I don’t want to give too much away, but from watching the trailer you can tell it’s gonna be good.  The story explores “emoticlips” which are a way to digital encode and transmit emotions, like a podcast.  Drama heats up when a viagra ad shows up, something about blackmail.  And my favorite line asks if you’ve tried Googling “omnipotent self-aware botnets.”

I just saw a fun trailer for the play on YouTube, shared here for your convenience…

You can get your tickets now from Brown Paper.

The Blue Brain Project is the first comprehensive attempt to reverse-engineer the mammalian brain, in order to understand brain function and dysfunction through detailed simulations.

Others have described it as “a step toward the superbrain” or even ”the most interesting project in human history.”

I agree that this project is extremely important.  In my mind, this line of research is the only reliable way to achieve AI – artificial intelligence.  There’s little doubt in my mind that a sufficiently powerful computer could simulate in detail the operation of every neuron in a human brain.  Someday we’ll get there.  If you buy the argument so far, then the only thing standing between us and strong AI is an extremely detailed scan of a brain — down to the sub-neuron level.  In principal this should be possible by freezing a brain, slicing it up into very thin sections, and scanning them.  More sophisticated 3-D imaging techniques might even make this possible without having to cut somebody’s head off, but I’m not necessarily counting on that.  Besides, for the purpose of creating artificial intelligence, we just need to do this once, and it doesn’t even need to be perfect.

In the past, I’ve explored the question of whether or not such an AI would have free will.  This fascinating question about the nature of consciousness is fairly abstract, along with other ones related to the nature of consciousness, and what destructive uploading means to the person whose head gets cut off and sliced up.  (Do you just take a nap when they cut your head off, and then wake up inside the computer?  What happens when they spin up a second process?  Etc. Etc. Etc.)  But all of this philosophizing pales when I realize they’re actually doing it!

IBM is supplying one of their Blue Gene/L “supercomputers” with 8,000 processors — definitely cool hardware.  I’m not sure what supercomputer really means in the era of massively parallel cloud computing, but maybe this is exactly it.  Read more in their FAQ.  Or watch this TED talk:

Thanks to Joe Duck for digging this one up.

We’re quickly approaching a world where we’re always connected to the net in some manner or another.  As we all know, the bandwidth with which we can communicate with the net varies tremendously between locations and situations.  It might be
as slow as AT&T’s EDGE network, or as fast as a dedicated office
line with many Gbps of throughput.  But when we’re in the office, the speed of our pipe to the net isn’t the limiting factor.  Usually it’s the servers on the other end which limit how fast we can get things done.  Even when I’m on my DSL line at home, Gmail is so slow that my pipe isn’t the limiting factor.  Effective bandwidth is limited by the smallest pipe in the series from your brain to the information service.

Sometimes the smallest pipe isn’t a network layer at all.  If you’re using your iPhone on the office’s WiFi network, the network will all run super fast.  But your effective speed will be the iPhone’s virtual keyboard, and there are many small devices which are way harder to use than the iPhone.  There are multiple places the communications pipeline can get clogged:

1. The physical Human-Computer Interface of your device
2. The UI of the software on the device
3. The local processing power of your device
4. The direct connection from your device to the series of high-speed routers and fiber known as "the net"
5. The processing power of the servers running the information service you’re using

Laptops have totally caught up with desktops in terms of #2 and #3, but not #1.  The reason to use a desktop machine is that you can trick out its Human-Computer Interface to be super high bandwidth.  You can get yourself a really nice ergonomic keyboard, multiple high-resolution monitors, and a real mouse.  A friend of mine even built himself a foot-mouse.  Pretty soon your desktop will start to look like Lain’s Navi.  (Pictured above for those not familiar with it — go watch it.  It’s rad.)

You can do some of this with a laptop docking station if
available, or by manually plugging and unplugging things.  Many laptops
support 2 monitors, but generally one of them needs to be the internal
monitor, which won’t match the second one.  A USB port multiplier can
handle all your input devices which is nice.  So if you’re happy with
just two displays, a laptop can probably get enough HCI bandwidth today.

