Greg Egan’s Rhetorical Angst
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 a useful filter to identify crackpots. While this might be unfair on a tiny proportion of people, I'm afraid anyone who doesn't want to sink with the whole drooling sub-Nietzschean mob really ought to think of a better name for their philosophy -- or perhaps even eschew labels altogether.
I have to ask, does the Transhumanist FAQ sound like it's based on a cargo cult? We can even go directly to the "what is superintelligence?" section, which states "A superintelligent intellect (a superintelligence, sometimes called “ultraintelligenceâ€) is one that has the capacity to radically outperform the best human brains in practically every field, including scientific creativity, general wisdom, and social skills." Do statements like that bother Mr. Egan? Considering the contents of his books, I doubt it. Transhumanism makes no such conclusion or implication that humanity is destined for the rubbish bin. I'm just wondering what Egan read to bother him so. Perhaps Transtopia's website? It's important to note the abrupt and explosive tone of the comment, as if Egan has had a lot of distaste pent up towards transhumanism for some time.
The comment has three components; his problem with the way many transhumanists think about AI, his rhetorical objection to implications of the word "transhumanist", and following it up with a damning suggestion that the majority of transhumanists are indeed crackpots. James Hughes, the executive director of the IEET, responded primarily to the rhetorical component of Greg's comment, and his response is worth posting in its entirety:
First, Greg, allow me to fawn a bit. I'm a huge fan of your work.
As to the debate over the term "transhumanism" and its utility, we have discussed that issue for the six years that I've been a public transhumanist and leader in the World Transhumanist Association, and I've frequently noted the similarity of the debate to debates among we leftists about the utility of terms like "socialism." As my comrades and I did in leftist activism, I tend to advocate strategic tolerance and coalition-building around the core ideas and goals, recognizing that some people in some life situations will be uncomfortable with ideological labels and organizations, while others will embrace ideological terms for identity and movement-building. A healthy movement towards an enhancement-friendly future requires defenders who are openly "H+" and building an explicitly "H+" movement, as well as people who are pro-enhancement but adamantly not H+. Diffident intellectuals, politicians, artists and writers are often in the latter "fellow-traveling" group, and that's fine. The trick is keep us from standing in a circle shooting at each other. That is one of the goals of the IEET, building that diffuse coalition.
As to the idea that the term "transhumanism" broadly connotes "anti-human" for people I have not found that to be true. I've spoken to audiences of tens of thousands of people about transhumanism over the last five years and I simply don't get that reaction. More often people note the (entirely appropriate and IMHO welcome) connection to "transsexuality" or "transgenderism." I should note that most of us have consciously avoided "posthumanism" however for precisely the reason that it implies we want to end "humanness" rather than create an inclusive and diverse "transhuman polity."
Words don't really mean anything necessarily (Wittgenstein) but only in their associations. In the UK it is associated with the sober Dr. Bostrom and well-defended in the British media, in Italy transhumanism has been demonized as a left-wing plot against the Church, in the Bay Area it is seen (by both advocates and critics) as Silicon Valley libertopianism, in Quebec it is seen as hyper-Americanism, and in Nigeria and Kenya it is seen as the Enlightenment on steroids. But for 99.9% of people on the planet it still means nothing yet.
So the strategic questions are (1) whether we need a term, and (2) whether there is a better term. I do think we need a term because the ideological POV and the subculture exist, and they will be called something, so what then? Many possible alternative terms have been proposed, and the one the IEET has gravitated toward is "technoprogressive," not as a replacement for transhumanism, although it is often less problematic for people to identify as technoprogressive than as H+. However technoprogressive defines a series of politically left-of-center techno-positive perspectives, including left-wing transhumanism, and transhumanism is a broader and less specific set of ideas. Presumably many such Venn diagram terms will proliferate.
At any rate, Greg, I think you are stuck being a patron saint for we transhumanists, wacky or not. We'll try not to embarass.
I am generally in agreement on this one, except for the part about transhumanism in the Bay Area meaning Silicon Valley libertopianism. That part is pure speculation from someone that doesn't live here. The libertopianism of the dot com era became strongly socially sanctioned after the bubble burst. In any case, transhumanism has to do with human modification, and possesses no inherent political momentum of its own. Because James makes a really big deal about plugging his own social democratic political views into transhumanism, he assumes everyone else likes to do the same. Yet the vast majority of transhumanists I've met consider H+ to be a politically independent idea, and are fully capable of talking about it and their political beliefs separately. James is one of the few to link together his political and philosophical ideas so forcefully.
