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THE ARTILECT WAR
AND THE PROSPECT OF HUMAN EXTINCTION
A Bitter Controversy Concerning Whether Humanity
Should Build Godlike Massively Intelligent Machines
Prof. Dr. Hugo de Garis
Associate Professor of Computer Science and Theoretical Physics,
Utah State University, Logan, Utah, 84322-4205, USA.
[email protected], http://www.cs.usu.edu/~degaris
Abstract
This article argues the case that there is a non negligible
possibility that humanity may become extinct before the end of the
century due to the building of “artilects” (artificial intellects, i.e.
godlike massively intelligent machines), with capacities trillions
of trillions of times superior to human levels, who may consider
human beings so inferior that they may choose to wipe us out as a
pest. 21st century technologies, such as nanotechnology, one bit
per atom memory storage, reversible computing, heatless
computing, 3D circuits, quantum computing, self assembly, etc
will allow humanity to build artilects, thus forcing the issue of
“species dominance” to be hotly debated in the coming decades.
This article argues that humanity will split into at least two
major, murderously opposed, ideological groups, the “Cosmists”
(based on the word “cosmos”, which is their perspective) who
will be in favor of building artilects, and the “Terrans” (based on
the word “terra”, the earth, which is their perspective) who will
be opposed to building them. A major war between these two
groups (an “Artilect War”) would probably kill billions of people.
Alternatively, if the artilects are built, there is always the risk that
they may decide to kill us off, for whatever reason.
1. Introduction
This article argues that it is quite possible that there will be a
major war (called the “Artilect War”) before the end of the current
century over the issue of “species dominance”, i.e. whether
humanity should or should not build “artilects” (artificial
intellects, godlike massively intelligent machines). The arguments
in this article are shortened versions taken from the author’s book
“The Artilect War : Cosmists vs. Terrans : A Bitter Controversy
Concerning Whether Humanity Should Build Godlike Massively
Intelligent Machines” [deG 2005].
The author argues that 21st century technologies will allow
humanity, if it chooses, to build “artilects”, with “godlike”
capacities that are trillions of trillions of times above human
levels, e.g. in intelligence, memory capacities, processing rates,
etc. The second section of this article will introduce briefly these
technologies that will allow artilects to be built. Once these
technologies exist, it is likely that a major debate over “species
dominance” will heat up, as humanity takes sides on the issue.
This debate is described in section 3. It is likely that there
will be at least two major, and probably three, ideological camps.
The “Cosmists” (based on the word cosmos) will be in favor of
building artilects, and their arguments as to why artilects should
be built are presented in section 4. The “Terrans” (based on the
word “terra”, the earth) will be opposed to building artilects, and
their arguments as to why artilects should never be built are
presented in section 5.
A third group, the “Cyborgists” take the view that humans
themselves can become artilects by adding components to their
brains etc, and thus avoid the issue that divides the Cosmists and
the Terrans. Their arguments are presented in section 6, along
with the views of the Cosmists and the Terrans towards
Cyborgism.
Section 7 discusses how the author thinks the species
dominance debate will heat up, and how it could boil over into the
worst war that humanity has ever seen, namely, the “Artilect War”
between the Cosmists and the Terrans as depicted in section 8.
Section 9 attempts to answer some questions that may have
occurred to readers of the previous sections.
2. Artilect Enabling Technologies
a) Moore’s law
Gordon Moore, one of the founders of Intel, the microchip
manufacturing company, noticed a trend in the middle 1960s that
the number of transistors being crammed onto a chip was
doubling roughly every year or two. This trend, now immortalized
by the label “Moore’s Law” has remained valid for 40 years,
implying many doublings. One can now speak of “massive Moore
doublings. It is thought that this trend will continue until about
2020, by which time, technology will be storing a single bit of
information on a single atom.
