It’s time for a Singularity post! IEEE Spectrum has dedicated their latest issue to the Singularity. Let’s check out the highlights…

Vernor Vinge breaks it down:

In that event, I expect the singularity will come as some combination of the following:

The AI Scenario: We create superhuman artificial intelligence (AI) in computers.

The IA Scenario: We enhance human intelligence through human-to-computer interfaces—that is, we achieve intelligence amplification (IA).

The Biomedical Scenario: We directly increase our intelligence by improving the neurological operation of our brains.

The Internet Scenario: Humanity, its networks, computers, and databases become sufficiently effective to be considered a superhuman being.

The Digital Gaia Scenario: The network of embedded microprocessors becomes sufficiently effective to be considered a superhuman being.

A PDF who’s who of the Singularity. (There’s my crush, Eliezer!)

Christof Koch and Giulo Tononi contributed a very interesting article on the nature of consciousness. It explains:

To be conscious, then, you need to be a single integrated entity with a large repertoire of states. Let’s take this one step further: your level of consciousness has to do with how much integrated information you can generate. That’s why you have a higher level of consciousness than a tree frog or a supercomputer.

In suggesting that there are levels of consciousness (cue Mr. Wilber), we can conclude not only that something like AI or the Internet could take on human or higher consciousness, but that humans experience a range of consciousness and can expand it. Singularity research will help us understand what consciousness is and how it can be increased.

In general, a machine passes a Turing Test when it can convince a human that it too is human. This usually involves a high level of adaptability of response. For example, my pocket calculator can figure out square roots much more quickly than I can but it can’t make toast. It doesn’t even know what toast is. True intelligence requires not only depth of knowledge (which computers are very good at) but also breadth. Does higher intelligence equal higher consciousness? Does greater range of experience lead to greater consciousness? I think so. Expanding my comfort zone and pushing my edges feels like gaining greater consciousness. Every time I break through an edge I feel like a bigger, more inclusive being. Greater range is good for us and for computers as we all evolve towards higher understanding.

Note: Eliezer called this “IEEE Spectrum’s sad little attempt at Singularity coverage” so the articles might not be very interesting to those of you are big Singularity nerds. However, I think the idea was to acquaint a broader audience with the Singularity rather than hash out the nitty-gritty of Singularity theory.

How long has it been since we’ve had a real futurist post? Too long!

Wired has a great big article on Ray Kurzweil and the Singularity today from which I learned that our buddy Ray is a little crazy:

Kurzweil does not believe in half measures. He takes 180 to 210 vitamin and mineral supplements a day, so many that he doesn’t have time to organize them all himself. So he’s hired a pill wrangler, who takes them out of their bottles and sorts them into daily doses, which he carries everywhere in plastic bags. Kurzweil also spends one day a week at a medical clinic, receiving intravenous longevity treatments.

Kurzweil is going to all this trouble in order to live until the Singularity occurs and the human life span is extended substantially if not indefinitely. Immortality is nigh! Here’s how:

According to Grossman and other singularitarians, immortality will arrive in stages. First, lifestyle and aggressive antiaging therapies will allow more people to approach the 125-year limit of the natural human lifespan. This is bridge one. Meanwhile, advanced medical technology will begin to fix some of the underlying biological causes of aging, allowing this natural limit to be surpassed. This is bridge two. Finally, computers become so powerful that they can model human consciousness. This will permit us to download our personalities into nonbiological substrates. When we cross this third bridge, we become information. And then, as long as we maintain multiple copies of ourselves to protect against a system crash, we won’t die.

Nice. Downloading yourself has its perils though. You know how you can accidentally replace all your music with your friend’s if you plug in your iPod haphazardly? That would be very bad news in this scenario.

Kurzweil is weird in a good way though. His theories require a certain open-mindedness that is apparently not limited strictly to technical matters:

To press his case, Kurzweil is writing and producing an autobiographical movie… Kurzweil appears in two guises, as himself and as an intelligent computer named Ramona, played by an actress. Ramona has long been the inventor’s virtual alter ego and the expression of his most personal goals. “Women are more interesting than men,” he says, “and if it’s more interesting to be with a woman, it is probably more interesting to be a woman.” He hopes one day to bring Ramona to life, and to have genuine human experiences, both with her and as her… “I don’t necessarily only want to be Ramona,” he says. “It’s not necessarily about gender confusion, it’s just about freedom to express yourself.”

