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Before you read any further, let me warn you. This blog post is not typical of what I usually write – and is DEFINITELY NOT for everyone!
If the “existential dilemma” leaves you cold (you lucky dog, you!), or your “search for meaning” rarely surfaces, and (when it does) is easily sublimated by a bar of chocolate in the fridge, then you won’t find this interesting.
I’ll go further. You may find it shocking, disturbing and scary. Stop. You have been warned!
(But no, I’m not joking!)
Still with me. Ok. Let’s start at the very beginning (the very best way to start, sings Julie Andrews in “The Sound of Music”, by the way!)
Late last night, I was reading a blog called TECHNIUM. It’s by Kevin Kelly, the guy who wrote the awesome “1,000 True Fans” post I reference often.
This post had the intriguing title “The Unabomber Was Right”. I started reading – and found myself instantly pulled into the narrative. And (gasp!) nodding my head in agreement with some of Kaczynski’s theory!
Look, I’m no Luddite. In fact, I work in TWO of possibly the most technologically sophisticated industries in the world today – a very specialized branch of medicine (pediatric cardiac surgery), and the cutting-edge, rapidly advancing, constantly evolving arena of Internet business.
And I love what I do, and how I do it – and realize it would be impossible to do without technology.
Yet I found myself AGREEING with some quoted excerpts of the manifesto (which, by the way, I haven’t read fully – though I might at some point, to see what else is in there).
As I wended my way through the very long post on Technium’s blog, my mind recalled a similar article (from April 2000) by Bill Joy, co-founder of Sun Microsystems, and for a long time, it’s chief technology officer and software architect. That provocative piece, published in WIRED magazine, was titled “Why The Future Does Not Need Us”.
That article moved me to deep thought, and even resulted in a letter in response that I emailed to Wired, though I’m not sure if it was ever published in the magazine. (I’ve included it below, if you’re interested in reading it)
It also led me to study the work of futurologist Ray Kurzweil, and I read his paradigm shifting book, “The Age of Spiritual Machines” which first introduced me to the concept of a “downloadable consciousness”! (And with such relentless logic, damn it!) If you want your socio-technological foundations shaken to their roots, read that book – and be prepared to be surprised.
Anyway, the parallels AND THE DIFFERENCES came to mind – because where Bill Joy ended his essay on a more or less nihilistic tone of hopelessness, Kevin Kelly chose (like me) to see the ‘positive’ – and highlighted the expanded range of choice that technology has permitted us all.
So even if technology is evil and all-pervasive to the point of killing off all alternative (non-technology based) options in the long run (and no one can say that will happen, though logically it does appear likely), at least in the process enormous advantages/benefits will have been conferred on humanity.
Today, I believe, we have already crossed the Rubicon. Realistically, we can no longer tune out technology. Tell me… can we shut down the Internet? Can we run stock exchanges without computers? Heck, most of us can’t even make our early morning brew without extensively using ‘technology’!
So are we on the slippery slope of self-annhilation and subservience to a nameless, faceless force called TECHNOLOGY, the Darth Vader of our Milky Way galaxy?
I went to bed with that thought lurking under the surface of my awareness, mildly disturbing but not too worrisome (you’ll see why if you read my reply to Bill Joy’s article below)
Anyway, what happened today was kind of cool. Events like this make me wonder about the role (and reality) of serendipity, coincidence and chance in our lives.
I’m halfway through reading the “Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin”, but sought out a different book to read over dinner. We had bought seven new books a few days back at the bookstore, and the one I picked today was Isaac Asimov’s.
Now, this book has two stories – “The Caves of Steel” and “The Rest of the Robots” – and for some reason, I selected the second one to read first!
Flipping over to page 8, I read the introduction, which included this passage – and was stunned at the relevance and congruity with the line of thinking that had been occupying my mind subliminally since last night!
