Neural learning as new-role learning in practice: arrogant officiousness?

Governance of Pandemic Response by Artificial Intelligence (Part #7)

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The strange conflation in the significance of "script" (as noted above) can be recognized as extending to "conscript". It follows from any adoption of a hierarchy of expertise that the agents embodying expression of that expertise are effectively conscripted. They become an expression of a script as required by regulatory authority whether conscripted or voluntarily -- with the prefix inviting interpretation in terms of conversion, if not confidence trickery. Is the promised return to normality -- as the light at the end of the tunnel -- to be curiously recognized in terms of a secular anticipation of "heaven"?

Curiously (and despite the questionable mnemonic convenience) the "neural learning" (or "deep learning") associated with the development of AI, can then be recognized as "new-role learning" by the conscripted agents of that hierarchy? Given the authority by which such agents are empowered -- and believe themselves to be -- the role is especially characterized by a sense of certainty and a freedom from doubt. Any questions regarding the role are only held to be relevant for higher authority -- although any that challenge the authority of the agent necessarily evoke defensive responses.

Tone of voice: As discussed separately, considerable attention is now given to the tone-of-voice appropriate to engaging with a chosen audience when marketing a product or service (Varieties of Tone of Voice and Engagement with Global Strategy, 2020). Understandings of tone-of-voice are variously considered important in other domains where persuasive engagement is sought. These may include, politics, religion, drama, the military, or the arts in general. They extend to engagement with animals, especially domestic animals. This is necessarily of relevance in the case of any agent of authority with respect to the pandemic response.

Although the matter is subject to continuing review regarding nonverbal communication, it has been estimated that 7 percent of meaning is communicated through the spoken word, 38 percent through tone of voice, and 55 percent through body language according to the 7-38-55 rule first formulated by Albert Mehrabian (Silent Messages, 1971). This rule has been variously misinterpreted and subject to criticism, although considerable importance continues to be attached to tone-of-voice (irrespective of any rule and its relevance across cultures).

Although this has not been the subject of research with respect to agent communications regarding the pandemic, it is appropriate to note the very limited range of tone-of-voice now used by agents. Remarkably this applies to agents with the most limited authority, to experts affirming the validity of the script, or to politicians held to be of the highest authority. The tone adopted is an expression of certainty -- with an implication of command reminiscent of that adopted in military training and boot camps. It implies a hostility to any question -- even precluding any interaction that questions the script.

Curiously a similar tone tends to be adopted by those held to be purveyors of critical misinformation regarding the framing of the crisis. There is a sense in which those at both extremes have an unquestionable need to "conscript" -- a form of communication beyond marketing calling for existential commitment. This is familiar in some forms of religious discourse as proselytizing -- with the implication that those who fail to engage appropriately with the script are necessarily problematic, justifying recourse to other measures.

Arrogance: The pandemic has given rise to a range of critical commentary on the arrogance of those especially empowered by it. Leaders of nations have been specifically held to be arrogant -- with that arrogance undermining the efficacy of the strategic response.

Especially problematic has been the manner in which arrogance has featured in academia in response to colleagues raising unwelcome questions regarding the preferred script (Morteza Mahmoudi and Loraleigh Keashly, COVID-19 pandemic may fuel academic bullying, Bioimpacts, 10, 2020 3). This process is conflated with the problematic dynamics of political correctness in academia and the so-called cancel culture.

It is appropriate to ask whether, as agents, officials are necessarily officious or whether this is an aberration (Melanie McDonagh, Is it just me? Or are officious social distances a nightmare? Culture ReadSsector, 11 October 2020). In the current context, others -- now labelled as "Karens" -- may be understood as voluntarily adopting the role of agents (Tim Blair, A Pandemic of Karens, Daily Telegraph, 25 May 2020):

But coronavirus lockdowns and other restrictive measures have lately vastly empowered the global scolding movement. Behold the planet's Karens, defined last year in the New York Times by Sarah Miller as â-"e;the policewomen of all human behaviourâ-".

As defined by Heather Suzanne Wood in the Atlantic magazine, their defining essence is 'entitlement, selfishness, a desire to complain'.

