The Ethics of Enhancing Humanity

Not too long ago I raised the question, When will remediation become augmentation? In other words, when will medical science begin to use technology to enhance healthy people in addition to treating the sick? For the first time I have run across a notable figure actually urging medical researchers to do exactly that.

In Canberra, Julian Savulescu, professor of practical ethics at Oxford University and an eminent bio-ethisist, recently told a gathering there that Doctors are too focused on treating the sick and risk missing the enormous opportunities of using advances in medical science to "make happier, better people."

"If we cured all disease - cardiovascular disease, stroke, diabetes, etc. - we would only prolong life on average by 12 years," the Australian-born Savulescu said.

"So we have pretty much reached the ceiling of what we can do by treating and preventing disease."

The next frontier is enhancing life through medical intervention. We can be brighter, stronger, healthier.

He argued that many of us routinely use cognitive enhancers like caffeine and nicotine. Alcohol is another intervention, this time to improve mood and aid socialization. Prozac and Viagra are interventions.

Savulescu urged the medical profession to embrace new methodologies and not worry too much about ethical considerations.

"The sort of methodologies in science that I'm talking about are stem cell science, cloning and the new genetics," he said.

I predict that this sentiment will, unfortunately, be criticized by misguided people who will accuse scientists of "playing God," who alone, according to them, should have the right to improve humanity. But if a few visionary men and women see that there exists the potential for a massive market for such enhancements, the naysayers will just be whistling in the dark. At least this is what I hope. Let those who are against human enhancement remain as they are if that is their choice, but let them not claim the right to make that choice for me.

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Out-of-Body Virtual Reality: Are You Ready?

Researchers are finding out what it feels like to have an out-of-body experience. An interesting use of VR, don't you think? Placing VR goggles on test subjects that show them the view from a set of cameras actually situated behind them, then giving them a poke in the chest while simultaneously poking at the air in front of the cameras, gives subjects the feeling that they are being poked in the chest while outside their bodies. Very weird, but cool, they say.

Researchers equipped subjects with virtual-reality goggles that showed images from a video camera setup — two cameras spaced like a pair of eyes. When placed behind the person wearing the goggles, the cameras acted as a "virtual self" that looked at the subject's back.

As subjects watched themselves from behind, an experimenter prodded their chests with one hand while prodding the air just below the cameras at the same time. Because subjects could see the experimenter's hand but not the spot it was poking, researchers said subjects felt as if they were being poked in the chest — outside their bodies.

“This was a bizarre, fascinating experience for the participants," Ehrsson said. "It felt absolutely real for them and was not scary. Many of them giggled and said ‘Wow, this is so weird.’”

I can't wait till this is available for the rest of us!

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Man-Made Life: Only 3 to 10 Years Away

Of course we will be inundated with cries of Who are you to play God, but nevertheless, man will create a completely new form of life in the lab, probably within 3 to 10 years. So says a recent report on Breitbart.com.

WASHINGTON (AP) - Around the world, a handful of scientists are trying to create life from scratch and they're getting closer.

Experts expect an announcement within three to 10 years from someone in the now little-known field of "wet artificial life."

"It's going to be a big deal and everybody's going to know about it," said Mark Bedau, chief operating officer of ProtoLife of Venice, Italy, one of those in the race. "We're talking about a technology that could change our world in pretty fundamental ways—in fact, in ways that are impossible to predict."

That first cell of synthetic life—made from the basic chemicals in DNA—may not seem like much to non-scientists. For one thing, you'll have to look in a microscope to see it.

"Creating protocells has the potential to shed new light on our place in the universe," Bedau said. "This will remove one of the few fundamental mysteries about creation in the universe and our role."

And several scientists believe man-made life forms will one day offer the potential for solving a variety of problems, from fighting diseases to locking up greenhouse gases to eating toxic waste.

When this announcement is made, unless there are a few equally groundbreaking developments occurring between now and then, I expect our public to begin to pay attention to the accelerating pace of technological progress. Will that be the beginning of a fierce, and perhaps violent debate over where we are headed? We may soon find out the answer to that question.

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I Have Set Before You Life and Death

These words, taken from the Bible, may have a meaning for us that is somewhat different to what the author intended. In a completely non-religious context, those of us who are still alive in the next 20 to 30 years may very well face this choice: Do I want to live forever?

In this BBC Channel Four documentary, the ideas of Aubrey de Grey, Ph. D., are examined. For those of you who are unfamiliar with him, Aubrey de Grey is a biomedical gerontologist who is working on the goal he calls engineered negligible senescence.



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Are We Real? Martin Rees Explores Simulation Hypothesis

Ever since I read the hypothesis that we might be living inside a simulation, the possibility has intrigued me. Not so much that it has affected the way I live in any way, but as an interesting thought-experiment; for example, what might glitches in the software look like?

