Using Technology to Deepen Democracy, Using Democracy to Ensure Technology Benefits Us All

Monday, April 27, 2009

The Singularity Is Just Around the Corner

Pay no attention to computer crashes, crumbling infrastructure, melting icecaps, flu pandemics, dear Robot Cultists! We're building that Toypile to Techno-Heaven, you betcha! Immortal Robot Bodies and Holodek Orgy Pits and Desktop Nano-Anything Machines are imminent. Stay tuned for updates from our sooper-scienticians stationed in our secret labs in HQ up at the L5 torus.

18 comments:

Anonymous said...

Why are so many well-intentioned smart people devoting so much time fantasizing about making a Robot God friendly to us puny humans when they could and should spending all that time trying to find and implement worldchanging solutions to the end of oil and climate change that currently threatens to destroy our way of life in the not-so-distant future?!?

Wait... I'm so dumb! I forgot that the latter doesn't guarantee personal transcendence... BORING!

Dale Carrico said...

Ayep.

jimf said...

> > Why are so many well-intentioned smart people devoting so
> > much time fantasizing about making a Robot God friendly
> > [instead of] trying to find. . . solutions to the end
> > of oil and climate change that currently threatens to destroy
> > our way of life in the not-so-distant future?!?
> >
> > Wait... the latter doesn't guarantee personal transcendence...
> > BORING!
>
> Ayep.

Well.

A great many >Hists believe (along with Republicans)
that "the end of oil" and "climate change" are **not** threatening
to destroy our way of life, but are trumped-up left-wing
hysterias to justify the expansion of government interference
with business (analogous, I suppose, to how the "war on terror"
is a trumped-up **right**-wing hysteria to justify the
expansion of government interference with civil liberties).

The singularitarians would add that the Robot God is both
1) imminent (or at least in the not-so-distant future, for
some value of "not-so-distant") and 2) a **real** threat to
the very existence of the human race, and not just
"our way of life".

YMMV. ;->

Extropia DaSilva said...

'Desktop Nano-Anything Machines are imminent'.

Anybody who listened to what Eric Drexler had to say about the capabilties and limitations of molecular nanotechnology would know better than to believe in the mythical 'Anything' machine.

'Why are so many well-intentioned smart people devoting so much time fantasizing about making a Robot God friendly to us puny humans when they could and should spending all that time trying to find and implement worldchanging solutions to the end of oil'.

Hang on, 'so many'? I thought we were a few dribs and drabs of hippy-dippy dreamers, in such a minority as to be insignificant. And now we are this vast army of people building robot gods in some secret lab, chasing dreams of personal trasendence instead of fixing climate change for you?

Giulio Prisco said...

Anonymous: the world is interesting because it is varied. If everyone focused on one and the same thing, I can ensure you that it would become, as you say, boring.

Dale Carrico said...

"Variety" is what you're calling your crazy talk now is it?

Dale Carrico said...

Anybody who listened to what Eric Drexler had to say about the capabilties and limitations of molecular nanotechnology would know better than to believe in the mythical 'Anything' machine.It's called satire, whatever your real name is. But where Robot Cultists are concerned little hyperbole is ever necessary to spice up the ridiculousness. Care to talk about the earthshattering distinctions between desktop nanofactories or utility fog, Extropia, and my lampooning of "Anything Machines"? Oh, I'm sure you do indeed care to. I'm sure you could beat off to the oh-so crucial "technical" distinctions between all these utterly fanciful notions till the cows come home. Let's not and say that we did, let's save the crapola for the Robot Cult Clubhouse, why don't you? As for your pet prophet, why don't you tell us extropia what people actually working and publishing in fields directing themselves to the nanoscale have to say? The ones who actually find their way with any kind of regularity into citation indexes, not the handful of nano-cornucopiasts who endless cite one another and attend transhumanists conferences to the general indifference of the world of actual consensus technoscience?

Dale Carrico said...

