[ExI] Maybe space exploration will be a task for AI humanoids

[Stuart LaForge]

On 2024-06-28 05:05, Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat wrote:
> On Fri, Jun 28, 2024 at 12:19 AM Stuart LaForge via extropy-chat
> <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
> 
>> The obstacle with this idea is much more political than
>> technological
>> because, for example, we could probably have genetically-engineered
>> mice
>> well-adapted to life in space habitats within a few years, if it was
>> a
>> scientific priority.
> 
> The "political" issue is that this approach would only benefit
> entities that we specifically breed for this venture.

While it would certainly benefit the transhumans that are bred, .

> 1) Those entities are not us.  We ourselves do not directly benefit.
> The apparent means of making sure we do benefit amount to slavery.

Not slavery, but instead a well-paid service sold at market value. If 
the Homo sapiens radiodurans, wants to live planet-side and find some 
market niche or collect Universal Basic Income with the rest of us, then 
that is up to them.

> 2) Just because they could, would they?  What motivation would these
> entities have to go along with the objective they were made for?
> "Because they were made for it" / "because it's their destiny" does
> not suffice.

Their parents would probably be the ones to foot the bill for their 
genetic augmentation to make them radiation-resistant so there is that, 
but you are right. The best one can do is incentivize them taking jobs 
in space by offering higher wages relative to the same jobs planet-side. 
So an space-barista should make several times what an earthbound barista 
would make. Owing to the radiation, weightlessness, and other health 
hazards of outer space. Similar to the way that deep-sea welders make 
more than land based welders.

> Add those two together, and obsess about the technological path to the
> exclusion (and it would be an exclusion) of trying to solve those
> problems, and it's a foreseeable disaster.  Most likely, the organisms
> would be abandoned and die off entirely, with the engineering behind
> it scrapped, meaning it wouldn't benefit anyone.

You keep thinking in terms of a centralized top-down science project 
where these variant humans are grown in some government lab at tax-payer 
expense. That is not what I am talking about. I am talking about an 
agoragenics approach in which sets of genes coding for traits and the 
adaptations they code for are provided to consumers by private "designer 
baby" labs using AI and CRISPR and then subsequently selected for by the 
labor market. Kind of like a stock market for genes in the human gene 
pool. The only say the government would have is regulatory which is not 
that different from to what we have now. So if the government wants 
people to see better in the dark, then it could subsidize the cost of 
implanting those genes into your designer baby.

> I regard this as more of a planning and logistical issue than a
> political one.
> 
>> In any case, if we stay here on Earth, we are guaranteed to go
>> extinct. But if we could colonize off world, the we could survive
>> indefinitely. Even if a bunch of brave astronauts have to die die
>> young
>> to give their children a future.
> 
> If you assume that a bunch of astronauts will die young to achieve
> this goal, the result that you will get is a bunch of astronauts dying
> young, and not much else.

I am not trying to be grim here. I am simply extrapolating the 
trajectory of many technological adaptations. The early automobiles had 
no seat belts and the early airplanes did not have seats that could be 
used as flotation devices. Both automobiles and airplanes contributed to 
many deaths in the early days and relatively fewer deaths today. As 
space travel matures it will become safer, but there is a limit to how 
safe you can make surfing a chemical explosion in a tin can, so some 
element of risk will always remain. And perhaps as a society we have a 
little too obsessed with safety.

> There are far more likely-to-succeed paths that do not probably
> involve a bunch of astronauts dying young.  Forget the disasterbation
> fantasy - which misleads you into thinking the main problem is a lack
> of political will - and honestly look at what's needed to establish
> extraterrestrial colonies.

Well I might be able to help a little with that. A few years ago, I 
discovered what might be the most efficient way to put water into orbit 
as a byproduct of trying to find a cheaper space-launch 1st-stage 
mechanism. I call it a hydraulic gravity cannon. I built a small-scale 
prototype and stuff which worked as expected, but I didn't patent it 
because I realized patents are best for small consumer gadgets and not 
big large-scale devices. If you are interested, then I can explain to 
you how it works.

> The real problem is far more about getting the effort to pay back
> those who are currently alive.  They will not donate for your
> children's future, but they can be gotten to invest if they think they
> will see a positive financial return on their investment within
> several years.  There are ways to make that return happen that fast.

I see what you are saying. Maybe the most immediate value of spending 
time in space is that no government has jurisdiction there. So maybe 
women could get abortions in orbit to avoid prosecution? ;) But your 
point of financially incentivizing space colonization is well taken. It 
is not an easy question. I will think more on this and get back to you.

Stuart LaForge