It’s All Been Done
If you’ve ever spent time following science and technology news, you may have found, hidden among explanations of the migratory patterns of a particular species of finch and the latest arcane findings of quantum physicists, a series of bizarre and frightening predictions. By the year 2040, according to various experts, the Earth will contain more robots than people, robots will have become a new form of artificial species rivaling (or surpassing) humans in intelligence, the ability to download our consciousness onto massive databases will eliminate the necessity of death, neural implants and genetic engineering will bring human nature completely under our control, and nanotechnology will begin to give us powers bordering on omnipotence. If you managed to look beyond the credentials of the scientists and the blinding confidence with which they make their proclamations, you may have wondered what the evidence is behind these bombastic claims.
The primary idea fueling these futurists, often known as transhumanists, is that the pace of scientific and technological progress is speeding up. As a result, technological trends are not linear, but exponential. For example, in 1980 a typical computer might have contained 100,000 transistors. In 1982 a computer costing the same amount of money would contain 200,000 transistors; by 1984, 400,000 transistors, etc. This exponential growth is known as Moore’s Law. Similarly, computer scientist and inventor Ray Kurzweil has shown that from 1900 to the present day the number of computations per second that $1,000 can buy has doubled about every two years. Given that this computational power can then be used to fuel further technological development, which in turn leads to even more computational power, transhumanists see human society as hurtling towards a “singularity”, at which human civilization as we know it will end. By 2030, if Moore’s Law continues unabated, a $1,000 computer will be able to perform as many computations per second as a human brain; shortly thereafter, self-improving intelligence will leave ordinary biological intelligence far behind.
Directly contradicting this argument is the fact that, in my lifetime, human society simply hasn’t changed very much. The only obvious, significant technological developments to take place since 1990 are the rise of the computer, the internet, and cellular phones. While obviously significant, these changes pale compared to what took place between, say, 1900 and 1915: the first airplane, the first automobile, radio, talking motion pictures, windshield wipers. This dissonance between the wild predictions made by futurists and the slow pace of societal change led physicist Jonathan Huebner to examine the 7200 key innovations listed in the recently published book The History of Science and Technology. (Article here.) These innovations peaked in 1873 and have been declining ever since. Moreover, the number of patents granted each decade per citizen of the United States has been declining since 1915.
The transhumanists, of course, disagree. John Smart of the “Acceleration Studies Foundation” argues that change is accelerating, we’re just not noticing it: “Computations have become so incremental and abstract that we no longer see them as innovations. People are heading for a comfortable cocoon where the machines are doing the work and the innovating,” he says. “But we’re not measuring that very well.” But then, if these computations aren’t noticeably affecting our lives, scientific progress is hardly living up to the dramatic predictions expoused by Kurzweil and his colleagues.
There are a couple of reasons why the singularity might not be turning out as planned. First of all, it’s possible that some technologies, while possible in theory, might remain forever beyond our grasp. The human brain, for example, may be so complex that we may forever be unable to grasp its secrets, forever rendering artificial intelligence impossible (as, in my opinion, understanding the brain is our only hope of developing truly intelligent technology). Trillions of computations per second won’t do us much good if we can’t figure out what to do with them in order to harness intelligence. It’s likely that we’ve picked most of the low-lying fruit–in order to develop truly revolutionary technology, would-be inventors, for the most part, cannot operate out of their basements, but must be part of large groups of researchers with huge budgets. The further our society progresses, the more difficult the subsequent advances might be, until we can only gaze longily at the succulent fruit we see overhead, forever out of reach.
Secondly, Moore’s Law may simply not hold. We might nuke ourselves into oblivion, or there might come a point at which we’re simply unable to pack more transistors into a cubic space, or we might (just might) run out of oil. We mustn’t forget what Mark Twain said about extrapolating from trends: “In the space of one hundred and seventy-six years the Lower Mississippi has shortened itself two hundred and forty-two miles. That is an average of a trifle over one mile and a third per year. Therefore, any calm person, who is not blind or idiotic, can see that in the Old Oolitic Silurian Period, just a million years ago next November, the Lower Mississippi River was upward of one million three hundred thousand miles long, and stuck out over the Gulf of Mexico like a fishing-rod. …There is something fascinating about science. One gets such wholesale returns of conjecture out of such a trifling investment of fact.”
I have nothing against viewing the future with hopeful eyes. In fact, I feel that we must, because only by imagining a better world can we begin to work towards its realization. Nevertheless, perhaps we should start by envisioning a world in which poverty, hunger, and disease are lessened, maybe even someday abolished, rather than a world in which we live forever and are fed grapes all day by robot slaves.