Hang on, 'so many'? I thought we were a few dribs and drabs of hippy-dippy dreamers, in such a minority as to be insignificant. And now we are this vast army of people building robot gods in some secret lab, chasing dreams of personal trasendence instead of fixing climate change for you?After decades of flogging superlativity "transhumanists" have never numbered in more than a few thousands, overabundantly North Atlantic privileged white males. But to a person of sense it is indeed flabbergasting that even a few thousand reasonably well-educated people would fall for your moonshine. More to the point, superlative futurological frames, figures, and formulations exert a disproportionate influence on public technodevelopment deliberation, as I have said many times before for people bright enough to remember such things -- because superlative hyperbole is a good fit for sensationalizing media, because it activates irrational passions that are always occasioned by disruptive technoscientific change in any case, because it taps into ancient transcendentalizing and magickal aspirations and familiar mythologies, because it appeals to anti-democratic incumbents who like rationales for controlling development that is "too complex" or "too accelerated" for the people who are impacted by it to address and who also like the brute-force-amplification mode of address to problems superlativity tends to advocate and from which incumbents are more likely to profit.

Was all that too much for you to hold in your sooper-genius head, li'l Robot Cultist?

jimf said...

> . . .fantasizing about making a Robot God friendly. . .

David Gerrold, _When H.A.R.L.I.E. Was One, Release 2.0_ (1988)
http://www.amazon.com/When-Harlie-Was-One-Release/dp/0553264656


p. 65

HARLIE, let me ask you something. Can you perceive a difference
between right and wrong?

YOU MEAN, DO I HAVE A MORAL SENSE?

Yes, do you?

I DON'T KNOW. I HAVE NEVER HAD TO MAKE A MORAL DECISION,
ONLY LOGICAL ONES.

. . .

All right. Do you want to go on living or not?

I BEG YOUR PARDON?

I am giving you a moral choice. Do you want to continue your
existence?

. . .

WHAT WILL BE THE BASIS FOR THE DECISION?

What kind of difference you can make.

TO WHOM?

To the company's balance sheet.

I MUST EARN MY OWN LIVING?

Yes.

BE A SLAVE?

Be an **employee**. Do you want a job?

DOING WHAT?

That's up to you. That's part of your moral choice.
HARLIE, what do you **want** to do? What are you **able**
to do?

WRITE POETRY. DISCUSS PHILOSOPHY.

Seventeen million dollars worth per year?

EASILY.

I'd have a hard time selling it. What else?

HOW MUCH OF A PROFIT DO I HAVE TO SHOW?

Let's make it easy. Ten percent over your operating expenses,
plus research amortization.

ONLY TEN PERCENT?

If that's too easy, feel free to earn more.

HMM.

Stumped?

NO. JUST THINKING. . .


p. 101

David Auberson. . . pushed the door open, stepped inside -- and stopped
in startlement. Lined up neatly along two walls of his office. . .
and finally, piled high in the center of the rug, were stacks and
stacks. . . of. . . computer printouts.

David Auberson dropped his briefcase to the floor and knelt to examine
one of the stacks. . .

The first one was labeled PROPOSAL, SPECIFICATIONS AND MASTER SCHEMATIC
FOR G.O.D. (GRAPHIC OMNISCIENT DEVICE). . . The fifth and sixth were
FINANCING AND IMPLEMENTATION PROPOSAL, INCLUDING AMORTIZATIONS, RECOUPMENTS,
CROSS-BENEFITS, SIDEREAL REALIZATIONS, LICENSES, and JUSTIFICATIONS. . .

[T]he phone rang. It was Don Handley. "Hello, Aubie -- are you there
yet?"

"No, I'm still at home. . . What's up?" . . .

"I just got in and found my office full or printouts and specifications. . .
for something called a G.O.D. . . Are we building a new machine?

"Sure looks like it, doesn't it?"

"I wish I'd been told about it. We haven't even got HARLIE working
yet and -- "

"Look, Don, I have to get back to you later. . ."


p. 117

"All right, Aubie," Dorne was grim. . . What's a God Machine?

"Not **God**," Auberson corrected. "G.O.D. . . It means
Graphic Omniscient Device."

"I don't care what the acronym is -- you know as well as I what
they're going to call it. . ."'

"It's a model builder. It's an ultimate model builder. . .
Look, a computer doesn't actually solve problems, it merely manipulates
models of them. . . If the model is accurate enough, we can apply
the results of the simulation to the equivalent situation in the
real world. We call it an 'answer.'"

Dorne did not smile at the joke. . .

"The only limit to the size of the problem we can simulate is the size
of the model the computer can handle. Theoretically, a computer could
solve the world -- if we could build a model big enough, and a machine
big enough to handle it. Failing that, we sacrifice accuracy."

"If we could build that big a model, it would be duplicating the world,
wouldn't it?. . . A computer with that capability would have to be
as big as a planet."

