Corporations now have free reign in running political advertisements. There are interesting questions about person-hood, constitutional rights, and government rolled up into the issue, but at its simplest this gives corporations more control in government. Was that what's been wrong lately? Has the American citizen grown too powerful, and these poor multinational corporations too weak? If only Haliburton and Blackwater had more access to government would we have been able to avoid the corruption of Iraq War contractors?
What bothers me is the idea that corporations could possibly be responsible partners in shaping government policy. Let's pretend some candidate is running for Senate, and promises that if he's elected he'll eliminate the income tax for programmers. That would be a pretty good deal for me. Perhaps the free market would reduce my salary in return, but it'd reduce the competitiveness of outsourcing firms. I'd just about certainly end up ahead. Would I vote for that guy? No. It would be good for me, but I don't believe government is just for maximizing the money flowing into my wallet. I'm better off financially then most people my age, I feel that I should pay my share.
But what if I was CEO of a public software corporation? Could I say "Sure, it'd help me if I didn't have to pay taxes on my programmers, but that's not a good way to run a country. I'm going to speak out against it?" No, I couldn't. I'd be legally barred from spending corporate money in that fashion. The fiduciary duty of an executive means that he needs to put his shareholders interests first. He's legally liable if he doesn't. It's not some liberal distrust of capitalism that makes me think corporations are going to abuse their new found power, they're legally obligated to do so.
The Preamble of the constitution sets out to "..promote the general welfare." A corporation is legally required to promote the welfare of the shareholders over anyone else. There's a fundamental mismatch here. We could outlaw that clause in corporate charters and require them to be good citizens. But I think it's naive to think that would be any good for the economy. Self interest works well in the free market. But the government isn't, and shouldn't be, the market. The distinction between the two has worked out well for the history of democracy, do we really want to get rid of it? In essence, the court decision has given the loudest megaphone to a small group of people, and told them "if you don't use this selfishly we'll take it away." Could that possibly be good for the nation?
Saturday, January 23, 2010
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
The Limits of Knowledge, Part I
One of the foundational questions of Computer Science is "what can be computed?" It's a vaguely philosophical question, but it turns out to be approachable from a mathematically rigorous direction as well. I think it's probably the most important thread in modern mathematics (1930's onwards modern...), with interesting implications for the universe and our position there-in (plus the story has a few good characters). And happily, it's one of those mathematical concepts that can be explained without resorting to the use of Greek lettering. It's not the future so much as the recent past, and it's not according to me, just retold, but it's one of those concepts I find interesting enough to want to share with the world again.
So what can be computed? The answer isn't "everything", although that's not immediately obvious. You could build a computer as large as our galaxy, and run it for a trillion years, and there are questions you wouldn't have a definite answer to. Not necessarily even very complex questions. Similiarly, mathematics purports to deal with hard truths and unquestionable proofs, but it turns our not every mathematical question you can think of has an answer you can prove.
But before looking towards the outer reaches, it's useful to look in towards the seeds of mathematics first. A mathematical proof starts with a proposition, then using valid mathematical rules derives that this statement is true or false. The valid mathematical rules are usually just proofs that somebody else already proved true. But those need to follow some set of rules as well. You can build a huge tower of mathematics, but it ultimately needs to rest on something, some ground statement. We call these axioms. Nobody proves axioms. We just say, "yes, that must be true!" and go from there. If A and B are true, then just A is true as well. Why? I don't know. It's what we understand 'and' to mean. It's one of the facts we just start with.
And it's the first limit of our knowledge.
Any mathematical system needs to start with a set of axioms. And because you can't prove these, you don't know for certain they're true. And perhaps more important, you don't know if you missed one. Perhaps there are huge classes of really interesting things you could learn about the universe, if you could just think of this other universal truth.
Or put another way, think of the game children play. "We've got to go." "Why?" "We're late." "Why?" "You took too long getting ready" "Why?" "You were distracted by your toys" "Why?..."
At some point you either need to find your way into a loop, or say "just because". So it is with Math. And so it is with anything. Once we thought the world was made of fire,water,earth and air. Then we broke those down into atoms. Now we think of quarks or strings, but ultimately we're always left with some fundamental bit of reality that's just there. You can reach a bottom, but you've always got to just accept it as true, and accept the fact that their could be another layer you can't see.