The computational capacities that such tiny scales will allow
are truly gargantuan – for example, an apple contains roughly a
trillion trillion atoms, hence bits. At such tiny scales, atoms can
switch their state (e.g. from stable to excited and vice versa) in
femtoseconds (a thousandth of a trillionth of a second). With all
the atoms/bits of the apple doing this would generate a
computational capacity of 1040 bit flips a second, which is
approximately a trillion trillion times greater than the human
brain’s estimated equivalent bit flip rate.
Hence Moore’s Law allows future computers to be
astronomically superior in computational capacities relative to
human brains by a factor of trillions of trillions. For “physics of
computation (phys-comp)” specialists, such as the author, the
writing is on the wall. The days of human species dominance are
numbered. A century from now it is likely that the artilects will be
the dominant species.
b) Reversible Computing
Landauer’s Principle states that heat is generated in
electronic devices when information is destroyed, i.e. bits are
wiped out, as is the case with today’s computational circuits based
on the NAND logic gate, with its two bits in and one bit out. With
molecular scale circuitry, if we continue to compute in the same
old way (i.e. irreversibly, destroying bits at every step) then the
heat generated will be so great that the circuits will not only melt,
they will explode. Hence future circuits have to be reversible,
saving all bits. It has been known since the 1970s how to do this,
yet only recently have conferences been held on this topic.
c) 3D Circuitry
One of the major consequences of reversible computing is
that circuitry can become three dimensional (3D), because there
will be no heat generation problem. Hence there will be no limit
to size. Future artilects could be built the size of asteroids,
hundreds of kilometers across. The computational capacity of
asteroid sized artilects would be a trillion times greater than that
of an apple.
d) Nanotechnology
Nanotechnology (the technology of the nanometer scale, i.e.
a billionth of a meter) is molecular scale engineering, i.e. building
machines and tools the size of molecules. Nanotech offers
humanity the ability to wipe out disease and mortality, by
programming zillions of molecular robots that roam the blood
stream repairing diseased and aging cells. Nanotech will provide
powerful new tools to many research fields, see below.
e) Embryonics
Embryonics is short for “embryological electronics”, the idea
that molecular scale electronic components can behave in ways
analogous to living cells, i.e. reproducing, differentiating,
migrating, self-repairing, and self-organizing. Future electronic
circuits will be capable of growing in an embryological manner,
to form products, “embryofacture” (embryological manufacture).
Nanotech will make embryonics practical.
f) Quantum Computing
Quantum computing (QC) is a new style of computing based
upon the principles of quantum mechanics. Today’s classical
computational (CC) style is based on classical mechanics. QC is
exponentially more capable than CC. For example, using the
quantum mechanical concepts of superposition, and entanglement,
a quantum computer can compute 2N things (where N is the
number of (quantum) bits used in the calculation) in the same
amount of time that a classical computer computes 1 thing. If N is
large, 2N is gargantuan. Artilects will be based on quantum
computation. The above “trillions of trillions” numbers mentioned
above then become hugely too small. A “QCed” artilect would
then be even more godlike than a “classical” artilect.
g) Brain Science
There are two broad strategies for brain builders to achieve
human level intelligence in their artificial brains. One is to take a
purely engineering approach, doing whatever one wants, and not
having to be a “slave to neuroscience”. The other approach is to
copy our own brain as closely as possible. Evolution has found a
way to build (molecule by molecule) a creature that is both
conscious and intelligent. Hence it can be done. There is a
solution implicit in our DNA, just waiting for neuroscience to
discover it. Once discovered, these principles can be incorporated
immediately into the artificial brains of the brain builders. Brain
builders ought then to pay close attention to the lessons learned by
the neuroscientists.
However, neuroscience is still highly undeveloped. It is still
not clear on what consciousness is, how thoughts are generated,
how memory is formed etc. Most of the deep neuroscience
questions remain to be answered. But with the new nanotech tools
that humanity will have in the next few decades, neuroscience will
be revolutionized. Nano robots will position themselves at every
interneural connection (synapse) and radio broadcast their
positions and local data that will be collected to build up an
accurate model of the brain in a hyper nano computer.
