The Symphony of Personal Creation

This isn't about religion, though it was inspired by coming across an article by someone whose motivations for writing about the "sinful" nature of transhumanism seem to be rooted at least nominally in religious convictions. I say "nominally" because the attitudinal undercurrent that drives people to make statements about the sanctity of the contemporary human form (or genome) is present both in devout believers in the deities of organized religion, and in equally devout worshippers of unaltered "nature". The yuck factor -- the gut feelings people use to dismiss notions of human transformation and transhuman / posthuman existence -- seems to be more a symptom of discombobulation and future shock more so than the internalized tenets of any particular doctrine.

Certainly, accelerating and emerging change confuses people (particularly people who don't tend to think more than a week or so ahead of their present temporal position). But I also suspect that a person's reaction to many of the ideas commonly discussed in transhumanist circles can reveal something about how that person views the world at large. Consider the following passage from the article linked to above:

Indeed, the real problem is that the very urge and desire to eclipse human limitations is an act of defiance grounded in profound ingratitude. At the core of transhumanism is a basic hatred of humanity.

Ignoring, for the moment, the fact that concepts like education and modern medicine have already allowed us to "eclipse human limitations" to degrees not remotely imaginable by our savannah-dwelling ancestors, this quote reveals plenty about a particular attitude toward change, particularly change that affects persons.

This is the way I see it: We humans are here, for whatever reason, on a tiny orb in a great, big, exciting Universe. And yet even our own planet, though small in the grand scheme of things, is positively brimming with possibilities, information, and potential experiences for us to have. Zooming in one step deeper, every sentient person alive has an utterly tremendous realm of sensory experience, individual perspective, and personal life-narrative to develop. Layers upon layers of complexity and wonder and delight and potential. Neither the limit of inner space nor that of outer space is known -- we don't even know what we don't know yet. And still, we know enough to fill our lives with such richness and splendor and hope that some of us are working to help ourselves and others have the opportunity to take part in more life, to experience the abundance of potential experience that most assuredly exists.

I am not a religious person myself, but my grandmother is. Nevertheless, we get along very well, and I consider her to be one of my favorite people -- I spent many a happy childhood vacation roaming around the hills of her Vermont property, exploring the sights and sounds and smells and tastes of the wilderness. My grandparents are both retired teachers, and not a single mealtime went by without some interesting discussion of some phenomena: animals, stars, plants, weather patterns (and perhaps a logic puzzle or two from my grandfather, who is a brilliant lateral thinker).

At any rate, my grandmother's take on science and technology is that God gave us brains and rationality and that it would be an insult to this creation not to use these things. I cannot specifically say she endorses anything called "transhumanism", but she certainly didn't oppose seeing her 91-year-old mother through hip replacement surgery (is my great-grandmother a cyborg now?) or her husband through heart valve replacement surgery (is my grandfather now a "human-bovine hybrid"?). She also doesn't have a problem with the idea of installing a computer and Internet connection in her house up in the hills; clearly, making use of modern technology is not "spoiling" or corrupting the sprawling beauty of where she lives or in any way cheapening the experience of being a sentient Earthling.

Personal technology -- even when applied in the capacity of "enhancement" (though I prefer the neutral term modification and believe that enhancement is truly only judged in the eye of the person choosing a particular modification and deeming it positive) -- is not about "hating" humanity or feeling inadequate or somehow rejecting the "gift" of live existence. Rather, it is about realizing that the world extends beyond the boundaries of our bodies and that ideas extend beyond the boundaries of our present minds. Evolution has granted us -- through its convoluted iterations over time -- a basic set of sensory feedback mechanisms, fairly impressive memory storage, probability-estimation ability, and a built-in system for imagining the future and planning to react to what it might bring.

Wanting to explore more, do more, and explore and act for a longer period of time than present biological constraints would permit is no more indicative of "self-hatred" than is writing a symphony, painting a picture, or proving a theorem for the sheer delight of intellectual exercise involved. One does not paint a picture, after all, because one feels inadequate, or because one feels that the wold is sadly lacking for not having a particular painting in it -- but because there is joy in creating and joy in process and joy in looking back at what one has done and sharing it with others. The perpetuation of delight is not a defect or a disease or an expressed sense of pathological feelings of inadequacy -- it is precisely because we do recognize the remarkable random gifts of evolution that we are compelled to use them, to stretch their boundaries, and to customize them to better allow us to bring our existence into harmony with the wonders we imagine could occur in the future.

To suggest that a person who seeks an extended lifespan, greater memory capacity, a wider spectrum of visual acuity (I'd love to be able to see electromagnetic signals in the RF range -- that would be very useful at work!) is somehow suffering from an inadequacy complex is like suggesting that someone who wants to attend college is suffering from a similar complex. And that's just ridiculous: freely-chosen education is an excellent analogue for freely-chosen technological or biological modification. Both represent the tangible expression of a person's wanting to participate in aspects of existence that, while they may require some initial investment of time and resources and possibly some risk, fit with that person's sense of imagination, adventure, and drive toward personal evolution.

Good emotional health allows us to see the wonderful things about our present state of being (and to seek to maintain those aspects of this state of being that enrich our lives) while at the same time imagining what we could become, what we could experience. A desire for enhancement and expansion doesn't spring ex nihilo from a person's mind, after all: a healthy person's individual enhancement goals will generally be in concert with the very things that person already likes about herself.

There are some people who do maintain a sense of inadequacy and who lack the introspective ability to sort their healthy personal goals and hopes from the pressures that a particular societal assumption set is attempting to impose on them (or which they perceive as pressuring them in some way). And certainly, anyone constantly seeking change for the mere sake of change (or worse, trying to change themselves to fit into what they see as someone else's idealized vision of them) would probably benefit from some serious efforts at self-analysis or possibly even some therapy.

For example, someone seeking plastic surgery because their fiancee has told them that they'll leave them for someone prettier if they don't get that surgery, probably doesn't need that surgery. Rather, what they need is a new significant other. Changing yourself in a particular way out of fear of being rejected, or in deference to someone else's shallow demands, is not healthy. But technological modification is simply a tool, and just because some people who might use the tool might have unhealthy motivations for using it doesn't mean that using the tool at all means you are unhealthy! Rather, the opposite can be true in many cases, and it is these cases into which many of the motivations I see in transhumanism fall.

To deny ourselves the opportunities to push our own limits in order to travel between the stars or breathe underwater like fishes or wonder at the soundscape of the utterances of bats does not make sense to me as someone who is constantly and unremittingly surprised at the vastness and complexity of the universe we inhabit.

