Corona and pandemic solutions

Community Blog
#1

:warning: I know the thread is giant and very hard to follow, so this weekend, I am gonna make a video summary that is easy to follow. Thanks

:warning: Anyone reading this, please note that the thread got derailed from its scope significantly from 44 to 120. I will try to maintain the scope from 120… Thanks

:warning: :warning: :warning: From 130, Shifting gears from system and framework BS and focusing more on other types of solutions…

Hey guys,
Since most of people are sitting ducks at home due to quarantine. I thought if we can spend some time thinking some possible practical (or not) ways to manage situations better.

First, I want to show my deep disappointment that we don’t have solutions in place to deal with situations better despite fully capable in this hyper connected society. But I want to engage in productive solutions and arguments rather than blaming people who only wake up from their localized abstraction in time of crisis like this.

The most disappointing part is, they go back to sleep as soon as it’s all over. It sometime feels like it’s a fucking circus and all the clowns have the control.

Anyways, let’s break it down.
Corona is a common abstraction meaning it doesn’t differentiate class or race. But old people are at more risk.

It requires multi-dimensional contribution at scale as in involvement of masses, companies and governments.
Never before enough attention was given to this at this scale because there was not enough motivation for any attention.
Since everyone is feeling the direct air, thousands are dying, millions at risk and billions of dollars are wiping out.
Now people have all kind of motivations and attention to these problems.

I have been thinking on holistic solutions on a more big picture level.
I’ll just quickly point out that I’m not an EXPERT, just a creative guy and I like doing abstraction as hobby.
Since nowadays most things are about attention.
Things like this can escalate quickly depending on how stupidly it is handled.
It is imperative that all people pay good attention.

And this is the first breaking point, because attention is one sided like news and media is all.
How is it possible that we don’t have a framework that makes 2 way attention so situation like this can be deal effectively.
This is where we need a protocol for Attention Network .
All the highest priority abstractions that affects you, is handled in it like corona, natural disasters etc.
It’s a collective framework in which people participate in abstractions that directly or indirectly affects them.

When you are part of the attention network, you are given a survival companion.
This survival companion is your smart digital identity (SelfAI) that monitors everything about you.
It uses your data to protect you and others and guide you in the case of crisis.

For example, imagine an app using this attention network…
Like your survival companion for Covid 19.
I don’t want to get into granular detail just yet but the idea would be the people will self-organize using this app in the case of crisis. Tagline would be “Let’s organised together to survive together” or something…

Anyways, the goal of this app would be to effectively track the infections so we can control it rather-than full lock-down.
Users will self-report their health and complete engage in symptoms markers checklist.
It’s probabilistic meaning depending on your symptoms assessment, will give you a category or something,
It’s super personalized also that accounts for your baseline benchmarks and change.

For example,
Joe health status is 6AC which means he’s unaffected and at low risk.
He is safe go to office and to pass through A2 zones.
He is safe to meet people above 6AC or above.
Movement and proximity tracking etc.
In the case of Kate, her immunity is compromised due to some issue. so her protocol will be different.
In case of Tom, he was in near proximity of Sam who has higher probability of having Carona caught with another infected person.

So Tom, is now in isolation at home and monitoring and testing is requested, while Sam is quarantined due to high probability with direct contact. and so on… According to status, app shows organize feature, personalized tips and precautions.
Apart from participation, people can also contribute in this, like people who are at high risks and if they can not afford tests then others can sponsor them since it’s in the best interest…

You can also have affiliated providers within the app who provide resources and services like tests.
The idea is, the world doesn’t just shutdown overnight because I don’t think we can afford to do it for long.

Thousands will die with lock-downs and all the hustles that comes with it.

Sorry for long post… :mask:

EDITED BY ADMINDEV

There is a summary of the discussion in this post

2 Likes
#2

A surveillance nightmare that you are proposing there.

Not really the case and i doubt such a System would be the actual or good solution to the problem.

2 Likes
#3

It looks like that but it’s not. The system works around individual security meaning data is not owned by anyone but user themselves. It’s actually opposite of surveillance nightmare we have today. I’ve proposed some solutions before also so we can handle many such situations effectively. I would have shared that here but I discussed with @GFX_Garage and a few others on a private forum here. I will have to take his permission first.