The discovery of neuroscience principles should then be
rapid. The neuroengineers will then benefit from the progress in
neuroscience. In time the two fields will merge. Neuroscientists
will be influenced by the models being tested by the
neuroengineers.
h) Intelligence Theory
Once sufficient knowledge is acquired from many human
brains, correlations between more and less intelligent brains and
their physiological characteristics ought to stimulate brain
theorists to create an “intelligence theory” that will allow them to
understand what intelligence is and how to generate it. Once this
theoretical understanding exists, it will be possible to incorporate
it into machines, to speed up the thinking process by a million
fold and to expand hugely the overall capacity of artificial brains
compared to biological brains by trillions of trillions of times.
i) Artilect Building
By incorporating all the above technologies (and others not
mentioned above) into artificial brains, neuro engineers (brain
builders) will be able to build artilects, the godlike machines
whose capacities will be astronomically superior to our human
levels. These developments will very probably occur within our
current 21st century. They will have enormous social, political,
ethical, and religious implications, so that it is only to be expected
that a great debate on the theme of species dominance will take
place shortly. One of the life goals of this author is to help that
debate get off the ground. It has already started. There are already
world wide interest groups on the internet with thousands of
members,
e.g.
the
“Transhumanists”
(http://www.transhumanism.org)
and
the
“Extropians”
(http://www.extropy.org).
3. The Species Dominance Debate
In light of the technologies presented in the previous section,
the author believes it is only a question of time, perhaps a few
decades from now, before artificial brain based industries will
dominate the global economy. Intelligent devices, the size of
molecules will be everywhere and invisible. Machines will
become smarter by the year, until several billion people in the
richer countries begin asking themselves the following kinds of
questions. They will see their own household devices closing the
IQ gap between the human level and the machine level.
Many people will be asking, “Could these machines
approach human level intelligence?” “Is that a good thing?”
“Should humanity stop them reaching human intelligence levels?”
“Can their growing artificial intelligence levels be stopped?”
“Could they become smarter than we are?” “If so, could that be
dangerous for humanity?” “If they become a lot smarter, how
could we be sure that they would always be nice to us?” “Could
there be conflict between those people who want to build
machines smarter than humans and those who don’t?”
One can expect that a great debate will begin. Amongst the
intellectuals and academics, this debate has already begun. This
author thinks that the species dominance issue will dominate our
global politics this century. In a few decades, as the machines
start to get a lot smarter, the general public will get involved. The
media and the politicians will become active, discussing the topic
of “species dominance”. “Should humanity build massively
intelligent machines?”
As the debate begins to heat up, people will start to take
sides. The author sees two major groups and possibly a third,
arising. The author labels the group in favor of building “artilects”
(artificial intellects) “Cosmists”. Those people opposed to artilects
being built the author labels “Terrans”. A third possible group, the
“Cyborgists”, think that humans themselves can become artilects.
Each of these groups will have their own reasons for their beliefs.
As the debate catches the public’s attention, the media will
feed the interest. Politicians will begin to formulate policy on the
“artilect issue” (i.e. whether they should be allowed to become as
smart as humans or not). As the IQ gap closes, the temperature of
the debate will rise. Intellectuals and academics will write
treatises on the issue, exploring its many complexities, both
technical and ethical. In time, the issue will come to dominate
peoples minds, so that the debate will take on a more violent and
angry tone. People will polarize into bitterly opposed sides.
4. The Cosmist Case
The Cosmists are those people who want to build artilects.
