Hear that? It's the Singularity coming.

The idea of a pending technological Singularity is under attack again with a number of prominent futurists arguing against the possibility—the most prominent being Charlie Stross and his astonishingly unconvincing article, "Three arguments against the singularity." While it’s not my intention to write a comprehensive rebuttal at this time, I would like to bring something to everyone’s attention: The early rumblings of the coming Singularity are becoming increasingly evident and obvious.

Make no mistake. It's coming.

As I’ve discussed on this blog before, there are nearly as many definitions of the Singularity as there are individuals who are willing to talk about it. The whole concept is very much a sounding board for our various hopes and fears about radical technologies and where they may bring our species and our civilization. It’s important to note, however, that at best the Singularity describes a social event horizon beyond which it becomes difficult, if not impossible, to predict the impact of the advent of recursively self-improving greater-than-human artificial intelligence.

So, it’s more of a question than an answer. And in my own attempt to answer this quandary, I have personally gravitated towards the I.J. Good camp in which the Singularity is characterized as an intelligence explosion. In 1965 Good wrote,

Let an ultraintelligent machine be defined as a machine that can far surpass all the intellectual activities of any man however clever. Since the design of machines is one of these intellectual activities, an ultraintelligent machine could design even better machines; there would then unquestionably be an 'intelligence explosion,' and the intelligence of man would be left far behind. Thus the first ultraintelligent machine is the last invention that man need ever make.

This perspective and phrasing sits well with me, mostly because I already see signs of this pending intelligence explosion happening all around us. It’s becoming glaringly obvious that humanity is offloading all of it’s capacities, albeit in a distributed way, to its technological artifacts. Eventually, these artifacts will supersede our capacities in every way imaginable, including the acquisition of new ones altogether.

A common misnomer about the Singularity and the idea of greater-than-human AI is that it will involve a conscious, self-reflective, and even morally accountable agent. This has led some people to believe that it will have deep and profound thoughts, quote Satre, and resultantly act in a quasi-human manner. This will not be the case. We are not talking about artificial consciousness or even human-like cognition. Rather, we are talking about super-expert systems that are capable of executing tasks that exceed human capacities. It will stem from a multiplicity of systems that are individually singular in purpose, or at the very least, very limited in terms of functional scope. And in virtually all cases, these systems won't reflect on the consequences of their actions unless they are programmed to do so.

But just because they're highly specialized doesn’t mean they won’t be insanely powerful. These systems will have access to a myriad of resources around them, including the internet, factories, replicators, socially engineered humans, robots that they can control remotely, and much more; this technological outreach will serve as their arms and legs.

Consequently, the great fear of the Singularity stems from the realization that these machine intelligences, which will have processing capacities a significant order of magnitude beyond that of humans, will be able to achieve their pre-programmed goals without difficulty–even if we try to intervene and stop them. This is what has led to the fear of poorly programmed SAI or “malevolent” SAI. If our instructions to these super-expert systems are poorly articulated or under-developed, these machines could pull the old 'earth-into-paperclips' routine.

For those skeptics who don’t see this coming, I implore them to look around. We are beginning to see the opening salvo of the intelligence explosion. We are already creating systems that exceed our capacities and it's a trend that is quickly accelerating. This is a process that started a few decades ago with the advent of computers and other calculating machines, but it’s been in the last little while that we’ve been witness to more profound innovations. Humanity chuckled in collective nervousness back in 1997 when chess grandmaster Garry Kasparaov was defeated by Deep Blue. From that moment on we knew the writing was on the wall, but we’ve since chosen to deny the implications; call it proof-of-concept, if you will, that a Singularity is coming.

More recently, we have developed a machine that can defeat the finest Jeopardy players, and now there’s a AI/robotic system that can play billiards at a high level. You see where this is going, right? We are systematically creating individual systems that will eventually and collectively exceed all human capacities. This can only be described as an intelligence explosion. While we are a far ways off from creating a unified system that can defeat us well-rounded and highly multi-disciplinal humans across all fields, it’s not unrealistic to suggest that such a day is coming.

But that’s beside the point. What’s of concern here is the advent of the super-expert system that works beyond human comprehension and control—the one that takes things a bit too far and with catastrophic results.

Or with good results.

Or with something that we can't even begin to imagine.

We don’t know, but we can be pretty darned sure it’ll be disruptive—if not paradigmatic in scope. This is why it’s called the Singularity. The skeptics and the critics can clench their hands in a fist and stamp their feet all they want about it, but that’s where we find ourselves.

We humans are already lagging behind many of our systems in terms of comprehension, especially in mathematics. Our artifacts will increasingly do things for reasons that we can’t really understand. We’ll just have to stand back and watch, incredulous as to the how and why. And accompanying this will come the (likely) involuntary relinquishment of control.

So, we can nit-pick all we want about definitions, fantasize about creating a god from the machine, or poke fun at the rapture of the nerds.

Or we can start to take this potential more seriously and have a mature and fully engaged discussion on the matter.

So what’s it going to be?

"Grouping By Contrast" optical illusion

This optical illusion is yet another not-so-subtle reminder that everything we think we see is the result of our brain presenting the world to us in ways that are agent-comprehensible (i.e. the product of a filtering process that autonomously presents to us a version of the world that is (mostly) stripped of noise) and thereby evolutionarily adaptive. It's also likely the result of evolutionary limitations and quirks (there's only so much DNA can do with biological matter).

More.

Brain Preservation Foundation featured in the latest Cryonics Magazine

The new issue of Cryonics Magazine features an article by Ken Hayworth, president of the Brain Preservation Foundation, in which he explains the thinking behind his organization's Technology Prize.

The prize, says Hayworth, draws inspiration from both the Ansari X-Prize, which incentivized the development of low-cost manned spacecrafts for use in the commercial space industry, and the as-yet-unclaimed James Randi Educational Foundation's Paranormal Challenge Prize, which challenges individuals claiming paranormal abilities to demonstrate them and win $1,000,000. In the spirit of those prizes, Hayworth believes the Technology Prize will both accelerate the development of low-cost, high-quality whole brain preservation technologies and legitimize these technologies for neuroscientists, who have so far been skeptical of cryopreservation and related techniques.

The issue also contains a response to Hayworth's article written by Alcor representative Mike Perry.

Download the complete issue of Cryonics Magazine here. For more information on the Brain Preservation Foundation and the Technology Prize, visit www.brainpreservation.org.