Maybe or maybe not… But idea is to discuss potential solutions and their advantages and drawbacks…
I guess solution I’m proposing here needs much clear explanation job than I am doing right now.
But I’ll use this weekend to make some compelling concepts…

#4

yes indeed

#5

“common sense gun control”
“hate speech laws”
“code of conduct”
“terms of service”

all of these things are examples of things that didn’t look like they were negative, until someone abused them.

7 Likes
#6

David Brins’ “The Transparent Society” paints a bleak picture of the future of privacy. The technology itself is the catalyst for the loss of privacy. The pros and cons are likely to be the topics of heated debate; however the trends show a preference for personal information becoming more utilized.

This doesn’t seem to mean that a lot of abuse is to be expected though. The trends are also promoting transparency in a bottom up sense as well. It’s becoming more difficult every day for anyone to behave destructively in silence. The watchers are indeed being watched; and it seems that it may become more evenly proportional.

This may not be as much a problem as I’ve described so far though. Anonymization of users may be entirely possible as well. The data is not so corruptible if it’s not so easy to connect with a user. @metamachine has some interesting ideas for third party anonymization. With some of the tech that exists now; I’m thinking that it isn’t unreasonably difficult to be able to disconnect the user from their data as it is transported across networks. Combinations of encryption, VPNs and what ever emerges might be able to fortify third party anonymization.

Of course we should expect a game of cat and mouse indefinitely; but it might not be unthinkable that open could lead.

1 Like
#7

I don’t know about those. but they seem like single-dimensional solutions to multi-dimensional problems.
I think we all agree that these are not some simple problem and simple solutions will do more harm than good.

Anyways, It’s easier for me to explain in abstract terms than literal. So I’ll try that here…

Part 1:
Everything is an abstraction. Some abstractions are highly local to an entity while others over lap with other abstractions and entities in various degrees. We all choose our abstractions and get tuned to them.

Example of you local abstractions would be like your personal preferences, you passion, ambitions etc…
Then you have abstractions that extends and overlap with your family and close ones like relations, family values etc.
Then there are abstractions you overlap on broad level like language, profession, industry, community, country and global.
I must also point out that there are all kinds of nonsensical abstractions like flat earth and all.

Abstractions have tendency to eat into other abstractions.
And this depends on how much attention is given to what abstraction.

But there are some truly common abstractions that affect us all. Like global warming or climate change, epidemic or pandemic like COVID 19. COVID 19 abstraction is at the moment eating into every other abstraction, some are not that important like who cares about celebrities right-now. but it’s eating into abstractions that are immensely important and it will take years to recover…
Depending on how much time lock-down lasts, it might change the course also.

Part 2:
As I said earlier, abstraction rely on attention. But attention is dependent on motivation.
If motivation is to make profit then these technology will become surveillance nightmare as you pointed.
But if motivations are aligned correctly with abstractions they cater to then a ton of problems can be solved nicely.

However there are many ways to prevent misuse of these frameworks also.
One way as @GFX_Garage pointed, cat and mouse game…

Other ways would be to integrate these as value structure within fundamental value systems itself.

So value system will consist of 3 value structure.

1. Ownership of property value structure : This is plain old capitalism. Everything we have today is this…

2. Participation and Contribution value structure : As I said, some abstractions require participation and contribution from masses… So this is about creating motivation for people to engage and contribute in abstractions that are important to solve problem. Like health simulations, diet studies, pandemics etc. This can potentially become UBI for all… people can participate and contribute to solve worlds problems at the same time generate income with their data anonymously.

