TRANSHUMANISM: AI WILL GO BADLY FOR HUMANS
When my friend Dr. Scott D. de Hart and I were talking about how to strategize our book on transhumanism, our biggest problem was how to remain objective about it, because frankly what we uncovered - from top to bottom, and in respect to most every issue we discuss in the book - was at some very basic and visceral level profoundly disturbing, and we remained very skeptical in spite of our attempts to remain objective about all of it, and to allow readers to come to their own conclusions.But it was, and I think it is fairly safe to say, remains for us both a kind of black alchemy, for while individual components of the movement and its proffered future do indeed hold great promise, it is the overall transformation of consciousness that it promises to effect, and the redefinition of humanity that it might entail, that gave us pause.
Well, there are isolated voices warning about some of the implicit dangers in the phenomenon, and some of them are coming from Russia:
"While doing an open Q&A on the community website Reddit, CEO Luke Muehlhauser explains that the superhuman AI would end up ‘optimizing’ the entire globe and starving resources from humans. In other words, the AI would suppress humans similar to the premise of iRobot or other similar works. This is particularly interesting when considering that artificial bodies and brains have been promised first to the wealthy elite by the 2045 program creator, allowing world rulers and the financial elite to achieve ‘immortality’ and subsequently a never-ending rule over the humans of the world.
"Muehlhauser explains how humans would become a ‘prey’ to the ruthless ‘super-human’ AI with the completion of Singularity:
'Unfortunately, the singularity may not be what you’re hoping for. By default the singularity (intelligence explosion) will go very badly for humans… so by default superhuman AIs will end up optimizing the world around us for something other than what we want, and using up all our resources to do so.'
"The concerns echo those put forth by researchers and analysts who have been following the concept of Singularity for decades. With the ultimate goal of linking all hyper-intelligent androids into a ‘cognitive network’ of sorts and eventually even forfeiting physical bodies, it’s clear that the Singularity movement even has its top supporters openly speaking out against it in many regards. What’s even more clear, however, is the fact that AI Singularity has no place for humankind — not even in a form of co-existence."(Plain italicization emphasis added)
This "virtual immortality" that the movement promises, and in my opinion, may be capable of delivering, is precisely the rub, for it recalls the ancient texts that I have written about in my books, particularly The Cosmic War. In those texts, one reads of "gods" with vast lifespans... and a thoroughly decayed sense of morality and compassion for humanity. After all, in those texts, the "gods" are wont, from time to time, to slaughter humanity on a genocidal scale that would make a Hitler or Stalin blush with envy.
But during our long discussions while writing Transhumanism: A Grimoire of Alchemical Agendas, Dr. de Hart raised another possibility one day as we were trying to figure out how to negotiate our way through some very difficult passages. What if the new "cyborg" human, the humanity so many see as being the "new elite", actually turns out to be the new slave caste, a creature of human-machine interface that is perceived by the rest of "normal" humanity to be a threat, and hence, a chattel slave to be heavily regulated, and overseen, with cyber implants designed to keep "them" firmly under the control and scrutiny of us "normals"? Will this mean they would be treated any more humanely? Indeed, this possibility also hovers in the transhumanist background, for we already see foreshadowings of it in the quest by DARPA and other projects groups to create the perfect super soldier... an engineered being with something less than normal human scruples.
All of this raises profound ethical questions: do we define human nature apriori as being an "untampered with" creature? But how does one define "untampered" here? After all, if the ancient texts that suggest some sort of genetic manipulation gave rise to humanity, then we're all to some extent "tampered with" (or, to put it into the terms biblical fundamentalists like so often to cite, we're all "Amalekites" and offspring of the diabolical Nephilim). But there are dangers, equally, on waiting to define thingsa posteriori or after the transhumanist fact as well: what if, by waiting, we discover that the implants, the genetic modifications, the nanotechnology, all contrive to eradicate or at least dampen normal human compassion and decency, and to turn its transhumanist creations into that grizzly Aryan superman-butcher so eagerly sought by Heinrich Himmler as his Waffen-SS elite?
