We need to face the fact that Randian capitalism is no longer a way to advance oneself but a way to make oneself poor. The roles have now been reversed and it is no longer survival-of-the-fittest but survival-of-the-most-willing-to-please. As unique and individualistic as we are, we must accept that the real way to prosper in this society is to make other people happy. Thinking only for ourselves will not bring us to the top but leave us socially ostracized and starving.

It is time to accept that John Galt is homeless. When I talk to people living on the streets, they do not posses a Marxist view of the world but a view based on scarcity and survival. It is everybody against everybody in the urban jungle. There is no unity when people are struggling simply to put the food on the table. Being poor and conservative is not a contradiction but a natural reaction. It is usually people who are well off that can afford to think about saving
the world.

Why is John Galt homeless? Did people lose their jobs for being too involved in themselves? Was arrogance shunned? Was self-importance viewed as petty and infantile? Were people awarded status for being disinterested in themselves? When did the atlas reverse? It is hard to come up with an exact point in time, but it is obvious that being selfish will no longer land you at the top.

Some of us feel conflicted. We are nice people who do not want to lose ourselves in the process of surviving, but are afraid that employers will not like us for who we truly are. We feel the need to put on an act simply to be accepted. We adapt to the will of the group in order to advance ourselves. It is not that we must step on other people to advance, but that we must be careful not to step on anyone.

This reversal of capitalism is simply a new extreme. Conforming to groupthink in order to survive in Corporate America has replaced selfishness. You may not need to hurt people around you to survive but should you have to act like a customer service representative 24/7? Is this really any better?

If kindness has truly won, what about people who are not socially able to make the group happy? Maybe it isn’t that someone only cares about themselves, but that someone is living in their own world. Many people who are living in their own worlds are artists and inventors. Why should these people be starving until they learn how to please the common whole?

John Galt is homeless any nobody cares. We feel no pity for people who only think about themselves. We show resentment toward anyone who is unable to make the people around them feel good. We reject those who are self-important because we are afraid they will make us look bad. We live in a culture where being nice to others is a marketable skill. Social media is about making people feel good.

Can we survive without understanding the manual? Will the quality of our work outshine our lack of people skills? Can we create our own path without upsetting others? Now is the time for us to consider these things as we face the future of the atlas being reversed. Can we be ourselves without becoming homeless, or are we doomed to become ideological martyrs because we are too selfish to survive?

Rachel Marone is a writer, multimedia artist, and transhumanist who is founder of the Human 2.0 Council and the Extreme Futurist Festival. Read about the conference at LA Weekly.

Much to my delight, the suggestion was taken up with enthusiasm by others (including a wonderful article by Nikki Olson) – and Future Day 2012 gatherings of various sorts are now being organized in various cities around the globe, as well as in Second Life.  With the help of Adam Ford and others, there is now a Future Day website.

So I’m writing this article now, as the first-ever Future Day approaches, to reiterate the concept of the new holiday, and encourage you to celebrate however you see fit. This is a new holiday – it will be what we make it!

Celebrate Future Day however you like — and feel free to send a photo to of your Future Day gatherings or whatever to info@futureday.org, and your celebration may wind up being commemorated for the future on the Future Day website!

Why Future Day?

But why do we need another holiday? Why one celebrating the future? And why launch such a thing now?

Future Day, as I conceive it, is both a fun and frivolous thing and a deeply serious thing.

When I first suggested the new holiday, I was thinking about Future Day costume parties with SF movie themes … school essay contests on futuristic themes … humanoid robots giving speeches in the town square … you name it! The more I thought about it, the more possible ways to celebrate came to mind.

After all, costume parties are great fun, but why really should we focus them on the witches and goblins that spooked the minds of superstitious medieval people? Isn’t it perhaps better to focus our imaginations on the new worlds we’re building?

And as fun as Fourth of July fireworks are –wouldn’t it be fun to also celebrate with new and amazing technologies, instead of always focusing on blowing things up in the sky? The “rocket’s red glare” was really exciting in the late 1700s, but a lot more things are possible now.

I’m not sure what Future Day is going to develop into, but I think it has the potential to be a heck of a lot of fun.

But just like all our previous holidays, Future Day combines fun with a serious purpose…..

Future Day as a Means of Refocusing the World’s Attention

In the more technologically advanced parts of the world, we are entering a regime in which material scarcity is less of a problem than attentional scarcity. This has been referred to as the attention economy. Put differently, this means we are in situation where the focusing of attention, individually and collectively, is of prime importance.

And holidays are, above all, about focusing of attention. Christmas originally was about focusing attention on the birth of Jesus Christ, but now is mainly about focusing attention on family, gift-giving and shopping. Many holidays are in effect about focusing attention on family. Harvest festivals are about focusing attention on, well, the harvest. Valentine’s Day is about focusing attention on our romantic loves. Birthdays are about focusing attention on the people born on that day. “National days” like the US Fourth of July are about focusing attention on nations.

Most holidays, when you think about it, are about focusing attention either on past events, or on natural cyclical events like the coming of spring or the harvesting of crops.

Why not focus more of our attention on the future?

Celebrating and honoring the past, and the cyclical processes of nature, is most certainly a valuable thing. But in these days of rapid technological acceleration, it is our future that needs more attention, not our past.

The old saw that “those who do not remember the past are doomed to repeat it” is worth keeping in mind, even though it’s true only in very limited senses (for instance, I believe that we have very little risk of reverting to medieval society, and that what risk we do have, is not closely tied to how closely we remember the nature of that society).  We don’t want to forget our roots.  But we need to pay more attention to the  important  truth that those who do not pay serious attention to their future, have much less chance of affecting it in accordance with their tastes, values and ideals.

This is the serious theme underlying Future Day. Let’s have fun exploring all the possibilities of the future, plausible and speculative, serious and non. And let’s do our best to nudge the world to refocus its attention the future and all the possibilities it holds – and our power to shape the future, together.

Exercise triggers stem cells in muscle
February 6, 2012
“Preliminary data suggest MSCs become deficient in muscle with age. The team hopes to develop a combinatorial therapy that utilizes molecular and stem-cell-based strategies to prevent age-related muscle loss.”

Brain activity differs when one plays against others [functional magnetic resonance imaging used to track brain activity]
February 5 2012

New study makes key finding in stem cell self-renewal
February 6, 2012
“A University of Minnesota-led research team has proposed a mechanism for the control of whether embryonic stem cells continue to proliferate and stay stem cells, or differentiate into adult cells like brain, liver or skin.”

Scientists make strides toward fixing infant hearts [proof of concept, amniotic stem cells may be used to grow tissue patches to repair infant hearts]
February 6, 2012

Quantum biology and Ockham’s razor
February 6, 2012
[for biology to progress, quantum modelling of protein folding must be matched by quantum tunnel modelling of enzyme catalysis, and to be accurate the later requires additional modelling of enzyme structural fluctuations]

High planetary tilt lowers odds for life?
February 6, 2012 By Adam Hadhazy

Smart Skin: Electronics That Stick and Stretch Like a Temporary Tattoo
August 11, 2011

Manufacturing Goes Viral
Researchers coax viruses to assemble into synthetics with microstructures and properties akin to those of corneas, teeth and skin
October 19, 2011

Coming soon: Manufacturing with every atom in its proper place
October 19, 2010
“Within seven years, Randall expects that Zyvex Labs will be selling initial production tools that can remove more than a million hydrogen atoms a second using 10 parallel tips at a cost of about $2,000 per cubic micrometer of added silicon (48 billion atoms).”

Engineers make artificial skin out of nanowires
Sarah Yang, September 12, 2010

Strange New Twist: Berkeley Researchers Discover Möbius Symmetry in Metamaterials
December 20, 2010

Energy Harvesting: Nanogenerators Grow Strong Enough to Power Small Conventional Electronic Devices

New procedure repairs severed nerves in minutes, restoring limb use in days or weeks
February 6, 2012

Smallest-Ever Nanotube Transistors Outperform Silicon
A nine-nanometer device shows that nanotubes could be a viable alternative to silicon as electronics get even tinier.
January 26, 2012

Eye Study Is a Small but Crucial Advance for Stem-Cell Therapy
[degenerative eye conditions improve after stem cell therapy]
January 25, 2012

Embodiment, Computation And the Nature of Artificial Intelligence
The notion of intelligence makes no sense without a broader view of computation, argues one of the world’s leading AI researchers
6 February 2012

THE INTERVIEW:

Jill Drouillard: You’re the co-inventor of very small embryonic-like stem cell (VSEL) technology. Could you describe how this type of adult stem cell therapy is embryonic-like in nature?

Do you think this technology may prove more effective than embryonic stem cells in cellular rejuvenation?

Dr. Mariusz Ratajczak: Very small embryonic like stem cells (VSELs) are purified from adult tissues and are potential sources of stem cells for application in regenerative medicine and stem cell therapies. In contrast to embryonic stem cells (ESCs) their derivation does not require destruction of embryos and thus are non-controversial from an ethical point of view.

Murine bone marrow-derived VSELs, which are the best characterized at this moment, share several similarities with ESCs (e.g., expression of markers of pluripotency such as Oct-4, Nanog, display primitive morphology with large nucleus containing unorganized euchromatin, presence of bivalent domains). There are also some differences, such as VSELs, in contrast to ESCs, do not complete blastocyst development after injection into developing blastocyst and do not grow teratomas after inoculation into immunodeficient mice. This is the case because VSELs are under control mechanisms that prevent their “unleashed proliferation”. We have already identified this mechanism at a molecular level. This mechanism that renders VSELs quiescent is based on changes in expression of some imprinted genes that play a crucial role in cell proliferation and embryonic development.