Thus as far as physics or religion progress, there's always going to be that nagging question of "is this it? Is there nothing more to reality?" No matter how far our understanding advances, there's always going to be at least one statement we'll just have to take on faith. And if the tower of math and science is on a slightly shaky foundation, the sky above it is just as uncertain. But that's another post...
So what can be computed? The answer isn't "everything", although that's not immediately obvious. You could build a computer as large as our galaxy, and run it for a trillion years, and there are questions you wouldn't have a definite answer to. Not necessarily even very complex questions. Similiarly, mathematics purports to deal with hard truths and unquestionable proofs, but it turns our not every mathematical question you can think of has an answer you can prove.
But before looking towards the outer reaches, it's useful to look in towards the seeds of mathematics first. A mathematical proof starts with a proposition, then using valid mathematical rules derives that this statement is true or false. The valid mathematical rules are usually just proofs that somebody else already proved true. But those need to follow some set of rules as well. You can build a huge tower of mathematics, but it ultimately needs to rest on something, some ground statement. We call these axioms. Nobody proves axioms. We just say, "yes, that must be true!" and go from there. If A and B are true, then just A is true as well. Why? I don't know. It's what we understand 'and' to mean. It's one of the facts we just start with.
And it's the first limit of our knowledge.
Any mathematical system needs to start with a set of axioms. And because you can't prove these, you don't know for certain they're true. And perhaps more important, you don't know if you missed one. Perhaps there are huge classes of really interesting things you could learn about the universe, if you could just think of this other universal truth.
Or put another way, think of the game children play. "We've got to go." "Why?" "We're late." "Why?" "You took too long getting ready" "Why?" "You were distracted by your toys" "Why?..."
At some point you either need to find your way into a loop, or say "just because". So it is with Math. And so it is with anything. Once we thought the world was made of fire,water,earth and air. Then we broke those down into atoms. Now we think of quarks or strings, but ultimately we're always left with some fundamental bit of reality that's just there. You can reach a bottom, but you've always got to just accept it as true, and accept the fact that their could be another layer you can't see.
Thus as far as physics or religion progress, there's always going to be that nagging question of "is this it? Is there nothing more to reality?" No matter how far our understanding advances, there's always going to be at least one statement we'll just have to take on faith. And if the tower of math and science is on a slightly shaky foundation, the sky above it is just as uncertain. But that's another post...
Thursday, January 7, 2010
Partly Wrong is Wrong
There's an old math game of trying to prove 1=2. As a rule, math games aren't fun. But there's a useful lesson in this one.
a = b
a2 = ab
a2 - b2 = ab-b2
(a-b)(a+b) = b(a-b)
a+b = b
b+b = b
2b = b
2 = 1
Step 5 is dividing each side by (a-b), but it was established that a=b in the first line, so this is a divide by zero, which is not allowed in math. Once you've divided by zero, you can get the numbers to say whatever you want. There are longer examples that try to hide the divide by zero better, but the basic idea in all these is to break a rule discretely.
Card tricks are similiar. Early on you ascertain the identity of the card, by forcing a particular card on the volunteer, or sneaking a peek, or using a plant. Once you know, you can do any audacious thing to seemingly stack the deck against you. The volunteer can shuffle. You can turn your back. Whatever audacious bet you take doesn't matter, because by that point you already know the card.
And if you can do it in math, and in cards, you can do it in conversation. Once you let in a single faulty assumption or implication, you can move very far from the truth. Which isn't to say a single mistake automatically makes you wrong...using divide by zero you generate 1=1 as easily as 1=2. Unlike math, you can also be a little wrong but basically right in an argument. But it's important to remember when evaluating arguments or predictions about the future. A whole long string of reasoning can be airtight, but if there was one hand-waved fact (let's assume X for a second) all the subsequent arguments don't really matter.
a = b
a2 = ab
a2 - b2 = ab-b2
(a-b)(a+b) = b(a-b)
a+b = b
b+b = b
2b = b
2 = 1
Step 5 is dividing each side by (a-b), but it was established that a=b in the first line, so this is a divide by zero, which is not allowed in math. Once you've divided by zero, you can get the numbers to say whatever you want. There are longer examples that try to hide the divide by zero better, but the basic idea in all these is to break a rule discretely.
