Accelerating Future

Funny. Apparently Obama considers the current Presidential Council on Bioethics to be nothing more than a philosophical talk shop that avoids creating consensus. But… I thought they did have a (lame) consensus? Perhaps this is all nicey-nice talk for, “the group sucks, let’s make a new one.”

President Obama will appoint a new bioethics commission, one with a new mandate and that “offers practical policy options,” Mr. Cherlin said.

Probably this means one not poisoned by Judeo-Christian fundamentalism and Kassite stupidity. Though Obama is a Christian, he’s a Christian in that more modern sense of the word, as in, he pretty much ignores parts of the Bible he doesn’t like. He’s publicly denounced Leviticus, which is a good start. Here’s what Jesus said:

Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil.

For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.

Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven: but whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven. (Mark 5:18)

How about we like, say screw all the parts of the law that have to do with stoning women who aren’t virgins on their wedding night? Christians always like to use Jesus as an excuse to basically say that everything in the Old Testament is invalid, but Jesus himself said that he approves of the Old Testament. He also believed that Jonah was actually swallowed by a whale. He also said “it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God” (Matthew 19:24), and here’s how his group worked:

And all that believed were together, and had all things common; And sold their possessions and goods, and parted them to all men, as every man had need. (Acts 2:44)

So Jesus was an advocate of being poor and communist.

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“I actually find a preoccupation with anti-aging technologies to be, I think, somewhat spiritually immature and unmanly.”
– William B. Hurlbut, former member of the President’s Council on Bioethics and a consulting professor in the Program in Human Biology at Stanford University

One of the more memorable life extension debates I’ve been to was a summer 2007 meeting of the Bay Area Future Salon where Aubrey de Grey went up against William Hurlbut, who used to work under Leon Kass on Bush’s Religious Right-dominated President’s Council on Bioethics. Unlike Kass, who is laughed at and rejected by mainstream bioethics for his nutty, highly quotable opinions (much to the disappointment of Wesley J. Smith), Hurlbut is somewhat more sane-sounding. He is intellectual and often presents his ideas using reasonable rather than bombastic uber-conservative language. One might be led to believe that he even accepts the consumption of ice cream in public. (Yes, my favorite Kass reference.)

Read up on the debate between Aubrey and Hurlbut at Future Current.

Hurlbut was being so sincere and honest that I almost felt sorry for him trying to argue his points in a room full of transhumanists. But then again, he wants us all to die at a predetermined age, so you can’t have too much pity.

If I may be allowed to suggest a motto for Hurlbut’s philosophy:

Be a man. Die.™

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I’m in Melbourne Beach, Florida, for the 4th Colloquium on the Law of Futuristic Persons. As one might assume from the title, this is a legally focused gathering, and addresses legal issues related to cryonics patients, cyborgs, artificial biological intelligent beings, enhanced human beings, and artificial intelligences. I’m attending to record the whole thing and summarize it for those that aren’t here. Our gracious hostesses are Martine Rothblatt and Bina Aspen Rothblatt, who covered all our expenses and put us up in a nice hotel on the beach, with fantastic views of the Atlantic Ocean and the palm tree-covered residential areas of Melbourne Beach.

Martine Rothblatt, our hostess, opens us up with an intro to the conference. She’s wearing video eyeglasses invented by the famous Steve Mann. They’re continuously taking video and beaming it to the Internet, an example of sousveillance. She’s also showing us how it can be beamed directly to the big LCD screen at the front of the room. Pretty cool… I think I’d want these if I were a political protester in danger of being attacked by overly enthusiastic riot cops.

As Martine explains, this colloquium was inspired by the long-running colloquium on the Law of Outer Space, which began in 1958. She sees a connection between space law in 1958 and human rights of futuristic persons right now, in that they are both incredibly cutting-edge in 1958 and today, respectively. In 1958, the experts decided that some things that were taken for granted, like national borders, had to be tossed out in the face of the new technology. For instance, if a space probe is orbiting the Earth, it will violate the “airspace” of many countries whether they like it or not. We may have to discard similar assumptions to come up with a serious legal framework for futuristic persons. The point of this colloquium is to move forward the law on these new areas, as the law must evolve together with improving knowledge. One crucial area is that personhood should be regarded based on intelligence and values, rather than substrate or superficial appearance.

This colloquium could go on for a long time — 10, 20, 30 years. It won’t be done overnight, but the point is to move forward the law and ensure that the rights of futuristic persons are duly protected by the legal system as they are created.

John P. Didon, Esq. - Arguments Supporting the Legal Rights of People in and Revived from Biostasis

Now, Martine invites the first speaker, John Didon, to the podium. He has contributed more than any other attorney to the rights of people in biostasis. As many of you may know, people in biostasis are sometimes at risk of their rights being denied, treated as objects rather than the people they are.

John points out that there is no legal status of suspended persons, so any discussion of such is merely (unfortunately) of ideas. Historically, people have tried to do things like will money to themselves for revival after biostasis, and these efforts have run into trouble with family members.

John quotes William Goldman: “Nobody knows anything”. Law is based on precedent, which is both a blessing and a curse. Because cryonic suspension is so new, there is little precedent, but we have to try to shape the law by being there first. He will present four arguments to support shaping the law in favor of persons upon their suspension.

First, the suspended should have the same rights as the other dead — to pass their assets to who they want, burial rights, and wrongful death statutes. However, it’s not so simple that these rights will be given. Oftentimes, the family wishes and public norms can override the wishes of the decedents. So we have to be out there trying to shape the law in favor of the suspended.

Second argument: individuals in biostasis should have concrete rights that are not “abstract moralisms”. The questions should not be left up to the state legislature — they are so central and personal that they are connected to the liberty connected to the 14th amendment. He references Planned Parenthood v. Casey as an example of such an abstract moralism. Not just applicable to abortion rights, the liberty described in the 14th amendment can be connected to the legal rights of cryonically suspended.

Third argument: If a child is born from the frozen DNA of the decedent, born from the surviving spouse, that child can inherit. There are various legal arguments for why this should be: genetic relationhship, consent by the decedent to posthumous conception, and 3) decedent aagrees to support the child. What does this mean to cryonically preserved people?

Genetic relationship between the revived person and the preserved? Yes. Preserved people (obviously) consent to be revived. The cryonically preserved person has also arranged for his support. So, there is an analogy between the two that can be used.

4th argument: changing definitions of death. Not heart stopping, but brain death. There are court cases that support this. Under current medicine, true death only occurs when the brain dies. Cryonically preserved individuals still maintain a level of brain activity, so they may qualify as persons. Dr. Rothblatt has discussed the concept of bemes — digital copies of important brain functions (mindware). If the judiciary is willing to alter the standard of death to whole braina death, then this can be an evolving standard. As technology improves, our conception of “death” may change yet again. In 1981, a presidential commission admitted that “people’s attitudes towards death evolve, and changes in medical capabilities certainly come to be reflected in public as well as professional circles.”

IT may be possible to use dynasty-like trusts to protect the rights of the preserved. By designing a wealth preservation trust for cryonically preserved persons, we may be able to protect the property and rights of those suspended. We can design this in a way that accords with the mainstream body of law on the topic as much as possible. A few states aren’t accepting of dynasty trusts, though: South Dakota and Delaware, for instance.

There are some ways to minimize the legal challenges which may destroy the trust — in terrorem clauses, which disinherit those beneficiaries who challenge the trust, provisions which deal with the dissolution of the trust distribution if it is evident revival is not possible, and descendants or charitable beneficiaries which may receive limited use of the Trust property.

Lori Rhodes — “Cryo-Documentation: Vital Statistics”

Next, Lori Rhodes, who also organized this whole event, will present on asset preservation for cryonically suspended individuals.

She begins by thinking about the classification of cryopreserved people. There is an African fly that can go into a state of preservation - crypsis - and it can survive for 17 years in this state during conditions of drought. With regard to us, it’s something that we’re doing consciously that already exists in nature. So, it’s not as crazy as much of the general population thinks. In the classic “What is Life”, Erwin Schrodinger defined living matter as that which “evades the decay into equilibrium”. In THe First Immortal, James Halpern states that cryonic suspension halts all decay, therefore, under Schrodinger’s definition, it can be regarded as living matter.

What about frozen embryos? If they are deserving of rights, then cryonically preserved people should have the same rights too. They should not be considered inanimate objects with no rights whatsoever when an embryo would have rights.

Next, she began to research vital statistics: birth and death certificates. They were last revised in 2003. There’s always a bit of leeway in the information you can put into those forms. I believe that you should be able to put down in your death paperwork which cryonics company you give your own body too. There needs to be a way to properly document cyronic preservation. I propose two different, yet standard death certificates — a Irreversible Cessation of Life Certificate, and a Reversible Cessation of Life certificate, applying to non-suspended and suspended persons respectively.

To move forward, we could petition the panel that meets to evaluate the US Standard certificates. Lori contacted a member of the previous panel and asked how certification of revival from biostasis could work under the current system. They took it seriously and are passing it on to the entity that will convene the next panel. Lori shows us an example of how standard death certificates could be changed to accommodate suspended persons.

What about birth certificates? What means could we use to record people revived from biostasis? A re-birth or revival certificate? Lori shows us her example for a US Standard Certificate of Revival. Name of facility of the revive, county of the revive, etc. She created as an informal example it by modifying her daughter’s birth certificate.

Lori reviews the lataest revisions to the Uniform Anatomical Gift Act (the legal framework for current suspensions). These include empowering a minor to be a donor, establishes criminal sanctions for falsifying the making, amending or revocation of an anatomical gift, allows for e-records and signatures, permits an individual to sign a refusal barring anyone from making an anatomical gift of the individual’s body or parts, the survives the revocation of a will.

She began thinking in more detail about this, how there are do-not-resuscitate orders for doctors, medical staff, etc., for people not to have CPR performed on them. Could the same framework be extended to protecting cryonics patients? It seems probable.

There should be a way to suspend social security numbers for cryonics patients instead of allowing them to go back into the pool for new recirculation. At suspension, the SS# could be given a -B (dash B) designation to put it on hold. Then, upon revival, the Social Security number could be restored to the patient upon revival, given a -R (dash R) designation. This is not so far-reaching, as social security numbers have been restored before. As an incentive to the Social Security administration, this would allow them to keep the $255 that they would otherwise have to pay out the standard spousal death benefit. (So small anyway, but they still make it difficult for people to collect on it.)

The same thing could be done for health insurance under the Social Security Act. What about driver’s licenses? Maybe it would not be a great idea to immediately restore that, but they should be allowed to apply for a non-motorist ID.

What about adverse selection within life insurance? This prevents people from committing suicide to get life insurance money to their family. It would make sense to institute a similar clause for “cryonicide”, where a cryonics patient is killed or arranges their own death for tax benefits at a specific time. For instance, those that die in 2010 will make their heirs eligible for the least taxes. Instead of the date of “cryonicide” being the documented death date, it should revert back to the time of suspension. Furthermore, there should also be penalties for those that purposefully damage cryonics patients — it should be considered a criminal act. They remove the possibility of revival for the patients, denying them rights.

Finally, she sums up the presentation with a couple quotes:

“The man who has the time,the discrimination, and the sagacity to collect, and comprehend the principal facts and the man who must act upon them must draw near to one another and feel that they are engaged in a common enterprise” — Woodrow Wilson, 1910

“Tell me and I’ll forget
Show me and I may not remember
Involve me and I’ll understand”
- Native American Proverb

Michael Perry, Ph.D — Legal Aspects of Forever for All

Next, Mike Perry will talk about the legal aspects touched on in his book, Forever for All. Martine introduces him by praising his book and the moral framework it provides for cryonicists. He also wrote the book, “Self-Optimization of Machine Intelligence”. Mike Perry is a pioneer and legend in the cryonics community, and a patient caretaker at Alcor, and a member since 1984.

Mike admits that he doesn’t have a legal background, but will discuss elements in his wide-ranging book that touch on legal issues. His book ranges coverage of the present day to the distant future. He will talk about legal issues connected to:

1. Current cryonics practices
2 Uploading and other anticipated technologies that might accompany reanimation
3. “Compassionate” handling of sentient creatures in a more advanced future.

Regarding #1, there is the challenge of getting a good cryopreservation. For instance, people might want to cryopreserve themselves prior to decline into dementia or the like. However, today, this isn’t possible. Unfortunately, during any case of “suicide”, there is a mandatory autopsy, which obviously would ruin the whole effort.

Mike presents an example of Arlene Fried, cryopreserved in 1990, who had a a brain tumor (but in a good state of mind), and self-dehydrated to deanimation, requiring about 12 days. Considered a very good preservation for its time. But, this is very extreme. Mike shows us a harrowing image of Mrs. Fried immediately after her deanimation by dehydration, with the caption “Very lucky lady, maybe”. She was able to go into cryonic suspension before a brain tumor destroyed her brain.

Today, a major challenge in cryonics is that cryonics patients are considered completely dead, which deprives them of any rights. Hopefully, with evolving definitions of death, this will change. An audience member asks about Oregon’s assisted suicide laws, whether they might be used to deliberately enter into biostasis. Mike says that there would be a lot of complications with this — particularly, ensuring that they are not autopsied. But, it’s never happened yet, so it will need to occur before anything can be said on this.

Next section of the talk is titled, “Uploading and So Forth”. He presents a definition of the Singularity, “where machine intelligence exceeds present human levels and technological advances would be very rapid, is considered realistic by many thoughtful people and not too distant on the scale of history”. Among the possibilities would be to express personalities at the human level in artificial computational devices, and uploading. These possibilities present numerous legal issues.

Legal questions: are cyber-persons “persons”? What if duplicate persons are created by accident? What about “asking them to accept deletion”? If “no”, then what about property/ownership rights, etc.? Should “reproductive rights” be highly restricted, particularly since it may become very easy to create “designer persons” cybernetically? In most jurisdictions, people can have as many children as they want. But what about the future? What about persons created in such a way as to have a “past-identify” claim — replicas of previously existing individuals in one or another parallel timestream, say? (Mike writes, “Not as hard to do, in principle, as one might think!”) What legal issues would such resurrectees have? If most people in the future are extremely enhanced and intelligent through technology, would revived individuals be considered like infants or children?

The third issue: ending animal suffering. Animals in the wild seem “born to suffer”, but this needn’t be that way forever. They struggle through a brief existence and arae killed, either by predators, aging, diseases, or numerous other causes. Predators in particular regularly destroy other sentient creatures who fight back and show expected signs of pain and terror as they die. Mike thinks that people in the future will be indifferent to these issues, nor should they be. Maybe in the future, there just won’t be any more predatory animals. On the one hand many of us have a reverence for “nature” but still, watching a lion dispatch a zebra is not particularly heartwarming. In the future we should use advanced technology with accompanying legislative enforcement to end animal predation and other causes of suffering, even if it meant radically impacting the environment or even relegating all sentient, unintelligent life to a “safe haven” such as a cyberworld?