Hot! Experiences with her and as her? Not only is he going to become a transgendered robot, he is going to have sex with his feminine alter ego! The future is going to be awesome, man.

As bizarre as the pursuit of life-extension technology can be, I really liked this quote from Kurzweil’s doctor:

“Life is not a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled study,” Grossman explains. “We don’t have that luxury. We are operating with incomplete information. The best we can do is experiment with ourselves.”

Experiment away, Ray. See you in the future.

OMG. Our two favorite topics in one.

In this video Ken Wilber is asked some questions about the Singularity. He talks more about brain implants than anything else and doesn’t really address the Singularity question. Even though it’s not the most informative video on either the Singularity or Integral studies, I just had to post it.

Thanks to Holons for bringing this to our attention.

Michael Anissimov is one of the interesting characters we discovered in our Singularity research. He had a very interesting post the other day on science getting out of control:

The potential of near-future manufacturing technology is truly colossal. When self-replicating technologies start pulling their own weight financially and then some, an economic boom will start and not stop until the world is a very different place. Making as much of anything we want, limited only by energy and raw materials. More and more scientists and engineers are waking up to this near-future reality.

Please read his entire post. It is very encouraging to see a futurist like Mr. Anissimov focus on the hard questions that technological evolution creates:

When I see people calling me a “Luddite” for worrying about future technological developments, I think one of two things. Either they greatly underestimate the transformative power of the technology they themselves advocate, or they recklessly support scientific research without considering all the consequences. Personally, I think the creation of the first synthetic life form, whether it happens this year or the next, will signify the arrival of a fundamentally different era. An era where mankind taps into the power that has made life the dominant feature on the Earth’s surface today: reprogrammable self-replication at the molecular level.

You can think about that over the weekend.

When Laura and I went to the Singularity Summit back in September, we learned a lot about the imminent breakthroughs in artificial intelligence and technological augmentation of human intelligence. As you can see from the link above, we were left with some questions about the morality of the whole thing. I’ve been particularly interested in the possibility of a post-human species evolving and what that would mean for humanity (assuming any of us were left).

Better Humans recently had a post on this topic, referencing a paper by Bill Hibbard entitled, The Technology of Mind and a New Social Contract. The paper deals with the dangers vs benefits of the Singularity and suggests regulated development as the solution, unremarkable stuff, really.

What I found most interesting was Hibbard’s explanation of the social contract and its implications today, especially in regards to intelligence:

The social contract grows out of our human nature and is based on rarely-questioned assumptions, including:

1. Humans all have roughly the same intelligence (if you doubt this, consider that the chess skill that distinguishes Garry Kasparov from most other humans has been matched by computers, but the language and movement skills he shares with other humans are far beyond current computers). We assume this when we say that our competitive economic system provides equal opportunity.

He goes on to say:

The technologies of mind and life will invalidate these assumptions, with profound consequences for our social contract. For example, a less intelligent person will be unable to converse meaningfully with a person of radically greater intelligence. This is similar to the way a young child cannot converse at an adult level, except that the gap will be much larger. The most intelligent minds may know billions of ordinary humans well, and understand large-scale social interactions in a “single thought.” A conversation between two super-intelligent minds about such matters will be meaningless to an ordinary human. This will severely limit the ability of less intelligent humans to participate in economic and political discussions. If the super-intelligent minds are motivated by values similar to those of current humans, they will exclude less intelligent humans from important political and economic decisions, just as adults exclude children now.

Wow. What really struck me about this, is that although Hibbard uses a child/adult dichotomy to illustrate his point, this very situation goes on between adult populations. It’s begrudgingly accepted that a handful of (largely American) elites decide what is best for the rest of us politically, but the same cognition divisions can be seen in everyday life. People at high levels of cognition generally avoid interaction with people at the lower end of the spectrum. Meaningful communication between people of widely varying intelligence is infrequent in our society and can be strained when it does happen.

My point is that this is not an imaginary sci-fi problem. Communication and shared values across intelligence levels is a real issue, maybe the central issue of the modern era in many ways. Until we can have meaningful discourse and cooperation between the upper and lower strata of human cognition, we will continue to see further divergence in qualities of life. Furthermore, if we can’t work out a way to understand and appreciate each other better when the intelligence gap is relatively small, how will be be able to reconcile the gap created by the Singularity?

