An Open Question for AI Researchers

Here's a question that has been bothering me for a couple of days now; it is directed towards anyone who is seriously studying/researching/developing AI:

Does an intelligent system need to be independent of outside influence?

Issue #1: Puppetteers (a la Spinoza)
Perhaps it is my lack of knowledge in narrow AI, but do narrow AIs require an external controller of some sort that determines the choices in computation? (e.g. human systems analyst who oversees the processing of the AI)

Issue #2: Stimulus (a la Descartes)
Perhaps this itself is a nonissue if Cartesian duality were not the case, but would a true "intelligent" system be able to exist in its own self-contained system such that the external universe does not affect it? (e.g. Dharmic religious teachings of liberation from material existence... kind of. More solipsistic, to be very honest, but nonetheless a question worth asking)

"Practical" Metaphysics for the Young Aspiring Transhumanist

With talks of AGI, destructive technology, and universal transparency during TransVision 2007, I have been seriously re-evaluating the Libertarian approach to things. The benefits of a free market (the most competetive and therefore, hypothetically, the strongest ideas) can only be ensured when there is free discourse running between different agents, diversity will be needed as diverse contributions will lead to greater degrees of input and quality control. In order to maintain diversity of opinions, freedom (in the Liberatarian sense) must be given. However, this freedom will allow also for destructive ideas to occur, which I am all for in the usual case, but with the power of self-assembling nanobots and AGIs strong enough to engineer cosmic projects, is such freedom wise?

During TV07, the presenter from the Lifeboat Foundation has noted this danger and suggested the creation of a universal surveillance network. If such a system is activated, then privacy is lost, something that is fundamental to a Libertarian such as myself. Of course, the loss of privacy on my part only affects me if my power or influence is based on confidential information (i.e. passwords, PIN numbers, etc.) and if sanctimony exists (not to mention the entire Gattaca deal with insurance companies, but that's another story). Benjamin Franklin declared that "those who sacrifice essential liberties for a little security deserve neither liberty nor security." But what if the little bit of security was your planet's stake or even the universe's?
Even beyond this, a question was asked during discussions after the conference: "if we had reached a 'perfect' state, how do we maintain it? How do we achieve Utopia?" At first I scoffed at the question, given that Utopias are based on absolutes and Platonic ideals, but I pondered about the modality of Utopia. Feeling like a Zen student, I answered in manner of a koan: "the only way to establish Utopia is to establish Dystopia. In order for us to maintain a stable state, we must have full control of a system, which would require full surrender of our individual freedoms to a benevolent AGI much greater in intelligence than ours." I was horrified by this notion, and I hope my reasoning is flawed somewhere or my premises are somewhat faulty, but I am currently evaluating this idea and developing a vision of the future with "Borg" mentality. Despite the antagonism the creators of Star Trek, however, is the Borg mentality such a horrible thing?

I hope my readers forgive me; I usually never do this, but I feel that this issue can be tackled using light metaphysics, specifically from Taoist and Dharmic ontologies. Ron Bailey of Reason Magazine suggested (in a joking, yet rather grave manner) during his presentation that perhaps the Borg state of existence is that of a Buddhist saint's. I can see where he makes the connections--Dharmic religions generally correlate salvation as freedom from pain and suffering and not necessarily as a transition to a state of perpetual happiness. Happiness cannot exist without sadness, so it is therefore better to escape the cycle of joy and pain through transcendence. My Star Trek knowledge is limited, I must admit, but Bailey listed several traits that Borgs share with Buddhas, which include a form of asceticism. Except for the forced assimilation part, I think Bailey's argument is quite convincing, as Borgs are detached from the shackles of suffering. Of course, this whole deal with assimilation is problematic to liberal theories as it is the theft of individuality. However, what exactly is the nature of this individuality? Is there something essential within it? Assuming there is an essential "me" and an essential "you," what makes it so sacred anyway?

