
No death and an enhanced life: Is the future transhuman? - jonbaer
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/may/06/no-death-and-an-enhanced-life-is-the-future-transhuman
======
Animats
No, the future is probably genetic engineering for better babies. Retrofitting
old models will never work as well.

If you thought race was a problem, wait until we have multiple species of
humans. Pfizer people may not interbreed with Novartis people.

~~~
davidpelayo
Meanwhile, we are still coding throughout the very same interface as 40 years
ago: a keyboard.

~~~
magduf
Unfortunately, the keyboards we had 30-40 years ago were far superior to
almost all the ones we have today. They've been getting steadily worse and
worse, and have reached a new low now with the ultra-thin-key, ultra-low-
travel, flat-top "island" keyboards that laptops all have today.

~~~
stcredzero
How many of those laptops are actually targeted at coders?

~~~
magduf
I wouldn't say they're "targeted at coders", but Macbooks seem to be very
popular with them these days.

In fact, I don't exactly see coders being very discriminating on keyboard
quality overall. The main people who seem to care a lot about keyboards (and
who keep the high-end mechanical keyboard makers in business) are gamers, not
coders.

~~~
stcredzero
_I wouldn 't say they're "targeted at coders", but Macbooks seem to be very
popular with them these days._

Seemingly less and less so as time goes on.

 _In fact, I don 't exactly see coders being very discriminating on keyboard
quality overall._

There's a reason why some coders are Thinkpad fans. You don't have to be very
discriminating for coding, but a modicum of ergonomics does make a difference.

 _The main people who seem to care a lot about keyboards (and who keep the
high-end mechanical keyboard makers in business) are gamers, not coders._

Interesting idea. I wonder what the percentages are of clicky keyboards versus
switches like Cherry blacks?

~~~
magduf
>There's a reason why some coders are Thinkpad fans.

Some != majority. Sure, I've seen some who are Thinkpad fans (or, like me,
Dell Latitude fans). But they're a minority. I'm sure I've seen more that were
Apple fans, even the ones doing Linux coding.

------
Digit-Al
> Kurzweil and his followers believe this turning point will be reached around
> the year 2030, when biotechnology will enable a union between humans and
> genuinely intelligent computers and AI systems.

"2030". They are deluded. We're not even close to that sort of understanding.
We're not even vaguely close to "genuinely intelligent computers and AI
systems" let alone the rest of it.

~~~
theothermkn
I'm not advocating for his 2030 date, but his reasoning for it directly
addresses the concern you voice. His contention is that progress in a field
happens at a superexponential rate, and that researchers and/or the public
tend to estimate it at well less than exponential. He believes, and tries to
make the case, that advances don't just advance, but feed into the
infrastructure that drives faster advances.

Also, "around 2030" does run out to, say, 2035 if you push it. That feels less
implausible to me than, say, 2030-01-01.

Again, I'm not saying he's right. I'm mainly saying that he expects your or my
surprise when he opens his mouth, and has something like the explanation I
sketched out at the ready.

~~~
Digit-Al
That's all very well, but her is my objection (apologies in advance if I don't
express my views in the clearest manner).

The objective of creating AI is to create a computer that is 'self aware'. The
problem being that we have no way of defining self awareness. We humans have
been struggling with the problems of self awareness for over 2000 years but
still seem to be no nearer to coming up with any clear definition,
explanation, or measure.

Even research using our latest, greatest, brain scanning and imaging
technology instead of making things clearer seem to be muddying the waters
even further by suggesting that our self awareness may, at least in part, be
an illusion.

There is no test we can give right now that can prove beyond doubt that even
another person is actually self aware. We all assume everyone else has the
same sense of self awareness that we do, but we have no way of verifying that.
And then look at something like the octopus. We have enough evidence from
their behaviour to suggest that they may possibly have some form of self
awareness, but they are so alien to us that we currently have no possible way
of finding out.

So how are we supposed to replicate something that we don't understand, don't
know how to recognise, can't measure, and don't even know if it exists?

Obviously, I could be wrong. In the last 50 years our world has been
transformed beyond the most wild imaginings of our grandparents when they were
children. But if you agree with my statements above (of course you may not
agree) then you have to agree that 12 years seems insanely optimistic. Even 20
or 30 years seems rather optimistic to crack one of the most fundamental
mysteries of our existence.

