The Speculist

Howdy,

I was taking the survey and hit some button. Next thing you know it says I already took the survey when it was only a partial response. I'm a Christian theist. Here is my take on the matter.

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I have been following the technological trends for the last 15 years and was a Singulatarian before such a concept existed. I think the Singularity (my definition being an end to the economy as we know it, most disease and death ended in a world where more and more people live in a virtual world) is inevitable. I don't expect to die unless I get hit by a bus and even that will become exceedingly rare.

This change in the world will be both a great blessing and a great curse. I'm not just talking dystopia here where some government gets a jump on everything and genetically engineers everyone into slaves. I think humanity getting everything it wants can be incredibly damaging.

For example, once you can have sex with an endless parade of gorgeous women, that will be the end of all struggle for many, many men. They will just be a god in their own personal universe, why do anything else?

As attractive as an end to striving is, I can't help but think such a situation will in the end be more curse than boon. Look at the values that most of human history had such as compassion, honor, working to become a good/better person, getting along with others.

When you are your own god in your own virtual universe where will those values be without the community (other actual people) to pressure people into it. This may sound like I desire theocracy or an authoritarian regime, but I don't. I'm Joe Libertarian. I just think these values are indeed valuable and they will be as dead as marriage after the Singularity.

How can marriage survive the Singularity? Procreation and sex will be completely divorced. Once artificial wombs are created no woman will want to go through that ordeal. Men will not be required in any facet of having a child. The economy is over once we have molecular manufacturing. There is no need of a husband for support. AI nannies are far more "loving" and gentle than any person can be.

After about 600 years of marriage how many couples will still be intact? After a few fights where you "heal" with your virtual lover in cyberspace will another actual person be attractive ever again? Why? I can have my ideal mate who always says exactly what I need to hear. Why bother with messy reality?

Consider for a moment: celebrities. They are as close as we have for a case study of the effects of the singularity. They no longer have any wants. Everyone loves them (at least to their face) and treats them like kings. Every man/woman wants them. On and on the comparisons are accurate with what we can all have post-singularity. Yet what becomes of most of them? Sure, a few go out and maintain an engagement with reality (for example, Bono.) However, it is distorted because in the end they are simple seeking even more approval. In cyberspace even that desire will be muted.

You reign in a world where your approbation is absolute.

Be kind? Why? I'm surrounded by virtual constructs. I can literally reign in hell and it has no moral weight whatsoever. Once there are no consequences we will begin to see humanity stuck in an eternal adolescence. No one will ever grow up.

Of course I speak in generalities here. I plan to continue growing and so do you. Quite a few people will. But, I'm speaking of the masses. Call me elitist if you like. But the moral fabric after the Singularity will have little resemblence to the world we grew up in. It will be incredibly difficult for new people even more than us old timers to hold on to what were once considered eternal values.

Finally, I do have some hope. I think what I've outlined is as inevitable as the Singularity. However, being a god with a harem the size of the universe could possibly become boring enough that people step out of the virtual reality back into actual reality long enough to grow up. I doubt it, but its theoretically possible.

The problem of an end of virtue is certainly a thorny one. My feeling is that it's something we'll have to deal with, and that a lot of people will succumb to the temptations of virtual reality. Even in real reality, you'll have nanotech to rebuild your body, etc ... but at the same time, just because life will get really easy, that doesn't mean that no effort will be required to survive.

Take economics. The argument that MNT, robotics, AI etc will put an end to a market economy strikes me as inherently flawed. All you need for a market is scarcity. Given scarcity, you get supply and demand, and given supply and demand, you get, well, a market economy. While MNT will certainly drastically lower the cost of many items, there are also some things which are inherently scarce: matter, energy, and real estate. While the first two may well become cheap, they won't be free, and there will always be demand for the latter.

Also, there's the aspect of intelligence augmentation. The merely human may well be content to spend eternity fulfilling various fantasies, sexual or otherwise, but what of those who choose to become more than human? Over the long run, those who choose to remain at a human level, and spend all their time tickling their libidoes, will die a kind of heat death: it's unlikely they'll bother to reproduce, and even with immortality their personalities will simply degenerate, suffering a kind of entropic heat death. For those who choose growth, the future will look far brighter. They'll be the ones who inherit the universe; if the fantasists survive at all, it will be as pets.

