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Probing de Grey Matters AUBREY DE GREY

The Reluctant Transhumanist CHARLIE STROSS

Don’t Leave Your Memory at Home BUILDING BETTER BRAINS

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But please -- don’t just be a consumer. As Humanity Plus: with any initiatory effort, there is plenty of room for improvement via feedback and The New Synthesis participation. So we ask you to increase the value by spreading the word and by adding Contents RU Sirius your own ideas and content to the mix. The Chinese epigram “May you live in Lately, I love it when people out there in the interesting times” was considered a curse. 5 Humanity Plus: The New Synthesis general population ask me what I do. I tell But that’s old thinking. More recently, them that I’m working on a transhumanist Americans have been reasurring them- 6 I Am Ironman! webzine and then pause -- offering no selves with the straightforward saying “Life 7 Skin Phone further explanation -- as if a transhumanist is good.” Indeed. But it could be a whole PETA Wants Meat! magazine were as comprehensible as a lot better. magazine about real estate or pet monkeys. 8 Here’s Jewels in Your Eye It’s a sort of test. Will anybody ever Make it so. H+ Magazine 9 EPOC Neuroheadset have a clue as to what I’m talking about? So far, the answer is no. Not one stranger Addendum: H+ Magazine is published We’re All Edge Cases -- or person outside certain in-the-know by Humanity+. However, not all the views 10 Open Source Robotics Looks Better Than Ever social circles -- has had even a nano-hint and ideas expressed in this publication are Publishers of a clue. the views of that organization. While the 12 Simple Questions/Challenging Answers Humanity Plus By the way, I’m not talking here only general mission of this online periodical is 13 Manipulating Evolution about people who barely know how to turn longevity or high-quality performance to spread transhumanist news and ideas, Editor-in-Chief on a computer. The conversations I’m ref- -enhancing drugs, the body politic is likely this periodical will also enclose dissenting 14 Post-Darwinian Hedonic Engineering to experience the near future as a series of RU Sirius erencing have included those with people views, darker visions, irreverent humor, and 15 The Eye who work at Google and Microsoft, people isolated shocks to prior assumptions unless quirky observations. Anything less than Art Director 17 Engineering an End to Aging who make digital art, and even one guy we suffuse the public discourse with a that would be stiff, boring, and dishonest. who owns a multi-million dollar technol- different view. DC Spensley 20 Probing de Grey Matters ogy startup. The glory of transhumanism is that Copy Editors 23 The Distribution of Post-Humanity After enjoying a few moments of puz- it’s not just a movement of immortalists, zlement in my conversational partner, I am or singularitarians, or advocates of digital Michael Jin and Kristi Scott 24 Don’t Leave Your Memory At Home likely to mention the idea that we might be democratization, or experimenters in self- Special Thanks 28 The Artificial Hippocampus able to stop aging -- or I might mention enhancing technologies. Transhumanism “The Singularity.” Aha! On a rare occasion, reminds us that all -- or at least many -- of Ms. Suzuki The Reluctant Transhumanist there may be a glimmer of recognition. these developments are coming online at Jim Mielke 31 The Sheep Shit Grass (or The End of Scarcity) Someplace, sometime, my conversational about the same time, that they impact each Botox Parties, Michael Jackson, partner had read or heard something: a other, and that they will be remaking our University of Washington vague memory, something noted while societies and our personal experiences of and the Disillusioned Transhumanist sucking at the firehose of endless infotain- the world in tandem. It represents nothing Natasha Vita-More 32 Science Fiction Gets Funding ment. less than an attempt to have a realistic dis- James Clement Clearly transhumanists have some work course about the human future while most 34 Overclocking the Human CPU to do, if the idea that humans may be on the of our leading intellectuals and politicians PJ Manney 36 H+ Lab verge of self-directed evolution is to become are still looking at that future through the Tyler Emerson common currency. But why does this mat- rear-view mirror. 38 TheProgressive Ingression of Intelligence into Matter ter? Why is it important to get more people Our responsibility, then, is to cover the John Farnsworth 39 Warren Ellis Takes It Past The Limit to start thinking about humanity plus? events and ideas -- the discoveries and the 40 Akhentek’s Music For Mind States There are probably dozens of answers to cultural expressions -- that are taking place that question, but I want to emphasize just on the borderline between the human and 41 The Meaning of Life Lies in Its Suckiness one of them -- the importance of multidis- the post-human world. It is for us to give ciplinary, synthetic reasoning and percep- expression to an emergent cultural/techno- tion in preparing for the near future. logical sensibility -- and to do it within an Our species faces a virtual agora of life- intentionally compressed space through the Resources altering, paradigm-changing developments deliberate creation of an online “artifact” -- in science, technology, and culture. Whether a digital magazine organized within the All materials © Humanity+ 2008, unless previously published or otherwise indicated. All copyrights return to writers and artists 90 days after publication. www.transhumanism.org Date of publication: October 2008 — Contact: [email protected] it’s germ-line engineering or molecular traditional magazine format. computing; advanced AI or cyborg bodies So welcome to the first edition of H+. (replaceable parts); engineered hyper- We hope you find value in this publication.

#1 #1 4 Fall 2008 Fall 2008 5 Fast Blasts Fast Blasts

PETA Wants Meat!

I Am Ironman! RU Sirius

HAL (Hybrid Assistive Limb) The notion that tissue cultures could be Cybernetic Suit developed into veritable animal flesh without the necessity of raising and Tristan Guillford slaughtering living creatures has been in circulation among tech enthusiasts for Cyberdyne Corporation of Japan, in several years. With current off-the-shelf conjunction with Daiwa House, has begun biotechnology, it should be possible to grow mass production of a cybernetic bodysuit edible meat in laboratory vats, starting from that augments body movement and a single cell. increases user strength by up to tenfold. Recently, this idea got a boost from The HAL (Hybrid Assistive Limb) PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of suit works by detecting faint bioelectrical Animals). The animal rights group is offer- signals using pads placed on specific areas ing a $1 million prize for “the first person of the body. The pads move the HAL suit to come up with a method to produce com- accordingly. The Cyberdyne website ex- mercially viable quantities of in vitro meat plains: “When a person attempts to move, at competitive prices by 2012.” The chal- nerve signals are sent from the brain to the Image by Jim Mielke lenge has been controversial among PETA muscles via motoneuron, moving the mus- supporters because… well… like, I mean… culoskeletal system as a consequence. At yuck! this moment, very weak biosignals can be detected on the surface of the skin. HAL Skin Phone catches these signals through a sensor at- tached on the skin of the wearer. Based on Kristi Scott the signals obtained, the power unit is con- trolled to wearer’s daily activities.” Welcome to the conceptual solution that combines the beauty of Among the potential applications, Cy- a tattoo with the convenience of your cell phone and Bluetooth berdyne is emphasizing helping people technology, the “Digital Tattoo Interface.” DTI, developed by with movement disabilities, augmenting Jim Mielke, debuted at this year’s Greener Gadgets Design strength for difficult industrial tasks, disas- Competition 2008, receiving Notable Entry award. This is one Image by DC Spensley Image by ter rescue, and entertainment. tattoo with a lot of potential: a phone that would be implanted The HAL suit is not currently available. under the skin, with microscopic spheres that would act as the But according to Nikkei News, Daiwa and touch-screen buttons. Don’t want to show off your phone? The Cyberdyne are planning an annual produc- concept has a button that, when pushed, can render the phone tion of 400 units and they should be mar- invisible. If you get a call, just push the same button to answer More-reasonable commentators may keted at approximately $4,200 US dollars. the display and have the phone reappear, with video capability. note that any person or organization that Where’s the battery? There isn’t one. You just eat something can make commercially viable fake meat (preferably food), and the phone works off your own blood supply. in sufficient quantity to have an effect on With luck this phone quickly moves on from concept to actuality animal suffering won’t need PETA’s mon- for a fashionable future enhancement. ey. Still, you never know. The competition could supply motive simply by calling more attention to the possibilities. Guilt-free meat eating -- a yummy idea.

Resources Resources

HAL When Meat Is Not Murder www.cyberdyne.jp/english/robotsuithal/index.html www.guardian.co.uk/science/2005/aug/13/ Resources genetics.internationalnews

Video of HAL Digital Tattoo Interface New Harvest www.youtube.com/watch?v=ynL8BCXih8U www.core77.com/competitions/GreenerGadgets/projects/4673 www.new-harvest.org/default.php Image by Prof. Sankai, Univ. of Tsukuba / CYBERDYNE Inc.

#1 #1 6 Fall 2008 Fall 2008 7 Fast Blasts Inter MINI view Here’s Jewels in EPOC We’re All Your Eye Neuroheadset Edge Cases Kristi Scott Tristan Guillford with Cory Doctorow by RU Sirius A San Francisco–based neuroengineering company called Emotiv is developing a brain–computer interface that they say will be available on the commercial market later this year. The EPOC neuroheadset DOCTOROW: Building a search engine uses EEG technology to read electrical patterns in the brain and that only contains the information that then sends this information through wireless signals to a computer. we’re mostly looking for is easy. But at According to Emotiv, the headset will be used with new biofeedback that point, there’s no value. It’s pursuing games or can be incorporated into popular PC games like Harry Potter, the deviance, what Bruce Sterling called where characters could pick up and move objects with the power of “Wooing the muse of the odd,” that their minds. In addition, the EPOC could eventually be used in multi- player online games like World of Warcraft or Second Life to control facial actually creates a system that has a lot of expressions of virtual game characters in real time. Emotiv claims the perceived value. And that’s because we If you’ve ever wanted to have that extra- headset can detect and replicate thirty different emotional and facial are all weird in some way. special something that puts a sparkle in expressions, including excitement, anger, laughter, and calmness. your eye, and really attract attention, you Unlike earlier EEG devices, the EPOC is the first commercially should take a trip over to the Netherlands. available EEG neuroheadset that does not require gel on the scalp The Netherlands Institute for Innovative or an elaborate net of electrodes, and will be sold for the consumer Ocular Surgery has developed a procedure -friendly price of $299. The EPOC will be bundled with Emortal soft- for Cosmetic Extraocular Implants -- ware, which enables you to use the headset to browse your computer nicknamed “JewelEye.” For the starting files and applications, and also to connect to other Emotiv users in live price of about $750 (not including getting chatrooms. there) and approximately 15 minutes of your time, you can have your very own. Brave souls and surgery freaks can check out the Institute’s website (see “Resources”), to learn about the surgical procedure via text or This is the most corrosive thing that video. The adornment doesn’t interfere with happens to people who self-identify Resources sight, since it is not implanted in the field as science fiction fans… the idea that of vision, and the surgery is allegedly not www.emotiv.com/INDS_3/inds_3.html everyone else is mundane in science very painful, because the implant is under fiction argot… you’re either a mutant or the thin layer on the outside of the eye. Shapes offered include heart, star, eurosign, you’re a “norm,” right? But norms are every four-leaf clover, and music note. But for bit as weird as any of us. It’s a matter of those who really want to make a personal presentation and identity. We are all of us statement and stand out, the material used every bit as weird as any one of us. is capable of being molded into a variety of shapes and sizes upon request. Currently there are only two labs that are performing the procedure, and they are both located in the Netherlands.

Resources

Netherlands Institute for Innovative Ocular Surgery www.niioc.nl/cei-eng.htm#klinieken

#1 #1 8 Fall 2008 FALL 2008 9 AI AI

of funding. Japanese companies have been tise in areas such as language learning. And Resources Open Source the pioneers here but their enthusiasm has the beauty of the open source approach is flagged in recent years, with Sony dropping that it’s relatively straightforward for others iCub Robotics its Qrio project and Honda’s Asimo robot with AI ideas and technical chops to extend www.robotcub.org remaining, basically, a skunkworks project. their work. Building an iCub of one’s own The robotics industry as a whole is argu- is not free, nor trivial, but it’s a damn sight Looks Better PINO ably flourishing better than ever, but there easier than designing your own humanoid www.symbio.jst.go.jp/PINO is a huge gap between Roombas, industrial from scratch... and more possible than get- Than Ever robot arms, and their ilk, and mobile hu- ting your hands on Qrio or Asimo, which iCub Drumming manoid robots with the capability for com- have not been publicly released. And unlike www.robotcub.org/index.php/robotcub/content/ Ben Goertzel plex interactions in the physical and social Sony’s Aibo, the robotic dog who has be- download/1135/3982/file/icubFullDrumming3. April 2008 world. come a staple of academic AI research -- if wmv Open source humanoid robots have one finds aspects of the hardware platform iCub, the New Open Source been proposed before, e.g. PINO created by inadequate, one can always modify it, since Open source AI software platforms Humanoid Robot Japanese scientists and launched in 2001. the specs are completely open. Different These earlier projects were technically solid researchers are bound to take the iCub in Robot simulators Where’s C3PO when we need him? but didn’t really take off in the community. radically different directions. For instance, www.goertzel.org/blog/2008/05/open-source- Compared to many other aspects of robots-robot-simulators.html advanced technology -- even compared to Making a demo of a robot playing AI software technology, which isn’t exactly the drums is no big trick, given Strong AI zooming along -- humanoid robotics seems en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strong_AI to be advancing at a snail’s pace. As in many modern engineering technology. other areas, the cause of the relatively slow Ray Kurzweil progress is a combination of technical and However, I’m guardedly optimistic that the while I’m an AI guy rather than a robot- www.kurzweilai.net economic/cultural factors. One possible iCub may meet a better fate. Early results ics researcher, reading about iCub has in- work-around to the latter, being explored look promising – for instance, a nifty vid- spired me to think a bit about how it might The Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence by an increasing number of roboticists eo of iCub drumming (see resource link). be integrated with various open source AI www.singinst.org worldwide, is the open source development (OK, it’s no Max Roach yet, but what we software platforms, robot simulators. and methodology. Perhaps the most exciting do have here is coordination of hands, feet, virtual worlds. example of this trend is the iCub, recently and hearing – sensorimotor integration – Will open source do for humanoid ro- developed by a European Union–funded which is a powerful first step toward real botics what it’s done for Web browsers and consortium of researchers. embodied intelligence.) bioinformatics? It’s too soon to say for sure, The power of the open source meth- Of course, demos are demos, not ro- but there’s reason to hope. odology to get complex, important things bust technologies, and making a demo of done has been well established by now in a robot playing the drums is no big trick, Ben Goertzel is the CEO of AI companies the software domain. The Linux operating given modern engineering technology. But Novamente and Biomind, a math Ph.D., system and the Firefox browser are prob- if you dig a little deeper, you find that the writer, philosopher, musician, and all-around ably the best-known examples, but there technical ideas underlying the iCub seem futurist maniac. are countless others, ranging from everyday extremely solid, and it’s clear that the ar- consumer software (such as, say, BitTor- chitecture is capable of a lot more than rent clients) to technical software helping just the handful of tricks demonstrated to scientists do their research (nearly all seri- date. Its fingers and arms have an impres- ous bioinformatics work these days is done sive number of degrees of freedom: a choice using open source software). Open source made because the designers favor cognitive hardware, on the other hand, has been theories, implying that advanced human slower to take off. Consumer hardware cognition largely arises out of the interac- benefits so much from economies of scale tion between perception and action in the in manufacturing that it’s proved hard for manipulation of objects. upstart open source hardware alternatives iCub itself is just a platform and it to really take off. But humanoid robotics is doesn’t solve all the problems of robotics, one area where the open source hardware by any means. The iCub team has so far fo- approach has tremendous potential. This cused on low-level perception, action, and R&D domain is of tremendous importance coordination, without plunging much into to the future of humanity – and beyond – the depths of communication, learning, ab- yet it’s something neither industry, govern- stract reasoning, and so forth. But they are ment nor academia is doing an adequate job collaborating with others that have exper-

