Human Evolution & the Technological Singularity

Introduction

What was once the stuff of science fiction and fantasy has now become very much an important part of reality. The Idea of Artificial Intelligence, Matrix like worlds, Immortality and the Manipulation of vast amounts of energy are quickly becoming the norm, but what has not been addressed are the affects of these technological revolutions on Humanity. Tonight id like to hold for you an expose of sorts of the latest technological achievements and how they directly relate to human evolution both in the physical and spiritual sense of the word.

Technology is all around us. It penetrates every aspect of life and has allowed us to extend our capacity for growth and development in every field. It’s made vast distances smaller; extended our life spans; made things easier and more comfortable and has very much become a luxury taken for granted.

Today technology is so Intimately woven in to society, that if it were taken away, there would be mass confusion as telecommunications are cut off; Mass poverty and starvation as food and water can no longer be transported to areas in need; and countries would become fragmented as things such as Education, Governance and Defense would eventually dissolve into small communities and lose their uniformity.

We can already begin to see just how connected human evolution and technology really are, but what about the struggle between spirituality and materialism? Isn’t technology making us more Materialistic? Wouldn’t a push away from technology and into more natural elements, or perhaps even an older and more wiser time, make us more spiritual? Isn’t society just getting worse, with technology being the main drive behind it?

Human Evolution

Irrespective of whether you believe in Intelligent Design or Evolution; spirituality or materialism; what all parties agree on is that we are all constantly changing right now at this very moment (in fact it could be said that the only real permanent thing is change itself). So if we consider this for our foundation behind what we discuss tonight we can summarise evolution as the changing of environmental conditions and the physical, spiritual or mental adaptation to those changes.

Mikhayl Von Riebon 1 Human Evolution & the Technological Singularity

My car breaks down, so I cant rely on it to get me to work this week, instead ill use public transportation. Change and Adaptation to environmental factors. This is exactly the scenario we face today and indeed, what life has always faced in order to promote change and growth.

Roughly over 100 years ago a person could be what was known as a ‘renaissance man’ where one could be educated in all fields of science, art and politics. Today this is no longer the case because all these fields have exploded in information and now it is only possible to specialise in a field in order to help expand it.

Even before this it was possible to keep to one’s self or a close nit community of persons, being totally unaffected by the actions outside that community; again this is impossible, except for those few hidden nomadic tribes. Today we can see the chain effect that the world economy has in every part of the globe. What happens on Wall St can be seen through its affect on the Nikkei, and so on.

It is this knock on effect that really is apparent through out all of human evolution from the past 700,000 years. Tribes and clans are an example of this, where humans bonded together for survival, protection, food and reproduction.

Even today we have evolved to a point where Synergy and Social Networking are the words of the era, and further evolution is dependent on every person to help push the evolutionary bar just that little bit further whether that be paying your taxes or helping to find a cure for cancer.

Technological Singularity

The Technological Singularity is another term that, according to fast growing scientific groups, will become just as common. One of the strongest advocates of the Technological Singularity is Ray Kurzweil who is one of five members of DARPA, also known as the Defense and Research Projects Agency, and he refers it to a (quantum physics) singularity-like phenomenon where technological achievements are rapidly accelerating.

Some of you may already feel this way that society is moving faster then before and even seems to be speeding up. Eventually through three revolutions consisting of The Genetic Super Human, Nanotechnology and the development of AI (Artificial Intelligence), the singularity is said to attain its zenith, where AI goes on to build smarter and faster AI, and they likewise go onto do the same ad infinitum.

The Singularity has also attracted other high profile members of the scientific community from various fields such as robotics, biochemistry, neuropsychology, computational physics, IT, Military and the Health Sector. All these people have been pulled together with the sole intention of bringing about these revolutions.

But it would appear that very little has been done in discussing these subjects with the wider community. What are the implications of these revolutions in regards to Morality, Justice, Social infrastructure, Spirituality and the very fabric of human existence? For example what would happen to the work force if we could produce cheap, 100% loyal, no sick-day, no holiday pay AI? How would this impact the Economy? How would it impact our lives to never have to work? Ask yourself “what would I do if I didn’t have to go to work?”