I don’t have any answers to this problem. It’s something I am actively working on in my own life. I’m confident there are ways to have consistently meaningful connections and mutual respect and these techniques might be useful in the context of post-human super intelligence.

Yep, that apostrophe is correct. I can’t help but post this link to Blogging the Singularity’s post on three parent embryos. I knew it would happen one of these days. Will gay couples prefer this process to adoption? So interesting.

I’m going to cover a lot of ground here so bear with me.

From BetterHumans I was led to this Edge World Question Center response from Martin Rees:

Darwin himself noted that “not one living species will transmit its unaltered likeness to a distant futurity”. Our own species will surely change and diversify faster than any predecessor —— via human-induced modifications (whether intelligently-controlled or unintended), not by natural selection alone. Just how fast this could happen is disputed by experts, but the post-human era may be only centuries away.

This quote brought me back to a question I have asked Laura many times: How do you reconcile reincarnation with exponential population growth? You can see that as the human population increases, other populations have decreased. It is really an energy shift from plants and animals to increasing numbers of humans. I got to thinking about this last night as I was watching Planet Earth. I was afraid that the series would be depressing, making me think about how destructive mankind is, but I am really enjoying it. Still, as I watched it I wondered, what are we here for? It seems we do more harm than good in the natural world.

I think that this idea of “post-humanism” is key. We can consciously evolve, using our technology to maintain the planet while still expanding the horizons of human potential. Rebalancing the energy that has shifted from nature to humanity, we can continue to grow as a whole. I think humans might exist to be the conscious witnesses of the material universe. The Tao (God, universal life-force, whatever) has manifested itself in nature and in each of us. Needless destruction of nature goes against the Tao and thereby causes injury to each person. A positive post-human future would result in a harmony between nature and technology, with man and the intermediary. Perhaps we are the catalyst for a post-natural universe: the Singularity.

Technology is neither our enemy nor our savior. I believe it is the natural evolution of the Tao as embodied in matter. A tree becomes a table becomes a calculator becomes a laptop and so on. Which is closest to infinity? The tree at the source or the technology on the horizon? It is an endless loop of potential that we have the responsibility to be stewards of.

When Emily and I were at the Singularity Summit, we were surprised by the amount of people who were intrigued, interested and even obsessed with utilizing technology created from the Singularity to live forever. In honor of yesterday’s post on time and Aubrey De Grey’s new book Ending Aging: The Rejuvenation Breakthroughs That Could Reverse Human Aging in Our Lifetime we thought a post on immortality and aging was in order.

After the tenth question about uploading human minds into super-computers to achieve immortality a woman stood up and boldly asked the Singularity Summit Conference Attendees, “Is there anyone here who doesn’t want to live forever? Because I certainly don’t.” Her question was met with cheers and boos. I was cheering.

Reversing human aging sounds great. Who likes getting wrinkles, saggy arms and an achy back? We use technology to help cure innumerable illnesses; why not use it to reverse aging?

First, I want to acknowledge that we don’t currently have any reverse-aging procedures so this entire post could be simply a thought experiment. But I still think, it is useful to examine our beliefs and prejudices about aging.

So why do we think that aging is a bad thing that we want to get rid of? It brings physical discomforts, aggravation at not being able to do things we once were able to do, our mind isn’t as sharp and we are seemingly closer to death. Health, youth, vitality and vigor are important characteristics we value. Large numbers of people take huge doses of vitamins, get cosmetics and surgical work done or maintain low body weight in order to slow the aging process. Many people feel that if you work hard you can stay looking young and avoid the troubles of old age. Thomas the Tank Engine, a popular children’s TV character says “being really useful” is the most important and best quality anyone can have. Americans’ deeply ingrained Protestant work ethic isn’t compatible with aging. We’re acculturated to fear, dislike and fight against the aging process. If successful aging means maintaining our youth and living as long as possible, we all fail eventually.