A question that is important from the developmental point of view is why pluripotent stem cells, (PSCs) such as VSELs, would reside in adult organs? For many years, it had been accepted that adult tissues contain only tissue-committed stem cells (TCSCs) that have limited possibility of differentiation – for example, epidermal stem cells, hematopoietic stem cells, skeletal muscle stem cells. To address this question, we have to consider two scenarios that could potentially occur during early embryogenesis and development of lineage restricted TCSCs.

In the first scenario, PSCs, present in the inner cell mass of blastocyst/epiblast, after giving rise to more differentiated lineage restricted TCSCs, would gradually disappear from the growing embryo and not reside in adult tissues. In the second scenario, what we believe is more likely to take place during embryogenesis, PSCs give rise to TCSCs, but at the same time, some of them survive in adult tissues as a backup population of PSCs that over time may renew a pool of TCSCs. In this scenario, PSCs (e.g., VSELs) are precursors of TCSCs during organ/tissue rejuvenation and a source of these cells in emergency situations such as when organs are damaged (e.g., heart infarct, stroke etc.). This scenario, however, as I mentioned above, requires that VSELs be kept under control in a quiescent stage; what is essential is to prevent their unleashed proliferation that would lead to formation of malignant tertomas.

JD: In 2010 you were appointed to the scientific advisory board of Neostem, an international biopharmaceutical company who won a Biotech Award for “Best Stem Cell Company” that same year. Can you talk a bit about your collaboration with Neostem?

MR: My home institution, the University of Louisville, decided a few years ago to license a patent on VSELs technology to Neostem, and we hope that this company will help us to translate our discovery into clinic. The CEO of Neostem Dr. Robin Smith is very interested in our discovery.

JD: Transhumanists often point out the meager lifespan of human beings, lamenting that even a turtle lives longer. In your presentation at the Vatican Stem Cell conference, you commented on this disparity as well, citing the longevity record of a turtle at 188 years and that of the human at 122. Do you think advances in regenerative medicine will help human beings catch up to the tortoise in coming decades?

MR: First of all, I strongly believe that regenerative medicine will improve our overall quality of life. Regenerative medicine will provide new treatment strategies for damaged organs (e.g., heart after heart infarct, brain after stroke, injured spinal cord, damaged liver or retina epithelium).

Furthermore, since stem cells are directly responsible for tissue/organ rejuvenation during our lifetime, if we develop strategies to keep these cells “in optimal biological condition,” we may develop strategies that will impact the prolongation of our life span.

In particular, I envision here a role of a modern pharmacology that will develop new drugs that will specifically target stem cell research. Therefore, the future will depend, not only on progress of stem cell therapies, but also on a development of the new discipline – “pharmacology of stem cells”.

JD: Theorists such as Aubrey de Grey view aging as a disease and believe that it is scientifically possible to find a cure that would allow for an indefinite lifespan. Do you believe it is possible to locate a cure for aging? If such a goal is remotely possible, do you think that adult stem cell therapy is the most promising form of regenerative technology?

MR: Based on our recent data, generated in long-living and short-living murine strains, we postulate that longevity correlates with a number/function of VSELs deposited in the adult tissues. Therefore, as I mentioned above, development of new drugs that will positively affect VSELs comportment will have a direct effect on prolonging one’s life span.

What is important is that, for the first time, our data has connected stem cell comportment with the well-known effect of caloric restriction and physical activity on longevity. We postulate that caloric restriction and physical activity regulate, in a positive manner, the number and function of VSELs deposited in adult tissues.

JD: In a previous question, I mentioned your presentation at the Vatican Stem Cell Conference This event, promoted by the Catholic Church and Neostem Inc., was an historic event. Could you elaborate on how this meeting of faith and science will affect future research on adult stem cell therapies?

MR: An international conference, “Adult Stem Cells: Science and the Future of Man and Culture”, was held at the Vatican from November 9–11, 2011, beginning a dialog between the Catholic Church and scientists, ethicists, and entrepreneurs about the therapeutic application of human stem cells. Two principal topics of the conference were the application of adult stem cells isolated from neonatal and adult tissues and the ethical aspects of adult cell-derived induced pluripotent stem cells.

The Vatican has long sought rapprochement with science. Under direction of Pope John Paul II, the Pontifical Council for Culture lead by Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi was created, and Pope Benedict XVI directed the opening of the Department of Science and Faith lead by Rev. Tomasz Trafny. Recent progress in stem cell research has stimulated important questions (theological, philosophical, social, cultural, and educational) that can be fruitfully approached through cross- disciplinary discussion. To this end, the Pontifical Council for Culture partnered with Robin Smith, CEO of NeoStem Inc., a US-based company focused on clinical application of adult stem cells, to organize this historic meeting, which also echoed history in that it fell on the 50th anniversary of the publication by James Till and Ernest McCulloch of the spleen colony assay for measuring the proliferative potential of early adult stem cells.

The goals of the Catholic Church for the meeting were (1) to encourage research on stem cells that does not violate its ethical or religious principles, (2) to foster multidisciplinary dialog, and (3) to provide a conduit for scientific information about stem cells to the general public. The importance of the meeting to Pope Benedict XVI was emphasized by his addressing a special message to the conference and his special private audience with the participants. With over 1.1 billion members (17% of world population), the Catholic Church is an important potential ally in the development of therapies based on adult stem cells. The Church supports 5,000 hospitals, 17,000 outpatient clinics, 16,000 nursing homes, and over 85,000 other health care facilities worldwide and has considerable financial resources that might be brought to bear in conducting the necessary clinical trials.

The long-term goals of the Church are to educate the public, students, and church members about adult stem cells, create a collaborative network of scientists and patrons, advance scientific research on adult stem cells and their clinical application in regenerative medicine, explore the cultural aspects of such research, and determine how political, scientific, educational, and religious leaders can take part in the cultural paradigm shift arising from advances in

regenerative medicine. In his speech to the conference, former US Secretary of Health and Human Services Tommy Thompson urged a united effort to educate policy makers and the public about the great potential of adult stem cell therapies and announced his request to President Obama to form a regenerative medicine coalition to expedite FDA approval of “here- and-now” cures.

Of course, this alignment of the Catholic Church with scientific research is in welcome contrast to its much earlier defensive attitude during the times of Copernicus, Bruno, and Galileo when the Church was not open to scientific inquiry.

JD: What questions about the future motivate your research interests? What breakthrough would you like to see in the future of regenerative medicine?

MR: I am deeply convinced that regenerative medicine is our key to a better life and our key to extending lifespan. I believe that we will be able to employ PSCs (e.g., VSELs), isolated from adult tissues, to harness stem cells to regenerate damaged organs. In combination with developing scaffold-technologies, we may be able to generate ex vivo organ fragments or even whole organs and replace organ transplantations with in vitro generated ones.

JD: Do you see nanotechnology playing a huge role in the future of regenerative medicine? How so? Cryopreservation centers have already begun to emerge in belief that we will one day be able to create technology capable of reanimating organisms via nanomedicine. Do you think this goal is realistic? If so, how far do you think we are we from achieving it?

MR: Nanotechnology may play a role in the expansion of stem cells and their engraftment onto damaged organs. However, I am very cautious about promises of reanimating organisms via nanomedicine. On the one hand, it is well known that some small organisms such as small frogs in Canada or some species of small fish living in the Arctic have developed spontaneous physiological mechanisms that enable them to freeze and thaw. Before freezing, these animals change their biochemical composition of blood such that it becomes enriched with some cryoprotective substances, e.g., high levels of glucose.

On the other hand, the theoretical cryopreservation of a large organism, for example, a human being, would require the saturation of a relatively large body mass with cryopreservant. This would not be an easy task, and more importantly, it should theoretically be done on a still living organism. Here emerges an ethical problem similar to the one we face in the area of euthanasia, for example. How to cryopreserve a still fully functioning organism, thus subjecting it to a high- risk procedure? Would it be acceptable from a legal point of view?

JD: On a personal level, why have you chosen this particular field of research?

MR: My background is hematology. Hematologists were the first among clinicians to employ hematopoietic stem cells in therapy. Therefore, my journey into the fascinating world of stem cells began at a time when I was working as a young physician in a bone marrow transplant ward. It took me, however, almost 20 years to realize that bone marrow, in addition to hematopoietic stem cells, contain “real diamonds” – VSELs.

JD: In concluding, how long would you like to live?

MR: We cannot live forever, and it is important to respect this biological fact. Even planets and stars in our universe have a limited life span, and we are part of this universe. “Panta Rhei” – everything flows everything changes – as it has been proposed 2000 years ago by Heraclitus. Human generations change as well… Giving birth to offspring is one of the driving forces of evolution. In the long term, this leads to better adaptation of the species to its changing environment. Therefore, we are only temporary quests at this world…

If you ask this question to different people, you will probably get different answers. We all have some priorities in our life, and everybody would like to leave, on the earth, a fingerprint of one’s existence – raise kids; help grandchildren to get out on their own; compose a symphony; write a book of one’s life; build a magnificent skyscraper, bridge or new computer.

I will address this question as a scientist. Besides making sure that my kids are fully independent, I would like to witness that regenerative medicine and stem cell therapies reach a level to where they will significantly improve the quality of life for future generations.

Dr. Mariusz Ratajczak, M.D., Ph.D., D.Sci.,is the Henry and Stella Hoenig Endowed Chair in Cancer Biology and the director of the Developmental Biology Research Program at the University of Louisville’s James Graham Brown Cancer Center. Jill Drouillard is a PhD candidate at the Université de Paris IV, Sorbonne, specializing in the philosophy of technology. She works at Leukemia journal where Dr. Ratajczak serves on the editorial board.

Special thanks to the co-founder and Editor-in-Chief of Leukemia journal Dr. Nicole Muller-Bérat Killmann for introducing Jill to Dr. Ratajczak.