Card tricks are similiar. Early on you ascertain the identity of the card, by forcing a particular card on the volunteer, or sneaking a peek, or using a plant. Once you know, you can do any audacious thing to seemingly stack the deck against you. The volunteer can shuffle. You can turn your back. Whatever audacious bet you take doesn't matter, because by that point you already know the card.
And if you can do it in math, and in cards, you can do it in conversation. Once you let in a single faulty assumption or implication, you can move very far from the truth. Which isn't to say a single mistake automatically makes you wrong...using divide by zero you generate 1=1 as easily as 1=2. Unlike math, you can also be a little wrong but basically right in an argument. But it's important to remember when evaluating arguments or predictions about the future. A whole long string of reasoning can be airtight, but if there was one hand-waved fact (let's assume X for a second) all the subsequent arguments don't really matter.
Monday, December 28, 2009
Piracy and the Secondary Market
The idea behind a free market is that each participant fights for their own interests, and a good allocation of resources is discovered. While the battles tend to be minor adjustments in staffing, pricing and offerings, there are occasionally much larger shifts in the battlefront. Major companies go under, industries experience consolidation or pop into existence, and occasionally the rules of the game are changed.
In theory the market should generally be close to an equilibrium state, so there shouldn't be many opportunities to drastically alter the market. But it does happen. A company can make a particularly poor strategic decision. Or technology can change the field of play. And one of the best examples of that effect is the Internet.
While you can find examples all through society, I'm going to focus now on the pivot of piracy. Unauthorized distribution has existed as long as media has, but the Internet makes it easier, cheaper and more private. Yet contrary to claims by the entertainment industry, it isn't clear that its having any negative impact on revenue. The movie industry is having a record breaking year. Software revenue continues to explode. The music industry is the counterpoint, but given its many tactical blunders, its hard to pin the blame on piracy, particularly when the pirates also buy the most music.
Some effort is of course necessary to keep piracy from growing to the point it does harm profits. But given the lack of evidence piracy is doing much damage, why the intense focus on it by the entertainment industries? While you aren't likely to get the average Chinese citizen to spend two months gross income on Photoshop even if you do stamp out piracy, the point is that the battles against piracy are also shifting power away from consumers who do buy your product. Organized media corporations act as middlemen between consumers and artists. While some of that role is important, a lot of industry profit comes from acting as a gatekeeper, controlling what people can purchase. With the Internet replacing traditional gatekeepers, publishers need leverage.
And then there's the secondary market. The first sale doctrine is a legal concept in America that guarantees you the right to sell what you've purchased when you're done with it. Car companies could make a lot more money if you weren't allowed to buy used cars, but the government won't let them enforce such a rule. Free markets are only efficient in theory, but the more participants in a market, the closer that market will tend to be to efficiency. The secondary market is an important way to keep markets sufficiently large. Using the car example again, if you couldn't buy used cars, new cars might cost more, as car makers wouldn't be competing with cheap alternatives.
Most anti-piracy actions also encroach on your first sale rights. If Microsoft catches you pirating software, your XBox loses much of its functionality. This means that buying a used XBox is more risky than it should be: if the old owner was a pirate, you've bought a lemon (thus reducing the value of even legal XBoxes). Similiarly, EA came under fire with the DRM on its hit game Spore: Each key could only be used for a set number of installs, so too many resales(or going through too many computers in the course of your life) would prevent you from accessing the content. On the occasions I do buy a game, I tend to buy something a few years out of date for cheap, rather than a brand new $60 product. Without resales, those cheap old games would no longer be a competitor to the newest lineup.
And really, this is so important to digital industries because bits don't degrade. In fifty years my car will be scrap and my books all yellowed. You expect to pay less at a yard-sale because the products are used, and thus hold a lower value. But if I'm careful, I could sell a song I bought off ITunes in sixty years, and it'll be indistinguishable from a new copy. This is tough competition, and the fairness of it is open to debate. Maybe there do need to be controls on reselling digital media. But that's a harder argument for the entertainment industries to win then the debate over piracy. And returning to the opening concept of market dynamics, I expect there will be more than one signficant shift of power before a new equilibrium between consumers, artists and publishers is found.
In theory the market should generally be close to an equilibrium state, so there shouldn't be many opportunities to drastically alter the market. But it does happen. A company can make a particularly poor strategic decision. Or technology can change the field of play. And one of the best examples of that effect is the Internet.