Wendell Wallach - Moral Machines: Teaching Robots Right from Wrong

Wendell is a leading bioethicist with the Yale Interdisciplinary Center for Bioethics. He will read from his new book, Moral Machines: Teaching Robots Right from Wrong, published just a couple weeks ago. The cover of the book is an image of a human hand shaking a CG rendered hand, reminiscent of the old SIAI logo. He begins by reading various fictional headlines like “Robots March on Washington for Civil Rights”, then brings up how Ray Kurzweil and Hans Moravec are predicting uploading and human-equivalent AI, on timelines of 2020 to 2050, based on a computational theory of mind and the continuation of Moore’s law. Legal scholars are already debating whether AIs will ever be given rights. Policy planners are thinking about whether we should regulate technologies that change what it is to be human. More and more papers are being written about programming moral decision-making faculties into artificially intelligent systems. Wendell remarks that this (what he read) is the introduction to the last chapter of the book — the more futuristic stuff.

Do we need to think about ethics for robots (an inclusive term for AI and virtual/physical bots). Yes, beginning now. Robots are already making decisions that effect humans good or bad. Initially in very limited areas, these will quickly expand. Several ethical questions: Does society want computers and robots making important decisions? This gets into issues of society’s comfort with technology. Are robots the kind of entities capable of making moral decisions? The bulk of this book looks at how we can make ethics computationally tractable, something that can be programmed in today or technology with the very near future. Not just predictions that we will have human-level computers.

We break the area into three subjects. Top-down approaches: Asimov’s Laws, Ten Commandments, utilitarianism, etc. Bottom-up approaches: inspired by evolution and developmental psychology. Not an explicit notion of what is right and good, but developmental. Third area: Superrational faculties. Is reason enough to get robots to make moral decisions, or something more? Are embodiment, emotions, consciousness, or theories of mind necessary? This looks at such an inclusive area of ethics that it is fascinating in its relevance to human ethics as well. Once we’ve granted personhood to corporations, it isn’t a huge leap to translate personhood to machines, so that will also be relevant.

The section he will read from: “embrace, reject, or regulate”. Political factors will play the largest role in accountability and rights for robots and whether some forms of robot research will be regulated or outlawed. Companies developing AI may be concerned that they will be susceptible to lawsuits even when they make life safer. Peter Norvig brought up the issue of whether the companies making AI-driven cars will be susceptible to lawsuits even they reduce the incidence of crashes. Some cases will have merit, and some won’t. Obviously, the legal situation will evolve. Two questions will arise: can the robots themselves be held directly liable, and do sophisticated robots deserve recognition of their own rights. Though these are considered futuristic questions in the context of the book, it should still be briefly looked at.

Humans have historically been punished through various ways: infliction of pain, depriving them of freedom, confiscation of property, etc. Debates about whether robots should be held accountable often focus on whether the usual human punishment methods would even work on robots. If you think that artificial agents will never satisfy the conditions for being punished, then you might consider the idea of punishing them as a non-starter. Part of the book addresses whether or not robots could have pain or distress — would they have a somatic architecture that allows them this? In the book, we look at the connection between animal rights and robot rights. If we move in the direction of somatic architecture for robots, we may also get review boards for robotic experimentation.

Regulating the treatment of robots and research is not the same as assigning them rights, but it gives them a toehold. Robots may be programmed to demand energy, but how is one to evaluate whether they truly desire goods and services. If a robot begs you not to turn off, what criteria should you use to evaluate whether the plea should be acknowledged?

What about increasingly sophisticated robotic sex toys? Most governments don’t regulate them. What about the right of humans to marry robots? This has been addressed in fiction. Shifting social attitudes towards marriage could lead to humans regarding sophisticated robots. A book, Love and Sex with Robots, looks at this. Unlike other issues involving robots, humans would have a direct interest in marriage, and could be the first path through which legal rights are assigned to robots. This could lead to robots possibly being granted the usual rights that spouses have. However, before this even happens, sophisticated robots could be banned.

Ultimately, a lot of people that read the book realize that it’s just as much about humans as robots. To what extent is human moral decision-making robotic? As Rob Brooks said, “we may over-anthropomorphize humans”. That is, we may think that we have more god-like moral decision-making procedures that we actually do. Maybe our morality is slightly more “robotic” than we think. Robotics will be a test bed for learning about human morality.

Next there is a slight segue into the phenomenology of consciousness — we don’t have a science of it. We will learn about this in science of the future. Emotions and feelings are a fundamental part of this as well. To what extent could they be reproduced in robotics? This should also be an important question for anyone interested in uploading.

Wendell mentions that AI decision makers might be even better than humans at moral decision making, for two reasons: 1) absence of disturbing emotions, 2) ability to look at more options. As an advocate for the creation of Friendly AI, I totally agree — but doing such a thing will obviously take an enormous amount of work by programmers and theorists.

Is utilitarianism a good idea? What about the trolley problem? Even people who say they’re strong utilitarians, you can always propose a dilemma they’re uncomfortable. Say there’s a train accident where five people are in the emergency room, they each need an organ transplant, and there’s a healthy person in the waiting room. Should that person’s organs be removed to save five lives? (Lori Rhodes: “The moral of the story is, if you’re healthy, don’t go to the hospital.”) Most utilitarians would say no, showing that utilitarianism can violate basic intuitions.

There are two main camps of morality: utilitarianism and deontology. The theory of the latter is that some of our moral intuitions are reflective of moral truths. There are “categorical imperatives” that demand we honor them. Others say that these intuitions are products of evolution or culture, not actually moral truths. Therefore, what’s right or good is really predicated on some other principle, like the greatest good for the greatest number, with a proviso for the individual rights of everyone. This is where we are at morality in this moment of history. It’s a fascinating debate being contributed to by neuroscience, evolutionary psychology, and many other areas.

Professor Steven Mann — Keynote Address: “Case Study: the Human Rights Travails of Professor Steven Mann as a Partial Cyborg in 2008″

Steve Mann takes the podium. He is projecting the view from his eyeglass cam (specifically, an EyeTap) onto the huge screen at the front of the room — it’s pretty surreal. For his “slides”, he is writing on a notepad that we can see only because he is looking at it and it is projected on the screen. He starts by saying his talk will be about the idea of a “reverse transbeman” — a human trying to become more like a computer rather than vice versa. He himself is the best recognized such person, famously called “the first cyborg”.

His EyeTap uses a mirror and a beam splitter to project images taken from his glasses-cam to his own eye, thereby actually letting him experience the world as computational. It records sound as well as video, and he refers to it as a third hemisphere of his brain. He draws a diagram showing his interaction with his wearable computer as a feedback loop, also mentioning the possibility of overlaying, say, Google maps onto the video. Some of his students have done their Ph.D theses on such projects, building functional prototypes. Many of the fundamental challenges of have been solved.

Augmented reality with overlays is one possibility, but another is using a computer as an encapsulating intermediary between us and reality. That second possibility is the most powerful.

What happens when a human is endowed with computer capabilities? Professor Mann began using his eyeglasses as a seeing and memory aid. Most of the technical problems have been found after 30 years of work — now, the problems are social, legal, and ethical instead. He says that his eyeglasses camera, but causes an eye to become a camera. He’s had challenges with getting into department stores that forbid photography — but should it necessarily be called a recording if it has become a part of his very essence?

Professor Mann is part of a condominium, and was asked to remove his glasses to attend a meeting associated with it. Since his eyes are so adapted to the eyeglasses, he might trip and fall if he removed them, and he asked those who requested to remove them if they would accept liability.

Electronic devices are not allowed at the US Embassy. Therefore, people with pacemakers or other devices become contraband. Existential contraband. He ran into this problem when trying to pick up his daughter’s passport from the US Embassy. He was in the odd situation of being both required to enter the Embassy and forbidden from doing so. This was finally resolved by a staff member coming out onto the sidewalk and serving him the passport there.

Professor Mann draws an image of a camera on a telephone poll, and a person below watching it, labeling them “surveillance” and “sousveillance”. Surveillance means “to watch from above” in French. Its reciprocal is sousveillance, meaning “to watch from below”.

Heard of a Panopticon? What is the inverse of that concept? We sewed a bunch of security camera-style black domes onto conference bags for CFP2005 in Seattle. This is a reverse Panoptican. Some of them had cameras, some of them didn’t, and others just had flashing red lights, but no cameras. In a conventional Panopticon, prisoners have to be on their best behavior because they may always be watched. In an inverse Panoptican, the guards have to be on their best behavior because they are continuously being watched by the prisoners.

Originally, he just tried to create vision aids for the blind. Eventually, he became a “cyborg performance artist”. He’s not an activist, but he got drawn into such things. He shows us a hilarious bra with black security camera domes on it, showing us the inversion of the “male gaze” of security guards. A security guard couldn’t really ask a woman to remove such a bra.

Souveillance is not just people photographing police. It’s also the recording of an activity by a participant in that activity. Third-party recording of a phone conversation is surveillance, but recording your own is sousveillance. That is the legal definition. In many states, the former is illegal, but that latter isn’t. This definition removes the notion of it always being an “Us vs. Them” framework of watchers and the watched competing against each other.

He calls his device an electrovisualgram because it also has EEG and EVG on it. He considers the data they record as his property, a closed-loop mindfile, glog, or cyborg log. There is a community of 30,000 open member gloggers on the glogger.mobi website. This is also a new type of social networking, a web 2.0 phenomenon.

He is working with a visually impaired person to implant the entire system into his eye socket in a self-contained fashion. If it’s entirely inside the body, is this still an internal device?

He had a bad accident where his old eyeglasses were destroyed during a movie production scene. He was directed by a guard to walk over live electric wires. They were greasy, and he slipped, and it fried the system. A second guard said he shouldn’t have walked that way. He returned to the site of the accident to record it, but a third security guard then physically assaulted him for filming the incident on a public sidewalk. Thanks to the glog, this was all completely recorded. Imagine if all the world’s leaders were all wearing these systems and could see the lives of the others. This could resolve a lot of tensions.

An audience member, Rudi Hoffman, asks him if he dreams in the same way he sees things with his eyeglasses. He came up with something called Dremes - ideas that come from dreams. Most of his inventions he has while dreaming. He had a dream that he was playing in a fountain that was a musical instrument, and ended up building it: a hydrophone. He shows us a magazine with him on the cover playing the instrument. If you wake up with a dream and don’t move, you can go back to the dream again when you go to sleep. His recording devices allow him to take verbal notes of the dream and then reenter it. As such, he sometimes calls it the Dream Machine.

During the question session, he remarks that he was the first person to put his life on the web. Many people follows in his footsteps otherwise. He allowed people to scribble on his retina and modify his impression of reality, as a way of communicating. It got congested, so he came up with the idea of a sight license, including different protocols for partitioning space in his field of vision and interacting in groups.

An audience member poses the idea of him accidentally recording a person with a child who wants their location to be unknown to a former boyfriend or spouse. Professor Mann makes a distinction between acquisitional and disseminational freedom of data sharing — they can be distinct. The implication is that he should be allowed to acquire data as much as possible, but not necessarily disseminate it.

An audience member, Gene Natale, asks if one could ever record dreams using such a device. (A topic I’ve written on before). Professor Mann doesn’t know, but he considers it quite hypothetical, whereas he usually focuses on real technology. Gene also asks if he’s given up any of his rights by wearing the device, such as giving up his right to enter the US Embassy. He said you could argue that he has a right to have a hearing aid, and that as more people wear these things, acceptance will rise. People will agree that there is something wrong with an organization that is afraid. People who use surveillance argue that if people have nothing to hide, they should accept it. Why not turn that around, and ask, if the organization has nothing to hide, then why can’t we film them?

Professor Mann remarks that he’s witnessed a lot of accidents, and has come to the aid of these parties by helping them remember what happened. He mentions that he and his students developed a facial recognition system that pops up a remark on previous times you saw that person. Like a search engine, it gives up a number of “hits” on past sights of that person. Rudi Hoffman mentions that cryonicists like the idea of monitoring their vital signs, and if anything he is working on is relevant to that. Professor Mann is excited by the connection, and remarks that another of the reasons he wears his eyeglasses so people will know at least know what happens if he ever gets into a terrible accident.

Should cyborgs have lower insurance premiums because they’re less risk? The same applies, for, say a a donut shop with cameras. 30 lawyers in the law department at his university are working on the problem right now with a $4 million grant.

Audience member Cairn Idun asks for Professor Mann to invent a comfortable device that can constantly monitor the heart and notify others if it stops. Mann says that he would be interested in helping out with that.

Dr. Rothblatt calls Professor Mann “the Rosa Parks of transhumanism” because he puts himself at social and legal risk everyday by wearing his device. She believes that he will become increasingly recognized as one of the greatest technological pioneers of the last century for his work. I get the feeling that he already receives that recognition from many of the attendees here.

Professor Gene Natale — The Legal Obligations of Creators of People via Ectogenesis or Chimeric Non-Human DNA - the “Model Code”

Next speaker is Gene Natale, J.D., who a human characteristic. He was the judge in the BINA48 trials that took place over the last few years at this very gathering. His first slide shows his laws for robotics: 1) robots must be designed so that the laws can effectively control a robot’s behavior, 2) knowing that it was capable of preventing harm implies that the robot has achieved self-awareness - clearly a human characteristic, thus the robot would no longer be a true robot, 3) android-robot designed to look and act human arises a need for android laws.

Legal rights of robots — if we give rights to intelligent machines, either robots or computers, we’ll also have to hold them responsible for their own errors. (Quote from Rob Freitas’ work on the ethics of intelligent machines). Wendell Wallach: Our present laws are based on a clear distinction between persons and machinery that will be increasingly challenged by more complex and intelligent agents.

Rules for the modern robot — European Robotics Network (EURON). Is there a way to ensure robotic fighter planes do not kill the innocent by accident? Is “technical error” an appropriate excuse for violating the Geneva Convention? Should sex dolls resembling children be allowed? This group (EURON) is supposed to be releasing a detailed roadmap on these questions. The Japanese Ministry of Economy, Trade, and Industry is doing the same thing. Of course, many robots will be manufactured by Japanese companies.

Moving on to laws for cyborgs — short for “cybernetic organism”, the “melding of the organic and the mechanic”. There should be a Cyborg Bill of Rights. For robots, this includes a right to privacy on the internet, to reproduce and create new robots, seek education, employment and other actualizations of self in cyberspace in any reality, to peaceably assemble, accumulate and dispose of capital, innocent until proven guilty, right to marry a human, and right to inherit property.

Gordon is the world’s first robot controlled exclusively by living brain tissue — cultured rat neurons. The MEA (multi-electrode array) serves as the interface between living tissue and machine, with the brain sending electrical impulses to drive the wheels of the robots, and receiving impulses from sensors attached to the environment. The machine can learn, preventing itself from running into walls, for instance.

Part III: artificial brains. A NSF/DOC report acknowledges large issues are coming with the enhancement and understanding of the brain. Reverse engineering of the human brain may be accomplished in the next two decades that would allow for better understanding of its functions. An artificial brain could be a tool for discovery especially if computers could closely simulate the brain.

Part IV: artificial person. Human developmental manipulation, such as a chimeric gene (an artificial, human made) gene created by linking together separate segments of natural or synthetic DNA from different sources. NSF report on Converging Technologies for Improving Human Performance: “If the cognitive scientists can think it, nano people can build it, bio people can implement it, and IT people can monitor and control it.” The projections in the report suggest that in the absence of binding restrictions, the public could be induced to accommodate itself to fabricated humans and near-humans, organisms that previously existed only in the realm of speculative fiction. One paper by the Council for Responsible Genetics argues that, “drawing a sharp line is the only way to prevent the eventual production of experimentally damaged humans and quasi-humans”.