This is where I introduce Taoist metaphysics, which argues a form of anti-essentialism (although at the very core, the Tao itself seems to be an essential idea... paradoxes, paradoxes). According to the teachings of Lao Tzu and Chuang Tzu (the latter of which I am finishing reading), no ideas have permanence and their relative stabilities in a period of time and a boundary of space is due to the harmonies of universal forces which act according to "its own way" (the Tao). Like Heraclitus' river, all things change, compose then decompose, including identities. Of course, when we bring "Te" and essentialist functionalism into consideration, Taoism becomes an extremely H+ unfriendly philosophy (especially since it appeals to naturalism), but the non-interventionism of Taoism can be considered an ethic code that can be excluded from metaphysical consideration. But the key issue is mutability and transformation, which would therefore include identities. The archetypal "Eastern Mystic" who claims that "everything is an illusion," is half-correct; everything as its permanence and fixed form (i.e. Platonic ideal) is illusory, including individuality. Therefore, this individuality that we try to protect against assimilation is fleeting in the first place. Resistance is futile because you will be assimilated--if not into the Hive Mind, then back into the universe where your body decomposes and your consciousness to who-knows-what (we'll not go into Kantian distinctions, considering it would be almost too ambitious of a project to work on in this small amount of space). This sort of pantheism, curiously similar to many of Spinoza's ideas (which is a comparison also supported by the late Sino-Philosophy Professor Fung Yu-Lan of Beijing/Peking University), seems to be what many of H+ cosmological theories are headed towards (cf. James Gardner's "biocosm" and Stephen Wolfram's "digital physics"). In fact, the information paradigm prevalent in modern systems thought seems to correlate this information to "Tao" or "Te," depending on whose lexicon you accept regarding Taoist hermeneutics. Of course, this is pure speculation and none of the ideas that I'm providing is actually rigorously provided (bad Analytic! No British tea for you!), but it's an issue that I think is worth exploring.

Now, to address the compatibility between Hive Mind, Taoism, and evolution. When looking at the loss of individuality in the Borg model, competition ceases within the system and therefore there is no directed mechanism for evolution (of course, this is not accounting for internal change). Assuming that the components within the Hive do not themselves change, which can be accomodated through maintenance networks, evolution will then cease within the system. This meets the Hardy-Weinberg conditions: absence of competition will elimate selection, maintenance will blanket all forms of population change, and various mechanisms can address stochasticity, especially given the powerful abilities and cognitive capabilities of the supermind. However, taking a constructivist view of things, this Hive Mind system is still a subset of objects in the universe and will therefore have to adapt to its surroundings. This argument reintroduces natural selection, but care must be taken to identify the Hive Mind as an actor itself instead of the individual elements that make up the system. Similar to the rise of multi-cellular organisms, I see the Hive Mind as a multi-organismal "organism," akin to Gaia and Deep Ecology theories. James Gardner furthers this argument to the universe, thus coming up with the notion of the "biocosm": the universe itself as an organism. However, without going into anything beyond the Hive Mind, it is crucial to evaluate whether this Hive Mind will be subject to the same laws of guided evolution that we are accustomed to, not because it is a supermind, but because of the capabilities of a supermind that will allow for radical self-engineering. Another question to ask is if this Hive Mind is unique, or if it will have competition with other Hive Minds. This is probably a non-issue, given the transcience of identity that I have alluded to before, but it is nevertheless a question that is important for the "near" far-future (an argument against multiple guiding AGIs is war between these "gods"). What will the "natural" way such a situation will proceed, if such a question is necessary to ask? This leads back to Taoism and brings up the issue: should we as Transhumanists consider it as a purely descriptive philosophy, or should we take some of its ethical imperatives? Should we let alone and let nature run its course, given the many dangers of tampering with powers we do not understand?

Here, I hope to attack the interpretation of naturalism that seems to pervade modern Taoism (uh oh! an exegis! flee, my rational comrades! flee!!) The argument against development and modernization that comes from modern day Taoists seems stem from a false dichotomy between human and nature: anything synthetic is "unnatural" and will mess with the natural harmonies that are governed by the Tao. Modern medicine should be abandoned because it merely upsets the flow of material energy ("ch'i") using "energetically subversive" materials like chemicals (obviously water is not a chemical because it's "natural"). The internal inconsistency between naturalism and anti-essentialism in Taoism is quite clear--is the Tao itself subjected to the laws of Tao? If Tao doesn't change, then it's a Platonic ideal that is fixed, and it becomes describable, something that Lao Tzu vehemently denies. If Tao changes, it must change according to the Tao, which is formally a self-referential paradox. One might bring in "real time" arguments, such as Tao changes according Tao at that point. However, what happens when the Tao that changes Tao is such that Tao is not to follow Tao? This critique of Taoism might be crippling my advocacy of it, but I would like to emphasize its description: change. If this change exists and nothing is fixed, then there is no distinction between humans and nature, which totally destroys the naturalism touted by Chinese herbalists and New Age babblers. However, if the mode of Tao and Te still apply, then human beings should be let to do what they naturally do: create. Synthesis is therefore natural because that is what humans do. Adopting the ethics of Taoism, human beings have an imperative to create, which is an imperative to progress towards the many technologies described so eloquently by our futurists.