The bottom line is this: like it or not, transhumanism is forcing upon human civilization, society, and culture, the need for a profound, and broad discussion of what it means to be human, on what place compassion, tolerance, and love have and must have in human society. If we do not start having this deep philosophical conversation now, we will be overtaken by events.
See you on the flip side.
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Black Alchemy? Transformation of Consciousness? I see that happening before my eyes even without the new ‘gadgits?”
A redefinition of the word Humanity? That’s interesting. I read somewhere something concerning the extermination of the Jews by some famous Jewish author Weisel or maybe Weasal is more like it. He said something to this effect: “MAN IS NOT HUMAN!”
It makes me think and wonder!
Is being Human a Development Stage?
Farrell — when you write of “Virtual Immortality” it rings bells. Have you been re-reading your “Ernst Becker” books lately? Especially his “The Denial of Death title?”
Untampered? Now that is a creepy word. All this fighting with Fundalmentalists who believe or swear to INTELLIGENT DESIGN. It all seems so ABSURB because the more one looks the more one sees that maybe DNA IS a TECHNOLOGY IN ITSELF — Designed by who for that matter/reason???????
BY A bunch of LIZARDS, ha, ha.
I joke and laugh but the whole subject matter of AI is no laughing matter. I remember reading an author named Agamben (Italian I think) who wrote about witnessing the holocaust. Especially about the ones they called “MUSSILIMEN” in the Camps. It’s almost like they were Dead before they were DEAD.
Scares me when I see people go about their daily routines without a thought in the world and they do perfectly well at it. ( maybe the BOSSES wont need to make so many robots? If walt disney sic ‘possitive’ fantasies and horrorible-fears of losing one’s job isn’t enough then I am sure the food and air we breath will do the rest.
This bullshit about depopulating the earth of human inhabitants to where only 500 million are left is just that. Internet Propaganda. Who needs even a million left to shine shoes and wash floors? They got technology to do that!
I meant to say AUDOMATION instead of technology? (how many white-collar or office jobs did that replace? You guess is as good as mine.)
No, A better word — AWE-DUMB-ATION!
It makes me wonder that in the not so distant future Science Fiction will be found obsolete over taken by reality. And that is a scary prsopect.
Reminds me of one of the last story lines from babylon 5-the ‘telepath war’.
Telepaths being originally ‘manipulated’ by the Vorlons as weapons vs the ‘Shadows’.
After all this goes away, you have telepaths being controlled by medication or forced service with the psy-corp’ black ops division on Earth.
John Michael Strazynski sure knew something….and it all revolved around a very very ancient war of ideologies.
The idea was originally out forward by Aldous Huxley in Brave New World.
Also, have a look at the presentation by Juan Enriquez in the TED website.
science fiction already provides some indications of thought in these directions – from Terminator to Blade Runner and in between.
There is even an excellent short story in the November 1969 Analog called, “Gottlos,” about human-machine gestalts used in battle, which was extremely prescient about our current “drone” usage. It dealt with the psychological implications of varying degrees of man-machine interface, even to the point of mounting humans organs and brain in a massive tank.
An interesting Outer Limits (Original) episode with David MacCallum also investigated the implications of a scientist using artificial means to “evolve” himself, complete with the varying states of emotion and detachment he went through in different stages.
I guarantee you that if sci-fi authors are thinking about his, then Black Projects types are as well, and that means they have already been acting on it.
Since the monied elite already have great disdain for the “common” man, they will see this type of “evolution” as the natural extension of their right to rule.
Given the massive medical experimentation we are undergoing, the use of medical “situations” and laws to force people to accept a defacto Fascist state, the “interpretation” of laws to allow the patenting of human genes, the massive genetic modification of our food supply, and so on, I’d say we are already well on our way to this “brave new world.”
Frankly, I’m glad I am so near the end of my life, and our current situation is one reason I refused to bring children into this world. If these “people” (and I use the term very loosely) succeed (and that is FAR from a sure thing), then I can at least console myself in having had a good run…
It ain’t over yet….the Universe has more cards up her sleeve than these poor fools can know. They may have a few more pieces of the puzzle than we do, but they still don’t know it all, not by a long shot.
“…the Universe…………………..”
UBECHA !
