But I did not come to my perspective as a result of searching for an alternative to customary faith. The origin of my quest to understand technology trends was practical: an attempt to time my inventions and to make optimal tactical decisions in launching technology enterprises. Over time this modeling of technology took on a life of its own and led me to formulate a theory of technology evolution. It was not a huge leap from there to reflect on the impact of these crucial changes on social and cultural institutions and on my own life. So, while being a Singularitarian is not a matter of faith but one of understanding, pondering the scientific trends I’ve discussed in this book inescapably engenders new perspectives on the issues that traditional religions have attempted to address: the nature of mortality and immortality, the purpose of our lives, and intelligence in the universe.
Being a Singularitarian has often been an alienating and lonely experience for me because most people I encounter do not share my outlook. Most “big thinkers” are totally unaware of this big thought. In a myriad of statements and comments people typically evidence the common wisdom that human life is short, that our physical and intellectual reach is limited, and that nothing fundamental will change in our lifetimes. I expect this narrow view to change as the implications of accelerating change become increasingly apparent, but having more people with whom to share my outlook is a major reason that I wrote this book.
So how do we contemplate the Singularity? As with the sun, it’s hard to look at directly; it’s better to squint at it out of the corners of our eyes. As Max More states, the last thing we need is another dogma, nor do we need another cult, so Singularitarianism is not a system of beliefs or unified viewpoints. While it is fundamentally an understanding of basic technology trends, it is simultaneously an insight that causes one to rethink everything, from the nature of health and wealth to the nature of death and self.
To me, being a Singularitarian means many things, of which the following is a small sampling. These reflections articulate my personal philosophy, not a proposal for a new doctrine.
We have the means right now to live long enough to live forever.2 Existing knowledge can be aggressively applied to dramatically slow down aging processes so we can still be in vital health when the more radical life-extending therapies from biotechnology and nanotechnology become available. But most baby boomers won’t make it because they are unaware of the accelerating aging processes in their bodies and the opportunity to intervene.
In this spirit I am aggressively reprogramming my biochemistry, which is now altogether different than it would otherwise be.3 Taking supplements and medications is not a last resort to be reserved only for when something goes wrong. There is already something wrong. Our bodies are governed by obsolete genetic programs that evolved in a bygone era, so we need to overcome our genetic heritage. We already have the knowledge to begin to accomplish this, something I am committed to doing.
My body is temporary. Its particles turn over almost completely every month. Only the pattern of my body and brain have continuity.
We should strive to improve these patterns by optimizing the health of our bodies and extending the reach of our minds. Ultimately, we will be able to vastly expand our mental faculties by merging with our technology.
We need a body, but once we incorporate MNT fabrication into ourselves, we will be able to change our bodies at will.
Only technology can provide the scale to overcome the challenges with which human society has struggled for generations. For example, emerging technologies will provide the means of providing and storing clean and renewable energy, removing toxins and pathogens from our bodies and the environment, and providing the knowledge and wealth to overcome hunger and poverty.
Knowledge is precious in all its forms: music, art, science, and technology, as well as the embedded knowledge in our bodies and brains. Any loss of this knowledge is tragic.
Information is not knowledge. The world is awash in information; it is the role of intelligence to find and act on the salient patterns. For example, we have hundreds of megabits of information flowing through our senses every second, the bulk of which is intelligently discarded. It is only the key recognitions and insights (all forms of knowledge) that we retain. Thus intelligence selectively destroys information to create knowledge.
Death is a tragedy. It is not demeaning to regard a person as a profound pattern (a form of knowledge), which is lost when he or she dies. That, at least, is the case today, since we do not yet have the means to access and back up this knowledge. When people speak of losing part of themselves when a loved one dies, they are speaking quite literally, since we lose the ability to effectively use the neural patterns in our brain that had self-organized to interact with that person.
A primary role of traditional religion is deathist rationalization—that is, rationalizing the tragedy of death as a good thing. Malcolm Muggeridge articulates the common view that “if it weren’t for death, life would be unbearable.” But the explosion of art, science, and other forms of knowledge that the Singularity will bring will make life more than bearable; it will make life truly meaningful.
In my view the purpose of life—and of our lives—is to create and appreciate ever-greater knowledge, to move toward greater “order.” As I discussed in chapter 2, increasing order usually means increasing complexity, but sometimes a profound insight will increase order while reducing complexity.
As I see it the purpose of the universe reflects the same purpose as our lives: to move toward greater intelligence and knowledge. Our human intelligence and our technology form the cutting edge of this expanding intelligence (given that we are not aware of any extraterrestrial competitors).
Having reached a tipping point, we will within this century be ready to infuse our solar system with our intelligence through self-replicating non-biological intelligence. It will then spread out to the rest of the universe.
