Purpose vs. Inevitability
posted on 02/04/2006 11:36 PM by concrescent

The propagation of technology and society toward the Singularity is governed not only by the Law of Accelerating Returns, but also Terence McKenna's propositions concerning the propensity of the universe toward the Conservation of Novelty and its bias in favor of increasing complexity and interconnectedness. We will singularitize because it is in our nature - and nature's nature - for this to happen; all of human, biological, geological, and astrophysical history is evidence of this.

Every day, on the subway, and on the streets, you see more and more people jacked into their iPod, glassy eyed, disconnected from the ambient reality around them, but experiencing a superior connectedness with the worlds they want, through their ear buds. In a year, compact, lightweight VR eyetaps will do the same for video and synthographic experience. In three years, the iPod itself will become redundant, as realtime moble broadband becomes an "always-on" portable utility. By the time neuroelectronic 'mindjacking' becomes available, having the necessary bioport implanted will be taken as lightly as tattoos and body piercing are today - but with infinitely broader market appeal, as they will confer practical everyday advantages.

The Matrix scenario will come about not because it is imposed by government, or by the machines, but because we will each crave it for ourselves, sooner or later, so as not to be left behind. Being jacked in will be how you participate in polite society; being offline will be tantamount to living in a shack without indoor plumbing, electricity, cable, or telephones.

I do not relish cyberconsciousness being the only path to transcendence. We need better organic alternatives, or to better understand those which already exist.

Re: Purpose vs. Inevitability
posted on 02/06/2006 10:49 AM by dagonweb

I was always wondering about a weakness in the plotline of The Matrix. Just suppose it wasn't that silly battery power argument that made the machines keep humans alive... rather it was votes? Imagine the machines being stuck in the value of a human having one vote per person? Imagine the machines keeping humanity alive in VR by the hundreds of billions, just to maximize their personal allotment of votes?

Democracy plus consumerism gone rampant. Borg on heroin.

Re: Techno-Utopia and Human Values
posted on 02/05/2006 5:19 PM by Bradski

Re: Augmented reality.
posted on 02/06/2006 7:26 AM by Extropia

Virtual reality is often portrayed in films as a kind of escapism. In some ways, that is precisely what it can be, but we must also remember that VR can also serve a useful purpose as a means of communication and for augmenting reality.

We have been embedding computers in appliences since the 1980s and now, with advances in photonic communications and wireless technology, we have the opportunity to network the embedded computers. This, I think, will lead to augmented reality whereby VR compensates for our handicaps and boosts our communicative powers. I can imagine visiting a city like Tokyo on my own and feeling as comfortable as a native thanks to translation software, GPS positioning and wireless connection to online help from locals (or AI)that enable me to navigate my way around locations and customs as effectively as if I were born in Japan.

Already we are seeing MP3s that wirelessly communicate with each other and establish whose musical tastes are compatible, swapping tracks back and forth. We all need an opportunity to break the ice with potential friends; perhaps sending a message like 'Queen Bohemiam Rhapsody eh? Great choice!' may prompt that 'glassy eyed' Ipod user to look up and acknowlegde the sender before engaging in converstation via some kind of communication?

Re: Techno-Utopia and Human Values
posted on 02/06/2006 10:47 AM by dagonweb

Right now a non-human entity, such as a church, a corporation, a political party or even an idea can represent an amount of power. I predict we are at the very early stage of that unfolding, the process where non-humans have power to change the world in ways that fits them. For instance, as I am writing this we are seeing "the muslim idea" do things that are contrary to the interests of the people that believe in it. It is as if Islam itself is a living entity, making use of the people that carry the meme, expending them where necessary, and using strategies that make nobody particularly any happier.

I see that happening more and more, and a particularly troubling trend it is to me.

A non human agent, such as a corporation, can represent a certain balance of power. For instance it expends resources to grow, devour competitors, aquire new resources.

Now envision a pharmaceutical company. Right now we are seeing those companies moving into niche markets for medical applications that produce produc ts that are too expensive for people in the wealthiest nations to aquire. Conversely that means the corporate entity is producing a rare utility, optimizining its output and disregarding those humans that cannot produce enough economic value to consume its product.

This is beyond troubling. It is downright evil.

We have already and gonna see more entities that supplant elected human democratic control, who have less interest in those humans that have no economic value.