#1 #1 10 Fall 2008 Fall 2008 11 Bio Inter MINI view

“frozen potentials” within a reasonable time questionable. It’s appropriate to quote the frame. No frozen potential went unnoticed. name of this BIO panel, the brain child of But that’s not the story. Dr. Mike Fisher, the life sciences adviser for Manipulating Despite the absolute tracking of each UK Trade and Investment in the United and every embryo, the UK permits stem cell States: “It’s life, Jim, But Not As We Know Evolution research on any viable line. This is where Dr. It …” Armstrong and the latest revision of the act enter the picture. And wouldn’t you know Moira A. Gunn, Ph.D., hosts “BioTech Nation” with David Ewing Duncan, co-host of BioTech it? So do the cows. on NPR Talk and NPR Live. She’s the author Nation ­and author of The Geneticist Who It turns out that the UK researchers of Welcome to BioTech Nation… My Played Hoops with my DNA: and Other can get only a few human eggs each week, Unexpected Odyssey into the Land of Masterminds from the Frontiers of Small Molecules, Lean Genes, and Big while he – or rather his lab – can get per- Biotech. haps 200 per day from local cows. To quote: Ideas cited by the Library Journal as being “We have a lot of cows.” And here… it gets among the “Best Science Books of 2007.” by RU Sirius interesting. Under the new approvals, researchers ©2008 Moira A. Gunn H+: I might spend the whole day may now take an animal cell, remove its nucleus, and inject it with a nucleus ex- thinking about politics, economics tracted from a human cell. This suits Dr. — thinking about solutions to knotty Armstrong just fine. He and his fellow sci- human problems — and then I start entists can then proceed to study how early thinking that a lot of this is hardwired. cells develop. The law determines that these Maybe nothing really good is going cells may not be permitted to live beyond to happen unless we change our fourteen days, although Dr. Armstrong tells us that they seldom live half that long wiring. Unless we actually technically Simple to undergo chemotherapy or other medical in any event. Still, in that short time, these evolve. Is that part of the intrigue with procedures that might compromise fertility Researchers may biotechnology? – it is not unusual for a woman to emerge DUNCAN: Yeah, it is. I actually agree with Questions/ with a dozen or more viable eggs. Today now take an animal Gregory Stock on a lot of this. He just we know better than to implant more than (cow) cell, remove thinks this stuff is inevitable. We have the Challenging two at any one attempt, and so we find our- selves with hundreds of thousands of fer- its nucleus, and technology now to alter the germ line. Answers tilized eggs on ice. No one knows exactly inject it with a Somebody’s going to do it somewhere. how many, because while the federal gov- nucleus extracted It’s more a matter of figuring out how ernment will only permit federal research to do it safely and manage it. So I would Moira A. Gunn, Ph.D. funds to be expended on the stem cell lines from a human cell. agree with the notion that we’re going to derived as of August 9, 2001, when Presi- be manipulating evolution. It’s not even a Is the product of a cloned cow, cloned milk? dent George W. Bush issued his Executive cow-cell -- human-nucleus hybrids give Or real milk? Is the offspring of a cloned Order, the government does not regulate scientists a direct way to study cell differen- question of if anymore; it’s a question of cow and a “natural” bull, a half-clone? And this particular end of the techno-human tiation at its earliest stages. when and how. then when they mix again, as cows and bulls reproductive supply chain. To date, Dr. Armstrong’s group has cre- of all persuasions are apt to do, do we get Not so with the Brits. I have just re- ated 271 human–animal hybrid embryos. quarter-clones? Three-quarter clones? The turned from the international BIO confer- By his estimation, they are 99.9% human, parlor game must obviously stop in a very ence, where I had the great good fortune 0.1% cow. few generations, but the melody lingers to moderate a panel of fellows including So where does that leave us? I asked on. Like genetically modified seeds that the illustrious Dr. Lyle Armstrong, who Armstrong directly if we could FedEx him have jumped the fence and are mixing and heads the Institute for Human Genetics at our extras to save him the involvement of Resources matching in the wild, once the progression Newcastle University. With the recent pas- the cow, and he very specifically indicated Resources begins, it’s a little hard to follow. sage of an update to the UK Human Fer- that after eighteen-vplus hours, the human Tech Nation/Biotech Nation Germline Engineering So now let’s look at some interesting tilisation and Embryology Act of 1990, his eggs were no longer of use. And yes, if we www.technation.com/ challenges that emerge on the human scale. group has now proceeded on to something found another way for him to do the re- en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Germline_ engineering In the United States, women are free to rather controversial. Under the original act, search, he would. Reuters article about human-cow embryos pursue in vitro fertilization, and American the government had regulatory control over Expediency. Cows. Humans. The inexo- www.reuters.com/article/latestCrisis/ David Ewing Duncan clinics have really gotten good at it. private citizens’ frozen embryos, which re- rable call of science. And there are a whole idUSN02399515 When they treat young women – who quired that they be tracked and that each number of people who find this entire con- www.davidewingduncan.net might be motivated because they are about private citizen make a decision about these versation simultaneously wonderful and

#1 #1 12 Fall 2008 Fall 2008 13 Inter MINI view Enhanced

Post-Darwinian Hedonic Engineering with David Pearce, founder of BLTC (Better Living Through Chemistry) Research and original cofounder of the World Transhumanist Association.

RU Sirius

PEARCE: In maybe three or four decades or so, we’ll be choosing such traits as the The Eye average hedonic set point of our children. Over time, I think allelic combinations Kristi Scott [suites of variant copies of mission-critical genes] that leave their bearers predisposed Some of us can’t help but look to the future, to unpleasant states of consciousness — and pretty soon, we may be looking at it unpleasant states that were genetically through contact lenses with a virtual reality overlay. adaptive in our ancestral environment — Engineers at the University of Wash- will be weeded out of the gene pool. For ington have developed a contact lens that a very different kind of selection pressure creates a virtual display superimposed over Image by University of Washington is at work when evolution is no longer the normal field of vision. By using a trans- “blind” and “random,” i.e. when rational parent part of the eye to place instrumen- or identifier for you. Less practical but more exciting is the potential gaming experience agents design the genetic makeup of tation, the contact will be safe for human wear. The lenses will be imprinted with an these lenses will provide. their future offspring in anticipation assortment of electronic circuits and lights But don’t throw away the digital glasses of its likely effects. In that sense, we’re to make superimposition possible. A fu- just yet. A very basic version with a few heading for a post-Darwinian transition ture version of the product might include pixels may be available soon, but a fuller – ultimately I believe to some form of the addition of wireless communication realization of this concept may take years. paradise-engineering. via the lens. The team has already demon- Even with obstacles still to be overcome, strated that rabbits can wear the lens for 20 these engineers have achieved something minutes safely without any adverse effects, taken straight from a science fiction movie and are looking into a feasible production or novel. Eye enhancements… check. method for the contacts. There are still some major wrinkles to be ironed out in Which sense is next? the manufacturing process, given that the materials need to be both safe for the body and incredibly small. The enhancement creates the potential Resources for a merger between our virtual and real worlds, overlaying them into one frame of BLTC Research vision. It would allow people to use online Resources www.bltc.com services such as Google Earth in real time over the real landscape in front of us. All Superhuman Vision The Hedonistic Imperative those giant pushpins will become a reality, uwnews.org/article.asp?articleID=39094 www.hedonistic-imperative.com/ making it much easier to navigate, since the desired location will have a great big arrow

#1 #1 14 FALL 2008 Fall 2008 15 Image by DC Spensley Image by Death rates were random, uncorrelated Engineering an with age. This means they weren’t display- ing senescence (aging), and died from other End to Aging causes. In almost all other known species, death rates increase with age. Not in hydra. Michael Anissimov They die from getting eaten, or infected by a virus, or squished, but not from ag- Age-defying creams and lotions, esoteric herbs ing. There could be a thousand-year-old and elixirs, Botox and plastic surgery -- what hydra out there, maybe in a small lake right do they all have in common? in your neighborhood. We don’t know, be- cause there is no way of telling their age by None of them will actually increase your looking at them! life span. Usually, they’re snake oil. At best, Planarians -- those odd animals that they improve external appearance without look like a slug squished in a microscope actually extending life. We deserve better, slide -- are another organism that scientists and we’ll need it if we want to live longer suspect may be immortal. No detailed stud- than the typical three score and ten years. ies have been conducted yet. In many cases, The first thing to realize is that nature if you cut a planarian in half, it becomes two doesn’t specifically want us to die. There planarians. These live as long as one born is no “death gene.” For any species in any by conventional means. If you kept cutting environmental context, there is an ideal a planarian in half, it might never die, be- life span from an adaptive point of view cause each piece would go on living. -- an evolutionary optima. One evolution- What about more-complex ani- ary strategy includes species that reproduce mals? There are our friends in the order quickly and die off fast. Another includes Testudines: turtles, tortoises, and terrapins. species that reproduce slowly and live for Scientists have examined the internal or- a long time. Call it quality versus quantity. gans of young and old turtles and found that Thankfully for humans, we’re squarely in they look exactly the same. Something in the quality column, but many would agree a turtle’s physiology prevents these organs that 80 to 90 years is not enough. from breaking down. An article in Discover We perish not because of some internal magazine asked, “Can Turtles Live Forever,” clock that says, “Time to die now!,” but be- and came to the conclusion that it’s entirely cause of a lack of attention and self-healing possible. Like hydra, turtles experience no -- mere neglect. Once we’ve reproduced a increase in mortality rates and no decrease few times, in the eyes of nature, our useful- in reproductive rates as they grow older. ness has run its course. We are cast aside, There are turtles 150 years old that exhibit onto a pile of skeletons 600 million years no signs of aging. Harriet the Turtle, a pet deep. This is unacceptable, and we need to of Charles Darwin’s, was born in 1830 and find a new way, but since nature isn’t ac- died only in 2006. It seems turtles can die tively working against us -- just neglecting from disease, injury, or predation, but not us -- the challenge is surmountable. aging. This quality is called “negligible se- nescence.” Sign me up. LONGEVITY IN NATURE From these animal examples, we see it First, let’s look to nature for inspiration. Are would be premature to state that negligible there any animals with extraordinarily long senescence is biologically impossible, as is life or regenerative capacities? Absolutely. frequently assumed. Nature seems to be There is one animal that scientists be- uninterested in our quaint notion that all lieve is immortal -- the lowly hydra, a sim- organisms must age. The question is -- how ple, microscopic freshwater animal, shaped can we make this work for humans? The something like a tiny squid. Apparently, the oldest person who ever lived, Jeanne Louise challenges of indefinite tissue regeneration Calment, kicked the bucket at the age of are simple enough for such a small organ- 122 1/2. Can we push that boundary? ism that nature has solved them. American biologist Daniel M. Marinez did a study of mortality in three colonies of hydra for four Image by Københavns Universitet years straight, and barely any of them died. (continued next page)