Musings on Artificial Intelligence - Part 2

(The rest of my notes and writing in response to the Sept 17 AI workshop.)

Though the sorts of machine-intelligence created by humans may not be "styled" exactly like human intelligence, experiments and developments in AI allow for a refining of the concept of intelligence and our understanding of it.

Conceptually, perhaps there is a difference between basing the smallest cognitive / processing units in the system on a strong biological analogy (e.g., artificial neurons) and attempting to create useful processing units that don't necessarily have a direct biological analogy.

For instance, the Novamente company is working on developing an AI based on something it is calling "atom networks". These networks sound similar to neural networks in some respects, but are supposedly going to be more efficient and more capable of dealing with multiple contexts. Quoting from this descriptive paper:

Regarding knowledge representation, we have chosen an intermediate-level atom network representation which somewhat resembles classic semantic networks but has dynamic aspects that are more similar to neural networks. This enables a breadth of cognitive dynamics, but in a way that utilizes drastically less memory and processing than a more low-level, neural network style approach. The details of the representation have been designed for compatibility with the system’s cognitive algorithms.

Regarding cognition, we have reduced the set of fundamental algorithms to two: Probabilistic Term Logic (PTL) and the Bayesian Optimization Algorithm (BOA). The former deals with the local creation of pieces of new knowledge from existing pieces of knowledge; the latter is more oriented towards global optimization, and creates new knowledge by integrating large amounts of existing knowledge. These two algorithms themselves interact in several ways, representing the necessary interdependence of local and holistic cognition.

What I'm getting from this description is that the "atom networks" will enable a sort of cognition that allows the AI to "scan" back and forth between detailed, specific cognition and higher-level, associative cognition that will allow for useful information to pass between contexts.

In discussing some of my first impressions of the workshop with a friend (a friend who is far more knowledgeable about AI and computer-cognition than I am; she's actually working on a degree in such things right now), I tried to describe kinds of AI approaches in terms of "biologically analogous" sorts of attempts and "computer science based" attempts. This is actually something of a difficult dichotomy to draw and I'm not even sure it's a real one. Or at least, I'm not yet equipped with the vocabulary proper to describe such things. My friend pointed out that:

Both approaches use computer science--they have to or they would not be on a computer.

She's right, just as Eliezer Yudkowsky was when he noted that all AI is made of math. I think that while this is true, distinctions between things with more direct biological analogies and things with indirect or not easily identified biological analogies are made as a matter of convenience in discussion by humans. However, this is definitely a somewhat ephemeral way to talk about things in the first place since it seems sort of dependent on current scientific understandings of biology in the first place.

While neuroscience certainly provides useful information, perhaps there's plenty the computer scientists can accomplish without having to know exactly how the animal brain does what it does. At any rate, it's worth running the experiment.

Also note that biological approaches applied to something in a computer might take on new properties and possibly different functionality when modeled in a computer. I imagine that some advances in AI will come about from trying to model something biological, only to find that the result is something useful and interesting though not exactly what was expected!

My friend also posed the question:

What aspects of the nervous system are actually essential for intelligence?

This seems to be part of what the comp-sci folks don't want to wait for the neuroscientists to figure out. And honestly, I think that this question is extremely complex, and that anyone attempting to answer it needs to remain wary of drawing hasty conclusions. The thing about biological structures is that not only do they tend to be highly adaptable, organisms with the emergent property of consciousness are also capable of finding ways to use aspects of their bodies and brains to do things in ways that other similar organisms may not.

This is part and parcel of how evolution works -- consider the analogy of physical features of small organisms. A flagellum of a certain length and flexibility might be useful for propulsion, but a mutation that results in a shorter or longer flagellum unsuited for propulsion doesn't immediately translate to "a defect". Rather, the Flagellum of Nonstandard Length might end up being far more useful than the standard one at, for instance, probing at soil to locate food particles or acting as some sort of sense organ. Certainly, any incarnation of a particular organism might be construed as a set of "initial conditions" that constrains further evolutionary iterations within a particular timescale into a certain probability-space. However, this probability-space is very large and it is certainly infeasible to imagine that present-day humans, with our unaugmented meat-brains, can fathom the possibilities of even the realms of that probability-space closest to our everyday concepts.

Plenty of already-existing (and perfectly functional) people seem to use brains and brain structures in different ways from other people -- at least when it comes to "higher" cognitive faculties (I'm not talking about automatic processes like breathing.) There's a bias even in modern neuroscience to attempt to claim that a functional majority is the "standard" and that nonstandard configurations are invalid and therefore diseased, however, I disagree with this approach (obviously!) and think that one of the ways in which neuroscience could more readily help in understanding intelligence overall would be to consider the different ways in which different brain structures can be used.

When we start building more intelligent computers, expecting these computers to think / react just like a neurotypical human will hugely limit our ability to determine when intelligence is actually present. I'm not saying that computers will act like any configuration of human (though of course a "friendly" sort of computer / AI would need to understands humans sufficiently to allow them to react and act ethically) -- I'm just saying that when searching for ghosts in the machine, it ought to be remembered that these "ghosts" could elude us for years if we expect them to be too human.

The AI folks aren't making (from what I can tell) firm assumptions as to what sorts of things are actually not worth including in an AI; after all, if they try to simulate something without a structure or set of functions they'd tentatively classified as Probably Less Important, and it doesn't work, that gives the AI folks an indication that the thing they left out is probably worth investigating.

Incidentally, one comment I made was in response to something the presenter said about trying to create a virtual environment for an AI to develop and learn in -- he suggested that the "growing" AI should be fed information incrementally based on some model of developmental stages. I suggested that we not put any presuppositions on what the growing AI is going to find useful of be able to make use of.

I'm imagining that future AIs might be able to, for instance, grow new neurons (or "prune", or reallocate them) of their own accord. Perhaps an AI could be provided with plenty of "raw materials" (information, memory space, etc.).

One of the things being experimented with in terms of "embodiment" is "virtual embodiment" for an AI. This is, of course, not exactly like biological embodiment, but it's something that could at least allow for an interface by which humans can more easily watch the AI grow and interact with it. The AI "bot" would be placed in a virtual environment filled with objects and with a programmed-in set of physical laws, and allowed to experiment with all the stuff. I'm extremely curious to read more about this, particularly with regard to the influence of embodiment on ethics. For instance, is something like "negative feedback" really necessary in order for a being to understand (and therefore avoid inflicting) pain?

