I have never been a big fan of Jaron Lanier. I think there is only a little he contributes to the conversation as a whole, and is better at self-promotion than anything else.

However, he does bring up *some* valid points. However, I take serious issue with the following, which I'll dissect one by one.

"Resistance to The Curves of change is actually having an effect worldwide."

Really? I see no evidence of this at all. If he is referring to cloning, then is has missed the entire point. Stem-cell therapy, which is the real power of cloning is proceeding ahead full pace regardless of what AMERICA thinks. The benefits so far outweigh any so-called ethical factor, that 'medical tourism' is going to be HUGE business with 5-10 years. As for the internet and p2p type technologies, these are flourising more than ever, and will utterly change the landscape that we have all predicted. It's just happening slower than we first expected, which is where Lanier is right.

"Certain technologies that affect human development and enhancement are globally seen as worth slowing down or stopping, in the way that the use of nuclear weapons was effectively prevented for the second half of the 20th century."

This is also nonsense. Again, where is the evidence? Lets start with performance sports. Despite all the moral hand-waving, more athletes than ever are cheating and using whatever technologies they can to enhance themselves, and its only going to accelerate. Genetic doping is now arriving, and I fully expect that by 2008, there WILL be a few athletes that are doped. It is virtually impossible to demonstrate or prove they have been doped. Once doping becomes available (overseas of course - in secret), the tide will shift regardless of what else happens. As for other enhancements, people are already taking supplements and smart drugs, etting breast augmentation, tummy tucks, and anythign else they can get their hands to look younger, live longer, be smarter and stronger. When technologies come along to offer these types of advancements even further, the market will continue to explode further than it already is.

"Researchers voluntarily stop working on topics they view as too dangerous."

True, but all the enhancement technologies we've been discussing on this site and other transhumanists sites will happen, because the benefites far outweigh the risks. Its a continuing trend, with evidence all around us. The medical benefits alone will drive the trend forward.

"Researchers decline funding for certain topics that they view as too fraught with human peril, putting their ethics ahead of their promotions, tenure, graduate students and intellectual curiosity."

Really? Again, where is the evidence. Scientists are DESPERATE for funding for stem-cell research. California passed a huge initiative with PUBLIC SUPPORT to move it forward.

"Computational power is no longer seen as achieving exponential growth because of the inability of software to keep up the pace of innovation."

This is true, but only temporarily. Most, if not all of the current computational paradigms have been extended as far as they can with the power that we have. With the exception of graphics, there is little noticable improvement over what we have. If he is referring to artificial intelligence, he'll get no argument from me. The whole field is largley a joke, and I have never held out hope that we would create in-silico a human equivalent AI. Since I jumped into this debate (1988), I have argued that it is IA, not AI that will be the future greater-than-human intelligence. It is US that will become the post-humans, not some robot replacements. Moravec was wrong in 1988, and he is wrong today. Now, Kurzweil is somewhere between Moravec and myself, but my argument has been that we will figure out how to radically enhance our own intelligence via nanotech well before we can duplicate a human-like intelligence totally artificially.

"There is little correlation between any exponential change in technology and the development of human society."

This is so wrong, it's absurd. I feel silly even refuting this. Current society is so radically different than 16th century france it's not even funny. Now, if he is referring to basic human nature, then he is correct, but that too is silly, because these exponential changes in technology have always effected the exterior landscape. But now it is different, WAY different, because these accelerating technologie are beginning to effect US directly. We are on the verge of radical enhancments to the human itself. And then, human nature will change. That is THE TURNING POINT IN EVERYTHING. Because once we start making radical enhancments to ourselves, our entire outlook on the world/universe will change, becoming transhuman to posthuman.

Ditto on what Paul has said.

Though the path to the Singularity will be somewhere between "heaven" and "hell" it is foolish and perhaps even dangerous to glance down that road with a pesimistic stare. Trying to reason away our accelerating ingenuity and booming telecommunity will get us nowhere.

The project of the human race has a direction from which it is impossible to swerve. Our every step takes us closer to the Technological Ineffable whether we will or no.