While you can find examples all through society, I'm going to focus now on the pivot of piracy. Unauthorized distribution has existed as long as media has, but the Internet makes it easier, cheaper and more private. Yet contrary to claims by the entertainment industry, it isn't clear that its having any negative impact on revenue. The movie industry is having a record breaking year. Software revenue continues to explode. The music industry is the counterpoint, but given its many tactical blunders, its hard to pin the blame on piracy, particularly when the pirates also buy the most music.
Some effort is of course necessary to keep piracy from growing to the point it does harm profits. But given the lack of evidence piracy is doing much damage, why the intense focus on it by the entertainment industries? While you aren't likely to get the average Chinese citizen to spend two months gross income on Photoshop even if you do stamp out piracy, the point is that the battles against piracy are also shifting power away from consumers who do buy your product. Organized media corporations act as middlemen between consumers and artists. While some of that role is important, a lot of industry profit comes from acting as a gatekeeper, controlling what people can purchase. With the Internet replacing traditional gatekeepers, publishers need leverage.
And then there's the secondary market. The first sale doctrine is a legal concept in America that guarantees you the right to sell what you've purchased when you're done with it. Car companies could make a lot more money if you weren't allowed to buy used cars, but the government won't let them enforce such a rule. Free markets are only efficient in theory, but the more participants in a market, the closer that market will tend to be to efficiency. The secondary market is an important way to keep markets sufficiently large. Using the car example again, if you couldn't buy used cars, new cars might cost more, as car makers wouldn't be competing with cheap alternatives.
Most anti-piracy actions also encroach on your first sale rights. If Microsoft catches you pirating software, your XBox loses much of its functionality. This means that buying a used XBox is more risky than it should be: if the old owner was a pirate, you've bought a lemon (thus reducing the value of even legal XBoxes). Similiarly, EA came under fire with the DRM on its hit game Spore: Each key could only be used for a set number of installs, so too many resales(or going through too many computers in the course of your life) would prevent you from accessing the content. On the occasions I do buy a game, I tend to buy something a few years out of date for cheap, rather than a brand new $60 product. Without resales, those cheap old games would no longer be a competitor to the newest lineup.
And really, this is so important to digital industries because bits don't degrade. In fifty years my car will be scrap and my books all yellowed. You expect to pay less at a yard-sale because the products are used, and thus hold a lower value. But if I'm careful, I could sell a song I bought off ITunes in sixty years, and it'll be indistinguishable from a new copy. This is tough competition, and the fairness of it is open to debate. Maybe there do need to be controls on reselling digital media. But that's a harder argument for the entertainment industries to win then the debate over piracy. And returning to the opening concept of market dynamics, I expect there will be more than one signficant shift of power before a new equilibrium between consumers, artists and publishers is found.
Sunday, December 6, 2009
What would you rather be doing?
What would you do if didn't have to work? Survival, whether accomplished by hunting or earning your meal as a stock broker, has always been a major part of the human experience. It may always remain this way, but with continual progress in automation it doesn't have to. When robots farm better than us, hem seams and design airplanes better then us, what will we do with our new leisure time?
It's an important question, because without a good answer society breaks down. Today, "What do you do?" is one of the perennial icebreakers, work a standard conversation gambit. If we lose that, will we lose something crucial to our identities? After endless years of television will we grow sick of our uselessness and reclaim our plows? Or are there other, better goals we could turn our attention towards?
What would you do if the concept of a job faded away? What sort of things do you wish you could accomplish, but lack the time? Add a comment with your thoughts...
It's an important question, because without a good answer society breaks down. Today, "What do you do?" is one of the perennial icebreakers, work a standard conversation gambit. If we lose that, will we lose something crucial to our identities? After endless years of television will we grow sick of our uselessness and reclaim our plows? Or are there other, better goals we could turn our attention towards?
What would you do if the concept of a job faded away? What sort of things do you wish you could accomplish, but lack the time? Add a comment with your thoughts...
Friday, November 27, 2009
What's black and white and read by old people?
Plenty has been written on the imminent demise of newspapers. Rather than reiterate the basic points, I'll just point you at the two best articles I've read on the topic (props to this blog for originally pointing me to these). If you've got others, post them in the comments, I'd love to read them.
The New Republic has an article explaining the dangers of world without newspapers, specifically arguing that deep investigative journalism is crucial for preventing corruption, but isn't being replaced.