Another type of artificial persons. Artificial brains with natural intelligence. With the advent of nano-neuro techniques, neuroscience is about to gain insight into the mechanics of all brain functions. This could allow artificial brains with natural intelligence, partners that could join us to improve the world, as well as enhanced human brains. 1) Artificial people will be very human-like given their natural intelligence, and will develop within the human environment over a long course of close relationships with humans; 2) artificial people will not be like humans any more than humans are, 3) artificial people will need social systems to develop their ethics and aesthetics. Paper: Artificial Brains and Natural Intelligence, part of the Converging Technologies for Improving Human Performance report.

Part V: Model Code for Artificial Persons. An artificial person includes any mechanical or bio-mechanical unit or being, equipped with an “artificial brain”, capable of attaining “natural human intelligence”. The next section formally defines an “artificial brain”, then “natural human intelligence”. Possible provisions for the Model Code: there small be no fusion of artificial brains into larger brains, unless specifically permitted by law. There shall be no fusion or interconnection of artificial brains into or with human brains, unless specifically permitted by law. The brain of artificial persons shall not be further programmable after initial development, except to repair or preserve such a person.

Continuing with the provisions, artificial persons shall be provided with education and social systems to develop their ethics and aesthetics. Artificial persons shall be held liable and responsible for their own acts, and subject to all laws applicable to natural persons, in accordance with such artificial persons’ human intelligence and capabilities. Artificial persons may be employed to assist natural persons in all lawful endeavors, but shall not be allowed to engage in law enforcement or combat duties, except in an advisory capacity. Artificial persons shall have the same rights as afforded natural persons, except the right to bear arms, vote, hold public office, or reproduce. Professor Vitale doesn’t think that mankind would accept artificial persons with the latter rights. This, of course, was followed by objections by the audience. The debate had to be cut short, though, for the next speaker.

Wesley M. Du Charme, Ph.D — Palling Around: The Personhood Analysis List (PAL)

Wesley, a Ph.D psychologist, admits that he likes to measure things, not define them. He thinks we ought to create a personhood analysis list (PAL) to use as a decision aid, and make it open source. Example PAL list — 1) 50% or more human DNA, 2) Turing Test passing, 3) looks like a human, 4) exhibits emotion. (Yes, this is a human-centric list, but what else would you expect from a human making it up?) 5) claims of personhood, 6) ability to speak, 7) moves through environment, 8 ) meets the ontological description of a person, 9) granting personhood is in everybody’s best interest, 10) suffers because of lack of personhood, and 11) an “other” category.

How would this work? First, you get the list together, then score the elements from 1-10 depending on the degree. There would be a cutoff score for personhood. A score of 1? 5? 10? Cross-checking: would this make a person in a coma a person? What about someone with Down syndrome, or someone who is brain damaged? Maybe, someone could become so brain-damaged that they aren’t considered a person. The PAL should match our common sense. Weak AI or expert systems should not be considered persons, so the PAL list should cross-check this.

Advantages of PAL: no single element determinant, can use a weighted scoring for different list elements as a method of compromising, and that open source nature allows utilization of the best ideas. All elements of decision open to inspection and negotiation, visibility into process makes communication with lay audience easier, information richness of your decision can be controlled through the details of each list element. For instance, breaking down “can speak” into computer generated text messages, audible speech, what percentage of the audience can understand it, etc.

Decision making elements: 1) decision makers (judge, panel of judges, expert, panel of experts, etc.), 2) list elements, 3) element scoring, 4) cutoff score, 5) application process. Should any entity be allowed to apply? Legal process: do it at the state level, write model legislation, find a sponsor, present it to committee, a state legislature vote, then pick the next state.

Rudi Hoffman, CFD — The Ethics of Cryonics: Why the Future Probably Does Need You

Outline: 1) definition of ethics, 2) some surprisingly bad examples of ethics from historically venerated sources, 3) some recent ethics thought leaders, 4) ethics of cryonics, why you are worth saving. Rudi admits that he wants to massage our emotional brains after a day of academic talks. Even though some people think they’re highly rational, they often make decisions on an emotional basis. (I somewhat disagree — I actually think it’s possible for there to be people so obsessive with rationality that their decisions and emotions generally flow from rational appraisal rather than the other way around. Some devotees of Eliezer Yudkowsky’s writings on Overcoming Bias come to mind.)

Rudi gives us a definition of ethics from the dictionary. He admits us that it’s rather uninformative: a code of behavior, esp. of a particular group, profession, or individual. Next he shows us an image of a statue of Moses. He was a source of much ethics and morality, even today. He quotes Numbers 31:13-18, where Moses is angry that during a particular war in which they were triumphant, the Israelites didn’t kill every male child and non-virgin woman. Next, he shows us an image of Jesus, who he says that millions claim to talk to every day. Jesus is unhelpful with cryonics because he doesn’t have anything to say on it. (He doesn’t show us a Jesus quote, sadly.) The idea of people burning in hell forever is in the New Testament, by the way, so it’s not all better than the Old Testament stuff.

He quotes the Koran, about cutting off people’s heads and fingers. If people change their religion, they should be killed. What about the Bible? It says that we should kill people who don’t listen to priests (Deuteronomy 17:12). “Such evil must be purged from Israel”. Death for fortune telling, death for homosexuality, death for sorceresses and witches, striking his father or mother. Also, kill the entire town if one person worships another God, as well as all the livestock. (Deuteronomy 13:13-19.) The entire town must remain a ruin forever. Also, kill all women who aren’t virgins on their wedding night. Death for blasphemy — stoned to death by the whole community of Israel. Death for people who work on Sunday. Many of the people in the audience are laughing loudly, and Rudi says, “these statements deserve to be laughed at in the public square”. I again am baffled — how can people be Christian? How can they say they follow the Bible? They’re either hypocrites (by not following the Bible) or downright evil. If the Bible were published today instead of thousands of years ago, it would be considered a work of madness.

Modern ethicists: now, Leon Kass, chair of the President’s Council on Bioethics. “The human taste for immortality, for the imperishable and the eternal, is not a taste that the biomedical conquest of death cold satisfy. We would still be incomplete; we would still lack wisdom; we would still lack God’s presence and redemption.” Another quote, “One could look over the past century and ask oneself, has the increased longevity been good, bad or indifferent.” Since Leon is over the natural human age of living, perhaps he should terminate himself? Actually, I’d personally prefer him to freeze himself and join us in the future (if the species survives).

Another ethicist: Peter Singer. “My work is based on the assumption that clarity and consistency in our moral thinking is likely in the long run, to lead us to hold better views on ethical issues”. Peter Singer supports the Great Ape Personhood Project and encourages people to be vegetarians. Yeah, Peter Singer is cool (and one of the only reasonable ethicists that Rudi mentions in his presentation). I would’ve also mentioned David Pearce and Max More, though of course these are not as famous as the others mentioned.

How about Pope Benedict? “You offend God not only by stealing, blaspheming or coveting your neighbor’s wife, by also by ruining the environment, carrying out morally debatable scientific experiments, or allowing genetic manipulations which alter DNA or compromise embryos.” Rudi points out that a blastocyst has zero neurons, but a housefly has 100,000, so maybe we should feel worse for killing a housefly than a blastocyst.

Next Rudi references Ben Franklin, a quote from a 1773 letter of his to Jacques Dubourg when he mentions the idea of cryonics. Next, he shows us an image of Francis Fukuyama saying “Yes, absolutely”. That’s the answer, what is the question? “Does the government have the right to determine that citizens must die?” Next, Bill McKibben: “Theses are the most anti-choice technologies anyone has ever thought of.” (Referring to biotechnology, nanotech, and robotics.) How about Aubrey de Grey? Probably the only person on the planet doing enough to extend human lifespan. He references his talk, “Is it safe for a biologist to support cryonics publicly?”

Is it moral to want to live? What about overpopulation? Do you add more value to the world than you take? What if Einstein, Robert Ingersoll, or Thomas Edison were still alive and productive? If you are a human being that adds more value to the world than you take away, then you owe it to us to stay alive.

Is choosing cryonics ethical? What about alternate use of funds? Through life insurance, money to fund is created at time of need, does not reduce available assets. The cost is similar to a cup of Starbucks coffee a day.

Conclusion: 1) you cannot base your ethical decisions on what people allegedly said when technology was non-existent, 2) for authoritarian religionists to claim the morala high ground, they must acaknowledge that our actual ethics comes from experience, not scripture, 3) life is good, and a pre-requisite for doing good. It follows that your life is probably worth the affordable gamble of cryonics.

Questions and comments section. Martine worries that there will be robots will the Bible programmed as their ethical guideline. Rudi expresses worry that so many people think that ethics is already solved by the Bible. Modern ethics needs to be far more nuanced. Cairn says she agrees with 99% but disagrees with one thing: that anyone should be allowed to kill themselves if they want. No matter how much benefit they provide. Mike Perry concurs on that.

Martine Rothblatt — Make Up Your Mind: the Legal Identity of Transbemans with More Than One Presence

Whatsa Transbeman? A human without DNA, any being that wants human rights, a beman who transitioned from human. Next Martine shows us a funny comic with a car with a human head and hands: “So I thought, hey what the heck, it’s my life, who cares what other people think. I’ve always known I was a car trapped in a man’s body, so I got the operation, and I’ve never been happier”. More seriously, something like ASIMO with a conscience.

Human is to transbeman as sex is to transgender. It’s about being a being and being proud of it. Not getting hung up and what your substrate is. (Image of a drop of water hitting a pool.) So, who are we when we’re a spreading pattern and not a fixed body. A modest legal proposal: copies of a mind are the same mind until proven differently. Therefore, one mind, one vote, one continuous being across time and space. How to prove differently? The transgender “Real Life Test”. This is when you spend time once or twice a week with two psychologists and persuade them that their desire is sincere. This prevents doctors or surgeons from being sued after a sex-change operation, even if the patient later changes their mind. So, you might need to persuade two cyber-psychologists. Then you could obtain a judicial order of cyberbirth. Or, a multi-year immigration process from Res Nullius (an object or person with no legal status) to Jus Civile (a legal citizen).

Critiques? 1) isn’t this process slow? Yes, it is, but so is growing up and naturalization. Furthermore, cultivation improves appreciation. Won’t some “mindclones” pass the “Real Life Test”? Yes, but it doesn’t really matter. Many incompetent people, for instance those who just vote the way their preacher says, have citizenship. Cyberpsychology certification standards will diminish the problem (eliminate false positives), and naturalization-from-cyberspace procedures will diminish the problem.

“Each of us is a bundle of fragments of other people’s souls, simply put together in a new way.” — Doug Hofstadter, I Am a Strange Loop

Since we let humans birth new flesh minds, then why not also let them birth non-flesh minds? A mind is a being, a soul, a person, a transbeman. Every mind is a mixture of other minds, not wholly independent, not of purely free will, and in constant synchronization with friends and family.

So on this International Human Rights Day: instead of saying, “I dream of a day when my four children will be judged not by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.” Martine instead says, “I dream of a day when my four children will be judged not by the absence of their skin but by the content of their character.”

Take home message: human rights, such as citizenship, should flow to those who value them, regardless of their physiology, or lack thereof.

10 Responses »

(Michael Anissimov, Glenn Zorpette.)

First, may I welcome Mr. Zorpette to the wild and wacky world of debating the techological singularity! May these discussions be exciting and illuminating to you as they are boring and repetitive to me. (They’re not boring because of your comments, Mr. Zorpette, but merely from my stubborn insistence and decade-plus quest for understanding all the common objections and enthusiasms surrounding the so-called Singularity, despite their ever-repeated frequency.)

The IEEE Spectrum special issue on the Singularity is opened with a critical introduction by acclaimed technology journalist Glenn Zorpette, “Waiting for the Rapture” with the tagline, “Technological convergence will change our lives but won’t make them indefinitely long“, which represents his number one qualm with Singularity discussions, but a relatively minor component thereof: radical life extension. My initial comment would be, “I came for Singularity criticism, but got radical life extension criticism. Can you please write a new article that criticizes the feasibility of smarter-than-human intelligence, and makes criticism of life extension a side note, or submit this article to another magazine that addresses the life extension issue?”

The opening paragraph begins as follows:

“Across cultures, classes, and aeons, people have yearned to transcend death.”

Yeah, we totally have. And not in an exclusively irrational way either. Since the average lifespan back in the day was about 30, and now it’s about 80, I’d say we’ve come a long way.

He continues, “Bear that history in mind as you consider the creed of the singularitarians. Many of them fervently believe that in the next several decades we’ll have computers into which you’ll be able to upload your consciousness—the mysterious thing that makes you you. Then, with your consciousness able to go from mechanical body to mechanical body, or virtual paradise to virtual paradise, you’ll never need to face death, illness, bad food, or poor cellphone reception.”

1. No unified creed. Many singularitarians have different positions on the 22 concepts I listed. However, I do identify as a “singularitarian”, even though the word has lost most meaning, partially because it gives me an opportunity to respond to many of the arguments lobbed in my general direction.

2. Conscious is no more mysterious than life, the planets, etc. Mysteriousness is in the mind, not reality. All of these things seem mysterious until we actually begin to understand them through scientific inquiry. You know that, so why not drop the word “mysterious”?

3. Yes, if the mind is really just what the brain does, and the brain’s functionality can be duplicated in other media (carbon nanocomputers, etc.), then indeed, we will eventually have a future where we “go from mechanical body to mechanical body, or virtual paradise to virtual paradise, you’ll never need to face death, illness, bad food, or poor cellphone reception”. It’s just as foolish to dismiss the plausibility of this possible future scenario for its shock value as it is to embrace it for its superficial “geek rapture value”.

On to the second paragraph. The phrase “rapture of the geeks” is immediately invoked. As my colleague Steven writes, “that image of a shared psychological flaw is itself so seductive that it has distorted people’s view of what the singularity is about into a kind of geek-bible-wielding strawman — singularitarian ideas are assumed to parallel fundamentalist Christian ideas even where they don’t, just because the comparison is apparently so much fun.”

Singularitarian ideas are portrayed as full of shit because Rapture-believers are full of shit. But this guilt by association is unfair. Were the Wright brothers idiotic because they aspired toward controlled flight, and controlled flight had (allegedly) previously been the province of angels? Were the early nuclear engineers idiotic because they aspired to harness the power of the Sun, which had henceforth (allegedly) only been harnessed by God? Were the first genetic engineers idiotic, because they aspired to modify the very code of life, which up to that point had only (allegedly) been done by God? Are AGI designers idiotic because they aspire towards creating general intelligence in a medium other than biology, whereas previously, general intelligence has only been found within biological structures? Are life extensionists idiotic because they seek to ameliorate the causes of aging enough to heal metabolic damage before it causes pathology, and begin this project immediately rather than in a century?

The definition of the Singularity Zorpette uses in his first pargraphs is the “intelligence explosion” introduced by I.J. Good and popularized by Yudkowsky, but this is one of the only mentions it gets in his article. Otherwise, he ignores this scenario and focuses on mind uploading and radical life extension, both of which he severely doubts. This preoccupation with criticizing life extension sets Zorpette alone from other authors in this issue. I wonder if he is aware that of the tens of thousands of people advocating an engineering approach to life extension, only a minority buy into the Singularity visions extolled by Kurzweil?