The main point I take away from James' response is that he has talked to tens of thousands of people about transhumanism and they lack the strong knee-jerk reaction that Egan suggests is common. This shows strongly that Egan's objection on this point more closely reflects his own views than that of a typical person in the real world. I agree that, if anything, people think transhumanism reminds them of the word "transsexual" or "transgendered", and indeed, I welcome the connotation as well. Bigots who fear transsexuals would certainly not welcome transhumanism anyway.
Basically, the point is that the word "transhumanism" is what we make of it. If reasonable, rational people use the word as a self-label, then its reputation will be a generally positive or at least neutral one, like it is in the UK. If cultists lacking critical thinking use the word as a self-label, then its reputation will suffer.
In response to James' comment, Egan said:
Thanks for the comments, James. I'm very surprised, but if you say you've detected no flak from the use of the word to such a wide audience, I'll have to defer to your experience. I still think you're outnumbered by crackpots who've chosen the same label, but maybe in the long run the term will end up connoting something respectable, if and when it becomes entrenched in everyday language.
And that is correct. So in the end, Egan leaves it open. Basically, it's up to us whether transhumanism gains a positive connotation, as it has in some limited pockets, or acquires a reputation so negative that the word must be abandoned. A word unto itself means nothing: it is a suitcase for us to fill with our own connotations.
Let's make those connotations as positive as possible.
SIAI Interview Series: Steve Omohundro
Watch SIAI's new interview with AI researcher Steve Omohundro, president of Self-Aware Systems. His CV is here. A transcript of the interview is here.
Introducing the InnerSpace Foundation
The InnerSpace Foundation and The IF Prize
"The IF takes the position that the most rapid timelines to solving humanity’s most serious problems — including providing complete and lasting cures for the most diseased and disabled — will be accomplished through widespread improvement of memory and mind, rather than through the best efforts of people who are well-meaning but of naturally limited abilities." - Dr. Pete Estep
Apr 30th, 2008 (Palo Alto): Dr. Pete Estep will discuss the InnerSpace Foundation (IF), a new nonprofit being developed to promote and support neuroengineering approaches for the enhancement of memory and learning – biomedical goals that have the potential to improve not only the lives of those suffering from a specific malady, but everyone’s life.
This new organization is pursuing human intelligence enhancement as a humanitarian goal.
Looking at their website, Theodore Berger is involved. You may remember Berger as the team leader of the prosthetic hippocampus project that we mention here at Accelerating Future so often. On the IF website, Berger says, "Given sufficient funding, the development of a functional memory prosthetic device is as good as done." Berger is Director of the Center for Neural Engineering at the University of Southern California. The rest of the advisers page is a list of world-class neuroscientists, many of which I've never heard of. The organization was founded by Preston Estep and James Clement.
The organization is offering two prizes: The IF Prize for Learning and The IF Prize for Memory. From the site's FAQ:
"The IF Prize for Learning will be awarded for the successful development and demonstration of a device similar in function to a flash drive (a.k.a. thumb drive) for computers. This device will store standardized information that can be accessed by the brain (sometimes referred to as "downloading") by thought alone (volitional access). This will allow someone to "learn" information in a completely revolutionary way. The other device will also be similar to a flash drive but will write or store a person's memory information (sometimes referred to as "uploading"), which can be subsequently retrieved by thought."
One more question from the FAQ:
Q: Are these technologies extremely futuristic, maybe even science fiction?
A: No. Nearly all of the technologies we use daily and take for granted, such as cell phones, airplanes, submarines, microwave ovens, and digital computers, once existed only as scientific possibilities and fiction. Ten years ago, thought-driven brain-computer interfaces were science fiction. But, recently, neuroengineers have made dramatic advances in interfacing electronic devices with the brain, and have demonstrated thought-controlled prosthetic limbs, computer desktop functions and gameplaying, and even basic speech synthesis.
Is this the beginning of a true intelligence augmentation effort?
Japanese BCI Research Enters the Skull
Researchers at Osaka University are stepping up efforts to develop robotic body parts controlled by thought, by placing electrode sheets directly on the surface of the brain. Led by Osaka University Medical School neurosurgery professor Toshiki Yoshimine, the research marks Japan’s first foray into invasive (i.e. requiring open-skull surgery) brain-machine interface research on human test subjects. The aim of the research is to develop real-time mind-controlled robotic limbs for the disabled, according to an announcement made at an April 16 symposium in Aichi prefecture.
(Via Pink Tentacle.)