#1 #1 16 Fall 2008 Fall 2008 17 ENGINEERING NEGLIGIBLE time, that organic molecules could not be cells. Over time, the processes of cell re- than anything currently available or in de- Luckily, although mitochondria are tures different than the healthy tissue of SENESCENCE synthesized by inorganic precursors. Un- plenishment begin to break down. This is velopment.” It is based on a vulnerability made of thousands of proteins, only 13 of the body, so it shouldn’t be too hard to find Enter Dr. Aubrey de Grey, a biogerontologist fortunately for Bergeson and other vitalists, what causes muscle atrophy among the old, shared among all cancer cells: their need them are synthesized using the genes of the an enzyme that breaks them down while from the UK, and his “strategies for Friedrich Wöhler, the father of biochem- and the phenomenon especially afflicts the to renew their telomeres, junk DNA that mitochondria itself. The rest are synthesized leaving the rest alone. In fact, just one type engineered negligible senescence” (SENS) istry, had already synthesized urea from heart and brain, our two most important serves as the ends of chromosomes. Telo- in the nucleus and imported in. The solu- of crosslinks, called glucosepane crosslinks, plan. Instead of exclusively studying the inorganic precursors as early as 1828, and organs. To fix this problem, two strategies meres of a certain length are necessary tion to this problem is to move the thirteen may count for up to 98% of all long-lived complex biochemical processes of aging in scientists were becoming more and more have been proposed: stimulating the divi- for a cell to self-replicate. If the telomeres critical genes from the mitochondria to the extracellular crosslinks in the human body, detail, as in gerontology, or ameliorating convinced that the same laws of biochemis- sion of existing cells, or introducing new are too short, the cell self-destructs. nucleus of the cell. Evolution has already meaning if we figure out a way to get rid of the worst symptoms of age-related decline, try that govern inorganic molecules govern cells, possibly including stem cells. Both are When cancer hijacks the body’s cells, the been doing this without our help for mil- these, we’ll have almost solved this cause of as in geriatrics, de Grey and his supporters organic molecules as well. under investigation. cancer cells replicate so rapidly that their lions of years, and we need to finish the job. age-related damage. advocate an “engineering approach” to aging Because the laws of chemistry apply to The second cause of aging is death- telomeres shorten quickly. The cancer This will require using gene therapy to add The seventh and last known cause of that asks, what are the main categories of both life and non-life, aging is an entirely resistant cells, cells that overstay their cells avoid destruction by using the cell’s supplementary genes. Gene therapy is in its aging is general extracellular junk, the type age-related biochemical damage, and how chemical, non-mystical process of degra- welcome. There are three main types of cells protein synthesis machinery to build early stages, but has been used effectively that just floats around instead of linking can we fix them? The idea is not to eliminate dation with specific physical causes. Al- guilty of this offense. The first are visceral enzymes -- telomerase and ALT -- that to replace defective genes with functional together proteins. Most of these junk mol- the sources of age-related damage, but to though it is a matter of preference whether fat cells, fat cells that build up around our extend telomeres, and allow endless self- ones, helping cure genetic diseases. Re- ecules are called amyloids, and they build fix the damage fast enough so it doesn’t you consider aging a “disease” or not, from internal organs. These cause a progressive replication. Previous attempts at cancer search is under way to improve the process up in everyone, but are especially found accumulate and cause health problems. the perspective of the body, aging is like loss in our body’s ability to respond to cures target these enzymes, but WILT and test it with mice. in the brains of Alzheimer’s patients. The This is far easier than deciphering all the a disease -- a life-destroying biochemical nutrients from the stomach. Eventually, it proposes removing the very genes that The fifth cause of aging is intracellular main approach to dealing with this, already intricacies of the biochemistry of aging. phenomenon occurring in the body. And leads to Type 2 Diabetes. The second type contain the information necessary to junk. Cells synthesize, reconstruct, and de- being pursued by at least one company, is to Although some tentative engineering like diseases, aging is treatable. It is due to of cells is called senescent cells, cells that synthesize them. construct many thousands of different mol- stimulate the body’s immune cells to clear approaches to aging had been proposed be- We perish not because of have lost the ability to reproduce. These Removing the genes underlying the ...aging – besides out these molecules. There is a strong over- fore, it was de Grey who really fleshed it some internal clock that stick around, releasing proteins that are synthesis of telomerase will mean that all killing more than lap between treatments for Alzheimer’s and out, popularized it, and made it respectable. says, “Time to die now!,” dangerous to their neighbors. Thankfully, cancers will self-destruct before becom- 100,000 people per atherosclerosis and anti-aging treatments It’s no wonder that he has already raised they primarily aggregate in just one type ing a serious problem to their host, effec- that address this cause, so there seems to $10 million in funding for his organization, but because of a lack of of tissue, the cartilage between our joints. tively curing cancer. This is one of the most day; it makes us be significant momentum in the right di- the Methuselah Foundation. attention and self-healing A third type is a category of immune cells ambitious strands of the SENS plan. The suffer for years or rection. As de Grey points out, gerontologists mere neglect. called “memory cytotoxic T cells.” These challenge of this approach is that removing decades before it There may be other causes of aging have discovered seven biochemical causes build up faster than other immune cells these genes in all the tissues of the body kills us. that emerge after we have solved most of of aging. The last cause was discovered in the complexity and the aura of inevitability and refuse to go away, crowding out the will mean that the body’s natural cells will these seven. We’ll just have to wait and see. 1981, and considering how immensely far around aging that people have only recently other immune cells and eventually causing have a limited life span, as they will not ecules during the course of their operation. But if all these seven causes of aging were our knowledge of biology has come since begun to look at it this way. Some say that disease. There are two approaches to solving be capable of lengthening their telomeres. Every once in a while a cell ends up with eliminated, people could live a lot longer -- that time, it seems quite likely that these aging is something mandated by God, and these problems: inject something that To counteract this will require introducing a molecule so large or unusual that it has maybe even hundreds of years. That would seven causes are all of them. De Grey calls we have no right to mess with it, but these makes the unwanted cells commit suicide stem cells with renewed telomeres into the trouble breaking it up. If a molecule cannot buy us more time to develop new therapies these causes of aging the “Seven Deadly very same people have used this same argu- but doesn’t touch other cells, or stimulate body every decade or so. This has already be broken down by the “incinerator” of the to address the remaining sources of aging. Things.” They are: (1) cell loss, (2) death- ment throughout history to protest against the immune system to kill the target cells. been demonstrated in mice with cells of the cell, the lysosome, it stays there forever. In It’s hard to imagine why we wouldn’t resistant cells, (3) nuclear DNA mutations, vaccinations, the dissection of cadavers, The third cause of aging is mutations in blood and gut. Skin and lungs will be next. cells that don’t divide, this can build up to want to fight the scourge of aging -- be- (4) mitochondrial DNA mutations, (5) in- organ transplants, and numerous other the DNA of the nucleus, the center of every When this therapy is used to cure cancer in critical levels. This includes some cells in the sides killing more than 100,000 people per tracellular junk, (6) extracellular junk, and therapies or techniques of extreme medi- cell. Most of these mutations are entirely mice, tremendous resources will be pumped heart, the back of the eye, some nerve cells, day; it makes us suffer for years or decades (7) extracellular crosslinks. That’s it. If we cal value. Is it so radical to say that being harmless, as they only affect a few cells at into efforts to develop a therapy that works and white blood cells trapped in the walls before it kills us. Everyone is susceptible. find medicines or therapies that can clean healthy is a good thing, and that we should a time. These cells eventually die and are for humans. of arteries. This can cause diseases, such as Instead of seeing aging as inevitable, why up this damage, we could extend our lifes use whatever ethical strategies are available replaced with unmutated cells. Mutations The fourth cause of aging is mutations Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, macular degener- don’t we view it as a disease and search for pans to great lengths and achieve negligible to pursue that end? get dangerous when they lead to malignant in the mitochondria, the “power stations” ation (the leading cause of acquired blind- a cure? senescence in humans. Aubrey de Grey’s SENS plan is com- cells that self-replicate -- otherwise known of the cell. Mitochondria have their own ness), and atherosclerosis. To clean up in- A word on a philosophical point of plex and quite thorough. To examine it in as cancer. So, finding a cure for a cancer is a DNA, much less than that in the nucleus of tracellular junk, the SENS project proposes Michael Anissimov is a science writer. view: many world philosophies and re- full, I suggest looking at the website of the subtask of finding a cure for aging. Accord- the cell, but some of it is essential to synthe- equipping the lysosome with new enzymes, He blogs at accelerating future. ligions teach, or strongly imply, that the Methuselah Foundation, or getting his re- ing to de Grey, this is the most difficult part sizing the proteins that make it up. When thereby expanding the range of molecules it body depends on some immaterial animat- cent book, Ending Aging. But I will sum- of the strategy, because cancer is constantly the DNA is damaged, the mitochondria can break down, allowing it to digest even Resources ing force, a soul or chi, to give it life. Scien- marize the basics here. evolving to exploit us. break down. Mitochondrial DNA is espe- very large or unusual molecules. tists disagree: the functioning of the body The first cause of aging is cell loss, or There are several proposed approaches cially susceptible to damage because of two The sixth cause of aging is extracellular Can Turtles Live Forever seems entirely rooted in atoms, molecules, cell atrophy. For most of our lives, our bod- to finding a cure for cancer, but de Grey’s reasons. The first is that mitochondria, be- crosslinks, molecular garbage that accumu- discovermagazine.com/2002/jun/featturtle and forces between them. As recently as ies are programmed to replace cells when favored strategy is one called “Whole-body ing the site of cellular respiration, are heav- lates outside cells, linking together proteins Methusalah Foundation 1907, French philosopher Henri Bergeson they die. Our individual cells live much Interdiction of Lengthening of Telomeres” ily exposed to its by-products -- dangerous that otherwise slide smoothly over each www.methusalahfoundation.com wrote about an élan vital, or vital force, that shorter life spans than the body itself: some (WILT). The Methuselah Foundation’s free radicals. These react with the DNA, other. These can lead to some of the most animated all living things and drove their cells last a few years, others, like skin cells, website calls WILT “a very ambitious but causing it to mutate. The second is that mi- outwardly visible effects of aging: wrinkles Anissimov Blog evolution and development. This was close- a few weeks. All of them are constantly re- potentially far more comprehensive and tochondria lack the complex DNA-repair in tissue and the like. Fortunately, these www.acceleratingfuture.com/michael/blog ly connected to the idea, common at the generated using the body’s supply of stem long-term approach to combating cancer machinery found in the nucleus. crosslink molecules have chemical struc-

#1 #1 18 Fall 2008 Fall 2008 19 corporation, hoping – among other things Probing de Grey – to someday market cures for aging. And, in 1999, Cynthia Kenyon formed Elixer #,)#+å(%2% #,)#+å(%2% Matters Pharmaceuticals, a company that was even A conversation with Ending#RYONICSISAN Aging author more explicitly dedicated to finding a phar- and Methuselah Foundation Chairman maceutical solution to the aging problem. Aubrey de Grey ATTEMPTTODuring that same decade, a very lively com- &ORA &ORA munity of transhumanists and extropians RU Sirius were exploring and extrapolating about the PRESERVEANDpossibilities of resolving this aging thing – Throughout history, human beings have and what the world would look like if we &REEå &REEå quested after rejuvenationPROTECTTHEGIFT – in myth and did. in fact. Here in the US, legend has it that Sometime around the turn of the mil- )NFORMATION )NFORMATION Spanish conquistadorOFHUMANLIFE Ponce de Leon lennium, Aubrey de Grey, an English came to Florida looking for the Fountain biogerontologist who is now as famous for of Youth. It is perhaps a great irony, then, his long beard that makes him look like Fa- 0ACKAGE 0ACKAGE that Florida -- famous for its retirees -- is a ther Time as he is for his outspoken vision place where the fact thatCLICKHEREFORA aging still rules is of radical life extension -- looked at aging ONå#RYONICSå ONå#RYONICSå most evident. as an engineering problem and decided… During the 1960s, some individuals Eureka!... we can do this. began to suggest that radical increases in I think it’s vital longevity – even immortality –&REEå was within 7HYNOTEXPLORE THECHOICEFOR our grasp, not by dint of the discovery of to get all of them some magic waters, alchemical elixirs, or (categories of ALLTHEOPTIONS LIFEEXTENSION Taoist methodologies,)NFORMATION but through the use of science and technology. In 1964, Rob- damage) fixed as Since then de Grey has appeared on 60 idea that aging is “programmed” in most or means that there would be no selection to ert C. W. Ettinger published0ACKAGE The Prospect of Minutes, The Colbert Report, and a Barbara all species, yes. (Everyone accepts that it’s maintain such machinery, so it would have Immortality, which encouraged the notion soon as possible, Walters special report: “Live to be 150.” programmed in a minority of species, those mutated into oblivion even if it had ever of cryogenic preservationONå#RYONICSå in the expecta- because any one He is chairman and chief science officer of that age extremely fast after reproduction, existed. There’s really no chance that new tion that our understanding of biology and the Methuselah Foundation, a nonprofit such as salmon.) The widespread rejection evidence could overturn this. The only rea- other advances in science and technology of them could kill organization that has raised $10,000,000. of programmed aging is actually over fifty son there’s still any controversy is that there would allow us to defeat death. Among its activities, Methuselah of- years old, dating back to a paper by Peter are a few rather artificial circumstances that By 1993, Mike West had formed Geron us on its own. fers prizes for major experimental break- Medawar from 1952. Basically the main- at first sight seem to look like programmed 7HYNOTEXPLORE throughs in aging using mice. stream view is that slow aging (of the sort aging – but closer inspection shows that De Grey’s recent book, Ending Aging: we see in most species) can’t be controlled they aren’t really. ALLTHEOPTIONS The Rejuvenation Breakthroughs That Could by genes because the presence of those H+: Does the fact that there are -- Reverse Human Aging in Our Lifetime, is your account -- seven different causes of coauthored by Michael Rae, and published Initially… aging ever worry you, in the sense that by St. Martin’s Press. journalists “knew” there might be some frustration when one Michael Anissimov covered many of or two of those causes won’t budge? the basics about de Grey’s theories in the I must be crazy. ADG: There are actually many more previous article (“Engineering an End to More recently most than seven – my seven strands are just cat- Aging” – it really functions as an introduc- journalists have egories of damage, within each of which !LCORåISåTHEåWORLDå !LCORåISåTHEåWORLDå tory piece to this interview, so please take there are many examples. But still, sure, I the time to read it). So rather than asking begun to realize think it’s vital to get all of them fixed as LEADERåINåCRYONICS å LEADERåINåCRYONICS å de Grey to regurgitate the basics of his the- that what I’m saying soon as possible, because any one of them ory one more time, I decided to probe his could kill us on its own. That’s why my own CRYONICSåRESEARCH åANDå CRYONICSåRESEARCH åANDå thinking on a few peripheral issues. is actually quite work has historically focused on the hard- H+: Are there still people who study plausible… est strands. CRYONICSåTECHNOLOGY CRYONICSåTECHNOLOGY aging that cling to the notion of a bio- H+: What are these foci and what is logical clock, and do you think there’s any happening with them? possibility that new evidence might turn genes would give the species just the same ADG: The three hardest aspects of up for a more centralized mechanism life span and health span as it would have SENS (at present – this could of course WWWALCORORG WWWALCORORG WWWALCORORG leading to aging? if it lacked those genes and had slightly less change!) are: the relocation of the mito- AUBREY DE GREY: A small minor- powerful inbuilt anti-aging machinery. This chondrial DNA to the nucleus to make ity of gerontologists do still propound the lack of a function of pro-aging machinery mutations in the original mitochondrial