3. Accountability and Sustainability value structure: This value structure maintains the path of collective benefits. It discourages people to participate or contribute in abstractions that are bad for collectives and the future. For example, people not following Covid 19 guidelines will be directly affect their accountability. People not treating waste properly will affect this value structure as well. Also this will help discourage bad players with rent seeking behaviours as well as anything that negatively impacts system outside of personal space. This will help eliminate irrational decisions, unnecessary and artificial demands, mindless manipulation of markets for profitability and hoarding attitude. This also contributes in multiplier attribute which apply to all value structure, meaning your income multiplier of UBI. you value trade is dependent on this but not restricted or forced… People can still chose to be less accountable and not be negatively impacted in anyway however they’ll not get advantages of system design… So someone who’s return in $60 on some simulation study user participated in, then a 1.62x multiplier will allow a range upto $97.2… and If you are offering a services and it’s market value is $50, and your accountability multiplier is 2x then you can ask upto $100,however you can also put $200 or $2000 if you want to but system will recognize it overvalued.

These value structures combine together and create a cohesive value system and our behavior, motivation and attention will adapt accordingly.

Part 3 :
Most things are about logistics, even the complex behaviors and motivations are affected by it.
Attention economy itself is highly dependent of logistics because it’s limited.
That’s why we need to have a framework for logistics of intelligence management that runs on attention network.
More specifically, each person must have their own extended digital self.
Think of it like digital post-frontal lobe for everyone. Like your pre-frontal lobe, this must not be owned by companies.

Here’s an example I made to explain this 2-3 years back.
post-frontal_lobe

People engage in all sorts of abstractions that overlaps in various degrees with other, privacy and security must work on abstraction level too. That can only happen if all the data of a user primarily owned by the user.
Then depending on abstractions, those data can be shared by user for that abstraction.
Like for Covid 19. User will participate in the attention network via survival app.
Users share these data as their contribution to stop it from spreading.
The data is only used in Covid 19 abstraction in a secure framework which is not owned by any single party, company or government.

Similarly if there’s an earthquake in some of of India, the attention network will deploy survival companion to cater people in that area.

It actually opens Pandora’s box. Since data and security is on abstraction level managed by your post frontal lobe. Each user has their own companion which they trust and not owned by any one, this engages in all sorts of abstractions to create all sorts of values. Like your wellness companion for simulation studies, health and diet bench-marking and all sorts of things. It will literally help solve biggest problems of the world. Other great application would be education, it has great use in one to one education as it learn about you and teaches you at your own pace. It will work with you to maximize your potential. I can no imagine any company doing this for you without some caveats.

Anyways, getting back to Corona topic.
I thought I’ll just make a concept for an app that deals with Corona pandemic.
This will probably make things more clear what I’m trying to say.

coronaApp_interfaces
coronaApp_interfaces.png6357×4386 2.78 MB

#8

Well, I see that you put a good amount of work into this which I like.

I bet someone will rip that app mockup for his fundraiser in the next half a year, just saying.

Beside your style of writing that I personally have issues with understanding, the abstractions you are making, make that harder.
For me they are in the middle between anekdotes that pinpoint a certain aspect, and a precise description of a thing or system.
So, for me at least, those abstractions don’t do the job of conveying what I think you want to want say.

So first things first.

I don’t get where you are planing to go with the frontal lobe, AI implant, survival companion bits.
I thought this topic is meant to stay in the realm of reality and not science fiction.
At least the frontal lobe implants for everyone are still fiction for the next decade.

A minor thing is the naming of “survival companion”
Which I find unfitting, it isn’t jet an apocalypse.
At least till we make it one, I think that would be a step in that direction.

Your proposed System of Abstraction an Attention

If I had to summarise what you are describing, it would be: A system in which the Persons Life is completely digitised and where that system is used for “good” in a scenario like the one we have today.

In such a case, the system is correlating relevant aspects of the person with the relevant aspects of other people in the surrounding environment to determine aspects of the hole situation and aspects relevant for the person. Those relevant aspects would then get the “attention” of the person.

I think You name the grouping of aspects “abstractions” and you give those attributes determining their reach. COV 19 would in that case of cause reach pretty far down into many aspects of the person.

Additionally, I think you want to have that system decentralised with the control inside the hand of the user or rather, its AI.
Having Groups of aspects possibly relevant, described as “attention groups” that a user can subscribe to.

Value system

And then you add a system that with “value structures” wants to incentives behaviour.

I’d simply describe that as a social credit or score, though that might come with some stigmata, though, what in this area of the topic doesn’t come with stigmata?