So, yes, I do see a serious problem over the next century with a gradual erosion of virtue, but I don't see it as being ultimately destabilizing.

hibbs02:

A decline in virtue will definately be a problem, but not insurmountable.

First, because the idea that economics will cease to matter is mistaken, albeit widespread. There will always be scarcity in matter, energy, and most of all, real estate, and from that will flow economic incentives, regardless how cheap any of them become.

Second, because the option will be there to grow, in every meaning of the word. Some might choose spend every conscious moment tickling their limbic systems in VR, but by doing so they'll remove themselves from the equation the same way junkies do now. The future ultimately belongs to those who evolve, and I seriously doubt that a posthuman creature with radically extended capacities will be content to go through endless iterations of the the same stale power/sex/violence situations.

Whoops. Sorry for repeating myself ... when I tried posting the first one, the system told me that it had lost the comment.

The possibility that most people will engage in endless, empty pleasures concerns me as well, but I am optimistic. When someone can easily choose to have all our civilization's knowledge not only at their fingertips, but integrated into their minds, I think that horizons will expand. Activities that are vastly more enjoyable than a harem lifestyle could likely be devised in a post-singularity world, and I agree with MattShultz that people who do nothing but indulge themselves will be functionally dead. In my opinion the sensorium broadcasts that Kurzweil describes will represent a fundamental change in human relationships. Compassion may reach an unprecedented level.

I agree that the nature of marriage will change. Love has been described as a strong selector.
Families have been the basic sociological unit of every culture thus far, and in the past, caring for one's family was often a zero-sum situation. With radically altered social and economic conditions, I think our ability to love(i.e. select, or assign value) will expand greatly beyond our relations and those who happen to be physically near us.
As for the end of virtue, the singularity will provide us with very powerful tools with which to destroy ourselves. The end of virtue would probably be the end of us.

hibbs02,

See Matt Schultz's excellent comments,

Singularity will not mean an end to challanges or an end to the economy.

It's true there's be orders of magnitude more resources per person avaliable but sill not infinite resources - the laws of physics don't allow that as far as we know. So economics will still apply. As for challanges, it's true all *human* problems will be solved, but new vistas will open up and new challanges and problems appear.

But certainly the decline of virtue is an issue and you've made one very interesting and intriguing comment here: drawing an analogy between the post-Singularity world for the average person then and the lives of celebrities today. This analogy, I think, is apt.

Celebrities (at least the real mega-stars) are in some sense living life at a rate greatly accelerated relative to that of the 'average person'. For instance celebrities have orders of magnitude higher incomes and are interacting and meeting with orders of magnitude more people in a given time period. One celebrity I read about (I think it was the teen pop singer and stage actress Deborah Gibson) once said 'she'd lived lifetimes'. If she was a celebrity at age 16 and is 36 this year, there was a 20 year period of celebrity and let's say that for every year an average person experienced, she experienced the equivalent of 10 years. So she would today be the equivalent of a 216 year old person in terms of experiences.

Celebrities don't report that all their whims are catered for, rather they tend to report that 'everything becomes more intense' or 'everything jumps to a higher level' or 'they become more of who they are'. It is certainly not true that 'celebrities no longer have any wants'. Rather, they acquire new wants and there are new challenges.

Many celebrities go nuts (drink, drug problems and extreme narcissism - people turning into vain total jerks), whilst others do achieve some measure of greatness. You see extremes. And I think the experience of celebrities is also what you'd see with unagumented humans post-Singularity. The results would be both tragic and marvellous I think. If anything, the experience of celebrities does indeed tend to show us that the average human mind is probably not capable of handling a post-scarcity world well.

hibbs02 has a fascinating take on one possible hazard. That humanity ends with us all as Hugh Heffner.

I guess that answers the question about whether the world ends in a whimper or a bang....