However, lets take a different approach. Think about the stages of life, we go from children to teenagers. During this phase we lose our child-like aspects and move into a different arena, that of young adulthood. From there we move into middle age. This process is the process of life, during each of these stages we have a different physical form and we have different perspectives on life. Ask a well adjusted middle-aged person if they’d want to go back to being a teenager? Maybe some of them would, but probably most wouldn’t. These stages are like mini-deaths.

Researchers from Stanford developed a theory called “socioemotional selectivity,” which argues:

Under time constraints emotional aspects of life are illuminated. Goals shift from those aimed at novelty or information seeking to those related to emotional meaning… older people are not suffering from limited opportunities to pursue social relations with others. Rather, they are investing carefully and strategically.

The complexity of emotion deepens under conditions that limit time. And because age is inextricably correlated with time left in life, age is associated with changes in emotion…Events that at one time were simple and straightforward now evoke mixtures of emotions ­ happiness, sadness, joy, fear and pride ­ all in the same moment. We suspect that emotional experience in later life may be richer than ever before in life.

The Stanford researchers and I both agree, that to talk about aging one has to talk about how we view death. Death has become a great taboo recently. For example, we hide ourselves and our children about our favorite meals: hamburgers, hot dogs and fried chickens. Professor Ashliman from University of Pittsburg writes:

A pet, too old and frail to live much longer, is “put to sleep.” At the human level, we are even more isolated from the one final act that we must all experience. Few people die at home. Funeral “homes” turn the act of mourning a “departed” loved one into a sanitized reunion of family and friends. The deceased are not “dead,” they have merely “passed on.” Euphemisms proliferate.

It has not always been so.

We do not like to be reminded of our own mortality, and in today’s world, institutions such as hospitals, hospices, retirement centers, and funeral homes (euphemisms abound in the language of death!) shield us from the worst of the Grim Reaper’s ravages. We cope, or so it might seem, by pretending that death does not exist.

We are all going to experience some of the declines associated with aging. We are all going to get old and we are all going to die. That’s not a threat. The knowledge that our years are limited may be what makes life precious. The Buddha tells us that the most important meditation we can engage in is of death, “Of all footprints, that of the elephant is supreme. Similarly, of all mindfulness meditations, that on death is supreme.”

Having said all this though, I don’t think we should give up the pursuit of anti-aging and rejuvinating techniques. I mostly wanted to point out some of the impetus and underlying fears and preoccupations that we a society have and how those fears are often shaping our discussion about life extension or immortality.

Perhaps this preoccupation with aging and death is our culture’s manifestation of its fear of death

Emily pointed out in her previous post. That one of the most important issues brought up at the Singularity Summit was the notion that the Singularity is the future of all human progress.

Essentially, all fields of study, all of human progress is leading up to the Singularity…In recent years I believe we have seen a shift from a divergence of specialized technologies, to a convergence of those parts into greater, cumulative technologies. Laser eye surgery is a great example of seemingly different fields, combining to great success. The Singularity will be the ultimate convergence of human progress.

While I’m a bit skeptical of this point, I do think it’s an interesting thought experiment to consider where the future of human progress lies. I found several speakers at the summit who had postulated futures that were surprisingly in-line with the ideas of one of the more bizarre and fringe philosophers I enjoy reading: Rudolf Steiner.

Steiner is one of the founders of Anthroposophy, his works outline the nature of the universe, other dimensions and other beings (rather broad, I know). However where I found many speakers, such as Wendell Wallach, converging with Steinerian ideals was on the issue of the evolution of human consciousness. Steiner believes the development of a:

…distinctively modern clairvoyant capability… [let us] contemplate this thought picture and recognize the present need to deepen and purify the scientific impulse by applying the kind of spiritual seeing of which the ancient world was capable, but which has not yet been applied to the external or natural world studied by contemporary scientific consciousness.

Steiner, and many singularity experts were pointing to this convergence of mystical and scientific as the direction human progress needs to take (although I grant you that just about no one at the Summit said this explicitly). How else can we begin to resolve issues of creating artificial general intelligence, especially “self improving” intelligence? It cannot be done without deeply contemplating the nature of our reality. The very heart of the issue plaguing the Singularity is how to do this.

Of course I am currently reading Steiner, so his ideas are fresh in my mind. Perhaps my conclusions are just another example for our much heralded view that thoughts create reality. I am interested in Steinerian thought and I found it in the Singularity Summit.

*From the Essential Steiner pg. 170