17 Responses to “It’s All Been Done”
“in the hold Oolitic Silurian Period”
My heart just skipped a beat
Ahem, “Old” Oolitic Silurian Period. Hey, like I’m the only guy around here who makes typos.
the ability to download our consciousness onto massive databases will eliminate the necessity of death
It seems to me that this would not really allow someone to escape death. At most, a copy of your consciousness would go on living as an artificial intelligence. It would have all your memories and it would believe it was you, but you yourself would experience exactly what everyone else experiences at death.
Eric,
If it was only a copy, you’d probably be right; but it would still raise certain interesting issues about identity. On the other hand, would you take the same position if it was really a transfer and not a copy that was going on?
Intuitions here are typically pretty malleable. Suppose, for example, that as your consciousness was ‘read’ off of your brain, it was also ‘deleted’ from your brain as well — at one moment, the consciousness that thinks it’s you is in the brain and not the box, and in the next instant it’s the other way around, thinking to itself, ‘whoa, it feels so different being in a computer than in a body’. (Or maybe thinking to itself, ‘whoa, it doesn’t feel different at all’.)
Not too hard to think of that case as one in which you have moved from brain to box.
(I’m not saying that this is the right answer to the identity question, btw — I’m just seconding Michael’s point that these issues are pretty darn tricky.)
“the ability to download our consciousness onto massive databases”
Check out the Poul Anderson novel “Genesis.” It deals with this issue amazingly well.
Star Trek: Next Generation also had an episode dealing with this issue of identity. In it, a character was being “beamed up” but due to some error (I’ll spare the details), the character got stuck on the planet AND simultaneously materialized on the ship. As a consequence, there were two identical versions of the person, each unaware of the other, and with no way of determining which one is the copy.
Heck, even the concept of “beaming up” in star trek creates interesting questions about identity.
I’m pretty sure that there were a fair number of scientists in 1900 who told us we had already discovered almost everything there was to discover.
Also, I’m not sure Huebner’s metric of “key innovations” per capita is a good one. Just because population growth is outpacing innovative growth doesn’t make the rate of innovation less significant. It just means we’re breeding fast.
As for the transhumanists and the like, presumably they have a place with whoever took over Art Bell’s show.
Eric,
Imagine a computer with infinite processing power. Imagine running a program that simulated the laws of physics and chemistry. Now, download on that computer a subprogram called “Eric” which copied with perfect fidelity the organization of atoms in your body, including every atom in the brain. Wouldn’t such a program be you, for all practical purposes?
Not that I’m saying infinite processing power is possible; even the Universe lacks that. But you can go a long way before reaching infinity.
Also, a pair of recent articles make for interesting further reading:
Daedalus and Icarus Revisited, C. Rubin
http://www.thenewatlantis.com/archive/8/rubin.htm
Entering a Dark Age of Innovation, R. Adler
http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn7616
Someone (perhaps Neal Stephenson?) has pointed out that it really doesn’t matter how much processing power your hardware has if the software sucks. I suspect we are a very long way from developing software that can perfectly emulate human neurons or produce a seamless virtual reality.
OTOH, the singularity has produced some nifty science fiction, most recently Accelerando by Charles Stross. Stross has made the novel available as a free download on his website, http://www.accelerando.org
Wouldn’t such a program be you, for all practical purposes?
It would appear to be me, to everyone else. But it wouldn’t be the same “me” that I’m experiencing right now.
Here’s the way I’m thinking about it: let’s say I could copy all my memories and knowledge, etc., into an AI program right now. Now there are two of “me,” but of course I’m only going to continue experiencing one of them–the one that is tied to the gray matter between my ears. If you copy me into a computer, then a day later–or an hour, or a millisecond–you destroy the original, I have not experienced a “transfer,” I have experienced death. Philosopher’s take on this is the same thing done in increments.
The only way I can conceive of effecting an actual “transfer” of consciousness from the brain to a computer system would be to link a computer system to your brain for awhile, and somehow induce the brain into using the computer space, then shifting its functions from the gray matter into the computer space, until all the higher functions are actually in the computer. Then when your body dies, you cut the link. The process would take anywhere from days to years, and it would be a “push,” not a “pull.”
Anyway, I have a completely different plan for leaving my mortal body behind…
the latest arcane findings of quantum physicists
Um, er, ah, what is this supposed to refer to? Quantum mechanics describes observed phenomena extraordinarily well.
“Um, er, ah, what is this supposed to refer to?”
Nothing in particular, obviously, just a rhetorical device. Far be it from me to look down on quantum physics when I’m in a far less exact and rigorous discipline.
Incidentally, dictionary.com defines “arcane” as “Known or understood by only a few,” so I don’t see how my use of the word could have been construed as a put-down.
Eric,
How about this: one by one, your neurons are replaced by tiny circuits that handle the exact same computations. Eventually, your entire brain has been converted from carbon to silicon machinery. Then that brain is put in a drawer somewhere and its senses are tied to various robotic bodies in the real world, so that you can switch from body to body at will if one’s in danger. Not quite as efficient as “downloading” your brain onto software, but essentially the same effect.