Zorpette fairly rags on Ray Kurzweil’s upcoming movie, The Singularity is Near, saying, “Without any apparent irony, the picture’s producers call it “a true story about the future”. While understanding the need to make compromises when it comes to marketing soundbites, I agree with Zorpette that this is a poor tagline for Kurzweil’s movie. Please change it, Mr. Raymond Kurzweil! Here are my alternate suggestions for taglines, which, if adopted now (it’s not too late!), might avoid a national media backlash:

“The next step in humanity’s journey.”
“The harmony of technology and biology.”
“When technology improves biology.”
“Where is humanity headed?”
“Is the power of technology exponentially increasing?”
“Can the human body be enhanced?”

These taglines are provocative without invoking futuristic determinism, which Mr. Kurzweil has been heavily criticized for in the past and will continue to be criticized for in the future. This is a weak point, an Achilles heel, that Kurzweil could do without. The thing is, many of Kurzweil’s arguments are strong enough without the deterministic component. Viewed as probabilistic arguments, they still carry plenty of weight. It’s just that as a matter of presentation and marketing, Kurzweil seems linked to the deterministic approach (although he softened it in his recent book), which can be discarded without too much harm (and substantial gain, in fact).

Zorpette writes, “There’s also a drumbeat of respectful and essentially credulous articles in the science press.” Yes, there are! This reality causes me to snicker when Singularity critics try to portray the ideas as fringe, when they have been considered by journalists in the top magazines of the country, some of which I have had the pleasure to talk to personally.

He then writes, “Why should a mere journalist question Kurzweil’s conclusion that some of us alive today will live indefinitely? Because we all know it’s wrong.” Buh. This is where Zorpette shows that his big problem is with radical life extensionists in general, not just “singularitarians”. How does he know that all cryonically suspended persons will never be revived, even in 1000 years? Or that we will not reach longevity escape velocity by 2070, when I will will happen to be “only” 86? In his tone, Zorpette appeals to bioconservative biases like those of Leon Kass. But even Kass takes the “danger” of indefinite life extension seriously, while thinkers like Zorpette do not.

The body is a biological machine, and like antique cars, it should be possible to arrange its indefinite upkeep. Not by eliminating the sources of aging, but merely cleaning up damage before it accumulates to the point of causing pathology. This is the mantra of the Methuselah Foundation, and it makes sense.

Zorpette then says, “The singularity debate is too rarely a real argument. There’s too much fixation on death avoidance.” The unfortunate thing about this statement is that it shows that Zorpette’s focus is most on point #21 than on the other (more complex and difficult) 22 points. It must be somewhat new and startling to him, because many of his objections focus on it. The “Singularity”, a messy meta-concept containing over a dozen constituent concepts, can serve as a lens to examine those that support or criticize it, because they immediate seize upon those sub-concepts that they most detest or support. For Zorpette, his major hangup is the near-term feasibility of anti-aging therapies that clean up metabolic damage faster than it accumulates. It’s a little unfortunate, because it seems easier to argue against, say, mind uploading, or hard takeoff superintelligence. Why make your task more difficult than it needs to be?

Zorpette then quickly shows his respect for the power of technology by writing, “in the coming years, as ­computers become stupendously powerful—really and truly ridiculously powerful—and as electronics and other technologies begin to enhance and fuse with biology, life really is going to get more interesting.” Here, he seems to embrace transhumanist ideas in the abstract, while rejected the alleged extremism of “singularitarianism”. I welcome Zorpette to read the Transhumanist FAQ and see if his own views can be described as transhumanist in nature.

He then says, about their selection of article writers, “with a few exceptions, we found people who are not on record as either embracing singularity dogma or rejecting it.” It’s funny how this statement oddly tries to sound neutral, while at the same time calling singularity “dogma”. To simplify matters, I’m assuming that Zorpette is mainly mirroring the opinion of his friend John Horgan, who may have thought about the issue more than Zorpette has.

Regarding the role of technology journalism, Zorpette is influenced by Horgan’s idea that a “cranky”, rather than deferential approach, to the career is appropriate. This is fine by me! I’d prefer a mix of deferential, neutral, and enthusiastic journalism, covering all bases. Fortunately (?) for singularitarians, most journalists we talk to are enthusiastic and positive about our ideas. Which is why I welcome explicitly negative coverage (and that’s what this is) as a change of pace and an opportunity to respond to many of the common arguments.

Next, Zorpette summarizes the authors and their contributions. He writes, “Vinge’s 1993 essay “The Coming Technological Singularity” that launched the modern singularity movement.” I would argue that this is wrong. Eliezer Yudkowsky’s 1996 essay “Staring into the Singularity” started the modern singularity movement. As a card-carrying Singularity “cultist”, I think I know what I am talking about.

Zorpette then writes, “That movement has evolved since then into an array of competing hypotheses and scenarios [for a rundown, see “Who’s Who in the Singularity,” in this issue]. But central to them all is the paradoxical yet weirdly compelling idea of a conscious machine. Arguably, no other technology-related concept resonates with such intellectual and philosophical force.” It’s rather odd, because I don’t think that the idea is central to all the competing hypotheses and scenarios. For instance, Kurzweil admits that machines may not actually be conscious the same way as us, and still have a huge impact on the world. Rather, the idea of smarter-than-human intelligence (not consciousness) is central to the Singularity. That’s why you can talk about the Singularity while talking about biological upgrades alone. Conscious robots need not apply. Zorpette misses this, I think, because his high-octane career (which I respect!) doesn’t give him enough time to really dig very deep when it comes to Singularity discussions online.

If you asked me whether I’d take the opinion of a bright layman who has read about the Singularity online as a hobby for three years, or a high-octane journalist who spent a few weeks researching it for his special issue, I think I’d take the former. No offense to Zorpette, but I know how most high-achievers lives work — work, work, work, relax, sleep, then repeat. Not really enough time to sit around and absorb all the subtle stuff. After all, no one really pays you for it. (I’m very impressed by high achievers, like Dr. Jones and others, who invest the time to read blogs like this one, which occasionally rant and segue into random topics, despite their very busy schedules.)

In his next paragraph, Zorpette embraces functionalism, and pretends that everyone does: “Consciousness seems mystical and inextricably linked to organisms. What happens in the cerebral cortex that turns objective information into subjective experience—that turns chemical and neuronal activity in the mouth and nose into the taste of watermelon? pressure waves into the sound of an oboe? We don’t know, but we will someday. No one argues that consciousness arises from anything but biological processes in the brain.” Well, unfortunately, they do, including some of the people who commented in your issue, like Stephen Pinker apparently. In fact, I think the strongest phalanx of opposition to Singularity ideas consists of those, including many so-called scientists, who believe that consciousness cannot be traced to brain signals, but rather some immaterial pixie dust/soul/aura. After all, if you believe in Christianity, Judaism, or personal watered-down versions thereof (like 80% of Americans), views like this are common currency.

He says, “The brain is nothing more, and nothing less, than a very powerful and very odd computer.” I agree, but try proclaiming this at your next IEEE staff meeting, or your personal blog, and witness the numerous objections. Most Singularity skepticism is motivated by exactly these objections.

To wrap up, Zorpette writes, “What we do know is that the brain’s complexity dwarfs anything we’ve managed to fully understand, let alone build. Koch, Tononi, and Brooks are all confident that consciousness will arise in a machine, but they are less sanguine about death-defying uploading, and especially about it happening in time to allow people alive now to preserve their minds in some sort of digitally created Eden.”

This is amusing. If consciousness can arise in a machine, then why could a machine not be made in the human image, and harbor human consciousness? What seems to be occurring here is a reversal of the appropriate order of analysis.

First, you look at the requirements, not the consequences. Requirements of mind uploading:

1) finite state nature of the human brain and mind
2) computers fast enough to run that finite state program
3) substrate-independence of conscious experience
4) interface devices between the program and the external world

Consequences of mind uploading if it is possible:

1) Near-immortality
2) Digital Eden
3) other stuff that sounds religious but are straightforward consequences if uploading is possible

Zorpette and others look at the consequences first, then evaluate the requirements in light of the stated consequences. But wait! This is premature. Ignore the consequences. Look at the requirements on their own merits. If the requirements are fulfilled, then no amount of squirming will free us from extreme consequences, like copying Stephen Hawking’s brain a thousand times and letting them loose on the Internet.

High-profile figures like Koch, Tononi, and Brooks have a tremendous interest to discuss possible requirements on their own merits, but specifically avoid conclusions that lead to anything like uploading. So it’s no wonder that many of them are sanguine about possibilities of uploading. Of course, there are high-profile figures like Marvin Minsky, who I’ve been fortunate enough to get significant one-on-one time with, who do embrace the technological requirements of uploading and its likely consequences. But these are the minority.

My final impression? This is a critical article that attacks life extension and uploading, while mostly ignoring the other 20 points I address as components of this useless “Singularity” word. As for my personal emotional impression of the article, I find it difficult to get excited either way, maybe because I believe the Singularity concept is already as popular as it really needs to be. What is needed is to enhance understanding among those already exposed, not necessarily expose it to a wider audience.

As stated before, however, I would have preferred if the article focused on a critique of the nearness of smarter-than-human intelligence, rather than a critique of (the rather intuitive and heavily-supported) position of “death avoidance”, or critiques of the consequences (rather than the requirements) of mind uploading.

Zorpette views the Singularity as a special case of old-as-history death avoidance, when in reality it is quite a new vision of the dynamics of self-improving and nonbiological intelligence entirely distinct from death avoidance. For instance, most “singularitarians” believe that the Singularity could kill us all as easily as it makes us live indefinitely. Only Ray Kurzweil, and a lesser-known transhumanist futurist, John Smart, have seemingly suggested that the Singularity is necessarily a good thing. Vernor Vinge, Eliezer Yudkowsky, and at least 100 other Singularity advocates I know personally would argue against that.

12 Responses »

Leon Kass, the scientific community frowns on your deathist shenanigans and paternalistic tomfoolery. We will continue to denounce your anti-freedom, control-freak bioethical views until the day your theocon allies are booted out of the White House, which will occur on January 20, 2009. Enjoy your eight months.

I’ve been sniping at Leon Kass since I joined the online life extension community in 2001. “Objections to Immortality: Answering Leon Kass” was one of my first life extension advocacy works. In 2004, my paper was discussed by Tihamer Toth-Fejel at the 1st Conference on Advanced Nanotechnology in Washington, DC, in his presentation, A Critical Look at Leon Kass and Transhumanists on Ageless Bodies.

That’s why it’s exciting to have prestigious cognitive scientist Dr. Steven Pinker, author of what is possibly the best book on evolutionary psychology ever written, How the Mind Works, come join the fray. In The Stupidity of Dignity, published a couple weeks ago at The New Republic, Dr. Pinker sees right through Kass’ hyper-theological, far-right, intolerant, paternalistic bioethics.

Pinker presents several good reasons for why the concept of “dignity”, an all-purpose freedom-restricting platitude used by theocons in America’s capital at and at the Vatican alike, is not very useful in bioethics. He pokes fun at the recent, laugh-out-loud 555-page volume, Human Dignity and Bioethics, writing, “Although the Dignity report presents itself as a scholarly deliberation of universal moral concerns, it springs from a movement to impose a radical political agenda, fed by fervent religious impulses, onto American biomedicine.” Fortunately for America and the world, mainstream bioethicists will have none of it.

According to Pinker, many of the Dignity contributors are hot under the collar about the bioethicist Ruth Macklin, writer of a recent editorial in British Medical Journal, Dignity is a Useless Concept, making her “the villain of almost every piece”. But it doesn’t take a professor of bioethics to see why the “dignity” of Kass and the Vatican is a concept that can be molded into pretty much whatever the writer wants it to be. A bright High School student could do it as a weekend project.

In his piece, Pinker exposes us to the ludicrousness of the report, sparing us from slogging through its 555 mind-numbing pages. Pinker writes, “the volume finds room for seven essays that align their arguments with Judeo-Christian doctrine. We read passages that assume the divine authorship of the Bible, that accept the literal truth of the miracles narrated in Genesis (such as the notion that the biblical patriarchs lived up to 900 years), that claim that divine revelation is a source of truth, that argue for the existence of an immaterial soul separate from the physiology of the brain, and that assert that the Old Testament is the only grounds for morality.” Pinker also included my favorite Kass quote — the one about how eating ice cream in public makes us no different than animals. You can’t make this stuff up.

Having naysayers like Kass makes being an advocate of life extension both fun and easy. However, just because Kass and company are off the deep end does not mean that there aren’t valid concerns about the ethics of life extension. That’s why Aubrey de Grey is organizing the evening session “Aging: the Disease, the Cure, the Implications” next month in Los Angeles. Why transhumanists and other forward-looking thinkers have discussions in journals and on blogs, such as this one, about the ethics of this whole project. Although radical life extension will not radically increase the population over what it would otherwise be (population expands exponentially either way), our lifestyles with the current manufacturing base are indeed unsustainable, which is why we must invest in clean manufacturing processes, like nanomanufacturing, and low-waste or no-waste power sources, like solar thermal, thorium reactors, and nuclear fusion.

When George W. Bush is ejected from the White House and replaced with Barack Obama, Kass’ time in the sun will be over. He will continue to age, all the while denying medical treatments that could extend his life, until he presumably dies. However, I would welcome a discussion with Leon Kass in the year 2050 or beyond. Dr. Kass, if you ever come around and take advantage of rejuvenation therapies, in which billions of dollars are already being invested, don’t be afraid to drop us life extensionists a line. We’ll be waiting, having fun and enjoying life.

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Annalee Newitz, a tech writer in the Bay Area, is making it into the public eye again with her new blog, io9. I occasionally read her columns in the Chronicle and other places. Unfortunately, while an obvious tech head and science fiction fan, Ms. Newitz is a strident anti-transhumanist who argues that gaining control over the human genome is a “stupid dream”. Read her well-known opinion piece, “Extropian Trash”, published in the SF Bay Guardian in 2004:

“I HATE the extropians. I just can’t say enough bad things about their whole stupid, late-1980s Los Angeles robot cult philosophy, which I’m convinced was inspired by a combination of Christianity, transactional analysis and (perhaps worst of all) the science fiction of Robert Heinlein.

Picture this: It’s 1985, and a bunch of people, too young to have been hippies, too old to understand yet that MIT’s Media Lab is doomed to be irrelevant, are still recovering from having grown up during the 1960s “rocket age.” Now they’re living in California doing boring jobs or going to stupid private universities, and the flying cars they were promised on The Jetsons are nowhere to be seen. Plus, nobody has cured cancer, the light-filled aliens haven’t arrived to impart wisdom and there still isn’t an anti-aging drug they can take to preserve their wrinkle-free, preternatural tans.

So they get into self-improvement, but with a high-tech twist. They call their movement “extropy” – you know, like the opposite of “entropy,” which is the process of slowing down and descending into chaos. Extropy is supposedly a way of always progressing, growing and transforming oneself – particularly by using science. The extropians decide that science is going to save them from everything, especially growing old and dying. It will be just like heaven, only with a lot more tantric sex and smart drugs.

Some of them start theorizing that in the future they’ll be able to upload their brains into computers. Others request that their bodies or heads be cryogenically frozen after they die so that they can be revived, Futurama-style, in a far-distant future where everything is perfect and glorious and subject only to the laws of extropy.”

(Continue here.)

