Accelerating Future

All living things on this planet come into existence through a self-copying process known as reproduction. In sexually reproducing organisms, the copy isn’t exactly the same as what created it, but it does bear some similarity. In asexually reproducing organisms, the progeny is more or less a clone of what made it.

Our planet is kept in relative balance by millions of years of the mutual push-and-pull of competing organisms, organisms which have adapted to cope with each other. Also helpful is that organic proteins used by every organism in the Kingdom of Life have similar material properties relative to inorganic materials, such as say, steel or fullerene. So the incremental evolution of an organism that can overrun the Kingdom of Life with superior properties is unlikely.

However, the phenomenon has occurred at least once, in a limited context. After the Permian-Triassic extinction, 251 million years ago, about 70% of terrestrial vertebrates, including most the giant amphibians, went extinct. Most vegetation was completely wiped out, with rivers changing from a meandering to braided structure. However, one species rose above the destruction and became dominant: Lystrosaurus, a pig-sized animal with a shovel-shaped skull and massive forelimbs for burrowing. In some fossil beds, the animals makes up 95% of all vertebrate fauna. It is the only time that a single animal has dominated the world to such an extent.

The reasons for Lystrosaurus‘ survival are uncertain: some point to its barrel-shaped chest, which probably contained massive lungs suitable for extracting oxygen from the poisoned atmosphere. Whatever the case, it was the complete winner of the time by evolutionary standards, and dominated terrestrial faunas for millions of years in the early Triassic, many hundreds of times longer than human history.

If a single organism could dominate the planet to such an extent then, due to mere evolutionary chance, then in the future could we engineer organisms that can overcome the biosphere during an episode of weakness, or even at its strongest? I do think it’s possible, but the organism would either need to be smarter-than-human or reproduce more quickly than we can manage. A microbe that exploits new non-biological materials for its defensive or offensive strategies might do the trick, or perhaps Artificial Intelligence with the ability to trick humans into doing its bidding.

A reproductive threat could even come from humans alone. If scientists could find a way to accelerate the process of human maturation, a single country with the technology could overwhelm others in a historically short timeframe. This possibility seems to be frequently overlooked in discussions regarding genetic modification, which focus on mental or physical enhancement rather than acceleration of pre-existing processes like reproduction.

The current tenuous balance, where everyone reproduces at pretty much the same speed, is likely to be toppled this century by new technologies that accelerate reproductive speeds for microbes, plants, and animals, including humans. Some people have worried about overpopulation due to life extension, but to me, modifying the exponent is a lot more significant than extending the lifespan of each individual member in the self-replicating set.

I present this idea as a counterpoint to a frequent transhumanist refrain about “progress! forward! ho!” that seems to wholeheartedly embrace every conceivable enhancement technology without considering the encyclopedia-sized list of potential downsides that we must anticipate and address in advance.

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When selling a product, it’s useful to do two things: flatter the audience, and convince them that they need what you’re selling.

Transhumanism is a hard sell because it is neither flattering to humanity nor needed by everyone. Here I mean transhumanism in the sense of wanting to eventually modify oneself substantially rather than just considering the issues abstractly.

Transhumanism is not flattering to humanity because its whole point is that humanity isn’t the be-all, end-all of existence. Not the end of the road. This contradicts thousands of years of Homo sapiens-obsessed, Homo sapiens-centric theological and social teachings and habits. This obviously can marginalize transhumanism: how can you convince someone that they should want to change when they identify humanness with the very foundation of their being?

Two: it’s not imminently necessary to modify our brains and bodies. (Unless we want to live longer than a century or so, and many people don’t.) Human existence isn’t so terrible, at least not if you live in a developed country, where things are pretty damn good by ancestral standards. A friend of mine argues that daily life now is probably at least half as good as human life can possibly be, in terms of subjective happiness, even given superabundance. I’m not entirely sure about that, but the fact that it’s even plausible demonstrates that radical expansion of our technological powers isn’t the first thing that comes to mind as necessary to most folks. They identify it with only incremental improvements to human happiness.

The real benefits would derive, I think, from throwing out the whole Darwinian structure of pain and pleasure tied to ancestral correlates of fitness and replacing it with something more reasonable and customized to the needs and desires of the user. But communicating this radical possibility is substantially more difficult than focusing on the foothills of self-modification — prosthetics, psychopharmacology, etc. The result is some degree of fragmentation in the transhumanist community — some transhumanists that think transhumanism is about prosthetics, only moreso, and others that are envisioning a complete restructuring of the human organism based on new foundational principles.