But back to the "Current celebrities as prototypes of post singularity humans" Everyone seems to have too narrow a view. Celebrities aren't just popstars and actors. They are also Billionaires (Bill Gates, Paul Allen, Richard Branson) they are top authors (Steven King, J.K. Rowling), Scientists (Hawkins, Einstein,) and even politicians (all of them).

These people clearly didn't fall into a trap of pure hedonism. They are out there constantly using their celebrity and the power that goes with that to push boundaries and reach new achievements.

By restricting yourself to those people who became famous by playing "let's pretend" (Actors) or being able to whine about a socially popular subject to music (Rock stars) you are clearly taking the dregs of celebrity, so why be surprised that very few do anything useful?

Howdy,

Thanks for the very thoughtful responses.

I agree that there will still be an economy of sorts. Intellectual property (for example the latest gadget designs) and real estate will still be around.

But, I think it is clear that for energy, food, water, clothing, etc governmental arrangements will be made so that no one will ever go hungry, thirsty, naked or get rained on unless they want to ever again.

That seems to be the current goal for most of the governments of the world and at the point we are talking about it will be not only possible but fairly simple.

As someone on the dole you won't get beachfront property (in reality) but you can certainly get a lovely suite in a high-rise building with your own clothing/food maker, robot butler/maid and access to the internet with your own personal universe to rule in cyberspace.

For maintaining subsistance levels of people's needs I think the economy will be over.

"Some might choose spend every conscious moment tickling their limbic systems in VR, but by doing so they'll remove themselves from the equation the same way junkies do now." - MattShultz

Yep, that's my point. VR will be to crack what crack is to powdered milk because most people know to stay away from crack.

Again, my concern is for the masses. I think it highly likely we will lose billions of people down this rabbit hole.

They are going to be ridiculously happy and well cared for, challenged as much as they want to be, free of all of the sad, unpleasant, unjust things that have happened to people for all of human history and it will be terrible for them.

Now, is that a crazy position or what?

Howdy,

As a sidenote: I'm not a Luddite. I love my overclocked 3.2Ghz computer and games and will no doubt enjoy being a Paladin slaying evil monsters in virtual reality. But even in computer games I don't do things I wouldn't find ethical in reality. I don't want to start any bad habits. :-)

Oblivion Paladin level 32 - master of fighters' guild, mages' guild and savior of the Empire.

Excellent discussion, folks.

On the "heat death," I think only the seriously game- or sex-addicted are going to fall into that trap. Of course, VR may enable many more addicts than existed before. But people like to do a lot of different things -- they like to play games, they like to do things outdoors, they like to eat. The sheer variety of indulgences available may slow the descent of some into endless narcissistic solipsism. Moreover, the ability to modify one's own world may lead people to more creative and productive endeavors in spite of themselves. A man with a passion for sport fishing may get tired of bagging VR sharks and marlins after a while and decide to move on to megadons and plesiasaurs, and then hybrids of those creatures with modern fish, and then completely alien species of his own invention. Once you get tired of inventing new species of fish, you start changing other variables -- the boat, the ocean, yourself. Who knows where it might lead?

I think the celebrity analogy is brilliant. One thing that may remain scarce post-VR is the attention of other "real" people. Everyone can be adored by electronic adoring masses, but how many can remain in some sense "prominent" in a VR world? The attention of others may prove a strong motivation to keep interacting with others. Today, even minor celebrities often have an entourage of devotees that stick with them and give them props. Such an entourage might be the rough equivalent of the virtual adoring masses we can all have one day. But only a select few celebrities get in and stay in the public eye. Why does Donald Trump do a TV commercials and a TV show? Sure, there's money in it, but arguably that's money he doesn't need or could make more of doing other things. He's mostly about keeping his name and face out there.

VR sex and games might lead to the destruction of many, but boredom and a desire to be one of the popular kids may prove effective escape routes for many others.

Also, I think the point that expanded intelligences will tend to develop entirely new passions is well taken. As many survey responders have pointed out (both to this and the previous survey) the Singularity is the point beyond which prediction fails. We have absolutely no idea what life will be like on the other side.

I think that the parallel between VR "heaven" and hard drugs is an impoetant one, and one I was going to raise myself befor I read it here.