Adam Curtis's All Watched Over By Machines of Loving Grace

Adam Curtis' new documentary mini-series is now airing on the BBC: All Watched Over By Machines of Loving Grace. The series will investigate the role of technology in politics, economics, and self identity.

In the first episode, Love and Power, Curtis tracks the effects of Ayn Rand's ideas on American financial markets, particularly via the influence on Alan Greenspan.



Be sure to check out Curtis's other docs, especially The Trap, The Power of Nightmares, and The Century of the Self.

So I started eating meat again...

Yes, this from the guy who once said that meat eaters are bad people.

I guess that must make me a bad person.

Well, unlike many other carnivores, I'm at least cognizant of the fact that I'm exploiting animals for my own well-being. While I have made the move to a diet that contains meat, I am not completely at peace with it. I am fully aware and respectful of the fact that the meat on my plate comes at at price, that being the life of another animal.

But I have my reasons. My decision to eat meat again was driven by health concerns. I was a vegetarian for over ten years and I did so primarily for ethical reasons. It was in the last several years of being a vegetarian, however, that I grew increasingly concerned about my health. An increasing number of studies started to point at the importance of meat protein and animal fat—not to mention the perils of soy (which was a staple for me). Moreover, my performance at the gym was stalling. My energy levels were consistently low and I was making very little gains. This was an indication to me that something wasn't right.

So, after a decade of avoiding meat, I was curious to see if a reintroduction to animal protein could change the situation. I switched to the Paleo diet and within three months my BMI went down from 17% to 12% and I gained nearly ten pounds of muscle mass. I was astounded. And add to that an improved sense of well-being, mental clarity and energy— I was sold. My experiment with eating meat exceeded even my own expectations.

Now just because I'm eating meat again doesn't mean I have to be an asshole about it. Like I said earlier, I am still concerned about the well-being of animals. It's for this reason that I'm striving to be the conscious carnivore. I only eat meat from grass-fed animals that have been allowed to graze in pasture and the eggs I eat come from free-range chickens. Yes, my grocery bills are two to three times as much as they used to be, but it's a price I'm happy to pay. I feel better knowing that the meat on my plate came from an animal that actually lived a reasonably good life.

Okay, before I bury you in all this contriteness, there's something else that needs to be said. While I agree that many meat eaters can be obnoxious, inconsiderate and self-righteous in celebration of their carnivorousness, there is an equally pernicious sentiment among vegetarians that needs to be called out: the false notion that a vegetarian or vegan diet is actually good for you. Like the meat eater who needs to acknowledge the harm they're meting out as a consequence of their dietary choices, the vegetarian needs to acknowledge the fact that their diet is far from ideal.

A vegetarian's choice to avoid meat for ethical or environmental reasons is truly noble. They are willing to sacrifice their own health in order to mete out as little harm as possible. I bow down to these people in deep and profound respect.

But that said, vegetarians should not claim that their diet is optimal—because many of them do. The avoidance of meat protein and animal fats, plus the heavy reliance on soy and carbohydrates, is far from ideal. As a person concerned about his health, and as someone who feels that there are reasonable ethical options available for meat consumption, I have consciously (and perhaps selfishly) chosen to avoid a sub-optimal diet. I have come to recognize the fact that the human body evolved to eat meat, and that in order for me to live and be at my best, I need to be an omnivore.

Lastly, as a bioethicist who has strived to walk-the-walk, I am increasingly coming to grips with the fact that I cannot live an ethically or morally perfect life and that I should stop trying. I'll continue to do my best to put out as little harm into the world as possible, but existential perfection is no longer my goal.

As for my animal rights advocacy work, that still remains a top priority. I'll continue to push for better conditions at factory farms (if not the elimination of factory farming altogether), the development of cultured meat, and of course, extended rights for nonhuman animal persons.

For my vegetarian and vegan friends and colleagues, I hope you understand and continue to support me and my work.

Primal transhumanism

Primal Tanshumanism.

Oxymoron? Maybe.

Burgeoning lifestyle choice for a growing number of futurists? Most definitely.

Look, it’s 2011 and it’s glaringly obvious that we’re still quite a ways off from achieving the much heralded posthuman condition. The sad truth is that all interventions or augmentations currently available are fairly low impact by any measure. There aren’t a whole lot of high tech and sophisticated options available to radically alter human performance, experience, or life expectancy.

So what’s a transhumanist to do? Just sit around and wait for something better to come along?

Hardly. An increasing number of transhumanists are taking matters into their own hands by working with what they got. And by doing so, they're pushing the limits of their genetic potential.

While a significant segment of the transhumanist community is content to let their minds and bodies go to waste in anticipation of future interventions, there is a growing conviction amongst a number of adherents who feel that there is no better time than the present to optimize their bodies using the limited resources available. And strangely, some of these body-hacks involve an apparent technological step back.

Call it Paleo-Transhumanism

Indeed, there are a number of things we can do to extend our capacities and optimize our health in a way that’s consistent with transhumanist ideals—even if it doesn’t appear to be technologically sophisticated. While the effects of these interventions are admittedly low impact from a future-relativistic perspective, the quest for bodily and cognitive enhancement is part of the broader transhumanist aesthetic which places an emphasis on maximal performance, high quality of life, and longevity.

Consequently, anyone who professes to be a transhumanist, but does nothing to improve upon himself, is a poser. These are the people who are waiting for the magic to happen, and by consequence, are neglecting their full potential in the present moment. Transhumanism is something that's applied in the here-and-now; it’s a recognition of the radical present and all that it has to offer.

Sure, part of being a transhumanist involves the bringing about of a radical future, including scientific research and cheerleading. But it’s also a lifestyle choice; transhumanists actively strive to exceed their body’s nascent capacities, or, at the very least, work to bring about its full potential. In addition to building a radical future, a transhumanist is someone who will, at any time in history, use the tools and techniques around them to maximize their biological well-being. And while there are a number of technological interventions at our disposal–things like pharmaceuticals, implants, and hand-held devices—there is an alternative and seemingly old-fashioned approach to bodily enhancement that’s gaining considerable currency in transhumanist sub-cultures.

Much of the fuel that drives this sentiment is the notion that modernity has actually harmed human functioning more than it has helped. Take agriculture for example. While it has (arguably) propelled human civilization forward, it has paradoxically worked to undermine human health. Anthropologists are revealing that, when compared to our Paleolithic-era ancestors, modern humans have less bone density, are smaller, and more disease ridden. Modern foods, most of which are highly processed and infused with salt and sugar, is the primary culprit—as are apparent “natural” foods like whole grains and rice. Compounding this situation is the shift from active to passive existences; modern humans now bask in the glow of their computer monitors instead of the sun. Our bodies were not meant for this kind of sedentary life and we’re now having to cope with a batch of modern diseases.