In this very cool video, Martin Rees, an esteemed British cosmologist, explores this hypothesis, first postulated by Nick Bostrom. It's a five-part, one-hour Channel Four production. Check it out below.



The other parts can be found here.

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Reverse Engineering of the Brain Grows Closer

In a stunning new development, researchers have discovered a revolutionary means of figuring out which of the 100 billion neurons in the brain communicating with each other when people perform various functions, such as learning a new skill.

One of the newest, fastest strategies co-opts a photosensitive protein called channelrhodopsin-2 from pond scum to allow precise laser control of the altered cells on a millisecond timescale. That speed mimics the natural electrical chatterings of the brain, said Dr. Karl Deisseroth, an assistant professor of bioengineering at Stanford.

“We can start to sort of speak the language of the brain using optical excitation,” Dr. Deisseroth said. The brain’s functions “arise from the orchestrated participation of all the different cell types, like in a symphony,” he said.

Laser stimulation can serve as a musical conductor, manipulating the various kinds of neurons in the brain to reveal which important roles they play.

This light-switch technology promises to accelerate scientists’ efforts in mapping which clusters of the brain’s 100 billion neurons warble to each other when a person, for example, recalls a memory or learns a skill. That quest is one of the greatest challenges facing neuroscience.

The channelrhodopsin switch is “really going to blow the lid off the whole analysis of brain function,” said George Augustine, a neurobiologist at Duke University in Durham, N.C.

Understanding the intricate interplay between neurons and how they are structured within an individual's brain is thought to be vital to the ultimate goal of simulating a human brain in a silicon substrate.

Source

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The Modern Battle Space Will Soon Get More Interesting

As modern battle spaces becomes more and more populated with non-human combatants, we can expect them to look like nothing we have ever seen before. DARPA has unveiled multiple bots of war at DARPATech 2007.

There's Big Dog, the four-legged robotic jogger from Boston Dynamics.



There's Little Dog, a much smaller bot that will probably be most useful as a means of improving Big Dog, since data from Little God and its environment can be easily scaled up.



And on to the flying bots. This one is called MAV, short for the creativity-lacking name, Micro Air Vehicle. This one is supposed to be so easy to fly that a caveman could do it. It's a 16-pound UAV that takes off and lands vertically, can hover in place, and can monitor a 10-km radius.



Are you beginning to get the picture? Stay tuned.

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The Emergence of Web 3.0: What is It?

It is exciting to be around for the unfolding of such rapidly evolving technology, to see every single day how problems are being solved by new developments. In my self-appointed role as a chronicler of this unfolding, I find and pass on to you the hints and glimmerings of what is soon to come. Since the Internet will be involved in so much of the coming singularity, I give you this brief video in which the CEO of Google, Eric Schmidt, talks about his understanding of what Web 3.0 will be.



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Instantaneous Speech-to-Speech Translation: Thank You DARPA

In the New Testament there is a story about certain men who spoke in languages they had never learned, and crowds of listeners who heard these men speaking their own languages. As it happens, this tale may soon take place in reality, not through the working of a supernatural being, but through technology now under development by DARPA.

Necessity gives birth to invention, and translators are sorely needed in Iraq. For one reason or another, there aren't enough humans to do the job. So DARPA and NIST have been hard at work on this and are currently testing prototypes. This is not a "could" situation. This is the real thing.

Darpa and NIST are focused on bidirectional translations of English and Arabic spoken in Iraq. NIST, U.S. Marines, and Iraqi Arabic speakers just completed lab and outdoor tests on prototypes in Gaithersburg, Md. The evaluations included controlled background noise from speakers, generators, garage doors, running vehicles, and radio broadcasts to mimic noise in real-world situations.

Participants acted out 10 scenarios, including conversations at traffic checkpoints and neighborhood interviews. Those testing the devices carried them in back packs and other hands-free configurations. Lab participants couldn't see their laptop screens as they recorded the conversations. Iraqis who understand English wore earphones that blocked out the English language portions and relayed the system's Arabic interpretations.

Craig Schlenoff, project leader of the NIST evaluation project, said the evaluations showed improvements to the translation systems and provide information about which technologies are most promising.

"Effective two-way translation devices would represent a major advance in field translators," he said in a prepared statement. "Although American forces in Iraq currently have the use of phrase-based translators, the devices can only translate English into pre-recorded Arabic phrases. They cannot translate Iraqi Arabic into English."

Darpa hopes to eventually provide American forces with palm-sized translators for increased convenience, ease, and safety in war zones and potentially hostile environments. Darpa also wants to position itself to develop automatic translator systems within 90 days of receiving a request for that language.