I'm also curious as to how one might program "innate drives" into an AI. Where does curiosity come from? Or the motivation to learn? An AI in a virtual environment might not need to eat or sleep or anything like that (though it just occurred to me that trying to induce a sleep-state in an AI might be very interesting, considering the effect sleep has on the human mind!) Bodies provide constraints that probably shape our cognition in ways we can't even imagine; any AI must be constrained in some sense in order to have a definable identity, but the question is, what sorts of constraints will prompt learning and/or exploration?

The Friendly AI thing isn't really so much an apocalyptic fear so much as a willingness to state that if a powerful AGI is developed and starts improving itself, we need to be able to deal with that. I agree it seems a bit far-off considering that most of the developments up until now have been in the realm of "narrow" AI, but at the same time I'm fascinated by the concept of ethical robots / AIs, and I think it's worth discussing as long as AIs are going to be developed anyway.

There's definitely a sort of sci-fi feel to the whole thing in the sense of, "We need to create the Good AI before the Bad Guys create the Bad AI!", but despite its prevalence in science fiction, machine intelligence is a real tool and a real technology. I'm willing to consider it on that basis...one of my brain-hobbies is looking at things as objectively as possible and attempting to find the reality-based parts of things that might be heavily disguised or encumbered by pop-culture associations. It is illogical to suggest that because something has appeared as a thematic element in science fiction, that thing has no basis in reality whatsoever and isn't worth taking seriously. Some things are worth being taken quite seriously (life extension, for instance), regardless of how much popular media they've appeared in.

With regard to developmental / temporal considerations for AI: This is actually (as far as I understand it) the approach being taken by the AI folks I've recently learned of: they aren't trying to hardwire all behavior, but rather, create an AI "baby" (which should not be construed as anything resembling a human baby except for its immaturity and potential for development) with tendencies and motivations (e.g., Friendliness constraints?) and put it in an environment filled with raw materials and information. It is impossible to tell precisely what the AI is necessarily going to "do" in that environment or exactly what form it's going to take when more mature; once again, there's a probability space to deal with.

The "cutting edge" of AI research right now seems to be much more in line with recognizing the importance of temporal development in the emergence of intelligence. I don't see how you could get anything approaching cognitive flexibility with too many hardwired behaviors.

My overall impression of this AGI endeavor so far: I don't like speaking in absolutes as a matter of principle, but judging from the numerous historical examples of human tenacity with respect to ambitious problem-solving, it does seem practically inevitable that at some point, someone is going to create a thinking machine.

And if this machine has any capacity to improve itself, it will -- which is something we need to account for as a risk in and of itself, since the capacity growth of such an intelligence will be very difficult to predict. I also couldn't help flashing back to Martine Rothblatt's presentation at the HETHR conference earlier this year, in which she noted, in so many words that yes, technological development could be the death of us (sentient beings living on Earth) but that a lack of sufficient technological development will be the death of us.

Those of us that wish to extend our lives as long as possible -- whether out of the sheer joy in existence or our own personal and complex motivations -- must certainly put first things first and place a certain degree of focus on reverse-engineering and fixing the biology of human senescence.

However, there are a lot of people in the world right now, and the fact that some people are focusing their efforts on the biological aspects of life extension while others are focusing their efforts on AGI development and existential risk analysis is a very good thing as far as I'm concerned. After all, discoveries in one realm of science can often have tremendous impact in other realms of science, whether that was the intention from the outset or not.

Quick Thoughts on Superlongevity, Boredom, and Inexhaustible Novelty

The plasticity of the human brain with regard to what it finds meaningful has already been conclusively demonstrated: depressed people often find "everyday activities" unfulfilling and then find these activities fulfilling again following pharmacological treatment. Yet the treated and untreated individual are the same person: usually, even the depressed individual has a sense that things could "seem" subjectively fulfilling or meaningful, and this can be a motivation for treatment.

If a very long-lived person becomes bored, they could presumably be compelled to seek treatment in the same manner as a present-day depressed person might. That is, when given the choice between a treatment that could help them find meaning in things again, and eternal nonexistence / oblivion, would most people honestly choose the eternal oblivion?

There is more information and variety in most things and activities than most people realize.

Some people might already be "primed" for superlongevity in that they don't tend to classify experiences together as readily as others. That is, a person susceptible to superlongevity-ennui might be the sort of person who tends to, for instance, never desire to watch the same movie or read the same book more than once.

Such people probably do NOT tend to get "all the information" or all intrinsic potential joy out of these activities after experiencing them only once -- that is, they don't memorize every book they read and exhaust all the minutiae of possible philosophical implications of what they have read. Rather, they have a tendency to classify experiences and environmental stimuli according to high-level concepts and generalities. These people will therefore bore much more quickly than people who fixate on and notice details. Details make experiences "more different", so long as you're looking at them or looking for them.

For a boredom-prone person, going to France once might be enough, since after that trip they'll say something like, "Well, now I've seen France, what's next?" However, for a detail-oriented perceiver (the type of person less likely to get bored), France will be a different experience depending on all sorts of variables: season, time of day, etc. This sort of person would probably also be likely to go back to the same place repeatedly after a number of years, to see how things may have changed over time.

And again, as long as time is passing, things WILL change, both through the conscious effort of beings and through chance. I don't see how the Universe could possibly run out of novelty so long as time is passing. No moment is identical to any other moment, after all.

Musings on Artificial Intelligence - Part 1

(Part 1 of notes and musings based on the content of, and my reactions to, the AI Workshop I attended on Sunday, September 17, 2006)

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In order to start talking about artificial intelligence, it is perhaps first important to define intelligence, at least in the context of a discussion concerning possible artificial sorts of this property of mind. Intelligence is a tricky concept with numerous potential meanings. The workshop I attended was specifically concerned with artificial general intelligence (AGI), described as:

The ability to achieve complex goals in complex environments using limited computational resources.

Of course, this description begs the question of what is meant by "complex", when that term is applied to goals and environments alike. Perhaps a complex goal could be distinguished from a simple goal in that a complex goal might have many more steps and more uncertainty along the way to achieving it. A complex environment would be an environment capable of providing multiple variables -- and therefore variable stimuli and information resources -- from the perspective of an intelligence operating in that environment.