For Brain-Computer Interfaces to get anywhere, they'll need to interface with the brain directly. Hot brain-on-computer action. Anything less may perform interesting tricks, but will never make machine intelligence truly available to human thinkers. The key is to increase electrode density as much as possible, while figuring out what all the neurons do. Simple to say, difficult to achieve.
To me, Brain-Computer Interfacing seems like such a difficult path to greater-than-human intelligence that Artificial General Intelligence will reach the milestone far earlier. Unfortunately, this won't stop many from ignoring AGI and focusing on BCI, because the BCI path allows you imagine yourself getting the enhancement, while AGI is a foreign other. I see this as a simplistic and xenophobic way of thinking about the situation. (Not to say that BCI is always a silly idea -- just that it is if your main reason for supporting it is carbon chauvinism.) If AGI is brought up carefully, like a precious flower in a garden, it will not only help make intelligence enhancement available to all humans, but will introduce us to a world of thoughtful minds with an entirely different perspective than our own. This prospect is not something to be feared, but cautiously embraced.
Transhumanist Buzzword Bingo
| Use of the words “Gaia†or “Natural Order†| Shocking insight that “your upload wouldn’t be you†| Equation of all advanced tech with Star Trek/Jetsons | Segue into favorite crackpot theory | Hubris! (said by nonbeliever in Greek myth) |
| Mention of Frankenstein | I for one welcome our new etc | Quoting of religious scripture | Rapture of the Nerds | Accusation of culthood |
| Reference to The Matrix as historical | Irrelevant reference to George Bush | Always 20 years away | Reference to Gattaca as historical | Where’s my jetpack? |
| Critique of Aubrey de Grey’s beard | Eugenics! | Incomprehensible gibberish about consciousness and spirit | Random expression of disgust | Reference to Brave New World as historical |
| Suggestion that transhumanists control the world | Approval of human extinction | Overpopulation! | Accusation of narcissism | Where’s my flying car? |
Ghost in the Shell Live Action
As you may have heard, Masamune Shirow's transhumanist masterpiece, Ghost in the Shell, will be made into a live-action, CG-laden film by DreamWorks.
More recently, the news broke that Steven Spielberg made a personal point of getting the rights to the manga for DreamWorks:
"'Ghost in the Shell' is one of my favorite stories," Spielberg said. "It's a genre that has arrived, and we enthusiastically welcome it to DreamWorks."
The Ghost in the Shell movies and series, particularly the Stand Alone Complex, have some of the most interesting portrayals of a near-future world of ubiquitous computing, AI, and cybernetics technology out there. Truly thought-provoking.
I just hope DreamWorks doesn't ruin it!
You may recall the following Ghost in the Shell image from the header of my Top 10 Cybernetic Upgrades Everyone Will Want post.
A Molecular Planetary Gear, Cycling Away
This is a simulation of Drexler and Merkle's famous molecular planetary gear, featured as an illustration in many articles on molecular nanotechnology. It was created using a beta version of Nanorex's NanoEngineer-1, an open source molecular modeling program that is scheduled for release in the very near future.
The gear simulation was done by Tom Moore of Machine Phase. Tom's next project will be to simulate the neon pump from Nanosystems. Work like this is a visually fantastic and technically important intermediary step between design and implementation of nanomachine components.
Researchers today created the first thermal nanomotor ever. This device, powered by changes in temperature, can ferry a payload from one place to another or rotate on its axis like a rotor. Concentrated arrays of nanomotors could provide power densities far in excess of today's best motors. The difference could be so large that this technology appears like magic to us, at least initially.
AI and AGI: Past, Present and Future
Read Jeriaska's transcript of Ben Goertzel's talk at the First Conference on Artificial General Intelligence, held last month in Memphis. More transcripts will be going up in coming weeks, so subscribe to the Future Current RSS feed to stay up to date.
Five Cutting Edge Microrobotics Labs
Microrobotics is a futuristic field dealing with the construction of extremely small actuators, sensors, support structures, computers, and robots. Let's take a look at some of the best labs, their greatest accomplishments, and future plans.
1. Automation and Robotics Research Institute, University of Texas at Arlington
The research page summarizes their focus as follows:
"Much of AARI's research revolves around smart micromachines which can emulate human functions, such as, perception, cognition, motion, communication, and interaction with the environment, humans, and among themselves."
Their page includes a graphic that shows their three main focus areas: micromanufacturing, smart micromachines, and next-generation robotics. From the microrobotics page, their objective is stated as:
"Cost effective precision assembly of heterogeneous micro and nano systems. At high assembly yields, this technology is a viable alternative to monolithic fabrication. MEMS microrobots are also a viable top-down pathway to nanomanufacturing.