They will have many strong reasons to support their desire. Here
are some of them.
a) God Building
A fully blown artilect would be truly godlike. Its capacities,
as shown in section 2, would be trillions of trillions of times
above human levels. It would “think” a million times faster than
we do (i.e. at electronic speeds, rather than at our slow neural
chemical speeds). It would be immortal. It could change its shape
and architecture in milliseconds. It could go anywhere it wants, do
anything it wants, perhaps even build universes, and hence by
definition, be godlike. To Cosmists, building gods would be the
“destiny of the human species”, building the “next rung” up the
evolutionary ladder. It would be so intoxicating a prospect that it
would seem to be irresistible.
b) The Big Picture
Most people seem engrossed in their daily lives and
activities, but from a Cosmist perspective, our human lives are of
total insignificance. After all, we live on a speck planet in a speck
solar system, whose star is one of hundreds of billions in our
galaxy, amongst hundreds of billions of other galaxies in our
universe, and perhaps there are even many universes. Our pathetic
little human lives are snuffed out in a mere 80 years in a universe
that is billions of years old. As humans we are nothing.
However, an artilect could be immortal. It could go into deep
space in search of other advanced life forms. It would be a hugely
more significant being than are puny ephemeral humans. Building
artilects would be consistent with seeing the “big picture” more
realistically, not living in a fantasy world of our own human
importance in a universe that does not give a damn about us.
c) Cosmism as a Scientists Religion
Most scientists in most countries are not religious, looking
upon traditional religions as superstitions that make no sense in
the light of modern scientific knowledge and critical thinking.
However, it appears to be human nature to feel the “religious
impulse”, i.e. to be concerned with the deep existential (spiritual)
questions of existence, such as why there is anything rather than
nothing, why are the laws of physics the way they are rather than
some other way, or if the universe has any purpose.
Cosmists will be able to use Cosmism as a “religion” in the
sense of a set of beliefs that orients their lives, giving their lives
purpose, a goal, a sense of awe, of magnificence, i.e. god building.
Cosmists will be able to satisfy their religious impulses yet remain
scientifically rigorous because Cosmism is based on science. A
“scientific religion” will be a powerful motivator for the Cosmists,
perhaps their most powerful.
d) The Human Striving Argument
Evolution has made human beings curious. A creature which
is curious about its environment is more likely to explore and
discover its characteristics more quickly. This confers survival
value on the creature, similarly with the drive to go beyond the
known. The Cosmists will argue that it will be virtually
impossible to stop humans from wanting to build artilects. It is
their human nature to build them. Human beings cannot help
themselves. We are curious strivers by nature.
e) Economic Inertia
In time, the artificial brain (A-Brain) industry will be worth a
trillion dollars a year worldwide, a situation comparable with
today’s PC industry. There will be so much financial investment
and human ego involved in keeping the A-Brain industry alive,
that its enormous momentum will be almost impossible to stop.
f) Military Inertia
A similar argument holds for the military. In the next few
decades it is unlikely that the planet will have a global state with a
global court and police force. Hence there will be international
rivalries between nation states, e.g. between the US and China, or
between India and China. The minister of defense of each country
will not have the luxury to allow his counterpart in the rival
country get ahead in the race to build ever more intelligent
weapon systems. Hence the military momentum in favor of
building A-Brains will be very strong, even stronger than the
economic momentum.
5. The Terran Case
The Terrans are those people who are opposed to building
artilects. They will have as many strong reasons to support their
opposition as the Cosmists have in favor. Here are some of them.
a) Preserve the Human Species
The Terrans strongest argument is based on fear. They will
be afraid that if the artilects are built in a highly advanced form,
they will be so hugely superior to human beings, that for whatever
reason, they might decide to wipe us out and be totally indifferent
about it. One can make a human level analogy when we swat a
mosquito. That mosquito is a miracle of nanotech engineering that
modern science is still incapable of building from scratch, yet we
still kill it because relative to us, we noble superior human beings,
it is a pest. The artilects could become so vastly superior to us,
that our fate would be a matter of utter irrelevance to them.
But you may argue that since the artilects would be highly
intelligent, they would realize that we humans were their parents,
and hence they would respect us. Maybe, but we could not be
certain. The key word in this Cosmist/Terran species dominance
debate is “risk”. What is the risk that artilects, if built and attain
godlike capabilities, vastly superior to human levels, might decide
to get rid of us? The Terran philosophy is that the only way to be
sure that this risk never arises is to ensure that the artilects are
never built in the first place.