--Upwinger

Paul, you've shined some interesting holes on Garreau's arguments. As for resistance to technology, he would refer to the trend during the 60s and 70s for universities to refuse military projects. Or he would refer to the current trend in Europe against GM-crops. Or the still extant trend for people to be against nuclear energy. But I agree, the resistance to technology has been fairly weak.

The bigger emphasis I got out of Garreau's talk was that we shouldn't just put our hands up in the air and let the accelerating march of technology take care of everything.

I consider the Prevail case more of the Singularity on a leash, one that benefits us in a way that we choose for ourselves. Because you just go to Mission and 17th street in San Francisco, one of the most technologically advanced cities, and you come across a scene as unsanitary as any place in medieval Europe.

I am happy about the stem-cell creations and also the enhancements. What I am concerned about are advancements in DARPA that are moving toward the violance and oppression of other humans. I am against an ultra-corporate Singularity that abuses technology (and corrupt legal systems) to benefit itself at the expense of others. Look at DRM and the Internet experience now. With SPAM, crippled music files, spyware, adware, the Internet is a worse place to hang out than it was 6 years ago. How did this happen? I consider the popularization of blogging, and the arrival of OS X, though, as positive developments. So while computing technology has been ramping up, the graph of computing experience is not all up and up.

What I see in the "Prevail scenario" (a confusing label, I believe) is the notion that while technology is on an inexorable march forward, it is not necessarily on a march toward self-annihilation (Kurzweil) or pure bliss (Bill Joy). It will be a mixed bag, and it is up to us to determine the nature of that mixture.

"With SPAM, crippled music files, spyware, adware, the Internet is a worse place to hang out than it was 6 years ago."

Are you kidding me?

Use a decent torrentclient and you'll never have to deal with any spyware, adware, or crippled files (use of hashing to guarantee file integrity is now the standard).

Install a firewall like ZoneAlarm to protect yourself from said crap. ZoneAlarm works extremely well. Whenever I scan for virii/trojans/spyware, I find little or nothing.

This is a far cry from 6 years ago, when users would regularly get trapped in the dreaded popup hells.

Phil,

I disagree about the internet. With blogging, feeds, open source, wikipedia, and torrents I'm happy as a lamb. I also had a chance to speak with John Gilmore at Mind States, and both him and Mark Pesce agree that DRM is doomed. When I asked about hardware level DRM, they both laughed and said its not a problem. The genie is already out fo the bottle. :)

I agree with you about DARPA, and that does concern me, although my gut tells me that DARPA and other funding of 'evil' cannot continue for much longer. All the systems of corruption and power grabbing are becoming increasing unsustainable in a highly connected, interdependent world.

I am not kidding about the Internet usage. While my Internet usage is much better than it was before, for most people, the Internet is worse. Email is useless, so is using an IE that isn't constantly safeguarded.

This is one of the problems with thinking about the Singularity, in that we think solely from how great it will be for us, the techno-elite.

Philip, how much do you agree with the statement "Life sucks"?

If you agree with Jaron Lanier's views on the Singularity then my guess is that you are quite content with life now. I dont blame you. Live it up in the cushy western world of the early consumerist 21st century why not. You can tell that Jaron likes life too. I dont blame him either - hes a computer programmer, musician and great public speaker- that translates to a high degree respect and social status (involuntary smarminess). If i was his Doctor doing an examination i wouldnt be at all surprised to find serotonin peeping out from the underside his toenails.

But for the rest of us: the average joes, the nobodies, the working masses, the young persons still trying to find out where they are going in life, or the disabled etc; life just isnt so good. Theres a whole world of pain out there, and for at least a quarter of us: unfathomably deep pits of chronic depression sprinkled in for good measure. It is these people, the people who nod whenever they hear the phrase "life sucks", who want the Change, and it is also these people who make it happen, enabled by rapidly accelerating technology, because guess what... they are the majority and they are sufficiently motivated.

The logic is this: IF self-annihilation scenerio fails THEN heaven scenario succeeds. The masses win like this: Death of Capitalism -> triumph of Creative Communism -> Succession of Creative Anarchism (No rights reserved, art separate from artist, death of ego etc). And the elite (be it techno-elite or financial-elite whatever) will see their grip on power crumble, and with it their megolomanic serotonin-bolstered superiority complexes.

