Transhumanism

Transhumanism

T

ranshumanists believe that the homo sapiens sapiens is rapidly becoming obsolete and that within a century or so our species will have been replaced by homo robotiensi, [1] for we shall have gradually melded with computers, discarding our present flesh and blood bodies in favour of metal ones.

            Sir Roger Penrose, a distinguished Oxford mathematician, has written two impressive books vigorously combating the idea that a machine can ever attain consciousness [2]. I have read and admired both of them, but must reluctantly disagree. Even the Dalai Lama, whom I rank among the wisest of men, has admitted that there is no bar in Buddhist philosophy to our reincarnating in silicon. I believe the argument will be settled once and for all some thirty or so years from now, when we follow Penrose’s suggestion and ask a robot: ‘What does it feel like to be a computer?’ to hear it answer, ‘Generally, pretty good. But today, I’m a bit off colour and rather depressed. Could you take a look at my neural circuits?’

            ‘Most of the human race is now obsolete,’ is a transhumanist dictum. Transhumanists argue our brains are no longer adequate to deal with the major problems that confront the world today. One solution is to implant computers in our brains; this will increase our intelligence while also giving us far more control over our destructive emotions. Since only a relatively small percentage of the world’s population will be able or willing to afford such implants, this will eventually lead to the dominance of an elite, drawn largely from the present developed countries, who will be far above the rest of the human race, both physically and intellectually. Furthermore, genetic engineering – a costly process – must surely lead to the breeding of children with enhanced physical and intellectual powers, as in that prophetic film, Gattaca (1997). Since both computer implants and genetic engineering will be unaffordable for most people in the Third World, the prospects for the majority look grim. Furthermore, the rapid development of robots means the uneducated and unintelligent will be surplus to requirements. Compulsory sterilization on a vast scale for the world’s poor maybe in the offing, unthinkable as it may seem to us now. Countries that refuse to do this on moral grounds will find themselves unable to compete with countries that have not had such scruples.

            The average human brain can perform twenty million billion operations per second (twenty MOPS). If computers continue to improve according to Moore’s law, doubling their performance every twelve months [3], they should be performing as efficiently as a human brain by 2020. By 2030, the average desk computer, performing 10>19 operations per second, should be a thousand times more powerful than the best human brain and also possess what we term ‘consciousness’. The implications of this are so disturbing that it is not surprising so few people are prepared to consider them coolly.

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[1] Ray Kurzweil. 1999. The Age of Spiritual Machines, London, and Hans Moravec. 1988. Mind Children: The Future of Robot and Human Intelligence, Cambridge MA, are excellent introductions to transhumanistic thought.

[2] Roger Penrose. 1989. The Emperor’s New Mind. Oxford, and 1995. Shadows of the Mind. Oxford.

[3] Formerly, every eighteen months; this figure has now been revised downwards.

COPYRIGHT (C) 2010 J D FRODSHAM