What about Immortality? What if immortality were bought at the chemist? Although your body were immortal how would this affect your mind? What if immortality could only be bought by the rich?

Or what about entering into a virtual world so real that the only way you could tell it was fake, was by the fact that you were told it was before entering? What about if you weren’t told and you believed it to be real? What if you were to be digitally reborn into a succession of many virtual lives you thought were real and you never had any memory of the life before? How does this scenario relate to reincarnation?

Social Networking

Some of you might recently have heard words such as Myspace, Facebook, Youtube and Ebay; some of you might even be using these websites yourselves. These are websites that offer unique services such as buying and selling items from other users all around the world to sharing home videos and cinematic creations with countless audiences.

But more importantly what all these websites have in common is that they are driven by the need for Human Contact or Social Networking. We’ve always known that people need people either for survival or affection but throw the internet into the mix and you see an unprecedented level of human contact and interaction.

Where previously the separation between villages, nations and continents would see large differences in social quirks, beliefs, values, language development and the like, Social Networking is allowing these differences to become reduced somewhat dramatically. Simultaneously websites like facebook and myspace provide the tools for people to pick and choose their own religion, beliefs, ideas, education, friends and ultimately their identity.

Take these terms for example:

These are abbreviations that have simply arisen out of the need for short quick answers when chatting online. Social Networking has truly ushered in the custom age but what are the wider implications of this? What does this mean for Communication and language? What does this mean for the development of the Ego?

MMORPG

MMORPG or Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game is another explosive social networking device. Imagine taking the most engrossing video games and combining with what we just discussed and you begin to get an idea of what we’re looking at.

World of Warcraft is one such MMORPG where Users create characters for themselves, either Good or Bad and join other users and Factions to go on quests or wage war against the opposing side in a 3 Dimensional Virtual Environment. As of January this year the world of warcraft population exceeded 10 million users and consisted of up to 63% of Users for the entire MMORPG Market. For numbers sake that’s more than double the population of New Zealand.

Another Major ‘up and coming’ MMORPG is Second Life where just as the name implies, people can actually take up a second life containing everything from your own house, family (with other actual users), and jobs. You can even actually earn money in second life which can then be transferred into real money in the real world.

Universities have opened academies in second life as a preferred form of distance learning where people can gather together and hear a lecture from an actual professor in another part of the world. And just like with distance education, the courses you take can actually be credited as real education in the real world.

Even countries such as Sweden, Serbia and other European nations have officially opened embassies in second life as a cost effective means of diplomatic associations. Corporations have the capacity to hold meetings in second life, allowing people from all over the world to meet without having to leave home. And what is driving further development for more complex and attractive worlds is the fact that people are willing to spend large amounts of money for it.

Mind Control

In May this year an article in the New York times was published describing an ongoing study involving the use of monkeys and robotic arms. Researchers from the university of Pittsburgh and Carnegie Mellon University demonstrated that through the use of a BMI or Brain Machine Interface, they could train a monkey to use a robotic arm with nothing more then the power of it’s mind.

This advancement has caught a great deal of attention both from the commercial, medical and military fields. And we can already begin to imagine both the positive and negative applications for such a device.

One such commercial use of the BMI is that of project Epoc by a company called Emotiv systems, which also happens to be an Australian based company. Epoc is a game controller designed to sit on the head and read the thoughts of its user through a standard EEG or electroencephalographic device. The thoughts are then transferred into real time commands and you can then go onto control either your computer, TV or mobile phone simply by thinking it.

Specifically, for the technically minded, It can measure four categories of inputs:

 Conscious thoughts  Emotions  Facial expressions  & Head rotation and movement

The device is suppose to be released in the US at Christmas for about $400 Australian and already, deals are being considered with current popular gaming platforms such as the Wii.

Artificial Intelligence

Out of all of what we’ve discussed tonight, artificial intelligence must be the most singularly important subject. It asks the questions “what is it to be Human?”, “is there a soul?” and “could we potentially be creating something which could destroy us?” but deeper then that the pursuit of AI is a symptom of the most outstanding thing that we have discussed here tonight, namely the Human need for contact.