Let me just restate what a orwellian nightmare that is or at least very easily becomes.

Those topics alone have a scale that makes them worthy of having their own topic.
And its not like they don’t have that already.
Let me state that its not a future I want to live in.
This also boarders at the edge of freedom for safety.

To be productive and not completely negative on the topic:

The main goal can’t be to minimise impact on daily lives, and aiding during the pandemic.
It instead has to be eradication of an outbreak in the beginning at the roots of it.

A thing actually possible today, hard but possible.
And especially easy, very easy with the proposed system.

I think you are also looking at the aspects of the situation that aren’t really changeable.
Once we have a pandemic, I have no idea what else to do then what we are doing now, and what your systemizing.

So why not look at methods of diagnosing, responding and aiding in the early stages of an outbreak?

Especially when we are in the realm of fiction where so much more interesting aspects and issues arise.

I think you are trying to solve the obvious issues of today by systemizing everything to control and direct people to force them to behave a certain way, to hence solve those obvious issues.
But you seem to overlook the human aspects and the reasons why those issues are even issues.

To me, You seem to try to solve symptoms, not the root cause.

2 Likes
#9

Sorry, I can not explain a very complicated system in literal terms, those were anyway not the main point of this topic so I thought I’ll structure it in short abstract form to give some picture. For precision, it’s a long thread private which I’ve already discussed earlier with people here. I’ll add you to that thread so you can get precise description of the technology.

Using frontal lobe term is just an expression. It’s all possible with current technology right now. Nothing what I have proposed is in the realm of science fiction.

Again I’m just naming them on the go. I’m not necessarily good with name. The the term conveys the idea.

Sure, COV 19 is just a usecase of such a system. If we had this system in place then the app I’m proposing with some some hardware/band paired to mobile can become life saver. I’ll go in detail later.

It is decentralized and the control is in the hand of user. User’s AI is just a manager. Yes, attention network is based on subscription that are most relevant to the user.

Yes I agree. I shouldn’t have put them in this topic. But the solution I’m proposing is based on many such things and I’m finding very hard to piece things together without back story.

No, actually it merges freedom with safety. The whole idea is about achieving this if at all possible.

Actually those things will come ahead in this topic as long as it’s not distracted too much… I have some intuitions but they only become real if we keep talking to link things together…

You couldn’t be more wrong in your assertion. I’m not trying to systematize to control or force them to behave certain way. Those issue are the result of miscommunication, misinformation, mis-judgments, not understanding logistical problems, not awareness and insights and tons of things… What this framework is trying to solve is those things with digital companion that takes care of those things for you using statistical analysis and science. It’s primarily an effort towards minimizing the human errors so you can make informed decision.

But I can not possibly explain all here. So what I’ll do is add you to that thread and hopefully it will make sense to you and if it does not then I will elaborate further.

update:

Also I’ll just quickly point this out. I agree with you. My whole point was to an alternative to total lock-down.

and of course the real solution is total eradication however it might take time to achieve that and in the mean time if we there’s a way organize ourselves to minimize the damage. I am going beyond usual human abstractions and taking inspiration from nature. Like ant colony and stuff…

#10

Well there we have it.
That is the point I didn’t understand.
Nice that we got that figured out.

2 Likes
#11

Cool. I am pretty sure I’m not doing good job at explaining things clearly but I hope it will get clearer. But thank you for engaging anyway. It’s important that we ask right question and may be we will land on some solutions which might effective in this disaster.

Now I would like to focus on more granular aspects of this frameworks such as modelling rapidly spreading large scale pandemics, prioritizing resources, effective emergency response, how will social dynamics reorganize itself for the situation, monitoring, diagnostics, cross-referencing and bench-marking, minimizing economic and financial impacts and potentially simulating all kinds of scenarios and response with participation of people…

So let’s take first thing which is educating people with specific knowledge and concepts about the pandemic. We only hope that people make better decision but least we can do is provide them with highly personalized knowledge and statistical insights to them. It’s important to give insights to masses so they understand enough to make personal adjustment around proposed actions.

