Tag Archives: transhumanism

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Shonky futurism: debunking Kurzweil

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This one should set the transhumanist blogosphere alight for a week or so; IEEE Spectrum has an article that carefully picks apart the futurist predictions of Ray Kurzweil, prophet of the Technological Singularity. In summary: the best way to make successful predictions is to couch them vaguely enough that you can argue for their veracity after the point [via SlashDot].

Therein lie the frustrations of Kurzweil’s brand of tech punditry. On close examination, his clearest and most successful predictions often lack originality or profundity. And most of his predictions come with so many loopholes that they border on the unfalsifiable. Yet he continues to be taken seriously enough as an oracle of technology to command very impressive speaker fees at pricey conferences, to author best-selling books, and to have cofounded Singularity University, where executives and others are paying quite handsomely to learn how to plan for the not-too-distant day when those disappearing computers will make humans both obsolete and immortal.

I have to admit to having a soft spot for Kurzweil and his geek-Barnum schtick, but as time has gone by (and with thanks to the readership of this very blog, who are very good at making me question my assumptions and reassess my ideas) I’ve increasingly seen him as a shrewd businessman rather than a visionary prophet.

That said, I think there’s a social value in his popularisation of transhumanist tropes – it takes real charisma to sell ideas that speculative to folk enmired in the corporatist mindset, and I think he reaches audiences who are resistant to the sort of speculative thinking that informs good science fiction. And as to his exorbitant speaking fees, well, that’s the marketplace at work. Can’t blame the guy for taking the money if it’s available, can you? After all, those diet supplements probably cost a fair bit… 😉

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The case for cognition enhancement advocacy

It’s yet another hat-tip to George Dvorsky, this time for pointing out a paper by Gary Miller in which he lays out the obstacles in the path of supporters of cognitive enhancement pharmacology, and ways for overcoming such:

I argue that, regardless how miniscule the risks or how blatantly obvious the benefits, a majority of U.S. citizens is unlikely to support the unrestricted dissemination of cognition enhancing drugs, because each individual member of the majority will be led astray by cognitive biases and illusions, as well as logical fallacies.

If this premise is accurate, then the people of the United States may already be suffering an opportunity cost that cannot be recouped. While a minority of the U.S. electorate can challenge the constitutionality of a policy enacted by a majority, a minority cannot sue to challenge the legislature’s refusal to enact a specific policy. In other words, we in the minority have no way of claiming we were harmed by what “good” could have come—but did not come—due to the legislature’s inaction. We cannot claim the “opportunity cost to the greater good” as an injury, and we cannot compel a court to balance that opportunity cost of inaction against the individual interests that dissuaded the majority from action. Our only recourse is to compel the majority to change its stance via persuasion.

Sounds remarkably like Mike Treder’s suggestion that calm rational discussion of the pros and cons is the best way to advance the transhumanist project, no? No big surprise, I guess, given the overlap between the groups in question… though as I said before, as much as it’s the most morally sensible course of action available, I don’t know how much good calm rational advocacy will be on a an irrational and sensationalist political landscape. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.

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Rationalising the promises of transhumanism

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My brain is broken today (real ale festivals: not quite so fun the day after!), so I’m devoid of my usual scintillating wit and astute commentary on the big questions of the day*. So instead, go read this lucid call-to-arms to H+ advocates and cheerleaders from Mike Treder, managing director of the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies [via Queering The Singularity].

Don’t you remember all those promises of decades past, that our awesome technologies soon would enable us to eliminate illness, to banish poverty, end aging, and control the weather? That everyone then would enjoy a world of abundance and opportunity? Don’t you realize that for people who are paying attention, this is dĂ©jĂ  vu all over again?

No, it doesn’t work that way. It never has and it never will. Reality intrudes.

So let’s not continue to make the mistakes of the past. Let’s try to be a little smarter this time.

Instead of promoting exciting visions of a utopian future, we could shift our focus to discussions of how to better prepare for uncertain change, how to create sustainable and resilient human societies, how to live in better harmony with each other and with the rest of the natural world around us.