------
xutopia
I have a standing bet that Kurzweil will die in my lifetime before he will be
able to upload himself to a synthetic body with a friend of mine.

~~~
rsync
"I have a standing bet that Kurzweil will die in my lifetime before he will be
able to upload himself to a synthetic body with a friend of mine."

My response to all things Kurzweil has always been barely interested
dismissal.

However, a few years ago I read an in-depth piece, with interview, wherein he
pinned almost all of his motivation on his early, traumatic experience of his
own (beloved) fathers death.

Now my response is a very deep sadness for him. What he wants is so simple and
easiy achievable - to have a child of his own.

Literal immortality (at the species layer, not the (cancerous) individual
layer) was there for him all along - and it _included_ all of the love and
care and devotion that he has spent his lifetime mourning.

~~~
goodbadwolf
Would you happen to remember where the interview was published ?

~~~
rsync
I think it may have been the New York Times sunday magazine ? Not that long
ago - last two years, I think ...

------
oicu812
I've not read the book quoted in the article, To Be a Machine, yet but another
fascinating book on this subject is Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow. I
highly recommend it!

------
stcredzero
The future never turns out how you think. "The street finds its own uses for
things."

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burning_Chrome](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burning_Chrome)

How about, "No Death, and No Life?" Sounds like a good title for a book or a
TV show. Scenarios already come to mind.

------
CM30
Yeah, I believe the future is transhumanism. Then again, I also believe that
and genetic engineering could fix a lot of social problems by making humanity
adapt to our environment rather than the other way around.

For example, there are problems with obesity and poorer people having limited
access to healthy food. Well, imagine if they didn't need to care what they
ate?

If you could just eat whatever you wanted in any quantity and you'd never get
things like diabetes or put on weight because of it? That'd be the kind of
miracle human society could really benefit from. Same if exercise wasn't
needed at all and people could just have a sedentary without any risk to their
health. Ways to reduce or remove tiredness. The possibility of existing in a
vacuum. The ability to survive far more trauma than originally possible, to
the point you could be hit by a car at high speed and walk it off.

Make it so humanity goes beyond its limitations, not just perfects them. So
genetic engineering and transhumanism are the default, not the outlier.

Is that crazy? Probably, but so is most science and technology when you think
about it. Tell people a few hundred years ago about cars, planes, smartphones,
the internet, virtual reality or anything else like that, and they'd think you
were nuts too.

------
leggomylibro
I'm not hugely into the whole transhumanism thing and I think that people who
seriously consider living forever are deluding themselves, but I did get a
magnet implanted into my finger once.

It was fun being able to pick up things like screws and small parts, and it
was cool being able to feel when a laptop was about to slow down as the fans
and sometimes hard drive spun up.

But I have to be honest, it was also stressful in a weird and latent way that
I have trouble describing.

For one thing, my body can deal with a lot of problems, often without any
sharp alerts that it is doing so. I accidentally cut myself? No problem, it'll
be fine in a day or two. Whanged my elbow on a corner and bruised it? Not a
problem. But if I slam the magnet in a drawer, that could easily require a
trip to the ER and maybe even a lost or damaged finger. My body didn't care
about its inert coating, but I doubt the immune system would appreciate a
large disc made of neodymium, boron, and nickel.

Even if that weren't the case, I'm not sure if I could have stopped being
aware of it. It was very solid, and its presence was almost insistent. Other
attempts at taking advantage of haptics and neuroplasticity, like wearing
garments with sensors and vibe motors all day and night, didn't give me the
same sort of apprehension.

I never ran into any problems or pain with the implant, but when I eventually
got it removed after a few years, I still felt enormous relief. The tech told
me that the new ones are basically slivers which were much lower-profile, but
it'd probably still lose its magnetism over time and they also said that they
wouldn't have felt comfortable trying to remove one that they couldn't easily
find.

That's just mildly interacting with what I guess you could call the
"application layer" of my body. And people are seriously discussing things
like cryogenics and brain uploading? I could be pessimistic, but it seems
unlikely for this generation. Better to just keep striving for the benefit of
those that follow, don't you think?

