Low-cost Brazilian PC...

["Frederick Noronha" <fred@bytesforall.org>]

Thanks to Jeebesh Bagchi <jeebesh@sarai.net> for sending it across...
Is this some coincidence that all the low-cost PCs -- aimed at
widening access to those who can't afford -- are almost all
GNU/Linux-based FN

Curing Poverty with Computing
Brazilian University Researchers Build Cheap Computers for the Masses
Ben Goertzel http://www.goertzel.org/benzine/BrazilianComputers.htm


here is an excerpt

"The idea here was to create a computer that members of the Brazilian
underclass could genuinely afford. The Net PC will cost around $400
reiais (around US$ 200), and will be available by June 2001.
Furthermore, in=
 order
to ensure affordability, and a 24-month payment plan will be
offered.

The task of creating this machine was turned over to the computer
science department at one of Brazil?s leading universities, the
Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG), in Belo Horizonte. The
project was led by a number of expert computing researchers,
including Sergio Vale Aguilar Campos, trained at Carnegie-Mellon
University in the USA, and Wagner Meira, trained at the University of
Rochester in the USA.These professors are accustomed to spending
their time doing research and teaching on advanced topics like
parallel computing (running programs on specialized computers) and
automatic program verification (programs that check to be sure other
programs are doing what they?re supposed to). But they and many
of their colleagues and students were willing to take time out from
this to work on the government-sponsored project of bringing much
simpler aspects of computing to a much wider population.

The Net PC itself will be a fairly standard one . a Pentium 500 MHz,
with keyboard, mouse, 56 Kbps modem, 14" display, 64 Mb RAM and no
hard disk (16 Mb flash RAM instead). According to those involved in
the project, the technical aspects of designing the system were not
particularly onerous ? no major inventions or innovations were
required. The hardest part was bargaining with the manufacturers of
the various parts of the machine, who tended to be oriented toward
making the most expensive and powerful machines possible rather than
creating low-cost systems.



Early on in the project it was realized that the Microsoft Windows OS
was not an option, due to its high cost. Instead, the system was
built around the freeware Linux OS, the favorite of hackers
everywhere. This is a very interesting aspect of the project. In
the US and Western Europe, Linux is a minority OS, used by hackers,
programmers and computer scientists only. Standard tools like
browsers and word processors exist for Linux, but aren?t quite as
polished or user-friendly as on the Windows OS. On the other ha=
nd, advanced tasks are much easier to carry out in Linux than in
Windows, and there are other major advantages, such as Linux?s
increased stability (machines running Linux can go for years without
?crashing?, whereas the typical time between crashes for Windows
systems is more like days).



And Linux, unlike Windows, is an open-source software system, meaning
that anyone around the world can edit the computer code that
determines how the system runs, and make it run differently. By its
very nature, it invites participation from users, whether those users
are in the Brazilian ghetto or in the heart of Silicon Valley. In
the same spirit as the choice of the open-source Linux architecture,
the UFMG computer scientists decided to make themain-board
architecture for the machine open as well, meaning that any company
will be able to make it, and that computer-savvy users will easily =
be able to modify it or add onto it as they wish.



In fact, this is just one example of the international move toward
open-source software, which does not yet pose a huge short-term 
threat
to Microsoft?s hegemony in the OS market, but may well do so in a few
years time. For instance, the government of Argentina is
considering passing a=
 new
law mandating that, after an adjustment period government offices can
only use Open Source software. And, less extremely, the French
government currently dictates that no computer files can be used in
government business unless they can be read and edited by Open
Source software.



Each successive version of Windows software uses more and more
computational resources, thus providing more functions (sometimes
useful ones, sometimes useless one) and pushing consumers to buy more
and more powerful computers each year. As Wagner Meira says, in
this regard the Net PC project was strikingly contrarian.?We did a
lot of hacking for shrinking a lot of software into 16Mb. There was
a lot of discussion around our minimalist approach versus the
maximalist approach usually adopted by Windows. We are watching an
ever growing and ever more flawed Windows over the years, and our
project adopted exactly the reverse direction.?



Instead of asking what can be done to sell more software or more
hardware to middle-class North Americans (the question on the minds
of most people in the US computer industry), they asked, as Meira
puts it: ?What does a computing

novice really need in a computer? Internet (including multimedia) and
text processing. Eventually software for creating a spreadsheet or
a presentation.However,? ? and here is the big difference from
projects like the American WebTV -- ?the Net PC does allow
expansions for those that want to have an enhanced computing
experience.?

