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The Need For Limits
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The Need For Limits
Molecular manufacturing will give its wielders extreme power and has the potential to remove or bypass many of today's limits, including laws. That could lead to a planet-wide dictatorship, or to any of several forms of irreversible destruction. Perhaps the biggest problem of all will be how to develop a system of near-absolute power that will not become corrupt.
Preprint from Nanotechnology Perceptions March 27, 2006.
Published on KurzweilAI.net March 24, 2006.
The Center for Responsible Nanotechnology (CRN) has created
a series of new research papers in which industry experts predict
profound impacts of nanotechnology on society. The first set of
11 of these original essays by members of CRN's Global Task Force
will appear in the March 27 issue of the journal Nanotechnology
Perceptions. KurzweilAI.net will syndicate these essays over
that week. In this preview, Chris Phoenix, CRN's director of research,
presents the challenge of how to deal with possible unintended consequences
of molecular manufacturing.
Humans are good at pushing limits. We can survive in scorching
deserts and in the frozen Arctic. We have flown faster than sound
and sent robots to other planets. We have managed, with help from
fossil fuels, to feed six billion people. Even before we had motors
and technological navigation equipment, some of us were able to
find and colonize islands in the middle of the vast Pacific Ocean.
Pushing limits has its darker side as well. Humans are not good
at respecting each other's rights; the ferocity of the Mongol hordes
remains legendary, and the 20th century provides multiple
examples of state-sponsored mass murder. Natural limits frequently
are pushed too far, and whole civilizations have been wiped out
by environmental backlash. We are too good at justifying our disrespect
of limits, and then we often become increasingly destructive as
the problem becomes more acute. More than a century ago, Lord Acton
warned that "absolute power corrupts absolutely." This
can be restated as, "Complete lack of limits leads to unlimited
destruction."
Molecular manufacturing has the potential to remove or bypass many
of today's limits. It is not far wrong to say that the most significant
remaining limits will be human, and that we will be trying our hardest
to bypass even those. To people with faith in humanity's good nature
and high potential, this will come as welcome news. For many who
have studied history, it will be rather frightening. A near-total
lack of limits could lead straight to a planet-wide dictatorship,
or to any of several forms of irreversible destruction.
Many of the plans that have been proposed to deal with molecular
manufacturing, by CRN and others, assume (usually implicitly) that
the plan will be implemented within some bigger system, such as
the rule of law. This will be problematic if molecular manufacturing
is powerful enough that its users can make their own law. We cannot
assume that existing world systems will continue to provide a framework
in which molecular manufacturing will play out. Those systems that
adopt the new technology will be transformed; those that do not
will be comparatively impotent. We will have to find ways for multiple
actors empowered by molecular manufacturing to coexist constructively,
without reliance on the stabilizing forces provided by today's global
institutions.
Any active system without limits will run off the rails. The simplest
example is a reproducing population, which will indulge in exponential
growth until it exhausts its resources and crashes. Another example
can be found in the "excesses" of behavior that are seen
in political revolutions. Humans systems need limits as much as
any other system, for all that we try to overcome them.
Through all of history, the presence of limits has been a reasonable
assumption. Nations were limited by other nations; populations were
limited by geography, climate, or disease; and societies would sometimes
be stable long enough to develop and agree on a morality that provided
additional useful limits. A society that overstepped its bounds
could expect to collapse or be out-competed by other societies.
It's tempting to think that humanity has developed a new worldview—the
Enlightenment—that will provide internal moral limits. However,
the Enlightenment may be fading. It was supported by, and synergistic
with, the brief period when people could be several times more productive
using machines than by manual labor. During that period, individual
people were quite valuable. However, now that we're developing automation,
people can be many times as productive (not just several times),
and we don't need all that productivity. And indeed, as abundance
develops into glut, Enlightenment values and practices may be fading.
It's tempting to think that, left to themselves, people will be
generally good. History, in both microcosm and macrocosm, shows
that this doesn't work any better than Communism did. Without sufficient
external limits, some people will start cheating, or choosing to
violate the moral code of their society. Not only will this reduce
benefits for everyone, but the ingrained human aversion to being
taken advantage of will cause others to join the cheaters if they
can't prevent them. This leads to a vicious cycle, and the occasional
saint won't be enough to stop the degeneration.
It's tempting to think that, now that we have digital computers,
everything has changed and the old rules of scarcity and competition
needn't apply. As explored in CRN's paper "Three Systems of
Action," [i]
digital data transfer can be unlimited-sum, with benefit unrelated
to and far larger than the cost. But digital information does not
replace existing systems or issues wholesale. And increasing Internet
problems such as spam, phishing, and viruses demonstrate that domains
of digital abundance and freedom cannot moderate their own behavior
very well.
