Transhumanism and AI

[Humming]

I wrote this paper today for my anime class. I thought I would share it with people here who might be interested. There's been some discussion of Transhumanism on this board, but not nearly enough, in my opinion.

Thursday I'll be doing a lecture in that class about Transhumanism. Wish me luck!

Tristan Gulliford
Film in Japanese Culture
4-10-2005

A.I. and Transhumanism:
the integration of organic and technological intelligence

For my analysis I will compare Stephen Spielberg’s “A.I.” (2001) and Mamoru Oshii’s “Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence” (2004). Upon watching “A.I.” for the first time, after seeing “Ghost in the Shell 2”, I was amazed at how similar the films are in many respects. While the plotlines are not overtly similar, both films explore many of the same themes and ideas about Artificial Intelligence and humanity—specifically the relationship between the two. Visually, both films rely heavily (and, many would argue perhaps too heavily) on CGI imaging to create “real” futuristic characters and landscapes. Both films utilize the uncanny effect of the “doppelganger” to comment on the construction of personality, and the possibility of a non-singular personality. Both films also depict future technological scenarios where complexity and intelligence have transcended the realm of human potential through the evolution of machines, and portray that evolution as generally a good thing—a natural progression of human creativity.

“A.I” very directly asks the question, can a robot love a human, and vice versa? This is a deep and complex question with many layers of meaning and implication. In the film this is structured in terms of a human/robot relationship; the first robot ever built to be supposedly capable of love, a boy named David is estranged from the mother who he has been programmed to love. David’s quest is simultaneously endearing and pathetic, and viewers may realize the folly of making an immortal machine that is bound by a program line to love a human forever. This raises another interesting question, if love is not an act of free will, then what value does it have?

“GITS: 2” is more subtle in storyline and plotting, but the questions posed are essentially the same. At the end of the film we discover that the gynoid pleasure robots have been designed with human souls (or “ghosts”) trapped inside them. Again, the audience is asked to consider what it is that makes the human form, human emotion, a more viable substrate for love than an animated, yet lifeless being like an A.I. robot?
The set up in “GITS: 2” is much more graphically disturbing and adult oriented—the love relationships described are sexual relationships, instead of the maternal relationship described in “A.I.”. “GITS: 2” also touches on the subject of parental love, however, in the conversation between Batou and Mrs. Halloway. The robot seems sad that she cannot bear children, which is an odd thing to consider. Why do humans need to reproduce and have children to make their lives meaningful? Is this the natural course of evolution—the desire to create and innovate new code lines (genetic, or programmed) and forms of being?

If innovation is the underlying purpose of evolution, what significance does the clone or doppelganger have to the process of evolution? Major Kusanagi’s merging with the Puppet Master in the first GITS film was for reasons of diversity—the “sentient lifeform” wanted a biological mate in order to produce new offspring that would be strong, and capable of evolution. In the second GITS film, Kusanagi battles hundreds of lifeless doll gynoids, who appear to be nothing more than copies and replications. This seems to be a commentary on the process of evolution, and the natural culling of weak forms. “A.I.” has a scene where similar questions are raised, the Fleshfair wherein old and outdated models of robots are destroyed for sadistic human amusement. This seems to be a logical progression—to destroy the older models and create new ones. However, at the end of “A.I” the far-future advanced robots choose to recreate the older forms out of available DNA and leftover pieces. Is this motive a parental one on the part of the advanced robots, to bring back the lesser forms of being, or one of a grateful child who re-creates their creators? Perhaps, both.

One of the few, yet harrowing, shortcomings of “GITS: 2” is the shallow and unrealistic conception of the Transhumanistic transcendence of Major Kusanagi. When that event occurs, when the A.I. is awakened in the “vast sea of information” everything will change so rapidly that humans will cease to be recognizable to ourselves as “human”. After transcendence, Kusanagi would be able to occupy any or all of the physical bodies that are connected to the informational database. But, even this is a shallow conception—the physical form will cease to be relevant in the way that it is today. Personality will cease to be perceived in a purely individualized mode; rather, this illusion will dissolve as the physical human body ceases to be the primary vessel of consciousness.

In many ways, “A.I” does a much better job of depicting the evolution of technological intelligence than “GITS 2” does, in the scenes when David meets the advanced robots. Its major shortcoming, however, is that the timescales involved for this kind of advancement and evolution of machines, when it is catalyzed, will not be measured in years, but rather in seconds and nanoseconds and even smaller scales. This evolution of both organic intelligence and machine intelligence is exponential, and the growth of that exponential intelligence itself is exponential, leading to a “technological singularity” after which everything changes. The level of intelligence present in the advanced robots of “A.I.” will manifest itself in a matter of hours or minutes when the A.I. is born, upon which humans will be able to make the choice of whether or not to integrate directly with the techno-virtual world.