For I think it is pessemistic to presume that everyone would bury themselves in this hedonistic way of life. It is possible now to exist in a state of perpetual simulated ecstacy whilst effectively being dead, it's called living in a Crack house, but few of us chose that life.

Why? Because it is illegal? I don't have that much faith in prohibition, and it's proven not to be working anyway. The way to get people off of drugs like these is to improve their real life and give them something positive to strive for. I think most people like reality, and relish the challenge and reward of acieving things in the real world.

However, when simulated ecstacy is so realistic, and there is so little left to achieve in the real world, perhaps it will become more of a draw. Perhaps this will lead to prohibition of VR, which would be a mistake (we never learn), when the real trick would be to make sure real life stays interesting somehow.

The only way to do this would be to augment one's mind, in the way that the only way to do it today is with learning and self improvement, and thus become a part of the Van Guard, part of the progress. As Edgar Rice Burroughs said; "work must be our salvation".

The narcotics analogy is good, but not perfect. Pornography is probably closer to what we're talking about.

If one were of the mind to, one could sit at home all day consuming porn. But even with porn being so available, most people - men included - aren't rendered useless.

I would guess that most men surreptitiously indulge in porn from time-to-time, but they also have jobs, real girlfirends/wives, children to raise (or perhaps some idea that they'd like to have kids someday), etc. They are not content to be self-indulgent all day.

One could argue that the reason porn doesn't completely consume most men's lives is because the experience is not as real or as exciting as, say, an actual rendezvous with Jessica Simpson. If it ever got that real, the argument goes, then we've lost the male sex.

Maybe, but after a month's vacation in harem-world, I'm betting that boredom would set in. Our Heroic Hefners would probably get homesick for gritty reality again.

Or at least a VR world where, in addition to the fawning attention of a simulated harem, these guys are also interacting productively with other real people.

Perhaps you should use the old (conservative) distinction between fantasy and imagination. Porn is fantasy, so the argument goes, whereas imagination is about the sacred. Perhaps what everyone overlooks is the built-in spirituality of humanity (and we can foretell the biggest comeback of religion ever).
There's a fun essay by Iain Banks about his The Culture books. The way he describes The Culture (a civ he invented), closely matches descriptions of a post-Singularity world.

As for people ending up as pets... don't be naive!The ones you have in mind will *start* with that.

I agree that indulgence doesn't necessarly lead to dependance. Just like a little indulgence or experimentation with drugs can be harmless enough, even beneficial, inulgence in VR could be thought of as a few beers for the mind at the end of a long day.

Howdy,

Lots of good points here. Many of which help undermine my more negative outlook, a development I'm glad to see.

The best points IMO:

Genetic engineering as well as other mental enhancements can/will expand people's mental abilities to such an extent that boredom can become the great motivator for people to stay engaged.

Attention of other people is a scarce resource that will encourage people to remain engaged with reality. A great fictional example of this is Cory Doctorow's "Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom" wherin people get and give "whuffie" which is essentially their esteem rendered in a point system. This functions as money in the basically post-Singularity world described. (book is available for free download from Cory himself - google it - and there is a description of "whuffie" in wikipedia)

I just think we are underestimating the draw of VR. You can have your own virtual world where you are god. Okay, lets say that for many that would become boring quickly.

But, you don't have to be god you can give the AI your parameters (make god to be exactly what you want) and have it create a world for you.

Now in reality, the post-Singularity world has a population precisely as smart, beautiful and athletic as you are. Everyone has upgraded. But virtual reality works under your rules. You can shine brighter than everyone around you.

Then whatever your interest the AI can create a very challenging but beatable scenario for you to compete in. Maybe its not killing goblins but you want to rise as an actor or dress designer or business man.

While you "beat the game" the AI gives you funny, intriguing friends and wonderful lovers who fit your personality perfectly.

You can live one story-book life after the other.

You come out of VR and take a look around. People are still unpleasant to one another, nobody knows or cares who you are (attention is scarce remember), your lovely suite is tiny compared to the mansion you are used to. You meet a girl/guy but they have interests other than pleasing you. This comes as a shock the first few times it happens post-game.

