[extropy-chat] Kurzweil reviewed in Weekend Australian newspaper

[Damien Broderick]

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,17557088%255E5001986,00.html

Singularly fanciful
Andres Vaccari
December 17, 2005

The Singularity is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology
By Ray Kurzeil,
Viking, 652pp, %59.95

OUR bodies will soon be obsolete. Genetic engineering, smart drugs and 
nanotechnology will reverse the ageing process and make us immortal. 
Machines will do the unpleasant work for us, producing all the energy we 
need. We will download our minds into powerful computers and become 
superintelligent, disembodied beings. We will be able to change bodies at 
will and inhabit virtual worlds of our making.

And all of this will happen in our lifetime, for we are approaching the 
Singularity: a point at which scientific advance will happen so fast that 
technology will become indistinguishable from magic. This is the picture of 
the future presented in Ray Kurzweil's The Singularity is Near. A renowned 
inventor and entrepreneur, Kurzweil is a leading voice of the extropian (or 
transhuman) movement, which preaches that we are on the threshold of a 
golden age of techno-supermen.

Unsurprisingly, extropianism is largely an American phenomenon, combining 
two potent traditions: Christian millenarianism and the cult of technology. 
This enthusiastic brand of futurism may appear harmless, charming even, but 
it has an ugly side.

Kurzweil's central belief is that technological and scientific progress is 
exponential. That is, science and technology do not only improve, but the 
rate of progress also accelerates, tending towards infinity, at which point 
we will experience "an expansion of human intelligence by a factor of 
trillions through merger with its non-biological form". A variation on the 
Enlightenment myth of rational progress, Kurzweil's model departs from a 
restricted notion of technology (basically, processing power). In the final 
analysis, it is based on a bad inference.

Kurzweil's technological determinism is equally myopic. The political and 
social environment that shapes the nature and direction of technology is 
completely missing from his picture. Technology is neither an autonomous 
force nor an outgrowth or continuation of biological evolution. The recent 
debacle concerning AIDS drugs for Africa underscores the fact technology 
means nothing in the face of political unwillingness and the profit motive. 
Life extension can be granted now to most of the world's disadvantaged with 
remarkably low-tech means, such as food and cheap medicines.

An entrenched political conservatism underlies the transhuman vision of the 
future. Social change is not necessary for Kurzweil, since it will be 
precipitated by the inherent acceleration of technological progress and 
driven by the free market model.

Today's machines represent the principles of the neo-liberal economy, just 
as in the 16th century the mechanical clock embodied the values of the 
monarchic state. Robots and computer systems "self-organise", just like 
selfish individuals under the invisible hand of the market.

And technology gets better and cheaper all the time, so that eventually it 
will trickle down to the poorest people, just like capital does in 
right-wing economics. The Singularity, Kurzweil tells us, is an economic 
imperative. Like human knowledge, economic growth is also exponential and 
the market will become the main engine of future change. We will not only 
be immortal but filthy rich.

Incredibly, Kurzweil argues that factories and farm jobs in the US have 
dropped from 60per cent to 6 per cent because of automation; no mention of 
Third World sweatshops or corporate outsourcing and downsizing. He even 
argues that modern warfare claims fewer casualties thanks to more accurate 
weapons. We should mention that Kurzweil is an adviser to the US military 
and sits on the board of directors of Seegrid, a robotics company (founded 
by fellow extropian Hans Moravec) that subcontracts to the US Army. This 
may explain the absence of ethical concerns in his discussion of the 
military applications of new technology.

Also central to Kurzweil's argument is the notion that our minds can be 
copied into computers built in the image of the brain. This runs up against 
gigantic problems and relies on several unproven assumptions. The 
information sciences have sparked the mystic belief that everything is made 
of ethereal data and that consciousness or identity can be separated from 
the complex electro-biochemical dynamics of the brain. This is a curious 
technological rewriting of the notion of the individual soul, transcendent 
from embodiment. It may be a reassuring story but there's no evidence to 
support it. Kurzweil believes the simulation of intelligence (or 
consciousness, he can't see the difference) is a matter of fast processing 
power.

But he is not speaking to our more rational instincts. Though dressed in 
the garb of science, these fantasies are addressed mainly to the anxieties 
of ageing baby boomers. As governments of developed nations brace for an 
imminent huge swell in the population of elderly and retirees, this vision 
of a future ruled by an army of narcissistic baby-boomer cyborgs sounds 
like a bad joke. Kurzweil, however, feels naturally entitled to the fruits 
of the latest biomedical knowledge. And he has some ideas on how to handle 
the accompanying strain on economic and natural resources: nanobots will 
produce all the energy we need, cheaply and in an environmentally 
sustainable manner. And the oil giants needn't worry, as the nanobots will 
clean the environment too.

For most of its history, technology has remained inseparable from religion, 
illusionism and magical thinking. Things haven't changed much and modern 
science and technology continue to inspire beliefs as baroque as anything 
concocted by our forebears. The road to the uncertain future is littered 
with the carcasses of brave new worlds that never were.

So far, the only reliable law of futurism was pronounced by J.G. Ballard: 
"If enough people predict something, it won't happen."