There is also conflict with respect to interacting with interested dabblers on the fringes: the prosthetic crowd would prefer to offer their vision, because it’s more palatable and supported by near-term demonstrable advances, while the restructuring crowd offers their own which they consider more philosophically significant and deep. It can be hard to tell who is who, but a 30-minute conversation over a beer or two is generally enough to figure out where someone is coming from.

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Transhumanism, as it stands today, is a philosophy that emphasizes the future of human enhancement and the risks and opportunities presented when one species (Homo sapiens sapiens) differentiates into millions or billions of new species through technological self-transformation. Transhumanists argue that unless we blow ourselves up, this differentiation is very likely to occur, whether we like it or not. I should also emphasize that transhumanists are not unequivocally in favor of every possible enhancement pathway, and in fact may be more concerned about the potential downsides of these technologies than the upsides. Like me, for instance.

What will transhumanism be in the future? Well, if humanity survives and develops technologies that people can use to profoundly modify their bodies, including their mental and physical capacities, then transhumanism will not be a “futurist philosophy”, but merely everyday life. It will be hard not to care about the risks and benefits of self-modification technologies at that point, because they’ll be directing everything around us and the course of world history. Everyone will become de facto transhumanists, so the term will lose much of its present meaning. Do people that use computers call themselves “computerists”? No, but that’s what many of us are, whether we explicitly recognize it or not.

Transhumanists argue that we need a head start — why start caring about these issues when they’re already coming full force, and everyone is more or less forced to care about them? We can start now, analyzing the possibilities and deploying strategies to increase the probability that things go well and our species doesn’t go extinct. Some transhumans may not be so nice, and there’ll need to be systems in place to ensure that these individuals are kept in check and prevented from acquiring too much power. Traditional political banter is only peripherally relevant to this task, because politics as we know it is predicated on an all-human society with human motivations, human intelligence, human habits, and human levels of capability. We have to do something far more difficult — build a model of a world unlike anything else that has existed before. All of history has only contained one truly intelligent species — us. When we’re confronted with billions of new intelligent species, how will we react? Will those that had the foresight to prepare in advance be able to soften the technological torrent, bend it in a way that is beneficial both to humans and transhumans? I do think so, and that’s why these investigations are extremely important now.

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Dr. Phineas Waldolf Steel is a mentally twisted but awe-inspiring figure whose interests span the production of propaganda, the construction of chronically malfunctioning robots, puppet shows, and an ongoing attempt to become World Emperor for the purpose of turning this planet into a Utopian Playland. His growing movement aims to move beyond conflict and war to forge a world that makes fun the top priority. His multi-faceted persona is an example of what people can do when they are highly creative in a variety of cultural areas.

Dr. Steel is an entertainer, leader, musician, artist, and thinker. If you’re interested in finding out more about him, check out his website. The laboratory in the toyland section is particularly entertaining. As an independent artist, Dr. Steel hasn’t sold out to any record companies yet, though I’m sure that he would accept a big contract if it were part of his master plan for world domination. His music has been described as “hip-hop industrial opera”, which is correct in the abstract, though I’d also add “experimental”. Imagine nerdcore intermixed with assorted sampling, nutty beatboxing, guitars, reed instruments, choirs, and an accordion.

Dr. Steel is no stranger to transhumanism, as you’ll see in our interview. He has written songs called “Build the Robots” and “The Singularity” that serve as his odes to all things robotic and post-biological. You can get the mp3s from his latest album here, or all three here. Dr. Steel is one among a growing group of transhumanist musicians and artists.

In a world of pre-packaged, corporatized, formula-driven entertainment, I find Dr. Steel to be refreshingly different and rebellious. I was so intrigued by his self-presentation and approach to the world that I had to sit down and ask him a few questions. They begin below the image.

Accelerating Future (AF): Dr. Steel, have you heard of transhumanism? Do you consider yourself a transhumanist?

STEEL: Absolutely, I do consider myself a transhumanist. The desire to transcend biology, as Ray Kurzweil is known for saying, remains at the forefront of my consciousness. I am frequently frustrated with the limitations of my current, physical form and I foresee great possibilities as we evolve into electronic life.

AF: Some of us think that the fastest way to get really useful robots is to build an artificial intelligence that designs these robots for us. Given your checkered past in robot development, have you considered this option?