Here’s what Asimov says about robots (in the context of why he started writing about them in his sci-fi novels):
“In the 1930s, I became a science-fiction reader, and I quickly grew tired of this dull hundred-times-old tale. Robots were created, and destroyed their creator. As a person interested in science, I resented the purely Faustian interpretation of science.
“Knowledge has its dangers, yes, but is the response to be a retreat from knowledge? Are we prepared then to return to the ape and forfeit the very essence of humanity? Or is knowledge to be used as itself a barrier against the danger it brings?
“In other words, Faust must indeed face Mephistopheles, but Faust does not have to be defeated!
“Knives are manufactured with hilts so that they may be grasped safely, stairs possess banisters, electric wiring is insulated, pressure cookers have safety valves – in every artifact, thought is put into minimizing danger. Sometimes, the safety achieved is insufficient because of limitations imposed by the nature of the universe or the nature of the human mind. However, the effort is there.
“Consider a robot then, as simply another artifact. It is not a sacrilegious invasion of the domain of the Almighty, any more (or any less) than any other artifact is. As a machine, a robot will surely be designed for safety, as far as possible. If robots are so advanced that they can mimic thought processes of human beings, then surely the nature of those thought processes will be designed by human engineers and built-in safeguards wil be added. The safety may not be perfect (what is?), but it will be as complete as men can make it.”
WOW!
Asimov’s philosophy regarding technological advances so closely parallels mine (as reflected in the letter below) that I cannot help but wonder if I had read this passage many years ago (and forgotten about it), and then re-surfaced it in my own paper… with the tinge of fatalism that my cultural upbringing has inculcated in many facets of my thinking.
Anyway, what are your thoughts (if any) on this subject? Read my letter below, and then (if you feel like it), leave a comment on the blog.
My email to WIRED magazine, after reading Bill Joy’s article:
THE FUTURE OF HUMANITY IS …… ‘HUMANOIDITY’ ?!
As a paediatric cardiac surgeon working with children’s heart defects, almost every issue Bill Joy brought up in this article is related what I do on a day-to-day basis. Technologic advances, ethical issues related to such developments, interfering with Nature’s course, exploring new frontiers of science, are all an integral part of my professional work. And hence, areas which I’ve thought about in depth, time and again.
Joy’s article brought up many debatable issues. Here are some of my comments and thoughts.
I agree with the basic premise. Technology will soon advance to the level where machines will become intelligent – even more so than the average human – and will do things better. Maybe someday soon, we’ll come to look upon machines as indispensible to our lives.
I also accept that such progress comes at a price, and an enormous risk. But feel the benefits derived on an everyday basis, as also on an evolutionary level, outweigh the dangers.
While the possibility that the future might see us humans get integrated with an intelligent robot is unsettling, once you get used to the concept, it becomes increasingly acceptable. Especially if, as Joy thinks, it will happen slowly, universally, painlessly. Why worry about it? Like Death, after all, it will be upon you before you realize – and then you won’t need to!
Are we constructing tools that may replace our species? Well, I’d prefer to think the tools we are working on are enhancing our species, helping it evolve into a more powerful, extinction-proof form.
As more and more computing and processing power becomes available to us, that itself will act as an impetus to unleash more of our own brain-power in a synergizing and snow-balling manner. And when you consider that barely 5% of our cerebral capacity has been tapped, you begin to realize that all isn’t lost with the human race. In fact, we might have barely scratched the surface in terms of species/intelligence evolution.
Certainly, there is the uncomfortable risk that we might destroy ourselves in the process. But isn’t that true about any revolutionary development in history?
I believe the human species is innately pre-programmed to survive – and in the process evolve to become ever better, albeit, maybe, losing what is today its essential *humanity*
Looked at in this sense, work on today’s cutting edge technology is a step in that evolutionary process that ensures survival of the fittest species – OURS.
Shouldn’t we be proceeding with caution ?
We are. Nature’s built-in safety valve makes certain that we come up with the most fascinating, innovative advances and breakthroughs ONLY when we are ready for them.