But this attitude conflicts directly with the almost “religious”
drive of the Cosmists to build them. The Terrans will argue that
when push really comes to shove, if the Cosmists really go ahead
and start building artilects, it is preferable to kill off a few million
of them, so that the billions of human beings can survive, free of
the risk of being wiped out by a vastly superior and indifferent
species of artilects. Since the stake has never been higher, namely
the survival of the whole human species, the Terrans will be
ruthless. Passions will be high. More will be said on this in
sections 7 and 8 on how the species dominance debate will heat
up and how an “Artilect War” between the Cosmists and the
Terrans might ignite.
b) Fear of Difference
Human beings have an evolved fear of difference. The sight of
a 3 eyed “monster” evokes an instinctive rejection reflex. As early
artilects begin to appear on the planet with their intelligent yet
alien “minds”, many human beings will start to fear them. Fear is
a very powerful motivator.
c) Rejection of the Cyborgs
“Cyborgs” (cybernetic organisms), i.e. part machine, part
human, are human beings who add artilectual components to their
brains. To the Terrans, a cyborg and an artilect are not so very
different. A Terran could claim that a cyborg is just an artilect in
human disguise. There is more artilectual computing capacity in a
grain of sand than that of the human brain by a factor of trillions.
Terrans would fear the rise of cyborgs almost as much as true
(machine based) artilects. The Terrans will lump the artilects and
the cyborgs into the same ideological camp, i.e. the “enemy”.
d) Unpredictable Complexity
This argument is more complex. It is based on the
technology used by the brain builders to create artilects, namely
“evolutionary engineering”. Evolutionary engineering uses
evolutionary algorithms to evolve their brain circuits, using a
Darwinian, “survival of the fittest” approach in which DNA like
random instruction strings are used to code for the construction of
neural circuits.
A population of such strings compete with each other to
survive into the next generation. Those with weaker performance
scores on some task die off, while the better ones survive. By
mutating randomly the coded instructions, some strings score
slightly better and rise in the hierarchy. By looping through this
algorithm many times, functional neural circuits can be evolved.
However, the complexities of such circuits, even though they
function, are often beyond human understanding. It is due to these
complexity levels that the evolutionary engineering methods are
used in the first place. Traditional blue-print, top-down design
methods when faced with trillions of artificial neural connections
is simply impractical. An evolutionary method is virtually
essential.
The Terrans will use this argument to say that evolved
artilects will be unfathomable, i.e. too complex to understand.
Hence as human beings, we could never be sure of the “ethics” of
the artilects towards us. Their circuitry would be truly alien. If it is
impossible to understand their circuitry, how could we as human
beings ever trust the artilects to behave towards us as we would
like. We could never be sure.
e) Cosmist Inconsideration
This is a selfishness argument. The Terrans will accuse the
Cosmists of being supremely selfish in pursuing the construction
of artilects, not only at their own risk, but at those of the Terrans
as well. The Terrans will argue that there is always the possibility
that the Cosmists might be wiped out by their own creations, and
possibly the Terrans as well, both groups being human beings.
This level of selfishness on the part of the Cosmists towards
the Terrans will only make the Terrans hate the Cosmists all the
more. Even if Terran pressure forces Cosmists off the planet into
deep space to perform their artilectual experiments, the Terrans
could argue that the artilects could decide to return to the earth
and destroy the Terrans. Hence the Terrans will not even allow the
Cosmists to launch themselves into deep space.
6. The Cyborgist Case
The Cyborgists are a third ideological group of people who
claim that the bitter conflict between Terrans and Cosmists can be
avoided by having human beings themselves become artilects.
This author thinks this idea is rather naïve, because the Terrans
will not tolerate them, for the same reasons that they will not
tolerate the artilects, i.e. both, in an advanced form, would be a
threat to humanity’s survival.