#1 #1 20 Fall 2008 Fall 2008 21 Inter MINI view

DNA harmless; the introduction of mi- the taking of risks, yes, but not the type of around their attempts to demonstrate it. from about 9 billion to about 11 billion — a else can manufacture it without Pfizer’s crobial (or other foreign) enzymes into our risks that will be inhibited by the defeat of More recently most journalists have begun big change, but not as radical as the more consent. But in 2012, the patent expires. At cells to destroy molecules that accumulate aging; that will cause aversion to risks of to realize that what I’m saying is actually The Distribution than doubling that happened between that point, any generic manufacturer can in them; and the elimination of our cells’ death, but risks to one’s career (for example) quite plausible and that the more derisory 1950 and 2000. make the drug. The more suppliers you ability to prevent the ends of their chromo- will be more acceptable, because there’ll be comments made about SENS by some of of Post-Humanity In any case, aging isn’t going to be have, the more price competition sets in. somes from shortening with each cell divi- so much more opportunity to make amends my colleagues should not be taken at face with Ramez Naam, author of More Than cured tomorrow. I walk through some cal- The more consumers you have, the more sion, combined with stem cell therapies to for misjudgment. As for being controlled, value. address the side effects that this will cause. heh, my reaction is that only someone from H+: One hundred years of life can Human, Embracing the Promise of culations that if you could raise global life incentive there is for suppliers to enter the Research is proceeding healthily in all these a country that still cherishes the right to wear you down physically, but it can also Biological Enhancement expectancy to 120 years by 2050 — almost market. The net effect is that, the more de- areas, largely funded by the Methuselah bear arms could ask such a question... the wear you down emotionally... perhaps twice what it is today — you would raise sired any information good is, the cheaper Foundation. rest of the civilized world has amply dem- even existentially. For you, is a desire to RU Sirius the 2050 population from the current pro- H+: it will be to acquire. In your book, you write that to be onstrated that there is no such danger. live long accompanied by a desire to live jection of 8.9 billion people to 9.4 billion You can see this when you look at drugs truly immortal or nonaging we will need H+: Really? So no one will ever have long in a much-improved human civiliza- H+: Can you give our readers a brief people. That’s a good-sized increase, but that are commonly used today. Penicillin to lose the meat. Some people don’t think to risk their lives again to stop oppres- tion, or is this one satisfactory? that’s too far away. What do you think? sion? ADG: I’m actually not mainly driven synopsis of your view of why post- as a percentage of population, it’s actually was absolutely priceless when first intro- ADG: I’m not sure. Actually I think ADG: Since you press me... my closing by a desire to live a long time. I accept humanity will be more distributed and smaller than the change that occurred be- duced to the market. But now it costs less it’s risky to think in terms of “truly immor- words “no such danger” were perhaps a mis- that when I’m even a hundred years old, less likely to create population problems tween 1970 and 1973. than one cent per dose to manufacture, tal” even in a non-meat scenario – after all, statement, but not a material one. I should let alone older, I may have less enthusiasm than many people suspect? and twenty cents a dose to buy online. The nearby supernovae can fry most things. But have said “insufficient such danger to affect for life than I have today. Therefore, what NAAM: Sure. There are really two specific …even if we cured same inverted supply and demand even as to the time frame of technologies such as our choices today” -- but that’s the same drives me is to put myself (with luck) and questions that come up frequently: applies to non-drug techniques. LASIK cost uploading, I’m not equipped to speculate. thing in practice, because your question was others (lots and lots of others) in a position aging… tomorrow, H+: Longevity advocates have finely about risks, and therefore about quantify- to make that choice, rather than having the “Who will be able to afford these and… delivered the $5,000 per eye when it first came out — thought-out, statistically oriented argu- choice progressively ripped away from me technologies?” and “Won’t the population now you can get it for $299. As more and ments as to why longevity will not strain I’m… not mainly or them by declining health. Whether the explode if we lengthen human life?” cure to the entire more people wanted LASIK, more doctors resources or the environment. But does driven by a desire choice to live longer is actually made is not On the population question, it turns out world, the largest started offering it. And the more doctors the longevity movement, nevertheless, the point for me. that the major driver of population growth possible impact there are offering it, the more they have to have a responsibility to do everything it to live a long time. is really fertility rather than the death rate. compete with each other on price. can to prevent or end scarcity and ensure I accept that when would be about a survivable environment for however If you look around the world, the countries 2 billion lives over The absolute worst thing you can do many long-living people? I’m… 100 years with the longest life expectancies — Japan, -- if you want these technologies equally 50 years. ADG: I have a number of arguments as old… I may have Sweden — are actually shrinking in popu- available to poor and rich -- is to ban them. to why the defeat of aging may not strain lation. As these countries have gotten rich, The takeaway, for me, is that life exten- Prohibition would create a black market the environment, but I never say that those less enthusiasm people — particularly women — have de- sion isn’t going to have any radical effect with worse safety, higher prices, and no arguments are certain. I don’t think pro- cided that they want fewer children. On on population for some time. scientific tracking of what’s going on. Via- longevists have a duty to solve that problem for life… themselves, but I do think we have a duty to the other hand, the countries where popu- The question of economic access is a gra and cocaine cost roughly the same per bring the parameters of the problem to the ing risks rather than about what will or will lation is rapidly growing — Indonesia, Ni- little more complex. People do worry that gram at the moment. In a decade, Viagra attention of society, so that society neither not “ever” happen. It’s hard to dispute that geria, Pakistan — have relatively low life when these enhancement technologies will be much cheaper but cocaine will be overestimates nor underestimates it and the need to risk one’s life to stop oppres- expectancies. People die early there, but come out, only the rich will have access to around the same price it is now. I think so that those best placed to shape public sion is generally lower in democracies than those who survive have big families. On them. And they’re right — at the very be- we’d rather have our enhancements follow policy act accordingly. The same goes for all elsewhere and is lower in longer-standing the other hand, over the next 50 years, the ginning, only the rich will be able to afford prescription drug economics rather than il- aspects of the sociological consequences of democracies than in younger ones, and fur- the defeat of aging. ther that long-lived democracies very rarely UN projects that 3.7 billion people are go- some of these techniques. It helps to realize, legal drug economics. H+: In talking about the culture of cease to be democracies whereas non de- ing to die on this planet, while another 6.6 though, that most of these enhancement And even if governments could imple- long-lived people, you say that people mocracies embrace democracy at a steady billion will be born. That’ll take global pop- techniques are really information goods. ment perfect bans, that wouldn’t stop peo- will be less inclined to take risks. I can see rate. Those claims are all that are needed to ulation to about 9 billion people. Of the They cost a huge amount to develop, but ple from using these technologies. Asia is this being a big problem, in a lot of differ- justify my previous answer. 3.7 billion who are projected to die in the almost nothing to manufacture. The same much more receptive to biotech than the ent ways. Don’t we gain benefit and nov- H+: You’ve been in the media a fair Resources next 50 years, less than 2 billion of them thing is generally true of pharmaceuticals US and Europe. If a rich couple can’t get elty from people who are inclined to take bit introducing this very unfamiliar con- will die of age-related causes. So even if today. Viagra costs about $15 per pill, but the genetic treatments they want here, risks? (I see you as a big risk taker, repu- cept of a radically expanded life span. On Methuselah Foundation we cured aging completely tomorrow, and only a few cents of that is production cost. they can absolutely fly to Singapore or tation being the currency of the current the whole, how would you review the re- www.mfoundation.org age.) And aren’t people who will preserve sponse that you’ve received? magically delivered the cure to the entire Mostly it’s Pfizer bringing in profit or paying Thailand and have it done there. The poor their lives at any cost easily controlled by ADG: Very positive, especially recently. The Longevity Meme world, the largest possible impact would off the $1 billion price tag of developing a or middle class couple doesn’t have the an authoritarian state or some other type Initially a lot of the coverage was quizzi- www.longevitymeme.org be about 2 billion lives over 50 years. That new drug. Pfizer can charge that much be- same options. of oppressive imposition? cal – journalists “knew” I must be crazy but ths would increase global population in 2050 cause the drug is patented. By law, no one ADG: Benefit and novelty come from were impressed by my ability to run rings If you pause

#1 #1 22 Fall 2008 FALL 2008 23 device, whether external or implanted, We already know we don’t have to de- in human intelligence through purely bio- that allows one to retrieve information stroy or dismantle the brain to get enor- logical manipulations because of the con- by thinking about it. It sounds like a first mous quantities of information out of it; straints of neurons and neuron-based stor- step to the sort of mind uploading envi- I think we simply need to push forward age and “computation.” However, when we sioned by people like Hans Moravec and technologies that allow for maximum in- consider that both abiotic and biotic stor- much copied in various science fiction formation flow to and from the brain in age and computational devices have their scenarios. I’m trying to envision what a a non-destructive manner. Therefore, pro- own strengths and weaknesses, it is easy to prize-winning project would do. Would cedures like those suggested by Moravec envision hybrids that tap the advantages of this be a first baby step toward these vi- that require the brain to be destroyed or each and have characteristics superior to sionary ideas or a “great leap forward?” dismantled and reconstructed don’t appeal either alone. As one simple example of the to me. The IF is committed to technologies comparative advantage of abiotic storage, PWE: The InnerSpace Foundation is that will move essential information to and my (inexpensive and old) 1 gigabyte key- concerned primarily with challenges that from the brain, and allow it to be stored chain flash drive can store about a thousand lie within the visible technology horizon, and backed up, but I don’t want to speculate 400-page books. And in less than a decade, which is getting shorter in some ways. The much on “mind uploading,” which implies a 1 terabyte (TB) keychain storage should challenges of improving natural mental dynamic reanimation of downloaded and be inexpensive and common. People will Don’t Leave stored information. Nevertheless, there are many very serious and respectable people Your Memory who contemplate and seek the develop- ment of such technologies. The IF is trying to get the world’s leading neuroengineering At Home talent to give us baby-step technologies to- ward what we currently regard as the future A conversation with Pete Estep of great leap of exceeding or transcending our InnerSpace Foundation unwanted evolved limitations — whatever they might be — and I am a very strong Your brain. It may be your second favorite advocate of this bioprogressive view. body part or – if you’re a true geek – it may H+: Do you see this program of neu- be your first. Either way, your brain is the ral achievement as running in parallel to one and only implement at your disposal ideas of developing smart AIs, potentially be able to store the equivalent of about a that allows you to have any experience of the of greater-than-human intelligence, and million books of text on their 1 TB key- world. A recently organized nonprofit, The a few years ago – the executive director of with my doctoral adviser, George Church. functions are very daunting, so we have could this – in some sense – be a step to- chain, and using standard and simple pro- InnerSpace Foundation (IF), seeks to open the Neurosociety. He believes that neuro- So, I got into genome science because it focused on establishing basic two-way ward fostering hybridization between hu- tocols retrieval is essentially error-free and up new ground in the operation and use logical improvement and self-control will was so hot and exciting and so many smart communication between the brain and mans and advanced AI? extremely fast. 1 TB is also equivalent to of the human brain. Declaring themselves be the defining characteristic of human people from computer science, engineering, prototype devices. Interfacing with non- PWE: A long-term goal of the IF is about a million minutes of CD-quality “dedicated to accelerating the development society in a decade or so, acing out even and various hard sciences were joining in, biological electronic devices is important to allow the maximum possible degree of music, a million photos from a typical 3 of technologies for improving learning, biotech. I wonder if you share this view. and George’s lab seemed like the place to because they have many advantages direct human control over powerful out- megapixel camera, or 140 days of continu- memory, and other frailties of the human Will we see a neurological age? be. I am still very excited about what is go- over brains and neurons in terms of board intelligences. Many extremely bright ous video (5 MB/minute bitrate, which is mind,” IF has created a neuroengineering PETE W. ESTEP: I absolutely share ing on in genomics but I’ve segued back into speed, accuracy, and durability. Input of people have argued that self-improving AI about YouTube or better). competition it calls The IF Prize. this view and Zack is a trustee of the Inner- neuro because I think the potential is even information into the brain by electronic could have catastrophic consequences for Each of us should probably ask our- IF is offering two awards. “The Learn- Space Foundation to help make this vision a greater — probably far greater, especially means rather than just through our normal humanity unless we are an indispensable selves if we could store all information that ing Prize” will be “awarded for a device that reality. But maximum benefit will only ma- for people already alive. The Internet and sensory channels can be called learning, part of the overall equation. My view on the is essential and important to us on a single augments or bypasses the need for tradi- terialize on that timeline if we push hard on electronic devices have become pervasive even though it is a non-traditional form of AI developmental timeline is pretty con- such device how we might make real use tional learning of information.” And “The the accelerator. I started out in neuroscience and indispensable, and interfaces between learning, and outputting existing memory ventional. I think AI of this level is some of that potential. I think when we seriously Memory Prize” will go to “a device that al- research as an undergraduate (at Cornell) us and these outboard intelligences will information to a device for later access is way off, and might even be dependent upon reflect on such questions we begin to re- lows storage and later retrieval of memory because I saw the importance and centrality become increasingly powerful and direct. I potentially an extremely powerful way improved human intelligence, but I see the ally see some of our inherent biological information.” of the field to both understanding and im- think these changes will come steadily and of augmenting memory because it has logic of their argument. limitations. The harsh reality is this: the So fire up your neurotech engines, la- proving biology and behavior. I also sensed will profoundly transform our lives, but essentially unlimited capacity and high It is interesting to contemplate the human brain is a magnificent and mysteri- dies and gentlemen. And as for the rest of huge future potential for the integration of maximum impact will only come if we alter fidelity. interdependent hybrid human–AI intel- ous collection of abilities, but for fast and us, presumably the contest winner will re- neuro with computer technology. When I the current research and development dy- Since it is difficult for us to imagine ex- ligence scenario I just mentioned. It is accurate storage and retrieval of important member it for us wholesale. moved on to get my Ph.D. [at Harvard] I namic to produce those technologies with actly how these things might be done best entirely possible that naturally evolved information, even a humble keychain flash I interviewed Preston W. (Pete) Estep was still excited about the prospects for a the greatest potential. in several years’ time, we have decided to set human intelligence is incapable of produc- drive has overtaken us. But I am extremely III, Ph.D., chairman and chief scientific of- neurotech revolution a few years down the H+: Your project, as I understand it, up a prize-based competition for rewarding ing catastrophically (for us) self-improving excited that -- for the first time in history ficer of IF, via email. road, but I wanted to do more in silico biol- is offering awards for uploading informa- one or more teams who produce the most outboard intelligences, and that both natu- -- we can envision using such technologies H+: Let me start off with a broad gen- ogy and I sensed an impending revolution tion to the brain, and downloading infor- compelling breakthroughs that most clearly ral human intelligence and AI are largely to augment the brain’s natural limitations. eral question. I interviewed Zack Lynch in genomics after I met and began to work mation from the brain. And the idea is a satisfy the prize guidelines. incapable of producing dramatic increases H+: You’re focusing on memory