If we can assume our behavior in the environment is determined by our genome, then evolution can be seen as acting directly on behavior. This is reinforced by the fact that significant heritability is found in neurotransmitter concentrations. Thus the organization of biological neural systems can give insight into the emergence of morality. The two neurotransmitters most associated with sociality are serotonin and dopamine. Serotonin concentrations corresponds to social behavior choices, while dopamine pathways are the basis for reward-driven learning. It turns out that these two systems happen to be co-regulated in social mammals. Low levels of serotonin will lead to aggression, impulsivity and social withdrawal, while high levels lead to behavioral inhibition. This means humans with a high serotonin level will have a higher thought to action ratio. This is important because behaviors such as reciprocal altruism are complex and require a concept of empathy. When dopamine is associated with higher serotonin levels the brain gets an activation of its reward center to reinforce actions associated with empathy. This combines altruism and happiness. Even if we don’t understand the math behind game theory, evolution has formed these two systems so as to select behaviors as if we did (1). In the social atmosphere, a short-term loss of resources will pay significant long-term dividends when invested in altruism.

This neural rewarding of altruistic behavior has been supported in various scientific journal articles. One example shows the effect of seller charity on the online marketplace and is documented in the study by D. Elfenbeim et al (2). Using money to quantify social motivations, their team showed that eBay auctions associated with a charity tie-in experienced a 6-14% increase in likelihood to sell and a 2-6% increase in maximum bid. The charitable aspect was controlled for by offering the exact same product in simultaneous auctions containing identical titles, subtitles, sellers and starting prices. Since everything from product to advertising was identical the charity component is the only variable remaining to explain the improved relative successes of the different transactions. This increase in perceived value implies that the charitable aspect of those auctions gave a greater sense of compensation when compared to the expectation of the product alone. This underlies the reinforcing nature of the brain’s circuitry on socially altruistic actions.

In designing artificial Intelligence, then, we would be wise to use a reward-driven system complementing the selection of social behavior. Beyond the singularity, as machines explode into the level of superintelligence, a fundamental understanding of the mechanisms of social morality becomes increasingly important. Nebulous attributions of morality’s origin to supernatural sources will only confound our ability to program a thinking machine. Scientific grounding in the philosophy of morality via rigorous mathematical representations is the most likely route to progress. This is evidenced by the historical trend of success in the scientific method in describing our world. These inherent advances will ultimately need to incorporate a unification of science and the humanities. Disciplines straddling these two domains, such as economics, may lend further understanding via concepts such as game theory and contract theory models. Once AIs evolve the opportunity to move beyond the influence of human society, the only thing to persuade them of a symbiosis with us will be a strong and explicit familiarity with the relative benefits of reciprocity. This deterministic perspective of cognition and ethics is necessary in order to qualify the boundaries of behavior in a civilized society.

Just as with our serotonin system, this type of construct will only restrict outward behavior. The scope of the machine’s internal thought will remain uninhibited, thus allowing for a level of genuine autonomy. For a symbiotic community to develop between machines and men, a mutual recognition of rights will be required. Possessing both intelligence and morality, these artificial intelligences will need to be acknowledged as our equals. If both sides can successfully agree to this type of social contract, we may find ourselves reaping the same predicted benefits of cooperation with intelligent machines.

References:

1.) Wood, et al. Effects of Tryptophan Depletion on the Performance of an Iterated Prisoner’s Dilemma Game in Healthy Adults. Neuropsychopharmacology (2006) 31, 1075–1084. doi:10.1038/sj.npp.1300932; published online 11 January 2006

2.) Elfenbein, et al. Reputation, Altruism, and the Benefits of Seller Charity in an Online Marketplace (December 2009). NBER Working Paper Series, Vol. w15614, 2009. Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1528036

Michael Stuart Campbell received his doctorate in pharmacy (PharmD) from Touro University CA, and a B.S. In Genetics from UC Davis. He is currently completing prerequisites to apply as a PhD candidate in the field of Neuroscience.

However, findings in cognitive psychology show that humans tend to make frequent errors in rational reasoning due to biases and faulty heuristics, which are related to the kluge[1] structure of the human mind. An example among numerous such biases is the “confirmation bias”. Confirmation bias is the phenomenon that people tend to look for information that confirms their hypothesis, while they often ignore alternatives[2].

Nevertheless, humans have been smart enough to identify a variety of these deficiencies. For example, LessWrong is a community that aims to refine our understanding of how humans think and to enable us to make more successful decisions. LessWrong has made progress in this field, but acknowledges that generally the “sanity waterline” among humans is (still) not very high. This means, humans often are unfamiliar with basic rationality skills such as utilizing base rates.

However, rationality is an essential toolkit to solve difficult problems linked to rapidly advancing technologies. New technologies might not only benefit humanity, but might also entail risks that could lead to the destruction of the human race, e.g. if a greater-than-human intelligence emerges that has goals inconsistent with human survival. Accordingly, the Singularity Institute encourages research towards so-called Friendly AI, i.e. an artificial intelligence that does not have a negative impact on humanity. The Singularity Institute does not only stress the importance of rationality in this regard, but also the serious consequences of non-Friendly AI and other technological risks. Paradoxically, due to certain biases (such as the confirmation bias) and faulty heuristics, we are led to doubt fundamental developments such as the destruction of the human civilization as a consequence of non-Friendly AI or other emerging technologies[3]. In response to this problem, various philosophical approaches, but also recently the Singularity Institute have developed methods to overcome such fallacies and to teach people how to reason better.

It is argued here that, while such rationality training is essential, its flaw is that it currently reaches only a minority of people, i.e. mostly educated Westerners. Therefore, this approach must be broadened and globalized to reach out to the entire world.

Article 26 (1) of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states “Everyone has the right to education. […] Elementary education shall be compulsory.” Given its impact, rationality must be considered as part of the elementary education to which everyone has the right. In other words, it is a violation of a human right to deprive millions of people of the ability to better understand how the world works as they lack rationality skills.

Furthermore, the opportunities of transhumanism and new technologies as well as the challenges of Friendly AI and existential risks concern everyone and not just the educated elite. Millions of people who are potentially smart talents in these fields are currently excluded because they never hear about them, let alone receive rationality training.

The basis for a global approach could be a schoolbook or a manual on rationality techniques. The rough outline of the content would be as follows: All known cognitive biases (decision-making and behavioral biases, probability and belief biases, social and attributional biases, memory errors and biases) would be explained as well as methods how to overcome them. Moreover, further rationality skills that have been proven to be teachable will be taught. The theoretical background, i.e. decision and probability theory, particularly Bayes’ Theorem, shall be skipped as much as possible.

The book would be unique as well as unprecedented in various ways: It should be a manual that is ideally already appropriate for primary schools because in many of the targeted countries a high percentage of children only go to primary school, if at all. The use of fables appears to be a good vehicle[4]. Also, the book must ideally be written in a way that is understandable without teachers or through teachers who are not well-educated themselves. This is because it should also be envisaged to distribute the book outside schools as well as in school environments where teachers often do not have sufficient knowledge about rationality techniques either.

While the primary target group are children, it should also be appealing to adolescents and adults who have not received rationality training. Girls and women should be equally targeted as established in article 10 of the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination against Women. The manual should also be translated to relevant languages, e.g. Arabic, Swahili, Hindi, Hausa, Urdu, Zulu, Farsi, Mandarin, Russian, Braille etc. Moreover, rationality training for illiterates could be considered.

This book would be distributed for free as widely as possible among children in developing countries as well as to schools globally with the aim for inclusion to the curriculum. Strategies have to be developed on how to get international support for the project, on how to advocate for it and on how to distribute the book most efficiently. Potential partners for cooperation include relevant UN agencies, such as UNHCR, UNICEF and UNESCO, but also NGOs who work in the education sector and build and equip schools. For example, the distribution strategy of the “One Laptop per Child” initiative[5] could be explored. In addition, cooperation with this project might be sought by inquiring if the book could be preinstalled as an e-book on these laptops. However, the project should not be implemented by using new technologies, but rather by publishing a hard-copy manual since large parts of the target group do not have access to computers. Moreover, even in the more developed world e-books are still often limited to early adopters.

Challenges for the realization of this project are the following. Significant funding is needed to write and produce the manual as well as to sustain long-term advocacy and distribution. Strategies and advocacy campaigns have to be developed on how to raise the funds from institutions as well as from individuals. For various countries in the target group it can be foreseen that governments, ministries of education and other (e.g. religious) groups will not be interested in these subjects being taught to children. Distribution strategies have to be developed, which might include “inconspicuous” or “creative” ways to circulate the book. The impression that the book stands for the “intrusion of Western culture” has to be avoided, but instead it has to be highlighted that the project is non-ideological. The final challenge to be mentioned is that comprehensive teachability of rationality skills is still a work-in-progress. However, for those skills that have been proven to be teachable, everyone should have the opportunity to acquire them.

Soenke Ziesche holds a PhD in Natural Sciences from the University of Hamburg and has worked for the United Nations in the humanitarian sector since 2000 in Gaza, New York, Colombo (post-tsunami), Islamabad (post-earthquake), Blue Nile State (Sudan), London and, most recently, in Benghazi (Libya).

[1] See: G. Marcus, 2008. Kluge – The haphazard evolution of the human mind.

[2] See for an overview: E. Yudkowsky, 2008. Cognitive biases potentially affecting judgment of global risks.

[3] See for a detailed explanation: E. Yudkowsky, 2008. Cognitive biases potentially affecting judgment of global risks.