Ideas are the embodiment and the product of intelligence. The ideas exist to solve most any problem that we encounter. The primary problems we cannot solve are ones that we cannot articulate and are mostly ones of which we are not yet aware. For the problems that we do encounter, the key challenge is to express them precisely in words (and sometimes in equations). Having done that, we have the ability to find the ideas to confront and resolve each such problem.
We can apply the enormous leverage provided by the acceleration of technology. A notable example is achieving radical life extension through “a bridge to a bridge to a bridge” (applying today’s knowledge as a bridge to biotechnology, which in turn will bridge us to the era of nanotechnology).4 This offers a way to live indefinitely now, even though we don’t yet have all the knowledge necessary for radical life extension. In other words we don’t have to solve every problem today. We can anticipate the capability of technologies that are coming—in five years or ten years or twenty—and work these into our plans. That is how I design my own technology projects, and we can do the same with the large problems facing society and with our own lives.
Contemporary philosopher Max More describes the goal of humanity as a transcendence to be “achieved through science and technology steered by human values.”5 More cites Nietzsche’s observation “Man is a rope, fastened between animal and overman—a rope over an abyss.” We can interpret Nietzsche to be pointing out that we have advanced beyond other animals while seeking to become something far greater. We might regard Nietzsche’s reference to the abyss to allude to the perils inherent in technology, which I address in the next chapter.
More has at the same time expressed concern that anticipating the Singularity could engender a passivity in addressing today’s issues.6 Because the enormous capability to overcome age-old problems is on the horizon, there may be a tendency to grow detached from mundane, present-day concerns. I share More’s antipathy toward “passive Singularitarianism.” One reason for a proactive stance is that technology is a double-edged sword and as such always has the potential of g
oing awry as it surges toward the Singularity, with profoundly disturbing consequences. Even small delays in implementing emerging technologies can condemn millions of people to continued suffering and death. As one example of many, excessive regulatory delays in implementing lifesaving therapies end up costing many lives. (We lose millions of people per year around the world from heart disease alone.)
More also worries about a cultural rebellion “seduced by religious and cultural urgings for ‘stability,’‘peace,’ and against ‘hubris’ and ‘the unknown’ ” that may derail technological acceleration.7 In my view any significant derailment of the overall advancement of technology is unlikely. Even epochal events such as two world wars (in which on the order of one hundred million people died), the cold war, and numerous economic, cultural, and social upheavals have failed to make the slightest dent in the pace of technology trends. But the reflexive, thoughtless antitechnology sentiments increasingly being voiced in the world today do have the potential to exacerbate a lot of suffering.
Still Human? Some observers refer to the post-Singularity period as “posthuman” and refer to the anticipation of this period as posthumanism. However, to me being human means being part of a civilization that seeks to extend its boundaries. We are already reaching beyond our biology by rapidly gaining the tools to reprogram and augment it. If we regard a human modified with technology as no longer human, where would we draw the defining line? Is a human with a bionic heart still human? How about someone with a neurological implant? What about two neurological implants? How about someone with ten nanobots in his brain? How about 500 million nanobots? Should we establish a boundary at 650 million nanobots: under that, you’re still human and over that, you’re posthuman?
Our merger with our technology has aspects of a slippery slope, but one that slides up toward greater promise, not down into Nietzsche’s abyss. Some observers refer to this merger as creating a new “species.” But the whole idea of a species is a biological concept, and what we are doing is transcending biology. The transformation underlying the Singularity is not just another in a long line of steps in biological evolution. We are upending biological evolution altogether.
BILL GATES: I agree with you 99 percent. What I like about your ideas is that they are grounded in science, but your optimism is almost a religious faith. I’m optimistic also.
RAY: Yes, well, we need a new religion. A principal role of religion has been to rationalize death, since up until just now there was little else constructive we could do about it.
BILL: What would the principles of the new religion be?
RAY: We’d want to keep two principles: one from traditional religion and one from secular arts and sciences—from traditional religion, the respect for human consciousness.
BILL: Ah yes, the Golden Rule.
RAY: Right, our morality and legal system are based on respect for the consciousness of others. If I hurt another person, that’s considered immoral, and probably illegal, because I have caused suffering to another conscious person. If I destroy property, it’s generally okay if it’s my property, and the primary reason it’s immoral and illegal if it’s someone else’s property is because I have caused suffering not to the property but to the person owning it.
BILL: And the secular principle?
RAY: From the arts and sciences, it is the importance of knowledge. Knowledge goes beyond information. It’s information that has meaning for conscious entities: music, art, literature, science, technology. These are the qualities that will expand from the trends I’m talking about.
BILL: We need to get away from the ornate and strange stories in contemporary religions and concentrate on some simple messages. We need a charismatic leader for this new religion.
RAY: A charismatic leader is part of the old model. That’s something we want to get away from.
BILL: Okay, a charismatic computer, then.
RAY: How about a charismatic operating system?