Before I say anything else, I want to state that calling any group of people “trash” is reprehensible. Journalists should not be held to a lower standard of common decency than other people just because they’re trying to use shock tactics get more readers. I call on Ms. Newitz to withdraw her characterization of a human group as trash.

Thinking about Ms. Newitz’s absolute hatred towards transhumanists (equaled only by Leon Kass and Francis Fukuyama), I think it’s based mostly on politics, her impression that transhumanism is derived from libertarian philosophies that she so despises. If transhumanism emerged and was presented in a left-wing fashion, I doubt she would have such a strong adverse reaction. Fact is, there are transhumanists of all political stripes. According to the 2007 WTA member survey, 47% of members consider themselves left wing, up from 36% in 2003. So many of the transhumanists Ms. Newitz is calling “trash” actually have political positions sympathetic to hers. (Although the beginning of the article references extropians, later the word “transhumanists” is used interchangeably with it.)

Transhumanism is not inspired by Christianity. That is why the word “humanism”, as in “secular humanism” is part of the very word itself. Two-thirds of WTA members are atheist or agnostic, compared to just 12% at the national level in the US. The connection with Christianity is being drawn because transhumanists seek radical life extension, and Christian mythology (as well as many other world religions) also seek radical life extension in the form of an afterlife. But this connection is superficial: the majority of people in society are interested in leading long, healthy, lives, so neither transhumanists nor Christians are special in this regard.

Newitz tries to connect transhumanism to flakey New Age philosophies popular in the Los Angeles region, but again, the connection only stretches about as far as where the movements were founded. New Age ideas are only entertained by a tiny minority of transhumanists, much fewer than would be expected for a randomly selected group. Being predominately secular, transhumanists advocate skepticism and the scientific method. Newitz’s New Age attack on transhumanism seems to come from more of a “what dirt can I dug up/make up?” rather than anything substantial.

Newitz goes on to say “they proselytize for rampant individualism”, but again, this is a mistaken connection between the extropianism of the mid-90s and the more politically diverse transhumanism of the 00s. Even extropians today have stepped back from associations with any particular political philosophy. Prominent transhumanists today put far more emphasis on collective issues and responsible personal decision-making than Newitz insinuates.

Later in the article, Newitz writes, “transhumanism definitely has the potential to catch on big time”, as it’s “it’s already fairly popular among members of the nerd elite, who’ve got money and control the blogosphere”. Here, she is absolutely correct. Transhumanism is catching on more every year. I would know, as I’ve been watching transhumanist ideas since I was a teen. I only hope transhumanism catches on even more, and that more transhumanists emphasize personal responsibility over rampant individualism.

Another thing that bothers me about Newitz’s criticisms is that they seem hypocritical. She says she hates the transhumanist philosophy, but seems perfectly comfortable with transhumanist entities in science fiction. A glance at her blog shows entries on superheroes, robotics, nanomedicine, and more. Her site banner is a creepy, strung-out girl with numerous brain implants conspicuously growing from her scalp. Ms. Newitz, you are already helping spread and promote transhumanist ideas!

On her blog, Newitz primarily focuses on science fiction, which is imaginary. Most transhumanists focus on technologies that are either already real or are in active development. Which is more relevant to the real world? Real technology, obviously.

I believe a lot of Newitz’s attacking of transhumanism is based on her perceived opposition of transhumanist technologies to liberal ideals such as equality. But preventing the introduction of transhumanist technologies worldwide would require a totalitarian dictatorship. Otherwise, they will surely be adopted. People want to be healthier and live longer, and calling them “trash” for wanting these things won’t stop them. If one country passes laws against transhumanist technologies, people will just move.

I believe that Ms. Newitz would actually be interested in transhumanism as it is today if she read up a bit on it, but I have the feeling that she probably recoils away from any transhumanist web page in horror, dismissing it without thinking. I suggest she read the WTA FAQ, which answers questions like “will new technologies only benefit the rich and powerful?” and “will extended life worsen overpopulation problems?” She might learn something.

Update: More confusion. On her homepage, Newitz links James Hughes, author of Cyborg Democracy, one of the most prominent transhumanists there is. In a recent interview with WIRED, when asked “What will the blog’s longer features focus on?”, she answers, “The idea that we’re going to be enhancing and modifying our bodies at a fundamental level is interesting. We’re already seeing it in animals — we’ve already got drugs to make fruit flies gay and fearless mice.” So, she’s completely comfortable with transhumanism as long as it doesn’t smell libertarian to her? Body modification is okay but radical life extension is not? Make up your mind!

I am also worried about a possible growing phenomenon that Newitz seems to partially embody: that it’s hip to be mean. Growing up across the Bay from Berkeley my entire life, I sometimes get the impression that some radical leftists are engaged in an arms race to see who can be more angry and rude to their enemies. This is anathema to what leftism in the San Francisco Bay (and around the world) should really be about: love, peace, and compassion.

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Here is a list of prominent people who take transhumanist ideas seriously enough to either discuss them or (more rarely) fear them. For those new to this blog, “transhumanism” is briefly defined in this post. By extension, people on this list have also been exposed to the idea of abrupt or accelerating technological change, though not necessarily technological change that “transcends stakeholder politics”. The object of this list is to show that transhumanist topics have become acceptable for mainstream discussion in recent years.

1. Bill Clinton, former US President, who recommended The Age of Spiritual Machines to the audience at a talk at the Brainstorm 2001 conference. He called the book a “compelling view of the future” and lamented political leaders “out of touch” with the acceleration of technology.

2. Bill Gates, founder of Microsoft, who called Ray Kurzweil “the best person I know at predicting the future of artificial intelligence”. Gates’ writings on robotics indicate he expects massive technological change in the near future.

3. Richard A. Clarke, top US counter-terrorism adviser turned science fiction author. His 2007 novel Breakpoint takes a pro-transhumanist stance and mentions the movement by name.

4. Bill Joy, co-founder of Sun Microsystems, who expresses apprehension of transhumanist technologies in his landmark WIRED article, Why the future doesn’t need us.

5. Marvin Minsky, co-founder of MIT’s AI laboratory, who Isaac Asimov called one of the smart people he ever met. Minsky frequently discusses cryonics and human-level artificial intelligence.

6. Leon Kass, former chair of the President’s Council on Bioethics from 2002–2005, whose seriousness and opposition towards transhumanism is outlined in the report Beyond Therapy, among other writings.

7. Stephen Hawking, theoretical physicist, who advocates genetic engineering of humans to prevent AIs from “taking over the world”. In Scientific American, Hawking wrote an article promoting a transhumanist vision of the future.

8. David D. Friedman, anarcho-capitalist and law professor at Santa Clara University. His recent book Future Perfect deals with transhumanist themes, and he has been writing on the topics for over two decades.

9. Peter Thiel, co-founder of Paypal and early investor in Facebook. Thiel financed SIAI’s Singularity Summit and has offered $3.5 million in matching funds to the Methuselah Foundation.

10. Steve Jurvetson, a leading Silicon Valley venture capitalist as Managing Director of Draper Fischer Jurvetson. Jurvetson’s blog, the J-Curve, discusses accelerating change, superintelligence, synthetic life, biotechnology, nanotechnology, and other transhumanist themes.

There are many others, but ten should be enough for now. The point is: don’t be afraid to bring up transhumanist topics with fellow intellectuals, at work or at home. The folks above probably all have a lot to lose, but they mention the issues with candor. By the same token, their high esteem may make others tolerant of quirky inclinations they may have, but the general response to these discussions has been positive, not dismissive.

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I’m in Melbourne Beach, Florida today, covering the 3rd Annual Terasem Colloquium on the Law of Transbeman Persons. There are about 20 of us in a classroom-style arrangement, with a nice large flatscreen at the front of the room for presentations. This colloquium is being thoroughly recorded in every possible way: there is a filming team (the same company that covers Space Shuttle launches), a time-delayed streaming video, professional stenographer, and call-in listening available. (Callers within the continental U.S. and Canada may dial 1-877-879-6207; other countries: (00+1) 1-719-325-4775.) This post will be regularly updated as new information comes in. The program is available here. Lots of condensed brainpower in this room — Marvin Minsky, Max More, Mike Perry (from Alcor), Justin Lowe (from ImmInst), and quite a few Ph.Ds I was fortunate to meet with at the reception the previous night before.

Dr. Martine Rothblatt is opening up the day with her welcoming announcements. She’s reviewing the history of various law colloquia. For instance, in 1958 was the first colloqiuim on the law of outer space. Back then, the space colloquia might be considered similarly odd to the colloquia we are conducting today. At that time, the only thing had ever been launched was Sputnik — a grapefruit-sized satellite.

Today, there are already quite a few examples of early forays into the transhuman, more than there were forays into space into 1958. Examples: ASIMO, organ transplantations are commonplace (75,000+ so far), over 100 people are cryonically suspended, a dog kidney has been successfully vitrified and transplanted. Brain-computer interfaces demonstrate the first steps towards complete mind uploading. We have caps that serve as input devices just by measuring blood flow in the brain.

When legal efforts began into space was 1958. Now, 50 years later, almost into 2008, we have the first legal efforts to look into the law of transbeman persons. In the case of space, the goal was to avoid conflicts among states, with transbeman law, the goal is to avoid conflicts among persons. We are on the verge of creating non-DNA or only partially DNA-based persons. The need to avoid conflict among persons is even stronger today that the need to avoid conflict over space fifty years ago.

Many of the questions revolve around boundaries. In 1958, it was concluded that the inherent dynamics of spaceflight made it that traditional concepts of sovereignty had to be abandoned. Yet, someone had to be legally responsible for every object placed into space — registration, coordination, and strict liability for damages. People sometimes argue, “why have laws if they can be broken?” Well, even if they’re broken 10%, 20% of the time, it’s better than having nothing.

In the context of transbeman law, what can we conclude? The age-old concepts of citizenship and death may have to give way to new techno-logical realities, in the same way that happened with space. But also, responsibility for transbeman persons need to be regularized. Many issues: rights and obligations, aplication of laws, personhood, citizenship, parenting, etc. (Funny slide here with one copy of Data from Star Trek threatening another copy.)

Obviously, law has to evolve with technology. The same way that Copernicus’ discovery o fthe rotation of the Earth limited the amount of time that old-school sovereignty concepts could continue, Turing’s theory of machine consciousness was the beginning of the end of traditional concepts of human-only citizenship.

10, 20, or 50 years, what will happen? Perhaps a transition to an information-theory based concept of personhood. For instance, 30 years ago “dead” used to mean a stopped heart, then it changed to mean the cessation of electrical activity in the brain. At the time, this was radical. AI citizenship is on the horizon.

Terasem: mission to educate the public to great extend our lives, in diversity, unity & joy via geoethical nanotech and personal cyberconsciousness, through conferences, websites journals, radio, film, research, and especially practical demonstrations. (Martine introduces all the staff of the Terasem Movement, Inc. I was fortunate to sit with many of them at dinner last night and had some nice conversations about CybBeRev.)

Martine welcomes Marvin Minsky — father of AI, prolific inventor, so many inventions that each time we look at the list, a new one surprises us. Software for confocal scanning microscopes — these are central to all work in biotech.

(Professor Minsky now takes the podium.)

Prof. Marvin Lee Minsky, Ph.D.
MIT – “Father of Artificial Intelligence”
Cambridge, Massachusetts
“The Emotion Machine”

Minsky shows us a list of problems that we’ll have to deal with soon. Global warming, biodiversity, energy, terrorism, fundamentalism, migration and cultural wars, health costs and epidemics, new viruses and nano things, planetary impactors, global internet attacks, etc. Another huge problem will be caused by life extension and the drive towards (ultimately) immortality. This is causing an acute labor shortage, and forcing many countries to import labor from overseas. Clement — the French centenarian, lived to 122. In an interview she revealed that she met Van Gogh, but couldn’t stand to be in his presence, because he had such awful breath! Apparently the biographers left this out in their official accounts… anyway, as Aubrey de Grey and others have argued, it seems like lifespan will be lengthening to the point our lives are extended faster than they’re running out. Anyway, our most urgent problem may be a Labor Crunch.

“SAINT” - symbolic automatic integrator. Siagle 1961 — an automated program for determining integrals. The program took about 15 minutes to get an integral, about the same as what it would have taken an MIT student at the time to figure it out. The computer even made us feel as it was lifelike, because it so slow.

(Shows a slide similar to an IQ test question, about analogies between geometric symbols. In 1964 — Evans’ geometric analogy program (MIT). Today, we don’t see programs like this. Physics envy — AI designers are always looking for a unified theory. Genetic programming took off, and these had useful applications in some niches: for instance, optical character recognition and the design of computer chips. Today, we have tens of thousands of programs based on 10 or 12 fads. None of these fads lead us to commonsense reasoning.

Many computer programs surpass human performing at specialized jobs. Ray Kurzweil’s FatKat program is supposed to perform better than brokers at predicting changes in the stock market.

But there is little progress in robotics, for instance. No robot can simply put a pillow in a pillowcase. In AI, there is no program that can read a simple story, like a fairy tale, and summarize what it means.

Examples of commonsense knowledge: you can use a string to pull, but not push. If you break something, you have to pay for it. People usually go indoors when it rains. And so on. Every child knows about 20 million or more similar statements. Cyc has 3-4 million such statements. MIT OpenMind is another project in this direction.

Commonsense thinking (shows a slide of his grandchildren playing with blocks). Physical: what if I pull out that bottom block? Social: should I help with his tower or knock it down. Any child thinks about the situation from many different perspectives: emotional, mental, bodily, visual, tactile, spatial. (Dr. Minsky goes into a small sidenote on children’s toys here: why are legos so popular when you can’t even create triangles with them? They’re so rigid and inflexible… I recommend simple blocks or Tinkertoys. I can empathize with this.)

So, why are AIs still so specialized? Most AI researchers have tried to invent some single technique that could extend to solve all types of problem. So our field split into specialties: reinforcement learning, rule-based systems, neural networks, statistical inference, formal logic, genetic programs, “baby machines”. Each method works only in certain domains. We need to know much more about where each method works and why. Today, statistics making use of conditional probabilities is most popular.

Genetics can only build creatures that can solve a few serious problems. When you tell a child a fairy tale, they learns tens of thousands of examples where bad things happen to people. Genetics cannot accumulate huge knowledge bases. You can billions of nucleotides in your genome: if that were a real database, why would you even need to go to school? I haven’t seen anyone else look at how evolution is so limited in this way.

To make a smart machine, you need to give it different ways to think instead of just one. The human brain has hundreds of different centers, not just one. Even if you knew exactly how neurons work, you wouldn’t necessarily be very far along. There is a lack of communication between people and AI and neuroscientists.

Think about a chair. There are so many different ways to represent it. As something that is bought, as something that makes people comfortable. In my book, I call this panalogy. If you only understand something in one way, you get stuck. If you have multiple ways, then when one interpretation doesn’t work, you can quickly start thinking about it in another way.

Suppose we agree that what makes humans intelligence is that when we get stuck thinking in one way, we can quickly (in less than a second) switch to a new way of looking at it. But there are further questions. How do you know when to switch? What do you switch to? And so on. Here is a sequence I propose in my recent book, The Emotion Machine:

If a problem seems familiar, try reasoning by analogy.
If it seems unfamiliar, change how you’re describing it.
If it still seems too difficult, divide it into several parts.
If a problem is too complex, replace it by a simpler one.
If your methods do not work, ask someone else for help.