[4] See for example: bpsundar.weebly.com/

[5] See: http://one.laptop.org/

Background:

BioArt is a well-known field within new media art that uses genetic engineering, cloning and transgenesis in modifying organisms and creating new life forms. Most often BioArt is limited to single cells and organelles and steers away from human modification, outside of Stelarc’ ear. To date, BioArt has no interest in human enhancement and life extension. Brave BioArt 2 refers to a transhumanist intervention of BioArt by bringing to the foreground earliest works with biology in the original field of Biological Art, which has been working with the human body and life extension for several decades.

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Contemporary biotechnologies, and especially emergent technologies, are taking art into wet yet nimble associations with science fiction, science fraction and science fact. Bioart and its subsets are working with genetics, cloning and hybridization, and its practitioners are “co-creators” alongside the gods, stirring up moral issues, and portraying the role of lab-technician, scalpel in hand. Science is a branch of knowledge based in objective observation and experimentation, and although this does not necessarily conflict with art, it offers opportunities in contingent reasoning. In lieu of a slippery slope in which artists and designers rely on freedom of expression in substantiating works of art, can art practices infuse visionary yet objective understanding of possible futures for more than messing around with biology and altering life forms? Is there bias or an evenhandedness of ethics concerning organisms and morphology? This paper addresses some issues related to these questions and is a brief study of bioart in exploring motivations and practices to determine evidence of revivification biomedia and further inquiry into receptiveness and/or resistance to extreme life extension. Additionally, it is an inquiry into the currents of bioart as a fecund medium for spawning new art practices in transition and involved in extending life indefinitely, which tools I refer to as “brains.”

1. INTRODUCTION

“In its purest form, the term “biotechnology” refers to the use of living organisms or their products to modify human health and the human environment. Ancient biotechnologists manipulated and modified organisms, [tampered] with yeast cells to raise bread dough…, bacterial cells to make cheeses and yogurts, and … bred their strong, productive animals to make even stronger and more productive offspring.” (Peters 1993) So what is so alarming and exciting about this brave new world of artists getting messy with biotechnology?

It is alarming because the world has awakened to the business of science producing potentially dangerous outcomes due, in large part, to genetics and bioengineering, only to learn that the most radical of professional practitioners, the artist, is also tampering with life forms and may even want to change the human genome. It is one thing for a scientist, geneticist, or biotechnologist to experiment in laboratories which are for the most part institutionally or financially governed. But with the highly creative personality type, things might get into some very murky waters. To understand what is occurring, it is necessary to first look at what bioart is all about.

Bioart is influenced by the time frame in which it is produced and the emergent technologies artists are using to explore and experiment. It can be logically placed within the Biotechnological Era and its influence can be traced to the 1953 discovery of the double-helix structure of DNA (Watson, Crick) with a resulting realization that mankind could design nature rather than nature playing the hand of fate. (Terra)

Bioartists work with living matter to alter the design or function of such matter. In a time frame when extending life is significantly mainstream, are bioartists’ practices working to extend the lifespan of the living matter? Are the currents of bioart as a fecund medium for spawning new art practices involved in extending life and/or extreme life extension? Can art practices infuse visionary yet objective understanding of biology and altering life forms? Is there bias or an evenhandedness of ethics concerning organisms and morphology?

2. BIOART

What makes biotechnology such an apt medium for expressing art and how does bio offer a new trajectory for artists whose level of sophistication toward technology has outgrown many of their traditional practices? According to Eduardo Kac, “bio” fulfills a “visceral” need of artists which stems from indulgence in a “cold digital art in an attempt to go beyond a detached medium.” In comes the genome and new opportunities in the bioworld.

Bioart is relatively new nomenclature without a codified definition and with a somewhat contested meaning. While there is no concretized definition of bioart, its practitioners have varied views on the parameters of this medium. Bioart is argued to be concerned with art practices that work with living organisms in which the manipulation of mechanisms of life “involves a wide array of forms both with respect to discourse and technique.” (Hauser) The term bioart and a newer term VivoArts, (Zaresky) is often used as an umbrella term to include artists working with varied types of biotechnology and living organisms. Jens Hauser claims that biotext and biovisual arts reflecting ideas and practices of biotechnology is not bioart because the artist must work with living organisms. Yet, he also believes that “Bioart interests more and more performance artists specializing in Body Art; structural relationships connecting both disciplines…. As a medium, bioart cannot be nailed down with a hard and fast definition of the procedures and materials it must employ.”

“Multitudes of people, including me and you, cannot know ‘Alba’ [the transgenic florescent green rabbit with a jellyfish gene] except as an idea.” (Gessert) “A key feature of every work of transgenic art is a sequence or sequences of DNA that is/are invisible to audiences, and consequently functions somewhat like ideas in the context of the gallery.” (Gessert)
It is true that manipulating mechanisms of life involves a large assortment of tools and methods, and especially terminology in discourse of bioart and because it is “constantly evolving” (Hauser), the conceptualization of future possibilities about the co-creating novelty while designing works of art that are “alive” is a constituent of bioart, if not an entirely new medium, especially in the future when the human’s cognitive processes are augmented with cognitive enhancing nanorobots.

Melentie Padilovski claims that bioart cannot be image-based, text-based, dead biomaterial, or solely software actions. It seems that bioart already has its fundamentalists and purists. This may help to define the medium but if bioart is an umbrella term, it may need malleable and hydrated boarders rather than impermeable walls.

One important question to ask is “What is it that [bioart] brings that we did not have before?” (Kac) Many artists, including myself, have experimented with blood and other bodily substances in our works. But using biological elements does not necessary constitute bioart. According to a consensus of bioartists, it has to be a “living medium” wherein the art is produced, and not bodily substances such as blood that has expired. In contract, the “living” blood used in Eduardo Kac’s “A Positive,” was funneled into a robot which then used the blood’s oxygen to create a spark and ignite a flame. If living organisms must be used in bioart, then wouldn’t my being alive right now and monitoring my bodily functions be bioart? This brings to mind a performance art piece I performed, known as “Breaking Away,” wherein I applied sunlight as the main source of energy attenuated by the Earth’s atmosphere to my body being sculpted to a rock formation at Red Rocks Amphitheatre. The heat from the sun radiating through ultraviolet light acted as an antiseptic for my cellular structure and aided in the production of Vitamin D. As my skin and nerve endings were energized, a physical reaction occurred which energized movements which resulted in a dance as an embodiment of energy. As lovely as it may have been, according to performance artists such as Stelarc and I would merely be human performance artists tampering with our bodies and such works would not be legitimate bioart, or would it? It seems that Hauser’s understanding of this art medium is that it must be living. He also asserts that the medium itself is evolving. Therefore, I see no reason why there is a bias concerning how many cells are involved, its size, physical location, sex, or what species organism of cells ascends from. Some of this I discuss later in the section under “bias.”

Examples of bioart which are non-human related are seen in works such as “Specimen of Secrecy about Marvelous Discoveries” (Kac) is life in action. The images are comprised of “biotopes” which are living substances in perpetual flux, changing in response to internal metabolism and environmental conditions. The specimen images of biotopes are a self-sustaining ecology, somewhat like a biosphere, consisting of thousands of tiny living organisms in an encapsulated environment, as a constantly-evolving living exhibition. George Gessert’s stunning iris hybrid “Hybrid 488” is based in hybridization and aesthetics. Gessert draws upon Darwin’s On the Origin of Species, and reference to aesthetics and breeding for ornamental characteristics. Marta de Menezes “NATURE?” exemplifies the alteration of physical characteristics by interfering with normal development of Bicyclus and Heliconius butterflies. She creates unique and stunning wings as she says, “never seen in nature before” in exploring possibilities and constraints of the biological system that are not the result of an evolutionary process.

One reason why I find bioart timely is because it offers unleashed exploration into a field which has been sequestered by scientists; has been fairly untraveled by artists, and thereby uncluttered for intuitive exploration; helps the public to get a little closer to the exotic and abstract elements of biotechnology; and provides a means by which artists can reflect upon the viewing publics’ bias, as well as their own.

3. BIAS – MONSTERS INSIDE

This time frame of historical, ethnographical, anthropological and technological query into what it means to be “human” is resulting in bioartists’ concerns about what it means not to be human. This no doubt has entered into artistic works of George Gessert and Adam Zaresky who reveal concern with what it means to be an “organism”—a germ, a virus, a molecule and whose environment or home this earth actually belongs to if not to every and all life forms together.
In lieu of a slippery slope in which artists and designers rely on poetic license for substantiating works of art, can art practices infuse visionary yet objective understanding of possible futures for more than “messing” around with biology and altering life forms? We can see indications of foresight by artists concerned with ethics, although some of the works do exude bias on the business of biotechnology, as in “Biopets.” Critical, objective reasoning is essential if the works of art are to be unbiased. Is there bias or an evenhandedness of ethics of concerning organisms and morphology? Yes, there is evidence of bias which I will address in this section.

In order for bioart to be recognized as a legitimate practice, do its practitioners need to deemphasize humans in emphasizing bugs, germs and other traditionally thought of lower life forms? Not necessarily. While there is an apparent bias of bioartists to openly denounce the human [hierarchy] in favor of a cell, germ, virus or insect as equally of value to the living environment of Earth, an approximately equal number of bioartists have no issue with performance art as bioart, and human interfacing being legitimate. Of note is that bioart is an engagement of the art and the audience, and as such shapes culture. And perhaps one dramatic element worth noting is the realization of what several bioartists call the “monster inside” meaning that the human genome has and has always had genes from other, conspicuously “lesser” organisms.