#1 #1 24 Fall 2008 Fall 2008 25 rather than. say. perceptual intelligence list stage but with time they’ll improve; and around the world. The kind of research we ploying underpowered brains to continue computers. But your question raises some as cultivate them from a preexisting spe- or happiness, mainly because it’s measur- it is hard to say what the upper limit will would like to accelerate is woefully un- devising superficial solutions to these ex- very vexing downstream questions that will cies, the wolf. But everyone knows a dog is able. My immediate impulse is that elimi- be. So, we have established “The IF Prize derfunded and is difficult to fund through tremely serious problems. take a long time to sort out. Nevertheless, not equivalent to a wolf. We used a crude H+: nating psychological misery would create for Memory” to accelerate the development traditional channels. Second, we think that I realize that it’s not part of this we’re already painfully aware of excessive but effective understanding of trait-based the greatest benefit of all -- both for its and demonstration of a prototype memory the pace of scientific research and technol- project, but do you worry at all about the noise in at least parts of our essential com- selective breeding to enrich our proto-dog own sake and because troubled people augmentation device. and a particularly ogy development are limited primarily by quality of the information that human munications systems like the Internet, and companions for behavioral tendencies to cause our biggest problems socially and powerful prototype device might satisfy the the natural limitations of the human mind. brains will be linking to? In other words, we feel the impact from time to time. This is herd, protect, hunt, and probably to show economically. But are there other reasons criteria for both prizes. It seems self-evident that a more-powerful if my brain is directly hooked up to the a really serious problem, and like any other obvious appreciation and affection for us. why memory has the greatest advantage, The reason we’re not trying to acceler- intelligence can solve difficult problems -- Internet, or more specifically to Wikipe- really serious problem, faster and more ac- They have intelligences and abilities that if it does? ate development of other research or tech- including providing lasting cures for any dia, I’m still going to experience the same curate learning and memory, and increased are complementary to ours and we turned PWE: We’re focused on memory because nologies is multilayered. First, mainstream disease or disability -- much more quickly frustrating quantity of crap — errors, ir- overall cognition and intelligence, should a marginal initial relationship. into an ex- it is the currency of our very existence. Our research into the brain and behavior is very and efficiently. So we’re putting all our ef- relevancies, and the tendency of Internet contribute to more rapid and satisfactory tremely mutually rewarding relationship memories give us a sense of continuity well funded. Mental diseases and disor- forts where we think they’ll do the most informational materials to exclude im- solutions. that we valued then and probably value H+: and connection to our friends, relatives, ders are researched by thousands of people long-term good, rather than wishfully em- portant bits of data. Do you see a relationship between even more now because they have become and associates and to our own histories. PWE: I am very concerned with the this project and neural performance en- increasingly what we wanted them to be. We’re also focused on memory because hancement oriented projects like brain I think we should go forward with an moving memory information from the the human brain exercises, nutrients, and “smart drugs?” extremely optimistic belief that we can es- brain to a device accomplishes one of is a magnificent… PWE: I’d say there’s only a weak rela- tablish even more rewarding and comple- the two most basic directional transfers tionship. I’m certainly an advocate of those mentary relationships with other intelli- of information (into the brain and out collection of approaches since they’re all we’ve got right gences — including one another — by all of the brain), which is a first step toward now; but their potential is very limited rela- becoming more like we’d like ourselves and establishing meaningful and increasingly abilities, but tive to what we would like to accomplish others to be. complex two-way communication. There for fast and — although, right now I’d be happy with are many types of information that might anything to remind me to return emails flow from the brain to a device but when accurate storage or phone calls on time! It might sound a we consider establishing connectivity at the little futuristic at this point but I think for most basic prototype stage, we probably and retrieval what we’d like to achieve there is a much think of “sending” requests to a device of important greater upside to investments in brain im- for information input, and transferring aging, biocompatible materials science, mi- to a device somewhat more meaningful, information, even croelectronics, and information technology, preexisting information about ourselves. than in inherently weaker approaches for This first type of “query” information a humble keychain tweaking our existing biology. I support is important for accessing or learning flash drive has the continuation of basic research on brain information and we are addressing this function using brain exercises, drugs, and with our “The IF Prize for Learning.” overtaken us. other approaches but I’d like to see each This information can be stored and person thinking “outside the box” that sits retrieved as “memory” but this challenge data quality issue but when we consider on his or her shoulders. is somewhat different from dealing with the downside of what we might get with We have expanded our intelligence and other types of information, particularly new technologies, we should carefully re- reach in unexpected ways in the past and I’d complex and preexisting memories of, for flect on the quality of what we already have like people to contemplate possible future example, friends and events. Capturing this and ask why and how it got that way. The expansions. Richard Dawkins’ seminal book more-meaningful “memory” information reason our public discussions and databases The Extended Phenotype is an exploration of on a device is beyond our current under- give us some garbage out is because people the selection for genotypes that result in standing and technical abilities, but this is put garbage in. Wikipedia has gotten much organisms creating various extensions of information you’d like to recall accurately better over time and in many cases is sur- themselves, including physical extensions Resources over time, and even back up in the same prisingly good, which shows that mature of their biological selves (a more succinct way you back up important documents technologies eventually establish an ac- treatment can also be found in the second InnerSpace Foundation stored on your computer hard drive. But ceptable signal-to-noise ratio. One of the and later editions of The Selfish Gene, in the www.InnerSpacefoundation.org the complexity of this type of information problems of the naturally evolved mind try- chapter “The Long Reach of the Gene”). exists on a continuum that can be as trivial ing to sift through large amounts of data in This process can be very abstract; it can ex- Brain Stimulant as a grocery list or as meaningful as the de- a complex modern world is that we don’t tend to the establishment of various novel brainstimulant.blogspot.com tails of your wedding day or your first date. have efficient filters. We do have filters, relationships and can be extremely reward- We won’t be able to store and subsequently lots of them, but they are not very good at ing. Consider our relationship with dogs. Brain Waves access all the complexities of an important rapidly sorting through complex data. This Dogs are not just a human’s best friend, brainwaves.corante.com memory with initial prototype devices; we’ll is another area that should benefit greatly they are one of our greatest creations ... probably begin much closer to the grocery DC Spensley Image by from increasingly direct interfaces with well, we didn’t exactly create dogs as much

#1 #1 26 Fall 2008 Fall 2008 27 Inter MINI view

The Reluctant cost you the life that counts. I suspect the mainstream is only a decade What do you think about economic sys- tion processing comes into economic inter- It’s no surprise that Stross is a highly or so behind the cutting edge: the debates tems in a presumably post-human world? actions. controversial figure within Transhumanist over spam and intellectual property that Do any of the theories – free market, What kind of information processing Transhumanist circles – loved by some for his dense-with- the geeks were having in the early 1990s Marxist, and so forth – that have guided can vastly smarter-than-human entities do high-concepts takes on themes dear to the are now mainstream. (Of course, a decade those who ideologize these things con- when engaging in economic interactions? SF Writer Charlie Stross keeps his options open movement, loathed by others for what they feels like an eternity when you’re up close tinue to make sense after replicators and In Accelerando I hypothesized that if you can see as a facile treatment of both ideas and and personal with it.) the like? come up with entities with a much stronger Interview by RU Sirius & Paul McEnery characters. But one thing is certain –- Mr. H+: Remaining on the cyberpunk tip CS: In a nutshell, about Economics theory of mind than regular humans pos- Stross is one SF writer who pays close at- for a moment, Gibson’s Neuromancer (the 2.0: economics is the study of the alloca- sess, then their ability to model consumer/ Singularity, 2012: God springs out tention to the entire plethora of post-hu- whole trilogy, really) popularized a trendy tion of resources between human beings supplier interactions will be much deeper of a computer to rapture the human manizing changes that are coming on fast. subculture that impacted on both enter- under conditions of scarcity (that is, where and more efficient than anything humans Image by DC Spensley Image by race. An enchanted locket transforms As a satirist, he might be characterized as tainment and actual technology. Do you resources are not sufficient to meet maxi- can do. And so, humans will be at a pro- a struggling business journalist into a our Vonnegut, lampooning memetic sub- think that Accelerando could have that ef- mal demand by all people simultaneously). found disadvantage in trying to engage in medieval princess. The math-magicians cultures that most people don’t even know fect? Do you see yourself as a popularizer Resource allocation relies on information economic interactions with such entities. The Artificial of British Intelligence calculate demons exist. of memes that are just taking root? distribution -- for example, price signals They’ll be participating in economic ex- back into the dark. And solar-scale H+: With biotech, infotech, cognitive CS: Naah. are used to indicate demand (in a capitalist changes that we simply can’t compete ef- computation just uploads us all into the science, AI, and so many other sciences and A chunk of Accelerando was extracted economic system). In turn, economic inter- fectively with because we lack the informa- Hippocampus happy ever after. technologies impacting the human situa- in raw juicy nuggets from my time on the tion processing power to correctly evaluate with David Pescovitz, director of research Stripped to the high concept, these tion, it seems that most social and political extropians mailing list in the early to mid- their price signals (or other information at the Institute for the Future and Boing visions from Charlie Stross are prime discourse remains back in the 20th century nineties; another chunk came out of my disclosures). Hence Economics 2.0 -- a sys- Boing Editor. geek comfort food. But don’t be fooled. at best. You talk sometimes about being a time in the belly of a dot-com’s program- tem that you needed to be brighter-than- Stross’ stories turn on you, changing up post-cyberpunk person. How do you deal ming team in the late nineties. I wanted to human to participate in, but that results in RU Sirius into a vicious scrutiny of raw power and with the continued presence of so many get my head around the sense of temporal better resource allocation than conventional the information economy. pre-cyberpunk people? compression that was prevalent in the dot- economic systems are capable of. The “God” of Singularity Sky is re- CHARLIE STROSS: As William com era, of the equivalent of years flicker- H+: What do you think about trans- PESCOVITZ: Biomedical engineer ally just an Artificial Intelligence, ma- Gibson noted, “the future is already here: ing past in months. But it’s too dense for humanism and singularitarianism as Theodore Berger at the University of nipulating us all merely to beat the alien it’s just unevenly distributed.” Most people the mainstream. As we’ve already noticed, movements? Are these goals to be at- Southern California in Los Angeles has competition. The Merchant Princes run on the normative assumption that life a lot -- probably the majority -- of people tained or just a likely projection of tech- developed an artificial hippocampus: (from a series of novels by Stross) are tomorrow will be similar to life today, and aren’t interested in change; in fact, they find nologies into the future that we should be a silicon substitute for the part of the just as rapacious as anything on Wall don’t think about the future much. And it frightening. And Accelerando compressed aware of? brain that scientists believe encodes Street, and a downstream parallel uni- I’m not going to criticize them for doing so many ideas into such a small space (I CS: My friend Ken MacLeod has a experiences as long-term memories. verse is just another market to exploit. so; for 99.9% of the life of our species this think there’s about 0.5 to 1 novel’s worth rather disparaging term for the singularity; To do this, Berger built mathematical The Atrocity Archives gives us a gut- has been the case, barring disasters such as of ideas per chapter in each of its nine he calls it “The Rapture of the Nerds.” models of neuronal activity in a rat’s punch full of paranoia -- on the far side plague, war, and famine. It’s a good strat- chapters) that it’s actively hostile to most actions within, for example, a market en- This isn’t a comment on the probability hippocampus and then designed of hacking and counterhacking lurks an egy, and periods when it is ignored (such as readers. Some people love it, those who’re vironment hinge on how the actors within of such an event occurring, per se, so much circuits that mimic those activities. The unspeakable chaos. And for all our en- the millennial ferment that swept Europe already into that particular type of dense the economic system use their information as it’s a social observation on the type of next step is to implant the devices in rats gineering genius, Accelerando’s paradise around 990 A.D. and didn’t die down until fiction-of-ideas, but many, even seasoned about each other’s desires and needs. personality that’s attracted to the idea of to see if they can process the electrical is won at the cost of planetary destruc- 1020 A.D.) tend to be bad times to live. SF readers, just turn away. To get a little less nose-bleedingly ab- leaving the decay-prone meatbody behind impulses associated with memory tion, with humanity cul-de-sac’d as our Unfortunately, for about the past 200 I would like to hope that I’ve gone some stract: say I am crawling through a desert and uploading itself into AI heaven. There’s and then communicate them back to future heads off into the stars without years -- that’s about 0.1% of H. sapiens’ life way toward changing the terrain within the and dying of thirst, and you happen to have a visible correlation between this sort of the brain for long-term storage. Joel us. span as a species – that strategy has been SF genre itself, though. Robert Bradbury’s the only bottled water concession within personality and the more socially dysfunc- Davis at the Office of Naval Research, a For his latest novel, Halting State fundamentally broken. We’ve been going concept of the Matrioshka Brain (or Jupi- a hundred miles. How much is your wa- tional libertarians (who are also convinced sponsor of Berger’s work, said, “Using (released in June 2008), Stross savages through a period of massive technological, ter Brain, in earlier iterations) is one of the ter worth? In the middle of a crowded city that if the brakes on capitalism were off, implantables to enhance competency is the fantasy worlds we escape into for scientific, and ideological change, and it has most marvelous SF concepts I’ve run across with drinking fountains every five yards they’d somehow be teleported to the apex down the road. It’s just a matter of time.” fun and profit and invites us to peek invalidated the old rule set. But even so, at in a long time, and not trivially easy to re- and competing suppliers, it’s worth a buck of the food chain in place of the current top While Berger’s work is a far cry from a underneath the surfaces as our chatter- a day-to-day level, or month-to-month, fute. I wanted to get past the then-prevalent a bottle. But in the middle of a desert, to predators). hard drive for the brain, I’m intrigued by ing gadgets dress up reality with virtual things don’t change so much. So most idea that you couldn’t write about a Vinge- someone who’s dying of thirst, its value is Both ideologies are symptomatic of the notion of being able to “back up” my sword-and-sorcery games, all under- people tend to ignore the overall shape of an singularity -- it’s difficult, but we’ve got nearly infinite. You can model my circum- a desire for simple but revolutionary so- written by oh-so-creative financial in- change until it’s impossible to ignore. Then tools for thinking about these things. And stances and my likely (dying-of-thirst) re- lutions to the perceived problems of the memory just in case. struments. they try to apply the old rules to new me- I got the idea of computronium into com- action to a change in your asking price and present, without any clear understanding All of Stross’s highly connective dia or technologies, make a hopeless mess mon enough parlance that Rudy Rucker decide to hike your price to reflect demand. of what those problems are or where they pipe-dream superstructures are wide of things, and start on a slow and painful recently took a potshot at it, implying that You can do this because you have a theory arise from. (In the case of the libertarians, open to the one geopolitical prick that learning process. It’s been quite interesting it’s part of the universe of discourse in my of mind, and can model my internal state, they mostly don’t understand how the cur- will pop them all like the balloon ani- to watch the slow progress toward an inter- field. and determine that when dying of thirst, rent system came about, or that the reason mals they are. Be warned. Take care of national consensus on certain aspects of In- H+: I’m curious about the Econom- my demand for water will be much higher we don’t live in a minarchist night-watch- the bottom line, or your second life will ternet culture, for example. In that context, ics 2.0 idea that is featured in Accelerando. than normal. And this is where informa- man state is because it was tried in the 18th