I wonder about sic “the gods?” If you ask me the complete universe is God and all the rest are finite beings. ( panpsychism)
I don’t imagine it is too difficult for some other creatures (higher or lower on the scale(?=of what?) to impress us human beings INSIGNIFICANT in thE Universe as We Are. I think that is where the trouble lies. We need to prove it isn’t so?
I still like Farrell’s demarcation mark between the Abrahamic religions and others not based on Revelation. As if in the End it would make a big difference — I don’t Know?
It would give us a clue so we could examine — The Big Three, a bit closer for clues from ETS. But after all is said and done ETs are FINITE too there-by insignificant dust in the wind. ( only it just takes them a little longer to ‘not exist’ any more? )
The Gods don’t look kindly on mortals when they begin to play and think they are Gods. Lets hope they don’t return and reset the game board with a giant cataclysm like that did to the Atlanteans.
I’m of a mind that a God that would succumb to the petty contrivances of humanity is not a god at all. If God wants ME to do this or that without a reasonable explanation as to WHY, then I’l go about my own business. Thus far, I’ve discovered I could go Achilles on “God” and just the same, nothing will happen. I’m pretty sure I won’t be catching an arrow any time soon either.
These people know more of our true reality than most of us will ever come to grips with, much less understand. They have chosen to use this knowledge to benefit themselves, and can we blame them? They are human after all.
Not one of my favorites but one I’ve kept in the noggin:
“Don’t tell me how some power can corrupt a person, you haven’t had enough to know what it’s like”
Hal,
I keep on remembering a written quote from a guy named Charles Forte. He stated,
“The Earth is a Farm and We are the Chartel!”
(I spoilt it by not knowing how to spell the word. Is it Chattel(nope?). I know the word was used to discribe the Institution of Slavery. I think some Femininist use it as well?)
There is NO such thing as an ugly Christmas sweater!
Here’s a plug for a new Canadian TV show (just ended the 10 episodes of the first season: CONTINUUM, from http://www.showcase.ca.
You can watch episodes if you can find them on youtube or elsewhere. You can’t download them from the showcase website unless you are located in Canada (why???).
Anyway, low-budget as it is, it is a really good time travel story. I still don’t know who the “good guys” or the “bad guys” are.
I bring this up here because in the future, the cops/soldiers seem to be the only folks who have technological enhancements. A fairly plausible portrayal imo. Recommended for those who like good time travel stories (even though the current-day plots are rather silly somethimes).
i know a few people that think music is just a silly thing????
if Edgar Cayce is to been taken seriously he prophetized the hope for the world would come from Russia- does that include RT as a starter?- he didn’t mention RT (obviously wasn’t yet available)-
all kidding aside and am not being facetious whatsoever about the advantages of RT:
maybe Cayce might be proven right- we just don’t know yet
This bondage, at whim of brutish men ‘of science, will and continues to force the essence of humanity; that flame of consciousness that animates the dust, deeper and deeper into the abyss of the elements. At a certain depth, it will no longer remember, nor will it be allowed to escape the imprisonment of its mechanical cage. Even death will have become a fleeting distant aberration.
According to the Mystical Kabbalah the Singularity exists beyond the triple veil, to which All returns. To pull such lofty abstractions down into and concretize them within the elemental hands of a perverse human nature is a road map to hell.
Joseph, you should read Graham Hancock’s: Supernatural: Meetings with the Ancient Teachers of Mankind:
http://www.amazon.com/Supernatural-Meetings-Ancient-Teachers-Mankind/dp/1932857842/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1345585316&sr=1-1&keywords=supernatural+graham+hancock
I read Hancock’s fictional work a while back but I can’t recall the title. He claims the story was revealed to him while on ayahuasca (which he discusses in Supernatural). According to Hancock it was tribes of blond haired blue -eyed people who were the genocidal killers of 24,000 BC who eradicated the neanderthals. For me it was kind of like Charlton Heston riding off with his mute girlfriend on the Planet of the Apes and coming across the wreckage of the Statue of Liberty and realizing it was humans who blew up civilization. Aryans as the predominant wielders of the dreaded homicidal nephilim DNA? David Icke says the same thing.