A solution to all this, it would seem, is adopting a lifestyle that is more suited to our biological needs. While it might sound contradictory to those with a futuristic bent, adopting a lifestyle that more closely approximates that of our Paleolithic ancestors would do more to foster human health than a continuation of modern habits and norms.

Strong and fit is the new geek

Okay, at the risk of sounding like a complete Luddite, I’m not suggesting that you sell your belongings and move into a cave. It’s not like that. I’m still hoping that you cart around your iPad, philosophize about the coming Singularity, and implant magnets into your finger tips. But I also feel that we need to take an evolutionary approach to human health, namely lifestyle choices that place a greater emphasis on primal eating, exercising, sleeping, and other health factors. This is how the modern transhumanist can best unlock her biological potential.

In terms of specifics, these choices include the Paleolithic diet (also called the caveman diet), fully functional interval training executed at high intensity, and 7-8 hours of sleep each night in complete darkness.

Sounds simple, and even too good to be true, but for those of us who live according to these rules the results have been extraordinary.

And when I say us I mean a good number of prominent transhumanists, a list that includes Max More, Natasha Vita-More, James Hughes, Bruce Klein, and Patri Friedman. Max and Natasha in particular have treated their bodies as shrines since the very beginning, setting a positive example for transhumanists for quite some time.

Indeed, being strong and fit is the new geek. Though not a transhumanist by name, author Timothy Ferris’s latest book, The Four Hour Body, highlights a number of techniques and “body hacks” that work to produce what he calls “superhuman” results.

I’m not sure what’s more ironic: that a primitive approach to eating and fitness is the best way to optimize human health and performance, or that computer nerds are catching on and becoming complete bad-asses by engaging in these kinds of body hacks.

Back to basics: Diet and exercise

It's been said that in order to truly comprehend anything in biology it has to be viewed through the lens of natural selection. If we are to improve human health and performance we need to study our evolutionary underpinnings. Our bodies are adapted to a very specific kind of environment, namely the one our ancestors lived in over the course of hundreds of thousands of years. Consequently, because our species has remained largely unchanged since Paleolithic times, we are best suited to live under a very specific set of conditions.

The Paleo-diet is one approach that works to match the specific way our ancestors ate. It's a diet that has gained serious traction in the fitness communities, not because of any commitment to naturalism or Luddism, but because it works. The primal approach to eating is now the go-to diet for many professional and elite athletes. And it's safe to suggest they wouldn't be doing it if it didn't get them results.

Adherents of this diet basically reject any foods that arrived after the onset of the agricultural revolution. To that end, they consume copious amounts of meat (typically free-range, organic, and grass fed) and vegetables, along with some fruit, nuts, and seeds. Primal eaters take a very liberal approach to consuming fats, while remaining wary of gluten, high-density carbohydrates, and sugars of any sort. So, no whole grains, pasta, rice, potatoes, dairy, or processed foods. While it may sound incredibly restrictive, it’s actually not that severe; there’s considerable culinary potential even within those constraints.

But it’s not enough to base an entire diet on a philosophical or aesthetic appreciation of our primal ancestry. There has to be proven efficacy and hard science to back it up. And indeed a growing literature is emerging that both supports and propels this approach to eating. Paleo advocates like Robb Wolf, Loren Cordain, and Mat Lalonde pour through scientific studies revealing the dangers of Neolithic and processed foods while highlighting the benefits of eating whole foods.

Often accompanying the Paleo diet is a fully functional approach to fitness. The old model of going to the global gym, hitting the treadmill, and working on isolation movements in the weight room is increasingly coming to be seen as old fashioned and ineffectual. Instead, there’s a new emphasis on constantly varied compound movements performed at high intensity for short intervals. A functional movement is anything our bodies are meant to do: lift, push, pull, drag, climb, run, and jump. These exercise sessions, which depending on the workout can range anywhere from five to 25 minutes, tend to be both physically and psychologically demanding. But the gains are tremendous.

A fitness model that best exemplifies this approach is CrossFit. It's a strength and conditioning program that combines weightlifting, sprinting, gymnastics, powerlifting, kettlebell training, plyometrics, rowing, and medicine ball training. Founded by Greg Glassman over a decade ago, CrossFit gyms are starting to pop-up around the world. CrossFit's impact has been nothing short of revolutionary; it has turned fitness into an actual sport. Its major claim is that, through its system of tackling all ten fitness domains (cardiovascular/respiratory endurance, stamina, strength, flexibility, power, speed, agility, balance, coordination, and accuracy) it produces the best results and the worlds fittest athletes.

As a CrossFitter myself, I can certainly vouch for these claims. When I first started nearly three years ago I could barely do a push-up. Back then a 125 pound deadlift nearly made me pass out. These days, a workout involving a hundred push-ups isn't out of the question. I have a 265 pound backsquat and I’m only five pounds away from a 400 pound deadlift. And this from a guy who spent most of his adult life completely inactive. There's no question in my mind that the CrossFit approach is the best one. At least for me.

Being physically strong is no joke or a petty indulgence. And it is of utmost importance to those interested in extending longevity. I would make the case that physical strength does more to prolong healthy lifespan than any other lifestyle factor available today—including caloric restriction. Studies have shown that strength can add as much as a decade to your life.

In addition to proper eating and exercise, the primal lifestyle also advocates a natural approach to sleeping, which means 7-8 hours per night in the complete pitch dark. Indeed, studies have shown that this length of time is optimal and that any kind of light interrupts sleep in non-trivial ways.

Primal transhumanism...for now

I'm going to conclude with a quick reality check.

As stated earlier, the primal approach is a stop-gap measure for transhumanists until something better comes along. Those looking to optimize their health and performance in the here-and-now should seriously consider adopting this lifestyle.

This approach is certainly a "soft" form of transhumanism and it's definitely no match for what's still to come. Our transition away from Homo sapiens will be accompanied by more impactful technologies—interventions like genomics, cybernetics, neuropharma, and molecular nanotechnology. Once we have access to these technologies we will truly be able invoke the "trans" in "transhumanism" as our species migrates into a posthuman and potentially post-biological condition.

And in the meantime, love your body. It's all you got.

Uplift gone wrong: Rise of the Planet of the Apes [trailer]

Whoa. Guess where I'm going to be opening night...

Cyborg M4p1

Photo by azuaravaconmigo.