#1 #1 28 FALL 2008 Fall 2008 29 Inter MINI view and 19th centuries, and it didn’t work very access to mind-numbingly vast amounts of world that’s haunted by imaginary beings. mainstream culture show signs of un- well. In the case of the AI-rapture folks, I energy and inhabitable space. I think of Arthur C. Clarke’s notion that derstanding itself as evolving into a suspect there’s a big dose of Christian mil- The extropians took the idea one step a sufficiently advanced technology is in- Botox Parties, mutant breed and do those who need lennialism (of the sort that struck around further, with the idea of computronium distinguishable from magic. Do you think 990–1010 A.D., and again in the past de- — the densest conceivable form of mat- the areas and powers that we’re opening Michael Jackson, to be different or avant garde have any cade) that, because they’re predisposed to ter structured to maximize computation. up will change us? new avenues opening up to keep them a less superstitious, more technophillic What amount of thinking can you get done CS: What makes you think it’s about and the ahead of the hoi polloi? world-view, they displace onto a quasisci- by building a Dyson sphere, optimized to us? DEWDNEY: The corollary to the Botox entific rationale. support computation rather than biological We’re human 1.0. We’re not going craze is the predicament of disillusion- Mind uploading would be a fine thing, life? Bradbury suggested building multiple there. Or we may go down that road, but Disillusioned ment, nay, misanthropism, that I have but I’m not convinced what you’d get at the concentric spheres of free-flying compute the things that arrive at the other end won’t end of it would be even remotely human. nodes, each shell feeding off the waste heat be us. (They might remember having start- Transhumanist found myself immersed in the last couple of years. Perhaps the real ground of my (Me, I’d rather deal with the defects of the of the next layer in. Some estimates of the ed out as us, but I’m not betting on it.) with Christopher Dewdney, culture theorist meat machine by fixing them -- I’d be very computing power of such a Matrioshka H+: disillusionment is my hard-lost benevo- There’s a nasty little idea bur- and author of Last Flesh: Life in the happy with cures for senescence, cardiovas- Brain (named after the nested Russian ied in Halting State, I think. Like: if you lence. I’m an optimist; I like people. Yet cular disease, cancer, and the other nasty dolls) suggest that it would be roughly as far Transhuman Era think things are bad when people get their when I asked a lot of “average” people failure modes to which we are prone, with beyond us -- the entire human species -- as ideas about reality from TV, wait until our — people who weren’t part of my circle limb regeneration and tissue engineering we are beyond a single nematode worm. imaginations are completely colonized, RU Sirius and unlimited life prolongation.) But then, If the idea of procedural artificial in- surveilled and programmed. Our hero — what they would do with the kind of I’m growing old and cynical. Back in the telligence holds water, it’s possible that a bleakly opines, that this is the reason for The Sheep H+: Michael Jackson seems to self-transformative power that may per- eighties I wanted to be the first guy on my Back in the eighties the Fermi Paradox. There are no signs of reflect various trans-mutant haps be ours to wield, I was increasingly block to get a direct-interface jack in his alien life because you get so far and then themes. appalled. The jocks I talked to wanted to skull. These days, I’d rather have a firewall. I wanted to be the vanish up your own artificial reality. Have H+: Shit Grass DEWDNEY: For me, Michael Jackson be bigger and stronger so they could beat You said “I’d be very happy with I got that right? And is that a prediction? first guy on my represents a sort of pioneer of self-trans- the shit out of everybody else; the wom- cures for senescence, cardiovascular dis- CS: I try not to make predictions -- but (or The End of formation. Aside from whatever question- ease, cancer, and the other nasty failure block to get a I see that one as a distinct possibility (and en wanted to morph into their ideal role modes to which we are prone, with limb indeed, as yet another solution to the Fermi able personal motives are impelling him, models. I began to realize that what most regeneration, and tissue engineering and direct-interface Paradox). Scarcity) he is using cosmetic surgery to achieve a people wanted was conformity; their “ide- unlimited life prolongation.” It seems to jack in his skull. with Cory Doctorow, SF writer and Boing look that is definitely transhuman. He has als” would turn us into a world of under- me that this still puts you in the Trans- Boing editor. taken us by proxy to the frontier of what is achieving Nicole Kidmans and eight-foot humanist camp. Would you agree? These days, I’d currently possible with cosmetic surgery CS: To the extent that I don’t believe RU Sirius Brad Pitts, identical cut-outs with no indi- the human condition is immutable and rather have a and he has even escaped the constraints vidualism. constant then yes, I’m a Transhumanist. If firewall. DOCTOROW: It’s not hard to think about of race by lightening his skin color. This My previous rather naive notion that the human condition was immutable, we’d a kind of nanotech future where virtually last aspect is perhaps the most controver- biotechnology would free us from the still be living in caves. (And I have a very Matrioshka Brain (or something like it) is sial and disconcerting, but the freedom to tyranny of “normalcy,” that we could dim view of those ideologies and religions going to turn out to be the end state of any all objects are available on demand. In choose all your “inherited” features, both become anything we wanted, morph that insist that we shouldn’t seek to im- tool-using civilization: after all, the bulk of that kind of world, both the traditional familial and racial, will probably become prove our lot.) the mass of which our planet is composed Marxist and the traditional Keynesian ourselves into elongated, blue-skinned, H+: Earlier on, you referred to the is of no use to us whatsoever (other than analyses don’t make a lot of sense. These an intrinsic part of the transhuman era. orange-haired, sixteen-fingered geniuses Matrioshka brain. Can you say a bit more insofar as it makes a dent in spacetime for are predicated first and foremost on the H+: He reflects, although perhaps or perhaps flying ribbons of sensual bliss about that and why you find it an appeal- us to stick to), never mind the rest of the regulation of scarce and valuable objects. not fully consciously, a pursuit of oth- that performed acrobatic choreographies ing or, perhaps, realistic concept? solar system... erness, alienation, and mutation that above the sunset, was a very utopian and, CS: As I said, the credit for the concept H+: Moving on, your latest novel, In a “Kazaa World” where every time runs through many contrasting sub- as it turns out, unpopular dream. Indi- belongs to Robert Bradbury, who refined it Halting State is all about different levels someone expresses a market signal about cultures from psychedelicists to goths further from discussions by Eliezer Yud- of reality. LARPs and Second Life, of- the value of a song by downloading a viduality or creative improvisation is the kowsky and others in the mid-nineties, in fice politics, the “mammalian overlay” of copy of it, instead of there being one fewer to UFO nuts, to early transhumanists, last thing most people want. So Botox is turn based on speculation by Freeman Dy- sexual seduction, financial instruments: copies of that song, there’s now one more SF fanatics, ad infinitum. And now really a dreadful symptom of a new, radi- son going back as far as the 1960s. they’re all artificial realities, one layer on copy of that song, this is a really different middle-aged, middle-class ladies have cal mundanity enabled by biotechnology. Dyson first opened the can of worms top of each other, and all interacting. It’s parties to shoot up Botox. Does the And that’s disillusioning. by suggesting that we could make better sort of like what we used to think of as a economic proposition. And I talk about use of the matter of the solar system by spiritual realm, but it’s right here run- this as an alternative to the tragedy of the structuring it as free-flying solar collec- ning on TCP/IP. It used to be only sha- “Great book!” -DC commons. This is a commons where the tors and habitats in variously inclined but mans and schizophrenics who had these sheep shit grass. The more you graze the non-intersecting orbits, which would trap sorts of visions, but now, if you’re wearing more you get. the entire solar radiation output and give us the special specs, we all get to share this

#1 #1 30 Fall 2008 FALL 2008 31 Miscellany Miscellany

Founder’s Fund. Name Net worth Edgy projects Amounts Web Science Fiction “I’m trying to construct a science fic- tion fund,” Thiel says, “but I’m nervous to 16 billion Seti, Allen Telescope Array (ATA) 25 million Paul Allen http://www.seti.org/seti/projects/ata describe it as that because it might attract Gets Funding Sponsored SpaceShipOne, which won the Ansari 30 million crazy people and not real entrepreneurs.” X-Prize in 2004 http://www.paulallen.com/Template. It’s true that wherever there are new aspx?contentId=26 Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center for early 5 million ideas, there are a few crazies, which may detection http://www.fhcrc.org Sonia Arrison explain why Larry Ellison seems to go out Allen Institute for Brain Science 100 million of his way to downplay the “anti-aging” http://www.alleninstitute.org 8.2 billion Blue Origin Refuses to disclose Billionaires who care about escape velocity, tone of his $42 million per year bioscience Jeff Bezos http://public.blueorigin.com radical life extension, or the Turing Test donations. Yet Ellison’s foundation was Reportedly around 1 billion Bigelow Aerospace 500 million Robert Bigelow http://www.bigelowaerospace.com don’t come along very often, but when responsible for funding David Sinclair of (he won’t comment) they do, their actions have the potential to Sirtris Pharmaceuticals, which is develop- Richard Branson 4.4 billion Virgin Galactic in collaboration with the 25 million investment SpaceShipOne team http://www.virgingalactic.com dramatically change the world. Space travel, ing a drug based on resveratrol, a chemical biotechnology, and artificial intelligence are found in the skin of red grapes that fights Larry Ellison 25 billion Ellison Medical Foundation 42 million a year for basic biomedical research anti-aging research http://www.ellisonfoundation.org/index.jsp three areas where some super-smart, super- the effects of aging. Sinclair’s company was wealthy people are directing their money – recently sold to GlaxoSmithKline for $720 and it’s starting to pay off. Unclear Harvard, Program for Evolutionary Dynamics 6.5 million million, proving that Ellison’s anti-aging Jeffrey Epstein http://www.ped.fas.harvard.edu For instance, Richard Branson of Virgin bet is not only edgy, but also valued by the Funds R&D on AI Unclear Group has already signed up 200 people to marketplace. One example: http://intelligenesiscorp.com/ take his commercial space flights starting agiriorg/path/acknowledgements.htm Larry Page, Sergey Brin 18.6, 18.7 billion Google Lunar X Prize 30 million in 2009. And, as if that wasn’t enough, he Paul Allen’s http://www.googlelunarxprize.org also announced that he’ll be performing John Sperling 1.7 billion Kronos 50 million for all anti-aging initiatives claimed Institute for Brain in an ‘04 Wired article. http://www.kronoshealth.com the first-ever space marriage on board one Science has… http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.02/ of his ships. When the new couple consid- immortal_pr.html Kronos Longevity Research Institute (founded 6.3 million in ‘06 from Sperling’s Aurora Foundation, ers a location for their honeymoon, hotel mapped an entire http://www.kronosinstitute.org/ chain billionaire Bob Bigelow can help. His 1999) usually 1.5 million per year according to Kronos mouse brain, spokesperson, but the extra funding is for the http://www.guidestar. company, Bigelow Aerospace, is planning Keepstudy orgFinDocuments/2006/860/873/2006- on launching experimental inflatable hotel detailing more 860873239-03778e30-F.pdf Genetic Savings and Clone Created first cloned cat modules sometime in 2010. But it doesn’t than 21,000 genes Went out of business in 2006 end there. Via Gen Livestock cloning and gene banking Google co-founders Larry Page and at the cellular http://www.viagen.com/ Sergey Brin take things a step further with level… 1.2 billion Methuselah Foundation 3.5 million the $30 million Google Lunar X Prize for Peter Thiel http://www.methuselahfoundation.org/ any team of scientists who land a robot on Singularity Institute 500,000 http://www.singinst.org/ the surface of the moon, travel 500 meters Cynthia Kenyon at UCSF $150,000 over the lunar surface, and send images and http://kenyonlab.ucsf.edu/ data back to the earth. When it comes to biotechnology, Mi- crosoft co-founder Paul Allen’s Institute Sonia Arrison is a senior fellow at the Pacific Resources for Brain Science has already mapped an Research Institute and is currently working entire mouse brain, detailing more than Paul Allen’s SpaceShipOne The Ellison Medical Foundation on a new book examining the social and 21,000 genes at the cellular level. Now his www.paulallen.com/Template.aspx?contentId=26 www.ellisonfoundation.org/index.jsp political impacts of extreme longevity. researchers are focused on the human brain, Allen Institute for Brain Science Google Lunar XPrize and perhaps soon they can start thinking www.alleninstitute.org www.googlelunarxprize.org about reverse engineering it. Of course, some billionaires funding Then there’s Peter Thiel, the PayPal co- cool technology prefer to avoid the lime- Jeff Beznos’ Blue Origin Kronos Longevity Research Institute public.blueorigin.com www.kronosinstitute.org/about/whoweare/index.cfm founder turned hedge fund manager who light and questions of money. For instance, is looking to speed up research in all three Amazon’s Jeff Bezos refuses to say how Bigelow Aerospace Singularity Institute areas (space, life extension, and AI). On the much he is spending on his space project www.bigelowaerospace.com www.singinst.org non-profit side, Thiel has given to the Sin- Blue Origin. It was also difficult to find de- gularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence tails concerning the investments of Apollo Virgin Galactic Cynthia Kenyon www.virgingalactic.com as well as the Methuselah Foundation that Group’s John Sperling and investor Jeffrey kenyonlab.ucsf.edu seeks to cure aging. On the for-profit side, Epstein. Nevertheless, all these billionaires he’s working to create a unique kind of in- are funding edgy and important work, and vestment strategy with his associates at the one hopes their ranks will grow.

