How AI is Paving the Way to a Transhumanist Future

As AI disrupts industries, together with healthcare, and is embraced by these seeking to lengthen human life, the idea of transhumanism is quickly transferring from the realm of science fiction and dystopian futures of The Matrix and Cyberpunk 2077 to the truth of corporations like Elon Musk’s Neuralink implants, Open Bionics robotic limbs, and longevity drugs.

Popularized in 1957 by biologist Julian Huxley—brother of “Courageous New World” creator Aldous Huxley—transhumanism is the provocative idea that the human situation may be transcended utilizing expertise.

“It isn’t like transhumanists don’t love being people; it is simply we would like humanity to develop greater than what it has meant traditionally,”  Ben Goertzel, founder and CEO of decentralized AI community SingularityNET, instructed Decrypt in an interview. “This leads into particular potentialities like conquering dying, enhancing your physique, and your thoughts achieves a superhuman intelligence fused with a pc.”

Goertzel additionally serves because the chair of the transhumanist group Humanity+, which defines transhumanism as an mental and cultural motion devoted to essentially enhancing the human situation by utilized purpose—particularly by growing and sharing applied sciences to eradicate ageing and improve human mental, bodily, and psychological capacities.

Transhumanism and AI

Though AI has exploded into the mainstream comparatively lately, it has all the time been a key issue within the dialogue round transhumanism. As purposes now proliferate throughout industries like science, drugs, and expertise, Goertzel says AI aligns with the objectives of transhumanism because of the motion’s reliance on superior applied sciences to create vital change.

“We’ve extra information about completely different ranges of the human physique and completely different organisms than any human thoughts can perceive, and biostatistics wrestle, normal machine studying struggles,” Goertzel mentioned. “So the extra superior your AI will get, the higher you possibly can combine collectively all the varied biology information on the market, and you’ll then use AI for speculation technology.”

Goertzel pointed to nanotechnology as an space during which AI might make larger strides than people.

“AI is means higher at designing stuff on the nano-scale, or the femto-scale past that, than people are,” he mentioned. “We’ve a variety of sensible know-how about the right way to hammer and nail stuff collectively on the scale the place we intuitively perceive the physics, however we do not have a very good instinct for nano-scale or femto-scale physics, and AI can cope with that simply in addition to the dimensions that we’re at now.”

Transhumanism in motion

“Have a look at brain-computer interfacing; how do you decode the indicators popping out of the mind? AI may be very useful for coding the fundamental coding language in numerous elements of the mind used to explain issues,” Goertzel mentioned, noting AI being optimized for retail and manufacturing.

A brain-computer interface (BCI) is a expertise that permits direct communication between the mind and an exterior gadget, typically permitting management of computer systems or prosthetics by neural indicators. Firms presently working on this area of neuroscience and biotechnology embrace San Francisco-based Neuralink, Emotiv, and Halo Neuroscience.

“There are various completely different purposes that may be enhanced by AI,” he added. “Then after all, when you get to AGI, you could possibly have the AI coordinating all these completely different explicit AI purposes.”

Synthetic common intelligence (AGI) refers to a sort of AI that possesses the power to know, study, and apply information in the identical means a human can.

Is transhumanism just for the wealthy?

Detractors of transhumanism say the motion is “enjoying God” or is a substitute for faith, and that the one ones who will profit from the merging of humanity with expertise would be the rich and elites. To make sure, the price of longevity and transhuman analysis is excessive.

Goertzel mentioned this may not all the time be the case, and mentioned extra efforts needs to be made to offer wider and equal entry.

“These little cellular supercomputers all of us carry round haven’t solely benefited the wealthy,” Goertzel mentioned, noting that his group works with software program builders in Ethiopia.

“We’ve 50 software program builders working for SingularityNET, and each one of many youngsters who’s coding for us there has a smartphone. Even when you go to a rural village in Sub-Saharan Africa, everybody has characteristic telephones. They use them to communicate with their household and to test town costs for numerous agricultural commodities they promote.”

Goertzel additionally emphasised the position of blockchain and cryptocurrency like Bitcoin, Ethereum, and the upcoming Synthetic Superintelligence Alliance ASI token in decreasing value and entry to human-enhancing expertise.

“In idea, the blockchain and cryptocurrency worlds may be useful in combating these points by making a parallel financial system that is not tied down by the legacy financial techniques,” he mentioned. “In follow, that is a problem, as a result of many governments outlaw crypto then.”

One other concern Goertzel highlighted is teams and entities hoarding cryptocurrency.

“Crypto markets themselves develop into dominated by token whales, which is their very own emergent elite,” he mentioned. “In order that’s an necessary factor to fret about and work in opposition to. However but, it is not apparent that transhumanist applied sciences make this phenomenon any worse than it’s now.”

Seeking to the longer term

Whereas Goertzel champions transhumanism and synthetic intelligence, he acknowledged there needs to be limitations to what analysis needs to be executed.

“We will not say there are not any limitations that needs to be placed on analysis,” he mentioned. “Clearly, there’s a line past which, as a society that cares about its members not all being killed—there’s some analysis that you just need to decelerate or not allow.”

Noting that legal guidelines are already being developed with such limits in thoughts, Goertzel mentioned the very best path ahead is figuring out the right way to apply these applied sciences for the widespread good as AI and cybernetics changing into extra superior and customary.

“I do not assume makes an attempt to ban AI are gonna assist in any respect as a result of AI is offering an excessive amount of helpful worth to too many individuals, too many companies,” he mentioned. “There’s not that a lot precedent for a free society banning issues which might be helpful to everybody. And I believe ultimately, the identical might be true of transhuman-oriented applied sciences.”

Edited by Ryan Ozawa.