Let an ultraintelligent machine be defined as a machine that can far surpass all the intellectual activities of any man however clever. Since the design of machines is one of these intellectual activities, an ultraintelligent machine could design even better machines; there would then unquestionably be an ‘intelligence explosion,’ and the intelligence of man would be left far behind. Thus the first ultraintelligent machine is the last invention that man need ever make.
– I.J. Good
Note: This is just a casual response, it isn’t meant to be anything incredibly formal. It’s not on behalf on all transhumanism, or anything like that. It’s just a long but casual response to Lanier’s paper.
Well, it has been seven and a half years since Jaron Lanier’s “One Half of a Manifesto”, but I thought, why not respond to it right this very second? Better late than never. This response is for Mr. Lanier and anyone else who is interested. Below is an image of Mr. Lanier getting jiggy with a VR interface.
First, the introduction:
Jaron Lanier, a pioneer in virtual reality, musician, and currently the lead scientist for the National Tele-Immersion Initiative, worries about the future of human culture more than the gadgets. In his “Half a Manifesto” he takes on those he terms the “cybernetic totalists” who do not seem “to not have been educated in the tradition of scientific skepticism. I understand why they are intoxicated. There is a compelling simple logic behind their thinking and elegance in thought is infectious.”
I …
This was posted by James Hughes to the World Transhumanist Association list:
Science Redesigns the Human Body
Some scientists, engineers and designers gripe about Nature’s masterpiece and suggest a few improvements.
By Lester David
ON A golf course last Fall, a New York accountant took a healthy swing at the ball, fell to the ground- and couldn’t get up. He spent the next nine weeks in a hospital. Slipped spinal disc.
A mailman in Philadelphia was forced to turn in his resignation when fallen arches made walking unbearable.
In Chicago, an office worker running for a bus suddenly crumpled to the ground. He hobbled to a stoop and sat until help arrived. Dislocated knee, the doctor said.
Multiply each of these instances by several million and you will get a rough idea of the number of bad backs, sore feet and trick knees which abound in this country alone. It all adds up to the fact that, while the human body has never been equalled from the standpoint of all-around master engineering, …
The Industrial Revolution is essentially when the modern world began. For the first time, the production of food and many basic goods was partially automated. The impact was huge: whereas most of history up to that point had been a zero-sum exercise in fighting over a fixed pie, the Industrial Revolution increased the size of the pie itself many times over. This laid the groundwork for positive sum thinking, the notion that we can all have better lives if we just cooperate instead of trying to edge out the next guy.
Today, we have the luxury of pointing out some of the downsides of industrialization, but if we could experience pre-industrial life firsthand (or observe it by visiting those few areas of the planet untouched by industrialization), we would recognize what we are blessed with. Usually we reserve our gratitude for other humans, but the machines that drive industrial civilization deserve our thanks as well. Without them, there would be no mass-produced clothes, or toilets, or plumbing, or medicine, or books, or computers, or pretty much anything except for what …
It is important for the human race to spread out into space for the survival of the species. Life on Earth is at the ever-increasing risk of being wiped out by a disaster, such as sudden global warming, nuclear war, a genetically engineered virus or other dangers we have not yet thought of.
– Stephen Hawking
Press release from Eurekalert:
Are nanobots on their way?
US researchers have built a proto-prototype nano assembler
The first real steps towards building a microscopic device that can construct nano machines have been taken by US researchers. Writing in the peer-reviewed publication, International Journal of Nanomanufacturing from Inderscience Publishers, researchers describe an early prototype for a nanoassembler.
In his 1986 book, The Engines of Creation, K Eric Drexler set down the long-term aim of nanotechnology – to create an assembler, a microscopic device, a robot, that could construct yet smaller devices from individual atoms and molecules.
For the last two decades, those researchers who recognized the potential have taken diminutive steps towards such a nanoassembler. Those taking the top-down approach have seen the manipulative power of the atomic force microscope (AFM), a machine that can observe and handle single atoms, as one solution. Those taking the bottom-up approach are using chemistry to build molecular machinery.
However, neither the top-down nor the bottom-up approach is yet to fulfill Drexler’s prophecy of functional nanobots that can construct other machines …
What happens here on Earth, in this century, could conceivably make the difference between a near eternity filled with ever more complex and subtle forms of life and one filled with nothing but base matter.
– Martin Rees
(Other quotes.)
This is ImmInst’s weekly streaming video show, with Justin Loew. I just did this interview about an hour ago. Topics covered: upcoming conference in the Bay Area, Lifeboat Foundation, economic and feasibility benefits of AGI, the word “Singularity” losing all meaning, immortalist strategy, etc. There is some audio static, but it gets better a little later on. I start talking around 6:40. Show length: 1 hour. On the unFriendly AI topic: I should’ve focused more on my actual answer, which is that the risk of UFAI is serious, but instead I answered, “what about people’s objections to AI leading to regulation against it?” I take the former seriously, but not the latter.
Phrases like “Rapture of the Nerds” make long-time Singularity advocates like myself irritated enough to slam our fists on the table. So hard that our coffee sloshes around in its cup, getting dangerously close to spilling a few drops over the edge. It’s enough for us to take out our pocket protectors and throw them against the wall in distaste.
Thankfully for us “nerds”, Accelerating Future‘s very own Steve Smithee is the second Google result for the term (first until an hour ago!):
Steven’s post contains a lucid rebuttal of the notion that “Rapture of the Nerds” as an apt term in any regard. It begins as follows:
“The idea of a technological singularity is sometimes derided as the Rapture of the Nerds, a phrase invented by SF writer Ken MacLeod [update: this isn’t true, see his comment] and popularized by SF writers Charlie Stross and Cory Doctorow. I can take a joke, even a boring old joke that implies I’m a robot cultist, but it irks me when jokes become a substitute for thinking. …
Christine Peterson, a founder of the Foresight Institute, is someone I’ve always really liked. She is known is for coining the term “open source”, but I primarily see her as a public policy expert on nanotechnology.
There’s a concept she mentioned to me the first time I met her that’s stayed with me ever since. Christine and I were discussing radical technological change, and what it meant for everyday people. She brought up the concept of a canary in a coal mine. She then said that the Amish should be our canary in a coal mine — if technological changes are so severe that they destroy the lifestyle of the Amish, then the disruption is excessive and possibly unjustified. Ever since then, I’ve wanted a world where transhumanists geeks like myself can meet our superlative goals but still coexist in the same universe as the Amish. I see no reason why it can’t be that way.
Part of the reason why is that I don’t see the Singularity as …
Greg Egan, the science fiction author, recently had some harsh words for transhumanists, in his comment on Russell Blackford’s “Transhumanism Still at the Crossroads” piece:
Though a handful of self-described Transhumanists are thinking rationally about real prospects for the future, the overwhelming majority might as well belong to a religious cargo cult based on the notion that self-modifying AI will have magical powers.
Worse, the word itself implies the replacement or overcoming of humanity, which is a PR disaster. While at some level it’s good to insist that every quality of the human phenotype be subject to clear-eyed scrutiny, the word “Transhumanist” appears to suggest the foregone conclusion that everything about the present species is destined for the rubbish bin — which neither accords with what most people who’ve considered the matter would wish for, nor does much to encourage anyone else to treat the movement seriously.
Russell, I share your concern that so many prominent Transhumanists are anti-egalitarian, but at this stage, quite frankly, to first order I consider a self-description of “Transhumanist” to be …