What if we'd get a neo-marxist pool of economically completely useless humans in the next few decades? Damien Broderick wrote a nice few words about that. But what if these humans would be unable to produce even a fragment of the economic weight to make them benefit from the singularity? hat if they were completely left out in the cold, wel-fed, well-clothed, well-housed, with a token education, but nothing more then a rudiment of chest-beating primate society?

What strong incentives there would be to simply eradicate such useless people of the means were available...?

Re: Techno-Utopia and Human Values
posted on 02/13/2006 4:06 PM by ebruchez

Eckersley's position is understandable and also defendable in a way: the future that lays ahead of us may or may not globally be of our liking. I do not know if Kurzweil looks forward to everything the future he predicts will bring humanity. Certainly he wants a good part of that future, in particular he has made it clear that he does not look forward to disease and death. I tend to share this desire of living long and healthy.

And this is in my opinion the crux of the issue: we may not want that future, but it will be difficult not to get to it. To understand why, just answer this question for yourself: given the opportunity, provided by scientific research, to live longer and in good health, will you take it? The answer I expect from most people is a resounding yes. In fact, this has been most people's answer for as long as the world has known ways to treat damage done to our bodies. Listen to people who have had to deal, directly or indirectly, with heart attacks, cancer, Alzheimer, AIDS, etc. The search for cures to all these diseases is considered, at least in Western society, a laudable goal. In other words, the population at large wants to get rid of disease. To get there, it supports medical research and it agrees to spend a quite large portion of its money for medical care.

On the other hand science is progressing, arguably increasingly faster. Remember that the role of DNA was discovered only about 50 years ago, in 1953, and consider the progress accomplished since then in all the areas of medical science. We now understand in many ways why cells die, how the brain works, what genes intervene in certain diseases, etc. Almost every day a new discovery is made. In conclusion: you have on one hand demand (people do not want to suffer, get ill, and die) and on the other hand supply (medical science is finding more and more ways to repair the body). Guess what happens when there is supply and demand: consumption.

This cocktail is what will get us to a future probably not very different from that described by Kurzweil. If you believe that the human body is a (biological) machine, and that there is nothing to stop us, if we keep looking, understanding all the mechanisms of that machine, then we will get to a point where the known diseases will be treatable, and where we will be in a good position to treat new ones extremely rapidly. It does seem like eradicating disease (let's be reasonable and say "in 99 % of the cases") is at least a theoretical possibility.

Some will argue that yes, people want to live long and healthy, but that there is a limit. Surely, if you live up to something like 90, or maybe 100, years old, you should consider yourself happy and look forward to a nice, peaceful death? This is a fundamental misunderstanding, and here is why. The technology that will help get rid of cancer, Alzheimer, and many other dreaded diseases, requires understanding in depth the mechanisms of the human body, including aging. The very concept that aging is not a fatality and can be slowed down or even reverted is now broadly thought to be a reality. Medication or treatments that will slow down or revert aging will see the light of day. Looking at today's global trends toward staying young, at least in appearance, you can imagine the success those will have, whatever their cost.

In addition, as Kurzweil is pointing out, life expectancy, even accounting infant mortality, was in the 30s about 200 years ago. It is now 85 for Japanese women (the current world record). In western countries, somebody who dies at age 65 is commonly considered to die "young". Clearly, people have now fully integrated the idea that life should last for around 80-90 years. Not so long ago, this was not the case. So the idea people have of life expectancy has changed, and it will probably change again in the future as life expectancy actually increases. There is no reason to place the bar at 90 or 100 year old, or even 150. The sky is the limit.

There are ways of curbing this seemingly inevitable trend. One is a global war that would destroy civilization. Another one would be oppressive laws blocking scientific research and/or blocking access to certain types of medication which also cure cancer and Alzheimer. It seems unlikely that the developed world will go in that direction, and the demand will be so strong that there will be a place on the planet where those developments will take place anyway.

Dramatic life extension is not all there is to Kurzweil's predictions, but it is one which appears ineluctable. We may not deliberately choose it, but humans' strong desire for life and the simple fact that medical science will be able to answer that desire will cause human life to change drastically. Now is the time for thinkers to ponder the consequence of those changes and outline solutions to the new problems that will arise from them: the concept of generation will be blurred; the way people generate wealth will have to adapt to the new pyramid of ages; pensions will have to be revisited; keeping the population stable or slightly decreasing will require revisiting family policies. On the other hand, as the earth population gets older and therefore requires less children, there will be no reason for every kid not to have access to the best education there is on the planet.