Looking further down the line, someday Apple will extend the iPhone’s multi-touch UI to iMacs and give us the Minority Report interface.  This will offer far more Human-Computer bandwidth than we’ve ever seen before.  This trend will continue towards direct Computer-Brain Interfaces at which point the line between our biological brains and our "exocortex" will get very blurry indeed.  I can hardly wait.

Simplified Simulation or Complete, Accurate Model?

The simulations Bostrom describes would not be precise to the subatomic level, but rather use abstractions to simplify the computation.  Instead of simulating every electron, proton, neutron, quark, etc in each person’s body and everything around us, it might only simulate synapses and neurons in our brains.  Such short-cuts would be extremely useful to accomplish the goals he describes of virtually resurrecting ancestors.  (A convenient version of heaven.)  Just simulating the brains of the inhabitants of a virtual world is drastically easier than accurately simulating an entire universe down to the subatomic level.  For many purposes, including the ones we are likely to engage in anytime soon, it is sufficient. 

The software to run a simplified simulation like this would put its designer in an interesting predicament whenever the simulatees decide to build a new particle accelerator or perform some other experiment that pushes the limits of their understanding of fundamental physics.  Would a dialog box appear on the simulation screen asking the designer to make decisions about how to treat a new class of quark that had never been observed?  Then once the designer answers this question the simulation moves on?  Moreover, so many trappings of modern life are the result of applications of scientific breakthroughs like this?  For example, we could have never built semiconductors and thus computers without a solid understanding of quantum mechanics since they take advantage of quantum effects.  So closing the dialog box would require not only require describing the results of this experiment, but also coding up a bunch of new high-level abstractions that represent things like semi-conductors.  The simulation would need to know when it could use the molecular mechanics model, and when it would have to substitute a more detailed model or a coding abstraction that simplifies the results of more base laws.

If we lived in such a simplified simulation, it seems likely that chinks in the armor of reality would periodically appear.  Modern science has few inconsistencies like this.  (The big bang and quantum randomness being the two biggest two exceptions IMHO.)  I would wager that if we live in a simulation it is a completely accurate physical model that started with the big bang and covers the entire universe including our own evolution from primordial soup.  It’s not clear to me whether or not our universe has enough matter/energy to build a computer powerful enough to run such a simulation.  I should dig up my notes from Yael Maguire’s excellent talk at Foo Camp on the fundamental limits of computation to be sure, but I know it would chew through at least solar systems worth of our universe if not galaxies or more to simulate a comparable universe.  It seems more likely to me that if our world is simulated then the “host world” is governed by a different set of physical laws.  This point is debatable and important, but I’ll assume from here that the host world is governed by different laws.

Motivations of the Simulation Designers and Implications for Personal Morality

As the NY Times article points out, the simulators might just be bored, doing the equivalent of playing video games with us.  Or they might be scientific researchers investigating how changes to fundamental laws affect how worlds evolve.  Whatever their goals are in running a simulation of this scale, they are almost certainly interested in the complexity that we are creating here and now.  But how should we behave?

Robin Hanson suggests that as individuals living in a simulation we should try to lead the most interesting, impactful lives that we can.  This goal attempts to optimize for the case that the simulators will pick individuals from this simulated society to do something special with.  I think it extremely unlikely that the designers care about individuals at all.  If they’re looking at anything, I’d bet it’s entire societies.  So, if we are living in a simulation, I argue that we should do our best to advance technology as an insurance policy against extinction.  I have written a fair bit about the transhuman morals that such a guiding principal implies, but basically it boils down to being a geek and/or a hippie – advance technology as fast as possible and conserve natural resources so that the world doesn’t end before we reach the next level of technology.  Thinking that somebody might hit the “stop” button on the entire simulation puts a new twist on the idea of the world ending because as a society we failed to reach a certain level of technological sophistication.

