Singularity and the dispute for a transhumanist ideologyAbstract
We understand Singularism, a stream of transhumanist thought, to be an ideology associated with Silicon Valley and the political right-wing (Hughes 2002). Taking this as our object of study, the present article conducts an anthropological discussion around the concepts of culture, ideology, and cosmology as proposed by Eric Wolf (1999). Cosmology provides a basis for ideology so as to offer elements for criteria such as truth and the inevitability of a given project for power. We point out how cybernetics works as a cosmology for Singularism and we explore political and philosophical differences between exponents of Singularism, which -- to a large extent - express different appropriations of cybernetics in their construction of the concept of Singularity.
Keywords:
Cybernetics; Cyberculture; Cosmology; Ideology; Singularity; Silicon Valley.
Resumo
Tomamos o Singularismo, uma das vertentes do transhumanismo, como ideologia associada ao Vale do Silício e ao espectro político de direita (Hughes 2002). É empreendida uma discussão antropológica em torno dos conceitos de cultura, ideologia e cosmologia tal como propõe Eric Wolf (1999). A cosmologia fundamenta a ideologia de modo a oferecer elementos para critérios de verdade e inevitabilidade de um projeto de poder. Apontamos aqui de que modo a cibernética funciona como cosmologia ao Singularismo e exploramos diferenças políticas e filosóficas entre expoentes do Singularismo, que em grande medida expõem diferentes apropriações da cibernética na construção do conceito de Singularidade.
Palavras-chave:
Cibernética; Cibercultura; Cosmologia; Ideologia; Singularidade; Vale do Silício.
Introduction
The notion of the singularity takes on specific contours in Silicon Valley, a region that hosts many transhumanists who build entire ideologies around it. The most popular version of this concept refers to the technological singularity as described by John von Neumann (Vinge, 1993), one of the principal exponents of cybernetics. The salvationist promise of exponential growth in technological development derives from different conceptualizations of the singularity, which separate singularitarians into different currents united around the belief that the singularity means the arrival of a desirable post-human existence. In this cosmology, the acceleration of technology make intelligence and human bodies obsolete, superseded by a far superior third thing, neither natural nor artificial, human nor machine.
In the present article, we take Singularism to designate the ideology of the group that calls itself singularitarians (Kurzweil, 2005; Yudkowsky, 2000b): group of futurist researchers and ideologues which differentiates itself from other futuristic and transhumanist groups. According to Yudkowsky, one of the main proponents of the term, the word singularitarian is the composition of Singularity + Libertarian, developed from “(...) transhumanist anarchocapitalism, which grew out of libertarian science fiction, which grew out of science and engineering, and we all tend to feel very strongly about attempts to suppress the development of technology” (Yudkowsky, 2000b).
Singularism as an ideology is a consistent power project, which strongly promotes its political ideals. Far from being a simple philosophical current, the movement is structured through diverse institutions that include think tanks, a “university” in the heart of Silicon Valley, and hundreds of chapters around the world, including Brazil. Highlights include the Singularity University and the Machine Intelligence Research Institute (MIRI), formerly the Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence (SIAI). The bastard son of globalization and the prodigal son of the American new right, Singularism has created institutions that have the financial and political backing of companies and governments and which mask their political ambitions in an idyllic futurism, led by charismatic representatives such as Ray Kurzweil.
In the present article, we look at Singularism via the theorical lens of anthropologist Eric Wolf, who offers an alternative explanation for the articklation of ideas and power. Wolf conceptualizes ideology differently from classic Marxists, differentiating notions of culture and cosmology, with the latter being much more specific. In this theoretical approach, cosmologies are understood be “structured imaginings” in which ideologies seek sources for propositions that are true and inevitable, giving their power project an emergent and irrefutable character. The present study aims to offer up a brief introduction to Singularist thinking and to closely examine the connections between Singularitarians and what we consider the most important cosmology of Singularism: cybernetics. We first explore Wolf’s concepts offer a theoretical basis from which to challenge Singularitarians. We then briefly describe the various schools of Singularism, and finish up by develop the hypothesis that cybernetics is a cosmology for Singularist ideology.
