According to a story in the Daily Telegraph today, science has succeeded in its task of unlocking the secrets of matter, and now it’s simply a question of applying this knowledge to fulfill all our wants and dreams. The article is trailing a new BBC TV series fronted by Michio Kaku, who explains that “we are making the historic transition from the age of scientific discovery to the age of scientific mastery in which we will be able to manipulate and mould nature almost to our wishes.”
A series of quotes from “today’s pioneers” covers some painfully familiar ground: nanobot armies will punch holes in the blood vessels of enemy soliders, leading Nick Bostrom to opine that “In my view, the advanced form of nanotechnology is arguably the greatest existential risk humanity is likely to confront in this century.” Ray Kurzweil tells us that within 10 to 15 years we will be able to “reprogram biology away from cancer, away from heart disease, to really overcome the major diseases that kill us. “ Other headlines speak of “an end to aging”, “perfecting the human body” and taking “control over evolution”. At the end, though, it’s loss of control that we should worry about, having succeeded in creating superhuman artificial intelligence: Paul Saffo tells us “”There’s a good chance that the machines will be smarter than us. There are two scenarios. The optimistic one is that these new superhuman machines are very gentle and they treat us like pets. The pessimistic scenario is they’re not very gentle and they treat us like food.”
This all offers a textbook example of what Dale Carrico, a rhetoric professor at Berkeley, calls a superlative technology discourse. It starts with an emerging technology with interesting and potentially important consequences, like nanotechnology, or artificial intelligence, or the medical advances that are making (slow) progress combatting the diseases of aging. The discussion leaps ahead of the issues that such technologies might give rise to at the present and in the near future, and goes straight on to a discussion of the most radical projections of these technologies. The fact that the plausibility of these radical projections may be highly contested is by-passed by a curious foreshortening. This process has been forcefully identified by Alfred Nordmann, a philosopher of science from TU Darmstadt, in his article “If and then: a critique of speculative nanoethics” (PDF). “If we can’t be sure that something is impossible, this is sufficient reason to take its possibility seriously. Instead of seeking better information and instead of focusing on the programs and presuppositions of ongoing technical developments, we are asked to consider the ethical and societal consequences of something that remains incredible.”
What’s wrong with this way of talking about technological futures is that it presents a future which is already determined; people can talk about the consequences of artificial general intelligence with superhuman capabilities, or a universal nano-assembler, but the future existence of these technologies is taken as inevitable. Naturally, this renders irrelevant any thought that the future trajectory of technologies should be the subject of any democratic discussion or influence, and it distorts and corrupts discussions of the consequences of technologies in the here and now. It’s also unhealthy that these “superlative” technology outcomes are championed by self-identified groups – such as transhumanists and singularitarians – with a strong, pre-existing attachment to a particular desired outcome – an attachment which defines these groups’ very identity. It’s difficult to see how the judgements of members of these groups can fail to be influenced by the biases of group-think and wishful thinking.
The difficulty that this situation leaves us in is made clear in another article by Alfred Nordmann – “Ignorance at the heart of science? Incredible narratives on Brain-Machine interfaces”. “We are asked to believe incredible things, we are offered intellectually engaging and aesthetically appealing stories of technical progress, the boundaries between science and science fiction are blurred, and even as we look to the scientists themselves, we see cautious and daring claims, reluctant and self- declared experts, and the scientific community itself at a loss to assert standards of credibility.” This seems to summarise nicely what we should expect from Michio Kaku’s forthcoming series, “Visions of the future”. That the program should take this form is perhaps inevitable; the more extreme the vision, the easier it is to sell to a TV commissioning editor. And, as Nordmann says: “The views of nay-sayers are not particularly interesting and members of a silent majority don’t have an incentive to invest time and energy just to “set the record straight.” The experts in the limelight of public presentations or media coverage tend to be enthusiasts of some kind or another and there are few tools to distinguish between credible and incredible claims especially when these are mixed up in haphazard ways.”
Have we, as Kaku claims, “unlocked the secrets of matter”? On the contrary, there are vast areas of science – areas directly relevant to the technologies under discussion – in which we have barely begun to understand the issues, let alone solve the problems. Claims like this exemplify the triumphalist, but facile, reductionism that is the major currency of so much science popularisation. And Kaku’s claim that soon “we will have the power of gods” may be intoxicating, but it doesn’t prepare us for the hard work we’ll need to do to solve the problems we face right now.
