[ExI] Uploading cautions, "Speed Up" . .

[Anders Sandberg]

On 2011-12-21 16:43, Keith Henson wrote:
>> You shouldn't try to upload your brain before we have full-brain
>> emulation since the methods are likely going to be 1) destructive,
>
> I have argued that, for marketing reasons alone, destructive uploads
> are going to be a hard sell.  Especially since the technology to make
> uploading fully reversible with no memory loss (or even loss of
> consciousness) is no harder.  (See "The clinic seed.)

You are assuming very mature nanotech. It is quite likely that long 
before that we will have devices like Kenneth Hayworth's ATLUM, that use 
microtomes and electron microscopy to automatically scan tissue.

Sure, *most* people will keep their brains far away from this 
slice-and-dice approach. But it is enough that a few are willing to 
hazard the chance and they will be the first in cyberspace. Now, if 
Robin's analysis of upload economics is anywhere near reality, it is 
enough that *one* of these outlier people is OK with having a lot of 
copies and we will see a total transformation of the economy.


>> 2)
>> have to throw away information during processing due to storage
>> constraints until at least mid-century,
>
> I don't see why.  The information in your brain fits in your skull.

A 5x5x5 nm^3 scan of the 1.4 liters of brain 10^22 bits is about one 
zettabyte. Kryder's Law will eventually get there (?), but it will take 
decades. Kenneth suggests using fixated pieces of the brain as a library 
for itself, but it seems likely that most non-nanotech scanning methods 
will burn it.


>> 3) we will not have evidence it
>> works before it actually works. Of course, some of us might have no
>> choice because we are frozen in liquid nitrogen...
>
> The technology to do any of this is so similar that we should be able
> to revive the cryonics patients and let them decide if they want to
> upload.

You are assuming really mature medical nanotechnology. I am assuming far 
cruder technology. While the largest influx of new people to cyberspace 
will occur once the technology is proven, safe and convenient the big 
changes are likely to happen when the early adopters mature, possibly 
decades earlier.


> Ian Banks had a good deal of this in "Surface Detail."

But the neural lace (which is very similar to Freitas nice idea for a 
nanotech scan) requires an amazing level of understanding of how to 
interface the sloppy, floppy and messy biological system without causing 
problems. I'd love to have it, but in order to get it we will have to 
insert nanofibers into a lot of living brains and learning from the 
messes produced...

This is one of the big question marks I have with the classic Drexlerian 
vision - how much good designahead can we do for systems that interact 
strongly with the messy real world. I agree completely with Eric that we 
can prove certain systems to work (through theory and simulation) and 
develop CAM files long before we get our manufacturies that will likely 
work when we start them. Bang, quick transformation of a lot of fields. 
But I think systems that do complex interaction with the environment 
(especially adaptive parts of it like bodies) are hard to impossible to 
design properly without testing/interaction/probing, and hence will not 
gain anything from designahead.

-- 
Anders Sandberg
Future of Humanity Institute
Oxford University