With this entry, I present a revised Taoist metaphysics for H+s. I hope that more is developed on this subject, although not as sloppily as I have done. I must be ill if I am suggesting this rather primitive form of pantheism as a paradigm to adopt (given my penchant for epistemology and strong dislike for metaphysics), but I nonetheless offer a system in which scientific naturalism and ethical imperatives of progress intersect. Perhaps it'll bring clarity to the H+ movement. If not, it'll at least provide interesting bits of texts to laugh at.

Finished!

I've finished my initial translations! Wooooooot!

Mini Glossary Finished

...really... tired... of... translating...

Humanity, Posthumanity, Transhumanity Finished

Instead of translating directly from Bostrom's FAQ, I decided to adapt his text, make it more concise, and add different materials. It is therefore a *loose* adaptation of his text.

I've added a section on the ambiguity of "trans" in transhumanism--I always that "trans" referred to the prefix meaning "to go beyond," which is what the Chinese and Japanese Transhumanists use, but Bostrom introduces FM-2030's term "transitional human" between humanity and posthumanity. However, in Korean, these concepts are phonologically and etymologically (when looking at Hanja) distant from each other, so I was at a loss.

I decided in the end that the "trans" in transhumanism is better served by referring to "transcendence," because of two reasons. On a practical level, we can't really say what is between human and "posthuman," especially since the term "posthuman" is ill-defined and extremely ambiguous. On a deeper level, I believe that transhumanism holds its strength in emphasizing the continuing change of the human situation. To claim that we are in a transitional state implies that there is an end that we are headed for (i.e. posthumanity) and therefore we have a final destination in mind. However, I believe that even if we've reached such a posthuman state where even fuzzy definitions will allow us to say we're definitely at a state of posthumanity that is qualitatively different from the current standards of human, we will still seek change and continue to better ourselves. Like a flowing river, our boundaries always change and we have the ability to constantly challenge and overcome these boundaries. Even if we're posthuman, we will still wish to transcend from any point of our (hopefully) never-ending development, so therefore I have chosen transhuman to mean "beyond human (limits)" as Kurzweil emphasized in his talk during TransVision 2007. Transhuman. 초인간(超人間). I hope this will be a reminder to ourselves in the future to never stop reaching beyond the limits of humanity and posthumanity.

WTA Korean Website Skeleton

Okay, so I've been working on translating some of the WTA literature into Korean, given the fact that Korea (Republic of) has the greatest bandwith in the world, and therefore (hopefully) the most receptive to H+ ideas. So far, I have a WTA intro, H+ intro, and the H+ Declaration down. I'm tackling the other documents as I go along.

So here is the basic skeleton I sent to James Hughes and the WTA:

We will maintain the WTA logo and frames at the top and left side of the
screen, and for the body, we will see these sections in
order:

About WTA:

Hyperlink=page of projects translated into Korean with appropriate hyperlinks to
English pages>

About Transhumanism:
Paragraphs of FAQ Section 1.1>
1.1 with hyperlink to html and pdf files of FAQ of Original Document and English
translations>

Transhumanist Declaration:
Korean and English. Korean and English pages are html of declaration with
a hyperlink to pdf at the bottom>

Humanity, Posthumanity,
Transhumanity:
English pages are html of Sections 1.2-1.3 of FAQ with links to pdf at
bottom>

Glossary:
are an adaptation of Section 2 with English-Korean lexicon with a brief
description in Korean of each term>

Currents in
Transhumanism:
5.2 without the Arts section, unless objections are
raised>

Translator's Biography and Invitation for Revision and
Further Translation
We will maintain the WTA logo and frames at the top and left side of the screen, and for the body, we will see these sections in order:

About WTA:



About Transhumanism:



Transhumanist Declaration:


Humanity, Posthumanity, Transhumanity:


Glossary:


Currents in Transhumanism:


Translator's Biography and Invitation for Revision and Further Translation

Transhumanism Intro Korean

Okay, so James Hughes wanted me to write a Korean introduction to the WTA site. What I have done so far is translated the first part of the WTA FAQ written by Nick Bostrom. Still a rough translation. What I'm planning, afterwards, is to possibly translate some of the WTA frames. However, I think a professional translator might be a bit more efficient, as I've been working on this translation for about six hours now, and it's barely two pages long. Anyway, here goes.

세계초인협회(世界超人協會)에 오신 것을 환영합니다!
Welcome to the World Transhumanist Association!

초인본주의(超人本主義)란?

초인본주의(超人本主義)는 현재의 인간상태가 우리의 발달의 끝이 아니라, 오히려 상당히 이른 발달 단계다 라고 주장하는 미래를 보는 사고방식이다. 형식적으로 정의를 하면:

(1) 인간상태를 응용 논리를 사용해 극본적으로 변할 수 있는 가능성과 그 변화의 바람직한 것을 받아 드리며, 특히 노화(老化)를 제거하고, 인간의 지능, 육체, 그리고 심리능력을 크게 강화 시킬 수 있는 과학 기술의 발달과 넓게 배포하는 것을 확언하는 정신사상과 문화운동.