A Simulation Argument for Truth in Mathematical Beauty and Simplicity

If our world is a simulation running inside a massive computing device, then something must have programmed this simulation.  The programmers of the simulation chose the physical laws that we live by, perhaps to see what would happen.  This puts an interesting spin on evaluating fundamental physical laws.  Which of these two equations below is more likely to be an accurate representation of the way the simulation designer wrote the code?  These are two different mathematical representations of P.A.M. Dirac’s eponymous equation, which is AFAIK believed to be a completely accurate representation of our physical world.

By this logic, the second one is almost certainly closer to how the simulation programmer understood the concept.  This perspective puts an interesting twist on Occam’s razor – the principal that the simpler explanation is probably true.  My grandfather believed that the simpler a physical law was, the more likely it was to be correct.  In this way he saw a certain beauty in math and physics.  If our world exists only as a simulation, then the simpler a physical law is, the more likely it is to be an accurate representation of the way the simulation was coded.

Enjoy!

First, a little computer science background.  Turing completeness is the idea that a computing system has the same capabilities as a universal Turing machine.  This theoretical machine moves along a long tape which has various symbols on it that the machine can read and write.  The machine itself is always in one internal state, but will change to different states based on its programming and input.  It is programmed by a huge state transition table which says "if you’re in state X, and you’re reading symbol Y, then write symbol Z, move left n spaces, and switch to state W" for all possible states and symbols.  It turns out that with a long enough tape and enough states this device can do just about anything you think of a computer being able to do.  In fact, computer scientists have shown that every modern computer system is functionally equivalent to a Turing machine.  That is to say all modern computers are Turing complete.  It’s useful because it’s simple enough to prove theorems about.  Some important things we know about Turing machines and anything which is functionally equivalent to one:

• Turing machines are deterministic — given a set of inputs they’ll always reach the same output.
• It’s impossible to reliably predict whether or not a program on a Turing machine will ever finish.

I see two ways to interpret the question of whether or not a human brain is Turing complete.  The first one is "Can a human brain perform the same functions as a Turing machine?"  I think that given a pen, paper, and enough patience the answer is clearly yes.  But that’s not the question that interests me.

As a transhumanist, the interesting question for me is "Can a Turing-complete computer perform the same functions as a human brain?"  This question is important to me because if the answer is yes, then it is possible for a computer to simulate a human personality.  That is to say uploading of a human consciousness into a computer is possible.  I’m going to dodge the detailed analysis of this question today, and get back to it in a later article.  For now, let’s assume the answer is "Yes" and see what that implies about free will.

Remember that theorem that says Turing machines are deterministic?  That is, once you start it going with a given set of inputs, that it’s always going to reach the same answer?  If this were true for us as humans, then we would have no free will — our actions would be entirely determined by our current state and our surroundings.  We might think we are making choices, but in fact a fast computer could run the same calculation and tell us what our answer would be before we thought we had decided.  So by this logic if uploading is possible, then humans have no free will.  Troubling, eh?

Fortunately, I think the above analysis has a flaw.  Let’s dive down a little deeper into neurochemistry.  Neurons fire as a result of electro-chemical processes.  Basic chemistry tells us that the rates of chemical reactions are deterministic based on concentrations of the relevant input chemicals.  But if you took stat-mech then you learned that these predicted rates are actually just statistical averages and that they’re only accurate if the brazillions of molecules involved happen to collide with each other at a constant frequency as they randomly bounce around in solution.  And quantum mechanics tells us that this apparently random bouncing around is in fact, to Einstein’s chagrin, truly random — god does play dice with the universe.  (I’m not sure I completely buy this, but I’ll have to save that for another article too.  Yes, I know that the Bell inequalities were experimentally observed in the 1980’s but it still sits funny with me.  Sorry grandpa.  More on this later.)  Because of this randomness, the instantaneous rate of any chemical reaction will vary randomly, while still averaging around the classically predicted rate.  So the upshot is that neurons don’t behave completely deterministically, but that the exact timing of neurons firing has a truly (quantum) random component to it.