This 2 way attention creates all sorts of opportunity like your survival companion presents the concepts around case fatality rate, R0 or spread rate and Series Intervals specific to COV19. Then those can be gamified in a way to manage your own personal benchmarks.

For example, If R0 is around 3.2 in the region, every user, infected or not can follow set of actions to decrease spread rate in simulation study which is 1 week or 2-3 days ahead of actual events. You can also have other types of study for example certain effect of certain diet or supplement on covid related things.

So instead of trying to explain in writing. I just made few more mockups to convey the idea better…

sim_study1
sim_study1.png2082×1921 324 KB

And lastly, my motivation to do abstraction comes from people taking interest and asking questions. It would be great of more people engaged in this and possibly contribute with their ideas. Thanks

#12

Hmm… let’s just play games and watch dum shits on Netflix… :vulcan_salute:

1 Like
#13

It’s true. All of the fears are warranted. The question is what is going to be done about it?

The fact is, something with a similar function to this is being developed right now. It’s being done by people who want to fund it with personal information. It’s also likely to be used for surveillance.

Third person anonymization is probably the best that can be done. Trusting large firms to do this is dangerous at best.

The cake is not a lie… you just have to make it yourself.

1 Like
#14

Some will always take advantage of situation and try to devalue your freedom against safety. I may work in countries like China but enough people have realized the value and risk around their data… I’m not too worried as it won’t fly anymore.

Not necessarily. It doesn’t matter who creates it as long as the implementation is right. It’s more about recognizing the boundaries of abstractions. When things like UBI, health and other sensitive abstractions are tied to your SelfAi then it will become impossible for third party to own and exploit it.

That’s why I was expressing SelfAi in terms of pre-frontal lobe because it’s actually much deeper concept than it looks. It’s an amalgamation of your data, intelligence, awareness, preference, choices and all the abstraction that makes you you. You have to be able to trust it like part of your brain. It implements anonymization at service level so you won’t even need to share your data out to participate in things. Instead services will come inward or there’s can be a digital promise-land where data transformed into purpose-aware services that meet other services. It will require some implementation of trust framework or protocol so it’s not exploited in unexpected ways.

Once we achieve this, It will open pathways to opportunities that aren’t being utilized currently, it will literally make most of the problems today look trivial including COVID 19 situation.

I came across Microsoft decentralized digital identity recently. https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/security/business/identity/own-your-identity

It’s an early-stage project… Users will own their identity and store all personal data on it. I’m sure it will eventually become SelfAI like concept which will handle all kinds of interactions for user.

1 Like
#15

You’ve pointed some things I’ve missed; but I seem to have caused some confusion with a definition that I’ve chosen. Rather than third party anonymization, maybe third person would be better.

1 Like
#17

I want to revive this thread and somehow make it less abstract and more relatable as pointed by one of my friend… Mainly because It’s straining my conscience not doing anything… L̶o̶c̶k̶d̶o̶w̶n̶ ̶i̶s̶ ̶e̶x̶t̶e̶n̶d̶e̶d̶ ̶b̶y̶ ̶a̶n̶o̶t̶h̶e̶r̶ ̶2̶ ̶w̶e̶e̶k̶s̶ ̶o̶n̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶t̶o̶p̶ ̶o̶f̶ ̶3̶ ̶w̶e̶e̶k̶s̶ ̶w̶h̶e̶r̶e̶ ̶I̶ ̶s̶t̶a̶y̶.̶ lockdown is 3 weeks here. It’s likely to extend further… Looking at the state of COVID 19, it could go on for a long time…

Anyways, we earlier discussed how we can make relevant and personalized knowledge easily accessible to people in the case of pandemic. Then some mock-ups about participating in real-time simulation study to model the spread. So I’ll continue to expand it further.

I think the SCN tag is the key component, I am not sure about the format but I kinda intuitively created it on the go and it should probably have some other important attributes I’m missing currently, please feel free to suggest. But the idea is SCN tag is to be used in the tracking infection, modelling, appropriate action and response and resource allocation etc.

