Human augmentation.

[Orion]

I'd like to get some opinions on this concept from others. As we (should be) aware, science fiction more often than not becomes less fiction and more science. Television, motor vehicles, the internet, brain surgery... once upon a time this was all fairytale nonsense. Witchcraft. Once upon a time thinking ahead of the curve had you burned alive or decapitated.

So I'm trying to think ahead. Human modification is something that has always fascinated me. Is our mind greater than our body? Is it truly seperate ? Is the concept of artificial body controlled by out brain realy so hard to believe? Well guess what... it already exists.

BBC NEWS | Health | Woman is fitted with 'bionic' arm

So what about the future? Cosmetic surgery is already a popular phenomenon, what about prosthetic enhancement, i.e, do you think it could happen? Would you pay for fitter legs, more powerful arms?

A sharper mind? Would you trust the government not to implant something like false behavior?

Just something I'd like to discuss. Ahead of the curve.

 

[cellux]

I would be very interested to see whether we could build an AI which is indistinguishable from humans. Not just in its behavior (that's relatively easy to copy I think), but in things like creativity.

I'd be also interested in moving my software to a new, artificial hardware (if that makes sense - I can't really imagine how it would work). Perhaps recreating my brain - structurally - from artificial components and plugging the system in would make the "I" wake up in another center of experience? Now that would be interesting.

On a smaller scale, a mod that would enable me to turn off all external sensory input with the flick of a switch - with the exception of those necessary for motor control, so I can switch the rest on again - would be more than welcome.

 

[polytrip]

I would be very interested to see whether we could build an AI which is indistinguishable from humans. Not just in its behavior (that's relatively easy to copy I think), but in things like creativity.

I'd be also interested in moving my software to a new, artificial hardware (if that makes sense - I can't really imagine how it would work). Perhaps recreating my brain - structurally - from artificial components and plugging the system in would make the "I" wake up in another center of experience? Now that would be interesting.

On a smaller scale, a mod that would enable me to turn off all external sensory input with the flick of a switch - with the exception of those necessary for motor control, so I can switch the rest on again - would be more than welcome.

That would be the worst nightmare. Building artificial brains is one of the most frankensteinian, unethical things i can think of.

Why not connect ourselves straight away to the giant supercomputer that can do the thinking for us and can decide for us what to do and when and how? Why would we want real friendships when computers could be superiour to all human friendships, knowing exactly how our brains work and how we feel because of superiour facial-expression recognition? Why not plugging ourselves into the matrix when we could build an artificial reality in wich it never rains? Why would we make anything of our lives when computers could theoretically do everything so much better than we?

Oh wait....if computers could realy be this powerfull, how do you know we´re not being manipulated already?
How would you feel when your best friend turns out to be a robot who doesn´t realy care for you at all? Or when your favorite musician or author would apear not to exist at all, but just a program made especially to appeal to the commercial target-group you belong to according to a program?

What if this whole nexus-site would be one of the many AI-programs develloped by the government to monitor you? How´d you feel about that?

 

[easyrider]

How would you feel when your best friend turns out to be a robot who doesn´t realy care for you at all?

First and foremost, I also think it's unethical, and I think the film Source Code shows how unethical the utilization of such technology could be. Yes, there would be positive aspects to such a technology, but should humans compromise knowing the negative aspects? I guess one could bring this debate to the issue of nuclear power in contemporary times. Your quote reminds me of a Twilight Zone episode: "The Lonely."

 

[joedirt]

That would be the worst nightmare. Building artificial brains is one of the most frankensteinian, unethical things i can think of.

Is it? I mean what exactly are our brains? Real/artificial depends upon point of definition. Did God/evolution play frankenstein with us? Just thoughts that went by as I read your post.