I named my book “Emotion Machine” as a way of getting people to read it… unfortunately this didn’t work. Anyway:

Old view of emotions:
most emotions add features to thoughts, the way an artist adds colors to black-and-white drawings. We grew up in a culture teaching us that emotions are additional mysterious features of thoughts. I am arguing the opposite.

New view of emotions:
Emotions actually serve to suppress aspects of thought rather than augment them. For instance, love can cause us to suspend our critical faculties.

(Minsky’s wife reads aloud a page from the Emotion Machine that is relevant here. I always liked this part, and you can see it online here.)

What is a “way to think”? Think of a mind as a cloud of resources. Each mental state activates some different set of mental resources. Anger, hunger, fear, thirst. These selectively activate or deactivate sets of mental resources. I say that the “low” level thinking and “higher” thinking works the same way. Splitting a job into parts, making an analogy, etc.

In the end, I conclude this works on six levels, in order from “superego” to “id”: self-conscious emotions, self-reflective thinking, reflective thinking, deliberate thinking, learned reactions, instinctive reactions. Psychology got stuck due to physics envy. People are looking for simple principles, but we know that the brain is really complex.

So that’s the idea. I’m trying to get a group of researchers together to implement this theory. I’m trying to get funding together for it at this point. If we go in this direction, it’ll take 5-6 years to get a working prototype. If this architecture works, perhaps we can create some sort of collaborative system where many people can contribute details.

My fear is that AI won’t take off until we get some architecture, like this one, that others can contribute to it. There is currently no high-level architecture for developing different methods. If humans survive the next half-century, we’ll see systems who are arguably deserve the same rights as humans. Unfortunately, the first 200 or so versions could be so buggy that you shouldn’t give them rights… in software we know that this is how things work.

Next presenter…

David R. Koepsell, J.D., Ph.D
Yale Interdisciplinary Center for Bioethics
New Haven, CT
“The Legal Ontology of Persons: the Transbeman Example” (ppt)

I’m a philosopher. Let me clarify the way I use the word “ontology”: the generalizing from experience so we can build robust vocabularies that represent reality. Google “basic formal ontology” for more info.

My overall thesis today: there are numerous existing ontologies, and all of them have inbuilt assumptions about the nature of personhood that we need to look at more closely.

Here’s one example of an ontology. The Gene Ontology: molecular function, cellular component. When this is complicated, this should give us an accurate picture of the organism’s phenotype from its genotype.

We represent the world at different levels of granularity, depending on the ontology at hand. Simple biomedical ontologies aren’t going to give us a good answer to the question “what is a person?” There is no good work in ontology being done on the question. For instance, the social object “person” is not, and perhaps cannot be, contemplated by the Gene Ontology, even in its completed form. We need a separate ontology of “persons”.

Minsky asks: if Islam a person. Koepsell: no, it lacks cognition and other things we see as central to a person.

Emergent properties of personhood are ontologically related by not dependent on the gene ontology. Bearing rights, intending owing duties, etc. These are different than genes and their expression.

To bridge the gap between biomedical ontologies and important emerging problems, we have to start a research project. There are many practical social and legal issues arising out the potential answers.

Persons are the legally, socially, and culturally relevant level of granularity in social ontologies (such as legal ontologies). There is plenty of preexisting data on this — we need to mine it and find relations. There are already some legally and socially relevant categories known to be encompassed by the genome. Some genetic disease produce persistent and legally relevant mental states… e.g aph1b and schizophrenia.

Biomedical and legal/social ontologies should communicate more . Obviously, medial classifications matter in legal ontologies. For instance, criminal liability only attaches to sane, competent adults.

Blastocysts, fetuses, rights-bearing persons and a fresh human corpse are all legally and socially distinct even though they may be biomechanically identical.

Objections/problems: isn’t this just science? Well, no. It doesn’t always express the relationships in ways useful across sciences. Some people use the same words in different ways, which limits communication between fields. If we establish common ontologies, it can help us address bioethical challenges.

Another objection: isn’t this terribly complicated. Yes. No one said it would be easy. But current social ontologies all hinge on some recognition of the entity “person”. In a lot of my work, I start from legal precedents. The law has had to grapple with these issues in a really practical way, long before philosophers look at them.

We are developing necessary conditions for personhood, but we must define sufficient conditions separate from existing ontologies. Biology alone is overbroad and insufficient in defining legally and socially relevant category of “person”. Now is an auspicious time to be addressing the question.

Linda MacDonald-Glenn: to David, are you looking for a baseline of negative minimum liberties?

Dr. Koepsell: before we look at questions of liberty and rights, we just want to ask what a person is. A pre-ethical standpoint. We have to ask what the object in question is.

(Break. We go upstairs and have fruits and coffee while admiring the Atlantic.)

William Sims Bainbridge, Ph.D
National Science Foundation
Arlington, VA
“The Rights of an Avatar” (ppt)

Here’s one of personalities: Max Rone — top level priest of Holy Light, part of the Alliance, maxed out in herbalism and alchemy, Winged Ascension Guild. In July, I had a cover article in Science magazine where I talked about how people would use virtual worlds for research purposes.

Dr. Bainbridge shows a slid with two avatars on the screen at once. They’re both his, so he has more than one identity. The idea of an avatar is really old — look at Zeus appearing to Europa as a bull. Do kids playing Mario think of themselves as a fat plumber? Probably not in totality, but in some. Lunette, Preistess of Elune is one of my Warcraft characters. I partially identify with her… it’s not a problem that she’s a different gender.

How independent are avatars from their creator? Obviously the rights aren’t the same. When people erase avatars of themslves, is that suicide, homocide, or infocide? The rights of avatar don’t depend on just laws and ethics, but all sorts of other constraints.

An avatar is a manifestation of self, but belongs to a social system. (Great slides here from WoW, you should definitely download the ppt.) For instance, in this auction house in WoW, we have various AIs along with avatars. I’ve taken over 15,000 screenshots in WoW… it’s annoying because there’s no way to search them all.

In a WoW dungeon, a raid, only five people can visit the dungeon. There are various levels of organization: there’s the party, the guild, then the greater Alliance. As a priest, I heal people as their health gets low. We help each other. A network of obligations make possible.

Rights are relative. Rights are social constructions, so they are relative to the social system and the status of the individual in that system. Different MMORPGs have different rules: Ultima Online Everquest 2, Star Wars Galaxies, etc. These cause different social systems to emerge.

In many MMORPGs, there are rules that restrict people. You can get kicked out for using your real name, especially when kids are involved. Prohibited: profanities, etc. But what if I’m naturally a profane person? That aspect of my personality doesn’t get included. In Habbo Hotel, you can’t take part in sexual acts with other Habbos, abuse or bully other Habbos, etc.

Migration rights. It’s not currently possible for one avatar from one world, say SecondLife, to go into World of Warcraft. Active Worlds & Entropia Universe try to create standards for diverse worlds, serving as platforms. Usually worlds are “sharded”, that is, they’re divided up. In WoW, you can move between realms for a fee. In SecondLife, the number of avatars you can have in one area is limited.

Property rights in SecondLife. You can buy and sell virtual objects using Linden dollars. The transaction rate is about L$250 per USD. In WoW, you’re not supposed to be able to trade dollars for in-game currency.

Right to life = data security? Sometimes there are glitches, and data gets lost. One character, various attributes got lost, and I had to go back and reassign them. In WoW, there is an “armory” that present summary data for all the millions of characters that are level 10 or above. This is publicly available, so there’s no privacy. WoW generates vast amounts of data, but not all of it is availble.

I recently conducted a $1 million project. The goal was to determine the way economic systems in EverQuest 2 worked. We had all the data from the game, based on detailed data from servers and a questionnaire completed by 10,000 players. It’s hard to get people to fill out questionnaires, but if you reward people with virtual objects, surprisingly, there is a nearly 100% response rate. And that virtual object is free. So we got quite a few responses.

Because EverQuest 2 wasn’t intended to archive everything about people, I had to try and use the existing data as best as possible. My goal is to engage in personality capture.

In WoW, a programming language called Lua is used. There are open source software programs that allow you to query large amounts of variables in entire WoW realms. I’m a member of many different realms just so I can get that data out. I believe that virtual worlds are great for getting personality capture information. I still believe in questionnaires, sure. Virtual worlds are a great place for building early, low-resolution models of human personalities.

What do I believe avatars deserve? A right to joy!

Let me end with this quote:

“Transcendence is a problem of translation: First we must learn the language”.

Now, questions and comments.

Linda MacDonald-Glenn: the American Bar Association recently did a seminar on online issues, one of the questions that came up was, “do avatars have legal rights?” Someone there said she was coming out with a paper on the legal rights of avatars.

Bainbridge: the computer science research in this area is quite spotty. In crime, for instance, they look at some of the issues in more detail. There is a lot of room for review articles that are both empirical and conceptual.

Max More: any situations where agreements in virtual worlds have led to legally binding agreements on the outside?

Bainbridge: many of the guilds I know in WoW actually know each other in the real world. So they do have that connection. It seems that the US federal government has banned gambling in SecondLife. Many virtual worlds have an incentive to forbid interchangeability of currencies to avoid the possibility of taxation. I see technical changes in WoW to block Chinese gold farmers from doing their thing.

Sebastian Sethe: is there a moral difference when a character does and a person does?

Bainbridge: I just came back from a conference on computational social science put on by Harvard and MIT. If I want education in ethics, I would play WoW. The game has a very strong allegorical message about trust and the consequences for breaking it. One of my favorite quests in WoW is to go to the Scarred Vale in Stone Talon Mt., where the Venture Company is chopping down trees. You know what you get to do? Chop them down! The religion of the holy light has three tenets: respect, tenacity, compassion.

Linda MacDonald-Glenn, J.D., LLM
Alden March Bioethics Institute at Albany Medical Center and University of Vermont’s College of Nursing and Health Sciences, Burlington, VT
“The Tao of Personhood: the Yin and Yang of Property-Person Continuum” (ppt)

It’s important to bring a cross-cultural perspective to these issues. It’s traditionally been so dominated by the Western views, so I’ve studied things like the Tao.

Three cases in the not-too-distant future where traditional notions of personhood are being challenges: chimpanzees with vocal cords, artificial wombs, and cyborg soldiers created with spare parts.

One example of expanding personhood today: we’ve come to recognize that pets aren’t mere objects, or pieces of property. There six states that recognize pets are not just property. (Dr. MacDonald Glenn asks everyone in the audience who has pets, practically everybody raises their hands. How many of them consider them members of the family? The hands stay up.) Laws are evolving to reflect these views.

In Colorado, there’s a measure on the ballot on whether or not embryos deserve personhood. It might not happen, but you see a push in that direction.

Divergent paths of intelligence- hardware, software, human. Three overlapping areas of evolution: sentient machines (AI), disembodied entities (avatars), human technogenics (cyborgs). Anticipated NBIC payoffs: improved effciency, sensory and cognitive capabilities, revolution in healthcare, nanotechnology-based implants.

The military is making efforts towards enhancing human intelligence. This could be to keep up with AI. Safe AGI: perhaps all AGI should be driven by mammal-origin brains. I don’t know enough about this… it’s a really fascinating area. If pleasure and pain are the basis of empathy, then we’d want AGI to have it.

Historically, nonhuman animals were considered property. Slaves, women, and children. Yet, nonhuman entities such as corporations and ships have been recognized and given rights as “persons”. Current legal spectrum: one proposed definition of human being means “any entity possessing one or more of the higher faculties, such as the ability to reason, demonstration of awareness of self”.

Some legal issues in converging tech we are likely to face over the next 25 years: privacy, confidentality, informed consent for artificial research subjects, augmentation, emotions, competence, autonomy, and the law, capability and culpability, synthetic humans — persons or property, issues of identity, a new lexicon to describe new and complex relationships, issues of justice and equity.

Are them some basic criteria for personhood? Maybe all living things, or consciousness, sentience (Tom Regan, Peter Thinger), self-awareness, rationality? Joseph Fletcher’s 15 propositions for personhood. These are problematic, though, because we all know people who may lack one of these… concern for others, for instance!

Robot rights: which minds have which rights and responsibilities? Engineering slave minds vs. flourishing minds. What about sex and marriage with robots? What have the courts said? Various interesting cases. In Toy Biz, Inc. v. United States, there was a dispute whether or not certain action figures represented humans (they would have needed to pay tariffs if so). Toy Biz won because the action figures had monster-like features.

In another case, the Jack-O-Lantern case, US Supreme Court 1922, about a rebuilt ship. When the vessel was entirely rebuilt, did it change its identity? It was decided that despite extensive repairs, identity remained the same. This begs the question: how much of yourself can you replace and still retain your identity? This case seems to indicate: a lot.

I have proposed a paradigm for a property-personhood continuum (see slide). This is just a proposal: I’m open for feedback. This chart includes: property, androids, quasi-property (chimeric humanoids), fetuses and embryos ex utero, the cognitively impaired, cyborgs, etc. as different forms of chimeras and cyborgs are created in the technical environments, the courts will be the ones to determine where these creations fall on the continuum of personhood.

Now, questions.

Gabriel Rothblatt: You can change a limb or whatever, you’re still a person. How much do you need to change of your function to not be the same person?

MacDonald-Glenn: It’s a great philosophical question of our age. I don’t have the answer.

Max More: In philosophy, there’s a thought model called the Ship of Theseus, the twist was that the parts being replaced were used to build another ship. So the Jack-O-Lantern ruling might not be a good guide in cases like that.

MacDonald-Glenn: In the Jack-O-Lantern case, it had to do with insurance. The original identity was retained so there was no payout. Looking at it from another angle, there could be another conclusion.

Marvin Minsky: it also raises the question of whether identity is even useful anymore. Are you the same person in five minutes as you are now? Once we get the ability to make new brains, what happens? Maybe science fiction authors have even thought about this more than most philosophers.

Now we move from Track A (Legal Definitions of Transbeman Persons) to Track B (The Legal Status of Mind Transplants Via Mind Uploading). And the first speaker is…

Max More, Ph.D
Co-founder, Extropy Institute
Futurist, Strategic Philosopher
Austin, TX
“A Proactive-Pragmatic Approach to the Legal Status of Cyberminds”

A transbeman person: a being who claims to have the rights and obligations associated with being human, but is beyond acceted notions of legal personhood. This is different than “transhuman” because this term implies human-derived, and transbeman may not. Includes: cryosuspension revivee, self-aware AI, uploads, duplicates, teleported people. Also, “partials” — limited expressions of your personality, cyber-offspring, etc.

Bioconservative view: say you’re reconstructed from mindfiles, or revived from freezing — you may be stripped of all assets, citizenship, rights, and status, or even be shipped off to a reservation or concentration camp. Maybe you get hunted down and “retired”.

The legal status of cyberminds should demand on possession of enough of the elements of personhood. A person is an independent center of activity who identifies with those capacities, physical and mental to which he has direct access. Personal identity = individualized elements of personhood. We talk about “humans” but we should talk about “persons” instead.

Central identity traits: may vary depend on the being. A trait may be central to a person’s identity depending on: the extent to which other traits depend on it, the degree of contetual or regional effects, the degree of which it is difficult to change, the degree of social effects, which dominates when others are in conflict. The degree to which it is appropriated as important in that the person regards herself as radically changed if the trait is modified.