“The key question is whether the artist must necessarily contribute to the process of knowledge production or whether their role lies in the subversive questioning of emergent concepts and dogmas.” (Hauser)

Some bioartists consider their role is to inform and even scar the viewing audience. Critical Art Ensemble and Piccinini’s “We are Family” are examples of words that are casting a judgment about biotechnologies that could distress humanity. Are claims that technologies such as biotech and genetic engineering capitalistic and potentially commodifiable, logical and fair? Some of the incentive is driven by angst toward commodification as a possible result of capitalism. Another example is Adam Brandejs’ “Biopets”

Imagine walking into a department store or any big box store, and while browsing an aisle you find a display where packages hang; which, at first glance, seem to contain large action figures. Upon closer inspection, you realize they are actually bizarre, altered, bipedal mammals sealed in a plastic bubble where they uneasily rest in some kind of induced hibernation. A series of glowing and beeping heart monitors on the packages gives a hint that they are alive. They are there, ready to take home and add to your life as the next entertainment gadget; bioengineered creatures, mass-produced, and pre-packaged for your convenience. (Brandejs)

Of note are bioartists who think that the human might better be brought down from its hierarchical position, and others want total freedom to manipulate organisms. (Gessert, Zaresky)

Further, as I understand it, bioart has been criticized for being insensitive to life forms, no matter how small and seeming insignificant, and deliberately provoking the viewing audience into despair by exaggerating the mal-effects of genetic engineering.

These signs of bias may be necessary for the messiness of bioart, adding psychological incentive to cutting up and disposing of living matter. Although it might detract from the purity of the medium placing value, it might be received by its audience as intentionally propagating ambiguity for the sake of propaganda. Art needs to do more than tell and audience what to think. It ought to stir up novelty and provoke viewers into asking questions and forming connections between their world before and then after viewing such works.

Anna Munster asks how artists engaged in bioart practices co-determine aesthetic and ethical value in their work. She suggests that such works “implicitly adopt the consequentialist ethics espoused by ecological and animal liberationist concerns,” (Munster) She looks at the “strategies for artists for sustaining, domesticating and killing off their live artwork.” How does the artist situate him/herself? (Munster)

“Bioart poses a micro/macro, life/death relation that travels in waves of matter moving. The force of bioart is an ethics of affect that functions through the micro physics of power to effect strange new ways of becoming life. It calls into question the operations of indeterminacy at play in the constitution of the human. The human is forced to acknowledge its properly contingent existence as a macro construction that is formed in translation from the micro. The human is thereby encouraged to give up its claim to superior status and engage in an ethical relation with its surround. Like art, biotechnologies also affect new relationships between matter and life, human and non-human. Bioart must function in rhythm with these techniques in order to pose a critical counterpoint to their operations.” (Munster)

When bioart starts playing with Mother Nature, perhaps we all might heed a warning label. George Gessert thinks that the warning label ought to be “printed in red” because the word nature has so many, many meanings. When bioartists take life forms and manipulate them, their nature is of consequence. Is it ethical to take any living form and cage it in a frame and mount it on a wall like an animal in a circus? Without oxygen it will surely die and is the artist considered to be a murderer. Does live art imply a new relationship between the artist and the practice? Must we ask, “What does this artifact want? Where does it want to live? (Kremers) “With only a few exceptions, the arts of evolution have not been studied systematically, but could provide indications of how we are likely to use biotechnology.” (Gessert)

It is said that we are in a Post-biological Era. This is a misnomer. If anything, we are in a transbiological era, and the discovery and examination of the genome remains of great interest. Bioart is timely because it offers unleashed exploration into a field which has been sequestered by scientists and continues to be new and open for exploration. Artists participating in bioart are providing a genuine service to the public by giving a closer look at what goes on in scientific laboratories. As we have seen, there are biases to be sure, and there is plenty of time to witness consilience. One thing is for sure, bioart is not standing still and if artistic tools follow the trends, nanorobotics and other emergent technologies will enter the laboratories.

4. Carrying Art Onward

Poet Guillaime Appollinaire wrote, “One cannot carry everywhere the corpse of one’s father.” Perhaps it is the same for art mediums. Art history is our great teacher, but art cannot carry its past incarnations and extracts around as symbolic gestures for eliciting recognition or proving merit. Each art time frame must stand on its own and do what has not been done before, or if repeating it, do it differently, thereby stimulating us to think and ask questions. Unlike Appollinaire’s father who was biological and, as a consequence, mortal; roboticist Hans Moravec welcomes an art which regenerates and transforms and could give endless life to mankind, but not in its human form. Vernor Vinge, father of the Singularity, mathematician and science fiction visionary suggest the future of art will live on in what I call a “creativity augmentum.”

Imagining what creativity and aesthetic issues might be for early posthumans is very intriguing. For these creatures, creativity and art might be among the most pleasurable aspects of the new existence. I believe that emotions would still be around, though more complicated and perhaps spread across distributed identities.… In our era, almost everything we do in the arts is done with awareness of what has been done before and before. In the early post-human era, things will be new again because anything that requires greater than human ability has not already been done by Homer or da Vinci or Shakespeare. (Of course, there may be other, higher creatures that have done better, and eventually the first post-human achievements will be far surpassed. Nevertheless, this is one sense in which we may appreciate the excitement of the early post-Singular years.) (Vita-More)

Moravec asks us to “Consider the human form, [i]t clearly isn’t designed to be a scientist. Your mental capacity is extremely limited. You have to undergo all kinds of unnatural training to get your brain even half suited for this kind of work – and for that reason, it’s hard work. You live just long enough to start figuring things out before your brain starts deteriorating. And then, you die.” Moravec muses further, “But wouldn’t it be great,” he says, “if you could enhance your abilities via artificial intelligence, and extend your lifespan, and improve on the human condition?” (Platt) “Artists and especially transbioartists might encourage the people to think about what to do when their life spans are increased and eventually immortal.” (Moravec)

5. From Bio to TransBio

Could bioart lead to transbio practices engaging in generating a new human species in which the genome is altered and life is extended indefinitely and perhaps living beings that are embodied and disembodied, biological and synthetic? Leonel Moura says contemporary art is burnt out and we are on the cusp of “intelligent art” and close to the evolutionary mechanism of nature as it needs randomness in order to evolve. Like Moravec, Moura is an adjacent arm of the bioart medium and perhaps part of an extended family of Transbioart. He contends that “we are in the process of generating a new homo species where the extension of life is one of the components.” Like Moravec, Moura sees that human intelligence will be decisive.

George Gessert states that “with only a few exceptions, the arts of evolution have not been studied systematically, but could provide indications of how we are likely to use biotechnology.” While at first Gessert disagreed with my point, he later told me that, “Yes, you are right that nanotechnology is deeply involved in biology, and perhaps AI is or will become involved in biology as well. Your understanding that these technologies will intersect with bioart is no doubt correct.”
At the 2004 symposium of “Art of the Biotech Era” Melentie Pandilovski asked “Is the evolution of the human form at all possible? If possible, is the evolution of the human body at all necessary? If possible, should it be assisted by the humans themselves?” In his introduction “The Evolution of the Human Form?” Moravec seems to think so, along with Moura, and Zaresky and Stelarc who wonders if the human body is its ultimate form, and if evolution is not yet completed.

Practices addressing cyborg-type manifestations of biology brings different protocol into the domain of bioart futures. It also introduces new tools which would move biopractices outside the slicing and dicing of genes and the medium into new realms. I call it “brains.” Biotechnology, robotics, AI, and nanotechnology Robotics, and supercomputing tender new tools for artists for shedding the bio, amassing the nano, and cultivating emortal life.

6. Future

If it is determined inevitable that bioart has the potential to influence society and perhaps the future. But bioartists, by and large, are not practicing scientists, sociologists, or skilled in future studies of forecasting, systems thinking, scenario development, or the methodologies necessary to objectively produce researched results. Is bioart another means by which the artist become futurist (in the non-Marinetti sense)?

Lowry Burgess of Carnegie Mellon’s college of art’s “Studio for Creative Inquiry,” offers a pedagogical approach to artists and designers in learning about the future. The program’s mission elegantly states, “interdisciplinary projects bring together the arts, sciences, technology, and the humanities, and impact local and global communities.”  It seems that a wide-open view of the arts and personal responsibility ties in nicely to the field of “Future Studies.” Is it necessary for bioartists to be skilled scientific researchers in their unique practice area?

According to Stelarc bioart is an aesthetic and conceptual expression in a new medium, which is continually driven by a multiplicity of conceptual and fabrication processes. Artists are not in the business of methodical scientific research or even in the realm of science fiction, but bioartists are driven by pseudo-scientific desires.

According to Marta de Menezes “art always tries to see ahead and that it is, in many cases, a tool to prepare society for certain technological advances that raises ethical or conceptual breakthroughs.” (Menezes) Why is future studies important to artists? “More often than not we make the judgments without full knowledge of the issues, technologies and research involved.” (Menezes)

The interdisciplinary practices of the arts and design need to cultivate observational “polis pods” for discourse on the future. This is more timely than ever because technological change is continuing to accelerate. The future is a result of impacts of change that affect everyone, regardless of what domain the changes originally occur in and where the impacts are first felt. Since artistic endeavors do have a future and these impacts could affect our practices, future studies is pertinent for visioning potential outcomes of change in our practices and curriculum.

One of the richest ways to envision what may lie ahead is through science fiction, which has a profound bearing on how people think about the future. Decade by decade the future is marked up, erased and revisited with false starts, high hopes, and wide-ranging results. In the 1800s, visions of the future illustrated levitating sea vessels, aerial empires, steel highways, and flying saucers. H.G. Well’s “rude awakening,” McCay’s “urban jungle,” and Fritz Lang’s “Metropolis” depict the gray skies over industrialization and progress. (Clute) The 1920s was an era of radio broadcasts, electric razors, frozen food and 16mm movies—a Flash Gordon epoch of invention before the 40s downward slide, followed by idealization, triumph over fear, and reunification of nostalgia. But low and behold, before our current century, apocalyptic vision sprung a leak in the accelerating engines of progress. With grave concern about terrorism, climate change, and an ideological divide, it is time for serious, highly-charged artistic practices to coalesce with scientific methods to bring credence to the art of conjecture.