Advanced civs might live off black holes

Clement Vidal of the Evolution, Complexity and Cognition group at the Vrije Universiteit in Brussels recently published a neat paper called "Black Holes: Attractors for Intelligence?" Abstract:

The Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence (SETI) has so far been unsuccessful and needs additional methods. We introduce a two-dimensional metric for civilization development, using the Kardashev scale of energy increase and the Barrow scale of inward manipulation. To support Barrow's scale limit, we contend with energetic, societal, scientific, computational, and philosophical arguments that black holes are attractors for intelligence. An application of the two-dimensional metric leads to a simple, consistent and observable hypothesis to test the existence of very advanced civilizations. We suggest that some already observed X-Ray binaries may be unnoticed advanced civilizations, of type KII-B Ω. The appendix provides an argumentative map of the paper's main thesis.

Ray Villard of Discovery elaborates:

Civilizations may try to live forever by exploiting the time-dilation effects near a black hole to hibernate and survive into the very far-future universe. Something like this is wonderfully described in Isaac Asimov's short story "The Last Question." A hyper-computer called the Cosmic AC reboots the universe after our cosmos has fully entropied. After mulling over the darkness, the multidimensional machine says: "Let there be light!"

Ultimately, a super-civilization may attempt to artificially create a universe in the laboratory via black hole fabrication. This far-out notion of artificial cosmogenesis might explain why the many constants in our universe are so precisely tuned for our existence.

For example dark energy -- a repulsive form of gravity -- is a whopping 123 orders of magnitude weaker than what would have been predicted from quantum physics. This could not have happened by coincidence unless there is an infinity of parallel universes with their own different dark energy values, speculate some astrophysicists.

Or instead, dark energy is a signal of –- dare I say -- intelligent design. I’m not implying spiritual metaphysics here, but perhaps our universe might simply be a science fair project of an entity from an exo-universe.

Always happy to see alternative approaches to SETI.

PopSci on the "League of Performance-Enhanced Athletes"

I've been arguing for the establishment of performance-enhanced leagues for years now, so it's nice to see Ryan Bradley of Popular Science make the same case:

Through this openness the league creates an environment where cutting-edge science is discussed daily, and celebrated, alongside athletic triumph. Better still: legitimizing enhancement would make the enhancements better. More drugs hit the market, more treatments become available, and this would trickle down to non-athletes. Would all this openness and advancement foster a more honest, inviting, even wholesome environment? Maybe. Creating a separate league where drugs are legal would, without a doubt, make competition safer for athletes. Matthew Herper, who has covered science and health (and, by extension, athletes and drugs) for a decade at Forbes, says as much.

Science, Feature, athletes, competition, cycling, doping, drugs, lance armstrong, sports, steroids“To me, the most obvious solution has always been to legalize those drugs that work, and to experimentally monitor new entrants, including dietary supplements, for both efficacy and safety. Biological improvement would be treated much as athletic equipment like baseball bats and running shoes. This could improve both athlete’s performance and their health, and would be a lot better than having everybody trying whatever additive they can sneak, attempting to stay ahead of drug tests, and trusting anecdotes as a way of measuring safety and efficacy.”

But perhaps most importantly, by keeping advances off the field, we’re holding back possibilities. A few years ago I visited Hugh Herr, the director of biomechatronics at MIT’s Media Lab, who had just invented a robotic ankle that would soon revolutionize prosthetics. We ended up discussing the ankle a little bit, but mostly we talked about science in sports. Herr is an athlete. As a young man he was a world-class rock climber. A week before my visit, he had been busy trying to convince the International Association of Athletics Federations to allow South African runner Oscar Pistorius to compete in the Olympics. Pistorius has no legs below his knees and runs using Cheetah Flex-Foot carbon fiber limbs which, arguably, gives him an unfair advantage. Herr is also a double amputee, and walks and climbs using prosthetics. That day in his lab, while he showed me his improved ankle and described his work with veterans, Herr told me that he sees no reason why we can’t make “disabled” people stronger and faster than the rest of us. In fact, we already are: just look at Pistorius. The IAAF agreed and, weeks later, decided to ban the South African from competition.

Two very transhumanist-themed trailers: Limitless and Captain America

Bayes: The Theory That Would Not Die [book]

A new book on Bayes Theorem has just been published: The Theory That Would Not Die: How Bayes' Rule Cracked the Enigma Code, Hunted Down Russian Submarines, and Emerged Triumphant from Two Centuries of Controversy by Sharon Bertsch McGrayne. From the SciAm review, Why Bayes Rules: The History of a Formula That Drives Modern Life:

Discovered by English clergyman Thomas Bayes, the formula is a simple one-liner: Initial Beliefs + Recent Objective Data = A New and Improved Belief. A modern form comes from French mathematician Pierre-Simon Laplace, who, by recalculating the equation each time he got new data, could distinguish highly probable hypotheses from less valid ones. One of his applications involved explaining why slightly more boys than girls were born in Paris in the late 1700s. After collecting demographic data from around the world for 30 years, he concluded that the boy-girl ratio is universal to humankind and determined by biology.

Many theoretical statisticians over the years have assailed Bayesian methods as subjective. Yet decision makers insist that they bring clarity when information is scarce and outcomes uncertain. During the 1970s John Nicholson, the U.S. submarine fleet commander in the Mediterranean, used Bayesian computer analysis to figure out the most probable paths of Soviet nuclear subs. Today Bayesian math helps sort spam from e-mail, assess medical and homeland security risks and decode DNA, among other things.

Now Bayes is revolutionizing robotics, says Sebastian Thrun, director of Stanford University’s Artificial Intelligence Laboratory and Google’s driverless car project. By expressing all information in terms of probability distributions, Bayes can produce reliable estimates from scant and uncertain evidence.

Crystal Pite's Dark Matters [dance]

Canadian dancer/choreographer Crystal Pite's newest piece, Dark Matters, addresses some transhumanist themes, namely the creation of artificial progeny and its potentially grave and unpredictable implications. The title refers both to astrophysics and human impulses, exploring the idea of undetectable forces at work in cosmology and human affairs.


Dark Matters is a theatrical hybrid of puppetry and dance that opens as a sinister fable in which an inventor creates a puppet (or is that a robot?) with fateful results—and all expressed through contemporary ballet.

Designer Psychologies: Moving beyond neurotypicality

Designer psychologies, or customized cognitive processing modalities, describes the potential for future individuals to selectively alter the specific and unique ways in which they take in, analyze and perceive the world. Cognitive modalities are the psychological frameworks that allow for person-to-person variances in subjectivity, including such things as emotional responses, social engagement, aesthetics and prioritization. The day is coming when we'll be able to decide for ourselves how it is exactly that we want to process our world.