STEEL: Indeed, there will come a time when artificial super intelligence will be able to out-think and out-perform us. To see “the robots building robots building robots” is one way of refining the evolution and development of technology based life. However, I am most interested in integrating our consciousness into this technology. To be able to back-up one’s brain and utilize this as the basis of such creations will allow us to integrate ourselves into the next step of existence. Our creativity is our greatest power, and in fact this is what I believe the true purpose of the universe is; to create. Humans have been able to harness this ability in unique ways and to build upon that by upgrading ourselves will be the key to moving into a new field of infinite possibilities.

AF: In your video of robotics you mention nanotechnology. If you could use advanced futuristic nanobots for one application, what would it be?

STEEL: Oh goodness, there are so many possibilities. Though, for the fun factor I would have to go with the use of foglets. These clusters of nanobots programmed to manifest in their designated form could prove very useful indeed. Be it the replication of a Tyrannosaurus Rex or a very comfortable arm chair, foglets could provide hours of maniacal entertainment.

AF: One of the biggest challenges of space travel would be isolation from the bulk of society and absence of an Internet connection. What would you do to amuse yourself on a long journey through space?

STEEL: It’s interesting, what you describe as a challenge reads a bit like a vacation in my book. I would, however, require a great deal of reading and writing material. Such a journey would certainly give me the time to complete my illustrated manifesto….oh, and I would need an accordion as well.

AF: Even among those of us that are obsessed with the amazing potential of artificial intelligence and the coming Singularity, we are concerned about mankind being destroyed by AIs gone wrong. Is there anything we can do to avoid this negative outcome?

STEEL: It seems to me that if mankind successfully creates something that ends up wiping out the entire species, then we deserve such a demise. There is always a way to overcome a problem and it is this sort of creative thinking that makes us so very special. If we are not up to the task, then evolution has passed us by and electronic life would then inherit the Earth. It’s also important to remember that when being chased by a robot, it’s best to keep a garden hose and a bucket of magnets handy.

AF: With achievements in art, video, music, philosophy, and complete insanity, you have shattered the traditional boundaries of creativity, expression, and existence in general. Is there any way for us to become as awesome as you, Dr. Steel?

STEEL: Why thank you ever so much for the tremendous compliment. I must assure you, however, that I am but a simple carbon life form. Until I am able to transcend biology, I hold no more potential than any other human on the planet. Let us all reach beyond our grasp to obtain the title of “awesome”.

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In a comments thread on a post of mine earlier today, a commenter asked, “What is it that you transhumanists actually do other than talk about technologies and improve your thinking, behavior and health with smarter ideas?” Here are a few transhumanists whose accomplishments you can read about (in no particular order):

Martine Rothblatt, Chairman and CEO of United Therapeutics
Philippe van Nedervelde, CEO of E-spaces, Director of Foresight Institute Europe
Nick Bostrom, Oxford philosopher, Director of Future of Humanity Institute
Ray Kurzweil, pioneering inventor, CEO of Kurzweil Technologies
Max Tegmark, Associate Professor at MIT, leading cosmologist
James Hughes, lecturer at Trinity College, author of Citizen Cyborg
Marvin Minsky, AI pioneer and co-founder of MIT’s AI laboratory
Ramez Naam, developer of IE and Outlook, formerly CEO of Apex Nanotechnologies
Ben Goertzel, prolific author and CEO/CSO of Novamente LLC
Bruce Klein, President of Novamente LLC
John Smart, entrepreneur and futurist, founder of Accelerating Studies Foundation
Susan Fonseca-Klein, Director of Development for Methuselah Foundation
Max More, Strategic Philosopher, ManyWorlds, Inc.
Natasha Vita-More, cultural strategist and designer
Harvey Newstrom, Founding Partner, Newstaff, Inc.
Dan Stoicescu, biotech millionaire, 2nd person to pay for his genome to be sequenced
Brian Cartmell, successful Internet entrepreneur and millionaire, now VC
William Sims Bainbridge, Co-Director of Human-Centered Computing at the NSF
Terry Grossman, Director of the Frontier Medical Institute
Phil Bowermaster, telecom professional
Richard A. Clarke, formerly counter-terrorism czar for the US government
Kevin Warwick, Professor of Cybernetics at the University of Reading
Stelarc, acclaimed performance artist
Amara Graps, astrophysicist at the Planetary Science Institute
Steve Mann, Professor at University of Toronto, cybernetics pioneer

Not bad for a movement that only includes about 10,000 people. There are thousands more. Some of them are philosophers and futurists, and I suppose that qualifies as “talk”, but professional talkers that consult with Fortune 500 companies and organizations like the CIA, put on leading technology conferences, and head major departments at universities is nothing to sneeze at.

