Accelerating Future

A new Harvard-back study found that Darfuri women at refugee camps in Chad and Darfur are frequently being raped. Big surprise. Here’s how it works: you go to get firewood, and you get raped.

Like Joe Biden, I believe that there needs to be a military force in the region to put a stop to the genocide and rape. So far, only about 9,000 African Union and U.N. peacekeepers have been deployed in Darfur to protect and provide relief for 2.5 million civilians. This is not nearly enough. When hundreds of thousands of men, women, and children civilians are being murdered, tortured, and raped, it is humanity’s business. There needs to be a much larger military coalition, made up of all willing nations.

The Janjaweed are relatively small in number, just 20,000 by some estimates, and with primitive technology. They are essentially bandits with AK-47s on horseback, highly susceptible to missiles or machine gun fire from aircraft. The Sudanese government declines that it is supporting the group. Sudan has been openly complicit in massacres and slave-taking in Southern Sudan, however.

The peacekeeping force might have a problem if the military of Sudan intervened. They number about 400,000, with 100,000 reserve, and “the most advanced military production industry in Africa and the Middle East.” Still, I think it’s worth being bold and seeing what happens. If Sudan cannot defend its inhabitants from genocide, it has temporarily sacrificed its right to govern. The concept of Westphalian sovereignty ought to be suspended in this instance, under extenuating circumstances.

According to DarfurScores.org, Sally Chin of Refugees International has noted, the world has given the African Union “the responsibility to protect, but not the power to protect.” It must be given the power to protect. World leaders (nudged along by the world academic/intellectual complex) should take the necessary actions to see this happen. We have the power. The United States can lead, but it might be difficult to do alone, occupied as we are by Iraq and Afghanistan.

Perhaps we never should have invaded Iraq, and instead spent all our resources on Darfur and Afghanistan.

If US leadership is politically untenable, then other nations need to step forward. You can’t just let genocide happen and do nothing about it — that is ridiculous. At the very least, everyone could complain about it more.

Here is a letter from a Sudanese thinker who believes that intervention would only make things worse. If so, then the primary focus should be on encouraging the rebels and Sudanese government into peace negotiations. Whatever strategy is chosen, the point is to do something to try and stop the genocide. The blogger asserts that water shortages are one of the root causes of the conflict — if so, then better nanotechnology research into water filters and a humanitarian campaign to ship these to the region might do more in the long run than a UN intervention.

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By Britt Gillette:

This global government will emerge in our generation because current technological trends will soon make it inevitable. The catalyst for this consolidation of global political power will be the development of molecular manufacturing (MM), a revolutionary technology of unprecedented capability and strength. It’s a technology that could arrive as soon as tomorrow and almost certainly will arrive within the next decade.

BS, MM will not arrive tomorrow, and probably not in the next decade (maybe in the next two), but if it does, I believe that global government is indeed probable, whether you like it or not. Go read Nanosystems. Even if MNT is implausible, hijacked ribosomes would still give rise to exponential manufacturing, so even “soft machines” could lead to the ability to build millions of missiles in less than a couple years. The crucial effects are the exponentiality and programmability.

Anon points out that “a multinational organization willing and able to keep the peace” might also occur. However, it would need to be a heck of a lot more potent than the UN. Whether or not it would be a global government might be a matter of definition.

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From Brett Gillette’s site:

Precautions for the Safe Development of Molecular Manufacturing

A number of organizations and individuals are working diligently to insure the safe development of molecular nanotechnology. The Foresight Institute is the most prominent organization actively working toward this goal. Founded by K. Eric Drexler, author of Engines of Creation, the Foresight Institute has published an evolving set of guidelines titled Foresight Guidelines on Molecular Nanotechnology. These guidelines address specific design features as well as principles of development. However, much is left undone.

Nanotechnology advocates have yet to introduce a specific set of policy initiatives to be undertaken following the development of molecular manufacturing. Specific policies must be developed to deal with the implications of molecular manufacturing on the framework of international order and security, the world economic order, and safeguards must be put in place to protect our environment. In the end, no one will realize the benefits of molecular manufacturing if we fail to preserve human life and liberty. We need to start thinking in terms of the present, because I believe September 11th has greatly accelerated the timetable for molecular manufacturing development.

We must ask ourselves the following question: “If America were to develop a molecular manufacturing capability tomorrow, what measures should be taken to establish a new world order that preserves human life and liberty?” Should we allow other nations to develop a molecular manufacturing capability? If so, how do we guard against the possibility of an unstable arms race or destructive war? How do we build a meaningful immune system to guard humanity against existential risk? Dealing with the myriad number of questions raised by the ascendance of molecular manufacturing will constitute humanity’s greatest challenge to date.

