When I'm feeling argumentative, it's so easy to see the current interest in transhumanism/posthumanism as another religious movement. In a way, it's more about being trans/post deity. The unknown and the unknowable used to be the realm of the shaman, then the priest, then the preacher. For many it still is, but that era is fading. Soon I imagine it will be somewhat like the monarchies that are still in existence. We like to keep them around because they still make us feel something, but we don't generally afford them much power. Faith, a concept that has most assuredly been through the ringer, is separate from religion. I have faith in my spouse to figure out their own path. I have faith in the inherent goodness of humanity. Can't be proved, but I believe it fiercely.
This conversation, tying up all of these Big Thinkers and those of us writing to the Silence has many sides and is bounded only by our imagination and philosophy. The idea of a posthuman utopia sounds so lovely, but is it just a new Heaven or Nirvana? Is transhumanism another Faith? The gleam in the eye is very reminiscent to that of the newly converted. The need to find a way out instead of a way through. We will never be wholly content. Who would want to be? What of the exquisitely beautiful feeling of longing, of fortitude? Can't have either of those in a utopian posthuman world.
As we progress and change and grow, there is always the horizon we can almost make out. Salvation is just a genuflection away, Enlightenment is right on the other side of one more moment of pure acceptance. Except now the original sin is not to be wrapped up only in misogyny. Now it is to be wrapped up in misanthropy. Now sin is humanity itself.
Taken as a whole, are we really so shameful?
Thursday, May 13, 2010
Wednesday, May 12, 2010
Talking about duality and gender without losing our minds
Whenever anyone starts talking from a hurt and angry place, it is very difficult to stay rational. All those feelings well up and flood your brain. Often you end up talking in circles and never getting to what's actually wrong.
In a way, I feel that discussions of women and men often get derailed before anything real can be accomplished. As a child I was always confused about the whole notion of feminism, as it seemed that the majority of us want to be with the opposite gender more than anything. So how on earth was it even possible for us to devalue each other? And yet, we have, on both sides. That the language I've found myself reaching for is in its nature divisive, sides and whatnot, is very telling. It's the only frame we know.
Extend this to our future, a future where we will have an unprecedented hand in designing ourselves, our offspring, our progeny, even our reality. Because the whole concept of gender equality has been about opening up the world of men to women, we continue to perceive success in almost exclusively male terms. What does this mean for the world we will create? Is our current idea of intelligence also steeped firmly in this frame? Are we leaving behind half of ourselves, almost by accident? We all have mothers, fathers, or surrogates of the same, and I think it is essential that we not lose that in this wild, careening progress.
Humanity, to me, is what dances in the space between. Between man and woman, parent and child, lover and beloved, scientist and artist. Our ability to handle duality every single day, all of the time, is that part of human intelligence? Reading about the Turing Test, one of the reasons sited for its usefulness is because it is measurable and perhaps that is its value. Because things are only measurable until they aren't, you can't take a square root of a negative number until you can.
As we advance ever faster, how many absolutes will fall away, and how quickly? Perhaps we will get to the point where we exist entirely in the gray. Right now we cling to our black and our white while our feet dangle in the chasm. When you only hold on to one side, when you lose your duality, your balance, your world only shrinks ever smaller. Humanity is in the striving, not the achieving, we are always transhuman.
In a way, I feel that discussions of women and men often get derailed before anything real can be accomplished. As a child I was always confused about the whole notion of feminism, as it seemed that the majority of us want to be with the opposite gender more than anything. So how on earth was it even possible for us to devalue each other? And yet, we have, on both sides. That the language I've found myself reaching for is in its nature divisive, sides and whatnot, is very telling. It's the only frame we know.
Extend this to our future, a future where we will have an unprecedented hand in designing ourselves, our offspring, our progeny, even our reality. Because the whole concept of gender equality has been about opening up the world of men to women, we continue to perceive success in almost exclusively male terms. What does this mean for the world we will create? Is our current idea of intelligence also steeped firmly in this frame? Are we leaving behind half of ourselves, almost by accident? We all have mothers, fathers, or surrogates of the same, and I think it is essential that we not lose that in this wild, careening progress.
Humanity, to me, is what dances in the space between. Between man and woman, parent and child, lover and beloved, scientist and artist. Our ability to handle duality every single day, all of the time, is that part of human intelligence? Reading about the Turing Test, one of the reasons sited for its usefulness is because it is measurable and perhaps that is its value. Because things are only measurable until they aren't, you can't take a square root of a negative number until you can.
As we advance ever faster, how many absolutes will fall away, and how quickly? Perhaps we will get to the point where we exist entirely in the gray. Right now we cling to our black and our white while our feet dangle in the chasm. When you only hold on to one side, when you lose your duality, your balance, your world only shrinks ever smaller. Humanity is in the striving, not the achieving, we are always transhuman.
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
Big Thoughts
Recently, I reconnected with an old friend who has been thinking Big Thoughts about posthumanism/transhumanism. I'd never given it much thought, honestly. And now I cannot stop thinking about it. I've even printed out the poor man's dissertation and am reading it with pen in hand, scribbling furiously.
Bear in mind, I've only been reading about this for two weeks, but it has utterly captured me. Mostly, because so many of the Big Thinkers have narrowed the conversation so thoroughly before they even began. Even my friend, alas.