Obviously, there is a selection effect going on whereby transhumanists that like to talk are more conspicuous and visible. For every transhumanist talker, there are 10 that actually get things done. There are many other transhumanist high-achievers I didn’t list because they prefer to stay below the radar.

Of course, it’s possible to play ring-around-the-rosie and point out why Person X or Person Y on this list hasn’t really achieved anything of value. The point is that transhumanists are obviously deeply involved with the development of technology in the real world, but at the same time we care about discussing it. No contradiction. Everyone has enough time to do both, and discussion is necessary.

And if you’re a transhumanist who was bothered I missed you on this list, my bad.

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Danielle Egan’s coverage of Transvision 2007 just hit the front page of Digg, which means about 100,000 people will be reading the article today and tomorrow. The article, at New Scientist, is “Death special: The plan for eternal life“. Presented themes include uploading, life extension, and transhumanism in general.

This is not really all that unusual: transhumanist-themed stories are on the front page of Digg and Reddit every week. This is slightly more unusual because it’s about an actual WTA conference than being just an article about Aubrey or Ray. The Digg comments thread regarding the article is slightly less pithy than usual.

Danielle Egan is one of the first journalists I’ve ever met. I first talked to her at Transvision 2003 at Yale, where she shared a room with my sister, Nina. It resulted in this article being published. Initially I thought it was a smear piece, now I realize that it only looks so bad because Eliezer has the capability to fail remarkably when talking to reporters, by being too honest. (Plan to be alive after every star in the Milky Way is dead? Great, but when you’re talking about other wild-sounding stuff, why say things that dynamite your credibility unnecessarily?)

Egan gave me a pleasant conception of print journalists in general. When I attacked her on ImmInst for writing the article, she actually noticed my criticism and addressed every one of my points. Not exactly the stereotype of the heartless journalist, is it? Since then, I’ve liked most journalists I meet that cover transhumanism. During one particularly active sequence of transhumanist events about six months ago, I ran into David Gelles, a freelance journalist who formerly worked for Forbes, at every single one. Talk about investigative journalism — this is a guy who wanted the whole story.

The New Scientist article is famous for lowering the popular impression of Marvin Minsky in the eyes of the public. Here is the relevant passage:

I discover the less egalitarian side to the transhumanist community when I meet Marvin Minsky, the 80-year-old originator of artificial neural networks and co-founder of the AI lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. “Ordinary citizens wouldn’t know what to do with eternal life,” says Minsky. “The masses don’t have any clear-cut goals or purpose.” Only scientists, who work on problems that might take decades to solve appreciate the need for extended lifespans, he argues.

I disagree. Although the “masses” may not all be MIT professors, you’ll find that even the most humble and uneducated people usually want to live honest lives and have their own purposes which some intellectuals might roll their eyes at, but are still important: raising a family, meeting their co-workers expectations, making little improvements to their life that benefit their health, and so on. I do believe that the vast majority of the human race would greatly enjoy vastly extended lifespans, and have no trouble finding interesting things to do.

Marvin Minsky’s attitude is not typical of the transhumanist community. Even though he is widely recognized as a genius, I think he is a little bit of a cranky genius. (”Cranky” as in having a misanthropic streak, not being a crank.)

In the article, Egan writes, regarding the conference:

More immediate issues facing humanity, such as poverty, pollution and the devastation of war, tend to get ignored.

What sometimes gets swept over here is that many transhumanists believe that advanced technologies like nanotech and AI are necessary to make a large and permanent dent in these major problems. Some transhumanists (such as myself) got interested in these technologies for that very reason.

Poverty and pollution could be addressed by clean self-replicating desktop manufacturing units, based on nanotech or otherwise. As John Horgan argues, the devastation of war might be largely avoided if there were adequate food, fuel, and equality available to everyone. You can moderate and work diplomacy all day long, and people will still fight wars. What we need are to address the underlying causes — often a lack of resources due to technological shortcomings. Another possible source of war is the inherent testosterone-based tendencies of human males. In a future where wholesale brain modification technologies are available (sooner than you think), humans might be able to edit their brains such that the characteristics they want (like standing up for themselves) are retained, while maladaptive characteristics (like excessive aggression and us-vs-them-ism) are removed.

Anyway, the constant front-page Digging of transhumanist-related articles shows that there is a tremendous amount of basic interest in this area, and it’s up to us to learn how to tap into it effectively. This is a full time job, which is why financial support of organizations like the WTA is essential.

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What is the point of transhumanism? Part of it is to put up a notice that says “we deliberately want to work towards human enhancement, meet here if you’re interested”. That way a group can aggregate around that cause and start companies, non-profits, and think tanks to accelerate its realization.