So It has in-risk and out-risk which corresponds to models that will determine the protocol, for example going to office or staying quarantined depends what SCN state of the person is. Then you have the usual gender, age group and compliant group. Gender may be important in some cases but age group definitely is for Covid 19…

Compliant group is how compliant and accountable the person is in stopping spread on a personal level. Compliance could be set of standard guidelines established by CDC or something, and then personalized actions that you follow depending on your state and environment. For example If someone bite nails, has a tendency to touch random things outside, live in a more highly populated area, use public transport and thousand other things…

I know it triggers people’s privacy sensors and It does for me too but these scenarios are for the extreme conditions like we have right now. And as I previously stated, the data is owned and protected by the user themselves and managed by their SelfAI. For now, you can think of your SelfAI as taking in the SCN tagger model to generate your tag. We can go in more details later.

What all this gives you, is the ability to model in real time. We are 2-3 steps ahead of the curve as the whole system becomes less unpredictable… Because the biggest issues with current epidemiological modelling is, it relies on past data which may not be as relevant for all sorts of reasons. Even if the disease is the same but there could be thousands of other things that may be different like geographical, climate, diet, culture, genes and what not…

On the top of that you have economy, healthcare, policies that are different. To take the Covid 19 example, it started in China a few months earlier so we have good enough data to make mathematical models to predict actions in the USA. But so many things can go different, the USA is democratic country, people behave differently, the President didn’t address it well etc.

And then real numbers are almost always unknown. Not having good enough system to track and then a lot of political motivations to lie and many other things just make it worse. Everybody is just speculating and building predictive models on those flawed speculations. I think flawed models and predicting actions on those models most certainly do more harm than good…

So what I’m trying to say is, mathematical models are just too simple to predict so many variables especially that involve human behaviors. They heavily rely on somany human assumptions and frankly we aren’t really good at this.

When we are talking about people dying at massive scale and the economy crashing below ground then maybe we should have more robust implementation that overlaps abstractions in multiple dimensions and not just mathematical models. And real time participation and contribution is the key to model accurate simulations.

Which leads to simulation studies, it’s the holy grail of problem solving in collective framework. A friend told me that some cocktails of medications are found to be effective for COVID 19 in France. That’s great news, let’s just create a simulation study and let participation and see which medicine works to what percent of the population, whether it works on a certain group of people and who should get it and what dose. It could be somany of things might surprise us that we could use collective participation to figure out. Things like this will make us resilient from such pandemic…

Sorry for long post again… I’ll include some visuals next time…

#18

Good lord are you really this quick to throw liberties away?

#19

Do you not understand the third person protections? Did you not read the article that I posted? What he is proposing is essentially trying to fix something that is already happening.

#20

I’ll never throw liberties for anything. That’s what I meant when i said “it triggers privacy sensors”, exactly like it did for you.

SO solutions need to account for privacy so people are willing to participate. The data never really going out of user’s SelfAI, instead third-party service is coming in and then user’s SelfAI is executing the service within its bound to generate the output required for the service, In COVID 19 case the it’s the SCN tag. It’s probably the most logical way to implement privacy at abstraction level.

Update:

I made this and hopefully it conveys better what I’m trying to say…

SelfAI_privacy
SelfAI_privacy.png1969×1272 174 KB

As you can see, the COVID 19 abstraction does not receive user’s personal data, instead only gets what it needs to serve its purpose. This applies to any kind of service for example medicals records, diagnostic reports etc. AISelf is also responsible for anonymizing contextual data in case service can not be pulled within its bound.

The question would be, who pays for the processing of the service? User or service provider? I think there can be all sorts of ways agreements can be made between parties. Most probably, service provider will take care for processing along with service.

#21

i swear you will see your mockups stolen by some bitch for their Fundraiser and their shitty new innovative product.

i wonder how much you actually understand about the underlying technology and privacy related issues. What is your technical background?

For instance, the mockup you previously did with the map showing zones with higher risks, that in itself is a huge issue.

Where does that info come from?
How reliable is it?
From whom is it?
What are you leaking with making that information available?
What is the impact for people living there?

Let me just state that we still have no good safe secure way that needs no trust to proof someones authenticity on a larger scale.

And the “Trust” that the user has to have in its “self ai” is kinda funny, but the hole topic around that THING is not fucking funny at all.