Obviously, as these "palm-sized translators" come online, there will be an enormous market for them, which will drive further R&D. It will be a better world when we can all understand each other and undo what God allegedly perpetrated on us at Babel.

Source: InformationWeek

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Singularity Reporting: Please Stop with All the Coulds!

There is a word that has been bothering me lately. I have seen it used to the point where I fear a backlash against the very subject it aims to promote. When it comes to reporting technological developments in any field, be it anti-aging, robotics, nanotechnology, virtual reality, artificial intelligence, whatever, could we please stop using the word could?

(Please note that my use of the word just now was not within the type of usage that I find irritating and potentially harmful to the cause of singularity.)

Allow me to explain my dislike of the word as it is most commonly used in announcing technological leaps. Shall I give a recent example? That shouldn't be too difficult. Let's see. Ah, here's one: Nanoparticle technique could lead to improved semiconductors. Would you like another? Miniature Implanted Devices Could Treat Epilepsy, Glaucoma.

These developments are wonderful, and I do not doubt that many of them will do what the reporters anticipate, but is this the right time to be breathlessly talking about what could happen? I find myself being underwhelmed by the hype. I don't want to know what could come from these things. I want to know what has come from them. If nothing has yet, then let's shut up for a while and be patient.

But what could be wrong with all the coulds? I am concerned that when there are 100 coulds for every has, the public will understandably become even more skeptical and disillusioned than they already are. I'm reminded of the saying, "He who girds on his armor should not boast like him who lays it down." For my part, I decided recently to forgo blogging about this kind of news. The researchers deserve credit and the knowledge of what they have accomplished should be disseminated. But that can be done in the appropriate journals. Let's leave the mainstream media for when the armor is being laid down. In other words, let's wait till the applications are at least imminent before trumpeting what could be.

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Delving Deeper Into Singularity: What is Transhumanism?

From time to time I think it is a good idea to discuss definitions. Otherwise we may find, as we use certain words, that we are not discussing the same things. When it comes to the technological singularity, we cannot assume that everyone understands what it is. The same is true of the concept of transhumanism. What is it, really?

Nick Bostrom has a stellar explanation here. Nick is a professor in the Department of Philosophy, Logic and the Scientific Method at the London School of Economics, and a leading thinker in the realm of transhumanism.

According to Nick, although mankind as a species faces many well-known threats to its existence, there is a threat that most people never consider, and that is forever remaining sub-optimal, simply because we accept the premise that human nature will remain forever unchanging. Here I quote from Nick's essay:

This assumption no longer holds true. Arguably it has never been true. Such innovations as speech, written language, printing, engines, modern medicine and computers have had a profound impact not just on how people live their lives, but on who and what they are. Compared to what might happen in the next few decades, these changes may have been slow and even relatively tame. But note that even a single additional innovation as important as any of the above would be enough to invalidate orthodox projections of the future of our world.

"Transhumanism" has gained currency as the name for a new way of thinking that challenges the premise that the human condition is and will remain essentially unalterable. Clearing away that mental block allows one to see a dazzling landscape of radical possibilities, ranging from unlimited bliss to the extinction of intelligent life. In general, the future by present lights looks very weird - but perhaps very wonderful - indeed.

Nick goes on to describe the various technology fields that will impact on human nature and what it means to be human. Take a look, if you dare.

What is Transhumanism?

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Why Are We Cool With Age-Related Death?

Though it is unusual for me to post more than once a day on this blog, it is not unheard of. Today is one of those days when I have something on my mind and just need to get it out to you straightaway. Having a sandwich for lunch, Fox News on the TV (without sound), ALERTs popping up one after the other. Bridge collapse: What caused this catastrophe? Teens shot: Terrible tragedy. Mine explosion: What went wrong?

What struck me was the evidence of society's alarm at death's newest acquisitions, but only when they are from unnatural causes. Death can take as many as it wants by natural causes and no one cares a whit. Why is that? Why do we show such passionate concern over improving bridge safety, but none at all over aging? Looked at another way, it seems we want everyone to get their 80 years' worth. But no more. (Wizened and toothless 120-year-old exceptions excepted.)

Don't people realize that the number 80, roughly speaking, is not written in stone? It's only the current life expectancy, and only in this country. Would you have been upset with anyone wanting more than 60 years in the 1930s? Or more than 40 years in the 1850s? Why is one number more appropriate than another?

Why are age-related deaths acceptable and others not? I'll give you my take on it. Because we have been conditioned to believe that age-related death cannot be avoided, we have sanctified it. We sanctify what we believe is inevitable. But I believe, as Dr. House yelled in one episode, "Death is never dignified! Ever!"