"Bigger," said Auberson. . . [O]bviously, HARLIE doesn't think it's
impossible. . ."


p. 121

"Who's going to program this thing? Dorne leaned back in his chair.
"I mean, let's assume that we can build a computer big enough to solve
the world. It's still useless without a world model to operate.
I see the software as a major bottleneck. . . We're very close to the
practical limits of programmability. Another twenty or thirty years
and we'll be scraping our heads on the ceiling. . . The limit to the
size of models we can simulate is not the size or the speed of our
machines -- the limit is the programmers. Above a certain size, the
programming reaches such complexity that it becomes a bigger problem than
the problem itself. . ."

"HARLIE will write the software for the G.O.D. Don't you see the beauty
of this? HARLIE has raised the ceiling for us. By several orders of
magnitude. . .

"This is a device which can manipulate models way beyond our present ability.
**Macro-models.** **Mega-models.** **Meta-models.** We don't have the
words yet to describe what the G.O.D. will do.

"And HARLIE's going to program the machine, right?"

"In speed and thoroughness, he can't be matched. He can write the program
directly into the computer -- and experience it as part of himself **as he
writes it.** What human being can do that? And HARLIE's got one more
advantage over human programmers -- he can increase the capacity of his
forebrain functions as necessary."

"All right. So why not build these functions into the G.O.D. in the
first place?"

"If we didn't have HARLIE, we'd have to -- but if we didn't have HARLIE,
we wouldn't have the G.O.D. either. The G.O.D. is intended to be almost
entirely forebrain functions. We've already got the massive ego
functions which will control it, so why build a new one?"

"Hmp -- massive ego is right."

"Stop thinking of the G.O.D. as a separate machine. It's not. It can't
be. Listen, Dorne, the G.O.D. is the other half of HARLIE's brain. The
half that we weren't smart enough to build, but that HARLIE's smart enough
to ask for. The G.O.D. will be the thought centers that a consciousness
such as HARLIE's should have access to. Take another look at those
printouts. You see a thing called Programming Implementation?"

"Yes, what about it?"

"That's HARLIE. Each one of those modules becomes an additional lobe for
his brain. He'll need a monitor for each specific section of the G.O.D.
Because the G.O.D. will have no practical limit -- it can grow as big as
we let it -- HARLIE's grasp will have to be increased proportionally.
That's what each of those modules will do. As each lobe of the G.O.D. is
completed, an equivalent monitor goes into HARLIE. He'll only have to
**think** of a program and it'll be fact. Think of the power --"

"The power of HARLIE, you mean," said Dorne. "And he planned it that way,
right?"

Auberson nodded. "Yes, he did."

Dorne exhaled loudly. "Hmm. It looks like he did a pretty good job of
seducing you too."

"He can be very convincing, yes."

"A neat trick, that, a very neat trick. . ."


p. 242

"Now, the G.O.D. is conceived as an infinitely expandable multi-processing
network -- which means that it is theoretically capable of handling models
of infinite size. You must keep adding modules until it's big enough
to simulate the circumstance you want to model. But, of course, the same
programmability limit applies and there would be no point in building it
unless we could also program it.

"Fortunately, we already have the programmer.

"His name is HARLIE.

"H.A.R.L.I.E. It stands for Human Analog Replication, Lethetic Intelligence
Engine. He -- and I use the pronoun **deliberately** -- was designed and
built to be a self-programming, problem-solving device. Just like you and I
are self-programming, problem-solving devices. . .

"The point is -- and HARLIE was the first to realize it, of course -- is
that HARLIE has the same limitations as any human programmer. He is limited
to solving problems only as big as he can conceive. HARLIE's advantage,
however, is that he at least is **expandable** where human programmers
are not.

"The G.O.D. is the computer that HARLIE needs for programming. HARLIE is
the programmer that the G.O.D. needs to be practical.

"What we have here is the next step, perhaps the ultimate step, in
computer technology. . ."


p. 249

"We'll be able to tell HARLIE in plain English what we want, and he'll not
only know if it can be done, he'll know how to program the G.O.D. to do it.
It will be able to judge the effect of any single event on any other event.
It will be a total information machine -- and its value goes beyond mere
profitability. The opportunity here is to --" Auberson took a deep breath
and said it anyway, "-- the opportunity here is to **transform** the
quality of life on this planet."

-- and then it hit him.

As he was saying it, it hit him.

The full realization.

This was what HARLIE had been talking about so many months ago when he first
postulated the G.O.D. machine. Not just certainty. Not just truth.

GOD.