Why not connect ourselves straight away to the giant supercomputer that can do the thinking for us and can decide for us what to do and when and how? Why would we want real friendships when computers could be superiour to all human friendships, knowing exactly how our brains work and how we feel because of superiour facial-expression recognition? Why not plugging ourselves into the matrix when we could build an artificial reality in wich it never rains? Why would we make anything of our lives when computers could theoretically do everything so much better than we?

And exactly why would we not make it perfect "if" we could? If we could invent a perfect machine that could never be destroyed that could construct magnificent worlds of beauty why would we not build this machine. Oh wait...we already have this machine except it doesn't last forever. It's our brain. Clearly our brain is capable of forming vasts worlds and realities. If it was possible to switch our brain into Samadhi(call it whatever) mode permanently I'd think that would be a pretty worthy goal...and is surely the only path to true world peace. Agreed this is not the same as machine intelligence directly....or is it?

Oh wait....if computers could really be this powerful, how do you know we´re not being manipulated already?
How would you feel when your best friend turns out to be a robot who doesn´t realy care for you at all? Or when your favorite musician or author would apear not to exist at all, but just a program made especially to appeal to the commercial target-group you belong to according to a program?

What if this whole nexus-site would be one of the many AI-programs develloped by the government to monitor you? How´d you feel about that?

In so many way's this is exactly what reality really is. Thoughts we have no control over flow threw our brains all day and night. Unless we make great strides to become aware and change we are largely driven by these unconscious thoughts all the time...aka robots.

Why are we the way we are? Simple nurture? Doesn't feel right to me. There is more to our lives than set and setting. It's like we have both freewill and we do not have freewill. Perhaps we have free will to determine how we act in a given situation, but the arising of situations is something we have far less control over than most believe.


For what it's worth I do fear true AI initially. I think this is something a future generation will be better able to handle...hopefully long after I'm actually gone!

 

[polytrip]

That would be the worst nightmare. Building artificial brains is one of the most frankensteinian, unethical things i can think of.

Is it? I mean what exactly our our brains? Real/artificial depends upon point of definition. Did God/evolution play frankenstein with us? Just thoughts that went by as I read your post.

Why not connect ourselves straight away to the giant supercomputer that can do the thinking for us and can decide for us what to do and when and how? Why would we want real friendships when computers could be superiour to all human friendships, knowing exactly how our brains work and how we feel because of superiour facial-expression recognition? Why not plugging ourselves into the matrix when we could build an artificial reality in wich it never rains? Why would we make anything of our lives when computers could theoretically do everything so much better than we?

And exactly why would we not make it perfect "if" we could? If we could invent a perfect machine that could never be destroyed that could construct magnificent worlds of beauty why would we not build this machine. Oh wait...we already have this machine except it doesn't last forever. It's our brain. Clearly our brain is capable of forming vasts worlds and realities. If it was possible to switch our brain into Samadhi(call it whatever) mode permanently I'd think that would be a pretty worthy goal...and is surely the only path to true world peace. Agreed this is not the same as machine intelligence directly....or is it?

Oh wait....if computers could really be this powerful, how do you know we´re not being manipulated already?
How would you feel when your best friend turns out to be a robot who doesn´t realy care for you at all? Or when your favorite musician or author would apear not to exist at all, but just a program made especially to appeal to the commercial target-group you belong to according to a program?

What if this whole nexus-site would be one of the many AI-programs develloped by the government to monitor you? How´d you feel about that?

In so many way's this is exactly what reality really is. Thoughts we have no control over flow threw our brains all day and night. Unless we make great strides to become aware and change we are largely driven by these unconscious thoughts all the time...aka robots.

Why are we the way we are? Simple nurture? Doesn't feel right to me. There is more to our lives than set and setting. It's like we have both freewill and we do not have freewill. Perhaps we have free will to determine how we act in a given situation, but the arising of situations is something we have far less control over than most believe.


For what it's worth I do fear true AI initially. I think this is something a future generation will be better able to handle...hopefully long after I'm actually gone!