Most of us have the so-called neurotypical cognitive response. We know, however, mostly through our interactions with those outside of the cognitive norm, that neurotypicality is not the be-all and end-all of psychological experience. As the Autism Rights Movement has demonstrated, our tendency to describe anyone outside the neurotypical norm as being abnormal, pathological or broken in some way is not entirely accurate or fair. Impairment is in the eye of the beholder, and in many cases, we are finding considerable value in the neurodiverse experience.

Indeed, autism is a great example of this. While it can largely be characterized as a social communication disorder, this definition of autism is clearly an expression of the neurotypical bias which, rightly or wrongly, places great value on person-to-person interactions and social conventions; autistics don’t necessarily see this as a problem and are often quite content to focus on their own thoughts and pursuits. Moreover, it’s through the autistic lens that the world can be processed, understood and appreciated in a way that’s qualitatively different than that of the neurotypical mind.

Society benefits from neurodiversity. It carries an intrinsic worth. It’s through “different kinds of thinking” that we get alternative perspectives on the world, and as a result, unique and often astounding forms of expression. Famous autistics, for example, have produced great works of art, scientific theories, and even such unorthodox inventions as cattle calming chutes thanks to Temple Grandin.

Now, as I address the potential for designer psychologies, I am not necessarily saying we should develop technologies to help us all become autistics—but if that’s your cup of tea, then go for it. What I am suggesting is that autistics provide a glimpse into the “other,” that there is huge potential for other cognitive modalities outside of neurotypicality, and that we should consider developing our neurosciences such that we can individually tailor our psychologies in accordance with our values, changing environments, technologies, capacities and social arrangements.

From neurotypicality to neurodiversity

Okay, so why do we need to reach outside the bounds of neurotypicality? What’s so wrong with our brains that we can’t leave well enough alone?

As just mentioned, there is intrinsic personal and societal worth to neurodiversity. But in addition, it is an expression of our cognitive liberty and our right to modify our minds as we see fit. Moreover, it is a way for us to re-jig and improve upon an increasingly outdated piece of equipment, namely our Paleolithic brains.

While there is significant variance within neurotypicality, we tend to agree that it defines a strict band of cognitive traits and normal functioning that, when transgressed, leads to pathology, or in some cases extreme giftedness. Now, while we may think that there is considerable diversity within neurotypicality, it is nothing compared to the potential space of possibilities that exist outside it.

It’s within this small patch of “normalcy” that Homo sapiens, for the most part, currently dwells. We are a species that finds itself in a post-industrialized information era civilization — a situation far removed from the environment in which we evolved over the course of hundreds of thousands of years. It’s for this reason that neurotypicality should also be thought of as Paleoneurology. Our minds are most suited to life in Paleolithic tribal environments; our psychological tendencies are all adaptive traits that have resulted in such characteristics as tribalism, hierarchic social arrangements, the Dunbar limit (maximum number of social connections), cognitive biases, strictly calibrated emotional responses, an aesthetic appreciation for nature, organic forms, and human things.

We obviously don’t live in a Paleolithic society (except in my household), and many of these traits have resulted in a number of maladaptive behaviors, including proclivities for addiction, and modern diseases like depression, obesity, ADHD, and stress. It has resulted in environmental and social alienation, in which we have great difficulty dealing with noise and light pollution, or through social arrangements far removed from tribal and familial settings.

This is a problem that is not getting better anytime soon. In fact, we, as biological creatures, have created a civilization that is increasingly complex and even postbiological. We stand to become even further distanced and alienated from our settings as time passes. Sure, many of the things we have are deliberately designed to please, but that’s also part of the problem, leading to such things as web and video game addiction. And yet other things that surround us are completely outside of intentional design — the products of brute utilitarianism (think concrete slabs, roads, telephone poles, computer code, massive data sets, and so on).

The processing mind

From a certain vantage point the designer psychologies initiative could be seen as a kind of cognitive enhancement, and I don’t really have a huge problem with that. But this is more than just enhancement—it’s more than such things as increased attention spans, intelligence, and memory—traits that can clearly be labeled as improvements.

It’s through designer psychologies that we can strive to be different, and not just better; this is why the neurodiversity movement is so important. It’s about creating alternatives. Consequently, alternative psychologies may actually result in the voluntary onset of impairment — or at least an impairment as viewed through the lens of other modalities. This will be a very tricky area to navigate in terms of the ethics, but it’s a conversation that needs to be had.

And by alternative psychologies I am referring to fundamental changes in the ways our brains perceive and process information. Our brains are largely preconfigured to help us interpret and operate in the world, much like a computer processes information. This computer analogy goes back to the mathematician Claude Shannon who described information processing as the conversion of latent information into manifest information. This is basically the process of having unprocessed or pre-processed information, whether sent out by the environment or through an intentional agent, delivered to a receiver, and having the intended receiver transform, process, and potentially respond and act on that information. Along the way our brains do such things as data filtering and prioritization to help us distinguish signal from noise. We have little to no control over what we think is important, valuable or aesthetically pleasing; these are largely autonomous responses.

How wonderful would it be to recalibrate these information processes according to our needs as a transhuman species. Thankfully we have a good idea as to how we might be able to make this possible.

Back in the 1970s, it was Abraham Moles and Frieder Nake who established and analyzed the links between information processing and aesthetics. They argued that the subjective experience of interpreting incoming data is dependent on the software set up in the brain. Thus, it’s here where we can work to change our seemingly innate preferences.

Cognitive customization and design

So, what kinds of thing would we want to do. What are some examples of designer psychologies?

The space of all possible viable and worthwhile psychologies is absolutely massive. Neurotypicality is but a tiny speck of what’s possible. While it would be impossible for me to predict the various ways in which we might want to alter our cognitive modalities, there are a number of areas we might want to consider:

A. Aesthics

It’s time that we started to adapt our minds to our environment rather than the other way around. A human, transhuman or posthuman mind needs to be able to interpret contemporary things. Consequently, we need to re-think our aesthetic appreciation of those artifacts not traditionally present in the human palate of taste. Consider a world in which we find greater appreciation and deeper worth in everyday objects, mundane tasks, and abstract things (e.g. numbers, patterns and data sets). Or in things we can’t possibly imagine. We would essentially be expanding the space of subjective evaluation and appreciation.

