Our AI algorithm project explained in allegorical, fairy-tale video form for 6-year-olds and up
Few people grasp effective climate action. Even fewer are comfortable with AI tech. So how does See Through News seek to explain The Magic See-Through Mirror, our bleeding-edge AI project designed to promote effective climate action in terms kids can understand?
As we claim to be storytellers, See Through News challenged itself to use our storytelling methodology to explain our super-ambitious AI project to Speed Up Carbon Drawdown by Helping the Inactive Become Active as simply as possible.
Specifically, we attempted to do it
- in less than ten minutes
- in language a six-year-old could understand, even if they couldn’t follow the concepts
Effective Climate Action in Fairy-Tale Form
Here’s the result, in a series of 1-minute videos.
Parts 1, 2 & 3, re-tell you things you already know, but using unfamiliar fairy-tale language.
Parts 4, 5, 6 & 7 tell you things you almost certainly don’t know, using the same fairy-tale code-words.
Part 8 is the call to action.
If you’re already familiar with current technology and terminology, here’s the Geek Version.
If having got the hang of this project in principle, you’d like a specific example of how it would work, here’s a case study involving Farmer Rick.
If you’d like a beginner’s guide to vectors and ontological taxonomy tagging, here’s a short video involving tennis balls and velcro.
In Part 1, we tell the story of the Industrial Revolution, in a minute.
In Part 2, we explain the Greenhouse Effect, in a minute.
So far, so good? In Part 3, we rattle through the Digital Revolution, in a minute.
Simple, right? In Part 4, we start to wade into the weeds of how Big Data works, in a minute.
In Part 5, we look at two requirements for developing this climate activism algorithm, in a minute.
In Part 6, we reveal the kind of people needed to make the magic come true, in a minute.
In Part 7, we outline the user interface tech, in a minute.
And finally, in Part 8, we explain what you can do about it, in much less than a minute.
If you’d like to know more about this open-source project, or to volunteer, please email stunts@seethroughnews.org
Narration Transcript
The Magic See-Through Mirror
By SternWriter
**
Part 1: Man’s Powerful Idea
Hooray! 10
A couple hundred years ago
Life was nasty, brutish, short
A man espied some burning coal
And had a crazy Thought.
What if we release this mighty force
of coal, peat, oily stuff
And make us stronger than a horse!
Eternal! More than enough!
We dug up Carbon long interred,
Turned H2O all steamy
From Ground to Air, Carbon transferred.
Once Nasty, Life turned Dreamy.
We turned the Carbon into Gold
Out-pulled a thousand horses
Man-kind, and Gold, grew manyfold,
But triggered awful Forces.
**
Part 2: A Good Idea Turns Bad
Ooops 7
Good Things came, Gold piled in carts
But Bad Things, they grew too.
Not Fast, like Gold, but in fits and starts
Fires burned, rain poured, snow snew.
Then some Wise Folk became aware
That Carbon was the Villain,
Put more Carbon in the Air –
And our children won’t have children.
Moving Carbon to the Air,
The Wise Folk told their masters,
Might at first bring Heaps of Gold,
But then, it brings Disasters.
Heralds should have spread the word
Though it was inconvenient
But Heralds are paid in Carbon Gold,
With bosses far from lenient.
**
Part 3: A New Idea, Neither Good nor Bad Data 7
Now some guys in a Vale of Glass
Found a brand new gold Creator
They spun a Web to make more Gold
Not from Earth, but loadsa Data!
The Smartest brains throughout the land
All came to Glassy Valley
They taught machines to understand
And learn, and think, and tally.
Web Gold soon surpassed Black Gold
And made new Billionaires
Heralds soon politely knocked,
Looked nervous, smoothed their hairs.
For they all knew our future Hinges
On Drawing Down that Carbon
And if we all prolong our Binges
Our future will be Spartan.
Part 4: The Third Way
Bubbles 8
In days of yore, if things were bad
And we had to cut our losses.
We only had two ways to go
To sway the ways of our bosses.
One – a Bullet! From the end of a gun
For Baddies too grand for elections.
Two – a Ballot! The blood-free one,
To make clear our objections.
But the Big Potatas’ web concoctions
Can Do this too, no troubles.
By tracking eyeballs, holding auctions,
Not with Bullets, nor Ballots, but Bubbles!
Bubbles of thought, by plebs or celebs,
Tagged, then connected with strings
Then flung in the sea of the World Wide Webs
Produce some magical things.
Follow the strings, connect the things
That you Clicked, and Followed and Liked
Then all of a sudden, rulers and kings
Need to listen, or go take a hike.
Part 5: The Magic See-Through Mirror
2 tricks 8
Some bloke dreamed up in a shed
A Magic See-Through Mirror.
To help the Pure of Heart and Head
Give Human-kind a breather.
Wise Folk said ‘This thing can sing!
With Tags, and, Likes and Clicks,
But if you want the Real Thing,
For that, you’ll need Three Tricks.
‘Trick One is tip-top Training Data’
From Heralds Pure of Heart
Trick Two requires one Big Potata
To help us from the start.
If the Big Potatas share that Data
In the Valley of Pure Glass
Providing Code to Automate her-
A Mirror that Kicks Mean Arse.
Part 6: The Third Trick –
Geeks 8/9
I said we needed tricks Threefold
To ensure this mirror speaks
As well as Tip Top fuel, and Gold
The final Trick needs Geeks.
Trick One needs Heralds Pure of Heart
Trick Two a Billionaire
Trick Three – the Smartest of the Smart
All Tearing out their hair.
They find the way, the secret code
To help us, you and me
To link what comes from our Fingers and Tongues
To all those Bubbles, in the sea.
Link pure thoughts to draw down carbon
To this ocean full of bubbles
And we find that extra margin
To solve our terrible troubles
Part 7: Secrets of the See-Through Mirror
Ask 9
So how to Speed up Carbon Drawdown
with the Mirror our Geeks have crafted?
The Pure of Heart, with fingers or tongue
Need only use this password.
‘See-Through Mirror on the Wall
‘If I give you my de-carbon list
How Much Carbon Down Can I Draw?’
You tell me whose arms to twist’
Tell the Mirror what you possess,
What land, what gold, what water.
And it will tell you how to make
Rulers do just what they oughtta.
Not what to do – that’s a piece of cake
But how to break old moulds.
For Change is hard when news is Fake
And Heralds paid in Carbon Gold.
‘See-Through Mirror on the Wall
Whose ears to bend, and how to bend ‘em?
How Much Carbon Down Can I Draw?’
Enhance my spend, comprehend ‘em.
The Mirror searches all our wisdom
How to sway decision-makers,
And puts it through an Al – go – Rhythm
To amplify these make-or-breakers.
Coda/Coder:
Over to You 8
Who knows how this story ends?
But you can help to write it.
Shrug your shoulders, wring your hands,
Or take a stand, and Fight it.