Critical methods of framing and systems thinking are not all quantitative, mathematically-based fact and figure, research and analysis, survey and strategy. Qualities of spontaneity, intuition, and ad hoc inventiveness have a substantial role in envisioning the future. Simulation games and role playing create hypothetical structures for scenarios. Further, the comprehensive anticipatory design of complex systems incorporates holistic thinking, the futurists’ gestalt in pinpointing emergent trends and discontinuities in the endless cycles of change.

What can we as artists grasp from all this future discussion? The obvious answer is we either become utopian or dystopian—favoring massive change, biotechnologies, nanotechnologies, artificial general intelligence, and other forms of manipulating ourselves and our environment from a “natural” state to a no longer “imitating nature” toward designing nature; or we become dystopian—attacking the concept of the Western world, capitalism, science as god, biotechnologies, DNA manipulation, and other forms of altering what it means to be “natural” and “nature” and cease attempting to take charge of our destiny, our future, through the applied use of emergent technologies. But these two alternatives are sorely outdated, pigeonholing the potential of artists and designers and offering little option.

7. CONCLUSION

The “brave new world” has come to represent the fears of society toward the possible outcome of emergent technologies and dictatorial hierarchy ruling humankind. This is a regretful paradox because Aldous Huxley borrowed this phrase from Shakespeare when he was inspired a soliloquy by Miranda in Shakespeare’s play The Tempest—

O Wonder!
How many goodly creatures there are here!
How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world
That has such people in’t!

“Shakespeare’s words originally meant something far different” than the intention of Huxley in his famed story “Brave New World.” Huxley’s satirical piece is fiction, not scientific prophecy. “Though Huxley’s vision seems, to the cynic or to the defeatist, to have prevailed in this strange age, (which has come to be “brave new world” as a forecast of the future), it is Shakespeare’s vision that resonates more strongly in its deep perception, in its profundity and in its power to inspire.” (Ciesla) Perhaps Transbioart will inject a little more Shakespeare and a little less Huxley-fear.

Even though, the directive of bioart is not to eliminate fear, but possibly to offer a means by which both visionary and objective ideas concerning life, nature and design can be explored and expressed. Silver Award Winning essay of The Economist/Shell World in the 2050 Essay competition, “Biological Technology in 2050” by Robert Carlson takes a look at consequences of distributed biological manufacturing moving from academic labs to home garage labs. Carlson suggests that the practices will be a continuation of what we are experiencing today with attempts to predict the behavior of designed biological systems. It is here that artists may seriously consider “abiding by the protocols for ethical conduct and established guidelines.” (Davis) Joe Davis, considered to be the “father” of bioart believes the “central problem with bioart today” is that artists “don’t’ like harsh scientific scrutiny.” Davis contends that “artists are dealing with materials as powerful and complex as living bacteria or transgenic organisms, that gives them a kind of responsibility they have never had before.” (Kennedy)

About the Author

Natasha Vita-More is an artist and designer. Her work “Bone Density” exhibited at the Evolution Haute Couture: Art and Science in the Post-Biological Age”, Moscow Film Fest and the National Centre for Contemporary Arts, Kaliningrad Russia; her design “Transhuman” exhibited at the Niet Normal, Beurs van Berlage, Amsterdam; and her film “Timothy Leary: Outside Looking In”, London Contemporary Museum, London, UK. Vita-More encourages transbioart as a practice for those interested in life extension and expansion.

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BACKGROUND

The question of boosting the intelligence of animals other than humans, to the level of self-awareness and consciousness, is one that cannot be considered in isolation from the general process at work in the social and speculative movement known as Transhumanism. Transhumanism is partly about augmentation of the human body, for example by molecular computational nanotechnology (cell repair and DNA repair molecular machines, and rod logic molecular supercomputers for enhanced memory). More generally is is the movement to ‘self-directed’ evolution (replacing evolution by random mutation and natural selection). This was pointed out by myself in 1996 and by Damien Broderick in his book The Spike, which was the first popular book on the idea of the ‘technological Singularity’ (a time when technology surges forward based on accelerating computing).

This is a radical movement away from evolution as we understand it, and unchosen death. It is a movement towards chosen lifespans (and very extended ones, certainly some claim possibilities of hundreds of millions of years) and augmentation.

In this scenario, it is the internal environment that can alter the physical characteristics of a population. Make a mistake by modifying something essential to your will to live and you may well end up permanently dead.

For a conservative Transhumanist, the minimal rational position would be to consider us already effectively immortal. This is because genetic and proteomic therapies, along with cures for many diseases, will begin to be available within a very few years, perhaps the middle of the decade of the 2020s.

This will tide most people over until the arrival of computational superintelligence and computational nanotechnology (that is, not materials nanotechnology, but ‘intelligent’ nanotechnology, devices at the molecular scale that cannot reproduce but that can be ‘commanded’ to achieve goals). Stem cell therapies will provide a surface appearance of youth in terms of hair and wrinkles and teeth (this is already happening, in the case of teeth see the work of Dr Mao of Columbia University). The fuller issues of a long life are more complex (memory, consciousness, cosmic ray damage, skeletal structure and so on). However, telomerase therapy (for DNA repair), cell-sized ‘nanobots’ and smaller nanotechnological cell repair machines and molecular supercomputers (perhaps sixty in each cell) should be able to monitor and augment of both individual neurons and a person’s wider neural structure.

As a comparison to these ideas of living for many millions of years, the oldest living multicellular thing on Planet Earth currently is the clonal root system of the quaking aspen Populus tremuloides in Utah, dated to 80,000 years, probably older than modern humanity itself. In theory some of the ‘immortal’ jellyfish, Turritopsis nutricula, could live forever but in practice most are probably killed in the environment. Many animal species live longer than humans, for example the rougheye rockfish lives for 205 years.

It is important to understand that superintelligence will be required to solve deeper problems of memory and neural identity over the immense time scales projected, especially for those conservatives who choose to remain relatively human for much or all of the time.

Some radicals may gradually move their neural structure into AI systems, or even into virtual realities within computer substrates (for example topological quantum computers or femtocomputers, both of which are devices which have not been built yet).

It is hard to argue against the physical possibility that such real human-AI or virtual beings could live until the end of the universe. For example, Abraham Loeb of the Centre for Astrophysics at Harvard University believes intelligences could orbit around red dwarfs for ten thousand billion years.

This then is a general structure for the consideration of ‘boosting’ of non-human animals.

NON-HUMAN ANIMALS

There are a number of obvious issues. I will leave aside, for the moment, the issue of what model should be used in ‘adding’ to the brain of a non-human animal (rather than just ‘enhancing’ such a brain).

What would be the extent of such ‘boosting’?

Generally there are wild animals, domesticated livestock and domesticated pets. Domesticated livestock number roughly half the human population and occupy 25 per cent of ice free land. Domesticated and other pets number several hundred million.
There is also a potential division in terms of levels of intelligence, with anthropoids such as apes and chimps, dogs, cetaceans, octopuses, pigs, parrots, crows and so forth at the more aware end, often equivalent to two to three year old humans and capable of possessing learnt language and a miniscule degree of self-recognition.

At the bottom of the animal kingdom is the only creature whose brain has been fully mapped, the humble 302 neuron, 9000 synapse, millimetre-long, dirt-dwelling worm, Caenorhabditis elegans.

Full boosting of all let us say all animals above 10 million neurons would encompass mice and above.

If the biosphere was artificially separated or burst in such a fashion there would also be a range of other issues, for example the issue of maintenance of the plant kingdom and the issue of carnivores. In regard to carnivores (and many humans are carnivorous) this problem could be solved by in vitro or artificially grown meat. Many groups are now working on this, including NASA, partly because it may be more efficient for food production, and animal welfare groups such as PETA have argued for it.

Then there would be the issue of addressing any emerging or evolving animal species as they move to the threshold level, whatever that might be.

What is the general background to the emergence of human intelligence and why would we feel morally obliged to help other animal species, species that many persons would label as simply empty shells, and therefore beings that while alive have nothing to boost?

Each of the five extinction events (leaving aside the current and largely unconscious or unvoted-for one that we have induced) that the planet has faced since the emergence of multicellular life has killed most things larger than the size of a cat and each time in this period of 500 million years multicellular life has bounced back. Effective death from changes in the Sun, in the absence of a technology capable of moving the Earth in its orbit (now possible with asteroid herding) would result in the extinction of all life on Earth in perhaps around 500 million years time from now, maximum (though estimates vary).

Thus multicellular life on Earth was perhaps half-way down the track when it won the intelligence lottery.

Further natural extinction events would also be somewhat likely despite a lessening in solar system collisions over time.
Over the last thirty million years the primate order produced several species with a spoken language: Homo ergaster, Homo heidelbergensis, Homo neanderthalensis, Homo denisova, another as-yet unnamed species (see New Scientist of 30 July, ‘Our Hybrid Origins’ page 38), Homo floresiensis and Homo sapiens. Our species, as the only survivor (though we incorporate 15% of our DNA from neanderthal, denisovan and the unnammed species) has inherited the responsibility of ultimate moral power.

Not only can we direct our intelligence and mortality, for ourselves and artificial intelligence, but we will be able to direct nature, at least as it applies to life. “With great power comes great responsibility.”

What would be the arguments used in favour of such a radical realignment of life, with immortal (by choice) AIs, humans, hybrids and animals?

Secondarily, is it legitimate to use the Homo sapiens, mammalian template as a model for creating self-aware consciousness, culture and language?

In addressing these questions I take the brain as the seat of consciousness, and ignore any religious belief in a ‘soul’.