~~~
gknoy
> I think that people who seriously consider living forever are deluding
> themselves

Deluding themselves as far as the viability, or as far as whether it would be
a good thing? I have serious doubts that it will happen in my lifetime, but I
am definitely sad about that. I'd much prefer to have the option to live
forever.

~~~
leggomylibro
>Deluding themselves as far as the viability, or as far as whether it would be
a good thing?

Both? I think that most people would like to avoid dying if you gave them the
option, but even if it were possible, who's going to pay for that with all 7
billion of us and counting?

Nobody - there isn't enough money in the world. It'd just be yet another
mechanism of multi-generational oppression and exploitation.

~~~
MikkoFinell
Your solution to oppression and exploitation is to kill everyone? To you,
genocide is less immoral than oppression?

------
yaris
Maybe I miss something, but why are transhumanists not talking about
improvements in ways of thinking? Like getting rid of cognitive biases,
unnecessary stereotypes etc? To me their goals sound like they work on
replacing HW in order to ”fix” broken SW. This might work short term, but
living almost-forever with the same bad thinking habits... meh

~~~
jobigoud
It is very much a topic. Check for "moral enhancement" and "ethical
enhancement".

------
reasonattlm
On the day it comes to you that living a longer, healthier life is something
you'd like to do, that an extra year or ten of good health (or hell, why not
more?) would be just peachy keen, think of the transhumanists - because you
just became one. You saw a limit in the human condition, thought about what
life would be like with that limit removed, and liked it.

Welcome to the party!

Transhumanism, make no mistake, is just a fancy name for common sense. Change
for the better is good, right? Common sense. It's what we humans do in our
scattered finer moments - we work to change things for the better. It's common
sense to fetch in the harvest on wheels rather than on foot, and it's common
sense to repair the biomolecular damage of Alzheimer's before the mind begins
to rot. It's common sense to build perfect immune systems from nanomedical
robots, and it's common sense to develop the technologies of regenerative
medicine to their logical end.

It takes work, but what is work compared to a world of suffering? Choosing not
to attain these goals makes about as much sense as standing out in the rain to
spite yourself.

New technology cannot set slaves free, remove poverty brought of corruption,
make the willfully blind see, or the unhappy bring themselves to good cheer of
their own free will ... but it can remove the limits placed upon us by
evolution, and it will one day give us all much, much more time in health and
life to work on our other, very human issues. You can't rid the world of
poverty when you're sick, decrepit and aged to death. The limits to our lives
that we cannot negotiate away by talk and travel are the most confining, don't
you agree?

Transhumanism, common sense with a slick name, is really simple humanism -
which is also really no more than a name for common sense. It is only humanist
to work to give people the choice to live without suffering, and without
death. To live, for without life, there is nothing.

------
garmaine
Kudos to The Guardian for violating Betteridge's law of headlines.

------
lambdasquirrel
Would you be familiar with the Roman god Saturn, who ate his children to keep
them from usurping his power? Societies have long had problems with the most
powerful members of their hierarchies hoarding power. And now they'll be the
first to get to live forever?

~~~
MikkoFinell
So you're willing to euthanize everyone currently alive, as well as the
countless billions that will be alive in the future, all based on the
hypothetical risk of someone you don't like being in power? Good grief.

Tell me, what is it you believe that hypothetical future dictator will do that
is _worse_ than killing billions?

~~~
falcolas
Enslave billions. The dead don't feel; that's reserved for those who are
alive.

~~~
magduf
Exactly how do you propose for an immortal dictator to "enslave billions"?
Seriously, I want to hear your detailed answer here about how one person can
do this.

------
bobthechef
Crackpots and philistines with money.

Here's a metaphysical puzzle for you. If we are just meat machines, as no
doubt these transhumanists believe, and there is no teleology in nature, then
how does one discern what is augmentation? Without teleology, such judgments
are impossible in principle. The transhumanist might retort "Well, I think
this and this is better". To that I respond: "Lo! Who speaks? Who be this I?
Are you not but a machine? Are your preferences not as replaceable as anything
else in that pile of parts only incidentally moving together? Replace those
preferences to prefer no such transhumanist quackery."

There is zero intellectual sophistication in transhumanism, even less
sophistication than there is in the bankrupt lick of a metaphysics it rests
on.