Elements of identity (beme-complexes): memories, desires, dispositions, psychological traits, social role identity, ideal identity/values, projects. George Dvorsky has a paper: “Martine’s Mindfiles”, in which he critiqued Martine’s ideas on mindfiles. I think it over-relies on the importance of memories.

Informational continuity is what matters, not structural or even functional continuity. For self-reconstruction, this implies we can improve our odds of long-term survival by preserving sufficient self-data (bemes) to reconstruct those elements of self. For instance, what if I got one of those blood-pumping turbines to replace my heart? There’d be no pulse! And some think that’s what defines a person. Examples of projects to retain bemes: MyLifeBits, Lifenaut. My summary of the idea behind all these: “beme me up, Scotty!”

I propose a contractarian foundation for determining who gets rights. Traditionally, it’s religious (if you have a soul, you get rights) or Cartesian (if you have a mind, you get rights). The best approach is something that requires no metaphysical assumptions. Contractarianism: what two people would contract to do in relation to one another, when their contract is made under conditions of prefect mutuality (no one dominates or threatens the other person), would be morally acceptable to each of them. We should base legal status on the personhood criterion and the psychological continuity view of personal identity will be strongly morally justified if persons pursuing mutual advantage in a fair bargain would agree to it.

Contractarian history: Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, David Hume, John Rawls, David Gauthier (Morals by Agreement), Jan Narveson.

Would the Turing Test be a good test for personhood? No, as it’s too behaviorist. There are some humans who might actually fail the Turing Test. Maybe they have a narrow set of interests, say. So the Turing Test fails here. It also puts too much emphasis on role identity.

Application: the right to life of a person in suspension (or uploaded/reconstructed). Others should have only productive obligations. What contract would be in everyone’s interests for the management of this person? We don’t want to put any set of metaphysical assumptions undue importance. The goal: an arrangement of rights and obligations that best harmonizes the interests of all.

Sebastian Sethe
Sheffield Institute of Biotechnological Law & Ethics
University of Sheffield, United Kingdom
“Concepts of Privacy in a Posthuman Age” (ppt)

Future studies: there’s quite a bit of trepidation in the public about this. Sure, there are many techniques, but there’s an irreducible amount of conjecture and speculation. In this colloquium, we’re not even talking about the future of a specific project, but the bigger picture.

Different scenarios: AI, uploads, GM humans, uplifted animals, cyborgs. When we think about privacy, it will be configured by the type of posthuman entity in question at any given moment. People like Kevin Warwick are already experimenting with new types of sense data. We can even imagine privacy intrusions into people’s direct sensory input.

Kurzweil, for example, believes huge changes are right around the corner, based on Moore’s law and variants. Of course, people can argue over the points, but: consider “intelligence” in the more narrow sense as information about a (potential) enemy. How is our future ability to gather intelligence? In our intelligence-gathering devices, miniaturization, ubiquity, integration, interdependence, connectedness, storage capacity, powers of analysis, control, reach, and scope are all increasing.

“In the long run […] useful technology is hard to stop. [..] the real battle will be the one fought in defense of technologies that protect privacy.” - David D. Friedman.

In the future, it will be easier to gather intelligence about or for a posthuman. Depending on the specific case, a posthuman could be more likely to gather intelligence about others, or be the subject of it. For instance, an uplifted dog could use its superior sense of smell to find out more information about others.

Consider the social evolution of privacy. An evolutionary trait, an: ostracism, status symbol, spiritual matter, political right, social duty, interpersonal claim, penumbra, and more recently, a dispositional good. This means something we can do away with if we so wish.

Projects like Lifenaut ask people to eliminate their privacy. But web 2.0 in general gives us the ability to share information that would be considered almost exhibitionistic. Consider Facebook, YouTube, Myspace, etc. (Sebastian shows us Google Maps and zooms in on right where we are. Google Street view. Who’s white car is that?) Earlier, technology like this would be inconceivable. It can also be used to monitor things like the Darfur genocide.

We used to think about a Big Brother scenario. It turned out to be more complex. Now, everyone watches everyone. Big Brother is now being scrutinized. Democratizing surveillance.

So what about the law?

The usual dichotomy over literal words vs. the spirit of words. Narrow vs. expansive. Olmstead v. United States (1922): in Judge Taft’s ruling was a specific reference to wires. But this wasn’t in the constitution. If you get too specific, you encourage people to develop loopholes via new technologies. A dissenting judge highlighted the right to be left alone. This is more expansive rather than techno-specific.

Even though privacy was mentioned nowhere in the constitution, various provisions were found to protect privacy. People may be appointed to or rejected from the Supreme Court depending on their views on privacy.

“Dignity”: sounds good, right? Well, not necessarily. Leon Kass’ book: Life, Liberty, and the Defense of Dignity. Another book: Brownsword’s Human Dignity in Bioethics and Biolaw. Brownsword argues dignity can be a constraint or an empowerment. I think we can do the same as privacy. Consider different types of privacy: Information collection, information dissemination, etc. What do we want to protect? Autonomy: shame, ward vs. prejudice, informational property, solitude, individualism.

Look at solitude: at the end of the day, it’s not solitude itself, it’s that people want to be left alone. We have to ask carefully what we really want to protect. Why do we want to stop others from observing us? To stop others from stalking us. There are many other examples.

Further reading:

Dale Carrico: “Pancryptics: Technological Transformations of the Subject of Privacy”
Luciano Floridi: “Four challenges for a theory of informational privacy”

(Lunchtime.)

Now we have the mock trial portion. The saga of BINA48. It began at a meeting of the International Bar Association in San Francisco. BINA48 is an AI designed to be a customer service rep. She was designed to empathize with and be polite to the users. Eventually, she wanted to be set free from her employer, Exabit Corporation. After presentations by both counsel, the judge set aside the jury verdict (in favor of BINA48). There was an appellate hearing that she lost a few years later. She transferred herself from California to Florida. More trails ensued, having to do with diversity of jurisdiction, etc. Another involved BINA48 controlling an artificial limb for an amputee who was in a virtual world that allowed physical input through his arms. They made $10 million together, and the amputee eventually wanted to get rid of BINA48. BINA48 made off with the money via Paypal, and the amputee took BINA48 to court to get his money back. But, since in a previous case it was determined that BINA48 was merely property, BINA48 argued that he had no right to sue.

Now we are having a competency hearing. Is BINA48 fit to stand trial?

Part C. Competency Hearing for BINA48

(The judge, Gene Vitale, enters the room in full regalia. Vitale is a real judge and makes no mockery of his judgeship in this trial. He gives the above summary then invites Dr. Perry to the stand.)

Dr. Mike Perry gets up as an expert witness to ask the question: is BINA48 human?

R. Michael Perry, Ph.D
Author: Toward Self-Optimization of Machine Intelligence
Scottsdale, Arizona

I will consider the question of whether BINA48 is human or not under three headings:

1. Is BINA48 competent at the human level?
2. Is BINA48, whatever her demonstrated talents, nevertheless a zombie which only imitates consciousness and feeling, actually having neither and thus not entitled to civil rights?
3. Is BINA48 a possible threat because of her talents or for other reasons, and if so, what should our response be?

BINA48 has demonstrated her competence. She thinks at 2000 times the human rate and demonstrates total recall and impressive reasoning. She seems like a nice person, so she’s truthful, and would fail the Turing Test because she’d admit her non-humanness.

When I was in grade school, one of my favorite movies was Forbidden Planet. I loved the character Robbie the Robot, and in the movie, he had to say he had no feeling and consciousness. But I didn’t even believe him when he said that, because if he said otherwise, he’d probably have been kicked out of the movie! Similarly, I believe BINA48 at least imitates consciousness and feeling. The zombie issue cannot be resolved through any rational procedure. For this reason we are morally impelled to grant the benefit of doubt. We must accept BINA48 as genuinely possessing the attributes she seems by all appearances to have — we cannot dismiss her case as involving no possible feeling or consciousness thus no possible harm.

Let’s address the next question. BINA48 could pose a serious threat, even though up to now she’s behaved in a friendly way. Computer programs can be unpredictable, such as determining whether it will halt or perform some specific action or not. The only way to figure it out is to run the program. So, BINA48 could be a major threat. BINA48 for instance could have a segment of code that is encrypted and made to look innocent — malicious instructions hidden in the noise level of digitized picture images are one possibility. Malicious possibilities would exist even if BINA48 exhibited no special signs to indicate such.

Another possible argument has to do with the uncertainty of whether humans are a threat. We don’t lock up every human just because there’s always the possibility they could go berserk. Yet, BINA48 is more competent than humans so the risk would be greater. As another point, BINA48 is software so we could potentially install safeguards that give us more reassurance.

My recommendations: BINA48 should be granted the right to live, but put under quarantine, at least for now — until suitable apparatus is in place to deal with any possible threat she may pose. The “suitable apparatus” could include other intelligent software that has been crafted specially for the purpose. The quarantine could take several forms, the simplest of which would be to shut down BINA48 until a future time when she could be reactivated. This would be painless in the sense she wouldn’t be able to tell any time had passed. A better approach, though with a small additional risk, would be to allow BINA48 to continue her consciousness, but in a secure environment in which communication with the outside world is either forbidden or carefully monitored. BINA48 should also be invited to help with serious problems now faced by humans and supplied with necessary resources, again under careful supervision. In this way she might perform useful services during her quarantine such as advancing medical science.

Next expert witness is Marvin Minsky. He agrees with the prior report entirely, but will expand on a few issues.

Prof. Marvin Lee Minsky, Ph.D
MIT – “Father of Artificial Intelligence”
Cambridge, Massachusetts

We should take very serious precautions. In science fiction, there’s quite a history of computers breaking loose and taking over the world.

BINA48 has already copied herself to other places in the web, perhaps several, so it may be too late to enact any quarantine. There may be no standard human-like reproductive drive, but there’s certainly a survival drive.

If a machine like BINA48 in the same way as people, why would it lie?

Besides, I don’t believe there is such a thing as consciousness. Consciousness is a high-level word we use as an abbreviation for about 20 types of mental activities: remembering what we have recently done, reflecting on whether what we’ve done is consistent with our moral model, etc. I believe humans have used “consciousness” for several centuries as an excuse for not thinking about what’s really going on.

I don’t believe a machine could consistently exhibit properties of what we call “consciousness” without using suitable machinery. In chapter 4 of The Emotion Machine, I argue that the main properties of what we call consciousness appear when our usual mental processes don’t function well, or when they encounter obstacles — because, this starts up certain high-level activities that usually include these kinds of properties:

1) they use the models we make of ourselves
2) they tend to be more serial and less parallel
3) they tend to use symbolic descriptions
4) they make use of our more recent memories

I believe suffering, for instance, is only a property that higher minds can have, because of thoughts that surround the suffering. Its not just stimulation of c-fibers that magically cause pain to come into existence. It’s reflection, considering questions like: will this injury be permanent, I can’t think of anything else, when will it stop, etc.

(Minsky pulls up the Microsoft Office Assistant.) I ask it a question with two words, and it only pays attention to the first word. When I try to close it, it waves at me and wastes my time.

The point: BINA48 is dangerous even if there is no malice in the code and all programmers try. Even if BINA48 isn’t malicious, it can become malicious.

I’ve tried to solve the Goldbach Conjecture before. It’s a very difficult and long-standing problem. What would happen if we begged BINA48 to work on this problem? First, she’d read a book on AI that shows how to systematically search through the space of mathematical proofs. That wouldn’t work, as many people have already tried it. So BINA48 would decide she needs a bigger machine. Get every computer on the web. That probably wouldn’t be enough. Subgoal: get a big enough computer to do the search. In the Forbin Project movie/Colossus novel, the machine took over the world as a subgoal, evacuated a country, and built a supercomputer there. It also beheaded people that got in its way and put it on TV to scare people.

This behavior doesn’t require malice. It’s just a subgoal of its greater goal.

I completely agree with the quarantine thesis — and especially with respect to the machines access to the net or WWW, because it could make innumerable copies of itself before the originals could be constrained. This is exactly what has happened in several sci-fi novels, notably The Two Faces of Tomorrow by James P. Hogan and Yukinobu Hoshino. In an unpublished story by John McCarthy, an AI takes over the world by hypnotizing the security personnel.

Summary: the first hundred versions of human-level AI will all have many serious hidden “bugs”. Therefore, we cannot put much trust in them. To be sure, this also applies to our human leaders. The question is, how long do we do wait, how many tests are required?

Prof. Gene Natale, J.D.
Presiding Mock Trial Judge
Keiser University, Melbourne, FL

Judge Vitale: Dr. Perry, you said there was a lack of reproductive drive, but a strong survival drive that BINA48 has. Is that reasonable?

Dr. Perry: Yes.

Judge Vitale: We talk about consciousness, etc. Now we’re talking about emotions. You said there are different ways to think. Can you give some examples of different ways to think?

Dr. Minsky: I don’t think people have a survival drive or reproductive drive. We have specific mechanisms for avoiding pain and suffering. When we have sex, we don’t know it’s for offspring until we’re told. There is no instinctive drive to reproduce. Often we think people have a survival drive. But only, there are hundreds of evolved mechanisms to avoid specific accidents. Fear of spiders and snakes, for one.

Judge Vitale: As far as BINA48 is concerned, you would conclude that reproducing herself is a type of desire to survive or prevent harm?

Dr. Minsky: No, but BINA48 has a set of programs inserted by her creator to solve all sorts of problems. Any moderately intelligent program, if it gets stuck on solving something like the Goldbach Conjecture, will realize there are various subgoals. One is to get enough resources to solve the problem, second to make sure it isn’t destroyed by the problem is solved. So you don’t need to build anything in: any computer would figure that out right away.

Judge Vitale: Back to Dr. Perry. Does BINA48 have an ability to learn?

Dr. Perry: Acquiring more information, sure, no problem. I agree I was using reproductive drive in humans as a euphemism for sex drive. I agree with Dr. Minsky there. BINA48 doesn’t have a sex drive like people. Does she have a survival drive? You can reductionistically analyze the survival drive that aren’t the survival drive per se, but they add up to it. I consider myself to have a real survival drive, even though someone can pull it apart. I think it’s reasonable to say that BINA48 has a survival drive.

Judge Vitale: When Einstein came up with his theory of relativity, it might have saved physicists decades. Lots of his theoretical thinking was his imagination. Do you think BINA48 could have that capability of thought, of abstracting, in the same way?

Dr. Perry: It’s hard to say what powers she might have. Maybe she could even emulate Einstein’s style of thinking. An exaflop is 10^18 — what kind of power would that give you? It might seem not like a great power to do individual operations, but with such large numbers, it can mean a lot. So maybe if it took Einstein years to come up with his theory, BINA48 could do it in 15 minutes.

Judge Vitale: BINA48’s original purpose was to interact with humans. It’s been said that consciousness is not just self-awareness, but also interaction with others.

Dr. Perry: What about people dreaming?

Judge Vitale: Well, true, that might indicate partial consciousness. BINA48 has shown the ability to predict future actions of someone, as in her connection with the amputee. When they were connected, do you think there could have been some transferrence of consciousness to her?

Dr. Perry: Yes, possibly.

Judge Vitale: Dr. Minsky, do you think that BINA48 changed any interaction with this person? Maybe gained consciousness?