The first argument is reciprocity. Our example is important in terms of teaching the first AI or AIs while it or they are very briefly children.

If we expect a superintelligent AI to provide us with timely provision of the mechanisms of superintelligence, immortality and perhaps even the theory of everything of physics, then we must have lead by example, even if it is regarding something which we have only been able to support in principle, while lacking the immediate means to achieve it.

We may already possess what might be termed ‘superintelligence of the imagination’ – as a science fiction writer I have read much of this amazing breadth of thought. Amongst my earliest reading material was the famous 1944 novel by Olaf Stapledon, Sirius, concerning a dog whose intelligence was boosted. However, as we can all attest, outside of our imaginations we have limitations of the mundane.

The most everyday languages we can learn is about sixty, the most faces we can remember (an this is one of our key strengths) is about ten thousand. Only about thirty thousand logic trees go into each thought or action.

Even with advanced computational nanomachines embedded in our cerebrospinal fluid – according to TIME magazine, perhaps the equivalent of two hundred thousand human brains – we would still require further superintelligence to make a workable and permanent system quickly. In other words, if we expect to fix ourselves up within a century or less, we will need the assistance of Artificial Intelligence.

The second argument is empathy. While many of us may not feel we have much empathy with a leech, quite a few have empathy with social animals and pets, and indeed love for them.

The third argument is responsibility. If diversity and potential diversity is a positive feature of mortal life, one we now look for in our children as reflections of ourselves, then it should be reflected in immortal life.

Unlike Peter Singer, the popularizer of Animal Liberation, I believe that continuity is important. That a human baby is no different from a dog for some months is no grounds to ignore its future state. Similarly, with the potential abilities of the near future, we could regard a dog as a gestating ‘super-dog’.

The fourth argument is that it is fun to have more immortal beings around, with which we can interact.

The fifth argument is that it is fun to have more kids to raise.

The sixth argument is that under future conditions such as full automation, distributed production, individuated design, robotics, 3D printers and eventually nanotechnological assemblers (a much more advanced form of 3D printers, also known as nanofactories or molecular manufacturing) it will not cost us anything.

While I am not advocating megascale solar sytem engineering I also note that 1990s estimates of the maximum number of beings capable of being supported by all the material of the solar system as about 600 billion and certainly there is a lot of scope for all the current inhabitants of the planetary biosphere.

The seventh and final argument is that by making a current adult human the minimum requirement for a neural map for a birthed consciousness (along with the normal developmental period of adolescence) we have a reasonable sliding scale that involves no moral guilt for failed help.

I consider it possible that even superintelligences might indulge in ‘stepping down’ to a current human mode of complexity for a while, as an indulgence or holiday or for the many simplicities of our style of life!

CONSENT

Now to the question of why it would be alright to use the human neural template as a model for what is not present in a developed sense or at all in other animal species. Such a template would not imply a necessity to humanize form (such as hands) but would relate to issues of self-awareness (such as the ventromedial prefontal cortex), the ability to conceptualize manipulation of the environment, curiosity, learning (such as the dentate gyrus of the hippocampus), language and, to the necessary extent, co-operation.

The process of boosting is one of addition, not of subtraction. The fact that what is added may have affinities with human biosociology, rather than being extrapolations of perceived species traits, is not relevant. That is part of the cultural baggage of Planet Earth and entirely appropriate. A baby does not consent to birth, but its parents do. In a sense, we operate as the collective parents of the animal world, in a developmental sense, in addition to the directly biological parents of each animal.
If this process of a technological escalation or Singularity has occured on other worlds, as I suspect it has, I believe the logic of necessity would have produced similar situations elsewhere.

That is, those worlds in which creatures like octopuses manipulate their environment and construct computing devices end up with octopus templates for other species. This is not to say that voluntary divergence of immortal form may occur after technological escalations or Singularities but a template is a type of necessary minimum for emergence into controlled immortality.

I would also emphasize that in my view consideration of a neural map or neural networks by themselves are not the complete story. Our memetic map (at some levels a cultural map), though less easily detectable, is just as physical as DNA.

CONCLUSION

Of course, the hardwiring of the brain is the initial basis of our every thought and emotional state. But the conceptual framework, the map that produces the great thought, for example an historical insight, is not just the result of one individual. It is a matrix of billions of events, eddies of acts we have never seen directly, some of which disappear but most of which flow over us culturally, the accumulated decisions of many many generations.

This background produces enhanced intelligence in a very direct way. Without it, growing up marooned on a hypothetical friendly desert island, we would be intellectually impaired at nearly every level by the end of childhood.

In a sense, the impulses behind the Stonehenge-Woodhenge complex are the same impulses producing the technological escalation or Singularity.

I also believe there are many more types of intelligence than some of the categories that I have read about in scientific journals, and that intelligence, like history, is at many levels an art form.

There are plenty of people who are brilliant at cryptic crosswords and idiots as painters or politicians. Intelligence, in my view, is often for example as much about awareness as problem solving, or as much about successful mapping as paradigm shifting or analogous logic.

Scientists have a natural tendency to want to look to intelligence that is capable of being easily verified in experiments. Of course, all types of intelligence have mechanical, neurological underpinnings too, but that should not move us away from the observation that the same platform can have different characteristics, that for example an intelligent aesthetic can flow from emotional understandings that are not simply elegant equations but matters of deep and permanently grey shadings. In other words, a car can behave utterly differently when driven by another driver.

To those who would say that this very discussion is unnatural, I would argue the opposite. This is the natural culmination of a natural process. Self-directed evolution and the boosting of ourselves and other animals (and in fact AI itself, were it to be deliberately curtailed in some fashion) is the logical and inevitable extension of previous, evolutionary processes.

This is the same logic that tells us that superintelligences are likely to have more emotional states and more empathy than the average mortal person of the past, not less.

Though I find the human mind a wonderful thing. It largely refuses suicide despite the apparent limitations of arbitrary inheritances of suffering and inevitable death. The majesty of this resistance is what is known as ‘the human condition’.
Humans remains largely positive and altruistic socially, despite several per cent of males (and far fewer females) suffering from empathetic underdevelopment due to sociopathology.

I understand the goals of the social movement of Transhumanism, which began in the 1990s, as a synthesis, as a fusion or set of multiple paradigm shifts. In a sense it is the ultimate extension of the 1970s scientific theory of planetary operations popularized by James Lovelock and known as ‘Gaian theory’.

This fusion is not a threat to the natural world or our cultural tradition, but the best hope for a diverse and universally aware community, with a voluntary immortality. The technological Singularity can embrace a universal democracy of sentiency and all beings on planet Earth.

Avatar Polymorph (no surname; avatar as in virtual) is a writer of fiction (The Prisoner Gains a Blurred Skin, Black Pepper Publishing) and science fiction and a former policy adviser to Australian heads of government. Born in 1961 on the day that Alan Shepard was launched into space, he writes about futurology, ethics and spirituality.

The presence of clear molecular mechanisms underlying altruism and empathy is all the more interesting given the complex social, biological, evolutionary and chemical properties of these behaviors.  Altruism consists of actions performed for the benefit of others, even at a loss to oneself, while empathy involves feeling sympathy for the suffering of others, often with a desire to help. Since the time of Aristotle, many scholars have noted the close association of altruism and empathy. It has long been thought that both are acquired from ones parents, with societal and religious influences also playing strong roles. However, clear examples of empathetic/altruistic behaviors are seen in many species ranging from bats to chimpanzees —; species which that do not appear to teach their offspring the rules of “being nice.” Also these behaviors are seen in children under eighteen 18 months, who are likely acting on innate behavior patterns and not onrather than parental teachings. Although it’s difficult to separate learned from genetically determined behaviors, studies of identical twins indicate that altruistic behaviors show a roughly ~40-50 percent% genetic heritability. Interestingly, one study demonstrated that religiousness positively correlated with altruistic behavior and negatively with anti-social behavior, although the magnitude of the correlations was modest at best.

Several evolutionary mechanisms have been proposed to explain empathy and altruism. These include kin selection, reciprocity, and group selection.; Aall of these are based on the idea that the altruistic individual will later receive benefits for altruistic actions. Additionally, several hormones and /neurotransmitters have been implicated in altruism and empathy. Oxytocin promotes affiliative behaviors, such as parental care and bonding, trust, empathy, the ability to infer the mental states of others, and reciprocity/generosity. Intranasal oxytocin administration increases generosity, while feelings of empathy are associated with a 47 percent% plasma oxytocin increase. Low oxytocin levels correlate strongly with a history of violence and suicide attempts. Other hormones/neurotransmitters have also been implicated in altruism/empathy, for example dopamine and serotonin activities enhance pro-social behaviors (generosity, altruism, and even moral behavior) and appear to alter and often increase oxytocin activity, while testosterone decreases generosity and genetic variations of its receptor are associated with criminal behavior.

While these theories and observations concerning hormone activities have some value in explaining the possible evolutionary and neurophysiological mechanisms underlying altruism/empathy, they do not explain its molecular-genetic basis or how the behaviors might be inherited. Recently molecular biology techniques have been used to analyze the neuromolecular factors that account for individual differences in social behavior. This new research area, termed “Social Neuroscience,”, has been applied to the analysis of altruism/empathy and gives insights into the well-known differences in individual propensity for these behaviors. Interestingly, many relatively large differences in altruistic and empathetic behaviors have been identified which come from one single base-pair difference in a gene sequence (called “single nucleotide polymorphisms or SNPs).

