Your Brain is a Machine - Get Used to It

There are many whose penchant it is to romanticize the human condition. It somehow makes them feel better about their lives to do so. One of the outgrowths of this habit of spiritualizing material things is the expressed certainty that machines can never become conscious. After all, they think, if machines can ever be made to experience consciousness, then it is very likely that we are no more than machines: There is no soul, no heaven, no spirit, no existence after death. For many people, this possibility is not to be countenanced.

However, more and more researchers are concluding that even our experience of conscious will is an illusion arising from our neurological programming. In a new book authored by Harvard professor Daniel Wegner titled The Illusion of Conscious Will, professor Wegner argues that:

“When you drive to work, you don’t feel there are hundreds of little gears in a machine in your head that make you do this. You think, ‘I’m going to get up and go to work,’ ” Wegner said in an interview

“We think the intentions cause the actions, and we get the feeling we have willed what we do. It could be the intentions and actions are being caused by the machinery of the brain.”

I have written previously about the startling finding that our actions in fact come before our conscious intentions, that our minds are inventing reasons for actions over which we have no conscious control. If, as writes Dr. Wegner, our brains are trying to convince us that we are choosing actions that are merely the result of our neurological machinery, then it is only a matter of time before machines become conscious. According to some, that time may even have already arrived.

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Your Kids Could Soon Have a Virtual Teacher

My wife teaches 8th-grade algebra. She is very good at her job. She should be paid more than she is, but that is a complaint that often falls on deaf politician's ears. In any case, the time may soon come when at least certain parts of her curriculum are taught by a virtual teacher called Eve.

Eve is what's know in in the field of information systems an intelligent or affective tutoring system. It can "adapt its response to the emotional state" of its students (Blogging the Singularity).

The ability of virtual Eve to alter her presentation according to the reaction of the child facing her at the keyboard has been hailed as an exciting development in the $25 billion e-learning market.

The Massey scientists, led by Dr Hossein Sarrafzadeh at the Auckland-based Institute of Information and Mathematical Sciences, tell the story of creating Eve and the teaching system in the latest issue of the leading international journal on information sciences, Elsevier.

Because one-to-one teaching is known to be the most effective teaching method, Dr Sarrafzadeh says the researchers wanted to create a virtual teacher that could pick up body language and facial expressions – like a real teacher – to interact and to ensure they are holding the attention of students.

He says the realisation that software systems would significantly improve performance if they could adapt to the emotions of the user has spawned research and development in the field of affective or intelligent tutoring systems.

“With rising demand for long-distance learning and online tutoring, a computer programe capable of detecting human emotions may become a critical teaching tool.”

Although Eve was developed for one-to-one maths teaching with eight-year-olds, she is a significant new character in the future of human computer interaction and could be a personalized virtual tutor by any name.

Linked to a child via computer, the animated character or virtual tutor can tell if the child is frustrated, angry or confused by the on-screen teaching session and can adapt the tutoring session appropriately.

If you plan to go into teaching, it's unlikely that Eve will completely replace all teaching kind, but there can be no doubt that there will be significant and far-reaching implications. Maybe you should think about teaching computer engineering.

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Making Enhancement Acceptable

A possible way forward for transhumanists is emerging. Since there is such a strong bias in our politically correct society against the idea of making human enhancement available to humans, and since the negative bias tends to focus on the distinction between restoration of function and enhancement, transhumanists are beginning to use the word enablement and point out that there is no clear line between therapy and enablement.

Zack Lynch reports on this transformation and posts a link to a just-published report from a human enhancement workshop held in D.C. back in June 2006. He highlights this particular paragraph from the report:

The line between therapy or restoration and enhancement is another piece of ongoing debates about HE. After noting at the workshop that the line between therapy and enhancement is particularly faint and subjective, Zack Lynch, managing director of NeuroInsights, recommended the term “enablement” as a replacement for the current buzz-word “enhancement.” He believes the term enhancement is already politically charged in both its meaning and use among science policy players. He sees no hard line between “therapy” and “enhancement”; instead, there is a range of capacities already in normal distribution among the population, and enablement refers to maximizing each person’s latent potential. While these arguments are explored in greater detail later in this essay, this report will utilize the more familiar term of “enhancement.”

Could this be the way forward?

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Self-Enhancement Unethical?

Safety concerns over people taking drugs to improve themselves is fine, but this article seems to go beyond the issue of safely. It seems to imply that well people should not be trying to enhance themselves.

The ability of prescription drugs and medical procedures to improve intellectual performance is likely to increase significantly in the next 20 to 30 years as technology advances.

"We know that there is likely to be a demand by healthy individuals for this treatment," Dr Tony Calland, chairman of the BMA's Medical Ethics Committee said at the launch of a discussion paper on the issue.

"However, given that no drug or invasive medical procedure is risk free, is it ethical to make them available to people who are not ill?"

Why wouldn't it be ethical to make drugs or procedures available to people who are not ill? What is wrong with letting well people make themselves better? Perhaps it's competition they fear. Can't have the average idiots making themselves as smart as the cognoscenti, can we?

I am all for safety, but some folks seem to have a socialist view of medicine and do not want to see a day when people can make themselves more competitive by enhancing their "god-given" abilities. That wouldn't be "fair." But self-enhancing products do not remain out of reach for the average citizen for very long. Technology is always too expensive for most people in its early stages, but eventually everyone can have it. Computers and cell phones are just two examples of this phenomenon. So I say let the rich be the testers. Perfect the stuff with them and then, when all the bugs have been worked out, let me at it.

Brain-boosting drugs spark ethical debate in UK

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Scientists Shy Away from Human Enhancement...Again

I have written before about this phenomenon and wondered aloud about its psychological and sociological underpinnings. Here I go again. The article in question describes the creation of so-called super-mice: able to leap tall buildings, etc., but very quickly quotes the researchers as follows:

They emphasized that the aim of the research was not to prepare the way to enhance the genes of people.

And again:

"We humans have exactly the same gene. But this is not something that you'd do to a human. It's completely wrong. We do not think that this mouse model is an appropriate model for human gene therapy. It is currently not possible to introduce genes into the skeletal muscles of humans and it would not be ethical to even try."

No, no, no. We aren't even thinking of enhancing anybody. That would be wrong. We only want to help cure diseases:

Professor Hanson accepted that it was possible athletes might misuse any future drug developed in this way. He said: "It's very possible. It's a different approach to putting a gene into a human. I would only do that to help anyone who suffers from disorders such as cystic fibrosis."

Apparently it's politically incorrect to consider making humans better. We can only use science to bring everyone to the same level. I absolutely believe that we should find cures for diseases. I also believe that we should not shy away from enhancing ourselves.

How will the current mentality play itself out? I know there are researchers out there working at human enhancement, but when will it be seen as "ethical"? Will it ever?

The mouse that shook the world

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