I know there was an episode of Star Trek, though I can't remember which one, in which people would go off to the death chambers when their number came up, docilely and without complaint, because they had been conditioned to think of dying as an honorable thing to do in an overpopulated world. Rather than try to solve the overpopulation by other viable means, they kept marching to their demise like lambs to slaughter. Of course Captain Kirk set them straight in the end.

I know what people say are their reasons for not wanting to extend their health-span. The say they would get bored? How do they know that? Unless they are already bored at 30. But that's their problem, not the world's. They say people would go mad. Again, how do they know that? Has anyone tried it? I think if you enjoy life there would be nothing to cause mental collapse. They say there aren't enough resources for everyone. Well why don't we figure out how to solve that? Why are people so unwilling to live longer?

I'll tell you something else that I think may be involved. Religion. If we live much longer, we sort of show that God may not be there after all. Didn't he say in a fit of pique that the sum of our years shall be 120 and no more? If we can bust that limit, what does that say about God?

Your thoughts on all this are invited.

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This MULE Needs no Rider

It is truly eye-opening to find out what kinds of gadgets and weapons are being developed as we sit here thinking nothing is going to change. And the stuff we find out about is only the tip of the iceberg, you can count on that. This military robotic vehicle, unfortunately named the MULE (Multifunction Utility/Logistics and Equipment), developed by Lockheed Martin, is an advanced unmanned vehicle.

Lockheed Martin's Multifunction Utility/Logistics and Equipment (MULE) offers extraordinary capability in unmanned vehicle technology. The MULE's highly advanced 6x6 independent articulated suspension, coupled with in-hub motors powering each wheel, provides extreme mobility in complex terrain, far exceeding that of vehicles using more conventional suspension systems. It climbs at least a 1-meter step, and can cross 1-meter gaps, traverse side slopes greater than 40 percent, ford water to depths over 0.5 meter and overpass obstacles as high as 0.5 meter while compensating for varying payload weights and center-of-gravity locations. The MULE includes three variants: Armed Robotic Vehicle - Assault (Light), Transport and Countermine.

The military has the big bucks, and so will usually be the most advanced in terms of what it's developing, but just as with the Hummer, these things usually find their way into non-military contexts.

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First Ever Armed Robots Deployed in Iraq: SWORDS

For the first time in the history of warfare, armed robots have been deployed in a battle zone. The robots are called SWORDS, short for "special weapons observation remote reconnaissance direct action system."

The robots are not autonomous, yet. They are controlled remotely, with layers of safety and kill switches in case one of them decides to go off reservation like number 5 in the movie Short Circuit. Only three of these devices have been placed into service, and none has yet had occasion to fire its weapon. But that is expected to change soon.

I keep telling you people. The pace is picking up. Stay tuned or get left behind.

Source: DangerRoom

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The First Real Natural Language Search Engine?

A company is claiming to be on the verge of launching what I think may be the first real natural language search engine. Powerset Inc. is not talking about just being able to accept searches in the form of questions.

No, they happen to be claiming a bit more, namely that their engine will find "the best answer by considering the meaning and context of the question and related Web pages. 'Powerset extracts deep concepts and relationships from the texts, and the users query and match them efficiently to deliver a better search,' Powerset CEO Barney Pell says."

How have they been able to succeed where others have failed?

Even though attempts have been made at natural-language search for decades, Powerset says that its system is different because it has solved some of the fundamental technological problems that have existed with this kind of search. It has done so by developing a product that is deep, computationally advanced, and still economically viable.

Pell says that it's difficult to pinpoint one particular technological breakthrough, but he believes that Powerset's superiority lies in the three decades of hard work by scientists at PARC. (PARC licensed much of its natural-language search technology to Powerset in February.) There was not one piece of technology that solved the problem, Pell says, but instead, it was the unification of many theories and fragments that pulled the project together.

We shall soon see for ourselves, since they say they plan to release demonstration versions on its web site sometime in September.

Source article

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Excellent Interview: Vernor Vinge on Tech's Future

A podcast interview with Vernor Vinge, whose 1981 novel, True Names, foretold the near-future of the Internet with unbelievable accuracy, and whose most recent novel, Rainbows End, moves us to another near-future circa 2025.

Of course it is remarkably courageous to write near-future sci-fi, knowing as one must that one's prognostications may be disproven, most embarrassingly, within one's lifetime. But the technological background that permeates Rainbows End will very probably be very close to the one that is actually realized in the next 15 to 20 years.

If you'd like to have an idea of what the Internet will look like in that time frame, I strongly recommend that you read Rainbows End (see my review on the Page Turner blog) and listen to this excellent podcast interview here.

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