I'm sorry this article is getting mis-interpretted as anti-progressive. Looking at it now, perhaps there is a neo-luddite tinge to it all. Ludditism, putting the brakes on technology, or perpetuating the status quo, are not my points at all. And I am not what I am being accused of here. :)

Lanier is quoted as lamenting how unpopular this "Prevail Scenario" is. It's much like a third-party in the United States.

To the Heaven-people, any suggestion that not all technologies are perfect is heresy. To the Hell-people, any suggestion that technology serves any positive usage is heresy as well.

The Prevail Scenario is a nice middle ground in my opinion, one that doesn't live in hyperbole. And it's not like this "middle-ground" is radical moderatism either.

I agree that technology's march is inexorable, but I also agree that human fortune isn't guaranteed to benefit, in which case we need to make sure that technology benefits us.

That's all I'm trying to say! "We must make sure we choose the technologies benefit us." Can't we all agree with that statement? Or perhaps, that point wasn't clear in the article.

Hi Phil,

I hope you don't think I was accusing of being anything. Your opinions are highly valued around here! :)

I don't think the point was very clear in the article as presented by Garreau, other than there is more than two ways to look at the singularity. I have never taken the two paths, as far as *how* it will happen, how fast, by what means, etc. My guess is however is that it's going to be a fairly rapid takeoff, and it's not going to be some kind of monological thing, but rather very diverse, expansive and diasporic. I do tend to agree however, that it will really result is utopia or oblivion. I have yet to see any robust proposal than shows otherwise. The reason is that the technologies harnessed are so powerful and potentially destructive, that unless they are stablized, it will result in self-destruction. That doesn't mean there will be lots of destruction. It's quite possible, that 99% of everything we know is destroyed. The part that DOES surive will be benign and result in utopia. If it's not utopic, then it will soon self-destruct as well. Its like a bottleneck, where only the positive can survive.

I agree with Upwinger that I think it'll be somewhere between "Heaven and "Hell", applying some maybe-logic to it--I'm optimistic that it'll be far more "Heaven"--but maybe that's just me. I suppose with the technology issue--it does seem to be a bit of a utopia/oblivion situation at the moment, but again, I'm optomistic that cooler brains will prevail over the war-mongers and money-grubbers.

The article didn't come off as anti-progressive or Luddite to me, though some of Lanier's views seem to have a bit of that tone to them..especially the abandoning of certain research due to "dangerous" (which seems to mean: in conflict with religious dogmas)--and I'm not buying his quasi-'Matrix' "nanotech Hell" scenario--though the ending is funny--Windows crash??? never... ;-)

Lanier has his own personal "one-half of a manifesto" that is more technical and elaborate than the article I posted. To read it, go here:
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/8.12/lanier_pr.html

For three years, I've been what I'm now finding out is termed a "cybernetic totalist."

These are the supposed tenets of cybernetic totalism, according to Lanier:

1. Cybernetic patterns of information provide the ultimate and best way to understand reality.
2. People are no more than cybernetic patterns.
3. Subjective experience either doesn't exist, or is unimportant because it is some sort of ambient or peripheral effect.
4. What Darwin described in biology, or something like it, is in fact also the singular, superior description of all creativity and culture.
5. Qualitative as well as quantitative aspects of information systems will be inexorably accelerated by Moore's law.
6. Biology and physics will merge with computer science (becoming biotechnology and nanotechnology), resulting in life and the physical universe becoming mercurial; achieving the supposed nature of computer software. Furthermore, all of this will happen very soon! Since computers are improving so quickly, they will overwhelm all the other cybernetic processes, like people, and will fundamentally change the nature of what's going on in the familiar neighborhood of Earth at some moment when a new "criticality" is achieved - maybe in about the year 2020. To be a human after that moment will be either impossible or something very different than we now can know.

Lanier doesn't necessarily do an effective job refuting any of these six things. But his discussion has challenged what is already my crumbling faith in cybernetic totalism. If I had read this right after Age of Spiritual Machines, I could've saved myself a lot of energy spent on misguided avenues of thought.

For the record, the cybernetic totalism tenets that I still believe are #2 and #3. The jury, in my opinion, is still out on the rest.