Clay Shriky writes the best general overview of the issue I've read. In particular, he contextualizes with the last big communications shift, the invention of the printing press.
I don't believe its all of for-pay content that's at risk. The latter article in particular is of a quality that could survive behind a pay wall. It's a well-researched, well-written deep examination of a complex issue. Were I to summarize or rewrite the content, something would be lost. It's not just the facts we're looking for in a high quality article, but the way they can provoke our thoughts.
Unfortunately, that's not the norm in newspaper content. Rather, most articles are read for the facts of a current event. We want to know the results on a healthcare reform vote, what outrageous thing Kanye did, who won the game last night. When publishing was expensive, you could derive value from facts. But unfortunately, most facts ultimately hold little value in a rich communication medium.
Once a news source states some fact they've uncovered, the readers can pass the facts along. In the hundreds of thousands of blog filling the internet people are taking in news and spitting it back out, with their own commentary. The abusive case of just reprinting AP articles and putting ads around it is easy enough to deal with. But copyright only applies to the text you write, not the facts in it. One of your readers can rewrite your stories, and then the world will flock to the free source over yours.
The alternative of giving newspapers ownership over the news stories they break is a scary one. Imagine if fox news uncovers a scandal around Obama. Even if we gave them only a day's worth of ownership over presenting the facts of the case, that means that for a full 24 hours the only voice informing the world of what's happening, the only voice setting the tone of the debate going forward, is Fox News. For society to function, everybody needs to be able to discuss what's happening in the world. For that to happen, you can't wall off facts. And if that's true, there's little incentive to pay for facts when you can get them for free immediately afterwards. Of course, that returns us to the core issue of who will discover these facts for us then. It's a tricky issue, but I don't think for-pay news sources are going to remain the solution for long, unless they can start adding something over and above the straight facts.
The New Republic has an article explaining the dangers of world without newspapers, specifically arguing that deep investigative journalism is crucial for preventing corruption, but isn't being replaced.
Clay Shriky writes the best general overview of the issue I've read. In particular, he contextualizes with the last big communications shift, the invention of the printing press.
I don't believe its all of for-pay content that's at risk. The latter article in particular is of a quality that could survive behind a pay wall. It's a well-researched, well-written deep examination of a complex issue. Were I to summarize or rewrite the content, something would be lost. It's not just the facts we're looking for in a high quality article, but the way they can provoke our thoughts.
Unfortunately, that's not the norm in newspaper content. Rather, most articles are read for the facts of a current event. We want to know the results on a healthcare reform vote, what outrageous thing Kanye did, who won the game last night. When publishing was expensive, you could derive value from facts. But unfortunately, most facts ultimately hold little value in a rich communication medium.
Once a news source states some fact they've uncovered, the readers can pass the facts along. In the hundreds of thousands of blog filling the internet people are taking in news and spitting it back out, with their own commentary. The abusive case of just reprinting AP articles and putting ads around it is easy enough to deal with. But copyright only applies to the text you write, not the facts in it. One of your readers can rewrite your stories, and then the world will flock to the free source over yours.
The alternative of giving newspapers ownership over the news stories they break is a scary one. Imagine if fox news uncovers a scandal around Obama. Even if we gave them only a day's worth of ownership over presenting the facts of the case, that means that for a full 24 hours the only voice informing the world of what's happening, the only voice setting the tone of the debate going forward, is Fox News. For society to function, everybody needs to be able to discuss what's happening in the world. For that to happen, you can't wall off facts. And if that's true, there's little incentive to pay for facts when you can get them for free immediately afterwards. Of course, that returns us to the core issue of who will discover these facts for us then. It's a tricky issue, but I don't think for-pay news sources are going to remain the solution for long, unless they can start adding something over and above the straight facts.
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
Did the Uncanny Valley kill the Neanderthal?
I read an article on Seed Magazine's website today about why the Uncanny Valley exists. The term refers to almost humanlike robots and CGI. When they're very cartoony they're cute, when they're extremely realistic we react to them like other humans, but in between they repulse us. The article explains some theories on what is driving our subconscious to dislike these creations (we think they're dead bodies, we really don't want to mate with them, they confuse our understanding of what man is). I'd like to propose an alternative theory.