There is this undulating current of fear running through so much of what I've read so far. It nearly grabs you by the throat as you take it in. As I understand it, the underlying idea is that our technological advances are speeding up so quickly that we are on the verge of entering a 'transhuman' era, on our way to 'posthuman.' This continues to include the idea of a 'technological singularity,' an event in which we create AI that creates AI that creates AI that turns into Skynet and we all die. Overly simplistic, of course, but every time I try to talk to someone about this, Skynet or the Matrix raises its hand to be counted.
There is a pessimistic inevitability to the conversation that baffles me, it's almost reverent and religious in tone, a point that has been noted by critics. I think it's even more than that, and I haven't found anyone talking about it. Of course, I'm sure many have had these thoughts and written about them, but Google didn't rise them far enough up in the search results, so I will inflict my fledgling thoughts on the deafening silence.
AI, this would be ours, it is an act of creation. Which almost derails me on another tangent altogether, but moving right along. If this is something we create, we build, we design, we think about, we love?, we cannot create something fundamentally separate from our humanness. It is of us, by definition. Just as a parent cannot raise a child without imparting their best and worst traits, so must we. And sure, it will be 'smarter' than us, and then its babies will be smarter still. Isn't that just the reality of parenting? And this thinking isn't at odds with most of what I'm reading. Here's where I start to wonder, though. There is this strong sense that of course this begated AI will decide we are obsolete and our 'only chance' is to make ourselves useful to our new Robot Overlords or some other 'solution' to this 'problem'. And, if you look at it purely from the perspective of the eternal struggle between fathers and sons, I can see it. Bad fathers raise angry sons who punch them in the nose when they're large enough to fight back, either literally or metaphorically. That's what is missing from the conversation: a full 50% of humanity just isn't entering the thought stream.
I'm not crying sexism, I'm not talking about the lack of women in the field of AI research. I'm saying that for such very Big Thoughts, how could the thinking be so limited? Humanity is all of us, and as far as a I can tell, no real measure of intelligence currently exists. The Turing Test measures duplicity, not intelligence or sentience. Without emotion are we intelligent? What is thinking? It seems that the definition if intelligence being used most frequently is an inherently male perspective, and any system out of balance will fail.
A long time ago we got ourselves in a whole lot of trouble when we decided that male attributes were superior and female attributes inferior. We still struggle with that on a daily basis, I hope we are able to raise our children better. Because make no mistake, these will be our children. Not the children of two individuals, but the children of humanity.
This is my start, next time I'll talk about gender and science, but not the way you think. And maybe a bit about V. Vinge and J. Vinge.
Bear in mind, I've only been reading about this for two weeks, but it has utterly captured me. Mostly, because so many of the Big Thinkers have narrowed the conversation so thoroughly before they even began. Even my friend, alas.
There is this undulating current of fear running through so much of what I've read so far. It nearly grabs you by the throat as you take it in. As I understand it, the underlying idea is that our technological advances are speeding up so quickly that we are on the verge of entering a 'transhuman' era, on our way to 'posthuman.' This continues to include the idea of a 'technological singularity,' an event in which we create AI that creates AI that creates AI that turns into Skynet and we all die. Overly simplistic, of course, but every time I try to talk to someone about this, Skynet or the Matrix raises its hand to be counted.
There is a pessimistic inevitability to the conversation that baffles me, it's almost reverent and religious in tone, a point that has been noted by critics. I think it's even more than that, and I haven't found anyone talking about it. Of course, I'm sure many have had these thoughts and written about them, but Google didn't rise them far enough up in the search results, so I will inflict my fledgling thoughts on the deafening silence.
AI, this would be ours, it is an act of creation. Which almost derails me on another tangent altogether, but moving right along. If this is something we create, we build, we design, we think about, we love?, we cannot create something fundamentally separate from our humanness. It is of us, by definition. Just as a parent cannot raise a child without imparting their best and worst traits, so must we. And sure, it will be 'smarter' than us, and then its babies will be smarter still. Isn't that just the reality of parenting? And this thinking isn't at odds with most of what I'm reading. Here's where I start to wonder, though. There is this strong sense that of course this begated AI will decide we are obsolete and our 'only chance' is to make ourselves useful to our new Robot Overlords or some other 'solution' to this 'problem'. And, if you look at it purely from the perspective of the eternal struggle between fathers and sons, I can see it. Bad fathers raise angry sons who punch them in the nose when they're large enough to fight back, either literally or metaphorically. That's what is missing from the conversation: a full 50% of humanity just isn't entering the thought stream.
I'm not crying sexism, I'm not talking about the lack of women in the field of AI research. I'm saying that for such very Big Thoughts, how could the thinking be so limited? Humanity is all of us, and as far as a I can tell, no real measure of intelligence currently exists. The Turing Test measures duplicity, not intelligence or sentience. Without emotion are we intelligent? What is thinking? It seems that the definition if intelligence being used most frequently is an inherently male perspective, and any system out of balance will fail.
A long time ago we got ourselves in a whole lot of trouble when we decided that male attributes were superior and female attributes inferior. We still struggle with that on a daily basis, I hope we are able to raise our children better. Because make no mistake, these will be our children. Not the children of two individuals, but the children of humanity.
This is my start, next time I'll talk about gender and science, but not the way you think. And maybe a bit about V. Vinge and J. Vinge.
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