Not much has changed in the basic processes of the human brain or mind in the past century. But look at the advances it has been able to think up, create and implement over the same period. Why didn’t they happen earlier? Surely, humans *could* have thought up the same discoveries and inventions earlier than they did. I prefer to believe there is an inherent timetable that everyone conforms to, knowingly or not, which determines the speed of our evolution.
If an intelligent, self-replicating robot does indeed come into existence in 2030, it is perhaps because human-kind will then be ready for it. We will not survive an encounter with such super-human robots.
But are we sure humankind will try and engage in a battle of wits or strength with such robots? Or even if we do, isn’t it also a possibility that our own intelligence – aided by our harnessing of the *intelligence* of such robots – would have grown to the level that we can do so with a reasonable chance of success?
I’m convinced we’ll have ways to integrate the strengths of both, maybe in the process merge humans with robots in a manner hard to imagine today. The result may be, as Danny Hillis suggests, robotizing of humans. I personally feel it will be the reverse, and we’ll find ‘humanoid’ robots, humans with the processing power of robots but essentially, in all non-technical aspects – emotions, feelings, intuition – human.
And far from being dystopian, that would be utopian, wouldn’t it ? Because it would retain what is the essence of *man*, while also retaining whatever is the upside of mechanization – intellectual superiority, immortality, technical excellence, productivity.
As I see it, this scenario is infinitely preferable to the one created by dabbling in genetic manipulations. After all, how much more dangerous to mankind could a destructive, super-intelligent robot be when compared to incarnations of evil in human form, as for instance the German Chancellor Adolf Hitler?
In genetics, as in Nature, no rules are concrete, knowledge of the whole is miniscule, and dabbling with one aspect could have immeasurable effects on many others. That is a cauldron which, if stirred wrong, could throw up nightmare situations I don’t even dare imagine.
Inequality among humans is an unpleasant fact of life. Trying to correct this by genetic manipulation is not the best answer. And so, if indeed such genetic engineering results in another species with unequal groups, would we have significantly altered the status quo in its very basic sense? No.
As regards using genetic engineering, I’m worried irrespective of the purpose – military, scientific, terrorist or accident. Because we don’t have the slightest idea of the impact on the entire ecosystem, or even in isolation on a particular species alone, over time.
Any modification or manipulation of Nature can be put to the best possible use. And truly enough, this is the motivation of the scientists seeking to unlock these secrets. And just as inevitably, there is the certainty that those very developments will be perverted by a minority to suit their narrow minded needs.
In the well publicized race to decode the human genome, you see evidence of this trend. While the Human Genome Project researchers followed a plodding, methodical process, maverick geniuses like Dr.Venter short-circuited the system rushing to decode only the functional genes with commercial potential. Therein lies the danger – as the silent, non-functional codons and genes just might hold the secret of Life. And we’d never know – until it was too late.
Nature, or God if you will, has planned for such variety – and built in the safeguards that will protect humanity – or as it might become known later, ‘humanoidity’.
While we can but plan for *foreseeable* dangers of technology and evolution, how can we predict what we don’t know about? For instance, how many would have imagined, just 10 years ago, the impact of the Internet on mankind? Robotics, nanotech and bioengineering are today what the Internet was to mankind a couple of decades earlier – wonders of the future with enormous potential for good and bad, of which we know but little, and can only hope the best.
There are far too many potential situations that could wipe out humanity as we know it, many of them eerily current, and dependent on such insecure safeguards as one man’s (or a small group’s collective) ego or intelligence. A lab accident could release the small-pox virus. A temporarily unbalanced President could hit the nuclear trigger. Lazy computer programmers avoided typing four digits for a year and scared the world into believing in a doomsday as the new millenium rolled in.
Yet they didn’t happen. And – most probably – won’t ever. Why? I’d like to think because Nature ordains it that way!