Imagine you're a rabbit who has suddenly evolved a poisonous bite. What would you do? You could hunt down all the wolves and dogs in the area, and save rabbit-kind from constant harassment. At first, all the other bunnies would treat you as a savior. Without predators, the bunny society would grow and flourish. And then suddenly, all the plants have been eaten and everybunny starves. If the bunny population doesn't die off, it'll do so by evolving to better regulate their population. And if predators return, then suddenly they won't be able to have babies fast enough.
Part of evolution is adapting to your environment. Part of evolution is being able to adapt when that environment changes. Mammals exist because they could deal with a new threat the dinosaurs couldn't. But part of evolution is avoiding having to adapt to a new environment. If you're well suited for the world around you, its in your best interest not to mess with that world.
Thus even if an herbivore could kill all the predators around it, it probably shouldn't. Similiarly, dogs don't eat plants, but if they kill plants they'll be indirectly killing their food supplies as well. An environment is filled with many niches, and animals who leave other niches alone are generally going to have a better shot at survival.
But leaving other niche's alone says nothing about your own niche. When predators outperform prey, the prey dwindle, the predators starve, and suddenly the prey are safe to grow again. There's a feedback loop that seeks equilibrium. If a new herbivore enters the scene, the situation is different for the rabbits. If they're better at eating the mutual food source, there will be less for the rabbits, and the rabbits will die. If they overeat, the new creatures will die off, but so will the rabbits. Thus competition within a niche will tend to have equilibrium points where one of the two species die off.
If an animal looks very different from you, it probably fills a different niche. If it looks exactly like you, you can mate with it. Even if it outcompetes you, it's got enough genes in common with you that your species is still succeeding evolutionarily. But in between, you've got a competitor. Thus there's incentive to help those like you, ignore those different from you, and kill the middle ground. Humans were not always the only hairless ape. If we're so well equipped for survival that we now occupy every corner of the globe, why didn't any other survive? Some evidence suggests humans may have actively killed off neanderthals, not just by outcompeting it for food but by stabbing it with spears.
Returning to the uncanny valley, this would mean that we're bothered when CGI doesn't quite look human because unconciously we think we're looking at a new creature that could somebody replace us. And interestingly, in evaluating a robot, that's a not altogether irrational opinion to hold.
Imagine you're a rabbit who has suddenly evolved a poisonous bite. What would you do? You could hunt down all the wolves and dogs in the area, and save rabbit-kind from constant harassment. At first, all the other bunnies would treat you as a savior. Without predators, the bunny society would grow and flourish. And then suddenly, all the plants have been eaten and everybunny starves. If the bunny population doesn't die off, it'll do so by evolving to better regulate their population. And if predators return, then suddenly they won't be able to have babies fast enough.
Part of evolution is adapting to your environment. Part of evolution is being able to adapt when that environment changes. Mammals exist because they could deal with a new threat the dinosaurs couldn't. But part of evolution is avoiding having to adapt to a new environment. If you're well suited for the world around you, its in your best interest not to mess with that world.
Thus even if an herbivore could kill all the predators around it, it probably shouldn't. Similiarly, dogs don't eat plants, but if they kill plants they'll be indirectly killing their food supplies as well. An environment is filled with many niches, and animals who leave other niches alone are generally going to have a better shot at survival.
But leaving other niche's alone says nothing about your own niche. When predators outperform prey, the prey dwindle, the predators starve, and suddenly the prey are safe to grow again. There's a feedback loop that seeks equilibrium. If a new herbivore enters the scene, the situation is different for the rabbits. If they're better at eating the mutual food source, there will be less for the rabbits, and the rabbits will die. If they overeat, the new creatures will die off, but so will the rabbits. Thus competition within a niche will tend to have equilibrium points where one of the two species die off.
If an animal looks very different from you, it probably fills a different niche. If it looks exactly like you, you can mate with it. Even if it outcompetes you, it's got enough genes in common with you that your species is still succeeding evolutionarily. But in between, you've got a competitor. Thus there's incentive to help those like you, ignore those different from you, and kill the middle ground. Humans were not always the only hairless ape. If we're so well equipped for survival that we now occupy every corner of the globe, why didn't any other survive? Some evidence suggests humans may have actively killed off neanderthals, not just by outcompeting it for food but by stabbing it with spears.
Returning to the uncanny valley, this would mean that we're bothered when CGI doesn't quite look human because unconciously we think we're looking at a new creature that could somebody replace us. And interestingly, in evaluating a robot, that's a not altogether irrational opinion to hold.
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