Two-prong approach based on:
* A meso-micro-nano assembly platform for MEMS millimeter to micron part sizes and nanometer tolerances. This platform uses microrobots built on a wafer.
* A micro-nano assembly system built using these microrobots."
This is notable for mentioning nanomanufacturing by name. It also shows a commitment to aggressively pursue the microbots-that-build-microbots milestone. A microbot that could build another microbot using specially-supplied raw materials would be extremely useful. Because microbots are so small and require so little energy, they could be constructed in very large numbers if the process of their fabrication could be automated or streamlined. Research like this could eventually lead to microbots that can build other microbots just by using silicon or carbon from the ground.
Some of the innovative research directions or accomplishments at AARI include tiny windmills, vibration energy harvesters, in vivo medical micro-sensors, micropumps, microspectrometer, piezoactuators, mobile sensor networks, microrobotic-embedded textiles, 3D micromachine packaging, and more.
Definitely a lab to keep an eye on. Their research summary promises a lot, but will they be able to deliver? Only time will tell.
2. Donald Lab at Duke University
This lab is mainly famous for the tiny, 2D microbot pictured above, created by the facility's namesake, Bruce Donald, and co-workers. According to the site, the microbot has "dimensions of 60 µm by 250 µm by 10 µm. This micro-robot is 1 to 2 orders of magnitude smaller in size than previous micro-robotic systems. The device consists of a curved, cantilevered steering arm, mounted on an untethered scratch drive actuator. These two components are fabricated monolithically from the same sheet of conductive polysilicon, and receive a common power and control signal through a capacitive coupling with an underlying electrical grid."
Pretty nifty! This is about as small as true robots have gotten so far, just a few hundred times the volume of a typical red blood cell. A flea could accidentally step on this thing and crush it! More info on Dr. Donald's microbot:
"He likens it to a car, because it’s controllable: “You can steer it anywhere on a flat surface, and drive it wherever you want to go.†Unlike previous attempts at such a microelectromechanical system, Donald’s robot has no tether, but operates via electrical charges on a silicon grid. It’s a real speed demon, proceeding in nano-sized hops (one billionth of a meter, 20,000 times per second), ultimately achieving two millimeters per second, or the equivalent on a more human scale of 80 kilometers per hour. To the tunes of a Strauss waltz, Donald demonstrates two robots dancing in straight and wavy lines around each other, and then coupling to form a single system."
On the research page for microrobotics we see this summary:
"The goal of this research is to build microsystems that can actively, accurately, and efficiently interact and change the physical world. While so far MEMS research has been biased more towards sensor technology, there are a large number of potential applications that require micro actuators. Important examples are techniques to efficiently move, sort, or mix small particles (e.g. cells in biotechnology applications); or micro positioning devices for inspection and assembly of complex micro systems (e.g. for display or amplifier arrays)."
Numerous papers and preprints are available at the site. Also interesting is a paper that includes a design for artificial flagella. Microrobotics researchers are progressively creating artificial systems that match all the capacities of a bacterium. After that is done, creating artificial eukaryote-like cells will be next.
All in all, looks like a great lab, although the web page needs to do better to portray all the research that is being done in the papers. Press coverage is available here, it mostly focuses on the aforementioned micro-bot. This microbot was an amazing accomplishment, can't wait to see the follow-ups.
3. Harvard Microrobotics Lab
From the home page:
"Our research focuses on all aspects of mobile microrobot design, fabrication, control, and analysis. Expertise in microfabrication and microsystem design combined with insights from nature enable us to create high-performance microrobots for aerial, terrestrial, and aquatic environments. Such systems can be used for search and rescue, hazardous environment exploration, environmental monitoring, and reconnaissance."
This lab created a splash last summer when they launched their 60-mg fly microrobot with a wingspan of about an inch. As far as I know, this is the smallest flying machine built by man. I wouldn't be surprised if these were deployed offensively in warfare as early as 2015. Imagine one equipped with a tiny hypodermic needle and a microgram of botulism toxin, enough to kill about a hundred humans. What if you could assassinate a political figure with one of these and never be caught? It would change geopolitics entirely.
The research overview points to three research areas: biomimetic mobile microrobots, control for autonomous robots and emergent swarm behaviors, and smart materials, microactuators, and soft robotics. Breaking it down, these include the fly robot, tiny walker robots based on arthropods, an aquatic robot based on minnows, micro air vehicles for inside use, operant conditioning for teaching complex behaviors, swarm robotics, artificial muscles, morphable mobile robots, self-reconfigurable robotics and objects, and novel sensor suites.
