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Nanotechnology has really taken off in the past few years. I remember when nanotech was a loony dream, not something that got featured in Time and Business Week. I remember when there wasn't any such thing as a Scanning Tunnelling Microscope, and "IBM" hadn't been spelled out in xenon atoms. I remember when people were still arguing over whether it was possible to create chemical bonds by mechanical manipulation. (Yes, it's been done.) (1).
Drexler published "Engines of Creation" in 1984, and it may be that nanotechnology just has too much of a head start. I'll be overjoyed if we have 'till 2020 to create a seed AI, but it's increasingly looking like the deadline may be more on the order of 2005. That's not impossible, but it's damned tenuous. So what can we do to prepare for the possibility that nanotechnology comes first?
To be specific, what can we do to increase the probability that the human species survives, in the event of either a grey goo outbreak, or - far more likely, and far more deadly - nanowar, the large-scale military use of nanotechnology? Make no mistake, nanotechnological warfare or even grey goo is easily capable of wiping out the entire human race (2). Faced with that threat, our first priority must be to ensure that some fraction of humanity survives, most likely in a survival station somewhere in space (4).
Undoubtedly the anti-disaster groups, including ourselves, will do everything possible to preserve the six billion people presently living on this planet. But our first priority must be to preserve the existence of the human species. The survival of individuals, including ourselves (5), must be secondary. (Not that the goals are likely to conflict directly; I'm talking about the allocation of project resources.) If intelligence survives in the Solar System, there will be a Singularity, sooner or later. Given enough time, someone will code an AI. We just have to ensure that survival stations, capable of (A) sustaining life indefinitely and (B) reproducing into an acceptably-sized culture, (C) come into existence before military nanotechnology (9) and (D) are out of the line of fire (10).
This project is independently initiable; it doesn't depend on the technological timeline or any other PtS projects (11).
The purpose of design-ahead is to narrow the gap between the invention of nanotech and the launching of survival stations. The method is doing as much work as possible in advance. In particular, design-ahead would consist of:
See also the Molecular Manufacturing Shortcut Group, a nonprofit devoted to discussing space travel and nanotechnology. They might even have investigated survival stations; I'm not sure. Anyway, they'd clearly be the people to turn to if we have a research question.
Humanity's experience with computing suggests that brute force can make up for blind stupidity. I believe that Deep Blue was examining two billion moves per second, to Kasparov's two moves per second, when it finally beat him. Thus, we may speculate that Deep Blue was approximately one billionth as smart as Kasparov.
It's conceivable that a seed AI could be designed (but not run) which would operate on nanocomputing hardware. This "brute force" seed AI would make up for lack of intelligence by using wider search trees. If the potential for intelligence were present, the ability to understand what needs improving, the brute-force AI might be able to improve itself up to human smartness. The interesting question is whether human smartness can be brute-forced. This question is too technical, and too deep, to discuss here - but I think our evolutionary history says it's worth a shot.
I believe that design-ahead of a brute-force seed AI is the single most effective strategy for dealing with the possibility of nanotechnology. The interval from nanotech to Singularity would equal the interval between nanotech and nanocomputing, or only slightly longer. Nanocomputing, in turn, is likely to be one of the first applications possible, perhaps even a prerequisite application for an assembler breakthrough. Nanocomputing is also likely to be available on the open market, or, if developed by Zyvex, available to fellow transhumanists.
Failing the design-ahead or success of a brute-force seed AI, we can try to amp the existing hardware, also known as the human brain. The idea would be to create someone/something capable of coding a brute-force seed AI, or at least someone capable of saving humanity from the tremendous mess consequent to the invention of nanotechnology.
The procedure would be trying every imaginable way of increasing the raw power available to the brain. The method would probably be attaching nanodevices to individual neurons and using those nanodevices to change or expand the brain's information-processing characteristics. Some examples might include:
We'd have to either rely on design-ahead, trust to the altruism of the technology's controllers (13), or cut a lot of corners on safety.
One harmless form of intelligence enhancement, technologically and legally practical in modern times, would be experimentation with augmented self-awareness. Neurofeedback, or learning how to think rationally by watching your thoughts and emotions on a neuroimaging device. Yes, I know that neuroimaging results don't come with handy labels, but it's possible that people could learn to correlate the patterns they see with the type of thought they're using. If the cognitive technique of "rationalization" can be detected and unlearned... well, when I picked up the knack of identifying the subjective sensation that accompanies rationalization, my effective intelligence took a big jump.
Clichés to the contrary, history doesn't teach that everyone is corruptible. There are some individuals in history who were corrupted by power, and some who weren't. Corruptibility isn't an absolute, it's a balance, and balances can be tipped. Zetetics might not be absolutely incorruptible, but they might reliably fall on one side of the balance. And if there are reliably hard-to-corrupt individuals around, that may provide an "out" to some of the dilemmas associated with the rise of nanotechnology.
Would a government or a company, having obtained ultimate power, turn it over to a group of supposedly incorruptible individuals? Not in today's world. If everyone's desperate, and the Zetetics have already built a reputation, it could happen - but it would still be a fringe probability. The only reason I'm even mentioning it is that Zetetics seem like nice people to have around in any case.
All this neat stuff assumes access to nanotechnology. To minimize research and deployment times, we would need to be in on the nanotech breakthrough when it happens. In practice, I think this would just mean making sure that Zyvex and co. know who we are beforehand. Getting an endorsement from Eric Drexler might also prove effective. Aside from that, there's not much to say about this - but it's a key point.
One of the major branches in my visualization is the possibility that the invention of nanotech, or even the prospect of nanotech, would trigger a general war fought with nuclear weapons.
A nuclear war is not likely to actually wipe out humanity. Australia might have a good chance of surviving (or not). The end result would be to set us back ten or fifty years. And in ten or fifty years, humanity will wind up in pretty much the same situation. What can be done to affect the race between AI and nanotech in that time?
There are a lot of possible factors affecting the outcome. The only method I can see for influencing the outcome would be preserving the knowledge of AI and computing hardware. We would record basic research insights and detailed techniques, in a format and location likely to survive nuclear war. So the Australian Backup Initiative would be one possible project, as would a more detailed time capsule intended to survive a thousand-year interregnum.
Nuclear war is not a happy thought. Most of the human species dying out, with civilization returning over a period of fifty or more years, is not a pleasant thing to contemplate. That is, however, one of the major possibilities. If a small action taken now can make a big difference the next time around, then we should do it.
Anyway, please don't think of survival-station duty as a plum assignment, a lifeboat seat, the last helicopter out of Saigon, rats deserting a sinking ship, or whatever.
| Next: | 4: Initiation |
| Up: | 3.5: Miscellaneous |
| Prev: | 3.5.2: Accelerating the right applications |