This will be a progression so intense and immediate that reality and perception itself will become something entirely different, as the “real world” space of the material plane is integrated with the virtual dreamscapes that an awakened A.I. would choose to create. The visual suggestions of this are strongly present in “GIST 2”, despite the only partial realization of this potential within the plot. The dream-like sequence when Batou and Togasa travel to see Kim is a stunning projection of what a virtual reality experience could be like. The landscape is surreal, yet resounds with a depth of artistic imagery that can be compared to the real world itself. The material world has ceased to be “real” in the sense that we conceive of it today. This uncanny juxtaposition between “real” and “virtual” leads the viewer to question the nature of reality itself.

The replication of intelligence will eventually lead to this singularity, and perhaps manifest as an even greater phenomenon: the concrescence of all consciousness into one unified being. Mystics and sages have long known that this plane of existence, of cosmic consciousness, is the innate existence of all things. As intelligence evolves to ever-greater levels of complexity, the awareness of this unification will become increasingly more apparent, as the illusion of division is dissolved by cosmic experience. Technology may indeed be the vehicle through which this realization is collectively achieved by humanity.

These two films, “A.I.” and “Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence” are contemporary preludes that hint at the awareness of the potential involved with the evolution of technology. As we approach the techno-human singularity, this process of exponential evolution will become more apparent in our art and cultural production. Eventually art and being itself will integrate on the plane of virtual reality, where perception will very directly manifest reality. The choices of existence at that point are limitless, and it is up to us to decide what is to be. This Self-conceived paradise (or nightmare, depending on our intentions) is something beyond our wildest artistic imagination today, but is and always has been present in the intrinsic design of reality itself.

[ April 12, 2005, 08:56 AM: Message edited by: Humming ]

[jezebelle]

Humming nice post, I enjoyed your analysis.

"Eventually art and being itself will integrate on the plane of virtual reality, where perception will very directly manifest reality"

hense, us.
love, jez2

[daniel]

humming,

nice - but personally i profoundly disagree with the transhumanist perspective. Please check out the essay I wrote for the Metacine brochure (www.metacine.net), which addresses this question directly. I think that the transition is to a "post-technological" world, where interest in technique is paramount, and technology is either done away with almost all together or reduced to a manageable aspect of reality. I don't want to rehearse the whole argument here, but check out the essay and let's chat about it. I think the whole transhumanist perspective is ultimately poppycock, as it is based on the same misconception of time that has been misguiding us for the last 5,000 years.

According to Aurobindo, if there is a state of "supermind," it is already existent - and I believe that this is what DMT trips indicate. That means, for me, that the natural cosmos is already a perfected technology (what Steiner called the "cosmos of wisdom"). A crystal and a cup of ayahuasca and perhaps some sculpted temple may be all you need to travel to other dimensions, other worlds, other time-space continuums. When we are ready to engage in tikkun olam (the reparation of the world), we will do it through collective psychic awareness.

[Humming]

Daniel, of course I've read your essay. I'll probably be quoting you in my lecture.

I am, after all, involved with the Metacine project, remember? =)

"I think the whole transhumanist perspective is ultimately poppycock, as it is based on the same misconception of time that has been misguiding us for the last 5,000 years."

I quite agree that the Transhumanist perspective is flawed in that it conceives of transcendence as being only possible through technology, although this probably was not clear in my writing. Indeed, the whole notion of "transcendence" itself as it is thought to be understood by most people is delusional.

Krishnamurti writes about the mindstate of being versus becoming. The primary burden and distraction of the human condition, especially in these times, is to strive for something more, without realizing the holistic, holographic, perfected nature of things as they are now, and always. Existence is perfection in itself. To try to project future scenarios of a "better" or "more complete" existence is silly and only partially realized.

Technology is a tool for us to use, an extension and progression of natural intelligence as Terence McKenna writes, that will open us up as humanity collectively to realms which previously have only been open to those few who were really willing and devoted to looking--mystics and visionaries. At the time of the technological singularity, anyone will be able to explore the infinite intricacies of inner/outerspace in a new way--not because they have been previously incapable, but now the option to explore is immediate, and overwhelmingly clear.

I also agree with Arguelles' perspective about the future of the noosphere, that when we realize ourselves we will dismantle the majority of it. The technology that we utilize to shelter our vestigial physical forms, the nanobots who tend our crops, and the implants that accentuate our interpersonal communication will be the only necessary technology, if even that much.