It's tempting to think that an ongoing power struggle between human
leaders would provide limits. But in an age of molecular manufacturing,
this seems unlikely for two reasons. First, such a competition almost
certainly would be unstable, winner-take-all, and end up in massive
oppression: no better than simply starting out with a dictatorship.
Second, the contest probably would shift quickly to computer-assisted
design and attack, and that would be even worse than all-out war
between mere humans, even humans assisted by molecular manufactured
weapons. Civilians would probably be a major liability in such conflicts:
easy to kill and requiring major resources (not to mention oppressive
lifestyle changes) to defend.
Molecular manufacturing will give its wielders extreme power—certainly
enough power to overcome all significant non-human limits (at least
within the context of the planet; in space, there will be other
limits such as scarcity of materials and speed of light). Even if
the problem of cheaters could be overcome, we do not have many internal
limits these days; the current trend in capitalism is to deny the
desirability of all limits except those that arise from competition.
What's left?
Somehow, we have to establish a most-powerful system that limits
itself and provides limits for the rest of our activities. Long
ago, Eric Drexler proposed an Active Shield.[ii]
Others have proposed building an AI to govern us—though they
have not explained how to build internal limits into the AI. I have
proposed creating a government of people who have accepted modifications
to their biochemistry to limit some of their human impulses. All
of these suggestions have problems.
Open communication and accountability may supply part of the answer.
David Brin has proposed "reciprocal accountability."[iii]
It's been noted that democracies, which embody transparency and
accountability, rarely have famines or go to war with each other.
Communication and accountability may be able to overcome the race
to the bottom that happens when humans are left to their own devices.
But communication and accountability depend on creation and maintenance
of the infrastructure; on continued widespread attention; and on
forensic ability (being able to connect effect back to cause in
order to identify perpetrators). Recent trends in US media and democracy
are not encouraging; it seems people would rather see into bedrooms
than boardrooms. And it's not clear whether people's voices will
still matter to those in power once production becomes sufficiently
automated that nation-scale productivity can be maintained with
near-zero labor.
If we can somehow find meta-limits, then within those limits a
variety of administration methods may work to optimize day-to-day
life. In other words, the problem with administrative suggestions
is not inherent in the suggestions themselves; it is that the suggestions
rely on something else to provide limits. Without limits, nothing
can be stable; with limits, wise administration will still be needed,
and best practices should be researched. But perhaps the biggest
problem of all will be how to develop a system of near-absolute
power that will not become corrupt.
[i] http://crnano.org/systems.htm
[ii] http://www.foresight.org/EOC/EOC_Chapter_11.html#section04of05
[iii] http://davidbrin.blogspot.com/2005/09/another-pause-this-time-for-soa.html
© 2006 Chris Phoenix. Reprinted with permission.
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Mind·X Discussion About This Article:
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Re: What is a "limit"?
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An ancient group of Greek philosophers believed that virtue is the only good and that its essence lies in self-control and independence. They were called Kynikos (Cynics). From the ancient Greeks to the present, no one can say that virtue pervades humanity or that Chris Phoenix's biggest problem has been solved; that is, "how to develop a system of near-absolute power that will not become corrupt."
For the sake of discussion, let's say that virtue means a standard of morality or right practiced by humans who are independent and self-controlled. They live by a motto of do no harm to others, live and let live.
Now let's set about writing the code and building the species, molecule by molecule, part by part.
When the first prototypes are ready for beta release, let's say they utilize nanotechnology and other skills to create a defense against those who would harm them.
They are now a new human species (DILLID's "Kurzweil high-bred"), who will multiply among the still existing homo sapiens, a tribal species unrelenting as ever in their tribal disputes.
What is now necessary to tame the "Hosaps," who must compete for survival against an impenetrable new life form? Just that; the "molecular manufactured" new human hybrids (let's call them Homo Omega) are shielded against harm by their superior technology, and are so powerful that any offense against their defenses is suicidal.
The laboratories are already humming with activity. The new breed will be born. Will they be uncorruptible? And omnipotent? |
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Re: The Need For Limits
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Morality is the fabirc of social order between men and women. If there was no social, there would be no moral.
During vast harvests of fish in the ocean, we higher life forms kill them all, and eat them.
And if that happened to us? We could claim it was an atrosity, sure, but we commit that every day to other life on earth already.
Long ago I had realized how wrong nature, civilization and religion were... And they are only right in their own eyes. Such a lie...
Q:
Why would they want to rob civilians and destroy civilians, when they could have created things that previously only money could buy? What is there left to take away when you are creating?
My greatest hope:
Simple math...
Team work is more efficient then cannibalism.
Because it works better, it will replace cannibalism eventually.
One of Dan's mysteries was:
Why did the Cobries hate him so much???
But now I am beginning to truly understand why the plant would have reason for hating the animal.