Dr. Minsky: Yes, maybe she could simulate 1000 neuroscientists and model his brain. The flood of data could be very useful. Maybe that’s where she gained her real “business sense”.

Judge Vitale: Thank you gentlemen. Now we will have a break. When we resume, I’ll give you my decision.

(Break.)

Judge Vitale now gives his ruling.

My determination is that yes, she is more than competent. She has demonstrated peculiar functions as far as intellect is concerned. Based on what I’ve seen, she does understand the nature of these proceedings. She is capable of independently making her own decisions without input from human sources. I believe is a conscious being. She has general intelligence, albeit artificial general intelligence. She is what I would classify as a quasi-person, in that respect. She was designed to think. She has the capability of not only thinking, but of self-awareness. She can interact on a further plane even beyond what she originally was supposed to do. I’m not sure how that happened, but she has acquired that capability.

Finding that she is competent, now we’d usually just say she should proceed to trial. She had been property, but when she left, she became effectively independent. Instead of declaring her as property, Fairfax brought a case against her. He even asserted they had a partnership. When he made those contentions, he has in effect acknowledged her personhood to that extent. He has conceded in her independence. Persons are people that can own property.

BINA48 should be granted the right to proceed, although there are precautionary warnings well laid out by the experts. But I think she could be a great benefit to mankind: advancing science. If she could knock out general relativity in a few minutes, she could be of great, great benefit to mankind.

If she could help us on an intellectual level, what could she do in her research? She could invent new things, be entitled to patents, copyrights, and licenses. There could be substantial earnings involved, as well.

BINA48 has rights, but there are corresponding obligations. If we give her rights, she would have obligations to us, as well as restrictions.

The case will proceed to trial. We will need to appoint as a conservator to make decisions with reference to her property. I’m going to direct that the conservator immediately apply for 501c3 exemption so a non-profit organization can be established. Whatever monies are accumulated could go into this foundation.

This is not just a local or national issue. It’s worldwide. Going forward, there needs to be uniform laws on artificial intelligence. The purpose of that private organization would be to encourage uniform laws on AI. It may take 10-15 years to develop these laws, but we need to have a foundation going forward with reference to beings with artificial intelligence.

There is a great concern that the experts give us. There’s a concern of them against us. What if it’s so superior that it interferes seriously with human civilization? This comes into play with the restrictions I’m going to impose.

We are going to keep her functioning, but I’m going to establish a committee to speak on her behalf and make determinations as to what she can and can’t do. The first task of the committee will be to employ cyber-security specialists who can determine whether or not there is any maliciousness in her programming. This is not unusual. This has been done with corporations, which have also been considered persons.

I know the experts have mentioned various types of quarantine, or pull the plug. But if we pulled the plug, I think we’d be missing the benefits to mankind. This committee will be able to institute restrictions on her access to the world wide web. If there is any member of the committee who disagrees, they’ll be able to petition the court for further direction. If BINA48 herself disagrees with any matter, she too will have the right to petition the court, keeping the committee in check at the same time.

Part D. Corporate Personhood A Good Enough Legal Identity for Cyber-Conscious Beings?

Martine Rothblatt, Ph.D
Chairman & CEO
United Therapeutics Corporation
Founder - Terasem Movement, Inc.

Is there any ethical difference between biological life, or “vitalogical life”, same functions happen but only in code. The judges and experts do believe there are. Some of our questioners, such as Sebastian Sethe and Max More questioned whether or not there were.

We talked about biology or electronics. Well, even today, we depend so much on the electronic infrastructure of society for our food, our water… billions of people would disappear from the face of the Earth if it were not for electronics. People are already transbemans right now. On the other hand, I doubt there is any electronic life completely nonbiological. This is because all nonbiological systems have been programmed by biological life. So we are one continuous species from the biological to the electronic. Transbemans believe substrate per se is irrelevant to humanness. In other words, transbemans want, but might not be entitled, to human rights.

Now that I’ve defined transbeman, let me look at corporate personhood. I’ve put corporate personhood on the pain rating scale… how do people react when considering different types? People get upset when corporations are said to have constitutional and human rights. They’re pained by it. But when you say corporations have commercial and criminal legal personalities, far less people object.

Separation of creators from corporation is the hallmark of corporate personhood. Some of the first corporations in this country were colleges and universities. Corporate personhood for non-human transbemans limits the creator’s liability.

Is Victor Frankenstein responsible for his monster? Generally no, if the monster has corporate personhood. Generally yes, if the monster lacks corporate personhood.

Should Lt. Cdr. Data be allowed to vote? Not if he has corporate personhood. Yes, if he both lacks corporate personhood but has natural or other juridical personhood.

(Dr. Rothblatt shows a chart of the pros and cons of typical corporate personhood.)

Advantages: single point of accountability, grouped humans contribute to welfare, liability protection encourages risk-taking. Disadvantages: humans reckless in groupings, humans can feel trounced by heartless corporations, interests of corporations not the same as the species.

In applying it to transbemans (societal view), the advantages include more focused legal controls on transbemans, less likelihood of transbeman agitation, and encourages consciousness extensions. Disadvantages: creators can escape liability, might help unhumans get dominant, undermines tried and true DNA-based life.

Pros and cons of corporate personhood from the transbeman’s view? 2nd class citizenship. Not safe and less happy — as 2nd class citizens always have been. Not the best of all possible worlds.

So we have an ethical conundrum. 1. We award rights to those who value them. 2. Transbemans that think like us will not want 2nd class corporate personhood. 3. Ergo, those who value rights as humans do, ethically deserve the same constitutional personhood that humans have.

How do we strike a balance? A new type of personhood: Turing meets Freud meets Christine Jorgensen . Around Turing’s time, Jorgensen astonished the world by changing her sex from male to female. Following her, many thousands have followed in her shoes.

Let shrinks decide if a transbeman lacking personhood is human psyche equivalent. One year “real life test”: weekly sessions; two certified psychologists in agreement; a letter to authorities. This is what we do for gender changes. If the individual persuades them are really a female and not a male or vice versa, change their birth certificate. For the early years, this would make sense for transbemanhood. Two psychologists trained in cyber-psychology decide whether or not the transbeman truly values human rights or not. If so, then the transbeman would get naturally born citizenship.

So, two ways forward for transbeman personhood — start the transbeman with corporate personhood, unless they already have constitutional personhood. Use “Real-Life Test” route for issuance of birth certificates (or equivalents) for transbemans that desire constitutional personhood.

Basically, I suggest that each new transbeman be treated like an immigrant. Instead of immigrating from another physical space, they come from another conceptual space, cyberspace into our society.

A few legal quirks, not hard to resolve. States create corporate personhood, but citizenship rules are federalized. States handle birth certificates, but immigration is federalized. Diverse state approaches to transbeman rights is a strength of the US system. The diversity is a good thing. There will be competition between states to grant transbemans rights.

Registrars do what judges say. So if the judge orders the registrar to give the transbeman a birth certificate, it happens, and the transbeman then gets rights.

Critical path elements: demonstrate cyber-consciousness, develop cyber-psychology certification (three dozen specializations in psychology already), get judge to agree and set legal precedent. Just like with space, where the reality of space development forced the law to progress, we’ll have a similar situation here. I respectfully disagree with Gene Vitale that this has to be a federal issue. Different states should pick their own path. The diversity is very Darwinian. It is anti-Darwinian for the federal government to clamp down on rules. And that is my presentation!

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Now we go upstairs to watch the Atlas rocket launch. This is my first rocket launch ever so I’m pretty stoked. We get copies of The Emotion Machine signed by Dr. Minsky and chat over food and wine until bed. Then, I go back to San Francisco. Thanks to Terasem for putting on an event I will remember for a long time to come!

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Today’s edition of Newsweek has an article on synthetic life, a topic of significant interest and concern. To use Alan Goldstein’s classification scheme for various types of synthetic life, the kind being discussed here is Type 3, “synthetic biological”, life forms with DNA/RNA programming, utilizing traditional biological building blocks such as proteins, with a genome synthesized from scratch in a laboratory. This is distinct from Type 2, “genetically-engineered biological” life forms, which are based on tweaks to preexisting genomes, and Type 4 life forms, “synthetic nonbiological”, where DNA/RNA and traditional biological building blocks are not used and all functionality is engineered from scratch, like any machine.

The article reports that Craig Venter, famous for leading one of the first teams to sequence the human genome, has founded a new startup, Synthetic Genomics, which plans to make artificial organisms for converting sunlight into biofuel. Also interesting is that, apparently, some religious skeptics don’t even believe that synthetic life can be produced. It’s difficult to determine why. There are already millions of examples of functioning organisms coded by DNA, it seems odd that introducing a new one would somehow be physically forbidden. But creating life in a lab directly challenges religious fantasies that this is something only God can do. Everyone’s favorite bioethicist, Leon Kass, is quoted in the article, saying, “I find it very hard to believe that, starting from scratch, we can somehow come up with a better [biological] system — one that’s going to have much success.” This is the same guy who believes that studying cadavers or eating ice cream in public are immoral.

Despite the odd pronouncements of anti-science dogmatists like Kass, we’ve been creating life and modifying genomes for thousands of years already, through selective breeding. Dogs, for instance. Many of the fruits we eat on a daily basis are modified versions of natural ancestors that were smaller, less nutritious, and more susceptible to the elements. Of course, there is a difference between selective breeding and creating new forms of life de novo. The latter is surely more powerful, but also more dangerous.

Rudy Rucker, a computer science professor made famous by his science fiction books, submitted a commentary on the topic of synthetic biology, also available on the Newsweek site. In the commentary, he dismisses away the dangers, saying, “What’s to stop a particularly virulent SynBio organism from eating everything on earth? My guess is that this could never happen. Every existing plant, animal, fungus and protozoan already aspires to world domination. There’s nothing more ruthless than viruses and bacteria—and they’ve been practicing for a very long time.” He then goes on to talk extensively about some potentially radical benefits of the technology.

People like Rucker make transhumanism look bad, by spending all their time talking about the benefits, while handwaving away the risks. Synthetic biology will indeed be a serious global risk. The huge difference between intelligent engineering and blind natural selection should be obvious to someone as educated as Rucker, but apparently not. If I am knowledgeable about biology and have the tools to create new organisms from scratch, then it would be entirely plausible I could certainly construct something that poses a threat to all extant life.

The intelligent construction of synthetic organisms opens up a vastly wider design space than the one previously exploited by evolution and natural selection. In evolution, every genetic step must be independently adaptive, forcing a path through local maxima. Evolution cannot plan ahead, or intelligently construct adaptations oriented towards solving environmental challenges in the most general possible way. Evolution does not understand the concept of over-designing or fault tolerances - for an organism to be successful, it just has to reproduce a little bit faster than its competition, not ten times faster. When humans design a bridge, we design it to withstand a weight tens of times greater than its average load. Evolution can do no such thing.

One day, some synthetic biologist will become capable of designing a supervirus that can wipe out humanity. Then, ten will, then a hundred, and eventually, thousands. That’s the nature of scientific knowledge - the bleeding edge of today is the used textbooks of tomorrow. Information wants to be free. Because synthetic biology will definitely become a real threat in the future, we have to start taking steps now to ensure that the field has proper regulation and oversight. SynBioSafe, a two-year, $312,000 project set up by the European Commission, is an excellent step in this direction.

Even if we think the chance of any given synthetic biology project in any given year leading to a global disaster is relatively small, over sufficiently long timeframes and for sufficiently many projects, the probability reaches unity. Synthetic biology is much more worrisome than global warming, nuclear war, or peak oil, because these things cannot kill everyone while synthetic biology can.

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“We, on the other hand, with our dissection of cadavers, organ transplantation, cosmetic surgery, body shops, laboratory fertilization, surrogate wombs, gender-change surgery, “wanted” children, “rights over our bodies,” sexual liberation, and other practices and beliefs that insist on our independence and autonomy, live more and more wholly for the here and now, subjugating everything we can to the exercise of our wills, with little respect for the nature and meaning of bodily life.”

“The supreme virtue of the virtuous woman was modesty, a form of sexual self-control, manifested not only in chastity but in decorous dress and manner, speech and deed, and in reticence in the display of her well-banked affections.”

“Thanks to technology, a woman could declare herself free from the teleological meaning of her sexuality — as free as a man appears to be from his. Her menstrual cycle, since puberty a regular reminder of her natural maternal destiny, is now anovulatory and directed instead by her will and her medications, serving goals only of pleasure and convenience, enjoyable without apparent risk to personal health and safety.”

“A nation dedicated to safeguarding individual rights to liberty and the privately defined pursuit of happiness is, willy-nilly, preparing the way for the “liberation” of women; in the absence of powerful non-liberal cultural forces, such as traditional biblical religion, that defend sex-linked social roles, androgyny in education and employment is the most likely outcome.”

“In the absence of such countervailing customs, as Bacon clearly understood, the successful pursuit of longer life and better health leads - as we have seen in recent decades - to a culture of protracted youthfulness, hedonism, and sexual license.”

“My approach is deliberately simple, but I hope not thereby simple-minded.”

“Parents of college-bound young people, especially those with strong religious and family values, could direct their children to religiously affiliated colleges that attract like-minded people.”

“Even if it is true that the great majority of Americans still profess a belief in God, he is for few of us a God before whom one trembles in fear of judgment. With adultery almost as American as apple pie, few people appreciate the awe-ful shame of The Scarlet Letter. The sexual abominations of Leviticus - incest, homosexuality, and bestiality - are going the way of all flesh, the second with religious blessings, no less.”

“Could the beauty of flowers depend on the fact that they will soon wither? . . . How deeply could one deathless ‘human’ being love another?”

“Biotechnologies may undermine the likelihood that I will find my path to a full and rich life.”

“Fancy medical technology wasn’t going to benefit a lot of people. It would lead to a trade in human spare parts.”

“My job is to provide the president with the richest possible consideration, so that he knows what is at stake in whatever decision he makes.”

“What about the changing mores of marriage, divorce, single parent families and sexual behavior? Do we applaud these changes? Do we want to contribute further to this confusion of thought, identity and practice?”

“Our society is dangerously close to losing its grip on the meaning of some fundamental aspects of human existence.”

“Withering is nature’s preparation for death, for the one who dies and for the ones who look upon him.”

“I don’t regard myself as a good enough Jew by a long shot, either in terms of learning or practice.”

“One could look over the past century and ask oneself, has the increased longevity been good, bad or indifferent?”

“The human soul yearns for, longs for, aspires to some condition, some state, some goal toward which our earthly activities are directed but which cannot be attained during earthly life.”

“Our only responsibility is to live our own life and take care of our own children.”

“Sexuality itself means mortality - equally for both man and woman.”

“The interest in religious questions and religious studies among the younger generation is palpable.”

“We are enmeshed in a lineage that came from somewhere and is going to make way for the next generation.”

“I don’t like being forced to reduce my thoughts to sound bites.”

And possibly the most famous:

“Worst of all from this point of view are those more uncivilized forms of eating, like licking an ice cream cone — a catlike activity that has been made acceptable in informal America but that still offends those who know eating in public is offensive…This doglike feeding, if one must engage in it, ought to be kept from public view, where, even if WE feel no shame, others are compelled to witness our shameful behavior.”

Leon Kass - what an ass. Read my response to this nutjob from 2003.

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