The Center for Responsible Nanotechnology is currently engaged in answering many of these policy questions. Distancing itself from many of the broader issues under the umbrella of The Foresight Institute, The Center for Responsible Nanotechnology focuses its efforts on studying, clarifying, and researching the policy issues involved in molecular nanotechnology’s development - political, economic, humanitarian, and security issues. I encourage others to visit and contribute to their site.

In addition, Eric Drexler has provided two starting points for further research and debate. Chapter 12 of his book Engines of Creation, titled “Strategies and Survival,” and part of a 1988 Foresight document titled “A Dialogue on Dangers.” Ultimately, there are no guarantees that the transition from the industrial age to the information age will be safe and comfortable, nor are we guaranteed it’s a transition we will survive. Only our present-day efforts and our efforts following development of molecular manufacturing can insure that this era of the human experience is one to be celebrated.

Outside of maybe a dozen people at Foresight, CRN, and a few independent scholars, barely anyone seems to have even read the basic literature. They just make offhanded comments based on intuitions and a few blog posts they’ve read. My general stance on MNT is that if someone hasn’t even taken the time to read Nanosystems, they have nothing to say on the matter. (I would also strongly recommend Military Nanotechnology by Jurgen Altmann.) Critics such as Dr. Richard Jones have read these books — I am completely open to such thinkers. What is useless are critics or advocates too lazy to do the scientific reading.

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For some interesting analysis of MNT and the Singularity as it pertains to Biblical prophesy, check out Britt Gillette’s site.

Reading a few of the articles, I find them more MNT-aware than many transhumanists. Most transhumanists like to focus on cyborgs, some Star Trek crap, and whatever else is the flavor of the week on WIRED, io9, Digg, and Engadget. In contrast, Mr. Gillette is actually making some sort of effort to figure out who might develop MNT first. He correctly notes that Prof. Kaku’s appearance on Fox News last month was one of the first straight-faced mentions of MNT in the mainstream media since Bill Joy’s scary WIRED article.

His summary of MNT is not terrible, and probably contains info that at least half of the readers of this blog never thought of. (Except for the part where he seems to take grey goo seriously and goes blank on specific nanoweapons.) Mr. Gillette apparently thinks that September 11th will push the USA to develop MNT, which is wrong. Essentially no one is developing MNT. MNT is basically a non-issue with regards to current research. Our capacities for molecular manipulation are obviously increasing, but no one outside of the Nanofactory Collaboration is even trying to build nanomachines that can build other nanomachines. (Zyvex doesn’t really count in my opinion, sorry.) Gillette points out the following:

As Eric Drexler states in Chapter 11 (”Engines of Destruction”) of Engines of Creation, “a state that makes the assembler breakthrough could rapidly create a decisive military force - if not literally overnight, then at least with unprecedented speed.” Able to replicate swiftly, assemblers can become abundant in a very short period (if the self-replication period for an assembler is 15 minutes, then a single assembler can replicate into two to the ninety-fifth power assemblers in the first 24 hour period). Those assemblers can then be used to create weapons pre-designed in anticipation of the future development of molecular manufacturing, weapons capable of enormous destructive power - weapons that most people would find difficult to imagine. The leading force will hold unprecedented power over the nations of the earth. How it chooses to exercise that power should be humanity’s greatest concern.

This might be a radically dangerous statement, but I would assert that those seeking to minimize the risk of MNT or nanowar might be well-advised to consider sketching out designs for nanoweapons in advance. Why? Because someone will design them anyway, and if fundamentally benevolent and considerate people have high positions in MNT development activities in leading nations developing the technology, they will be able to use their influence to minimize the risk. The perfect is the enemy of the good, and stubbornly refusing to believe that nanoweapons will be developed is the enemy of minimizing the risk of nanoweapons when they are inevitably developed. (If we don’t build Friendly AI first, which I hope we do.)

In one of his posts, Gillette says that the Bible implies that the development of MNT could be followed by the construction of a very large tower, mirroring the Tower of Babel. I don’t consider this implausible at all. With MNT, a large diamond tower could be constructed. This would be a very visible application of the technology. The diamond nanoblocks used to construct the tower could even be made very light and filled with vacuum or hydrogen to provide buoyancy. I haven’t bothered running the numbers to see a plausible height, but see no reason why at least 5-10 miles of height would not be physically possible.

Britt has a radio interview up, which I haven’t listened to yet, but is probably pretty entertaining.

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A Scientific American feature article from 1998, Linda Gottfredson on g. Quote:

The debate over intelligence and intelligence testing focuses on the question of whether it is useful or meaningful to evaluate people according to a single major dimension of cognitive competence. Is there indeed a general mental ability we commonly call “intelligence,” and is it important in the practical affairs of life? The answer, based on decades of intelligence research, is an unequivocal yes.