Even the program SETI (or the Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence) is a prime example of this need. And after spending a countless number of years searching for life beyond our own we are now turning to AI to be our Pinocchio. So let’s take a quick look now at exactly how far we are along that path.

Multi-Robot Pursuit System

The Department of Defense’ Small Business Innovation Research website recently posted an article on the development of a Multi-Robot Pursuit System which they hope to introduce into the military. The project involves three stages but by stage three it’s hoped that Military or Corporate based Robotic Machines will be able to “Intelligently and autonomously search for objects within search and rescue, fire fighting, reconnaissance, and automated biological, chemical and radiation sensing [from] mobile platforms.” The project is also expected to carry on to Hostile forces and uncooperative individuals.

In other words what is being designed here is a system where robots can be deployed to autonomously track and capture or rescue people. Although not quite AI it demonstrates the beginning of utilising autonomous machines in the Military and Commercial fields.

Asimo is a humanoid robot created by the Honda Motor Company. Standing at 130 centimeters tall and weighing 54 kilos, ASIMO resembles a small astronaut wearing a backpack and can walk or run on two feet at speeds of up to 6 km/h. This particular lineage of robots, have been progressively evolving since 1986 and the model you see here is actually the 15th generation.

ASIMO has the Capacity for the:

1. Recognition of moving objects

2. Recognition of postures and gestures

3. Environmental recognition

4. Distinguishing sounds

Including being able to respond to questions, either by a brief nod, a shake of the head or a verbal answer.

5. And Facial recognition

Asimo also has the ability to utilize networks such as the Internet or Intranet. Through these ASIMO can provide information and function better for various commercial applications, such as, as a receptionist or Host. Although again not quite AI, ASIMO is a perfect example of the ‘Pinnochio syndrome’ where we strive to build things in our own image.

GORDON the Robot

Next we have Gordon the Robot and this really is quite exciting. Developed at the United Kingdom’s University of Reading, GORDON the robot must be the closest we have come to the birth of Artificial Intelligence. Scientists have placed 50 – 100, 000 Rat neurons in a specially treated formula connected to an MEA or Multi electrode array (In essence becoming a biological CPU) which inturn is wirelessly connected to a toy robot.

The rat neurons control the robot, sending out electrical messages, which move the robot about. The robot then interacts with the environment which sends back stimulus to the neurons. This stimulus allows the neurons to learn and develop and eventually start to gain control over its motor functions.

Sadly Gordon will only have a life span of roughly 2 years as the neurons will eventually die, but what’s next on the agenda is developing silicon based neurons with the capacity of communicating with the brain matter and eventually taking over its role once the grey matter becomes redundant. Once this happens we will be looking at the very first Artificially Intelligent machine with the capacity to learn and grow.

Random Facts

Before we move onto asking some hard questions I thought Id share with you some other articles I came across that I think deserved some attention, so ill briefly run through these with you.

 August 2008 Seoul National University, South Korea

Brenann McKinney is united with five puppies that are perfect clones of her beloved deceased pet ‘Booger.’ Cloned from the deceased dog’s ear tissue, the event has been hailed as the world's first commercial cloning of a pet dog.

Soon after this a prediction from the CEO of a leading Bioengineering company stated that within 40 years we will see the first genetically engineered custom pet, such as a real life Furby or a pet dragon.

 August 2008, Adelaide Australia

Telstra Demonstrated, at a Conference in Adelaide, a new Holographic device that they hope will become widely available within five years. The projection was made in real time, from Melbourne to Adelaide via a fibre optic cable and utilises a sonar type of image capture and projection that allows for complete body imaging.

 July 2008 San Francisco

San Francisco authorities were locked out of the city's official computer network for four days after a disgruntled employee removed access for everyone but himself.

The network handles up to 60 per cent of the city's government data such as emails, employee financial details, police documents and jail records. The man was arrested earlier that week after deleting all accounts with access to the system but his own.

