Towards the end of a weeklong series of afternoon posts on transhumanism, I emailed Zinnia Jones, a YouTube personality who spoke out in one of the videos I ran, to ask some questions related to the transhumanist movement. Her answers and my own notes follow:
1) What are the limitations of transhumanism? Or does transhumanism even have limitations?
Theoretically speaking, the limits of transhumanism and its progress would be defined by the ultimate physical laws of the natural world. Practically, its progress is (like anything else) limited by the intellectual reach of whatever the foremost intelligence of the time happens to be. If you mean moral and ethical limits, the ethical views and preferred theories of transhumanists can be as diverse as those of any other group. However, there is a broad consensus that supports the value of powerful intelligence and its continued development, the end of involuntary suffering of conscious beings, the technological enhancement and/or replacement of human biology, the eradication of death, human flourishing in general, safety in all of these pursuits, and non-aggression. Transhumanists typically do not value supernatural or non-physicalist beliefs, the restriction of the definition of personhood to human beings or biological life, tradition for its own sake, or satisfaction with a relatively slow pace of technological progress. (Emphasis mine)
Transhumanism offers a challenge to traditional religious dogma. If a robot can be a person, then what happens to God? But it is wrong to see transhumanism as the replacement of supernatural religion with materialism, as transhumanists themselves disagree on the ethical implications of their belief system. Indeed, it is a belief system that eschews belief: like the humanist philosophies that inform it, transhumanism begins and ends in the limits of human potential. One of the most interesting things about transhumanism is that, like many belief systems, it posits a heaven-on-Earth — one made possible through technology, and lying in the future.
2) Is transhumanism a liberation philosophy, and if so is it more evolutionary than revolutionary or the other way around?
Transhumanism, in most of its forms, does involve liberation from certain assumptions of human existence: a finite and tragically short lifespan, the inevitability of suffering, the limited capabilities of the mind, and all of the restrictions imposed by resource scarcity. Whether this is a radical change, or just the next step, is a matter of perspective. Eliezer Yudkowsky conceptualizes transhumanism as simply being a pursuit of the goals of humanism, but without limits or exceptions. Many people are comfortable with incremental progress in medicine, such as improved cancer treatment, artificial organs, better prosthetics, and a slight increase in the average lifespan. Transhumanism adheres to the same underlying principles, but takes them as far as possible. Why not just replace the human body entirely in one fell swoop, and make most or all of these concerns irrelevant? Why not allow enable people to live as long as they choose, with an IQ of over 200 if they wish? Ideas such as these tend to make most people uncomfortable, because they represent a much different vision from human life in its present state, but those who favor a more moderate rate of progress often find it difficult to explain why these goals should be seen as inherently undesirable. Of course, some of them may, upon reflection, find that the ideals of transhumanism are agreeable to them. They may be shocking, but that does not make them wrong or fundamentally different from what non-transhumanists are working toward. Transhumanists are simply working toward them faster, without seeing any need to draw an arbitrary line where the improvement of the human condition suddenly becomes bad, or wait unnecessarily for the sake of ideological comfort with change while living beings are still suffering under their current limitations. (Emphasis mine)
In my interactions with transhumanists, I have noted a striking, almost Buddha-like focus on the alleviation of suffering: the world suffers, therefore we must evolve. At the risk of overbroad generalization, transhumanism is marked by the urge towards faster evolution. Its radicalism is in the rejection of conservative value-barriers towards that evolution. Young people already hardwired to technology are natural recruits to transhumanism — which may seem ironic, given the potential of 200-year lifespans, until you remember that youth wants to be forever young. Transhumanism offers hope for eternal life and vitality.
3) Why do you think transhumanism inspires dystopian nightmares in some people?
Some dystopian nightmares are actually a good thing. Within certain areas of transhumanism, many emphasize the importance of “friendly” artificial intelligence. The concern is that if we develop intelligences which are as smart as or smarter than us, they would be smart enough to develop even greater intelligences in turn, until they reach a point where they are unimaginably superior to the human mind. This is not necessarily a bad thing – it’s actually a goal of many transhumanists – but it’s crucial for a high degree of safety to be incorporated into this process. A vastly greater intelligence would have proportionally greater capabilities in terms of its power to imagine and execute certain plans and successfully accomplish its desired outcomes. This has the potential to be very dangerous, which makes it quite important to consider the absolute worst-case scenarios in order to drive home the necessity of a safe and “friendly” design for these intelligences. However, most people who are troubled by dystopian nightmares of transhumanism are probably not transhumanists themselves. In this case, they’re most likely to have developed these fears from various popular media portrayals of AI run amok at the expense of humanity. These fictional accounts are not actually accurate, because they were designed to provide an entertaining story rather than a reliable prediction of the future. In order to be entertaining, they typically include relatable themes of conflict, hubris, and sentimental emphasis on the importance of the “human spirit”. This does not necessarily have any connection to how the future will unfold in reality. (Emphasis mine)
Another striking aspect of transhumanism is the reversal of normal mythology: man can make gods. The ancient debates about divine intention (think of the Book of Job) are echoed in the question of what kind of gods man ought to make. The Old Testament god of anger and punishment is undesirable and must be avoided; a New Testament god of love is the ideal. It is little wonder, then, that fictive treatments of transhumanism often hit on those classic themes of what man hath wrought. And if you were wondering why you were supposed to care about transhumanism, the answer is that artificial intelligence is probably already a constant presence in your life — while science constantly works to improve AI technology. These questions are grounded not in some fantasy, but in what is already happening.