Novamente founder Ben Goertzel explained that much of the progress in the realm of artificial intelligence that has been achieved so far has been with respect to narrow artificial intelligence applications. This is largely because it is far easier to create an AI that can play chess, for instance, than an AI capable of actually learning new games it was not originally programmed with. Modern AI accomplishments have certainly highlighted some of the potential practical applications for this narrow, highly constrained AI -- the results of last year's DARPA Grand Challenge more than hints at the plausibility of robotic cars in the foreseeable future.

Nevertheless, the idea of creating an artificial intelligence with far greater cognitive flexibility is highly compelling for a number of reasons. Artificial intelligence itself fascinates a great number of people simply due to the intellectual challenge it poses: can a (human) brain, through the agency of its own interaction with the environment, create something nonbiological that thinks and reasons and learns? There's definitely a Fun Factor associated with AI.

But there's also a more serious side to the AGI talk going on in the world these days. Serious both in its potential practical applications for humanity and posthumanity alike, and in the very real risks the development of a self-improving artificial intelligence might pose if not properly constrained from the outset.

Critical to this discussion is the notion of Friendly AI. I'm only just learning about Friendly AI myself, and I highly recommend Michael Anissimov's Friendly AI 101 and consolidation of links to Friendly AI resources if you're looking for an organized presentation of basic Friendly AI concepts.

The September 17, 2006 workshop focused on explaining the basics (very basic basics, mind you) behind AGI and the present state of its research and development, and on brainstorming with respect to the potential risks that could come about as a result of AGI (this is where the concept of Friendliness comes in -- an Unfriendly superhuman artificial intelligence would be very dangerous indeed, possibly catastrophically dangerous). The Singularity concept was also discussed with respect to AGI and future-oriented risk and scenario analysis in general.¹

The following examples of Singularity Enabling Technologies were suggested:

* Biotechnology
* Nanotechnology
* Robotics
* Strong AI

These technologies each individually hold tremendous potential to revolutionize Life As We Know it, and when considered symbiotically as part of scientific progress as a whole, it becomes fairly clear that parallel advances in these fields could have enormous transformative implications.

Of course, there are also risks associated with these technologies, with biotech being the most immediate potential threat (while simultaneously being the most immediate potential boon to humankind -- such is the way of things).

Nanotechnology has much promise as far as cheap, intricate manufacturing goes -- but of course one must be careful not to initiate a Grey Goo catastrophe.

Robotics technology has already infiltrated industrialization, laboratory research, and medicine (with an overall effect that has, in my estimation, been largely positive); as noted at the workshop, the risk of a Matrix-esque scenario -- perhaps the most commonly envisioned dystopia associated with robotics -- seems fairly low overall.

Strong AI, of course, has the potential to help humans deal effectively with other powerful technologies and a vast array of difficult challenges in general, but at the same time, provisions must be made to assure a maximally stable goal system for that AI, if developed.

Suggested models and frameworks for AI development have been:

1. Those based on attempting to model a human-like cognition (which would require thorough mapping and analysis of human brains, something neuroscience hasn't quite managed yet, and something that presents a very complex long-term challenge)

2. Those based on application of computer science principles coupled with some application of human psychology

The second strategy -- that based on computer science principles -- was suggested at Sunday's workshop as a means to achieve AGI more quickly and perhaps more cleanly than the first strategy. As Ben Goertzel noted, we don't want to wait for the neuroscientists to figure out cognition from the biological standpoint.

Firstly, this approach doesn't seem likely to yield tangible results in the nearer-term, and secondly, this approach might allow developers to produce a more streamlined and efficient intelligence. The human brain is full of redundancies and non-ideal processing pathways as a result of years of incremental evolution, and there's no reason to assume that the only possible "intelligence", even a general intelligence, must look or act exactly like a human brain.

As a side note, one very positive philosophical development I see potentially emerging from all this discussion of AGI is that of helping people everywhere realize that there's more than one way to think, more than one way to be intelligent, and more than one way to develop. I was very pleased to observe people in the workshop room relentlessly pointing out examples of anthropomorphic bias.

This sort of endeavor -- that of attempting to develop Friendly AI -- is definitely one that speaks to the necessity of neurological and cultural diversity. Imagine an AI being developed by a small group with identical political leanings, religious ideology, and cultural identity -- this, to me, sounds mind-bogglingly dangerous.

I can't recall precisely where I read this, but recently I did read a quote that stated that people growing up under a given set of cultural assumptions (which I'd even extend to individual neurologies present within a geographical / ethnic group) aren't even aware that their assumptions are assumptions (rather than universal, often unconscious "givens") until they encounter and learn about other cultures and modes of thinking. Part of assuring safe AGI development seems contingent upon involving a diverse group of individuals in the discussion process associated with such a development.

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1 - A few words about the Singularity: I've recently learned that my initial impressions of what Singularity refers to were quite incorrect, or at least woefully incomplete.

For a while I held the impression that people "interested in the Singularity" were relying more on faith than reason as far as future technological developments were concerned. I get very leery whenever I come across people trying to name exact calendar dates when a given technology is going to "arrive"; for some reason that gives me a mental image with more than a passing similarity to mythical Rapture motifs.

However, what I've learned recently is that there are quite a few Very Smart People actively working on figuring out how to hasten certain aspects of a possible Singularity, and on how to best control some of the risks that could emerge from an exponential increase in, say, machine intelligence.

Singularity is not about sitting idly by in one's armchair waiting for the benevolent nanobots to swarm under your front door, fix your eyesight, and offer you the Key To All Knowledge And Ultimate Wonderfulness -- rather, it's about rational discourse and action with respect to bringing new technologies into being safely while at the same time bringing possible risks into global consciousness in enough time to give us a fighting chance at mitigating them.

In short, I'm very glad to have discovered the "Rational Singularity" and those involved in charting and engineering it to whatever extent turns out to be possible. It's not a matter of believing in anything so much as it is about thinking about and working on particular things. And so far, all the rational Singularity-interested folks I've met are quite emphatic about avoiding exact date predictions, since obviously nothing happens until it happens, and the best any of us can do is contribute to making certain things happen!

$3.5 Million Pledged to Longevity Research

It seems that the cause of healthy life extension has an ally in Peter Thiel, founder of popular online payment service PayPal, who recently donated a tidy $3.5 million to anti-aging research.

This donation includes allocations for SENS pilot projects, which is definitely good news...SENS has been discussed and debated every which way for the past few years, and it is most certainly time to start verifying things experimentally and starting actual work on potential interventions for the root causes of age-related infirmity.

The important thing to remember about this sort of thing is that the big donations would likely never have come in if not for all the people making smaller and more frequent donations over time -- this is part of what I was talking about in my Optimization entry with regard to things that everyone can do to help.