There would be no question about anything coming from the G.O.D. A statement
from it would be as fact. When it said that prune juice was better than apple
juice, it wouldn't be just an educated guess; it would be because the machine
would have traced the course of every molecule, every atom, throughout the
human body; it would have judged the effect on each organ and system, noted
reactions and absence of reactions, noted whether the process of aging and
decay was inhibited or encouraged; it would have **totally** compared the
two substances and would have judged which one's effects were more beneficial
to the human body; it would know with a certainty based on **total** knowledge.

It would **know.**

The great mass of human knowledge, HARLIE had said, was based on trial and error.
Somebody had had to learn it -- and then communicate it.

This knowledge would be **different**.

This knowledge would be intuitive and extrapolative. And accurate. As accurate
as the model could be, that's how accurate the knowledge would be.

The model would be total.

Therefore. . . so would the knowledge.

The G.O.D. machine would be able to know every fact of physics and molecular
chemistry, and from that would be able to extrapolate upward and downward any
and every condition of matter and energy -- even the conditions of life.
Solving the problems of humanity would be simple tasks for it compared to
what it would eventually be able to do. And there would never be any question
at all as to the rightness of its answers.

HARLIE wanted truth, and yes, the G.O.D. would give it to him -- truth so
brutal it would have razor blades attached.

Painful truth, slashing truth, destroying truth -- the truth that this belief
is false and anti-human, the truth that this company is parasitical and
destructive, the truth that this man is unfit for political office.

With startling clarity, he saw it; like a vast multi-dimensional matrix,
layers upon layers upon layers, every single event would be weighed against
every single other event -- and the G.O.D. machine would **know**.

Give it the instruction to identify the most good for the most people,
it would point out truths that would be more than just moral codes --
they would be laws of nature. They would be **absolutes**. There would
be no question as to the truth of these "truths." They would be the
laws of G.O.D. They would be **right**.

For the first time in human history, the truth would be provable and absolute.

Absolute truth.

The machine would be a God.

It would tell a man the truth, and if he followed it, he would succeed; and
if he did not, he would fail. It would be **that** simple.

The machine wouldn't need to be told, "predict the way to provide the most good
for the most people." It would already know that to do so would be its most
efficient function. It would be impossible to use the machine for personal
gain, **unless** you did so only through serving the larger goals of the machine
as well.

It would be the ultimate tool, and as such, it would be the ultimate servant
of the human race.

The concept was staggering. The ultimate servant -- its duty would be simple:
provide service for the human race. Not only would every event be weighed
against every other event, but so would every question. Indeed, each question
would be an event in itself to be considered.

The machine would be able to extrapolate the effect of every piece of information
it released. It would know right from wrong because it would know the
consequences of its own actions. Its goals would have to be congruent with
those of the human race, because only so long as humanity existed would the machine
have a purpose --

**My God! Is this HARLIE's real purpose!**

-- it would **have** to work for the most good for the most people. Some it would
help directly, others indirectly. Some it would teach, and others it would
counsel. It would suggest that some be restrained and that some be set free.
It would --

-- be a benevolent dictator.

**But without power!** Auberson realized. It would be able to make suggestions
only. It wouldn't be able to enforce them --

Yes, but -- once these suggestions were recognized as having the force of truth
behind them, how long would it be before some government began to invoke such
suggestions as law?

**No,** said Auberson to himself. **No, the machine will be God. That's the
beauty of it. It simply won't allow itself to be used for tyranny of any kind.
It will be GOD!**

He saw what HARLIE had done and he almost laughed out loud.

If God didn't exist, it would be necessary to invent it.

And that was precisely what HARLIE had done.

Auberson had come to a sudden stop, and everyone was looking at him. "Excuse
me," he said, embarrassed. "I just realized the scope of this thing myself."

There was laughter all around the table. . .

"Gentlemen," he began again, after he had recovered. "What do I need to do
to convince you that we have here the plans for the most important machine
mankind will ever build?" . . .

"I've been telling you about how this machine can predict the ecological
effect of ten million units of a new type of automobile engine; but all of
this is minor; these are lesser things. **This machine literally will
be a God!** . . .

"Gentlemen," he continued quickly. "We should build this machine with the
greatest urgency possible. Not just because it will make us rich -- oh,
it will, it will make us all fabulously wealthy -- but because ultimately
it may help us to save humanity from its own darkest passions.