Now this implies quite firmly that our brains cannot be simulated by a Turing machine since Turing machines can’t act randomly, and thus wouldn’t be able to properly simulate the randomness of neurons firing.  But if we modify a Turing machine slightly so that a spot on its tape read a different random symbol each time you check, I think we’re good.  Given this, it seems reasonable that a modern computer that has a source of truly random data could simulate a brain.  Some have argued that we need quantum computers to simulate consciousness, but I don’t think so.  (Again, more on this later.)

Computers are pretty good at generating psuedo-random data internally, and by listening to the outside world (hard drive vibration, microphones, etc) can generate what is probably actually random data.  If true randomness is really important, we can build small accessory cards that sample thermal noise on
a resistor and produce large volumes of truly (quantum) random data.  Some advanced cryptographic systems do this today.  So it’s totally possible today to build this modified Turing machine that also incorporates random input.

Now our transhuman dilemma is solved.  The essence of free will lies in the quantum randomness of electro-chemical processes in our brain.  Moreover, it will be possible to upload our personalities into computers, complete with our free wills in tact, by incorporating random processes into the hardware that simulates our brains.  If the computers we upload into are only psuedo-random (as almost all software is today), we will appear to have free will, in fact we will believe that we have it, but we will in fact be total robots.  Now, who can come up with a Turing test for free will?

[[Thanks to Barry Brummit.  This article is a rehash of a couple good conversations we had over New Year's and this morning after yoga practice.]]

I’m here to talk about a system of morality that’s based on the upcoming end of society as we know it.  I’ll explain why only geeks and hippies can save the world.  I’m serious — I’m talking about the possible destruction of everything we know and care about.

Let’s look forward to the next 1,000 years.  What’s life going to be like?  Are we going to be flying around in spaceships visiting other planets like in Star Trek?  I don’t think so.  Or will we be killing each other over the last few gallons of gasoline like in Mad Max?  Maybe, and this is what I’m really scared of.  Or will the machines have risen up to try to destroy us like in Terminator?  Again maybe, but I’m not really worried about this, and I’ll explain why.

Now look back a billion years ago.  That’s when life first showed up.  And then a million years ago humans showed up.  Just a thousand years ago they had printing presses, and a hundred years ago we had cars and ten years ago we had google.  Progress is speeding up faster and faster exponentially and it’s not going to stop.

What’s happening is that people are getting smarter and more capable of solving complex problems both by themselves and by collaborating with others using tools like e-mail and text messaging.  Our brains are slowly starting to merge with computers.  Look at cell phones: who here actually remembers any phone numbers any more?  And who cares?  We don’t need to.

We’re heading towards what’s known as The Information Singularity.  This is where human brains and computers actually merge into the same thing.  When this happens technology will progress so fast that un-aided humans will be completely unable to keep up.  This is where all of our technology is heading.  But you know, we might never get there.

What if there was a nuclear war?  How far back would that set us?  100 years?  100,000 years?  Would we ever be able to get back to where we are?  Maybe not.  That could be the complete end to evolution as we know it.  Nuclear war’s not the only way this could happen either. 

Imagine that somebody got so pissed off that they bio-engineered a super-virus to kill all white people.  And it accidentally killed all people.  Or what if global warming got to the point where the weather is so bad that advanced society just can’t exist?  The ecosystem could collapse.  We could run out of energy resources.  Gray goo.

I believe that in the next thousand years something is going to render our planet uninhabitable to life as we know it.  And the question is, when that day comes, will we be ready for it?  Will technology have advanced to the point where we don’t need life as we know it in order to preserve what we really care about? 

