By Glenn Farr
About five years ago, when I bought a Palm Pilot as part of my ever-spiraling descent into tech-geekdom, I found pre-installed on it an article describing an expected technological watershed referred to as “the technological singularity.”
I had never heard the term before, but the title had the word “technological” in it, so I read the article. I must say, I found it unexpectedly disquieting.
I don’t remember who wrote the article, but it was a well-documented piece by an expert and it described the point in time—estimated to be not too far from our own present reality—when artificial intelligence will advance to the point that it becomes conscious and can replicate itself and evolve with no help from its creators—we mere human beings.
Sobering thought.
And the article became even more sobering as it indicated how insanely intelligent devices with artificial intelligence could out-think us and out-perform us on every level and would ultimately render us obsolete. They might even choose to get rid of us.
Very sobering thought.
To be honest, the article creeped me out for a while. But then time passed and its impact lessened. I began to lapse into a que sera, sera mindset about it all and even stopped thinking about it.
From time to time, I’ve been nudged back into considering my species’ pending obsolescence when I hear about new cars that can park themselves and I watch science documentaries heralding the latest advances in robotics. Honda has developed ASIMO, the cute little robot that can essentially move like a human being and can respond to certain inquiries and commands. But it doesn’t think for itself.
Not yet.
And other Japanese scientists have created the Repliee Q1, an automaton that looks like a living, breathing woman. She can even replicate certain aspects of human body motion. But she can’t walk and she doesn’t think for herself, either.
Not yet.
Of course, what may seem to be rather ordinary technological devices, like laptop computers and cell phones, continue through their own rapid arcs of development, allowing us to do everything from playing music to creating our own original movies. And from one model to the next, they continue to do a lot more a heckuva lot faster than we might have imagined only a few short years ago. My own cell phone, for example, does such arcane things as count how many steps I take each day and how many calories I burn while doing it.
When I ponder where this kind of stuff leads, televised sci-fi shows me. Virtually any successful franchise includes some sort of AI, an artificial life form that became consciously aware and learned to function and replicate itself independently.
Battlestar Galactica has the “skin job” Cylons, who were created by the metal servant/soldier Centurion Cylons. These metallic men had initially been created by humans do to their dirty work, but evolved into conscious awareness and adapted their later models to perfectly imitate human form and function—before ultimately attempting the annihilation of the human race. When their human-like bodies are damaged beyond repair, they simply download into a new one.
The Terminator franchise (on TV now as
The Sarah Connor Chronicles) has the killer cyborgs, whose primary mission is to wipe out John Connor so they can save the future for machinekind. These efficient and self-repairing robots are, in turn, created and managed by the evil Skynet, which evolved from a computer chess program created at some point in the late 20th Century.
And
Stargate Atlantis has the replicators, nano-machines that learned to assimilate into larger beings able to imitate human form and consciousness. And, they also figuratively eat their masters—once again, us lowly humans.
Even the original
Star Trek dabbled in higher machine consciousness. There was that episode about the new computer assigned to take over the Enterprise battle operations, but went rogue and began to vaporize other Federation starships, essentially just because it felt like it. On a lighter note, there was the “I, Mudd” episode in which half-hearted villain Harry Mudd found an android planet so dedicated to serving human beings they wouldn’t let him go—and he found himself imprisoned by android love.
Of course, this is all fantasy.
At least for the time being. When that technological singularity occurs, all bets are off.
Recently, I was watching some science program on some satellite TV channel. It could have been the Discovery Channel or PBS. I don’t remember which. My apologies—I watch a lot of TV, absorb innumerable factoids and subsequently don’t remember where I gathered such minutiae. Nevertheless, this no-longer-remembered program disclosed to me that sooner rather than later, we should be able to electronically map our brains, thereby preserving our consciousness and allowing us to transfer it to the android body of our choice.
Wow! Creepy, yet fascinating. Instant mortality!
The very idea causes me to remember more about the “I, Mudd” episode of
Star Trek. At one point in the story, Mudd is holding the Enterprise bridge crew hostage in a gambit to use the ship to escape from his android captors. As part of the crew’s attempt to escape Mudd and regain their ship, Uhura pretends to want to have her consciousness transferred to a new, artificial body.
She says something to the effect of, “I want to be young and beautiful forever.”
These days, when I have as many body parts that hurt as those that don’t, I can appreciate the sentiment. No aches, no pain, no growing old. And if I got tired of looking a certain way, or being a certain height—whatever—I could trade it in and get my consciousness transferred to a newer model.
I’m sure there would be drawbacks, though. Flesh does have its pleasures, however more fleeting they become as we age.
Nevertheless, the more I think about it, and since the technological singularity may well happen no matter what I or anyone else does … who knows? I think I might actually want to be a Cylon when I grow up.
That is, if my cell phone doesn’t kill me in my sleep.
Posted
Thu, Nov 13 2008 5:05 PM
by
glennf@naca.org