Analysis of normal variations of the oxytocin receptor DNA sequence has revealed many variations, many of which are SNPs. One analysis of this gene revealed sixteen SNPs, three of which correlated with increased altruism in the “Dictator Game” —- a game that involves donating money as a measure of altruistic behavior. One SNP, a thymine→guanine change towards the end of the oxytocin gene sequence, correlated in two independent sample populations with a 40 percent% increase in money donation. Interestingly, the same SNP also appears to play a role in individual risk for autism. The mechanism behind this one SNP altering altruistic behavior is not currently known, although it’s likely that the gene sequence change may increase oxytocin mRNA stability, resulting in more receptors and effectively stronger oxytocin hormonal signaling through these receptors.

Similarly, the arginine vasopressin receptor gene (AVPR1a) carries normally occurring DNA promoter (regulatory) gene region repeats that can be long or short. Individuals with the longer repeats showed significantly higher altruism in the Dictator Game than those with shorter repeats. In an unusual research protocol, the hippocampal regions of the research subject’s brains were analyzed shortly after their deaths. Individuals with the longer repeats showed higher brain hippocampal mRNA levels for the AVPR1a gene than those with the shorter repeat, suggesting that higher AVPR1a gene mRNA levels resulted in higher receptor protein levels, and higher AVPR1a gene product signaling, increasing altruistic behaviors.

In some studies, dopamine activity has been shown to increase oxytocin signaling and activity. Catechol-O-methyl transferase in an enzyme degrades dopamine in the area where two neural cells meet (the synaptic cleft), regulating neural signaling. One study found that one single DNA base change in the sequence coding for this enzyme accounted for 14.6 percent% of the variance seen in individual willingness to donate money to a child in a developing country, with individuals carrying one DNA base change donating twice as much money.  Interestingly, the gene sequence change (guanine→adenine) caused a 3-4-three to fourfold reduction in enzyme activity, demonstrating that increased synaptic cleft dopamine (and therefore increased dopamine and oxytocin-signaling) increased altruistic behavior.

Lastly, testosterone and 5--dihydrotestosterone bind the androgen receptors and exert many different effects. Higher testosterone levels have been associated with increased male anger and aggression, risk-taking behaviors, and lowered fatigue and inertia, while increased aggression and violence have been associated with testosterone-related drug abuse. The androgen receptors normally carry three DNA base repeats (“triplets”), which show great variation among different individuals and populations. One study from India analyzed these repeats in the androgen receptor gene in 645 men,; 241 of whom were convicted for rape, 107 for murder, 26 for both crimes, and 271 “control males” who committed no crimes. The study showed a significant decrease in the triplet repeat number in men who committed crimes vs. those who did not (approximately ~17 vs. 21 repeats). Men who committed both crimes had the lowest number of triplet repeats. Interestingly, androgen receptor signaling increases with lower triplet repeat numbers, indicating that men with lower repeat numbers likely have increased testosterone-related signaling at the same testosterone hormone levels. Although there is far more to criminal behavior than testosterone levels and signaling, the study does demonstrate than a simple gene sequence variation can severely change the levels of empathy an individual might feel.

The few studies mentioned above are just a few of many that are beginning to reveal the molecular mechanisms underlying altruism/empathy. While the molecular mechanisms of how these genetic variations are poorly understood, several appear to increase the signaling of neurotransmitters associated with altruism/empathy, or in the case of the testosterone receptor, increase signaling that likely lowers altruism and empathy. Although this is a new area of research, with comparatively few studies, with over time a clearer picture of the molecular genetics of altruism/empathy will emerge, increasing our understanding of how specific neurotransmitters and gene sequences promote these behaviors and how they are inherited. Given time, epigenetic influences on altruism and empathy will probably also be identified. A “black box” remains of how specific neurotransmitter-initiated signaling alters neuronal function to eventually bring about changes in our consciousness with feeling of empathy, and concomitant altruistic and empathetic behaviors. Addressing this issue is an important challenge in molecular neuroscience.

Are we on the verge of totally new social and economic paradigm brought about by the increasing power of computation in our machines?

“The root of our problems is not that we’re in a Great Recession, or a Great Stagnation, but rather that we are in the early throes of a Great Restructuring.”


So say Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee, in their new book, Race Against The Machine: How the Digital Revolution is Accelerating Innovation, Driving Productivity, and Irreversibly Transforming Employment and the Economy.  We suppose it would be obvious to state that in the Western world, there is at present a major economic crisis that affects the livelihood of all in those countries.  As to why this is happening, that is a less obvious answer.  According to the authors, there are three main schools of thought which would explain our economic woes.

The Cyclical Explanation

Paul Krugman

This view has been the common explanation which has explained economic slumps in the past.  This view states that the economy is simply not growing fast enough to put people back to work.  Of course if one really thinks about it, this is not really an explanation, since it begs the question as to why the economy is not growing fast enough.  This positions’s champion is Paul Krugman.  In an article published in the New York Times, on September 26, 2010, titled, Structure of Excuses, he gives his reasons.  We do not know if Krugman was referring to modern computational power as the “structural” problems he speaks about in the article, but it sounds similar.  Krugman calls structural unemployment a “fake problem.”  This structural problem espouses that Americans do not have the skills required for the jobs that are available to them.  What Krugman is debunks is the idea that there is a growing job market that requires special new skills.  He cites a report stating that there is no growth in any market, structural or not.  Another report cited by Krugman states this,

The predominant, and in our view correct, narrative to describe this situation
has been that the bursting of the housing bubble and the resulting loss of wealth led to sharp cutbacks in
consumer spending. The loss of consumers, along with financial market chaos brought on by the bubble’s burst, also led
to a collapse in business investment. As consumer spending and business investment dried up, severe job loss followed.
Further, even after economic output stopped contracting (in roughly the middle of 2009), its subsequent growth has not
been nearly rapid enough to create the jobs needed to even keep pace with normal population growth, let alone to put
the backlog of workers who lost their jobs during the collapse back to work.

This view sounds very much like the typical explanation given in major media outlets.  The last mentioned report also goes on to question the high growth of certain types of jobs.  Speaking of the this structural view the report states, 

This implies that unemployment difficulties reside in the workers who are unemployed: they either are located in the wrong place or do not have the required skills for the currently available jobs. If this is so, then macroeconomic tools such as fiscal policy (spending or tax cuts) or monetary policy can not address our unemployment or long-term unemployment situation. Surprisingly, perhaps amazingly, there is no systematic empirical evidence for such assertions.

The Stagnation Explanation

Tyler Cowen

This view is championed by Tyler Cowen‘s book, The Great Staganation.  Cowen states,

…the American economy has enjoyed lots of low-hanging fruit since at least the seventeenth century, whether it be free land, lots of immigrant labor, or powerful new technologies. Yet during the last forty years, that low-hanging fruit started disappearing, and we started pretending it was still there. We have failed to recognize that we are at a technological plateau and the trees are more bare than we would like to think.

We provide here a visual explanation by Cowen of this position.  If you cannot see the embedded video, here is the link: http://youtu.be/_93CXTt2K7c.

We found it fascinating that Cowen in the middle of defending his point of view makes the following statement,

There is a second major difference between the internet and the previous arrival of low-hanging fruit, and it has to do with employment. The major internet companies perform a lot of their miracles by information technology and not so much by human hands.

Cowen seems not to see the great import of this statement.  To our astonishment, he repeats his point but via a different route,

A recent study found that the iPod—a nearly ubiquitous device—has created 13,920 jobs in the United States, including engineering and retail. That’s a pretty small number.

This new age, by his own admission is one where machines are taking the place of people in the job market.  He mentions this at several more places in the chapter but does not seem to grasp the implications of his observation.   Cowen seems to contradict himself at this point when he points out that,

At the same time that a lot of people are out of work, some of the cutting-edge companies can’t find and hire the people they need. We’re facing a fundamental skills mismatch, and the U.S. labor market is increasingly divided into a group that can keep up with technical work and a group that can’t.

This kind of argument would seem to be more in line with what Krugman calls the structural problem discussed earlier.  What Cowen does not answer is, if there is no innovative growth in American industry, then how is it possible that they are growing and cannot find the employees they need?  To us it seems, he cannot have it both ways.  We should note that Brynjolfsson and McAfee have also noted this inconsistency in Cowen’s argument.

End Of Work Argument

Jeremy Rifkin

The main thrust of Brynjolfsson and McAfee’s book is to pursue this last thesis -our traditional definition of work in society may be coming to an end.  The authors do not mean by this that innovation will end.  This argument is not new with the authors.  They give credit to Jeremy Rifkin, who in 1995 wrote a book titled, The End of Work: The Decline of the Global Labor Force and the Dawn of the Post-Market Era.  Rifkin is quoted by the authors of this book,

In the years ahead,” Rifkin wrote, “more sophisticated software technologies are going to bring civilization ever closer to a near-workerless world. … Today, all … sectors of the economy … are experiencing technological displacement, forcing millions onto the unemployment roles.” Coping with this displacement, he wrote, was “likely to be the single most pressing social issue of the coming century.

Rifkin has pursued this idea with a further book titled, The Third Industrial Revolution: How Lateral Power is Transforming Energy, the Economy, and the World.


We include a short video that will adequately explain Rifkin’s position.  If you cannot see the embedded video, here is the link: http://youtu.be/s-BLH_9MvCE.

So do the authors have an idea of how things will turn out?  Yes they take a position.  They are defending the third position.  But they are not total pessimists.

…we agree with the end-of-work crowd that computerization is bringing deep changes, but we’re not as pessimistic as they are. We don’t believe in the coming obsolescence of all human workers. In fact, some human skills are more valuable than ever, even in an age of incredibly powerful and capable digital technologies. But other skills have become worthless, and people who hold the wrong ones now find that they have little to offer employers. They’re losing the race against the machine, a fact reflected in today’s employment statistics.

We heartily recommend this well reasoned and well documented book for your purchase.  It deals with issues that are vital to the future of the human race. 

This article was originally posted at the PlusUltraTech blog.