As an aside, this could work in conjunction with the strengthening and weakening of our sensory capacities, and even the deliberate onset of synesthesia (which is the blending and intermingling of sensory experience). These new senses would have to be carefully calibrated to ensure that that (1) the extreme ends of the bandwidth scale are safe and not overwhelming to the receiver and (2) can be appropriately interpreted and reacted upon (i.e. all points of the emotional spectrum, including such things as a sense of disgust or repugnance where such a reaction is warranted).

B. Emotions and mood

Cognitive processing is very closely tied to our emotional responses. We are reflexively drawn to or repulsed by certain things simply because we’re hardwired that way. We could re-design our psychologies such that certain tendencies are strengthened or weakened in ways described earlier.

But emotional response can also refer to our default brain-state, the so-called normal frame of our day-to-day dealings. This is often referred to as our psychological baseline. When we’re below the baseline we’re depressed and when above we’re elevated or even manic. This is an incredibly important area for consideration, especially the prospect of permanently raising the baseline above the default state.

C. Biases

One of the most wonderful, if not sobering pages, in all of Wikipedia is the list of cognitive biases. This page lists over a hundred biases, which are defined as “a pattern of deviation in judgment that occurs in particular situations.” These deviations in judgment are like software bugs in the human mind that are difficult to overcome and often lead to perceptual distortion, inaccurate judgment or illogical interpretation.

Cognitive biases are instances of evolved mental behavior. Some biases were adaptive, for example, because they resulted in more effective actions in given contexts or because they enabled faster decisions when faster decisions were of greater value. Others might be on account of insufficient mental faculties, or from the misapplication of a mechanism that is adaptive under different circumstances. We are very poor at math and probabilistic reasoning, for example, which has given rise to a host of cognitive biases, including those that lead to such behaviors as gambling.

Through designer psychologies, we could alleviate (if not eliminate) the impacts of these biases, which would result in clearer thinking and improved rationality.

D. Social engagement

Some individuals may wish to strengthen the attachments they feel to other persons. Shyness, introversion and inhibitions could be overcome. Drugs like MDMA cause the user to feel closer, more in-tune and empathetic towards others. But these feelings don’t last and there tend to be other side-effects. It’s through designer psychologies that such a modality could be maintained more consistently. The strengthening of our mirror neurons, for example, could make us more capable of considering other minds.

E. Moral enhancement

Which leads to another promising area, that of moral enhancement. Moral enhancement is the speculative study of how we could modify and enhance the ways in which humans act as moral agents.

Morality is clearly a relative term that’s subject to both individual, social and cultural norms, but it’s a fascinating area of inquiry as transhumanists try to figure out the best ways to modify themselves to improve their moral behaviour.

Admittedly, this is a short list of the kinds of mods that may someday be possible. There are likely many other traits, including those factors that we’re still unsure about and how they might impact on personality and conscious awareness. These examples are also all arguably within neurotypical experience. I would imagine that the kind of designer psychologies that will come into existence will be profoundly different than anything we have ever experienced.

Getting there

Up to this point there’s been lot of handwaving on my part to describe the ways in which we could actually tweak our brains to such a degree. Thankfully, there are in fact a number of promising areas that may make the vision of designer psychologies possible.

A. Targeted psychopharmaceuticals

We already have a number of drugs at our disposal that can modify our psychologies in the ways I’ve described, but they often co-incide with impairment, poor judgement, side-effects, and of course, they don’t last. Future pharmaceuticals may be developed that are safer, work with greater cognitive specificity, are customized to the user, and are longer-lasting.

These drugs could work by boosting or alleviating the impacts of existing neurotransmitters, or as novel neurotransmitters altogether. They will impact on hormone levels and other chemical and cellular reactions that impact on human psychology.

B. Adaptive harnessing

Evolutionary neurobiologist Mark Changizi argues that we shouldn’t think about introducing externalities to the human brain, but to rework and re-adapt its mechanisms instead. As an example, he refers to neuronal recycling. In his words, “To harness our brains, we want to let the brain’s brilliant mechanisms run as intended—i.e., not to be twisted. Rather, the strategy is to twist Y into a shape that the brain does know how to process.” Simply stated, Changizi is suggesting that we work with what we got.

C. Genomics

There’s no question that human psychology has a genetic underpinning. We know that certain traits and tendencies “run in the family.” It will be through the maturation of genomic technologies that we will eventually be able to identify and modify those genetic elements that are responsible for our behavior.

D. Cognitive implants

Cognitive implants are exactly that: assistive devices that can be implanted in the brain. There are a number of promising areas (or soon to be) in development:

• Brain pacemakers: Brain pacemakers are implants in the brain which send small electric signals to brain tissue, with the results being effective treatments for epilepsy, Parkinson’s and depression. Clearly there’s potential here for using more sophisticated and targeted pacemakers to do much more.
• Artificial neurons: As opposed to adaptive harnessing, artificial neurons could introduce novel capacities into the brain altogether. While most have their eye on this technology for the purposes of treating neurodegeneration, it could also be used to boost the capacity of the human brain and establish ancillary cognitive systems altogether.
• Molecular nanotechnology: And of course there’s molecular nanotechnolgy in which all bets are off. Nano, if it can be actualized to the degree we think it can, could radically rework and cyborgize the human brain. All cognitive functions could be altered — everything from the sensory inputs that convert incoming data into brain-readable format, through to all cognitive interactions that cause shifts in mood, perception and emotional response.

Transhuman diversity

Given the incredible possibilities for designer psychologies and the implicit understanding that its adoption will be driven by individual choice, the potential for neurodiversity to explode in the future is astounding.

Designer psychologies will increase diversity and result in greater tolerance for different types of minds. It will vastly increase and expand subjective awareness, resulting in greater potential, creativity, scientific and technological breakthroughs and forms of expression. It will further the cause of cognitive liberties and ultimately result in less suffering as we gain greater control over our mental faculties.

In a society that decries transhumanism and human enhancement as a way to homogenize humans, I hope that the prospect of designer psychologies will show our detractors that the posthuman future will be more diverse and inclusive than anyone can possibly imagine.

Cyborg 2087 (1966) Trailer

Wow, how is it possible that I've gone my entire life without knowing about this movie: Cyborg 2087 (1966)? The plot is surprisingly Terminatoresque:

Garth (Michael Rennie), a cyborg from the future, travels back in time to 1966 to prevent Professor Sigmund Marx (Eduard Franz) from revealing his new discovery, an idea that will make mind control possible and create a tyranny in Garth's time. He is pursued by two "Tracers" (also cyborgs) out to stop him.