Shorter version: quit grandstanding, start talking to people about realistic risks and rewards. Hearts and minds.

I have a lot of sympathy with Treder’s thinking, there, but I’m not particularly optimistic about the chances of bringing rational foresight to the general population; if dumb populist soundbitery were that easily conquered, Glenn Beck would be flipping burgers for a living. But hey, that’s all the more reason to keep fighting, AMIRITES?

[ * Sorry, no refunds. ]

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Looking back on Cyborg Month

When Tim Maly invited me to contribute to the 50 Posts About Cyborgs project, I had a nagging suspicion that I’d have a run-in with impostor syndrome… and I was right. The nearly complete run of posts (49 of them linked from the Tumblr above as I type this) contains some of the smartest and most brain-expanding material I’ve read in a long, long time, from some incredibly erudite writers and thinkers. If you have any interest whatsoever in the post-modern human condition in a technology-saturated world, in where we came from as a species and where we’re going, or in what being (post?)human actually means, then there’ll be something there for you to enjoy – so go read.

And many thanks Tim for inviting me to take part; I’m one proud impostor. 🙂

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Is transhumanism the most dangerous idea in the world? (Hint: probably not.)

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Kyle Munkittrick is making waves over at the Discover Magazine Science Not Fiction blog; he decided to air the transhumanist movement’s ideas in a post entitled “The Most Dangerous Idea In The World“.

Given that Discover is a fairly mainstream (if geeky) publication, there was a fair bit of fervent push-back in the comments thread, so Munkittrick collected together the five most common riffs for rebuttal, creating one of the most lucid and reasonable “don’t panic” posts about transhumanism in a mainstream publication that I think I’ve ever seen. His bounce-back against accusations of [transhumanism=eugenics=evil] is particularly good, and broadly applicable:

Eugenics, like any technology, is neutral. “Eu” is actually the Greek root for “good.” The problem is that over history a lot of nasty people felt that they should be able to force their definition of “good” on others. Though Hitler is a common example, there was a eugenics program in the US for quite sometime that coercively sterilized those deemed unworthy to reproduce, due to race, economic status, and mental condition. Both programs are considered “negative eugenics” in that they prevent unwanted individuals from reproducing. Positive eugenics is different in two key ways. The first is that it is entirely voluntary. Whether parents want to merely screen for potential diseases, fine-tune every detail of their child’s traits, or leave the whole thing to chance is their prerogative. The second difference is that there is no “ideal”–the process is open ended. Instead of eugenics having a state-decreed goal like blond hair and blue eyes, every parent would decide what is best for their child. As most people want healthy, intelligent, happy children, those traits are what would define the “good” of positive eugenics.

It’s interesting to watch transhumanism entering mainstream consciousness; there was that widely-linked “Open Letter to Christian Leaders on Biotechnology and The Future Of Man” doing the rounds a week or so ago, and it’s a topic that keeps cropping up in non-geek media channels with increasing regularity, probably because it pushes every future-shock techno-fear button on the switchboard.

It’s also going to be interesting to watch how transhumanism reacts to increased scrutiny, because it’s a long way from being a monoculture. The last few years have seen the more serious and level-headed advocates (I’m thinking of folk like George Dvorsky and Mike Anissimov, who are the two I’ve been reading for the longest) working hard to present a coherent, rational and non-incendiary platform for debate… but just as with any subculture, there are some real oddballs in the architecture, and it’s the cranks who tend to shout loudest and attract attention, often negative. Interesting times ahead…

Bonus: Michael Anissimov points to Eliezer Yudkowsky’s “5 minute introduction” to the concept of the Technological Singularity, which is also pretty plainly-put. Of course, the Technological Singularity shouldn’t be conflated with transhumanism, but it’s a closely related idea, and is sometimes treated as an ideology rather than a theory by those more vocal and marginal elements to whom I referred earlier… so it behoves the wise to understand both as best they can. 🙂