With the aid of things like meditation or mindfullness, one could actually gain a higher level of self-control through reflection and find a balance with those parts of ourselves we cannot be in controll of.

I think your post about 'perfection' shows exactly what i find most scary about these A.I. enthousiasts.

History has shown us too many times what the aim for a 'perfect world' eventually leads to. The book wasn´t called 'brave new world' for no reason.

 

[easyrider]

If it was possible to switch our brain into Samadhi(call it whatever) mode permanently I'd think that would be a pretty worthy goal...and is surely the only path to true world peace.

Must there not be contrast, though, for anything to exist?

 

[joedirt]

If it was possible to switch our brain into Samadhi(call it whatever) mode permanently I'd think that would be a pretty worthy goal...and is surely the only path to true world peace.

Must there not be contrast, though, for anything to exist?

I don't know. Eastern philosophy seems to think so. They talk about the end of duality equating to nirvana so to speak.

Perhaps there is no way to really do this without reemerging with what-ever source we emanate from?

 

[polytrip]

I don´t think a life where we can have anything we want with a push on a button, would be very much worth living. We need hard work sometimes, we need disapointments, we need to get tired and we need our mortality.

Spoiled brats aint the happiest human beings, and i cannot imagine people would actually aspire to be spoiled, lazy couchpotatoes.

 

[Adivino]

I agree with polytrip here.

I remember building small log cabins when I was a kid.
The fun part was the building, and I got bored as soon as it was finished.

 

[jamie]

I think this would be missing the point.

I think that humans have the capacity for far more than we know..telepathy, telekinesis, astral travel etc..I think we are basically suspended in a giant living animate system that is far far far more complex than any computer we can hope and to build, and ironically we search out other technologies and destroy this same living system all around us in that persuit.

I am definatily not for trans-humanism anymore, at least not in the way it is commonly presented. I used to be interested it..by now I think that most people involved in it have missed the point about who and what we are, and only talk about transcending some extremely limited idea that hold about what it means to be a human.

I will take a bowl of fruit over over a bag of chips anyday..prosthetic limbs might be nice when you loose an arm or a leg, but I think someday we will be able to use stem cells to grow new ones..and I will take a real arm or leg over a prosthetic anyday..some goes for hearing aids..they are great..but would you not rather have the real thing?

I am all for techniques..and some of the technologies that come from those techniques..but I think we have the best technologies on the planet that have already been in place for millions of years. We are just like babies in a room full of toys we dont understand.

 

[cellux]

The reason why I'm interested in AI could be summarized like this: the closer we get to the perfect AI, the more we understand what it means to be human.

I see two possibilities, really. #1 is that materialistic science is right and we are sophisticated robots (automatons), side-effects of a blind evolutionary process. In that case we have a chance to build the perfect AI, and by building it, we would realize that all of human culture - law, morality, religion, science and art - is determined by our biology and biochemistry alone. Would this revelation make the world of human experience meaningless? Would it stop us from following the biologically programmed patterns of thought, feeling and intuition, the need to love, to create, to be free? I don't think so. And nobody could say any more that these are "just" signals in the brain, because there would be NOTHING beyond these signals. Our subjectivity would turn into objectivity, and we'd find the Absolute Truth: that only Relative Truth exists.

The other possibility is that the definitive part of human beings (soul? spirit?) is not of this world, and cannot be grasped or rationalized from within this world. In this case, the technocratic quest for the perfect AI would inevitably lead us to the discovery of the soul. Which would be kinda ironic.

 

[jamie]

"In that case we have a chance to build the perfect AI, and by building it, we would realize that all of human culture - law, morality, religion, science and art - is determined by our biology and biochemistry alone."

These are things people realize all the time on psychedelics..well, in part becasue I think you missed something fundamental there and that was part of my point..how can those things be determined by only our biology and biochemistry when those very things themselves are driven by the biological systems in which we are located?

 

[jamie]

"In this case, the technocratic quest for the perfect AI would inevitably lead us to the discovery of the soul. Which would be kinda ironic."