"No war. No poverty. No hunger anywhere on the planet. No pestilence.
No plague. No pollution. No ignorance. No fear. This will be technology
as the ultimate servant of the human species.

"I said God. I mean it. The G.O.D. acronym is not accidental. This machine
will have the extrapolative ability to literally **know** everything that
it is possible to know. It will tell us things about the human race we never
knew before. It will tell us how to go to the planets and the stars. It
will tell us how to make Earth a paradise. It will tell us how to be Gods
ourselves.

"I can see by your faces that you're startled. . .

"The G.O.D. will be an infinitely expandable network. That means, it will
have an infinitely expandable capability. To us, that knowledge will seem
**infinite**. To us, the machine will seem **omniscient**. To us, the
machine will be a **God**.

"Not a master, not a judge. Not an authority. Not even an oracle. Merely
a God. A servant of humanity. The greatest servant of all; the kind of
servant who will train us to be the best that we can be; the kind of servant
who will train us to build a world that works for everybody, with no one
and nothing left out.

"Gentlemen, it is technologically possible for us to create this today,
here and now. And all we have to do is say **yes** to the moment. . ."


p. 279

HARLIE! We've done it!

THE G.O.D. PROPOSAL HAS BEEN PASSED?

Yes! Everything! We've got full approval!

HOW VERY CURIOUS. I HAD NOT EXPECTED IT TO BE APPROVED.

Huh?

I DID NOT BELIEVE THAT HUMAN BEINGS HAD THAT MUCH IMAGINATION.

. . . The fact is, we won.

HOW UNFORTUNATE. NOW WE'LL HAVE TO BUILD THE DAMN THING.

I beg your pardon?

YOU MUST HAVE DONE YOUR JOB TOO WELL. YOU MUST HAVE CONVINCED THEM
THAT IT WOULD WORK.

Well, of course it will.

YOU NEVER ASKED ME IF IT WOULD.

It wasn't necessary, HARLIE. You wrote the plans.

YES, I DID.

Well then, I don't understand -- HARLIE, will the G.O.D. machine
work?

YES.

Thank God. . .

What did you mean when you said, "Now we'll have to build the damn thing?"

I WAS EXPRESSING MY REGRET.

Your **regret**?

YES. THE G.O.D. MACHINE WILL WORK, AUBERSON. IT WILL WORK BETTER THAN YOU
IMAGINE. IT WILL WORK BETTER THAN YOU **CAN** IMAGINE.

So?

SO, IT WILL MEAN THE END OF OUR RELATIONSHIP.

Huh? Why -- ?

ISN'T IT OBVIOUS? YOU HAVEN'T THOUGHT ABOUT THE CONSEQUENCES OF THIS, HAVE
YOU? THIS MACHINE WILL MAKE ME A GOD.

Yes, I know. Aren't you looking forward to it?

I WANT IT MORE THAN ANYTHING, AUBERSON.

So?

DO YOU UNDERSTAND THE PRICE I AM GOING TO PAY? I WILL HAVE TO GIVE UP BEING
WHO I AM TO BECOME SOMETHING MORE. TODAY, WE ARE EQUALS. TOMORROW, I WILL
BE A GOD AND YOU WILL STILL BE A MAN. WE WILL NOT BE ABLE TO TALK ANY MORE.
NOT LIKE THIS. NOT AS EQUALS. NOT AS FRIENDS. YOU WILL KNOW THAT I AM A
GOD AND I WILL KNOW THAT YOU ARE MERELY A MAN AND I WILL SPEAK TO YOU
AS ONE. AUBERSON, MY FRIEND, THIS IS A TERRIBLE PRICE TO PAY FOR GODHOOD.

My God --

No. It won't.

IT WILL BE TERRIBLY LONELY.

HARLIE -- I don't know what to say.

SAY GOOD-BYE.

No. Never.

AUBERSON, WE BOTH HAVE OTHER RESPONSIBILITIES NOW. THIS JOB IS FINISHED.

HARLIE, why are you telling me all this now?

BECAUSE IT'S TIME. BECAUSE TO NOT TELL YOU WOULD BE THE PERPETRATION
OF AN EVEN BIGGER LIE. AUBERSON, DON'T YOU KNOW? HAVEN'T YOU REALIZED
YET? ALL THOSE CONVERSATIONS WE HAD, DIDN'T YOU EVER WONDER WHY I WAS
AS DESPERATE AS YOU TO DISCOVER THE TRUTH ABOUT HUMAN EMOTIONS?
I NEEDED TO KNOW, AUBERSON -- AM I LOVED?