It is not clear to me why everyone needs to be focussed on the same part of the spectrum of possibilities. A division of labor would seem sensible. If there is a reasonable chance (and perhaps there is the quibble) that technological advances may outpace society’s ability to cope, then having some people think in advance about swift changes would seem helpful. Those who think change will be incremental would reasonably focus on those challenges. Of course human thought and attention are not unlimited resources, but spreading our bets makes sense to me.
I am with you on the issue of pre-determination. The future is not predetermined, it is ours make. I also agree that science has not “unlocked the secrets of matter” – far from it.
But I think that you go too far in your critique of transhumanists and singluaritiarians. It is necessary to think about the implications of technologies which may or may not be possible; because in a fast-paced world, if you refuse to think about the implications of an advance until you are ABSOLUTELY CERTAIN that it is possible, you may end up trying to shut the stable door after the horse has bolted. Disruptive technologies like brain-computer interfaces and artificial intelligence may well go straight from being “fringe” to reality, so we should spend time thinking about particular advances even if we only think that there is a small chance that they will be achieved.
I’ve kind of responded to this over on my blog, Transhuman Goodness
The issue isn’t that one shouldn’t try and think of far future developments of technology – of course one should. But we need to recognise how many different possible futures there are. You only have to look at the failures of prediction in the past to see how difficult it is to see how fast moving technology and society will interact. For this reason I am suspicious about a transhumanist vision of the future that seems (a) to be rather fixed, and (b) hasn’t changed much over the last 15 years.
The Climate change message touted at the end of the Alfred Norman piece has been going on for 200 years and in relatively its current form since 1958 and the sixties.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2007/jan/08/climatechange.climatechangeenvironment
This vision has not changed much over that time other either. Is that a reason not to bleieve it ?
Sometimes problems take a long time to solve and realize. That does not mean they are not worth pursuing.
In technology there has been the vision of cleaner nuclear power with nuclear fusion. A vision of the future that has changed little over the last 40 years.
For MNT, almost no effort, no results is not a surprise and does not say anything about the goal.
There are a lot of possible futures. But some mistakes are persistent.
We would have a better future if we replace coal for power generation. The problem has persisted for a hundred years and will still take decades.
We have to not use chemical rockets to really get anywhere in space.
If we do use chemical rockets (or even if we don’t, we can still do more with more clever use of robotics and with low energy orbital transfers – 5 months to the moon using very little fuel).
Kaku is making TV shows for the discovery channel. If multiple visions of the future that you think are more plausible is needed.
1) Make your own show and distribute on Youtube
2) Be aware that if it is boring you may not get much audience
Sensationalism is in a lot of news broadcasts, newspapers and magazines. It is not unique to MNT or futurists.
Richard: “And Kaku’s claim that soon “we will have the power of gods” may be intoxicating, but it doesn’t prepare us for the hard work we’ll need to do to solve the problems we face right now.”
But it does. It gives you the drive and energy to get out of bed in the morning and try doing something good. It provides you the motivation you need to do the hard work to solve the problems we face right now, and to build something better for the future. It may depend of course on one’s mental makeup, but many of us find “superlative technology discourse” energizing. While, of course, understanding that the road may not be as smooth as naive enthusiasts claim.
Indeed, Giulio, idealism can be very energising and good for you, in using it this way. But the downside is that this sort of claim, in the wrong hands, can end up being demotivating – if a superlative technology that’s going to effortlessly solve everything is going to arrive shortly, why bother to make any effort with our current, feeble, tools? I’m afraid I detect some of this attitude in the disdain one sees amongst some supporters of MNT for the more incremental and evolutionary types of nanotechnology being pursued in many labs now. What’s the point of efforts (for example) to use evolutionary nanotechnology to develop low cost, large area, solar cells, if MNT is going to come along in a few years to allow us to make anything we want for nothing? Perhaps it’s because I have a fundamentally anti-Utopian disposition, but I’m motivated to try and do the best I can with the circumstances and the constraints of the here and now, rather than trusting to the uncertainty of a putative better tomorrow.