#1 #1 32 Fall 2008 Fall 2008 33 Neuro Neuro

Overclocking the Lame! Not only is our working bandwidth clarity, they seem to only milk the limited Integration Theory (P-FIT, referred to here low, our long-term memory is lossy, leav- capacity of our current wetware without as the intelligence circuit), “Genetic re- ing us to rely on external storage methods providing the instantaneous multi-point search has demonstrated that intelligence Human CPU (ideas encoded in symbols or bits) to com- IQ boost we would expect from our “smart levels can be inherited, and since genes municate rational output to other people drugs.” Drugs can increase human intelli- work through biology, there must be a bio- A primer for the future of human intelligence and keep track of all the new “information” gence temporarily by increasing the speed logical basis for intelligence.” we create over time. For creatures that have and conductivity along the intelligence Since there is most likely a biological James Kent short unpredictable lives, this limited setup circuit. However, most of the evidence to basis for intelligence, and intelligence is might be okay, but for modern humans it date suggests that the brain will eventually considered to be a positive survival trait, it Although the human imagination is leaves us wanting more, better, faster. begin to power-down or tip into psychotic is reasonable to assume that humans will capable of many things, it is very difficult Since we have external memory stor- states if this method is used or abused for get smarter over time just by having sex and to imagine being smarter than we are now. age down (thanks, Internet!), this leaves too long. To build long-term conductivity making babies, which is a fun (but slow) We may be able to envision a life where the personal working-memory bandwidth the you need to train your mental reflexes just way to go about solving this problem. The average human can hold hundreds of facts most lacking of human traits in our time. as you would train your hand-eye reflexes, imposed pressures of modern society – such in working memory and manipulate them In biophysical terms the bandwidth of our and like any training this takes long peri- as requisite cultural literacy and basic math all with perfect accuracy and efficiency, but intelligence is limited to a tiny conduit of ods of discipline to see even limited results. skills – also drive the trend toward smarter it is hard to imagine what that would feel neural cables running from our working Books, video games, and websites that fo- humans, but simple education and evolu- like. How much more would we “know” memory in the brain’s frontal lobes, back cus on multistage puzzle solving in strict tion aren’t enough for some people. How due to the heightened capacity of our to the abstract symbol processing networks time limits (yes, I’m talking about Tetris) do we get people to become more intelli- super-genius intellect? Would the feeling in the parietal lobes, and back to the work- are probably the best way to get the logic gent within a single generation? be cold and computer-like; would it be circuit wires crackling and ready for more eerily prescient and clairvoyant? Would it Since we complex problem-solving, but what about …scientists find a be god-like? have external improving the robust capacity we crave? common splice for These are more than just rhetorical Data capacity, bandwidth, or robustness questions. While we 21st century humans memory storage along the intelligence circuit is the main increasing the are currently locked within the framework down (thanks, shortcoming of human intelligence, and efficiency of learning of our genetic neural architecture, our spe- what divides the geniuses from the morons. cies has gotten to the point where we can Internet!), this In real terms, this metric defines how many and… neurotrophin routinely tweak and build on the physical leaves personal abstract symbols we can hold in working supply at specific traits we’re born into with some training, memory at any one time while still per- chemical or surgical tinkering, and/or tar- working-memory forming rational analysis on those objects. neural targets, geted genetic alteration. Messing with the bandwidth the For instance, how many words from the fabric of human intelligence may be an eth- last paragraph could you recall if you closed leading to targeted ical black area in today’s climate, but super- most lacking of your eyes right now? Could you remember neural growth intelligence research is well under way in human traits in enough words to complete a simple seven- many forms right now. We’re heading into teen-syllable haiku in thirty seconds or less and plasticity in a future we can hardly begin to imagine our time. without any errors? No? Why not? mammalian neural with our primitive brains. If you can do it you’re probably a genius, Human intelligence is already progress- ing memory again. This intelligence circuit because that means you have the capacity networks ing in ways we cannot accurately measure. is where all the heavy-duty puzzle solving to hold at least ten or more random words The sheer force of evolution, culture, and goes down when you’re reading a map or in your working memory while perform- There are a few popular answers to centuries of written language has imprinted working a Sudoku grid. Human problem- ing rule-based contextual algorithms to this question. The first is that humans take our neural DNA with the networks needed solving requires that data moving along this rearrange logical syntactical output under advantage of brain-computer-interfaces to process abstract symbols and draw com- circuit be fast for focus and precision (good strict time limits. A computer could do it in (BCI) to create more robust “offsite” mem- plex hypothetical conclusions based on conductivity) and robust for complexity of a snap, but the limitations of our working ory and logic processing in a small micro- available data sets. This is the core of hu- thought (dense wiring). Increased speed memory make this all but impossible. This chip we keep implanted in our chest or man intelligence: the ability to compare, and connectivity along this circuit is where capacity is a trait we cannot easily improve shoulder. The technological foundation for contrast, and juxtapose sets of data against the future of human intelligence lies, and in a lifetime, not without radical mental making this work exists today, and is cur- each other in order to draw accurate con- there are only a few ways to get it moving training, dodgy neural steroid hormones, or Image by DC Spensley rently used to effectively treat Parkinson’s clusions and predict likely outcomes. in the right direction. even dodgier drug-induced neural plastic- disease via targeted computer stimulation Unfortunately, our mental toolkit is At one point in time it seemed that ity. What we do know is that this capacity of dopamine neurons. While the BCI op- comically weak, allowing us to only hold drugs were the answer to this question: Dex- for robust intelligence is genetically inher- tion seems optimal at first pass, the fact five to seven variables for comparing and edrine and piracetam, cognitive enhancers, ited, which naturally gives some people the that it requires surgery to embed electron- contrasting at any one time, and constantly ginko, ephedra, nootropics, and the like. upper hand. According to Richard Haier of ics and pass dozens of thin electrodes into needing to “dump” whatever is in work- While these supplements are indeed nifty the University of California, Irvine, one of our brains at various areas presents ethical ing memory when distracted by new tasks. for achieving short-term focus and mental the initial founders of the Parieto-Frontal roadblocks to research. Perhaps if someone

#1 #1 34 Fall 2008 Fall 2008 35 Neuro / H+ Lab H+ Lab

Bioart could finagle a sweet big-money grant to Resources H+ Lab tic design. The fields are distinct because of cure stupidity via microchip-aided neural their intention. The intention of industrial What can I say about bioart? It is a synchronization we would see some major design is to serve a client’s or potential cli- Working Memory Capacity Natasha Vita-More fabulously new genre that has a particular progress in this area, but that’s not likely in en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Working_ ent’s needs; the field of artistic design is to set of ideological viewpoints that are not the U.S.A. anytime soon. Maybe China? realize a concept conjured up in one’s mind memory#Working_memory_capacity I am writing a paper on radical life extension terribly H+, but are in close proximity to Maybe India? Hello, developing world, I — a creative process. These fields overlap NBIC works that some of us designers have hear opportunity calling… for a developmental field in the media arts and are allied, to be sure, but they are none- PFIT - Intelligence Circuit and sciences. Even though I have tried to been engaging in. Bioart doesn’t include However, the most likely (and poten- www.physorg.com/news108722746.html theless distinct. Here are some examples: experience design yet, but there is potential, tially darkest) scenario for rapid intelli- avoid it, the technological singularity keeps appearing, not because it was propitious Immersivity particularly as the nano-bio-info-cogno gence increase within a single generation is Diversity of Steroid Hormone Actions on the Brain revolution begins to explores new media. the genetic one. With all the trendy bio- for the paper but because it touches on You can find a great example of an www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/bv.fcgi?rid=bnchm. the very technologies that are crucial for industrial-type interface at Tronic Studio Upcoming exhibitions that are a precursor tech being thrown down these days it is section.3529 to a nano-bio-info-cogno rad-life-ex will only a matter of time until scientists find investigation of radical life extension. -- a company I am fond of. Working in the The nano-bio-info-cogno (NBIC) context of commercial design, they provide be appearing at the Moscow International a common splice or knockout method for Drug-induced Neural Plasticity Film Festival and also at the “Evolution increasing the efficiency of learning and convergence and its offspring generate a collection of experience designs for their www.acnp.org/g4/GN401000067/CH067.html inspiring and devastating narratives. (For clients. Haute Couture: Art and Science in the memory genes and/or neurotrophin supply Post-Biological Age.” at specific neural targets, leading to targeted those who may be unfamiliar with NBIC, Nootopics the acronym refers to a nascent field that Tronic Studio neural growth and plasticity in mammalian en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nootropics www.tronicstudio.com www.artifacial.org/evolution_haute_couture neural networks, a technique that will then employs the interdisciplinary possibilities of nanotechnology, biotechnology, be applied to neurogenesis and plasticity Book: Mind Performance Hacks: Tips & Tools for along the intelligence and motor-skills cir- information technology, and cognitive Overclocking Your Brain science and technology.) Digital Water Pavillion is an example of My video, “Bone Density,” will be ex- cuits of animals in vitro in order to create www.amazon.com/Mind-Performance-Hacks-Tools- hibiting. Returning to my paper, I stumble super-functioning organisms. Over a peri- Passing through this nano-bio-info- an artistic experience design that is exhib- Overclocking/dp/0596101538 cogno intersection might require some fi- ited for audience viewing and participation. Vita-More Natasha Image by across a famous 1954 quote from Nor- od of decades these methods will of course bert Weiner, the founder of cybernetics: be secretly tested in humans, resulting in a nessing -- much like the smooth moves of It premieres at the World Expo in Spain, VideoGame: Nintendo Brain Age synthetic nanometer-scale material passing and offers a sensorial experience — archi- “Seven Mile Boots” is a clever artistic “The human species is strong only insofar jump in IQ on the order of two - threefold www.cnn.com/2007/TECH/11/26/brain.training/ design — a stunning contemporary piece of as it takes advantage of the innate, adap- in a single generation, no doubt spawning a through cell membranes without ruptures. tecture as experience. But MIT scientists has done this. red footwear that enables the person wear- tive, learning faculties that its physiologi- race of Kahn-like supermen who will beat Ways to overclock your brain Digital Water Pavilion ing the boots to be a flaneur in the real and cal structure makes possible.” In H+ Lab, I us at chess all the time, grow to loathe us, ririanproject.com/2006/11/03/22-ways-to-overclok- Stelacci Nano Research www.core77.com/blog/object_culture/mit_ virtual worlds simultaneously. will be encouraging all of us to do just that and ultimately plot to destroy us all. But your-brain/ www.medindia.net/news/Synthetic-Nanoparticles- digital_water_pavilion_makes_a_splash_in_ through media and art. that’s still a few years out, so go play some can-Penetrate-Cells-Without-Adverse-Effects-on- spain_10171.asp Seven Mile Boots Halo 3 to get those hair-trigger reflexes up ririanproject.com/2007/05/22/33-new-ways-to- Membrane-37853-1.htm randomseed.org/sevenmileboots to snuff. When the black-market neural overclock-your-brain steroid hormones hit the milk supply we’ll Another architectural experience – one So why is it so difficult to locate enough that spins – is planned for Dubai. have to hope we don’t all go insane, but at Wired on Neurostim implants least SAT scores will be through the roof, cognitive surplus to engage in meaningful Alternative Reality Gaming www.wired.com/medtech/health/ Spinning Architecture for once. conversations about radical life extension? news/2001/08/46278 Maybe it’s because many people simply www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/ This genre is both industrially and artistically la-fg-buildingmotion26-2008jun26,0,312971. based and might be appropriate for engaging Additional Resources James Kent is the former publisher of want to be in the now and experience as Neurotrophins story?track=rss with other people in a narrative, real-world Psychedelic Illuminations and Trip much comfort and joy as possible, and then en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neurotrophins pass the knowledge on. I suppose it is easier experience. Alternative reality gaming Year Zero Magazine. He currently edits DoseNation. could provide a potential inducement for www.alternaterealitybranding.com/ com, a multi-user blog featuring drug news, to accommodate our physiological wet-ware Learning and Memory Plasticity Genes by experiencing a sense of accomplishment Wearables imagining together the actual experience of cannes2008yearzero/ humor, and commentary. www.sciencedaily.com/ living longer. Unfortunately, at the Cannes now, rather than in anticipating an arduous “FrogConcept” is a wearable industrial releases/2007/04/070418104300.htm Lions Award, the winner game was Trent 42 Entertainment reach toward H+ mental plasticity. design that allows for a full-sensory Anyway, since we are, in fact, experienc- Reznor’s devastating narrative of the year www.42entertainment.com/see.html MindFit Brain Training Software Achieves Highest experience by reshaping the world into a zero. Instead, it might be worth looking ing the now — we can look to the field of soothing spa-like escape. While it gives Score in Wall Street into the designers at 42 Entertainment, Moscow International Film Festival Experience Media Design as a medium for a robot appearance around the eyes, nose, Journal Brain Aging Experts Review building narratives that can perhaps mimic providers of immersive experiences. mediaforum.mediaartlab.ru www.pr.com/press-release/81533 and mouth, its streamline mask is, in itself, the experience of radical life extension. a pleasant design that can’t help but make Evolution Haute Couture: Art and Science in the For example, immersive environ- for an aesthetic experience. ments, wearable technology, alternate-re- www.42entertainment.com/see.html Post-Biological Age ality games and, adjacently, bioart practices FrogConcept www.artifacial.org/evolution_haute_couture touch on futuristic scenarios. These works www.frogdesign.com/news/frogconcept-a-digital- can be found in two distinct fields: the field escape-05162008.html of industrial design and the field of artis-

