has increased quarter-to-quarter, averaging at 6.9% in the third quarter versus 6.7% in the second quarter, due to increases in the price of food due to the drought. Our net exports have improved, compared to last quarter, but Namibia is still running at a trade deficit of N$ 5.0 billion. In other words, we import N$ 5.0 billion more than we export. Compared to the second quarter figure of N$ 7.3 billion, we are making some progress.

Onto the specific sectors of the economy. Agriculture and Forestry had an increase of 1.6% in the third quarter – after six consecutive quarters of declines. The recovery in the sector is attributed to the livestock farming subsector that registered a growth of 1.1%. In addition, the crop farming subsector recorded an increase of 3.1%. The increase in performance is due to the increase in the number of slaughtered livestock stock at the export abattoirs and butchers. Farmers are re-stocking and investing in their herds! But the fishing sector declined by 4.8%, dropping into the negatives once again. 

Mining and quarrying declined by 5.6 % in the third quarter, mainly due to a decrease in diamond production of about 13%. This was offset somewhat by strong growth in the Uranium subsector, which showed growth of 16.4%. The manufacturing sector also experienced a decline of 5.3% due to declines in diamond cutting and polishing, beverage production and other fabricated metals. In contrast, the electricity and water sector had positive growth, recording 5.3% growth – with the electricity sub-sector showing slower growth.

But the construction sector continues to struggle. After 10 consecutive quarters of 20% plus growth, it had slowed to near zero in the first quarter, and a decline of 19.9% in the second quarter. In the third quarter, it registered a decline of 12.3%, due to a 19.4% decline in government construction. Hotels and Restaurants recorded a return to form with growth of 10.3%, with greater tourist numbers bolstering them. 

Wholesale and retail trade slowed down further, but it still recorded a 3.6% growth, driven by supermarket and clothing sales. The transport and communication sector grew by 1.8%, spearheaded by the port services and airport services, reflecting the greater tourist numbers as well.  Finally, the financial services sector grew by 3.4%, with the banking sub-sector leading the way.

When looked from this angle, it is clear why it is called a ‘technical’ recession – because while certain industries in our economy may struggle, others are on a rebound. The technical recession should be seen as a warning sign, not an indication of economic doom – and we should guard against falling into the paradox of thrift and preventing a recovery. The economy works best when we all pull together – when we Harambee. With the final 2016 GDP figures still to come, let us Harambee at the start of this year to ensure that a technical recession does not turn into a full blown depression.