This lab is distinct for pursuing all three major types of locomotion: swimming, walking, and flying. For microrobotics, copying the design of nature is a great idea: fairyflies, for example, are wasps with a diameter in the neighborhood of 140 microns, over a hundred times smaller than the fly bot. It may be a while before we create flying robots so small that they're invisible, but if this research continues, it will only be a matter of time.
4. Nanorobotics Lab at Carnegie Mellon
This lab actually calls itself a nanorobotics lab rather than a microrobotics lab, although it's basically the same thing as the others. Various interesting projects are being explored here, including gecko-inspired wall-climbing robots, lizard-inspired water-running robot, water strider robot, magnetically actuated micro-robots, microscopic swimming robots, and endoscopic micro-capsules for medical uses.
It almost seems like this lab and the Harvard Lab are trying not to walk on each other's toes, because they are collectively trying to reproduce most forms of animal locomotion in their microbot research, while not working on what the other is. If you put their robots together, they'd be invincible -- flying, crawling, walking, water-striding, wall-climbing, and swimming! All they need next is the burrowing microbot.
My favorite is the swimming robot. It exploits the motility of bacterial flagella by attaching a small colony of them to the back of a submarine-shaped microbot. This circumvents the usual challenge of trying to separate the flagella from the bacteria before using it. The motor even includes an off-on switch, which uses copper ions to stop the motor, and ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid (EDTA) to resume it. The possible applications are listed as delivering drugs to hard-to-reach, specific areas of the human body and aiding in diagnosis. Eventually, robots like this might also be helpful for nanomedicine style surgery, such as removing fat cells or reinforcing muscle fibers. Maybe, at an advanced stage, they could even add in new brain cells, providing a path to human intelligence enhancement.
5. Biomimetic Millisystems Lab at Berkeley
This lab describes its research goal as follows:
"The goal of the Biomimetic Millisystems Lab is to harness features of animal manipulation, locomotion, sensing, actuation, mechanics, dynamics, and control strategies to radically improve millirobot capabilities. Research in the lab ranges from fundamental understanding of mechanical principles to novel fabrication techniques to system integration of autonomous millirobots. The lab works closely with biologists to develop models of function which can be tested on engineered and natural systems. The lab's current research is centered on fly-size flapping flight, and all-terrain crawling using nanostructured adhesives."
Another microrobotics lab, another name for the same thing. This Berkeley lab works on some of the same projects as the others, including a fly microbot weighing less than 100 milligrams and with a wingspan of an inch, self-cleaning synthetic gecko-adhesives (check out some of the images on that page), and microassembly (microbots building each other again).
What really makes the Berkeley lab stand out from the others is their attempt to develop a desktop rapid prototyping toolkit for under $1000 to build microbots from composite fiber. Besides making microbots available to anyone, a desktop prototype machine would help with the automated assembly of microscale parts, something currently laborious. The system has already been used to fabricate several simple microstructures, including a microscale wrist and 4-bar mechanism. Soon: microbots for the people!
That concludes my summary. If you want to read further interesting futurist articles and discussion, subscribe to the feed.
Transhuman Technologies Poll
[poll=1]
Here is a poll I made. I know that everybody's real answer is probably a subtle combination of the above, but try to boil it down to a single pick.
And no, "sex with pleasure robots" is not a possible answer.
Overview of IEET Programs
Human enhancement is already here. 20% of scientists admit to using brain-enhancing drugs. People regularly use pharmaceuticals to influence their biochemistry for the better. We are surrounded by a variety of devices becoming ever more integrated into our minds and bodies. Anyone with access to an Internet connection can instantly message anyone in the world, or gain access to terabytes of open information on anything from canoes made out of toothpicks to the evolution of amphibians.
The point of transhumanism is to look ahead, accept that human enhancement is going to become popular, then ask what can be done to make the best of it.
The Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies, the technoprogressive think tank, has one good approach to this, through their four focus areas:
Securing the Future -- prevent catastrophic risks and reinforce global security.
Rights of the Person -- deepen and broaden the concept of human rights to include morphological freedom and technological self-determination.
Longer, Better Lives -- encourage biotechnological efforts towards longevity and improving quality of life, including overcoming common objections to life extension.
Envisioning the Future -- brainstorm both positive and negative futures occurring as a result of enhancement and other emerging technologies.
There are other components of transhumanism I think are important, but in the broadest possible terms, these hit the mark.