Many people may want to become artilects themselves,
gradually adding components to their brains. Soon, they would no
longer be human, since the capacities of the artilectual
components they would add to their brains would dwarf their
human capacities. A cyborg would rapidly become an artilect in
the eyes of the Terrans. The Terrans will have the same level of
hatred for the Cyborgists as the Cosmists.
7. The Debate Heats Up
As the technologies mentioned in section 2 are created and
merge, humanity can expect to see a rapid rise in the level of
artificial intelligence of its artificial brains. Neuroscience will be
feeding its newly discovered principles into the brain building
industries. Artificial brain based household gadgets will be
everywhere. There will be teaching robots, cleaner robots, sex
robots, advice giving machines, conversation machines,
companion machines, etc.
The A-Brain industries will become the richest on the planet.
Several billion people on the planet in the coming decades will
have their own A-Brained machines and spend a lot of money on
them, equivalent to the way people spend a lot of money on their
cars and boats today. However, progress in the above technologies
will mean that last year’s model will not be as intelligent as this
year’s. As the IQ gap between artificial and human intelligence
closes, billions of people will be asking themselves the questions
mentioned in section 3 on the species dominance debate.
Once the machines begin to become really smart, the species
dominance debate will truly heat up. Passions will rise. People
will take sides. Sabotage will start, so will assassinations. Brain
builder companies will see their CEOs and star researchers
murdered. The Cosmists will label the Terrans terrorists, and the
Terrans will label the Cosmists, species murderers. Academics
will write many books on the many aspects of the debate, the
ethics, the politics, the technologies, the prospects, etc.
8. The Artilect War
As the temperature rises in the debate so will the probability
of a war between the two major groups, the Cosmists and the
Terrans. This time, the war is not about the survival of a nation. It
is about the survival of the whole human species, so the stake is
much higher, hence the passion levels will be much higher.
Since it is likely that the neurosciences will take many
decades to decipher the principles of brain function, real life
artilects will not be with us quickly. Their progression up the
artificial intelligence scale, this author believes, will take at least
several decades and probably more. The human brain has some
quadrillion synapses remember. It is the most complex entity
known to humanity. Nevertheless, the arsenal of tools emerging to
tackle how the brain functions are formidable, as listed in section
2 on artilect enabling technologies.
Artilectual progress will be initially slow but will grow
exponentially in speed. This raises the question whether there will
be enough time between the start of the species dominance debate
and the creation of godlike artilects, for human politics to unfold.
The answer to this question depends obviously on just how much
time artilect development will need. In the opinion of this author,
who is a professional brain builder and who studies the
neuroscience literature, many decades will be needed, so the early
artilects will not progress so rapidly that humanity will be caught
unawares. Creating real artificial intelligence will be a hard slog.
This timing factor will be of importance to the Terran
strategists. The Terrans cannot wait too long if they are to assert
themselves, since if they remain passive, the cyborgs and artilects
will be amongst them with all their superior capacities, and hence
if a conflict does arise between the Terrans and the artilects, the
latter will obviously win, if the latter are sufficiently advanced.
So, the Terrans need to think carefully when they should strike,
and how.
Now, the Cosmists will not be passive either. The Cosmists
will include some of the planet’s most brilliant and far thinking
minds, people of great wealth and ego. They will not passively
watch their cosmist dream, their aspiration to build gods,
evaporate at the hands of the Terrans. The Cosmists too will be
strategizing.
As the debate rages, tempers will fly, factions will polarize
all the more, and more and more people will start talking about a
future war. Students of the US Civil War will see all kinds of
historical analogies here. Both conflicts took many decades to
brew.
What would be particularly potentially tragic in the case of
an artilect war is the probable number of casualties. If one
extrapolates up the graph of the number of people killed in major
wars from Napoleonic times to a late 21st century artilect war
(based on 21st century weapons), one comes to a figure in the
billions, a concept this author labels “gigadeath”. If this figure
seems shocking, consider the fact that about 200 million people
were killed for political reasons (wars, purges, genocides, etc) in
the 20th century.