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I realize this is rather short, but the story has been covered fairly extensively online already; I just wanted to make sure it got a mention here since it's such tremendous news.

And I'm still working on my impressions of the AGI workshop. Stay attuned!

Also, if all goes well, there might also be another podcast coming out this Friday. I have a question for those who have listened to either of the 2 previous files: how was the sound quality? In particular, was the volume reasonable? Thanks!

Horizon Expansion with AGI - Introduction

Though Heinlein offers an eloquent ode to versatility in justification of the adage, "specialization is for insects", it cannot be denied that specialization gets things done. At least in certain contexts, some of which may end up being critical contexts in coming years. However, specialization need not be absolute, and there is value in pursuing and maintaining some degree of broader education regarding the emerging world and its ever-developing technologies.

Granted, I'm the sort of person who easily finds delight and wonder in simple things, but I'm always up for expanding my horizons a bit. And if this expansion appeals to my technophilic side, and could potentially have applications that correspond to my H+ / life-extension agendas and interests, all the better. Hence, my venturing out this afternoon to attend an Artificial General Intelligence workshop in nearby Palo Alto, CA.

My interest / involvement in transhumanism emerged organically through a sort of discovery process in which I learned that there were, in fact, other people in the world who shared my delight in existence and desire to maximize the good of that existence whilst managing risks that threaten it for everyone. My primary focus in this realm is (and has always been) that of radical life extension, since I firmly believe that there's no good reason for anyone to submit to the injustices of biological lottery with regard to their own existence.

Once someone is alive, self-aware, and operating as an established person, that person should ideally have the right to exist for as long as he or she pleases. All involuntary deaths of persons are deep tragedies, and I look forward to the day when the only horror associated with thoughts of age-related death is found in retrospective indignation that we didn't do something about it earlier.

In my mind, life extension is actually sort of woven together with interests in space travel, cosmology, evolutionary biology, robots, neurology, and physics. Artificial intelligence is one of those things I've always found tremendously intriguing, but only recently has it become clear to me that (a) AI isn't just science fiction anymore -- real people are putting serious effort into creating it, and (b) if AI is to be developed in capacities that exceed human capacities in many ways, it is vitally important to constrain the actions of such an AI such that it acts in the best interest of other individuals (a group which would certainly include humans, sapient nonhumans, and posthuman biological or machine-forms).

And my current appraisal of the situation leads me to believe that learning a bit more about AI is by no means a waste of time or a distraction from the life-extension paradigm; rather, I see it as something intimately connected. Of all the potential emerging future technologies people in H+ circles seem to be discussing these days, human-level and self-improving AI and radical life extension efforts certainly have some potential to act in concert. That is, I'm sure a superhuman intelligence could be a very valuable resource with regard to helping humans solve the aging problem (though we certainly shouldn't sit on our hands waiting for it!).

The self-improving AI scenario seems similar to actuarial escape velocity in a way; both involve getting to a point wherein "something is possible", and then moving forward from that point onward along a curve whose shape cannot be reliably estimated until we get a bit closer to that first breakthrough, and even then, there is still plenty of randomness in the equation.

The workshop today began with introductions; attendant persons were named and identified as to some of their interests and / or credentials. A lot of the names sounded familiar, and I did experience the rather curious phenomenon of having people introduce themselves as so-and-so from one or more of the e-mail lists I subscribe to. I say "curious phenomenon" in part because it became abundantly clear to me that the California SF Bay Area could be some sort of transhumanist hotbed. There are a lot of us here! Which I consider to be a good thing, particularly with regard to the potential for collaborative efforts. I'm certainly no social butterfly (rather, I'm a healthy introvert who tends to get a bit weirded out by people who seem to need to visit the bathroom in groups, but I digress), but occasionally venturing out to hear / swap ideas from and with like-minded technophiles and progressives and life-extensionists seems like a rather healthy thing to do.

The presentation was divided into a series of 30 - 40 minute sub-presentations, all of which I noted seemed to pass by very quickly. The first section was entitled, AGI & The Singularity, presented by Finnish researcher Ari Heljakka. This presentation was a sort of overview of the relation of AGI to coming technological and social change; as Ari Heljakka (and practically everyone else who spoke) noted, time constraints did not allow for an in-depth technical explanation of the complexities of the issues at hand.

Nevertheless, the speakers were able to get into some reasonable dialogue with regard to the most important issues surrounding AGI development, and this prompted many a thought while listening. The next entry (or series of entries) in this blog will describe some of what I got from the presentations, in terms of both new understanding and reactions and lines of reasoning.

On Optimization

Yesterday I found myself saying at dinner: "I am currently attempting to optimize my time". And it's true. As someone who actually wants to do something about the emerging future rather than just think about how amazingly awesome it's going to be (or alternatively, what sorts of dystopias are likely to emerge), I do find myself frequently asking: "Is this really what I ought to be doing right now?" (and yes, I do think writing this blog entry right now IS what I ought to be doing...or at least, it's a low-risk activity).

Ideally, I'd like to be doing something more constructive with more of my time. Working is a good thing, but my job isn't necessarily as aligned with my goals and visions for the future as I'd like it to be. However, I don't see how I can be a productive member of the H+ community without sufficient funding, and plus, some aspects of my job have provided valuable education with regard to engineering processes and time management.

Plus, being able to maintain Net access, attend occasional conferences (when I'm lucky), invest in research materials when necessary, and donate to good causes all depend upon my being part of the market economy. No income, no output.

Perhaps at some point in the future, the economy will be set up differently and people won't need to spend so much of their time at work, but we're not there yet. Certainly, if you have the motivation, imagination, and connectivity to work full time in transhumanism without having to do anything else for funding, by all means, do so.

But let's be realistic: if healthy life extension is to be achieved in time for many of us currently alive to take advantage of it, people need to start taking action now, with available resources, not imaginary ones. That is, we can't afford to wait for certain tools to develop before making a start.

Everyone can do something. You don't need to quit your job to be a Good Transhumanist or life-extensionist even if your job doesn't specifically pertain to the sorts of goals and technologies that you're trying to support and help bring about. Certainly, take advantage of opportunities that are aligned with your ideas if they come along (and there's nothing wrong with keeping an eye out for more). But don't risk losing everything if you've got a steady and stable support system that is bolstering your efforts in the healthy life extension community.