A Karen 'demands the world exist according to her standards with little regard for others, and she is willing to risk or demean others to achieve her ends'.

The question of arrogance has been raised with respect to the role of the security services in responding to the pandemic, as by Ian Loader (Coronavirus: why we must tackle hard questions about police power, The Conversation, 9 April 2020):

The COVID-19 crisis has â-- in a most dramatic and unexpected way â-- brought policing back to the forefront of the public mind. As police forces grapple with how to secure adherence to new public health regulations while sustaining legitimacy, social media is a battleground of tales of petty police officiousness towards "law-abiding" citizens or urgent calls for the police to stop selfish gatherers putting lives at risk... The â-"e;lockdownâ-", and its uncertain duration and effects, calls on us to confront some enduring but vital questions about police power and its limits, and about the fragile relation between the exercise of those powers and public consent. This means thinking again â-- and hard â-- about the police mission: what it is we expect the police to do, and how should they go about doing it?

The CATO Daily Podcast (Health Care Regulation's Pandemic Errors, 7 October 2020) notes the detailing by Jeffrey Singer of the combination of officious health care regulation and viral pandemic that have worsened economic and health outcomes for those affected (Pandemics and Policy, CATO, 15 September 2020).

Emphasis has been placed on Western arrogance:

• A.Tolstoy. The intellectual collapse of Western arrogance (The Beaver Online, 19 February 2021)
• Sam Jones: Arrogance' blinded big countries to virus risk, says Austria adviser (Financial Times,  4 May 2020)
• Gregor Buss: Corona and the Arrogance of the West (Catholic Theological Ethics, 1 January 2021)
• David D. Kirkpatrick, et al: Europe Said It Was Pandemic-Ready. Pride Was Its Downfall (The New York Times, 2 February 2021). noting that the coronavirus exposed European countries' misplaced confidence in faulty models, bureaucratic busywork and their own wealth
• David Robson: Why arrogance is dangerously contagious (BBC, 29 September 2020), noting that overconfidence can delude us into dangerous thought or actions â-- and that same arrogance can also spread to others like wildfire, too.
• Josef Bouska: How Europe and America blew it on the pandemic: a tale of blindness and arrogance (Salon, 22 October 2020). noting that in Europe and the U.S., politicians and the public were guided by fantasy -- when the lessons of Asia were clear
• Daniel Stelter: The Coronavirus Crisis and Western Cultural Arrogance (The Globalist, 15 March 2020). noting that the Western world is on the verge of embarrassing itself to the bone in fighting a health crisis of historic proportions.

Other indications include:

• Richard Pine: Covid sheds light on harmful arrogance of political leaders (The Irish Times, 8 September 2020)
• Brooks B. Gump: When Scientists' Arrogance Leads to Recklessness: The Great Barrington Declaration (US News, 6 November 2020), noting that with our knowledge of the novel coronavirus still limited, a recent call by scientists for a novel approach to combating it is ill-advised and arrogant.
• Muhammad Hamid Zaman: Pandemic of arrogance (The Express Tribune, 16 June 2020), noting that the virus is creating havoc and the misinformation is making it harder to separate fact from conspiracy theories

It can be argued with respect to the chaotic response to the pandemic that it is arrogance that is the disease -- not COVID.

Reframing "essential" people: Emergency provisions in response to the pandemic have resulted in a form of triage through which a class of essential people and functions have been defined as exceptions to the restrictions imposed upon others. (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Interim List of Categories of Essential Workers Mapped to Standardized Industry Codes and Titles). This CDC list notes:

This interim list identifies "essential workers" as those who conduct a range of operations and services in industries that are essential to ensure the continuity of critical functions in the United States (U.S.). Essential workers were originally described by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security's Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency's (CISA): Guidance on the Essential Critical Infrastructure Workforce: Ensuring Community and National Resilience in COVID-19 Response, (18 August 2020).

Termed "essential", this recalls fictional exploration of those who would have access to bunkers in times of natural disasters and nuclear war -- or even of space on vessels to other planets. There is some irony to use of the term in that it borrows from the significance of essential and essence is relation to insight and wisdom  -- which in no way figure in current emergency provisions, in contrast with those recognized as agents.

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