Garth enlists the help of Dr. Sharon Mason (Karen Steele), Marx's assistant. He gets her to summon her friend, medical doctor Zeller (Warren Stevens) to operate on him, to remove a homing device used by the Tracers to track him. The local sheriff (Wendell Corey) also becomes involved.

Garth succeeds in defeating the Tracers and convincing Professor Marx to keep his discovery secret. Then, with his future wiped out as a result, Garth ceases to exist; the people who helped him do not even remember him.

Check out the trailer:

HuffPo: Will Artificial Intelligence Replace Your Family Doctor?

Sounds like Helene Pavlov, MD, is concerned for her job: From her Huffington Post article, "Will Artificial Intelligence Replace Your Family Doctor?":

How concerned or thrilled should I be that the intelligence designated to my future health care decisions will be potentially limited or artificial?

What does the practice of medicine mean? What makes a "good doctor?" What is it you want in your physician? For me, I want him/her to listen to my complaints/concerns. Not all patients know what symptoms to prioritize or what signs and symptoms might be significant or related. Personally, I need a physician to ask appropriate and sometimes probing questions. For instance, a complaint of being tired and unable to sleep should prompt questions such as are you going to the bathroom all the time? This additional information might mean the difference between getting a B12 shot or being evaluated and treated for diabetes or a prostate condition.

In the past, a good physician knew his/her patients. He/she was there at your birth and then at the birth of your children -- the Marcus Welby, M.D. or Dr. Kildare who did it all. As medicine and science and technology evolved, the medical specialist was born. That was actually necessary given the accelerated influx of information and research discoveries. To know all areas of medicine thoroughly is virtually impossible. The problem with the specialist scenario, however, is making sure you are going to the "right" one. It is more than a matter of competence. Specialists tend to be very focused and may "listen" only to those symptoms/signs relative to their specialty and assume some other specialist is dealing with "everything else." In most instances, triage from an astute general internist or primary physician or other health care provider is required.

A couple of quick comments:

1. It's more likely than not that future doctors will use AI expert systems to assist in their diagnoses and not replace them altogether
2. The qualitative way in which a doctor and a Watson-like system will make their diagnoses are one in the same. There's nothing inherently special about human data processing and decision making relative to what a future medical expert system will do.

Chris Chatham: 10 Important Differences Between Brains and Computers

Chris Chatham has penned an article in which he outlines 10 important differences between brains and computers. It's an interesting post and I recommend that you give it a read. Here's a quick overview:

1. Brains are analogue; computers are digital
2. Computers access information in memory by polling a memory address, brains search memories using cues
3. The brain is a massively parallel machine; computers are modular and serial
4. Processing speed is not fixed in the brain; there is no system clock
5. Short-term memory is not like RAM
6. Computers are hardware that runs software, there is no “mind software” running on brains
7. Synapses are far more complex (electrochemical) than computer logic gates (electrical)
8. Computers use processors and memory for different functions, there is no such distinction in the brain
9. Computers are designed, built and are of fixed architecture, the brain is a self-organizing system
10. Computers have no body, brains do

Okay, fair enough. But there's something deeply unsatisfying about Chatham's distinctions. It's an apples and oranges kind of thing in which we're still largely talking about fruit.

Sure, computers today can't really be compared to human brains for exactly the reasons Chatham outlines. Computers don't create minds in the ways that brains do (at least not yet). But it's folly to suggest that brains aren't a kind of computer—a computer for the lack of a better word that we haven't quite figured out yet. And it's very likely that, as our information technologies and artificial intelligence theories progress, our computers will increasingly come to resemble human brains.

It's still computation, after all. The functionalist approach to cognition suggests that the brain is likely churning away just like any other Turing Machine; it's still adhering to the Church-Turing theory of computational universality. It just happens to crunch numbers exceptionally well with meat and produce this remarkable thing we call mind.

Sprechen sie dolphin?

A new approach combining marine biology with artificial intelligence reveals that we may be be closer to conversing with dolphins than we think. Denise Herzing of the Wild Dolphin Project in Florida, and Thad Starner, an artificial intelligence expert at Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta, are working on a project called CHAT (Cetacean Hearing and Telemetry project) that may finally allow for our two species to communicate:

Starner and some of his students are now developing a smartphone-sized computer, that will be worn across a diver's chest in a waterproof case. The device will be connected to two hydrophones, capable of picking up dolphin sounds underwater - including those beyond the range of human hearing. As it can be difficult for humans to identify the source of underwater sounds, an arrangement of LED lights within the diver's mask will indicate the direction from which the various clicks and squeals are originating.

Not only will the computer hopefully be able to decode and indicate what the dolphins are saying, but by using a handheld Twiddler (sort of a combination mouse and keyboard), the diver will be able to select and send out audible dolphin-ese responses.

Before any interspecies conversations can take place, however, the team first needs to figure out the animals' vocabulary. In order to do so, they plan on running recordings of dolphin vocalizations through a pattern detection algorithm, designed by Starner. The system analyzes data, picks out deviations from the norm, then groups similar deviations together. It is hoped that by observing dolphins, and seeing which recurring deviant sounds accompany which behaviors and situations, the researchers will be able to identify specific "fundamental units" of dolphin speech.

Link.

Catherine Mayer: Live long. Stay healthy. Join the immortals

The seven ages of man are a thing of the past, says Catherine Mayer, and we're never too old to find a new lover, start a business or even have a baby. Now, we're ready for anything–except death. Welcome to what Mayer calls the world of "amortality."

The problem is that not even scientists can agree on the causes of ageing or the possibilities of an antidote. A majority of mainstream scientists are pessimistic about the possibilities for unabated life extension. The world's verifiably longest-lived person, Jeanne Calment, died at 122 in 1997, and that may be close to the edge of the possible human span. But there have been flurries of excitement around discoveries that seem to hold out the promise of slowing ageing. Last November, Nature magazine published a study showing that mice with suppressed production of an enzyme called telomerase aged swiftly but could be rejuvenated if the telomerase supply was restored. And there is a chorus of dissenting voices promising that if we work out ways to live long enough, we'll be able to live for ever. Ray Kurzweil, for example, puts his faith in nanotechnology, the development of machines tinier than atoms that could be deployed in the human body to repair the ravages of time. Kurzweil's impressive record as an inventor (he developed the first flatbed scanners, optical character-recognition software, print-to-speech and speech-recognition technologies, as well as making fine keyboards found in many music studios), together with his unnerving habit of issuing outlandish predictions that later prove true, mean only the foolhardy would dismiss his forecasts out of hand.