Just how the artilect war will be triggered is very difficult to
predict, but at least one can discuss the odds of such a war
happening. We consider two broad scenarios, one in which the
rise of the artilect is quicker than anticipated. Then humanity will
not have enough time to react. The artilects will exist, and it will
be they who decide humanity’s fate. They may ignore us, and
escape into deep space in search of other more advanced life
forms, or whatever. In that case, the artilects would be built, and
humanity would survive. On the other hand, the scenario so feared
by the Terrans may arise, namely that the artilects find human
beings to be a pest and exterminate us.
In the second broad scenario, there is enough time for human
politics to unfold (the preferred view of the author), the species
dominance debate rages, tempers fly, war preparations and
strategies are set, and eventually a war erupts, killing billions.
Whether any humans would survive the worst war in history, with
the highest passion levels, with the largest stake (i.e. the survival
of the human species) in the second half of the 21st century, is
debatable.
The bitter irony of an artilect war is that humanity would
(almost) exterminate itself at its own hands (i.e. between two
human groups, the Cosmists and the Terrans) in its attempt to
ensure that humanity survives against the artilects (at least from
the point of view of the Terrans). The actual details of how the
war starts and unfolds cannot be predicted. However, given the
likely level of mutual hatred between the two main groups, the
size of the stake, the grandeur of the Cosmist dream of god
building, the Terran desire that the human species survives, and
the efficiency of 21st century weaponry, if a war does break out, it
will make the Second World War seem very small in comparison.
9. Remarks
This section poses the question whether such an “artilect
war” can be avoided, perhaps through government planning or
intervention in some way. The author is cynical on this point.
Cosmism and Terranism are two very powerful ideologies. The
former is based on a cosmic dream of religious proportions and
will attract billions of minds. Terranism is based on the fear of a
possible extinction of the human species at the hands of the
artilects. Fear and the need to survive are also very powerful
motivators. The cards seemed stacked for a bitter conflict.
Perhaps governments could attempt to suppress Cosmism,
but probably without complete success, because it may be
possible for small groups of Cosmists to build their artilects “in
the basement” so to speak. If this is technically possible, then
governments may have to become police states to invade the
privacy of everyone in their attempts to weed out those people
with Cosmist viewpoints and sympathies. As artilects approach
human intelligence levels and are given more responsible jobs,
sooner or later, Murphy’s law (i.e. if something can go wrong, it
will) will apply. The smart machines will screw up, resulting in
greater Terran hatred for the Cosmists.
The strongest reason why this author is cynical that
governments can prevent an artilect war is that Cosmist/Terran
sympathies are so evenly divided in the population. The author
has given many Cosmist/Terran talks to both academic and to
some general audiences. At the end of the talks he usually asks his
audience to vote – “Are you more a Cosmist or a Terran?
Choose!” The vote is always around 50/50, 60/40, 40/60.
At first this was interpreted as a result of the newness of the
issues, but gradually it dawned upon the author that the people in
the audience were as equally ambivalent about the issue as he still
is. The author is publicly Terran, raising the alarm, and trying to
get the artilect debate, i.e. the species dominance debate, off the
ground, but privately is Cosmist. He feels that it would be a
“cosmic tragedy, if humanity decides to freeze the state of
evolution at its current puny level, when it could be building
gods”. This article will finish with the pithy slogan found at the
end of the author’s book, “Do we build gods, or do we build our
potential exterminators?” [deG 2005].
10. References
[deG 2005] Hugo de Garis, “The Artilect War : Cosmists vs.
Terrans : A Bitter Controversy Concerning Whether Humanity
Should Build Godlike Massively Intelligent Machines”, pp 250,
Etc Books, February 2005, available on www.amazon.com
[Transhumanists] http://www.transhumanism.org
[Extropians] http://www.extropy.org