Interesting... you and I are essentially on the exact opposite ends of the spectrum on this one. The ones I think are *most* correct are 1, 5, and 6. 3 is totally wrong in my opinion. I remain flabergasted to this day that anyone even thinks they have refuted it, let alone have. Knowing that I have an innner experience is the ONLY THING I KNOW TO BE REAL...EVERYTHING, and I mean EVERYTHING else is doubtable. :)

I completely agree with Paul about number 3 being wrong because if subjective experience doesn't exist, then nothing really exists. And how could it be unimportant if that's exactly who you are and how you know anything to be out there in Reality. It is the primary reason why you would'nt kill something because it encompasses subjective experience.

This is off-topic, but I think I'm a nihilist who once used cybernetic totalism to compensate for the emotional vacuum.

That's the beauty of this sites intent - THERE IS NOTHGING OFF TOPIC!! LOL! :)

Phil, are you being serious or tongue-in-cheek regarding a personal emotional vacuum? Regardless, there is a simple cure for it - get into the present moment by feeling it - focus on the strongest feeling in the moment - get a massage, get out in nature, spend time by a waterfall, make love, spoil yourself with a some chocalate, smell some flowers, take a hot then cold shower, FEEL. oh and breath, lots of breathing will do the trick. :)

I wanted to add that 1 and 2 or pretty much wrong as well, and have elaborated on such ad nausem on this site since the very beginning. I have always stated that conscioussness is a fundamental of the universe, and probably the only fundamental. I really don't have the time to go at it again, but I just read Nova Spivacks own thoughts in the same vein here:

http://novaspivack.typepad.com/nova_spivacks_weblog/2005/06/cube_of_creatio.html#more

Personally speaking, I feel that none of the 6 tenets are true, but #3 is by far the most incorrect. These statements seem like misguided generalizations.

That being said, I still find cybernetics to be rather exciting and very useful. But its still no panacea for the Mystery.

--Upwinger

P.S. My own main line of investigation is based on the premise that Consciousness is the communal Urgrund of all creation.
Go here to peek at my work in progress:

http://upwinger.blogspot.com/

--Upwinger

Hi, this is Joel Garreau. I'm the author of "Radical Evolution."

I would propose one small adjustment to Philip's original posting in this thread. He describes the list of early warnings regarding The Prevail Scenario as demonstrating why the Heaven and Hell Scenarios are unlikely.

That is his view. He may be right. But it's not my proposition.

I take all three of these scenarios -- Heaven, Hell and Prevail -- very seriously. Scenario work is an analytical tool meant to accelerate organizational learning. In it, you build widely diverging stories about the future, all based on the same information available to you today. You then look for a strategy for action that would be robust in as many of these scenarios as possible, for experience demonstrates that history usually winds up being a combination of any set of scenarios you could have erected to anticipate it.

Once you lay out these scenarios, you then ask yourself what the early warnings might be that would tell you if one or another scenario is in fact coming to pass.

The early warning list, thus, is meant to be about some possible future realities that would serve you as just that -- early warnings.

In "Radical Evolution" I also offer early warning lists for the Heaven and Hell scenarios.

I don't predict which one will happen, nor do I say that these early warnings are now in existence. I have no crystal ball, alas.

Just wanted to mention that because of DARPA (previously called ARPA) we now have the internet. The myriad of new projects will find their positive veins.

I'd have to go with 2, 5 and 6 meself.

In any case, I don't see a hell scenario resulting from the Singularities(sic). It's more likely the hell scenario (i.e. nuclear/nano armageddon) would precede and thus prevent any transcendance event(s) from taking place.

As we currently are, monkey-baggage and all, we carry the seeds of both violence and Singularity within us; it's just a matter of which will bloom first - and last.

Perhaps the immediate threat of nuclear armageddon would act as an evolutionary trigger, sparking mass Uploading into a post-biological Godling?

Its all in our hands ...

I don't think about the future because I can't handle that much mental stress and confusion. Really, it is all a mix and confusion. I think the best thing is to just let go, but first buckle your seatbelt. It will happen.

******* CLOSING COMMENTS NOW *********

Thank you for commenting. This thread has ran its course, and now the only people ('bots) with things left to say are spammers pedalling texas hold em.

Hopefully the elimination of spam will be a sign that the Singularity has arrived.