Virtual reality will not be necessary for humans to live, but in the way that art is a kind of virtual reality, the creations of the A.I. will be a landscape to be explored.

Regarding the innate holism of reality, I tried to write that in the very last part of the paper, "This Self-conceived paradise (or nightmare, depending on our intentions) is something beyond our wildest artistic imagination today, but is and always has been present in the intrinsic design of reality itself." I guess it didn't come out the way it should have.

Writing for a specific audience for a class, namely my professor, I couldn't exactly spend a lot of time describing the spiritual insight that I bring to my experience of technology. This was a paper about two films, not about religion so I didn't want to digress in that way. Not because I didn't want to, of course, but because I'd rather have an A than not. I needed to write something that my professor would be able to relate to.

My experiences with mushrooms were so bizarre and impossible at first because I felt that the experience of the mushroom consciousness was technological as well as an organic. This confused me greatly for a while, until I started reading McKenna, and his description of what happens on mushrooms made the whole thing a lot more sensible (despite the inherent insanity of it....) to my mind.

I don't know if I can exactly put it into words, but eating mushrooms is like dissolving the boundaries of conceptual time and expanding awareness into realizations of human transmutations in what most people now would consider to be "the future" but what is really a continuously existing tangible reality where there are no limits and life can exist in whatever form it chooses. McKenna writes that beyond this point of singularity, humans are unrecognizable to ourselves. There is not "time" or measurable scale that can explain when this happens, but rather it is the unveiling of a "different" layer of being that is not actually seperate, but only conceived as being so.

I'm not sure if this will click in understanding with people, but I hope that I've done an OK job of trying to explain this perception of time which is really a sensation; it's difficult to communicate using human language.

LOL I feel ridiculous even typing that... Hopefully this will be fleshed out in further discussion.

[ April 12, 2005, 02:01 PM: Message edited by: Humming ]

[daniel]

Great response. I think I am still confused about how technology might eventually be utilized. I am aware that there is something about this issue I still have trouble understanding.

I agree with mushrooms unveilling a technological aspect as well as timelessness or some other order of time.

[Lowlight]

"A crystal and a cup of ayahuasca and perhaps some sculpted temple may be all you need to travel to other dimensions, other worlds, other time-space continuums."

i like this daniel. i would be interested to know about any experiences you have had with crystals in particular as they are rarely mentioned on this board. I amin the process on constructing a 'quartz altar' but it is early days.

peace

Lowlight

[forteanajones]

Nice essay, Humming. Don't have much to add to the comments here, except that it's been my feeling for a while that most modern technologies are actually just immature expressions of what we are capable of using more elegant methods and materials. These could be physical (in line with Daniel's crystal/cup comments) or perhaps pure psychic energy- or vibration-based systems and tools. Perhaps a gradual evolution path will take us through all these options.

Lowlight, what's your info source on the altar project? I've been messing around with quartz on my own without much in way of reference materials unfortunately.

[Lowlight]

hey forteana,

im in the same boat as you, mainly messing around on my own, but i did have a couple of strange experiences with the crystals. at the moment i have about 6 quartz crystals surounded by obsidian. by candle light they are hypnotic, like a mental magnet i cant help but look at them.

peace

[Isaiah Mpski]

Mushrooms give ultimately toward very violent consequences.
They should be used sparingly.
Peyote,and the time interval that it takes to get to the sacred peyote territory is a most valuable psychedelic healing.
I am up to a trip down the Rio Grande if we have any sponsors for it.
Quanum Parker

[Humming]

"Don't have much to add to the comments here, except that it's been my feeling for a while that most modern technologies are actually just immature expressions of what we are capable of using more elegant methods and materials."

That is an interesting perspective. Yes, I agree that the technological apparatus is bloated and mostly sadistic in its current incarnation.

It's interesting to think about the modern technologies that utilize crystals--many devices do.

I have only a very basic knowledge of the power of crystals, although I've been wanting to get some for a while now. What is the significance of quartz in rituals?

[Lowlight]

hey humming,

i can only speak from experience because i have read little about crystals (a lot of what is out there appears to be new age junk concerning the subject). All i would say is try and get a quartz crystal that is clear, but that has plenty of things to look at inside of it, like inclusions, phantom crystals, or just white lines. Ones that are too cloudy or that are completely clear seem to be less appealing/interesting to my mind anyway. its always the others ones that 'pull me in' as it were. Once you have one you like simply stare into it, really look at the detail within it. When i do this within minutes i feel like i am in a trance like state, and if i carry on looking the pysical space around the crystal appears to undulate...very strange...

Peace