Posted on 05/05/2002 12:57:54 PM PDT by inquest
I just started reading this book by Ray Kurzweil, The Age of Spiritual Machines, and I'm finding it a little disturbing. It doesn't really tell me anything I don't already know, or that anyone else shouldn't already know; but seeing it in authoritative form (Kurzweil is himself an entrepreneur in the IT field) certainly had a discomfiting effect on me. Basically, the book tells of what to expect in the coming decades. Quoting from the online table of contents, his predictions are summed up as follows (all emphasis mine):
2009: "A $1,000 personal computer can perform about a trillion calculations per second. Computers are imbedded in clothing and jewelry. Most routine business transactions take place between a human and a virtual personality. Translating telephones are commonly used. Human musicians routinely jam with cybernetic musicians. The neo-Luddite movement is growing."
2019: "A $1,000 computing device is now approximately equal to the computational ability of the human brain. Computers are now largely invisible and are embedded everywhere. Three-dimensional virtual-reality displays, embedded in glasses and contact lenses, provide the primary interface for communication with other persons, the Web, and virtual reality. Most interaction with computing is through gestures and two-way natural-language spoken communication. Realistic all-encompassing visual, auditory, and tactile environments enable people to do virtually anything with anybody, regardless of physical proximity. People are beginning to have relationships with automated personalities as companions, teachers, caretakers, and lovers.
2029: "A $1,000 unit of computation has the computing capacity of approximately one thousand human brains. Direct neural pathways have been perfected for high-bandwidth connection to the human brain. A range of neural implants is becoming available to enhance visual and auditory perception and interpretation, memory, and reasoning. Computers have read all available human- and machine-generated literature and multimedia material. There is growing discussion about the legal rights of computers and what constitutes being human. Machines claim to be conscious and these claims are largely accepted.
And 2099: "There is a strong trend toward a merger of human thinking with the world of machine intelligence that the human species initially created. There is no longer any clear distinction between humans and computers. Most conscious entities do not have a permanent physical presence. Machine-based intelligences derived from extended models of human intelligence claim to be human. Most of these intelligences are not tied to a specific computational processing unit. The number of software-based humans vastly exceeds those still using native neuron-cell-based computation. Even among those human intelligences still using carbon-based neurons, there is ubiquitous use of neural-implant technology that provides enormous augmentation of human perceptual and cognitive abilities. Humans who do not utilize such implants are unable to meaningfully participate in dialogues with those who do. Life expectancy is no longer a viable term in relation to intelligent beings."
Kurzweil's book is suffused with the language of mathematical inevitability: prominently figured throughout is his "Law of Accelerating Returns", which basically states that new innovations will accelerate newer innovations, and the whole thing will proceed along an exponential curve. He relates to us the (proverbial) story of the inventor of chess and the Emperor of China. The Emperor is so pleased with the invention that he offers the inventor whatever he names. The inventor states that he would like one bushel of grain for the first square on the chessboard, two for the second, four for the third, doubled with each square for the entire 64 squares. By the time they get to 32 squares, it's certainly a large sum (equivalent to about one especially large field of grain), but not enough to cost the emperor his domain. It's when they get to the second half of the chessboard - what Kurzweil calls the knee of the curve - that things really start getting wild. He says we're at that point now. There've been about 32 doublings of processing capability since the first mechanical computers were invented, and like the emperor, we're starting to really notice, but it hasn't completely changed us. But we're now going into the second half of the chessboard, he says, and nothing about us will be the same.
Kurzweil doesn't seem terribly concerned by all of this. I am. He believes this will all be inevitable. I do not. To those who truly believe it will be a good thing for technology to metastasize to such levels, I don't intend to argue with you here. I'm writing this to those who don't like the idea, but somehow believe that there is nothing that can be done about it, that resistance is futile. It is not. Kurzweil predicts the rise of a "neo-Luddite" movement, which is primarily concerned with the "skill ladder" that would leave some laborers behind; but I'm advocating a much more principled objection. For far too long we've told ourselves this myth that "progress" must continue, and that we can't stand in its way. What started out as something humans consciously did in order to improve their lives, has taken on an occult quality akin to the ancient Greek Fate myths. Kurzweil, like many others, says it's simply an inevitable cosmic progression (citing biological evolution as justification). It's sad that I should have to issue this reminder, but we're human beings, dammit! We're not just another part of some "process". Nowhere is it written that we have to be victims of unseen forces that we created. Technology is fine when it works for us, but when it doesn't we have every right to say no. It gives me pleasure to now quote from a much more enlightened writer, G.K. Chesterton, who had this to say about this mentality (and I do apologize for the length of the quote, but it simply must be done):
"We often read nowadays of the valor or audacity with which some rebel attacks a hoary tyranny or an antiquated superstition. There is not really any courage at all in attacking hoary or antiquated things, any more than in offering to fight one's grandmother. The really courageous man is he who defies tyrannies young as the morning and superstitions fresh as the first flowers. The only true free-thinker is he whose intellect is as much free from the future as from the past. He cares as little for what will be as for what has been; he cares only for what ought to be. And for my present purpose I specially insist on this abstract independence. If I am to discuss what is wrong, one of the first things that are wrong is this: the deep and silent modern assumption that past things have become impossible. There is one metaphor of which the moderns are very fond; they are always saying, "You can't put the clock back." The simple and obvious answer is "You can." A clock, being a piece of human construction, can be restored by the human finger to any figure or hour. In the same way society, being a piece of human construction, can be reconstructed upon any plan that has ever existed.