One day you step in dog poop in the 33 seconds before the cleaner robot has a chance to clean it up and that's the last straw.

I'll just play another game, make it a quick one - only one year - just to relax. Because, you know, real life is hard.

The Wonderland Gambit Series - Jack Chalker

The hedonistic paradise is one of the scenarios played out. There are dozens more. I don't want to spoil the "twist" ending (or middle, or begining) I would call it required reading for any "VR is more real than Reality" discussion.

Permutation City - Greg Egan

This book starts with the technological genesis of the main character. It will make you reconsider whether we are already living in a simulation. It will make you reconsider what it would be like to bootstrap a new virtual world. It will make you reconsider just about everything. I would call this required reading for: AI/Brain Upload/The Universe as computation/I think about thinking/anyone who reads. You will definately want to read more Greg Egan.

AI / enhanced-Sapiens will be able to exchange the context of countless books instantly. I SO want that. (to quote Dan Cook)

[gez]'s comment comparing VR to a few beers for the mind at the end of a long day reminded me of an article I once read that speculated that a VR system directly interfaced with the nervous system could cause extreme temporal distortion. With the speed of electrical signals exceeding the speed of neurochemical signals by a factor of more than three million, a century could be perceived in VR in about fifteen minutes of real time. If this is the case, a subjective millenium or two of VR in a week may be quite reasonable. I think that being able to quickly experience dozens of lifetimes of unimaginative hedonistic scenarios would quench just about anyone's thirst for that sort of thing. Of course, VR on that level could be used very constructively. For example, it would enable one to have a year's worth of thoughts in a matter of seconds. Then there is the possiblity of having parallel experiences using software agents that would reintegrate with the subject afterwards. Discussions like this illustrate to me just how mind boggling the singularity meme really is.

Perhaps we will junk VR, for that reason and move over to LARP. At present LARP companies focus on the medieval period, but it is grossly inadequate: there aren't any dragons or unicorns. Or elves, for that matter! Perhaps people will lead several lives at once and agree to a restriction on age. Gee, ain't that different from today!
Speaking on restrictions, I think some body enhancing / modification will be prohibited; especially of the superhero kind. It's not that you can't improve yourself, on the contrary, but capabilities of the superhero kind are simply inherently antisocial.

I've often wondered, heretic that I am, if eternity in a perfectly restored creation--post TS or supernatural, take your pick--can be all that blissful if there's no challenge, no conflict, nothing to strive for.

I just can't wrap my mind around it.

I guess that's why they call it a singularity.

BTW, why don't women post comments here? I am the only fem-geek? :)

Women as cool as you are a rare breed Kathy!

:-)

I mean, you blog and write sci-fi!

I don't really know if celebrities are a good model for what people will act like post-singularity. After all, in the present age, the majority of people in western civilization have access to a level of personal wealth that rivals, and in many ways exceeds, that of pre-industrial aristocrats. But their behaviour is by no means identical.

The peculiar pathologies inherent in celebrities (and I'm talking here about celebrity entertainers, not celebrity politicians, scientists, or entrepreneurs) seem to me to result from a mismatch between status and responsibility, not a surfeit of wealth and freedom. As the excellent discussion above regarding attention economics pointed out, status is not something which is likely to decrease in scarcity, and so celebrity-like behaviour is unlikely to become common.

A more dangerous trap, I think, is the already much more common one of welfare. Many people already call for guaranteed minimum income, something that would be all too easy in a post-singularity economy. Of course, a massive number of people living in the near-zero responsibility conditions of welfare might well behave identically to celebrity types, so really I'm just quibbling over metaphors here.

The problem with celebs is that until mid 20th C. or so, they were synonymous with aristocracy (they were nobles or equated with it). Since then we've witnessed a U-turn: present celebs are ordinary & famous for being famous, not possessing any unique talent. In short: megarich parasites.
There is, now, a problem with welfare. But if the Singularity isn't God, but drexlerian nanobots, the entire economy will go belly-up. Why work? You can print anything you need / don't need. If this is The Singularity, it is going to provide us with some interesting anthropological/sociological problems.