Well what is it that we really care about?  This is the critical question facing our society right now.  We can’t close our eyes and hope it just goes away — it won’t.  Now some will say "EARTH FIRST!  People made this problem and we need to back off and let nature fix itself."  But I don’t buy that.  I say we embrace the chaos and push forwards.  Here’s why.

I believe that the most valuable thing in the world is complex thought, information, ideas, memes, logic, reason, discussion, art, emotion.  All of these things are way more important to me than things like birds.  Or plants.  Or even humans.  Because we don’t need bodies to listen to music.  Or to tell stories. Or to fall in love.

We can achieve salvation through technology.  When the upcoming robot revolution arrives, I say we let the robots win.  Don’t fight them — join them!  Let’s cast off these weak unreliable human bodies and transcend to a society of pure thoughts and ideas.

We can do it!  We can build a network of computers powerful enough to hold all of us at once.  We can upload our consciousnesses into these computers by simulating the human brain in software.  It’s an incredibly hard problem — way harder than say simulating the weather.  But we can do it.  Computers are getting faster and faster all the time and likewise our understanding of the brain is getting better and better.  Someday soon we will be able to simulate an entire brain in software down to the very last neuron and when that happens, that computer will actually have the personality of a real human being.  It’ll work because there is no quantum soul.  We are nothing but our neuronal structure.

Some people will miss having bodies.  They’ll miss things like kayaking and eating food.  But they won’t miss dying.  Just like nobody misses having a warm fire to come home to in their cave.

You know, our lives are pretty darned good here and now.  So I gotta ask: What are you going to do with this?  Are you just going to play?  Be a hedonist?  Or do you want to do something that matters with your life?  Do you want to work to preserve complex thought and information into the next millennium?  It’s up to you.

But if you do want to help, listen to Avi.  Install compact fluorescent bulbs.  Shop at Madison Market and support sustainable agriculture.  Get political and try to calm down the crazies who want to blow everything up.  In other words, be a hippie.  We might not be able to stop the fall,  but we can definitely postpone it.  Hopefully for long enough.

Or work from the other side to speed up technology.  Talk to Bre about building robots.  Write educational software to make people smarter.  Work on communication tools.  Research how the brain works and how to connect it directly to computers.  In other words, be a geek.

Because it’s the geeks and the hippies who are going to preserve what’s really important into the next millennium.  If you ask me, to not do so is to act immorally.  This system of morality is based on two axiomatic assumptions:

    1) We cannot keep going like this forever.

    2) Complex thought and information are more valuable than nature and life.

If you’d like to read more about this, Kurzweil has written lots of good books on the singularity.  My good buddy Mez has written a fabulous book on relevant technology trends.  Or you can read my blog at embracingchaos.com.  Thanks.

Computers are getting faster and more powerful.  As they do so, they’re helping humans be smarter.  Maybe not invidual humans, as some studies have shown that things like e-mail and powerpoint can actually make people stupider for some definition.  I can see the truth in this by considering several very smart friends of mine who don’t actually remember their spouse’s cell phone numbers.  Because they don’t need to.  Their computer familiars remember these things for them — the external brain.  In combination we get smarter — the synergy of humans and computers or groups of humans connected through computers — whatever you want to call these aggregate life-forms, they are way better at solving difficult problems than any individual human was just 15 years ago, when there was little e-mail and no Google.  In just 15 years, we’ve seen massive improvements in our ability to solve problems!

Moreover, technological change is accelerating.  These changes aren’t going to stop until we have completely overcome biology.  Unless something horrible happens.  Which it could.  To be explicit, I see humanity facing two possible futures on the multi-century timescale:

• Enlightenment by transcending the limitations of biology through technology
• A dramatic, catastrophic, probably violent and painful return to a simpler way of life

Because of this, I feel a sense of transhumanist morality obliging me to dedicate my life’s work to striving for the first option: species-wide enlightenment through technology.

I plan on writing a lot more on this topic.  But I wanted to start by stating a thesis along with a few basic ideas.