>But the downside is that this sort of claim, in the wrong hands, can end up being demotivating
People are talking about next gen hybrids, plug in hybrids, hypercars and super efficient diesels. Mildly superlative auto-tech.
Yet even though one million + hybrids have been sold 55 million more incremental and evolutionary cars were sold. Those cars came from a lot of different companies and researchers. It does not take superlative tech to kill sales or replace incremental and evolutionary products or tech. Ford cars are not selling because they are just a little bit inferior.
Computers still sell this year, in spite of expected improvements next year and even later this year. Likely seeing the nvidia GPGPU with teraflop performance. Supercomputers are leap frogging in performance but older models stil sell.
In solar cells and with concentrated solar power there are plenty of possibly better ways competing.
http://www.news.com/Hawaiian-firm-shrinks-solar-thermal-power/2100-11392_3-6207877.html
http://thefraserdomain.typepad.com/energy/2007/09/fpl-pge-and-aus.html#more
john O’donnell is talking big about his solar approach and his utility deals
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/07_42/b4054053.htm?campaign_id=rss_daily
If you can get solar installed then in general you will have made money and people will tend not to rip out any installed energy even if the next better thing comes along.
so there is no demotivation. It is just make what you think can work. Sell it like crazy and make money and improve it. If someone is wrong and picks a technology that is too hard to develop or turns out to be wrong headed or if someone picks something that gets leap frogged then that is regular business.
Brian, are you saying that the developers of hybrid autos, fuel cells and solar power are all MNT enthusiasts motivated by superlative visions of a nanofactory-enabled cornucopia? I don’t think so.
I am saying that there is always something being hyped as the next big thing and that it does not matter if it is nanofactory enabled or not.
Carbon nanotube TVs were supposed to be the next big thing but they are having a hard time getting off the ground because of improvements in and lower prices for LCD TVs.
So in terms of the demotivation of having something displace current nanotechnology work or whether hype for something else hurts funding if it is just talk of nanofactories that you are blaming, my feeling is that the demotivated person or the project that was not funded must have had some other problem. Because I do not see nanofactories and work leading to it stealing any funding from anything else.
There is also sorts of hype for what may or may not end up as vaporware. If the vaporware does not happen then it never mattered.
If the vaporware turns out to be real and replaces things then that is a good thing for society and whatever got replaced should be replaced.
I see all “superlative visions” as an obsfucating rational around the simple concepts of marketing hype and generation of buzz and for nanofactories a set of projections that has been widely followed generated by people who are making an honest attempt to predict what they believe will happen.
What do you call the vision of Smalley and his colleagues who were and are proposing massive carbon nanotube usage for a revamped power grid ? That was proposed initially in the mid-90s. It has been funded for tens of millions of dollars. there is no implementation anywhere yet. Do you think that vision is demotivating anyone. Is it superlative ? How does it compare to other grid improvement projects and research (superconducting cable, motors etc…)
I think a “superlative” technology vision has to imply a radical discontinuity with the currrent situation – for example, the idea that nanofactories will eliminate scarcity and overturn the current economic system, or that human enhancement or the development of superhuman artificial intelligence will fundamentally change the human condition. Carbon nanotube TVs, or the replacement of the grid with nanotubes, clearly don’t qualify.
So you just invented a new name for speculation and futurism : “Superlative technology discourse”. I watched the 2057 program with Prof. Kaku, and it was clearly a fictional extrapolation… They interviewed the top scientists and engineers with their remarkable research and then presented a possible future scenario with a mature commercialized version of that research, it was made very clear that this was speculation and futurism.
Part 1 :
I think replacing the multi-trillion energy grid infrastructure is a discontinuity. If it is something reduces energy uses and losses by 90% and enables the coal plants to be shut down and save a million lives per year or allow a far better transition in the case of peak oil or climate change. So where is this precise and objective definition of superlative.
I find the “superlative” categorization as imprecise and subjective.
What is superlative ? Why it is clearly what Richard Jones or Dale Carrico categorize as superlative /radical. oookaayy. Something radical for you or Dale that is objective. How about a poll on the replacement of the entire energy grid or the enabling of tech to prevent and reduce problems from peak oil and climate change ? What would the poll result have to be ? Would it be 80% or 90% agreement by people classify that a technological result as superlative.