4) To what extent would you say that a transhumanist “movement” exists?
Because the transhumanist movement is relatively small, most everyone is familiar with its leading voices, who tend to emphasize different aspects of transhumanism and often disagree on certain points. Ray Kurzweil has projected timelines for future technological milestones, which many consider unreliable or baseless. Yudkowsky and the Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence have made it their goal to create a self-improving AI, but found it necessary to develop a theory of ethics and rationality before development could begin. Aubrey de Grey focuses on finding medical treatments to halt the process of aging. There is some tension between the revolutionary possibilities offered by nanotechnology and its potential risks. The idea of converting the human mind into a digital, virtualized form is a persistent theme, along with the possibility of living within simulated realities. Some transhumanists are inclined to make very detailed and specific predictions about future technology and human existence, while others see this as irresponsible and a kind of bad publicity. Some don’t believe it’s likely that AIs with intelligence much beyond that of humans will ever be developed. While there are many diverse views on transhumanism and its goals, most transhumanists seem to focus on their commonalities and shared ideals, and continue to identify as part of the movement. (Emphasis mine)
All cultures share a common belief system and values. Like most belief-systems, transhumanism features a tension between evangelism and orthodoxy. A shared belief in technology as individual and human salvation — “Jesus replaced with a transistor,” as one correspondent jokingly put it to me several years ago — separates on what promises to make about it. We might call these groups the “futurists,” who want to deliver a gospel, and “mystics,” who want to “reveal mysteries” as each new technology is proven and promulgated.
5) Will the transhuman being behave according to a human morality, or some new transhuman one?
It is very difficult to predict with any degree of accuracy what the long-term future of our culture and civilization will be like, especially regarding possible intelligence enhancement and morality. A human-superior being could be highly unpredictable to us, because we would have to be as smart as it is in order to understand its thought processes. It could be as incomprehensible to us as we are to less intelligent species. Even in the absence of any actual transhuman beings, we experience the same challenges when it comes to the ongoing development of morality. If we could accurately predict what our morality would be like 100 years from now, and understand why that morality is the way it is, we would simply adopt that morality at the present time rather than wait a century for it. But we find that this is nearly impossible. Predicting the form transhuman beings will even take – if they ever do exist – is a shot in the dark. Trying to predict what an intelligence greater than ours will create in terms of morality would be no better than guessing, especially when we can hardly tell what our own human descendants will come up with. There is already a vast array of ever-shifting human moralities, and while smarter-than-human beings may very well have the brainpower to generate and contemplate even more ethical systems, I question whether it would be necessary to draw a sharp distinction between human-made and transhuman moralities as if they were entirely different categories of morality – though it could certainly be possible. Either way, we’re in no position to answer this just yet. (Emphasis mine)
Indeed, moral systems emerge in reaction to change. Belief systems are adaptive. Transhumanism itself is a philosophical and ethical reaction to technological progress. On the other hand, efforts to ban or limit stem cell research are a different kind of reaction. All human societies will be wrestling with the changes to come; generally, transhumanism offers those changes a positive and accepting welcome.
6) Is transhumanism a culture, or will transhuman beings take their cultures (and cultural values) with them into posthuman existence?
I would say that transhumanism, at present, is a bit too sparse to constitute a genuine culture in its own right. It is certainly a well-defined area of interest, with various major communities and blogs, though the movement as a whole doesn’t seem to have developed its own distinctive culture. As for the possible cultures of transhuman beings, this is as unpredictable as any other aspect of their existence, but I’d imagine the human cultures they hail from would have some degree of influence on their eventual outcome. I would say that transhumanists themselves do not tend to hold on to values which they believe to be outdated – if a change is called for, they see no problem with updating their values appropriately. But until an actual transhuman intelligence emerges, it’s impossible for any of us to predict what it will choose to do. (Emphasis mine)
One of the defining characteristics of the brave new world we live in is that cultures can no longer exist in isolation. All cultures now react to one another, clashing and sometimes communing over diverse practices, customs, and traditions. So if people one day upload themselves into a Google cloud-heaven, it may resemble the “many mansions” heaven of scripture. I think this is likely, as we already have something of an example in Second Life, an online virtual reality game in which affinity groups create their own worlds. Any culture developed by artificial intelligences, on the other hand, will begin in a virtual environment. Their virtual challenges will shape their virtual culture before they ever meet us.
But what I find most interesting about that last response is Jones’s willingness to cast aside values that might hold back adaptation. The revolutionary-evolution of transhumanism is scientific in the sense that hypotheses may be formed and cast aside freely. In such a system, dogma is the heresy.
My exchange with Ms. Jones has provided much food for thought. What are the chances for movement growth in the years to come? If transhumanism becomes more common as a belief system, how will current moral and cultural identities react or interact with it? Furthermore, is a distinct transhuman cultural identity emerging? I’ll return to these questions in later posts.
