From: Anders Sandberg (nv91-asa@nada.kth.se)
Date: Thu May 29 1997 - 05:23:22 MDT
On Thu, 29 May 1997, Eugene Leitl wrote:
> First of all I'd like to point out the fact that Drexler's brand
> of molecular manufacturing is not an absolute prerequisite for a
> transhumanist future, though it would certainly come more than
> handy.
...
> The discussions on this and several other lists had led to the
> following alternative future scenarios so far (please point out
> these I failed to mention):
I think you left out my favorite now shock area: biotechnology. It is
already making a lot of headway, and while people in general are
horrified by distractions like Dolly and genetically engineered soya
the field rushes on in Mach 3. Hugo is producing discoveries like a
fleet of Voyager probes (ever noticed how pre-Voyager pictures of the
solar system now look quaintly antique?), people are making cells do
fascinating tricks (grow in patterns, produce tissues and substances
we want etc) and we are getting better and better at understanding
the "logic" of life. Guess where I would bet nanotech and other >H
goodies will appear? Even if they doesn't it is an useful field, and
probably worth looking into, although so far the huge profits
predicted has not panned out. It reminds me of the debate books about
the information society I read as a child in the 70's; many of them
got a lot of things *right*, but since not much happened in the 80's
people forgot about it until it suddenly knocked down their doors.
Biotechnology may do the same.
> 1) The >Web, a near-future noosphere matrix which leads
> to a technological Singularity, or even Transcension
> (surely, these two have earned their CAPS initials)
> by technologies unimaginable to us-current. This is
> the most conservative route, since involving merely
> enhanced cooperation of human and nonhuman agents
> and intelligence augmentation by means of delegation
> of duties (bureaucracy++) to extracorporal gadgets and
> agentry, operated by radical GUIs (HMDs, speech and
> optical input, Brain-Actuated Control (BAC) and trivial
> neuro emplants for virtual motorics).
It is also a quite hot area to invest in. My guess is to look for
tools for *knowledge management*, we are getting better at
information management but we need more knowledge tools.
> The >H ALife Golem rears
> its multidimensional, fractally rendered posthumanist head.
Ever thought about taking up a career in poetry? :-)
> 3) Space-located (macroscopic) autoreplicators (initially
> designed and deployed for extraterrestrial industry
> purposes) subjected to darwinian fitness pressure will
> evolve into artificial life forms, deep space and high
> luminance/hard vacuum being their natural habitat, letting
> their meek engineered origins far behind (even forgetting us,
> though future machines should be able of being sentimental).
Not as imminent IMHo as your 1) and 2) (or my biotech), since it
supposes a working space industry. Right now the sky is looking
brighter, but I doubt we will see a space boom anytime soon. Too
bad, I want to be off this rock ASAP.
> Apart from having a good time, and a faint chance of actually
> contributing to the global transhumanist memefection conspiracy
> (tee-hee), my strictly personal life heuristic is thus to
> maneuvre oneself into a position of surviving the transition
> imminent (it'd better), possibly even profiting by it. Somehow I
> surmise am not alone in this ;)
Yes, this is important. It is safer to be useful and productive than
merely supporting. And learning to become very flexible is always a
good way to improve survival.
> We are in a curious position today: the inexpensive computing
> power currently available to us has far outstripped our
> capability to do useful things with them. Quite obviously we
> haven't been able to keep up with the way our tools have grown.
> Our tools are not sufficiently autonomous and smart yet to aid
> us in their use. The year this changes will make us stumble a
> yet another major step up to the Singularity.
Very true. In some sense HCI is one of the most important fields for
our future evolution. Judging from its current state (metaphors vs.
direct manipulation, 2D and 3D GUIs) we need some more geniuses here
(hmm, I wonder if there is some signal substance that can be used to
attract geniuses to a field? Spread it, and they come flying).
> since the age histogram of industrialized countries is getting
> progressively skewed towards higher age.
The baby boomers will soon be demanding life extension.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Anders Sandberg Towards Ascension!
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