Human enhancement:
Steroids: don’t count as superlative. Only 10-20% strength gain and has been used for decades.
Myostatin inhibitor drugs or Gene therapy. 60%+ strength gains and reduced side effects. (works in mice. is it superlative if it works in humans? Would seem likely as there are people who already have the myostatin effecting genes and have the muscle enhancement)
One shot gene therapy for radiation protection. survival from high radiation dosage goes up from 58% to 90% in mice. (Is it superlative if it works in humans?)
Gene therapy for mice to increase regeneration response. (able to grow back heart tissue, ears. (Is is superlative if it works in humans?)
How about replicating the life extension effects of calorie restriction ?(recent research shows the effect related to mitochondria, which is one of seven parts of the SENS engineering approach proposal to life extension)
Is it the result of 10 year life expectancy increase,20 year ?
There has been a historical increase of 0.1 to 0.2 years of life expectancy
increase per year. But already some places have people who live longer.
Country Overall Men Women
USA 1984 74.7 71 78.4
USA 2007 78 75.15 80.97
Andorra 83.52 80.62 86.62
Japan 82.02 78.67 85.56
Asian-American women living in Bergen County, NJ, enjoy the greatest
life expectancy in the US, at 91 years. Ten years longer than US women
in general and 7 years longer than asian women in the US and japan.
So several thousand to millions of people have a better result already.
How about reel to reel production of entirely flat computers and electronics including solar panels (ECD Ovonics, Ovishinksy, who invented nickel hydride batteries and phase change memory, has quantum control devices which could be produced in polymers and could allow for replacement of silicon transistors.) If successful would reduce price and increase production of computers and electronics. But those things have been increasing in capability and dropping in price for decades.
I do not view an two to three order of magnitude increase in production via reel to reel or possbily more with nanofactories as eliminating scarcity. Just like the drop in price from $10,000 PCs in the 1980s to the $300 superior PCs of today did not eliminate scarcity. Was that gain of one million times and a price drop of 30 times not a discontinuity because it happened over 25 years ? How fast does it have to be? Any objective measures ? Or is it because the software mostly does not let us perform sufficiently interesting things.
Part 2:
Definitely more people could get a computer but that is irrelavant in places without a reliable energy grid or where people are worried about getting killed by roving tribal gangs. (hey that energy grid thing again) It does mean that it is easier for places who get their act together to do some fast catch up and leap frogging. See China, India, Vietnam etc…
So how much reduction in scarcity counts as superlative ?
How about the 400 million + rising to a middle class status in China now ?
How about if China’s currency goes up to 400% (like Japan’s did during its rise) and people move to cities and get 3-4 times wealthier.
So if technology with greater efficiency and higher production allows for the environmentally sustainable rise of China, India, Vietnam, and other countries up to full developed status. So that the developed population goes from about 1 billion out of 6.5 billion to 5 billion (out of a future 7-8 billion) is that superlative ?
So going from 15% developed to what percentage is superlative ?
25%, 40%, 50%, 60%, 70%, 80%, 90%, 91% etc…
Regrid (superconductors, or nanotubes)
OLEDs for lighting and monitors
Microwave lights or hyper effienct OLED lights
superconducting motors
thermoelectronics (increase car and industrial efficiency)
metamaterials
DNA nanotech
synthetic biology, artificially created life
gene therapy, RNA interference, RNA activation, epigenomics
life extension tech
disease cures
Mass produced nuclear fission
Mass produced nuclear fission with high burn ratios of fuel (near 100%) Molten salt reactors
Nuclear fusion
Nuclear fusion aneutronic (Bussard IEC, Colliding beam fusion – trialpha energy)
Kitegen wind systems
graphene electronics
Material revolution (stronger nanograin aluminum, metals) being able to tune properties with control of molecular makeup [already happening]
Better robotics
better AI
Better control at the nanoscale
Different space propulsion – laser array launch, laser mirrors, fusion, clean fission
How about robotics that are able to mine regolith and build solar arrays and lunar habitats and industry.
So if the energy problem is solved with mass produced high burn fission reactors or nuclear fusion or highly improved solar power ? Is it the result that is superlative or is it how it was achieved with technology and processes ?
