There is a growing desire among people to transcend the limits of being human. People want to be rid of pain; people want to defeat death; people want to wield extraordinary intellectual power; people want their bodies to rival those of gods in ancient mythology; people want to become super-human.
There are thought leaders such as Bill Gates, Ray Kurzweil, and Elon Musk who claim that with the rise of artificial intelligence--the raw power of computer intelligence that's set to grow at an exponential rate--the only way for humans to survive is to technologically enhance their biology. According to Fortune Magazine, the artificial intelligence industry--buoyed up by top CEOs like Jeff Bezos and Alphabet's Sundar Pichai--is set to become at least a $70 Billion industry in just 4 years. A huge spike from a merger $8 Billion only 3 years ago!
Elon Musk on his concerns about AI
Some wonder if there's enough time for humans to enhance themselves before the next wave of AI enslaves us, wipes us out--or both. The main thing is intelligence; for if a robot can think faster and in a more complex manner than you can, how will you prevent yourself from becoming a slave?
In the book "Our Final Invention" James Barrat argues that we are creating the engines of our destruction. Put simply, the AI project's objective is to create machines that have human consciousness. If this is the case, Barrat argues, they will have a self-preservation mechanism--part of their consciousness will be to ensure their own survival. Therefore, once conscious AI see humans as a threat--as having the power to press the shut-off switch--they will do all they can to thwart us, if not destroy us. Barrat claims that indeed we're too late to stop it; the engines of creation will not be stopped. And with that being the case, we must either enhance ourselves or perish.
But what kinds of things need to happen for one to become a superhuman?
1. Brain enhancement: Whether by prothesis or a chip implant, technologists have been working on this kind of technology for a long time. The key to chipping up your brain is to plug into the internet's vastly growing knowledge ecology that will enhance your ability to think, make decisions, and access knowledge. Brain implant surgeries have already been achieved, and patients are learning how to work with a computer as it makes decisions for them. As the computers become faster and more powerful, the enhanced human brain will become in turn faster and more powerful.
2. Body enhancement: Again prosthetics is key here--think bionic man in the 21st Century. Humans are enhancing their bodies all the time through drugs and advanced physical training regimens. But as these technologies improve, humans will be able to alter their bodies in outstanding ways. Indeed, human bodies wear out. According to Ray Kurzweil, with nanotechnology, humans will be able to have 'nano-skin'--skin made out of tiny robots that will regenerate it, heal it, and change its look and feel. Want to be someone else for a period of time? Just reprogram the nanoparticles.
Ray Kurzweil on bringing back the dead--no seriously.
3. Immortality: Aubrey de Grey is one of the pioneers of immortology--yes, the study of living forever. He believes we need to defeat the notion that death is an immutable characteristic of human existence. He is thus waging a techno-war against death and dying. According to de Grey, Kurzweil and others, with the advancement of medical technologies, and the exponential growth of technology in general, humans will be able to ride the longevity wave for the next thousands of years. Some are claiming that this generation of children will live into up to 300-500 years. De Grey's argument is simple: If wellness technologies can increase your life-span by 10 years, you have been given 10 more years of technological development; and within those 10 years, wellness technologies will give you an additional 25-50 years; and within that 25-50 years, wellness technologies will be able to buy you another 100 years; and within that 100 years, wellness technologies will be able to buy you another 1000 years--and so on and so forth. A significant area of medical practice for this is gene therapy. As genetic technology grows, so does the ability for doctors to eliminate the kinds of genes that cause cancer, heart attack, stroke, alzheimers, etc.
4. Virtual Reality: This is another area that technologists are looking to for enhanced human experience: to live on the internet; to have oneself connected to the internet through brain implant technology. Already, virtual reality is being designed with a high level of verisimilitude to human experience--and it will only advance. According to Ray Kurzweil, humans will be living, working, playing, and travelling in virtual environments. Moreover, this will be a way he sees the ability of bringing people back from the dead, namely by reconstructing humans based on information left behind after their death, and recreating their bodies and brains. Once we are able to fully reverse-engineer and re-create the human brain, we'll be able to bring our dead loved ones back to life by recreating them as avatars.
Does this sound crazy to you? How do you feel about enhancing your body? Do you see AI as such a threat that you would hands-down adopt the technologies, albeit loosely, explained above?
What are the threats to human existence that these technologies pose? Some maintain that when we enhance our brains to such an extent, we'll be running so much information through them we'll inflict further harm on our minds and bodies. We're already the most medicated society in human history, largely due to the demands technology is imposing on our limited bodies. "Humans are slow," claimed the interviewer in the clip above with Elon Musk--humans are slow. Another scenario could be that your brain will become easily hackable, not unlike your mobile phone or automobile.
And with Kurzweil's plan to bring his father back to life, it sounds from the clip that his father will indeed be a diminished copy of the real thing. What will that look like? Those with sci-fi imaginations should be going wild right now.
That's the problem--it's all so speculative. We're playing with a kind of power the limits of which we don't know; and we're playing with our bodies and minds and future generations not unlike lab mice in a science lab. This should concern us.
But what's the alternative if indeed AI is about to emerge the way experts are predicting?
Time will tell . . .
No comments:
Post a Comment