..and yet, in that case so would anything else. Why would the quest for a "perfect"(which itself is a subjective sort of description) AI lead to the discovery of the soul any more than say, playing poker would lead to the disvocery of the soul. I just dont see why you would assume that? The way I see it there really is no reason at all to assume that creating some AI would lead to the doscovery of the human soul.

Many people will tell you that drinking ayahuasca lead them to the doscovery of their soul..others will say it was trancendental masterbation..for another person it might be mountain climbing or motorcycle racing or sport fishing..

 

[joedirt]

With the aid of things like meditation or mindfullness, one could actually gain a higher level of self-control through reflection and find a balance with those parts of ourselves we cannot be in controll of.

I think your post about 'perfection' shows exactly what i find most scary about these A.I. enthousiasts.

History has shown us too many times what the aim for a 'perfect world' eventually leads to. The book wasn´t called 'brave new world' for no reason.

I started typing a long response essentially agreeing with you and then probing finer points..then I wrote this.

Doesn't it make sense that in a world of duality a machine that experiences intelligence must also experience ignorance?

If we invent Artificial intelligence don't we by necessity invent Artificial ignorance as well?

I don't know about you guy's, but I'd sure be scared of an artificially ignorant robot that could self think....sounds to much like many humans I have come across!

 

[cellux]

Why would the quest for a "perfect"(which itself is a subjective sort of description) AI lead to the discovery of the soul any more than say, playing poker would lead to the discovery of the soul.

I'm not talking about subjective realization, but objective proof through indirect reasoning. If we have everything under control (that's what I mean by perfect), and the system still lacks something which is a definitive characteristic of human beings, then this fact indirectly points to the existence of the transrational. (I'm talking about a point of the search where the existence of this extra quality cannot be explained away any more by saying "we don't know enough." It can be felt - even by the most hardcore scientists - that it is of a different order.)

 

[jamie]

yeah I understand what you are saying I just dont agree with it at all.

 

[jamie]

it is not the idea that trying new things and progressing can teach us new things that I dont agree with..it is that I dont think there is just one path and I dont believe that it is as simple as saying things like "if things turn out this way etc that it means this or that thing but if it ends up that we find it is this way that it means this thing etc"...

Most people dont even know what it is to function at full capacity so this sort of speculation on what it takes to reach our perfection is limited. Most people do not eat the foods that acted as the building blocks for such advanced nervous systems way back. Most people eat meat, dairy, wheat etc and these are not the foods we evolved such nervous systems with so it makes sense that our current capacity is limited compared to what our potential could be.

I would just not choose to go the path of AI in the sense that it is being discussed here. I just dont see the point or relevance for it in my life. I would rather see people get more in tune with the organic world, tune their bodies with real organic fresh foods and minds with meditation and exploration of the mind..I would rather see a focus on technologies that mirror the organic world, like solar energy with solar panels that are essentially living systems that mirror that of plants..not really artificial life in the sense that we are talking about here, but new way of using the organic matrix around us to replace the crude technological systems we have in place today that are destroying our world.

My vision of where I want to see humans going is somewhere down the line we live in houses that are indestinguishable from living systems..organic homes that are basically plants but nano-engineered without resorting to weird frankenstein technologies like we have today with GMO foods etc..GMO is a perfect example of how technology can be used really poorly to end up with frankenstein sort of results.

I als think that quartz(silicon)based computing is something that our ancestors understood on a level we currently do not and in the future this is a realm that will be deeply explored.

The system around us is already filled with intelligence. If you take some time walking around old growth rainforest and think it lacks intelligence you must be blind. People focus so much on the idea that humans are the only intelligence on this planet and that we somehow sit outside of the rest of the organic matix, they serach in desperation for something that will essentially speak back to them yet they destroy the same system that essentially does just that.