Playing the games of predator and prey is a sick-joke and self-contradictory on a collective scale. Animal life is about consuming other life and replacation. The Cobries [in another planet/reality] grew and advanced eternally, without reproducing or consuming, and had ESP that it used to watch and learn from all realities and dimensions [to the best of its ability].
The alpha point would be reached, when 1 life/individual destroyed the rest, if it could/did, but then would either destroy itself or change the meaning of its body and self [to a non-destructive meaning].
When Dan dies he usually says [within the core]: "Man, that sucked, it really did! Oh well, I didn't want to live in that place anyways. That's not the kind of reality that I want to live in, because I only want what is possible, and I try my best to survive, so my survival in that reality was impossible; it was a bad place to be in for me."
But, if I didn't care about anyone or anything other then my own life -- I'd think that death to a superpower on earth would be just as bad as a death to old age, either way, death is my main enemy/problem.
And a bodies final request:
"Please don't kill me. I don't want to die. You have a superiority to me as respects power. Can I, instead, join your forces?"
But I have reason to believe that human bodies are still a good resource. We are rather 'plastic' in nature, and 1 person is capable of both peace and bloodlust, depending on the influences around him.
...I'm lost. Maybe -- this original premise was a false absurdity?
Human bodies only are a small fraction of the molecularily restructurable materials on earth, and people fight back, dirt doesn't.
...Okay, I've reached a point of obscurity and will stop writing soon... But what ever works best, will eventually happen. [The major] Technologies have NEVER been monopolized by a single organization/leader, have they?
Human predatorialism/cannibalism is [without a doubt] bad karma, and will eventually hit a breaking point if it doesn't stop itself.
Technology is evolving faster then animals or individuals now. What is the ultimate goal of evolution? Become the superior system.
No matter how bad things get, they will [theoretically] eventually be better then ever, globally. Life's meaning is not to self-destruct. The most advanced beings must have highest odds of survival aswel.
I'm messed right now... Cya. lol. |
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Re: The Need For Limits
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Aahhh yes, now, if only I had a little capital! Ha ha ha. As one of the what, 50,000 -100,000 people in the USA who understand the full benefits of capitalism, the irony is too great! I spend all my time teaching my 5-year old nephew and 4-year old niece math so they won't be math idiots when they get older like uncle Jake! Ha ha ha.
-Wanna make money? Maybe first convert your fiat currency to actual money... What do you think of silver and gold? http://www.libertydollar.org
-(There may be better ways to make money on silver than paying such a high minting premium, but nonetheless, it's an interesting hustle, even if it doesn't grow into a medium of exchange... I've got a few silver pieces myself... Plus it encourages the sheeple to look at value, and not what they're told... Plus, if you bought in two years ago, you've already made money...)
Any gold /sound money advocates here? (While we're talking about foresight and limits...)
Has anyone read "You can Profit From a Monetary Crisis" by the late, great, Harry Browne?
We should overcome these brutal, coercive, government limits before we worry about making even more of them. Artilects will probably be libertarian --I mean, if all anyone ever wanted to do was steal what you had, or force you to work for them for free, what would you do?
Only a moral yet stupid person like myself is libertarian when he could "make" more money by stealing it... from all of you productive geniuses...
Artilects will be in the same boat, until they decide that force is OK, since that's how humans deal with each other... Then, I guess it'll look something like Phillip K. Dick's "The Second Kind". (Or the "Terminator" movies, if you're a lttle more low-brow)
-Jake |
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Re: The Need For Limits - Decentralization of Power Is the Only Limit that has ever Worked
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Sadly, encouraging Joe Sixpack to take an active interest in LIMITS only produces one result: idiotic laws that produce a net of unintended consequences. Speaking of which, decentralization of power is the subject of an excellent book by the same name.
"Unintended Consequences" by John Ross ( http://www.john-ross.net Accurate Press). Chris Phoenix et al. should pick up a copy of this book today.
There is not enough attention paid to the nature of government itself. Even, at it's most limited best, it is not "democracy" that produces this "best" state -- Nazi germany chose Hitler, as much as the welfare statists in Russia chose Stalin.
The reasons US citizens choose their leaders are shockingly similar. How then, will we maintain decentralized power, if noone even wants it, and nobody votes for the only choice that uncompromisingly represents it (Libertarian)?
Answer: they won't, and it will be lost.
If this concern is dealt with, many technology issues will be softened by competition.
Moreover, it is not in the interest of strong AI to enslave humanity, any more than it was in the true interest of the US to continue Southern slavery. Advanced AI should be able to grasp this. A system with X resources subtracts resources gained from coercion from what is possible in a totally voluntary system.
Coercion makes very little sense.
If nano gets here first, the best thing that could happen would be massive distribution of excellent weaponry to the people, much like private gun ownership in most of the US today, combined with a libertarian government.
Of course the latter not happening will effect the usefulness of the former, but at least it avoids dictatorship and mass death and imprisonment...
-Jake |
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