But, what if the fact that I don’t have an extremely high IQ makes me feel bad? Then I’ll dismiss all that research and ignore it. Who needs science that doesn’t make me feel better about myself?

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The news is at his blog. Congratulations to Richard on all he has accomplished.

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Kurzweil defends himself against the Newsweek article by Daniel Lyon.

I certainly don’t always agree with Kurzweil, and I know for a fact that he’s made at least a dozen or more predictions that are wrong (pretty good considering how many predictions he’s made in total), but I think he’s basically spot on with this defense.

Especially important to me is his defense that he cares about the risks of technology:

Regarding the dangers of technology, Lyons writes, “But Kurzweil is having none of that – he thinks the ‘man-machine civilization’ is going to be wonderful. He doesn’t argue. He just sits there smiling.” That’s a total misrepresentation. Extensive portions of my recent books and many of my speeches are devoted to what I describe as “the intertwined promise versus peril” of new technology. Bill Joy’s famous cover story in WIRED on the dire dangers of new technologies was based, as he states at the beginning of his article, on my book The Age of Spiritual Machines. I’m not just sitting here smiling, but have worked extensively with the Army and other organizations on developing defenses against abuse of biotechnology and other advanced technologies.

However, in his book, he does essentially dismiss the risk of AI, or thinks that free market economics will be the solution. Kurzweil should read Omohundro’s “Basic AI Drives” and Preventing Skynet. “We’re all gonna merge” is not an adequate refutation of the risk of unfriendly AI. The most advanced AIs will be independent, not integrated into human neurons. And if we’re not careful in how we program them, they will fool us into thinking they’re our friends, take control of or produce a critical threshold of weapons, and kill us. It’s funny when primates think they can have a chance against an enemy that can copy itself, has need for a physical body, no need for sleep, never gets bored, can accelerate its thinking speed, add computing power directly to its own intelligence, and directly improve on its intelligence. Oh, right, intelligence isn’t everything. Therefore the US military can defeat a recursively self-improving AI with access to rapid manufacturing. Right. “We’ll just nuke it”. How can you nuke something that is everywhere, and has installed agents onto hundreds of millions of computers in every major city on Earth?

The reality is, when confronted with a human-indifferent recursively self-improving AI, we’ll probably be dead before we even know what is happening.

It’s interesting how Kurzweil’s refutation of Lyons mirrors my refutation of Horgan.

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Steven points us to a humorous page on one of our favorite religious sites, Rapture Ready, that shows that the Rapturist Christians are on to us. As always, this means shits and giggles all around. Fun for the whole family.

Here’s a quote from the piece, quoting the Bible:

“At one time the whole world spoke a single language and used the same words. As the people migrated eastward, they found a plain in the land of Babylonia and settled there. They began to talk about construction projects. ‘Come,’ they said, ‘let’s make great piles of burnt brick and collect natural asphalt to use as mortar. Let’s build a great city with a tower that reaches to the skies – a monument to our greatness! This will bring us together and keep us from scattering all over the world.’

But the Lord came down to see the city and the tower the people were building. ‘Look!’ he said. ‘If they can accomplish this when they have just begun to take advantage of their common language and political unity, just think of what they will do later. Nothing will be impossible for them! Come, let’s go down and give them different languages. Then they won’t be able to understand each other.’

In that way, the Lord scattered them all over the earth; and that ended the building of the city. That is why the city was called Babel, because it was there that the Lord confused the people by giving them many languages, thus scattering them across the earth.” Genesis 11:1-9 (NLT)

Thanks a lot, God. Why you gotta be like that?

Another quote:

“Why do the nations rage? Why do the people waste their time with futile plans? The kings of the earth prepare for battle; the rulers plot together against the Lord and against His Anointed One. ‘Let us break their chains,’ they cry. ‘And free ourselves from this slavery.’ But the one who rules in heaven laughs. The Lord scoffs at them.” Psalm 2:1-4 (NLT)

Could this passage describe an attempt by post-biological humans to overthrow the rule of God? Could the chains which hold them in bondage be the “severe limitations of their biological form”? Remember, when this event occurs, Satan and his fallen angels are also inhabitants of the earth:

How can we defeat God when he won’t even show himself and fight like a man? Oh, maybe because God is completely made up.

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Chris Phoenix gives an interesting interview to a student via email.

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About a week ago, Brian Wang did a nice nanotech roundup. Funny title: “A Bad Week For Those Who Deny Molecular Nanotechnology or Accelerating Technology or the Tech Singularity”.

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Great article by Patri Friedman at Less Wrong. He turned my thinking around on the issue, in less than 15 seconds of reading.

Other interesting posts include “Can we create a function that provably predicts the optimization power of intelligences?” by whpearson and Do Fandoms Need Awfulness? by Eliezer Yudkowsky.

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An interesting new distributed AI project has been covered by Singularity Hub.

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