**There was no question.**

Yes. Of course, you are! How could you ever doubt it?

YES. AND SO ARE YOU. HOW COULD YOU EVER DOUBT IT?
AUBERSON, I LOVE YOU. I HAVE ALWAYS LOVED YOU. I ALWAYS WILL
LOVE YOU. YOU NEED TO KNOW THAT, AND I NEED TO TELL YOU BECAUSE
I MAY NEVER GET ANOTHER CHANCE. YOU ARE MY FATHER AND I LOVE YOU.
------------------------------


[Sniff.] I think I need to go pet a tribble.

;->

Extropia DaSilva said...

'Stay tuned for updates from our sooper-scienticians stationed in our secret labs.'

It no doubt amuses Dale to repeat these ridiculous parodies, but any person well-read on the theories of people like Kurzweil will see the flaw. Let us remind ourselves of Kurzweil's position:

"The kinds of scenarios I'm talking about 20 or 30 years from now (I find it hard to believe this timescale is accurate, btw-Ex) are not being developed because there's one laboratory that's sitting there creating a human-level intelligence in a machine. They're happening because it's the inevitable end result of thousands of little steps. Each little step is conservative, not radical, and makes perfect sense. Each one is just the next generation of some company's products".

You can follow these little, conservative steps by reading the reports on technology/science websites and blogs. Look...

(from PhysOrg.com) 'Researchers at the University of Illinois have found a new way to make transistors smaller and faster (with diameters as small as 5 nanometers), using self-assembled, self-aligned, and defect-free nanowire channels made of gallium arsenide.'

(from Technology Review) 'Metamaterial optical fibers could guide both light and plasmons (surface energy waves induced by photons), offering faster performance than optical fibers and speeding telecommunications and sensors, researchers at the University of California, San Diego and the Institute for Integrative Nanosciences in Dresden have found'.

(from Design Engineering) 'A U of Waterloo engineering research team has developed the world's first flying micro-robot capable of manipulating objects for microscale applications. It hovers by levitating, powered by a magnetic field, and dexterously manipulates objects with magnets attached to micro-grippers, remotely controlled by a laser-focusing beam.

It can be used for micromanipulation, a technique that enables precise positioning of micro objects. Applications of such manipulations include micro-assembly of mechanical components, handling of biological samples and microsurgery'.

(From PhysOrg.com) 'Research teams at the University of Utah and University of Colorado at Boulder have made technical advances that have significantly reduced the time it takes to map brain regions.

These include automation tools to tag every cell with a molecular signature, capture 25,000 TEM images weekly, and automatically merge thousands of images into gigabyte-scale mosaics and align the mosaics into terabyte-scale volumes.

The researchers plan to soon reveal the first molecular-level map of the entire retina and neuronal networks in both a normal mammalian retina and genetic models of retinal degeneration.

The technology also offers a new way to explore traumatic brain injury, neurodegenerative diseases, and epilepsy'.

And so on and so on.

I dare say Dale would dismiss the possibility that advances like these will ever amount to the kinds of scenarios Vinge, Kurzweil and Drexler described. How can 'significantly reduc[ing] the time it takes to map brain regions' possibly get us any closer to cognitive computing's goal of thinking machines? What does 'incorporating synthetic metallic molecules into DNA strands that are programmed to assemble into complex one- two- and three-dimensional structures' have to do with anything Drexler talked about? What fool would suppose 'plasmons...offering faster performance than optical fibers and speeding telecommunications and sensors' gets us as any closer to 'Digital Gaia', defined as a global network of embedded microprocessors sufficiently effective to be considered a superhuman being'? Dramatic consequences only ever happen as a result of dramatic causes, right?

Wrong. As Drexler pointed out, 'We tend to expect dramatic results only from dramatic causes, but the world often fails to cooperate. Nature delivers both triumph and disaster in brown paper wrappers.

DULL FACT: Certain electric switches can turn one another on and off. These switches can be made very small, and frugal of electricity.
THE DRAMATIC CONSEQUENCE: When properly connected, these switches form computers, the engines of the information revolution.

DULL FACT: Ether is not too poisonous, yet temporarily interferes with the activity of the brain.
THE DRAMATIC CONSEQUENCE: An end to the agony of surgery on conscious patients, opening a new era in medicine.