Therefore I can stomach:
” and to turn its transhumanist creations into that grizzly Aryan superman-butcher so eagerly sought by Heinrich Himmler as his Waffen-SS elite?”
for I have seen the enemy and it may be me, (although I would argue most top nazis were not Aryan supermen and the leader of the nazis may even have had Rothschild DNA). The nazis were embracing the worst part of who they were. Maybe the entire Vedic culture, with its powerful emphasis on spirituality from cradle to grave, was set up to steer clear Aryan man from this monster that hid in his DNA?
moreover, maybe those who tampered with our DNA, decided to build a religion, contrary to the Vedic religion, which would embrace the evil that was pulsating so strongly in Caucasian DNA. It would center around worship of this DNA and Those that shared it with them, specifically the Supreme Leader– Yahweh. Maybe they found a group of Caucasians, in the Caucasus no less, who had a predominance of this DNA and would serve as the vigilant crusaders of this new religion which would bring to prominence this evil DNA?
I submit the group with the greatest obsession with its special DNA and the one whose fingerprints are on the most heinous and genocidal acts of the last few centuries would not claim themselves to be Aryan in the least bit but, for the majority, hail from Ashkenazim in the heart of the Caucasus:
http://www.mailstar.net/shahak2.html
Rabbi Ginsburgh told the Jewish Week “If every simple cell in a Jewish body entails divinity, is a part of God, then every strand of DNA is part of God. Therefore, something is special about Jewish DNA.”
from Rebbe Menachem Shneerson:
“The difference between a Jewish and a non-Jewish person stems from the common expression: “Let us differentiate.” Thus, we do not have a case of profound change in which a person is merely on a superior level. Rather, we have a case of “let us differentiate” between totally different species…”
I read that during my sojourn into the Serpent, the Goddess and the Grail
etc.
But it took several books by diverse authors for a complete education
and a few other connections for a fairly complete education on the
subject(s) involved.
Is this some kind og genie out of the bottle?
Has this been purposely “fated” into our transformed dna? Either way, the temptations of those wanting to escape death’s inevitabity are taking humanity down oa road of no return. The trade/off is unacceptable. Those in control have not only lost their minds, but their souls as well. And now they are putting everyone else & their progeny on the transhuman auction block.
Either this IS the last stand,
or just another hurtle, in the ever lasting battle between, …”good & evil”.
For, to loose one’s humanity is non/negotiable.
Or as Bugs Bunny would say,
“Of course, you know, This Means War.”
Out of all of your books, this one excites me the most I think. And while I agree that Murphy’s Law is a corollary of Kurzweil’s Law, I appreciate that you also remain balanced and as you say: ‘The bottom line is this: like it or not, transhumanism is forcing upon human civilization, society, and culture, the need for a profound, and broad discussion of what it means to be human, on what place compassion, tolerance, and love have and must have in human society. If we do not start having this deep philosophical conversation now, we will be overtaken by events.’ The future promises much, and instead of running back into Neo-Luddism and shrill paranoid cries of it all being the devil’s work, as P.W. Singer says over and over again, we need to have had these discussions yesterday about how best to embrace this coming tidal wave.
WOW
Y’all were really planning to f**k it all up !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
But then, I’m the best-kept secret there ever was, is and will be.
The only ones that know [about] me are those
that have been trying to kill me ever since the UWFC
NOWOWON
I dont know about electric sheep in my dream world. (All I know is there is sometimes no sense of Newton’s Gravity in Dreams.)
Lee —I am dreaming of moving to Missoula or someplace else that doesn”t resemble a freaking THIRD WORLD> I know my Country stole from them and has grave sins to account for but when did you ever hear the word DEMOCRACY spelt from a bunch of foreigners? ( yeah besides the propaganda their is such a thing as illegals = Now the illegals areT called CITIZENS who remember their RIGHTS, ONCE UPON A TIME?)
Are we really going to ALIVE in 2045? It all seems moot to me. someone is up to no good. What else is new on the block?
Do androids dream of electric sheep and if so, who is the farmer and who owns the field?
And do they knit ugly Christmas sweaters from their wool?