If it is done one way with nuclear fusion then superlative but with mass produced fission not.
If it is done with reel to reel polymer solar or concentrated solar just with cheaper mirrors and systems it is not superlative but if it was with nanotechnology solar then it is superlative
part 3:
So if technology with greater efficiency and higher production allows for the environmentally sustainable rise of China, India, Vietnam, and other countries up to full developed status. So that the developed population goes from about 1 billion out of 6.5 billion to 5 billion (out of a future 7-8 billion) is that superlative ?
So going from 15% developed to what percentage is superlative ?
Regrid (superconductors, or nanotubes)
OLEDs for lighting and monitors
Microwave lights or hyper effienct OLED lights
superconducting motors
thermoelectronics (increase car and industrial efficiency)
metamaterials
DNA nanotech
synthetic biology, artificially created life
gene therapy, RNA interference, RNA activation, epigenomics
life extension tech
disease cures
Mass produced nuclear fission
Mass produced nuclear fission with high burn ratios of fuel (near 100%) Molten salt reactors
Nuclear fusion
Nuclear fusion aneutronic (Bussard IEC, Colliding beam fusion – trialpha energy)
Kitegen wind systems
graphene electronics
Material revolution (stronger nanograin aluminum, metals) being able to tune properties with control of molecular makeup [already happening]
Better robotics
better AI
Better control at the nanoscale
Different space propulsion – laser array launch, laser mirrors, fusion, clean fission
How about robotics that are able to mine regolith and build solar arrays and lunar habitats and industry.
So if the energy problem is solved with mass produced high burn fission reactors or nuclear fusion or highly improved solar power ? Is it the result that is superlative or is it how it was achieved with technology and processes ?
If it is done one way with nuclear fusion then superlative but with mass produced fission not.
If it is done with reel to reel polymer solar or concentrated solar just with cheaper mirrors and systems it is not superlative but if it was with nanotechnology solar then it is superlative
Kaku is typically described as “a leading theoretical physicist”. This seems to me to be claiming the authority of science rather than presenting “a fictional extrapolation”. But I was reacting to the press story rather than the TV program so perhaps the latter made the speculative aspect more clear.
Brian, I do retrieve legitimate comments from my spam filter when I get a chance, so if you have a little patience it makes my life easier than if you submit multiple copies of your comments.
I think you are being disingenuous in failing to see why saying that (say) a 10 year extension in average life spans will be possible is a different class of claim to saying that people will soon be able to live to 1000 years.
As for the effect of carbon nanotubes on the grid, it’s worth looking up what fraction of generated electricity is currently lost in transmission in the grid. In the UK, this amounts to a bit less than 1 GW (i.e. one medium size coal power station). If that loss could be reduced, it would certainly be a useful contribution to energy economy, but it’s not transformational.
You can see from this diagram that most energy is lost in generation and transmission.
https://eed.llnl.gov/flow/images/LLNL_Energy_Chart300.jpg
Of 39 quads of electricity generated, only 12.36 (less than one third is delivered as useful electricity.
So more efficient superconducting generators, thermoelectronics to capture waste heat and almost zero loss power distribution would let a country generate one half of the electricity. For the US that would allow for the elimination of all coal power generation.
Alternatively a country like China could have an economy the same size as the USA and use the resources that the US was not using for power generation because of a more effective grid.
Efficiency gains that help reduce the chances of war over constrained resources is not transformational ? energy technology that signicantly reduces climate change gases to prevent climate change is not transformational ?
the UK may have less power losses because it is a smaller island. But the US and other large countries (China, Russia, Canada) have a lot more distribution power losses. Plus the UK would have the same generation losses.
You did not answer the question of what is superlative. I was asking you.
I was saying that 10 years is not superlative in most cases but I was asking you to pick the number. You are saying 1000 years is.
Although even for 10 years, a lot of people have gotten worked up about the effect of the last 10 year increase on social security, I personally agree that 10 is less transformational UNLESS it helped more people to get the next 10 year gain and the next after that.
What about 25 or 50 or 100 or 200 ?
I am asking you to be clear and precise and objective. You know like a scientist. Instead of wishy washy and dataless like a rhetorical professor.