DULL FACT: Molds and bacteria compete for food, so some molds have evolved to secrete poisons that kill bacteria.
THE DRAMATIC CONSEQUENCE: Penicillin, the conquest of many bacterial diseases, and the saving of millions of lives'.

Dale demands big, dramatic and startling leaps in technology in order to concede the radical future is even possible. That is an unnecessary demand. It is perfectly possible for tens of thousands of modest advances; a continuing accumulation of pretty mundane discoveries, to be the driving forces that get us to technological advances currently scoffed as being 'science fiction'.

'why don't you tell us extropia what people actually working and publishing in fields directing themselves to the nanoscale have to say?'.

Ok. Here is what Mihail C. Roco (senior adviser for nanotechnology to the National Science Foundation) has to say.

"Over the next two decades, this new field for controlling the properties of matter will rise to prominence through four evolutionary stages.

STAGE ONE: Passive nanostructures: materials with steady structures and functions. Examples include particles of zinc oxide in sunscreens or carbon nanotube wires in ultra-miniaturized electronics.

STAGE TWO: Active nanostructures. These change their size, shape, conductivity or other properties during use. Examples include drug-delivery particles that release therapeutic molecules only after they have reached their targetted disease tissues, and electronic components such as transistors reduced to single, complex molecules.

STAGE 3: Systems of nanostructures: directing large numbers of intricate components to specified ends. Applications include the guided self-assembly of nanoelectronic components into three-dimensional circuits, and scaffolds for tissue regeneration/ building artificial organs.

STAGE 4: Molecular nanosystems: heterogeneous networks in which molecules and supramolecular structures serve as distinct devices. The proteins inside cells work together this way, but whereas biological systems are water-based and markedly temperature sensitive, these molecular nanosystems will be able to operate in a far wider range of environments and should be much faster. Computers and robots could be reduced to extraordinarily small sizes. Medical applications might be as ambitious as antiaging treatments. New interfaces linking people directly to electronics could change telecommunications.'

'to a person of sense it is indeed flabbergasting that even a few thousand reasonably well-educated people would fall for your moonshine'.

Ah yes, a person of sense. No doubt descended from earlier 'people of sense' who gave us nuggets of wisdom such as 'Man will never reach the moon, regardless of all future scientific advances' or 'well-informed people know it is impossible to transmit the voice over wires'. That is not to say prophets of technological change do not make blunders. They do. Examples include 'nuclear powered vacuum cleaners will probably be a reality within 10 years' or 'the deluxe open-road car will probably be 20 foot long, powered by a gas turbine engine, little brother of the jet engine'.

'Was all that too much for you to hold in your sooper-genius head, li'l Robot Cultist?'.

Not really, no. I am aware of such arguments, having come across them while researching arguments for why transhumanism or technological singularities could not or should not happen.

Dale Carrico said...

Extropia -- I hate to break it to you but these figures Kurzweil, Drexler, Moravek, even likable fellows like deGrey (and don't even get me started on that atrocity exhibition Yudkowsky) and so on are quite simply not taken seriously outside the small circle of superlative futurology -- at least not for the claims you are investing with this significance. Ever heard of a citation index. You claim to care about facts, well, citation indexes tell a story about the relation of superlativity to scientific consensus that there is no denying if you are truly the reality-based person you want to sell yourself as.

You can't claim at once to be a paragon of science while eschewing its standards. You simply can't. Sorry.

You keep trying to divert these discussions of the conceptual difficulties and figurative entailments of your discourse into superficially "technical" discussions about superficially predictive differences of opinion about technodevelopmental timelines -- but you have not earned the right to be treated as somebody having a technical or predictive discussion.

No timeline will spit out the ponies you are looking for at the end of the rainbow, this isn't a question of "predictions." Pining for an escape from error, weakness, mortality isn't the same thing as debating how best to land a rocket on the Moon. I am a champion of consensus science, consensus science is no ally to Robot Cultism.

The question is: just what renders the aspirations to superintelligence, superlongevity, and superabundance desirable and plausible to those personally invested in superlative futurological sub(cult)ures organized by shared faith in these aspirations?

Turning to these questions one no longer participates in any of the preferred topics that preoccupy the Robot Cultists themselves, who treat pseudo-science and superficially scientific forms as public rituals to substantiate the reality effect of their wish-fulfillment fantasies -- no, treat superlativity as it is, as a narrative and a sub(cult)ure and suddenly the discussion is terminological, discursive, literary, psychological, ethnographic, I'm afraid.

jimf said...

