Britain's leading thinker on the future offers an extraordinary vision of life in the next 45 years
David Smith, technology correspondent Sunday May 22, 2005 The Observer
Aeroplanes will be too afraid to crash, yoghurts will wish you good morning before being eaten and human consciousness will be stored on supercomputers, promising immortality for all - though it will help to be rich. These fantastic claims are not made by a science fiction writer or a crystal ball-gazing lunatic. They are the deadly earnest predictions of Ian Pearson, head of the futurology unit at BT.
'If you draw the timelines, realistically by 2050 we would expect to be able to download your mind into a machine, so when you die it's not a major career problem,' Pearson told The Observer. 'If you're rich enough then by 2050 it's feasible. If you're poor you'll probably have to wait until 2075 or 2080 when it's routine. We are very serious about it. That's how fast this technology is moving: 45 years is a hell of a long time in IT.'
Pearson, 44, has formed his mind-boggling vision of the future after graduating in applied mathematics and theoretical physics, spending four years working in missile design and the past 20 years working in optical networks, broadband network evolution and cybernetics in BT's laboratories. He admits his prophecies are both 'very exciting' and 'very scary'. ... etc
I find it odd that people have such conflicting desires for the future of computer technology without realizing it.
People want to be able to live forever as conscious machines, and yet they also want machines which are conscious in and of themselves. When we have conscious machines that can, say, operate a call-in phone line, the problems are a. why should a truly conscious machine feel obligated to fulfil this specific function, and b. should it feel a desire to follow its assigned purpose, what will become of all the people who fulfil that function currently? We think we want these AIs so that they can perform certain tasks without the possibility of human error, but we don't see how damaging it will be for societal structure. Lack of employment is the immediate problem, with the loss of jobs an exponential increase from the replacement of factory workers by robots, and will eventually result in mass poverty and disorder.
Why then would we want to be preserved in a downloaded conscious state? Our bodies will be useless in face of the precise nature of machines, so material mind will be useless as well. But now we have the additional presence of machine minds, which will be much better suited to specific functions than ours. So we will have nothing left except for stagnant consciousness. Furthermore, my belief is that anyone given such immortality will quickly discover that they do not want it. The human mind (hardware or wetware) can only handle a certain system of conceptual change, and everyone will eventually reach a point where the world's progression will seem too much to handle.
One might respond to this that perhaps when consciousness is downloadable we will figure out a way to increase the adaptability of such a mind to new and ever-changing conceptual frameworks, but even if this is true, why would we wish to?
With machine minds a dime a dozen, all forms of human mind will be obsolete, and I don't honestly believe that any mind would continue forever wishing to survive for the sake of existing. All of these people who want so badly to find their own immortality in machines still have a very strong purpose, but it is only to know that they can achieve such life, not to actually live in this way. After (if) they have achieved it, they will realize this.
Even if all of this ominous future is possible in the near future (and I do not believe that it is), I think one could still come to terms with it. What if we simply accepted that our goal as a species was merely to bring about the next level of conscious species in the form of machine mind? Even though it will quickly escalate beyond our control, we could realize the vast significance and power of what we had done. Then maybe we could be happy with that, and resign ourselves to a more "human" fate.
I find it hard to believe that we will make that many leaps and bounds. In the past 20 years science and technology has grown a lot but that was a boom time, humanity has had times of booming technology and a Mark Twain quote comes to mind but I cannot find it. Basically he says that since the Mississippi River had grown by so many miles in 10 years in 100 years or something like that it would take up nearly the entire earth. Either this guy is using the recent couple of decades as a template for our progress or he is just so excited about his job that he assumes the near future holds such things. I would like to see flying cars before I see this type of technological singularity.
every single leap in technological advancement leads to poverty & unemployment.. but the world is headed that way... so be it! instead of :'( why not look on the bright side of all the new technologies?? they got so much to offer us... negativity persists in each & every machine but we can't really always regret! remember we're here to enjoy!
[benway] I find it hard to believe that we will make that many leaps and bounds. In the past 20 years science and technology has grown a lot but that was a boom time, humanity has had times of booming technology and a Mark Twain quote comes to mind but I cannot find it. Basically he says that since the Mississippi River had grown by so many miles in 10 years in 100 years or something like that it would take up nearly the entire earth. Either this guy is using the recent couple of decades as a template for our progress or he is just so excited about his job that he assumes the near future holds such things. I would like to see flying cars before I see this type of technological singularity.
IMNSHO Ian Pearson is remarkably competent. OTOH I think that here he is underestimating the rate of change - as I think are you. Indeed, I think that Neurovurt's interesting suggestion (my emphasis below) may be closer to the mark.
<snip> [Neurovurt] Even if all of this ominous future is possible in the near future (and I do not believe that it is), I think one could still come to terms with it. What if we simply accepted that our goal as a species was merely to bring about the next level of conscious species in the form of machine mind? Even though it will quickly escalate beyond our control, we could realize the vast significance and power of what we had done. Then maybe we could be happy with that, and resign ourselves to a more "human" fate.
But, that is not about which I meant to write. Nor was it about "Life on the Mississippi", a classic which you will find at Project Gutenberg. Rather it was about a juxtapositioning of "I would like to see flying cars before I see this type of technological singularity." and about the Volanter M400 skycar from Moller. You can see it fly at http://www.moller.com/news/media/
The Volantor is not the first flying car. It isn't even the first practical "flying car." Though there have been other attempts, notably the Curtiss Autoplane of 1917, the first "quasi-practical" one may have been the Waterman Arrowbile of 1937 and the most practical (pre Moller) either the Fulton Airphibian of 1946 or Molt Taylor’s Aerocar of 1956. - which, like the Airphibian was FAA certified - and even almost made it into production - not once but on multiple occasions. As usual, the marketing material was easier to produce than the product.
So having seen Flying Cars, are you ready to look at this particular "technological singularity" again? If so, try Spirothetes And Humans, an incomplete article which I really should attempt to complete sometime - or at least tackle the formatting more than I have. Another day. In the meantime, you may find it interesting.
With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg, 1999
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