(2) 기초적인 인간의 한계를 뛰어 넘을 수 있는 과학 기술의 세부(細部) 조항, 유망(有望), 가능한 위난(危難), 그리고 그의 대한 윤리적인 문제들을 연구하는 학문.

초인본주의는 인본주의(人本主義)에서 부분적으로 유래되어, 인본주의의 연장으로 볼 수 있다. 인본주의는 인간이 중요하고. 개인들이 중요하다고 주장한다. 우리는 완벽하지는 않지만 합리적인 사고 방식, 자유(自由), 관용(寬容), 민주주의(民主主義), 그리고 동료들에 의한 우려(憂慮)를 증진하면 현재 상태를 보다 우수하게 만들 수 있다. 초인본주의자(超人本主義者)들은 이 것을 찬성 하지만, 우리가 변화를 할 수 있는 가능성도 강조한다. 합리적인 방식을 이용하여 인간상태과 외부의 세상을 밖을 수 있는 것 처럼, 같은 방식으로 우리들 자신, 인간이라는 유기체를 진전(進展)을 할 수 있다. 이렇게 하면, 문화나 교육발달 같은 인본주의의 인습(因習)적인 방식으로 한정되지 않은다. 그리고, 또 과학 기술을 사용하여, 현재 몇몇 사람들이 “인간”라고 부르는 것 보다 더 이상으로 갈 수 있게 허용한다.

우리의 형태나 생물적인 설계가 우리의 중요성이 아니라, 오히려 우리의 희망이 나 이상(理想), 우리의 경험, 그리고 우리가 다루는 인생이 우리를 규정한다. 초인본주의자들에게는 많약 더 많은 개인들이 자신들의 가장 깊은 가치(價値)를 따라, 자기 자신, 인생, 그리고 남을 대하는 법을 맞춘다면, 개발이 이러난다. 초인본주의자들은 자율(自律), 즉 개인들이 자신의 인생을 계획하고 선택할 수 있는 능력과 권리에 대해 많은 중요성을 둔다. 몇몇 사람들은 물론 아무런 수의 이유가지고 자신을 발달을 시키는 기술없이 때울 수 있다. 초인본주의자들은 자율적인 개인들이 자신 발달을 선택하지 않은 것을 공경할 수 있는 세상의 창조를 향 한다.

가속하는 기술발달과 과학의 이해의 속도에 의해, 우리는 인류 역사의 새로운 시대를 들어간다. 가까운 장래에 실제적인 인공지능의 전망을 만날 수 있다. 인공지능과 인터페이스 테크놀로지를 결합 시키는 새로운 인식 기술이 발달된다. 분자 나노 기술(Molecular Nanotechnology)는 풍부한 자원을 제조할 수 있는 가능성도 있고, 우리 육체의 생화학 작용의 지배를 줘, 질병과 원하지 않은 노화(老化)를 없앨 수 있다. 뇌-컴퓨터 인터페이스나 신경약학 같은 기술들은 인간지능을 확대 시킬 수 있고, 정신건강을 늘릴수 있고, 장기의 계획이나 가까운 사람들에게 대할 수 있는 잠재력을 향상 시키고, 감정의 범위도 증가 시킬 수 있다. 사물의 어두운 면을 보면, 초인본주의자들은 다가오는 이 기술들 중에 인류에 큰 해가 끼치는 것들도 있다는 것을 안다; 인류의 생존이 위기에 처 있을 수 있다. 이 위험과 큰 재해(災害)을 예방하는 것도 초인본주의자들의 계획의 필수 부분이다.

증가하는 과학자, 과학에 박식(博識)한 철학자, 그리고 사회학자들의 수들이 초인본주의의 광범한 발전성을 진정하게 고찰하여 초인본주의는 대중문화에 등작했다. 빠르게 확대하는 많고 다양한 모임들과 세계에 펼처진 토론그룹들은 세계초인협회(世界超人協會—World Transhumanist Association)에 속하여 있다. 세계초인협회는 비영리 민주적인 회원 조직이다.

이글은 본래에는 Nick Bostrom(Oxford University)이 2003년도에 쓴 질문-회답의 부분이다. 2007년 7월 31일 최문형(Daniel M. Choi) 번역.

I've also realized that I've probably placed too much repetetive Hanja in the declaration. I'm debating whether I should remove the repeated Chinese or not, given that it's a formal declaration. Any comments?