Fortunately, billions of dollars in research funds are already being spent on technologies that are useful for human enhancement, such as regenerative medicine, gene therapy, RNA interference, genome sequencing, implants and prostheses, brain-computer interfacing, robotic exoskeletons, and more.

But explicit, self-declared “transhumanists” — a small group of roughly 10,000 people with a combined net worth under $3 billion — could never personally direct all human enhancement research (nor would we want to), but we can influence it in what we see as positive directions.

Transhumanists should be useful to humanity as a whole. I envision our role as interdisciplinary thinkers who stay up to date with as many scientific and technological developments as possible, consider trends and future directions, then offer suggestions on present-day choices in enhancement research and ethics.

In particular, long-term popular opinion of human enhancement may be determined by its first world-changing examples. Advocates of responsible enhancement have an interest in the “debut” and immediate impact of serious human enhancement.

We see nascent signs of popular response to human enhancement today, with augmented persons like Oscar Pistorius, the record-holding runner with two prosthetic legs. Pistorius is cleared to compete in the Olympics, a reversal of an earlier decision by the International Association of Athletics Federations banning the use of “any technical device that incorporates springs, wheels or any other element that provides a user with an advantage over another athlete not using such a device”.

Although Pistorius’ experience is an interesting window into the way humanity deals with augmented persons, it is my opinion, and that of many other transhumanists, that a real transhuman is a transhuman mind, and anything else is a side issue (a paraphrase of a quote by Robert Heinlein). Say you are a person so heavily enhanced with cybernetics technology that you can lift a ton, run a mile a minute, and get energy directly from the Sun. Well, alright, that’s cool, but it will impact things that other people really care about, like your ability to interact with them, have creative insights, solve problems, or make people laugh? Not much.

To me personally, “transhumanism” is mainly about humanity’s effort to make a mind smarter than itself. It is sometimes difficult to define “intelligence”, so here I’ll define “smarter” as the ability to see things others don’t, generate valuable insights others don’t, create things others can’t, possess an expanded memory, improved ability to free associate between memories, fundamental improvements in the wetware used to formulate and process concepts, make probability assessments and updates that are mathematically sound and self-consistent, construct and manipulate more detailed mental models of other people and objects, possess hundreds of other traits we intuitively associate with intelligence, and thousands of additional traits that we haven’t discerned yet because we haven’t thought about the issue enough. As you can see, defining “intelligence” is not easy.

Obviously, enhancing or modifying a human mind is a huge challenge. Some, like the Singularity Institute and its supporters, advocate constructing a human-level artificial intelligence to trigger a feedback cascade in intelligence research. Others, like neuroscientist Anders Sandberg and economist Robin Hanson, wager that intelligence enhancement will be kickstarted by the scanning and “uploading” of human minds. The Innerspace Foundation is looking to neural prostheses, offering a reward to the first person who develops a cognitive prosthesis that expands human memory. Other approaches to intelligence enhancement are formulated and floated in numerous closed-door conversations.

Which will have a major impact first? AI, uploading, BCI, or some other approach? Because the advocates of intelligence enhancement are having trouble agreeing on which approach is best, we are not working towards this technology as quickly and smoothly as we should. Transhumanists need to agree on an approach to intelligence enhancement, and throw as much as our effort as possible behind it.

Although I personally advocate the AI approach, I encourage research into the other areas, though I am admittedly skeptical that uploading could be first. Keeping an open mind in appraising different fields of intelligence research is essential, as we don’t want to get bogged down in one approach if it starts failing.

Closely observing the way that nascent intelligence enhancement technologies are applied is helpful for considering their future impact. For instance, we see AIs being introduced to virtual worlds like SecondLife. Could these environments act as useful testing grounds for further AI development, and sandboxes to evaluate the way these AIs interact with humans, the environment, and other agents? Most certainly.

A large intelligence enhancement breakthrough could accelerate adjacent breakthroughs in other areas. Because intelligence underlies our ability to solve all problems, an improvement in that underlying capability could give us a greater return on investment than improvement of any other tool.

Another important question concerns whether enhanced intelligence will be put to beneficial ends once it is developed. If an elite group uses the technology, could they merely use it to consolidate and preserve their power? All of humanity has reason to avoid this outcome. Advance concern and the application of safeguards will be necessary, because once an elite group has the technology, it might be too late to take it away.

For one person’s estimate on timescales, see Nick Bostrom’s “How Long Until Superintelligence?”

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