 October 2008 Shanghai

Scientists from the Medical College of Georgia in Augusta and the East China Normal University in Shanghai ‘selectively’ removed a shocking memory from a mouse’s brain, purely by altering levels of alpha-CaMKII as the memories were being retrieved.

Joe Tsien, a neuroscientist at the Medical College of Georgia stresses however that this technique could not be used on humans as it involves genetically engineering a protein in the brain, but future studies may reveal other ways to selectively forget.

 Plymouth University

At Plymouth University's Future Music Lab, Dr. Eduardo Miranda and his team are attempting to play musical instruments using brain waves alone. By cutting out the middlemen - the fingers - they hope to develop methods by which, for example, the disabled could express themselves musically.

The device works by showing the subject a range of sounds and recording the brain patterns through an EEG. A computer stores these patterns and the subject is then asked to think the sounds they heard. If the subject can correctly recreate the sounds in their head, the computer will then play out the corresponding note. Although in its preliminary stages, it’s expected that eventually full songs will be created through the power of the mind.

Through this technology the Plymouth researchers also envisage new kinds of entertainment devices and, possibly, the creation of brain-wave controlled instruments.

Thoughts

So we’ve gone through quite a bit of the latest developments in the fields of science and technology and I think now we can begin to seriously ask questions and consider the implications that these devices have on us as individuals and our evolution as a whole. At the centre of this questioning of course is none other than the Ego, so lets take a quick look at the anatomy of the Ego for a moment and see what we can come up with.

Here we can see a successive series of circles and at the centre we begin with the Monad. Ill share with you just a side note as well, if you were to consider the universe as subjective and simply the sum of all subjective knowledge then this here could be considered one universe. Now to look at this you really need to consider this from your own subjective point of view looking out. So you are the centre, of the monad and the first thing that you experience is the division between your sense of self and the world around you.

Once this differentiation takes place, you then have the capacity to see the distinctions between internal noumena & dialogue and external actions. In psychology, according to the Loevinger's ‘stages of ego development,’ this stage is called infancy. From there we begin to value and to further identify external objects from other external objects, almost like cellular division and where we see ourselves as the centre of these gravitational movements.

As these identities are established we further the complexity of our identity. In fact the two worlds of the external and internal are so intimately interdependent that what happens to one directly affects the other. This is the raw essence of relationships; how we act in regards to our partners, our families and friends, the people on the street or even people we know about but have never met, our emotional and mental dispositions towards them also defines our identities.

We can even consider this Simple design in Cartesian Dimensions, now I wont actually go through this but I wanted to demonstrate that the very dynamic between self and not self and the process of identification carries on so far as to be used within Logic & Newtonian Physics. Remember too, to take this from a subjective position rather than an Objective one.

So keeping this in mind lets consider Several of the Key technological developments we’ve discussed tonight and how that impacts on this amazing cosmic construct.

Firstly we had Social Networking and MMORPG. To break it down what we are really looking at with Social networking & MMORPG is the further development of multiple personalities. Now we already have this to some varying degree, where we are one type of person to our family, another to work mates, another to those that we don’t like or those that we don’t know. But now we have people completely removing themselves from their standard day to day lives and seeing them take up persona’s that would only really exist in fiction.

Today in such a fast paced environment we are demanding people to learn how to multi-task. Our computers have even been introduced to Dual or quad core CPUs which basically means they have more then one computer brain processing multiple applications at the same time. How peculiar that the demands of human capacity should also reflect that of computers.

Our minds right now are processing multiple applications. There is sensory stimulus; we might be worrying about that thing we forgot to do the other day; or that fight we had the other night; or the song that keeps playing in our head in the background. In fact there could be many different thoughts running in our head right now but we are not aware of them; they are in fact autonomous and lying just underneath the threshold of awareness.

What if it were possible to learn how to become aware of these many trails of thoughts to the point where it seemed we had multiple brains? What would happen to the Ego? What would happen to our sense of identity? What if we could be multiple people at once, thinking multiple things and yet be aware of all of it simultaneously?