WebTV and similar projects allow very limited Internet use at low
cost, but they don?t allow the user to grow in sophistication. With
the Net PC, on=
 the
other hand, Meira says, ?by employing an incremental approach, we
believe that we can reach a much larger portion of the population
without restricting the use of the equipment.My mother, for
instance, had a hard time to learn how to double click, and she
definitely does not know how to shut down the computer.? Yet a
young Brazilian who wants to learn to program software can do so on
the Net PC; indeed its Linux kernel provides in a some ways a better
platform for this than a standard Windows-based computer.



Finally, Meira observes cannily that the minimalist approach taken in
the Net PC is the sort of thing that could only emerge in a place
like Brazil, not in a place like the USA, where ?More, more, more!?
is the watchword.?In Brazil,? he notes, ?popular stuff is usually
minimalist, such as the popular car (up to 1000cc), pre-paid cell
phones, etc.? This is a small example of the general principle
that the developing world must lead its own people into the
information age.The cultural and conceptual biases of First World
countries aren?t necessarily in synch with the needs of the rest of
the world, even though First World technology has universal
applicability.



What impact will these cheap, open-architecture computers have on the
Brazilian underclass, on the tremendous economic inequity that is the
underbelly of this rapidly growing digital economy? This remains to
be
 seen. One hopes that they will serve to blur the distinction
 between th=
e
 lower reaches of the middle class and the upper echelons of the
 poor. T=
hat
 families will save their money to buy cheap computers for their
 children, who will then go online and learn about the depth of
 world far beyond t=
heir
 neighborhood, opening their eyes to the possibilities that aren?t
 shown in TV sitcoms and reality shows. How many people, whose
 parents weren?t
university-educated, will use their new Net PC?s as tools to help 
them
gain computer skills, so that they can get in on the ground floor of
one of the software start-ups in Brazil?s booming software
industry?



Of course, cheap computers aren?t the whole solution to Brazil?s
problems ? they?re only one very small piece of a huge and 
complicated
picture.Overall improvement of primary education in poor
neighborhoods is a huge task which is inarguably both more critical
and more difficult. But it?s important not to be overwhelmed by
the magnitude of the human problems around us, and to realize that
every little bit counts. The popular bumpersticker says ?Think
globally, act locally,? and this is one of those clich=E9?s that
actually deserves the repetition it receives.The computer
scientists at UFMG, as they take a break from their advanced
research on parallel algorithms and program verification to create
inexpensive computers for the masses, are playing an integral role in
the technological advancement of human race and the overall creation
of global computational intelligence. We need the next phase of=
 the
tech revolution to be founded on compassion and inclusion, not
elitism, classism and egocentrism. This is a responsibility that
falls on us all.

PostScript: Class Politics and the Cyber-visionary Community



What do the leaders of the tech revolution in the developed world
think of this kind of work? Precious few cyber-leaders are in
practice interested=
 in
devoting their time to such pursuits. One hopes that as more and
more technology millionaires reach the age where they become
interested in philanthropy, the spread of the tech revolution across
the world will become a focus, along with other laudable goals like
global health and education. But at the present time, opinions on
the importance of reaching out to the masses, and the optimal 
strategy
for doing so, are all over the map.



A few months ago, excited about the Brazilian Net PC and the prospect
of further similar projects around the world, hopefully coupled with
serious educational initiatives, I began talking about such things on
the Extropians e-mail list, an Internet discussion group devoted to
futuristic technology and its social and economic implications.
Someone noted that the views of the Extropian community tended not
to be taken very seriously in the mainstream press, and I suggested
that, perhaps, if the Extropian community became involved in doing
something important to the mainstream world, their opinions would be
valued more. What if, for instance, a group of Extropians devoted
some of their time to education in the Third World?



Eliezer Yudkowsky, a friend and colleague whose opinion I respect,
came down against this hard. According to him, his time and
effort, and that that of his cyber-guru colleagues, should be spent
pushing full-speed-ahead toward the ?Singularity?, his word for the
point at which the acceleration of technical development becomes
infinite, through computer programs rewriting their own source code,
robots rebuilding their own hardware and other similar futuristic
designs.?How much money is spent on attempts to actually ship food
directly to the poor?? he asked. ?Lots. How much money is spent on
direct efforts to implement the Singularity? ? Not much.?