If you're one of those already working full time on trying to creatively engineer the future for excellence, you have my utmost respect. But those of us with day jobs can do plenty to help as well. And one of the primary things to remember about having a day job is that yes, you are allowed to keep it as a "day" job. My job has many good points, but at the same time, I need to actively resist letting it become the centre of my existence. It's okay to keep your evenings and weekends for yourself and your non-work projects. Who knows...perhaps some of the first revolutions that lead to escape velocity will be accomplished in part due to people's "spare time". It all adds up.

And on a completely unrelated note, I would like to offer a massive thank you to April Smith, whom you may recognize from the Mprize page (and her wonderful ongoing CR diary). Though Ms. Smith and I haven't really conversed, the food ingredients she often posts about have become my new lunch staples. She's right on about the protein! My lunches recently have consisted of things like cooked eggwhites, spinach, tomato, with a small amount of flax oil on top.

I must say, I have never felt so sprightly all throughout the afternoons. I have been interested in Caloric Restriction for a number of years now, and though I'm not a formal practitioner (in that I don't weigh everything), I do try to make sure nothing I eat is devoid of nutritional value (though special occasions can lead to some exceptions here, but I keep that to a minimum). I also drink lots of water and not much else aside from tea.

Honestly, it is not very difficult to do this -- and I very strongly recommend a nutrition change to anyone who feels that they're feeling sad or anxious. I have always been a very exuberant / joyful person, but I'm definitely able to handle stress much better since revamping my eating habits somewhat. Part of making use of non-work hours effectively has definitely included learning to eat properly.

My own optimization process is still continuing, and one thing I'm trying to work on now is setting up more of a consistent schedule for working on projects. Schedules don't need to be stodgy or stifling, especially when you're working on things in your own home.

Neurodiversity, H+, and the Naturalistic Fallacy

An article entitled, How much do we really know about the causes and incidence of autism?, was published on September 6, 2006, by Jeremy Laurance.

Why, Laurance asks, the recent upswing of interest in autism? He offers the following assertion as a potential motivation:

In the social world in which we live, the capacity to read situations and respond appropriately is crucial to success and can mean the difference between popularity and loneliness. Autism disturbs something that is core to our being human.

For such a short quote, there's certainly a lot of loaded language in there. Let's consider the "loaded" parts one at a time, while discussing the implications for transhumaist thought and posthuman society:

1. The social world in which we live

The "social world" being referred to here is, almost assuredly, mainstream Western society. The author is employing a presuppositionalist approach here, much in the manner of various religious apologists. He is assuming this social world as not only a universal given, but something that is obviously the right social world. And while I do not deny that this world might be the best of all possible worlds right now, I do not think that society as it is represents the best it could be.

That's part of what transhumanism is about: being able to look beyond presuppositions most people take for granted and think about how it might be possible to create societies, as well as individuals, that are "better than well".

2. The capacity to read situations and respond appropriately

Hmm. Exactly which "situations" are we talking about here? Autistic people tend to be wonderful at "reading situations" in certain cases; many of us are adept at figuring out how physical mechanisms work, and more than a few of us have a keen awareness when it comes to the feelings and perceptual processes of various nonhuman animals.

However, the article quoted seems to be selectively referring to those "situations" that autistic people tend to have difficulty with, such as social encounters between humans that require real-time assessment of unwritten rules and that may necessitate such things as strategic dishonesty, i.e., "white lies".

This is an example of the naturalistic fallacy -- that is, giving something free reign to exist and not questioning it, since "that's just the way things are". This fallacy has been used to falsely justify everything from the subjugation of women to slavery to discrimination against homosexuals, to opposition to life extension research.

And though there are certainly many, many cases in which something "natural" (that is, uncaused by conscious human effort) is well worth protecting and preserving, it should never be assumed that something should be approved of just because it is approved of by a majority. One only need look to history to see the reasons why this assumption can be dangerous. Even now, the push to cure aging is being opposed by people whose primary argument rests on an unexamined naturalistic fallacy.

As for "responding appropriately", I would suggest that an appropriate response to any situation would be that response which maximizes both the potential positive effects of and the useful knowledge that can be gained from that situation. In addition, the appropriate response ought to seek the outcome that stands the least chance of resulting in harm or pain. Somehow I doubt that any sound, rational person would suggest that bullying an atypical child is the appropriate response to the existence of the atypical child, and yet bullying of atypical children happens all the time.

Yet you don't see people writing articles about how being normal or typical is something that "disturbs the core of our being human". Instead, you see articles like this one which essentially rationalize social customs like gossip, simply because these customs are widespread and widely used. (And I realize the article I linked to does make some good points about communication and the role of language in sapient interactions, but the part where they try to claim that "negative gossip" is a good thing seems like quite a stretch as far as I'm concerned).

Must a posthuman society truly rely on such things as dishonesty, one-upmanship, and "negative gossip" in order to function best and support all individuals in terms of enabling them to reach their goals? I would certainly hope not!

3. Crucial to success

Success is a very relative term.

There exist nonautistic people in the world who spend their whole lives living with their parents, drinking beer, and eating Cheetos.

There also exist autistic people who go on to earn PhDs and work very happily as scientists, engineers, authors, and artists.

There are nonautistic people in the world who also earn PhDs and work happily in their chosen fields.

There are autistic people who spend their lives living with their parents and never learn to drive a car or attend university, but who spend their days very happily, painting or watching movies or playing in the back yard.

There are nonautistic people who grow up and become gardeners or garbage collectors, and who are plenty fine with this arrangement.

I personally don't think I have the right to define for anyone else what "success" is. Nevertheless, I do find it saddening when people are hindered from doing what they most want to accomplish, by virtue of societal discrimination or their own insurmountable intrinsic limitations -- and therefore I do support consensual, reality-based therapies and educational formats that can help people meet their goals. It is important, though, to acknowledge that just because someone isn't doing exactly what you would do if you were them, it doesn't mean that person is either ignorant or "afraid of success". Paternalistic arrogance has no place in a free posthuman society.

I think that society, especially in the posthuman era, must necessarily learn to accept an ever-widening range of what things are considered "success" (in part because there will likely be many, many more professions and hobbies to choose from!), and learn to distinguish between a person who is being unfairly hindered and a person who is simply asserting their preferences and living the way that suits them best.

Sometimes, these two things can be difficult to discern between from the outside. I've had people call me "selfish" for my decision not to have children, and I've also had people tell me they feel sorry for me that I'll never know the delights of raising offspring, and that I'm going to be sorry when I'm older and don't have any progeny. This, to me, is insulting, and is exactly the sort of attitude that should not be encouraged in a posthuman society.