Our computers just do not have the capacity to compute the way the organic matrix of life does. Our role here, IMO is best honored as caretakers of that system..the very system that birthed us. I dont think we are sopposed to go back to living in caves..but we are sopposed to reintegrate into that system on a conscious level..organic based nano-technologies I think are what will get us back to that place..where we can relive our animistic past yet on a whole new never before seen level.

This is what ayahuasca points to every time. I will take that vision every single time over the idea of downloading my brain into some PC etc..

 

[joedirt]

it is not the idea that trying new things and progressing can teach us new things that I dont agree with..it is that I dont think there is just one path and I dont believe that it is as simple as saying things like "if things turn out this way etc that it means this or that thing but if it ends up that we find it is this way that it means this thing etc"...

Most people dont even know what it is to function at full capacity so this sort of speculation on what it takes to reach our perfection is limited. Most people do not eat the foods that acted as the building blocks for such advanced nervous systems way back. Most people eat meat, dairy, wheat etc and these are not the foods we evolved such nervous systems with so it makes sense that our current capacity is limited compared to what our potential could be.

I would just not choose to go the path of AI in the sense that it is being discussed here. I just dont see the point or relevance for it in my life. I would rather see people get more in tune with the organic world, tune their bodies with real organic fresh foods and minds with meditation and exploration of the mind..I would rather see a focus on technologies that mirror the organic world, like solar energy with solar panels that are essentially living systems that mirror that of plants..not really artificial life in the sense that we are talking about here, but new way of using the organic matrix around us to replace the crude technological systems we have in place today that are destroying our world.

My vision of where I want to see humans going is somewhere down the line we live in houses that are indestinguishable from living systems..organic homes that are basically plants but nano-engineered without resorting to weird frankenstein technologies like we have today with GMO foods etc..GMO is a perfect example of how technology can be used really poorly to end up with frankenstein sort of results.

I als think that quartz(silicon)based computing is something that our ancestors understood on a level we currently do not and in the future this is a realm that will be deeply explored.

The system around us is already filled with intelligence. If you take some time walking around old growth rainforest and think it lacks intelligence you must be blind. People focus so much on the idea that humans are the only intelligence on this planet and that we somehow sit outside of the rest of the organic matix, they serach in desperation for something that will essentially speak back to them yet they destroy the same system that essentially does just that.

Our computers just do not have the capacity to compute the way the organic matrix of life does. Our role here, IMO is best honored as caretakers of that system..the very system that birthed us. I dont think we are sopposed to go back to living in caves..but we are sopposed to reintegrate into that system on a conscious level..organic based and nano-technologies I think are what will get us back to that place..where we can relive our animistic past yet on a whole new never before seen level.

This is what ayahuasca points to every time. I will take that vision every single time over the idea of downloading my brain into some PC etc..

Perhaps our purpose in no different than other life forms? Perhaps we are really just a virus and we will simply reproduce until we consume our natural resources and die off. Sounds kinda bleak, but honestly it does seem like the most likely scenario.

I have no problem with AI and technology if it's done right. However, I agree with Jamie we need to get back to the planet, but this isn't going to happen right now. We have a lot of growing..and probably weeding to do as a race before this can happen.

BTW I don't necessarily believe what I wrote above....just followed a thought long enough to type it.

Peace

 

[jamie]

^I dont think there is such a thing as a purpose joedirt, other than to define that for ourselves. We are acting at this point like a virus on the planet..but we made that choice(edit..well we made that choice once we realized it and did nothing), while some have decided already that they dont want that to be their purpose and others still have chosen to be okay with that.

I think at this point we get to define what our role here is going to be. The fact that some people have chosen to not act that way and taken action against envionmental degredation is enough for me to accept that our role here cannot simply be that of a virus..although I admit that is the role some here seem to willingly play, so I can imagine that that is the role of *some* humans.

This is why I feel that the whole AI topic is interesting..becasue it is not abotu what could be for me..but more about what we WISH to be.