On the other hand, Samantha Atkins, another Extropians list regular
and a veteran Silicon Valley AI engineer, replied to Eliezer with a
different point of view: ?Perhaps,? she suggested, ?there is a
productive middle ground. Some of us could say more about precisely
how the Singularity, and the technologies along the way, can be
applied to solving many of the problems that beset real people right
now.We can produce and spread the memes of technology generally and
AI, nanotechnology and the Singularity in particular as answering
the deepest needs, hopes and dreams of human beings?.As part of
this we also need more of a story about the steps up to Singularity 
as
involves the actual lives and living conditions of people. That we
will muddle along somehow while a few of the best and the brightest
create a miracle is not very satisfying. What kind of world do we
work toward in the meantime? What do we do about poverty, about
technology obsoleting skills faster than new ones can be acquired,
about creating workable visions including ethics and so on? What is
our attitude toward humanity??



What is our attitude toward humanity, indeed? Eliezer is a very
ethically serious person, and he truly believes that the best thing
we in the cyber-elite can do is for the world is to produce superior
technology. The technology itself, he says, will transform the
world for everyone, and the most important thing to do is to get the
technology to this point, to the point where it can figure out how to
solve the world?s problems on its own.



There is a certain amount of truth to this perspective. And, in my
view, there is also a certain irony to it, particularly given the 
fact
that Eliezer?s research so far has focused on how to make AI programs
?Friendly,? in the sense of being well-disposed toward humans.
His solution to the problem of AI friendliness lies in the realm of
cognitive engineering ? he believes one needs to give an AI an
appropriate goal system specifically designed to foster Friendliness.



In early 2001, I was running the AI company Webmind Inc., and Eliezer
visited our New York office to give a lecture on Friendly AI. The
lecture was received excellently by some and terribly by others.
Generally speaking the Webmind Inc. staff were absorbed with the
practical problems of trying to create real digital intelligence,
whereas Eliezer was more concerned with the various philosophical
and futuristic issues that will arise once a truly intelligent AI
system is completed. But the issue of ?wiring in Friendliness?
definitely struck everyone powerfully, one way or another. Among
the milder responses, one of our Brazilian software engineers ? not 
o=
ne of the several who had worked on the Net PC project before joining
Webmind, but a good friend of those who had, and a student of Wagner
Meira and Sergio Campos ? raised his hand and politely said: ?But
perhaps the most important thing is not the in-built goal system, but
whether we teach it by example.? The friendlier we are, in
other words, the friendlier our AI systems are going to be.



The issue is clear and poignant. What the Brazilian engineer was
suggesting was that, if our superhuman AI grows up watching us act
as though most humans are dispensable and irrelevant, perhaps it
will, in its adulthood, believe that we too are dispensable and
irrelevant. On the other hand, perhaps, as Eliezer says, it will
grow up and understand that building it was the best thing the
cyber-elite could do for humanity as a whole, and it will then 
proceed
to spread joy and plenty throughout the land.Who knows?

These rarefied ethical disputes are fascinating, but they easily 
carry
one away into the domain of angels dancing on the heads of pins.
And this is=
 why
the kind of work done by Campos, Meira and their colleagues is so
 intriguing. There?s no arguing with the real physical-world power
 of millions of impoverished Brazilians logging onto the Net and
 discovering discussion groups like Extropians, where things like
 ethics and technology are
discussed, and speculations on superhuman AI appears alongside
critiques of the latest Java release. Without the Net PC and other
things like it, these people might well never get to log on and
argue with Eliezer for themselves=2E (Not, at any rate, unless
the Singularity comes fast enough that superhuman AI systems
revolutionize their lives before they get old.)

In spite of the success of Cardoso?s economic reforms, there is a
lot of justified skepticism in Brazil about the whole political 
system
and everything the government does. University people are up in
arms over Cardoso?s plan to charge significant university tuition,
breaking a tradition of free university education for all
sufficiently academically distinguished students. As Thiago
Turchetti Maia, another Brazilian software engineer and student of
Meira and Campos, says, ?You know the money saved from charging
tuition is not going to go to send poor people to university. You
know it?s just going to disappear.? But when asked about the Net
PC project, he waxes at least a bit more positive.. ?Well, there,
you can see what the money?s going towards,? he says. ?At least
that?s something real.? He shrugs. ?Maybe it will make some
difference?.?



 "

Or is this hype ?


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