BILL: Ha, we’ve already got that. So is there a God in this religion?
RAY: Not yet, but there will be. Once we saturate the matter and energy in the universe with intelligence, it will “wake up,” be conscious, and sublimely intelligent. That’s about as close to God as I can imagine.
BILL: That’s going to be silicon intelligence, not biological intelligence.
RAY: Well, yes, we’re going to transcend biological intelligence. We’ll merge with it first, but ultimately the nonbiological portion of our intelligence will predominate. By the way, it’s not likely to be silicon, but something like carbon nanotubes.
BILL: Yes, I understand—I’m just referring to that as silicon intelligence since people understand what that means. But I don’t think that’s going to be conscious in the human sense.
RAY: Why not? If we emulate in as detailed a manner as necessary everything going on in the human brain and body and instantiate these processes in another substrate, and then of course expand it greatly, why wouldn’t it be conscious?
BILL: Oh, it will be conscious. I just think it will be a different type of consciousness.
RAY: Maybe this is the 1 percent we disagree on. Why would it be different?
BILL: Because computers can merge together instantly. Ten computers—or one million computers—can become one faster, bigger computer. As humans, we can’t do that. We each have a distinct individuality that cannot be bridged.
RAY: That’s just a limitation of biological intelligence. The unbridgeable distinctness of biological intelligence is not a plus. “Silicon” intelligence can have it both ways. Computers don’t have to pool their intelligence and resources. They can remain “individuals” if they wish. Silicon intelligence can even have it both ways by merging and retaining individuality—at the same time. As humans, we try to merge with others also, but our ability to accomplish this is fleeting.
BILL: Everything of value is fleeting.
RAY: Yes, but it gets replaced by something of even greater value.
BILL: True, that’s why we need to keep innovating.
The Vexing Question of Consciousness
If you could blow the brain up to the size of a mill and walk about inside, you would not find consciousness.
—G. W. LEIBNIZ
Can one ever remember love? It’s like trying to summon up the smell of roses in a cellar. You might see a rose, but never the perfume.
—ARTHUR MILLER8
At one’s first and simplest attempts to philosophize, one becomes entangled in questions of whether when one knows something, one knows that one knows it, and what, when one is thinking of oneself, is being thought about, and what is doing the thinking. After one has been puzzled and bruised by this problem for a long time, one learns not to press these questions: the concept of a conscious being is, implicitly, realized to be different from that of an unconscious object. In saying that a conscious being knows something, we are saying not only that he knows it, but that he knows that he knows it, and that he knows that he knows that he knows it, and so on, as long as we care to pose the question: there is, we recognize, an infinity here, but it is not an infinite regress in the bad sense, for it is the questions that peter out, as being pointless, rather than the answers.
—J. R. LUCAS, OXFORD PHILOSOPHER, IN HIS 1961 ESSAY “MINDS, MACHINES, AND GÖDEL”9
Dreams are real while they last; can we say more of life?
—HAVELOCK ELLIS
Will future machines be capable of having emotional and spiritual experiences? We have discussed several scenarios for a nonbiological intelligence to display the full range of emotionally rich behavior exhibited by biological humans today. By the late 2020s we will have completed the reverse engineering of the human brain, which will enable us to create nonbiological systems that match and exceed the complexity and subtlety of humans, including our emotional intelligence.
A second scenario is that we could upload the patterns of an actual human into a suitable nonbiological, thinking substrate. A third, a
nd the most compelling, scenario involves the gradual but inexorable progression of humans themselves from biological to nonbiological. That has already started with the benign introduction of devices such as neural implants to ameliorate disabilities and disease. It will progress with the introduction of nanobots in the bloodstream, which will be developed initially for medical and antiaging applications. Later more sophisticated nanobots will interface with our biological neurons to augment our senses, provide virtual and augmented reality from within the nervous system, assist our memories, and provide other routine cognitive tasks. We will then be cyborgs, and from that foothold in our brains, the nonbiological portion of our intelligence will expand its powers exponentially. As I discussed in chapters 2 and 3 we see ongoing exponential growth of every aspect of information technology, including price-performance, capacity, and rate of adoption. Given that the mass and energy required to compute and communicate each bit of information are extremely small (see chapter 3), these trends can continue until our nonbiological intelligence vastly exceeds that of the biological portion. Since our biological intelligence is essentially fixed in its capacity (except for some relatively modest optimization from biotechnology), the nonbiological portion will ultimately predominate. In the 2040s, when the nonbiological portion will be billions of times more capable, will we still link our consciousness to the biological portion of our intelligence?
Clearly, nonbiological entities will claim to have emotional and spiritual experiences, just as we do today. They—we—will claim to be human and to have the full range of emotional and spiritual experiences that humans claim to have. And these will not be idle claims; they will evidence the sort of rich, complex, and subtle behavior associated with such feelings.