No one person needs to do everything or be everything in order to be happy or successful. This applies to women who choose not to reproduce, it applies to every person who chooses to major in art rather than business, and it applies to autistic people who oppose the coercive rewiring of our brains (with the intent of amplifying our ability to engage in typical socialization, at the expense of destroying unique types of sensory perception and perspective, because these things are deemed "superfluous" or "meaningless" or "compensation for a defect").

Notice that I say "coercive" here -- anyone who wants their own brain rewired, for any reason, certainly has my permission to obtain such a rewiring (not that they need my permission). But I think that transhumanists need to be wary of promoting anything that smacks of monoculturalism, since the tremendous range of modifications likely to become available almost certainly means that affiliations will form along lines that we presently cannot even imagine.

If a modification turns out to be something that most people can see the value in, then it's almost assuredly true that most people will take advantage of this modification without any coercive pressure needed. But it is unrealistic to assume that in order to be "successful", every person should be pressured or coerced into applying every modification that comes along. It could very well be that some modifications are incompatible with others; this is true even now, in that you can't have two tattoos in the exact same place on your body without it looking like a mess.

Within reason, people need to be allowed the autonomy to define success for themselves.¹

4. The difference between popularity and loneliness

First of all, this statement presents a false dichotomy. Popularity simply means being known and liked by a large number of people. Not everyone wants to be popular, or cares about being popular. Popularity is as much of an obligation as it is a compliment; modern celebrities can barely leave the house to go shopping without being harassed and photographed at every turn.

And being extremely popular puts a tremendous amount of pressure on people to dress in certain ways, hold certain opinions, drive certain cars, etc. Clearly, "more popularity" doesn't mean "a better life" or even a more successful life. A person can be popular and at the same time uneducated and depressed.

Loneliness is certainly a negative subjective sensation, but "loneliness" is not synonymous with solitude, or with not having many friends. Nonautistic people can be lonely just as readily as autistic people can. And there are means for people of both neurotypes to improve their friend-making and interpersonal skills.

5. Autism disturbs something that is core to our being human

Replace "autism" in the above sentence with "transhumanism" or "radical life extension", and the reason for my analysis of the quote it came from should be abundantly clear.

Whenever I hear phrases like, "core to our being human", I'm reminded very strongly of concepts like Francis Fukuyama's Factor X -- supposedly a mysterious, undefinable "human-ness" that makes it unseemly for us to tinker with our bodies, our lifespans, and our genome. As a transhumanist and someone who aims toward being a progressive thinker, I do not think it would be right or proper to encourage attitudes within transhumanism that seek to, like that of the bioconservatives, set out to establish a standard and sacred human template.

This does not in any way mean that people ought to define themselves by their limits or by what they cannot do, nor does it mean that people shouldn't be helped with things that hinder them in achieving their goals.² I am all in favor of consensual modification, medication, and technological transformation. However, I am most assuredly not in favor of philosophies which rest on defining superficial or questionably significant characteristics (mortality, number of limbs, presence or absence of cyborg-type implants) as the "core of being human" or the "core of being a person" or anything like that.

There are plenty of people out there who feel very strongly that life would have no meaning -- that persons cannot essentially be persons -- if lives were drastically and indefinitely expanded. There are also plenty of people who shudder at the very notion of attempting to alter our genetics or morphological features, based on a subscription to a "human essentialism" idea that would definitely discriminate against the future existence of many of the forms transhumanists hope to take, or have the opportunity to take.

The key objective here is to take the power of self-determination away from centralized standardization forces and away from tyrannical majorities, and give it to people. I don't want anyone telling me what I can and cannot do with my brain any more than I want people telling me what I ought to do with my uterus. And similarly, if I wanted children of my own, I would not wany anyone pressuring me into weeding out the potential babies that weren't "perfect" enough, or coercing me into modifications for my child that would be questionable with regard to both their safety and their inherent goodness.

However, like any rational person, I'd certainly want to give my child the best chance at being born healthy and viable. I would take advantage of good, science-based knowledge regarding prenatal nutrition, I would vaccinate my kid to prevent him/her from contracting deadly diseases, and I would attempt to provide that child with the finest in terms of education.

And like many forward-thinking folks, if there were safe and effective genetic modifications I could use to assure my child would enjoy a longer lifespan, improved resistance to cancer, clear lungs, a strong heart, and a brain not prone to things like clinical depression or seizures, I'd be absolutely in favor of these modifications. But I wouldn't subscribe to notions of absolute genetic determinism with regard to personality, character, preference, and predilection.

It seems very likely that autism will be discovered to be a different sort of brain, perhaps a brain that favors objective information about the environment over socially-transmitted information. For instance this study indicates that (emphasis mine):

We found that individuals with ASD are able to discriminate false memory items from true items significantly better than are control subjects. Memory in patients with ASD may be more accurate than in normal individuals under certain conditions. These results also suggest that semantic representations comprise a less distributed network in high-functioning adults with ASD. Furthermore, these results may be related to the unusually high memory capacities found in some individuals with ASD.

I am concerned that attempts to define "human-ness" or "personhood" exclusive of autism -- a configuration that is currently widely misunderstood but that most certainly allows for documentable strengths and does not in any way shape, or form intrinsically guarantee that someone is going to have a worse life than anyone else -- are just feeding into the kind of reactionary human racism championed by the biocon crowd.

If social pressures manage to eliminate people with Asperger's (whether through compulsory "cures" or coercive eugenics ), for instance, on the basis that somehow society doesn't need us or would be better off without us, what fate is in store for advocates of healthy life extension, cryonics, morphological freedom, atheism, or a pro-choice stance?

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1 - An example of "unreasonable" granting of autonomy to self-determine would be that of approving of people who want permission to stay shot up on narcotics all the time without ever doing anything else with their lives.

Addicts are made, not born, and if sapient persons don't go into an experience expecting or wanting to become an addict (which would probably be most people who end up with chemical dependencies), then it seems safe to assume that intervening to prevent and treat addiction is a good thing.

However, I think there is very, very little danger of us becoming a society of "wireheads", hooked up to endorphin-promoting levers in life-support tanks; consciousness has evolved such that people crave greater complexity of experience.

2 - Neurodiversity advocates have often been accused of being "against parents who want to help their children", or "against therapy". Neither of these is true. What we are against is prejudice, unexamined bias, and willful ignorance of reality. As a transhumanist, I fully expect that means will be developed for all sorts of people to overcome their own unwanted limitations.