#1 #1 36 Fall 2008 Fall 2008 37 Inter MINI view Mixed Media

wisdom, gave Ellis the tie-in book, Hulk vs. his own devising. Freakangels is a weekly Warren Ellis Iron Man in Ultimate Human. That might six page webcomic - net community that sound like a Mixed Martial Arts pay-per- merges Midnight’s Children with Children of Takes It Past view special – the flying shiny metal of Men in an Anglified anime style. “23 years death against the biological freak who eats ago, twelve strange children were born at monster trucks, as Ellis puts it – but what exactly the same moment. 6 years ago, the The Limit we’ve got here is sharper, more cerebral, world ended. This is the story of what hap- something that drives both properties hard pened next.” What happens next is a post- Ultimate Human 1-6 (Marvel Comics), into the 21st century. What we’ve got here apocalyptic London under permanent Warren Ellis and Cary Nord. is two mad scientists arguing engineering flood, stripped down to subsistence living Freakangels, Warren Ellis and Paul Duff ield. tips for the future of the species. and watched over by eleven gothic oddities In the green corner, Bruce Banner, with peculiar powers and nasty habits. review by Paul McEnery pumped full of a biochemical “Supersoldier “What is the way the world ends?” “Of stack” that physically reimagines his body course, everyone has a different name for Warren Ellis will, if pushed, write about on the fly to fit any hostile terrain (like, it. The Violent Unknown event. The Es- ordinary people. Take “Crecy.” It’s a novella say, the planet Venus). In the red and yel- chaton. The Singularity. The Collapse. Lol/ that details every horrible technique low corner, Tony Stark, bloodstream flush Dies. And yet, whatever caused it saved us ordinary British people used to give two with nanotech that talks directly to the from a world where all future time was pre- fingers to the French nobility -- especially metal hand with the repulsor ray. Round determined and free will meant nothing. the longbow. But mostly he writes about one: smash each other’s head in. Round Imagine: It took the end of the world to extraordinary people, modified people, two: team up against the real villain, who create the conditions for the human race people with a little extra jammed into their blends both flavors of post-humanity, the to move forward into time on their own eye socket or pumping through their veins. internalized biotech and the externalized terms.” People you’d patent to make a fortune from, mech-tech, to form a self-modifying brain They live in Jack the Ripper’s territory, except they’re the kind to use every horrible grown out of pure mechorganic compu- but it’s Lucifer’s agenda. Time and Space technique they can think of to give you the tronium. And why? Why to take down ripped apart to create total freedom from finger somewhere you wouldn’t want it, America’s best, and brightest for Britain, of necessity, and with the added benefit of giv- with something novel and filthy and lethal course. That the villain is a hard-drinking, ing you precognition, telepathy, and flying maybe a billion billion billion atoms at a Why is this process taking place? It is TheProgressive and active flickering under the nail. hard-smoking, antagonistic, self-promot- steampunk bikes that run on water, which pop. And we’d move through metallurgy, my belief – and I think anthropology can And speaking of extraordinary and le- ing, over-thinking cynic doesn’t make him may not be enough to compensate for what Ingression of and chemistry, and come down to the back me up here – that language isn’t thal people, there were two big superhero a stand-in for the author, but only because Number Twelve means to do with his filthy, manipulation of billions to millions just an internal process. Rather, linguis- movies let loose early this summer, with they haven’t quite invented it yet. lethal fingertip technique. of atoms. Then we could get down to tic components overflow their boundar- Robert Downey Jr. boozing his way through In parallel to this mainstream big event Freakangels unfolds slowly, in episodic Intelligence into current state-of-the-art microprocessors, ies in the mind and become concretized Iron Man, and Ed Norton brooding it up as book, Ellis has invented a property of his time, and two-by-two windowpane space, where the surface features are about a as artifacts. Writing is the most obvious The Incredible Hulk. Marvel Comics, in its own, on a turf of his own, in a medium of with a guarantee of one unexpected idea Matter thousand atoms thick. And we can see of these boundary overflows, but every a week, completely mad but still as of yet with Mark Pesce, senior lecturer in how the subsequent generations of chips technology represents some sort of mate- available for commercial exploitation. And will have features that are a hundred rial fixation of a linguistic concept. In that Emerging Media and Interactive Design at unlike the commercial films that provide atoms across, then ten atoms, and then sense, the materiality of human history is the impetus for this project, there’s no the Australian Film, Television, and Radio – perhaps around 2012 or so – a single a story of how homo sapiens learned to chance at all of a sappy ending with a baby. School and designer of VRML atom across. That’ll end the chart. speak with their hands, translate their lan- What this chart actually shows is the guage into artifact, and then engage in a Paul McEnery is a former editor with Mondo RU Sirius relationship between human activity and conversation with these artifacts. This sets 2000. He is writing a mosaic novel about an human artifact. Artifacts have consistently up a very interesting feedback loop, be- ill-tempered God trapped in his own creation. PESCE: Ray Kurzweil has this nifty little moved away from the crude – in terms of cause the exteriorized linguistic object – He is beginning to sympathize. chart that shows the cost of computing the raw number of atoms being manipu- the technology – produces ramifications per bit, dropping precipitously – lated – to the refined. Fewer and fewer at- of language, which in turn produce new exponentially – as time goes by. Like so oms are employed in each manipulation. technologies, etc., until the whole thing much of his work, he manages to miss The end state of this process is nanotech- spirals completely out of control. And Resources the big point by focusing on a particularly nology, which, for those of your readers we’re already well past that point. Freakangels meaningless one. If I were to draw a chart, who don’t believe atomic scale assembly A succinct way of phrasing this pro- www.freakangels.com I’d map out the minimum number of will ever be possible, I insist is the natural cess, using two-dollar words, is the “pro- atoms a human being can manipulate at and inexorable vector of human activity, gressive ingression of intelligence into Warren Ellis Live Journal warren-ellis.livejournal.com one time through time. We’d start out with as demonstrated by the chart I have just matter.” stone and flint and obsidian tools – that’s described.

#1 #1 38 FALL 2008 Fall 2008 39 Music Humor

Akhentek’s Music this music the strange quality of feeling at until we do, I’m thrilled to know that we tion, because this argument is so profound McKibben, the human death’s head. once transparent and mysterious. have innovators like Akhentek. Fighting it only seems stupid to the untrained brain: Their argument isn’t actually that death Deep within the art of this music coils the good fight, sculpting sound to elevate If you never die, your life never had any is good. Their argument is that heaven is For Mind States the esoteric theory of neuroentrainment: consciousness directly and for the greater meaning. Only if you die will your life have good. All prominent anti-transhumanists the science of getting the brain to vibrate at good–secret agent techno-shamans like had meaning. Of course, there’s no way to -- Fukuyama, Kass, McKibben -- are re- Michael Garfield specific frequencies. It seems to be an easy Akhentek are about the business of en- tell, since you’re dead. That’s where I get a ligious. Their sense of meaning springs enough trick. Our brains expect to hear lightening unwitting ravers and inspiring little confused. Maybe it’s knowing you will from a faith that through suffering they A moment of speculation, rooted in a more or less the same thing in each ear, so the next generation of state-engineers to eventually die that gives life meaning. Wait, will enter paradise after they are dead. If a study of universal trends: human history they split the difference between tones that plunge even deeper into our limitless po- this is deeper than you think. Here’s an ex- bunch of nonbelievers creates a real death- can be defined as development along any don’t quite line up, creating the auditory il- tential to explore – and create – novel states ample: wake up with a feeling of existential less paradise here in reality, it will ruin that of numerous axes, but my preferred story- lusion of a single note. This activity requires of mind. anomie. Life is so meaningless. Then stub fantasy. It will be like when all the bad kids for-our-species is of an advance in mind special collaboration between the right and your toe. See any meaning? Maybe not yet on your block get better presents from control technologies. For good and ill, the left hemispheres, which syncs brain activ- Michael Garfield is a live painter, songwriter, How about you find a lump in your breast? Santa. To work so gleefully for immortal- development of our consciousness flies in ity at that agreed-upon mean. If the left ear and essayist in Boulder, Colorado. Aha! Now your life is suffused with mean- ity and cessation of pain is to thumb your tandem with our expanding capacity to hears 104 Hz and the right ear hears 108 ing! Why? Because it just started sucking. nose at ancient sources of meaning. Success access and explore various states of mind Hz, the entire brain will pulse at 4 Hz, the McKibben will put on his tombstone: will demonstrate that such deep sources of at will. Our command of navigating the corresponding state of mind. It may be one “I’m dead. Nyah-nyah-nyah. Have a nice meaning are not eternal, but technical solv- mind with sensory and electrochemical of the cheapest ways to engineer conscious- eternal enhanced life, transhumanist suck- able problems. That’s a real faith-shaker. stimulation has matured to include ness. No drugs, no surgery, no nanobots – in DC Spensley Image by ers.” Ray Kurzweil will be sitting there with I’ve tried to convert to what I call the everything from reviving early entheogenic his nanotechnologically enhanced penis Wendell Berry style of argumentation, experiments with drumming and chanting, and Wikipedia brain feeling like a chump. which is to replace clear thinking with lit- to contemporary techniques of magnetic The Meaning of Whose life has meaning now, bitches? erary eloquence, but I just don’t get their temporal lobe stimulation and virtual That’s right, the dead guy’s. core syllogism: reality immersion. And with impending Life Lies in Its Won’t it be funny if Bill McKibben I’m alive. Then I’m dead. Where’s the advances in biotech and nanotech that outlives Ray Kurzweil? Can you imagine meaning? will profoundly deepen the intimate anything pissing off Bill McKibben more How about this? I’m alive. I keep living relationship between brain and machine Suckiness than if he reaches 110? That would be po- longer. Not sure if that’s more meaningful, (and erase those primitive distinctions), we etic justice. but it sure sucks less. can be sure that individual control of the Joe Quirk But no matter how much older he gets mind will be one of the best markers we than his photos, Bill can always hope he Joe Quirk is a TV talk show darling for his have for measuring our humanity (and our I’ve been converted. Frances Fukuyama, will die. So what’s his concern? hilarious nonfiction It’s Not You, It’s Biology: transhumanity). theory, all you need is a pair of headphones Leon Kass, and Bill McKibben have shown McKibben is concerned that the rest The Science of Love, Sex and Relationships. With this in mind, I spend much of my and a “crystalline array technician” to pre- me the folly of all you silly transhumanists. of us might not suffer and die. If we all time looking at contemporary art and mu- pare the sounds for you. Life has meaning in direct proportion to live long healthy happy lives, Bill’s favorite sic as touchstones, clues to our place as a These so-called binaural beats coast how royally it sucks. poetry will become obsolete. Bill is wor- self-transcending species. Every time I see inaudibly across each other in Akhentek’s I saw Bill McKibben read a speech to ried that an enhanced Ray Kurzweil won’t intention meet technology in a deliberate music underneath warm and deep master- the Singularity Summit. He was on a gi- appreciate Ecclesiastes. In case you don’t manipulation of mindstates, I rejoice that ing, giving his compositions an odd quality ant Teleportec screen. His face was three know, Ecclesiastes is the most depressing we are on the right track. And nowhere is – it feels at once transparent and mysteri- feet wide, towering over the transhuman- poem in the gloomiest book ever written, this confluence more apparent than in the ous. ist panel, explaining why every nerd in the on the subject of all things sucky, and Bill careful structuring of electronic musicians It’s little wonder that he has a back- room should suffer and die. The guy never thinks we should appreciate it. like Akhentek, a self-described “crystalline ground in biology and “Brazilian Genet- smiled. Not once. McKibben is a perfect Here’s another moral imperative you array technician” from Elphinstone, British ics” (which I assume is a euphemism for spokesman for death, because he looked transhumanist fools haven’t considered: we Columbia, whose psy-trance productions ayahuasca initiation) – this guy’s eye and Resources like a giant talking skull. owe something to people who don’t exist are “precision engineered sonic textures in- ear are definitely trained on human evo- If you pause the streaming video at yet. People who don’t exist yet are waiting tentionally designed to induce higher fre- lution and accelerating its numerous per- Akhentek 13:18, you see a shot of me, slack-jawed, in line to take our places. They can’t do that quency mindstates.” mutations. Cascades of twittering clicks www.myspace.com/akhentekmusic with an expression on my face that says: unless we die. Don’t nonexistent people Akhentek’s nuanced tracks, like the and swells of buzzing oscillations sweep “This giant skull wants to kill me to give have rights? Damn right they do. The right Resources burbling glitch of “Spectrality” or the free- through my head as I listen, seemingly re- en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binaural_beats my life meaning.” to demand our deaths. Luckily, nonexistent floating guitar and synthesizers on his formatting my consciousness on some deep McKibben’s dedication to the nobility people have Bill McKibben and Frances Joe Quirk “White Girls in Saris” remix, definitely in- unconscious level. I start feeling the effects www.neuroacoustic.com of age and death doesn’t prevent him from Fukayama speaking up for their right to kill www.joequirk.com duce a strange, buzzing feeling – and unlike of his “rare sensitivity to frequencies” as the posting a photo on his website that shows you. Which they can’t do, since they don’t many other buzz-inducing artists, I know physical environment around me begins to Michael Garfield -- Art and Music him looking twenty years younger than exist. So Kass and Fukayama will kill you Bill McKibben that he’s doing it on purpose. Binaural ripple with gauzy transparency. myspace.com/michaelgarfield he actually is. Nor does his stance against for them, by legislating against doctors in- www.billmckibben.com beats coast inaudibly across each other un- It may be a long while before we have technological enhancement prevent him terfering with your long slow death. Which derneath warm and deep mastering, giving total agency over individual awareness, but from wearing eyeglasses. But pay atten- takes me back to my initial terror of Bill

#1 #1 40 Fall 2008 Fall 2008 41 Dear Readers,

The board of directors of Humanity+ welcomes you to this first edition of H+ Magazine, with its inspiring stories of how emerging technologies can help elevate humanity in increasingly powerful and positive ways. We will cover diverse fields such as nanotech, biotech, artificial intelligence and robotics, longevity medicine, space exploration and colonization, and, of course, their legal and ethical issues.

2008 has been a watershed year for us. We launched our first ever matching grant fund drive, raising over $75,000; we began rebranding our organization as “Humanity+”; we launched this magazine; we began redesigning our site under www.humanityplus.org; and we created Convergence08: Bringing Life to Big Ideas, an Unconference in partnership with other future-focused organizations.

We especially want to thank the generous financial contributions from our members, who helped make these achievements possible, and give our deepest thanks to Bill Faloon, Brian Cartmell and Dan Stoicescu for their unprecedented support. Their matching grants accounted for over two-thirds the money we raised this year. Thanks, guys. We couldn’t have done this without you.

Bill Faloon Brian Cartmell Dan Stoicescu

We would also like to thank our Editor RU Sirius and Art Director, DC Spensley for making our dream of producing a quarterly magazine a reality!

In the coming year, we hope to build on our successes, growing our membership and guiding our ideas out into the mainstream through as many forms of communication as the future allows.

For a brighter, healthier and happier future,

Ben Goertzel Bruce Klein Giulio Prisco James Clement

PJ Manney Michael LaTorra Michael Treder Nick Bostrom

Tyler Emerson James Hughes Michael Anissimov