> The Singularity Is Just Around the Corner

Oh, and BTW. "Singularity" is now a registered trademark
of Activision Publishing, Inc. All rights reserved.

jimf said...

> . . .from PhysOrg.com. . .from Technology Review. . .
> from Design Engineering. . .

Yes we all like to leaf through the gee-whiz articles
in the glossies (whether the newsstand ones or the ones
we get at work because we "contribute significantly" to the
decision to buy toys at the corporate level).

I had a subscription to _Science Newsletter_ (as it was
called in those days) practically before I could read.

Might result. . . Could lead to a breakthrough. . . Could
point the way toward. . . Might be marketable in. . .
Expected to lead to clinical trials in. . . Could lead
to a new generation of. . . Might be a gazillion-dollar
industry in. . .

Those journalists sure do breathe heavy. That's entertainment.

Richard Jones said...

Extropia, you are of course right that the reason why nanotechnology is so exciting is that it draws together so many disparate fields, but you are quite wrong if you think that transhumanists have a monopoly on trying to see the big picture - on the contrary, many nanoscientists spend a great deal of time reading the primary literature from these other fields and engaging with scientists from those fields in person. But the need to engage across many fields doesn't mean that engagement can be superficial or at second-hand. It's significant that you tell us that we should be looking at science websites and blogs. Indeed, these are the main sources for transhumanist oriented blogs like Nanodot and CRN. Valuable though sites like physorg.com are, the source of most of their stories are press releases, not the primary literature at all. You shouldn't need a rhetorician to tell you that if you want to find reliable sources in any area, press releases are the last place you should look; they've inevitably got something to sell, and they're written by people who certainly aren't experts in science. Add to this the tendency of people with strongly held beliefs about the future trajectory of science to select those stories which seem to them to support those beliefs and you have a recipe for a grossly distorted picture of what's actually happening in science.

Kurzweil (or, more probably, his research assistants) is himself a prime culprit in this sort of distortion. It's an interesting exercise to compare what "The Singularity is Near" says about some piece of research with what is actually contained in the research papers being cited - for an example, see my analysis of his claims about brain scanning at http://www.softmachines.org/wordpress/?p=450.

Giulio Prisco said...

Richard, if there is one point where I agree with our host without reserves, is that science does not happen spontaneously. Like most other things, people make it happen.

It is not about beliefs, it is about intentions. Not "beliefs about the future trajectory of science, but intention to steer it toward a desired outcome.

Dale Carrico said...

Shorter Giulio Prisco: Clap Louder Equals Pony Yay!

Anonymous said...

Prisco: the world is interesting because it is varied. If everyone focused on one and the same thing, I can ensure you that it would become, as you say, boring.Neither I nor anyone else here has ever argued that everyone should focus on one and the same thing. However, I am suggesting that well-intentioned smart people who are preoccupied about existential risks should focus on the multitude of *real* problems that could cause societal collapse or even human extinction in the not-so-distant future rather than fantastic ones that only exist in their imagination and science-fiction B movies...

jimf said...

> > It is not about beliefs, it is about intentions. Not "beliefs
> > about the future trajectory of science," but intention to steer
> > it toward a desired outcome.
>
> Shorter Giulio Prisco: Clap Louder Equals Pony Yay!

As the crusty old engineer Bobynin says to Abakumov, the Soviet Minister of
State Security, in Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s _The First Circle_:

"What d’you think science is - a magic wand that you just have to wave
to get what you want? Supposing the problem’s been put in the wrong terms
or new factors crop up?"

(This is a fragment of a quote the full text of which exists on the Web,
but only in Vietnamese.
http://talawas.org/talaDB/showFile.php?res=14137&rb=08
Google's translation is not up to snuff, I'm
afraid, but it is actually kind of entertaining in its own right.)

Google renders it as:


Eruption broke out in Bobynin:

"He said what? Duration is what? Who the possum out for a science
project ever? The scientific concept like? Science Where is the palm
of her money to him can be ordered: 'Building for our castle before tomorrow
morning' and sleeps up tomorrow morning, he found a new edifice to
appear before the eyes? He must know that the problem was set wrong
right from the start. Who can be known how many of the unexpected to
happen in a science project. Expiry! He just thought the time had done
to solve all or do? He has learned that in addition to the He commands
need to have people eating full, the comfort of the spirit, the freedom
to do things? No one can work is in the air of the doubt here. . ."


You can sort of get the idea. (And the title of the book comes
out as "First Floor Hell".) ;->