We Conceptually know the Ego to be nothing more then a tight knot of ideas and beliefs, either biologically or cosmically grown, so perhaps through the true realisation of this we could come to use a number of Egos’ in this fashion.

Let’s now consider the development of Brain-Machine Interfaces. We have come to a point where scientifically we can understand the ego, the brain and the body and how the three can be manipulated. We are obviously on a trend of developing things to make life easier and to make things more efficient, and so the next obvious step as we’ve discussed is allowing direct mental control over the external environment. But the development of BMI’s is more then just not using your hands, its about expanding the mind’s capacity and extending its durability. Its about directly expressing the full potential of the mind which was previously limited by language and the physical body.

What if instead of having to stand here for an hour, I could choose to directly communicate more then just words but states of mind, perceptions, feelings, sensations and ideas about this talk that I couldn’t do through speech. What if partners could (every now and then for recreational purposes) share a mind together much like the star trek Vulcan mind meld? What if your being was no longer limited to here and now or this type of physical body, but could extend beyond linear and spatial constraints?

Once the particular mind is recorded you could literally go back and experience life as another person. What if instead of hearing about Plato and Einstein (or even fictional characters like Luke Skywalker) you could live their lives and feel their struggles? All of these things can be made possible by BMI’s and in fact it will mostly likely be this form of entertainment that will drive the money and research into further development of these capacities.

Virtual worlds and Virtual selves greatly relate to our own spiritual pursuits. We’ve come to consider the Ego and the universe around us as aspects of an absolute truth; illusions that until overcome will keep us from realising this truth.

Lastly what about Artificial Intelligence? As we’ve seen, we really are on the cusp of developing AI. But what does it mean to us? What does it say about life? It says that there really are no distinctions between what is alive and what is inanimate. It says that this whole universe can be considered alive if the word is desired. That all that it is waiting for to attain our awareness and cognitive abilities is an adequate vessel. Much like an eye is needed to see, a brain is needed to think and bring about the ego.

There is a great sense of fear in the prospect of developing AI because of the fact that it will be superior in capacity to us, and that it might decide to hurt us. This kind of scenario can be suited to practically all new things that we don’t quite understand, including shifty looking people we encounter on the street. Ironically as we discussed before, the pursuit of AI is also one out of friendship. So in other words we don’t want to be alone and so we seek to build a friend, and yet at the same time we don’t want it to hurt us.

It also grabs very much at the heart of modern day spirituality. Do robots go to heaven? Can robots attain enlightenment? Do robots have a soul? Do robots work from the monad? Do they create Karma? Can they Reincarnate? After all, if they are modelled after us then what is the difference between man and machine? How do the answers affect us and our ideas and beliefs?

We can already begin to see how we might resist or even deny the rights of such an entity if we were to create it. And again this is a very natural response of the Ego, where its very identity and the order its created over the world around it, is based on certain concepts and ideas it has.

Conclusion

Imagine for just a moment the evolutionary leap that must have taken place in the minds of the people when they discovered that the earth was round and revolved around the sun. What about the proclamation of rights to all men irrespective of race, creed, sex and religious distinction? How many would have denied it? How many would have argued against it? How many would have taken the middle ground? Could we offer the same open mindedness to AI?

To know we were no longer the centre of the universe or that there is no superiority amongst men and women would have been a truly daunting experience, much like a child goes through when they slowly learn that they are not the centre of the universe.

Likewise the realisation of the illusory nature of the ego will also be just as daunting. However it may also be that these technological revolutions will not bring about a release from the Ego paradox. In fact its more likely that the Ego will adapt to the concept of its own illusory nature, and we will still continue to search for enlightenment. Much like the idea that 2 + 2 = 4, we ‘know’ it makes sense but we don’t know why.

Irrespective of the future what these technological movements are telling us now is exactly what the ego is and how it is evolving. Through technology, we are moving past the individual self and becoming a social entity. Maybe our present ideas of self, spirituality, justice and morality will be strengthened or perhaps they’ll be shattered, but what we must keep in mind is that we are evolving and that there really is nothing higher then truth and this includes the self.

Mikhayl Von Riebon 13