I think Kathy has an excellent point. I'm not convinced that most people (or even a significant number of people) will automatically choose the VR scenario that produces the maximum amount of instant gratification.

One could certainly build a computer game in which all the enemies or obstacles were destroyed with no effort, yet we don't see games like that. Why? Because it's just not fun unless there's SOME challenge involved.

One of the problems that usually seems to arise in threads like this one is the conflation of pre-Singularity strategies with speculation about post-Singularity conditions/capabilities.

As I understand the proposition, post-Singularity simply defies rational speculation since pre-Singularity humans don't have the references within which to speculate.

The VR/LARP discussions could well describe techniques that humans employ to cope with mid- to late-period pre-Singularity conditions, I think. Also the extent of acceptability and content of physiological enhancement technologies.

The question of economics is one I examined lately (I will forego mining your comment section with extraneous links) and my initial conclusion is that economic science, while based on the limits of physical laws as we understand them, really doesn't have much credence in an environment of individual lack of scarcity from the individual's perspective.

Granted, the universe only has a finite amount of any element, the point remains that no reasonably extrapable number of humans could possibly use all of it, so it remains a reality that scarcity is a question of technologic capability in any practical sence. The other objection's raised aren't really reflective of the technology we already possess either - there are several "new" real estate creation ventures underway around the world, for instance. New real estate and the associated challenges of attaining them have been one of the underlying themes of space access for decades now as well.

How - what techniques might we employ - to successfully transit the pre-Singularity period? The economic consequences of technologies like RepRap for instance call existing economic models into question from the individual perspective simply because they are so liberating (at least potentialy) from the individal context we currently experience things in.

Post-Singularity conditions are all very well - to those who survive to experience them. The more immediate concern is: how do we each of us get there from here?

In reading and considering all of the posts I'll come around to a final point which I consider central. Further, it seems its the kind of opinion that Phil is seeking out with his desire to get the thinking of God aware people on the Singularity.

Disclaimer: I don't claim to speak for all God aware people!

The big question is will the Singularity allow human beings to overcome human nature. As a Christian theist my definition of human nature is based around a fundamental principle: humans are inherently flawed and are fallen creatures (yes, including/especially me.) As such we must take this into account and look for the unintended consequences of what otherwise seems to be good news.

The simplest and most frightening example is the concern that an Army of Davids will have a twisted David whose unparalleled power and freedom culminates in the desire to exterminate humanity with a bio-warfare sling.

It further follows that humans will NOT be able to reverse this situation and achieve perfection, even post Singularity.

In thirty years I fully expect to walk down the street and see people who have morphed their physical beings into truly amazing and seemingly non-human configurations.

But try as they might, they will still have their human soul with all the good and bad that comes with it.

I'm not going to start quoting Scripture, but a central theme of the Bible is the hubris of mankind (the Tower of Babel springs to mind.)

Thus, my final questions:

I firmly believe that physical frailties will be reduced. I believe we have evidence that medicine can treat/ameliorate mental frailty and no doubt even more great things are on the horizon.

When humans inevitably begin to attempt to modify even more foundational, intangible attributes. . .

If perfection cannot be achieved then what dangers do we court in pursuing it?

The question of economics is one I examined lately (I will forego mining your comment section with extraneous links) and my initial conclusion is that economic science, while based on the limits of physical laws as we understand them, really doesn't have much credence in an environment of individual lack of scarcity from the individual's perspective.

I don't buy it. Economics handles quite well the situation you describe, assuming it actually does occur, for example, economics already handles the case of breathable air. Remember in the future, humans won't be the only economic entities. Those other entities may make goods like energy, computing power, or physical space rather expensive (despite potentially orders of magnitude better use of physical resources). Further, there remain goods (in particular an individual's time, effort, and attention) that will remain very scarce.

In other words, economics may not be as firm as physical law, but I see no reason the fundamental principles will change even if a large category of goods become as plentiful and cheap as breathable air. What will change is economic expectations.

Incidentally, the RepRap project has as its goal the construction of a self-replicating rapid proto-typer.