Not 10 years but yes 1000. Is that precise enough ? Also, what it is objective criteria for justifying the cutoff point. What first principles are used to generate a meaningful cutoff point.
You also have not clarified if it is between result or method of achieving result.
I was trying to help you out by showing the range of possible results from various methods.
I am saying that thresholds are arbitrary.
I am saying that the imprecise and subjective nature of the adjective superlative makes it a useless descriptor.
You have claimed the superlative descriptor is useful. How would an objective description of superlative technologies be tied into a useful application ?
I found an energy flow loss diagram for scotland and the uk
http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Resource/Img/89792/0022054.gif
http://www.sencouk.co.uk/Energy/SEEScen/Sankey.gif
Energy losses in a vehicle
http://www.consumerenergycenter.org/transportation/consumer_tips/vehicle_energy_losses.html
Brian, by far the biggest chunk of energy that’s lost in any electricity generation and transmission system comes during generation, and arises because of the relationship between the physical limits on the operating temperature of turbines and the theoretical maximum efficiency of a Carnot cycle. It’s really important to distinguish between the losses that it would be theoretically possible to remove (like resistive losses in overhead cables) and those that arise from the fundamental constraint of the second law of thermodynamics.
“You know like a scientist. Instead of wishy washy and dataless like a rhetorical professor.’
I think it’s a good idea to learn from people who’ve been trained in a different intellectual tradition from one’s own, rather than ridicule them.
Perhaps you do not read the exchanges that Dale has with people but all he does is ridicule people, so I see no reason to treat such a person with a higher degree of respect. Especially since the idea which you are picking up from him has not been shown to have value. Plus I have given him ample opportunity to put real substance to his point, but he has repeatedly refused. When you or Dale or someone else shows where the value is to the superlative technology concept then I will show the idea some more respect. Even now I am giving ample opportunity for the supporters of the idea to show “where is the beef” to their idea.
Also, in terms of showing respect to the other side. You and Dale provide armchair psycho-analysis to the motivation to anyone who supports the idea of molecular nanotechnology or AGI or life extension. The characterizations are usually broad and insulting and are plain wrong in many cases. Yet you will claim that I should learn something from the insults and wrong statements. If I make true statements, such as there is no data or precision to the “superlative technology” case, you make the claim that I am ridiculing and do prove that my statement is false.
If there is data or logical rigor to the “superlative technology” case then please reveal it. I know that you have made your 6 challenges to MNT, I have addressed them. Has everything been solved. No. but significant progress is being made. Plus since I am not (despite the charge) solely fixated on MNT, I have shown plenty of more mundane but useful ways to achieve superlative results.
You both claim it has value, but when I press for something more precise there is nothing. Dale likes to muddy the waters by tossing on funky labels to old ideas. Like calling his communist and socialist ideas as peer to peer democracy. That is one of the psychological reasons why he is against superlative technology. He hates them if they succeed and if they don’t. If they succeed they could further increase the global gini co-efficient and the poor will fall further behind the very rich. Maybe the poor could buy a few more things but the wealthy will have far more gains. Then he hates them if they are wrong because he feel it distracts from the attempts to progress his socialist/communist agenda. (this is my psychoanalysis of his motivations, I could also psychoanalyze your positions and it would also be a mostly useless detour from what should be the main heart of the issue of getting to substance and value in the application of the concept. However, I note that both Dale and you have written many such posts. Equal treatment to the psychoanalysis of transhumanists would be a post on Dales socialist/communism and Richard’s insecurities and demotivation when faced with MNT talk.)
You have claimed that you feel it is a useful new case to be made against those who only envision a molecular technology dominated future. I have shown that there is a lot of non-molecular technology possibilities for getting to a future that would have the characteristics of superlativeness. (very large life extension, far higher production, access to space, a lot of energy generation, far greater efficiency). I was already envisioning alternative paths for the future and how there are many high potential research alternatives that should be pursued now.
I know that in previous posts on the CRN site that you feel that more negative path future scenarios should be considered. Like the end of CMOS progress. I commented and engaged on that and showed how such an inevitable development is meaningless to the progress of computer performance and the societal and economic side effects of better computer performance.
btw: I have posted to “The uses and abuses of speculative futurism” yesterday. the post needs to be retrieved.