He has signed up to have his head cryonically frozen after death, envisaging resuscitation in a more technologically advanced future, but he's not "super-enthusiastic" about refrigeration; it is, he says, a back-up plan. He is perched on a sofa in his office in Wellesley, near Boston, surrounded by awards, posters for two films centred on his transhumanist ideas, photos with people even more successful than he. "I have enough trouble pursuing my interests while I'm alive and kicking," he says. "It's hard to imagine doing that when you're frozen, but proponents of it say it's better than the alternative. Really, my plan is to avoid dying, I think that's the best approach."

For Kurzweil – 62 at the time of the interview last year, "biologically more like 41" – that effort involves a Spartan diet, exercise and handfuls of vitamins and around 150 supplements daily. Many amortals can't be bothered to put the work into staying vibrant, trusting instead to boffins like Kurzweil to deliver us from the clutches of our own biology.

Unfortunately there's no firm evidence that they will do so, even in our longer lifetimes. Amortals may be assailed by depression or left unprepared when the gap between our ageless sense of self and the reality of ageing yawns. I would urge my family and friends to drink elixirs or open their veins to restorative swarms of nanobots if I thought that would grant them even a few additional years. Instead I cling to the hope that by eating well and taking exercise, engaging and being engaged, they will at the very least challenge Jeanne Calment's record for longevity.

Catherine Mayer's Amortality: The Pleasures and Perils of Living Agelessly was published on 12 May 2011 by Vermilion.

Boston Globe sneaks a peek into the deep future

The Boston Globe asks: "What will happen to us?" To answer the question, writer Graeme Wood highlights the work of futurists Nick Bostrom, Sir Martin Rees, Sean Carroll and Ray Kurzweil. Highlights:

The community of thinkers on distant-future questions stretches across disciplinary bounds, with the primary uniting trait a willingness to think about the future as a topic for objective study, rather than a space for idle speculation or science fictional reverie. They include theoretical cosmologists like Sean Carroll of the California Institute of Technology, who recently wrote a book about time, and nonacademic technology mavens like Ray Kurzweil, the precocious inventor and theorist. What binds this group together is that they are not, says Bostrom, “just trying to tell an interesting story.” Instead, they aim for precision. In its fundamentals, Carroll points out, the universe is a “relatively simple system,” compared, say, to a chaotic system like a human body — and thus “predicting the future is actually a feasible task,” even “for ridiculously long time periods.”
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Also among the cosmologists is Rees, the speaker at the Royal Institution, who turned his attention to the end of time after a career in physics reckoning with time’s beginning. An understanding of these vast time scales, he contends, should have a large and humbling effect on our predictions about human evolution. “It’s hard to think of humans as anything like the culmination of life,” Rees says. “We should expect humans to change, just as Darwin did when he wrote that ‘no living species will preserve its unaltered likeness into a distant futurity.’ ” Most probably, according to Rees, the most important transformations of the species will be nonbiological. “Evolution in the future won’t be determined by natural selection, but by technology,” he says — both because we have gone some distance toward mastering our biological weaknesses, and because computing power has sped up to a rate where the line between human and computer blurs. (Some thinkers call the point when technology reaches this literally unthinkable level of advancement the “singularity,” a coinage by science fiction writer Vernor Vinge.)
---Bostrom, the Oxford philosopher, puts the odds at about 25 percent, and says that many of the greatest risks for human survival are ones that could play themselves out within the scope of current human lifetimes. “The next hundred years or so might be critical for humanity,” Bostrom says, listing as possible threats the usual apocalyptic litany of nuclear annihilation, man-made or natural viruses and bacteria, or other technological threats, such as microscopic machines, or nanobots, that run amok and kill us all.

This is quite literally the stuff of Michael Crichton novels. Thinkers about the future deal constantly with those who dismiss their speculation as science fiction. But Bostrom, who trained in neuroscience and cosmology as well as philosophy, says he’s mining the study of the future for guidance on how we should prioritize our actions today. “I’m ultimately interested in finding out what we have most reason to do now, to make the world better in some way,” he says.
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There is, both in Bostrom’s scenarios and in Rees’s, the possibility of a long and bright future, should we manage to have any future at all. Some of the key technologies capable of going awry also have the potential to keep us alive and prospering — making humans and post-humans a more durable species. Bostrom imagines that certain advances that are currently theoretical could combine to free us some of the more fragile aspects of our nature, such as the ability to be wiped out by a simple virus, and keep the species around indefinitely. If neuropsychologists learn to manipulate the brain with precision, we could drug ourselves into conditions of not only enhanced happiness but enhanced morality as well, aiming for less fragile or violent societies far more durable than we enjoy now, in the nuclear shadow.

And if human minds could be uploaded onto computers, for example, a smallpox plague wouldn’t be so worrisome (though maybe a computer-virus outbreak, or a spilled pot of coffee, would be). Not having a body means not being subject to time’s ravages on human flesh. “When we have friendly superintelligent machines, or space colonization, it would be easy to see how we might continue for billions of years,” Bostrom said, far beyond the moment when Rees’s post-human would sit back in his futuristic lawn chair, pop open a cold one, and watch the sun run out of fuel.

There is one surprising survival scenario of particular worry for Bostrom, however — one that involves not a physical death but a moral one. The technologies that might liberate us from the threat of extinction might also change humans not into post-humans, but into creatures who have shed their humanity altogether. Imagine, he suggests, that the hypothetical future entities (evolved biologically, or uploaded to computers and enhanced by machine intelligence) have slowly eroded their human characteristics. The mental properties and concerns of these creatures might be unrecognizable.

“What gives humans value is not their physical substance, but that we are thinking, feeling beings that have plans and relationships with others, and enjoy art, et cetera,” Bostrom says. “So there could be profound transformations that wouldn’t destroy value and might allow the creation of any greater value” by having a deeper capacity to love or to appreciate art than we present humans do. “But you could also imagine beings that were intelligent or efficient, but that don’t add value to the world, maybe because they didn’t have subjective experience.”

Bostrom ranks this possibility among the more likely ways mankind could extinguish itself. It is certainly the most insidious. And it could happen any number of ways: with a network of uploaded humans that essentially abolishes the individual, making her a barely distinguishable module in a larger intelligence. Or, in a sort of post-human Marxist dystopia, humans could find themselves dragooned into soulless ultra-efficiency, without all the wasteful acts of friendship and artistic creation that made life worth living when we were merely human.

“That would count as a catastrophe,” Bostrom notes.