We already have medication to treat things like depression and ADHD, and many people without any sort of diagnosis are interested in access to safe and cheap pharmaceuticals that would enhance wakefulness, academic performance, and athletic ability.

We have meditation and mindfulness techniques for people that wish to become more introspective.

We have confidence-boosting courses and exercises people can engage in to improve their social abilities.

None of these things are bad. I think they're quite good.

What I consider to be "bad" is when an outside agent comes along and tells me that there's something wrong with me because my preferences differ from theirs, or because my sensory profile is different from average. When people tell me that I ought to seek a cure because my hearing is hypersensitive, I'd like to know if they'd ask the same of a bat or a dog. When people suggest that autistic children need to be "cured" so that they'll be more prone to dress according to the fashion whims of their classmates, I think THAT is a bad thing as well.

But if someone suggests that hey, we ought to find a way to help people with communication difficulties communicate, I'm definitely in favor of things like that. And I'm also in favor of means to help people find ways to avoid injuring themselves or experiencing crippling anxiety -- two things which absolutely cannot be deemed the exclusive province of either autistic or nonautistic people.

The (H+)appiness Factor

One of the things that attracted me to transhumanism (and specifically to the healthy life extension community) was the fact that here, finally, was a loose gathering of individuals and ideas that actually celebrated existence and personhood, rather than denigrating these things and putting forth a memetic complex designed to make people feel guilty for the mere fact of being alive.

I recall noticing in around mid-elementary school that at some point, it had stopped being okay to admit you liked anything (aside from the accessories associated with a narrow set of fads) -- one of the main things that got me bullied, oddly enough, was my enthusiasm. I liked science, and I liked talking about it, but somehow the other kids seemed determined to bring me down to a predetermined level of misery. And by high school, it seemed that the unhappier a person was, the more fashionable they became -- all the "really cool kids" were drinking themselves into oblivion on the weekends, and engaging in acts of poorly-disguised self-mutilation.

While I don't doubt that plenty of people suffer from real chemical imbalances, I am extremely skeptical of the notion that all instances of supposed depression are evidence of organic, brain-based illness. According to one study:

The rate of depression has doubled in the US since WWII, with each generation showing greater rates of the depression than the last. Before 1905, about one percent of Americans experienced depression by age 75. By 1950, six percent experienced depression by age 24.

- Adbusters' "A Bibliography of Toxic Culture"

I imagine that this supposed increase is due in part to improved diagnostic screening for depression, coupled with increased awareness of the condition -- and of course, such a dramatic increase in awareness is a logical consequence of technology that increases the rate at which social and cultural information can disperse itself in a population.

However, another part of the emotional malaise equation is probably a sort of memetic disease: it's no longer "cool" to be happy, at least not without some therapist telling you it's okay to be happy and that you don't need to feel guilty for using up a portion of the world's air and space. And I am becoming fairly convinced that it is, perhaps, a minority of the modern population that is truly "dealing" healthily with accelerating change and the promises and perils of new technologies lingering just on the horizon (and already leaking, to some extent, into our everyday lives).

Transhumanism and life extension efforts are, in my mind, part of a much-needed reaction to the pervasive depression sweeping through the modern populace -- regardless of the source of this depression. Much-needed because life is just going to get worse for individuals and groups if we can't come to terms with the reality of our existence as conscious, free beings who have every right to be here (at least as much right as ibex, water molecules, and stars!) and to pursue happiness and learning and productive success (so long as we don't trample on the rights of others to do the same as we'd want for ourselves).

Though there are certainly plenty of things in the modern world in desperate need of fixing -- poverty, racism, pathogenic disease, deadly genetic diseases like cystic fibrosis, Tay-Sachs, and aging -- attempts to fix these things have been initiated, and though initiation is by no means promise of success, at least it's a start.

I am very heartened to see diverse groups of highly motivated persons working to deal with a critical set of existential and individual risks. Rather than buying into the misanthropic, "humanity is a cancer, and you're just one of its tumor cells" memeplex that is probably part of the depressive future shock that is trapping many in a reactionary stupor, these groups are in some ways embodying the sort of healthy embrace of novel technologies that embodies the notion of sapient existence as something worth protecting and embracing as a profound treasure.

I sometimes wonder if our cave and savannah-dwelling ancestors even had the time or opportunity to be depressed; these forefathers of ours, after all, probably did not have time for the modern luxury of existential contemplation in the midst of their constant quest to avoid starvation, predators, and the elements. While there are still people in the world at large who do need to fight tooth and nail for every moment of their continued survival, there is also a burgeoning population consisting of people who have no idea what it is to literally fear for one's life.

This is part and parcel of the "future shock" aspect of modern widespread depression; when survival is taken for granted, the search for meaning and value in one's own existence becomes that much more complex. And this tendency to take one's own survival for granted can be dangerous in its capacity to mask the genuine risks that have only come to light more recently in history, as we've discovered the precariousness of Earth's own integrity (i.e., we're probably due for a catastrophic asteroid or gamma ray hit at some point in the next umpteen years).

I realize I can't force anyone, much less everyone, to appreciate the uniqueness and wonderful qualities of being a free sapient being to the point where they become suddenly motivated to start thinking in larger and longer timeframes and taking action to ensure their own ability to enjoy seeing what those timeframes bring. But between innovative strategies to address the aging problem, efforts to define and actualize Friendly AI, and endeavors prompted by a good, solid appreciation for existential risk associated with living on Earth, there definitely seems to be something for everyone who might have the vaguest compulsion to snap out of the woebegone, the-world-would-be-better-off-without-me (or without people in general) trance that prompts such movements and thought-tides as bio-Luddism and excessive, wasteful caution. And there is definitely a difference between rational, reality-based caution and the sort of misguided apprehension that could very well result in millions of needless deaths stemming from the delay of the arrival of real anti-aging treatments.

As technology accelerates and persons accumulate and process more and more information in the communal knowledge-bank of science, it seems only logical that as old risks die out, people need to adjust to the absence of these risks -- not by acting to prevent technologies from being developed, but by changing their mindset and developing an awareness of the value of sapient sentience and existence. As a thought exercise, I would like to ask every apathetic and melancholy person on this planet: why do you look both ways before crossing the street if you don't value your own existence on a fundamental level? And if this thought exercise allows you to realize that you do value existence, why not do something to celebrate this and contribute to efforts that could help preserve it for many years to come?