There is another proverb, "As you have made your bed, so you must lie on it"; which again is simply a lie. If I have made my bed uncomfortable, please God I will make it again. We could restore the Heptarchy or the stage coaches if we chose. It might take some time to do, and it might be very inadvisable to do it; but certainly it is not impossible as bringing back last Friday is impossible. This is, as I say, the first freedom that I claim: the freedom to restore."
It's unfortunate that Chesterton's common sense is still sorely lacking nearly a hundred years later. But it's needed now more than ever. I'm not advocating being blindly anti-technology any more than I'm advocating being blindly devoted to it. I say that technology was invented to serve us, and we must claim the independence of thought necessary to keep it that way. I guess I've ranted long enough. Time to open the floor to comments.
By the way, bb, there was a quote you posted on the last thread you bumped me to, "Liberalism's Religion Problem" (which I only lurked on, since most of the discussion was over my head). It was from Vogelin, and I think it's just as appropriate here as it was there: "Now we feel more directly what is at stake: The issue is … a matter of life and death. And even more so, the issue is the question as to whether man may exist personally or has to blend into a suprapersonal realissimum. Intrapersonal relationships are severed, nonhuman spiritual structures confront one another, and man is transformed into a machine component that runs along mechanically in the gearbox, abstractly fighting and killing toward the outside."
The gambler had not expected to be here. But on reflection, he thought he had shown some kindness in his time. And this place was even more beautiful and satisfying than he had imagined. Everywhere there were magnificent crystal chandeliers, the finest handmade carpets, the most sumptuous foods, and, yes, the most beautiful women, who seemed intrigued with their new heaven mate. He tried his hand at roulette, and amazingly his number came up time after time. He tried the gaming tables, and his luck was nothing short of remarkable: He won game after game. Indeed his winnings were causing quite a stir, attracting much excitement from the attentive staff, and from the beautiful women.
This continued day after day, week after week, with the gambler winning every game, accumulating bigger and bigger earnings. Everything was going his way. He just kept on winning. And week after week, month after month, the gambler's streak of success remained unbreakable.
After a while, this started to get tedious. The gambler was getting restless; the winning was starting to lose its meaning. Yet nothing changed. He just kept on winning every game, until one day, the now anguished gambler turned to the angel who seemed to be in charge and said that he couldn't take it anymore. Heaven was not for him after all. He had figured he was destined for the "other place" nonetheless, and indeed that is where he wanted to be.
"But this is the other place," came the reply.
(Author quoting from a Twilight Zone episode)
Pick a time, far back, I'll use 1774 just because, and imagine all the upcoming horrible technological ways of creating pain and death. Beauts.
If you lived then and knew what you know now, would you be a Luddite type then? No far picking and choosing, i.e. retaining Tesla and aborting Wilsom......sorry, retaining a genius providing incredible creature comforts and aborting a high-ranking politician?
Let me know what that puzzle triggers.....I got two phone calls about your post which is more than I can ignore now that I got the outside work done today.
That's pretty weak. For my own part, I think Kurzweil is correct wrt the inevitability of these outcomes but his dates are agressive. The problems are very hard and just throwing more cycles at it won't solve it. I also think these outcomes will be on balance positive.
I just bought a 2GHz Pentium with the Sensurround/Scratch-n-Sniff options, etc.. Most of the software I have can't take advantage of a processor that fast; there are other bottlenecks that prevent faster throughput despite the accelerated processor. Sure, that technology will advance soon, and soon new machines will not suffer those bottlenecks. But my point is, this machine is perfectly adequate. And it will be for some time to come.
Technology doesn't necessarily drive the market anymore. Just because some new gadget lets us do something, it doesn't mean we want to -- or NEED to -- do it. All the wizardry the author describes is titillating, to be sure, but not much more valuable than the technology we have today.
Therefore, it is not likely it will be developed, until or unless someone can sell it.
At least that's my knee-jerk response.
Much more troubling are the moral implications of a society whose philosophy hasn't kept pace with its technological development.
How so, if I might ask?
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