Business covets a stable, peaceful environment more than does a military or government. It is more likely that a technological innovation with commercial benefits, developed by corporate enterprise, would be used for peaceful purposes than those invented by a military research lab for defensive, or as is more common, acquisitive intent.
Perhaps the marketplace, with its competitiveness and scope for enormous profits, will be the best safety check to prevent harmful application of the new technology. So let’s just ensure enormous business profitability from those technologies! And as for governments, the destructive potential itself will be the most effective deterrent against its damaging deployment, just as detente evolved as a direct consequence of the atomic bomb blasts.
While it is true that the ease of availability of this technology to the common man is disconcerting, is there any reason to believe Joe-next-door finds the prospect of annhilating human-kind any more exciting a prospect than leaders of nations?
As to the question of tampering with and altering the *awareness of Nature and the order of life*, doesn’t almost any scientific advance do just that, in a sense ?
Take for instance the treatment of a serious heart birth defect called Hypoplastic Left Heart Syndrome or HLHS. While initial efforts at cure resulted in over 95% mortality, it is perseverance that has brought about current survival figures in excess of 90%. Naturally, left alone, these patients would ALL have died within one year of life. Now if that isn’t tampering with the *order of life*, I don’t know what is!
Yet no one today criticizes the efforts of those early pioneers. Their initial efforts were just as inefficient, the systems they built were just as fragile to begin with, as today’s efforts with robotics and software are. But over time, these systems and processes become robust, stable, effective.
Do you know what is scary about this? No one seems to condemn these efforts as strongly as they did the first nuclear explosion, or cloning, or experiments at creating intelligent robots. Why? Because, on the surface, we are restoring health to a human life. No one pauses to wonder why, and indeed if, we should try and influence Nature’s course as it affects that one patient. It is taken for granted. Indeed to REFUSE to offer this treatment would be consider unethical!
What if there were some other, hitherto unknown, yet enormously serious *other* reasons for which that particular patient wouldn’t have survived *naturally* ? And what if those very other reasons – of which we do not know anything – could be harmful to the ecosystem, in a broader sense?
There are too many unknowns in the biologic arena, much more than the relatively better controlled area of robotics and automation technology. Yet we dabble uncaringly in these bio-spheres, indeed are even encouraged to continue doing so – simply because we see no harm in the near term. The same might be true of other tech fields – nanotechnology and robotics. And the trend will continue – until disaster strikes. And then, it will be too late to worry!
Yet we talk about shielding ourselves from the terrible consequences of these exciting new technologies. But the truth is we cannot shield ourselves, or hide from them by abandoning the planet or covering it with a star-wars style barrier. There is only one sure-fire way to *protect* ourselves, and that is to abandon any efforts at developing such technologies.
And that is absurd, on the face of it. Maybe even more dangerous as well, since a lack of progress can be construed as regression, and could reduce the survival advantage our species has built up over centuries.
Indeed, many of the advances made in earlier years by our forebears might have been viewed as *threatening* by their peers, been conceived as likely to annhilate the species at the time. Yet we are still alive to tell the tale, and none the worse for wear – indeed better off in many ways.
We live in an imperfect world. Yet that world hasn’t ended. Despite many predictions to the contrary, we have survived and thrived. Yes, I believe we are pre-programmed to survive, no matter what we need to do, how we need to change and evolve to do so.
And it is naive to assume that we can hold back now. Put the genie back into the bottle and throw it out to sea. Throttle the progress that has been made already.
Maybe that was possible a few decades ago. Now that Dolly has been cloned, Venter has patented significant chunks of Man’s genetic make-up and molecular electronics has risen on the horizon of techno-research, we have embarked on a journey of no return. The only relinquishment possible will be when one or many parties have achieved their ends.
But we still hold the rudder. We can navigate within safe seas, discover new lands, explore uncharted waters, play safe and do good. Or instead we could become the Grand Pirates of the ocean of life, attacking innocent passers-by, spreading death and destruction, and ultimately pay the supreme price of self-annhilation.
As always, the choice is ours.
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