There are, of course, many possible theoretical approaches to Singularism. This text is the result of research aimed at reactivating central concepts of Eric Wolf’s anthropology in order to make new contributions to the research of cybernetics and its close ties to Singularitarian thought. We intend to do more than just present the group as an object we seek to study the relation between cybernetics and Singularism through Wolf’s understanding of the relation between ideology and cosmology. We believe this particular approach can offer an alternative perspective regarding the theme that is not usually contemplated by the most popular social theories studying digital culture and cybernetics. Singularism is a project of power and Wolf’s anthropology can help us to understand the ways culture and ideology are mutually implicated in this case.
The relationship between ideology and cosmology according to Eric Wolf
When we refer to the classical concept of ideology, we have something specific in mind. In 1999’s Envisioning Power, Eric Wolf addressed a central question: how do ideas and power connect? The 20th century provided solid examples for the need to understand how projects of power are involved in very complex structures of ideas. It is in these structures that Wolf seeks the notion of ideology, albeit with an important deviation from the classic Marxist concept. As an anthropologist, the author is concerned with the ways in which ideologies are constituted and how they relate to culture and certain cosmologies. Wolf proposes an anthropology centered on the investigation of social and power relations. This situates him as a builder of bridges between various influences generally understood as in dispute. At the same time, Wolf raises anthropological questions with regards to Marxist theory while proposing an anthropology that centralizes power relations. It is from this relationship between culture and power that the concept of ideology emerges.
I believe that “ideology” needs to be used more restrictively, in that “ideologies”’ suggest unified schemes or configurations developed to underwrite or manifest power. Equating all ideation with ideology masks the ways in which ideas come to be linked to power (Wolf, 1999: 4, emphasis added).
This relationship puts nuances into a classically Marxist position, betting on a materialism that considers the regimentation of social work and the concrete expressions of communication, without adhering to an idealism, where power relations end up obfuscated if not altogether ignored. Wolf is critical of certain uses of the concept of culture. The author says that…
(...) the culture concept is no panacea-it is, if anything, but a starting point of inquiry. Its value is methodological: “look for connections!” But it still takes work and thought to discover what these connections may be and, indeed, if any connections exist (Wolf, 2001: 308).
For the purposes of this study, the way Wolf sees culture, as having methodological value, supports our understandings of networks of complex relationships. Searching for connections becomes the anthropological method par excellence, where culture ceases to be an aprioristic metaobject and becomes a methodological resource. According to Wolf, culture is constructed and transformed in such a way that its history and the power relations acting in this transformation process are a fundamental part of its composition. Ideologies, instrumental in power struggles, are responsible for part of the dynamics and for the breaking of boundaries in culture. That said, in this view of things, culture and cosmology, as well as their relationship with ideologies, deserve to be emphasized.
For Wolf, the idea of cosmology is more specific than that of culture: it only makes sense when understood from its relationship with ideology. It is from cosmologies that ideologies seeks ideas that support their philosophy and corroborate their power projects. A culture without power relations is inert and does not change. It is in the context of cultural change, following power relations and the ways in which they transform culture, that the researcher can identify ideologies. Cosmologies, in turn, only gain prominence in relation to specific ideologies because they link the imagination to power projects.
At the same time, these functions anchor rulership in a cultural structure of imaginings, which is characterized by forms that are not directly explicable in functionalist terms. These imaginings postulate cosmologies; cosmologies, in turn, articulate with ideologies that assign to the wielders of power the role of mediators or executors on behalf of larger cosmic forces and grant them “natural” rights to dominate society as delegates of the cosmic order. Representing that order, these cosmic delegates also enact it in their own lives (Wolf, 1999: 283-284, emphasis added).
In this sense, cosmologies are not the entire material and ideal body of culture, but a type of “cultural structure of imaginings”. They are based on a specific interpretation of structured ideas and imaginings within which ideologies seeks justification for its power projects.
These ideologies, carried forward by elites, were fashioned out of preexisting cultural materials, but they are not to be understood as disembodied cultural schemata. They addressed the very character of power in society, specifically the power that structured the differentiation, mobilization, and deployment of social labor, and they rooted that power in the nature of the cosmos (Wolf, 1999: 274).
Cosmology consists of connections made in specific cultural and historical arrangements. In Wolf’s theoretical narrative, it provides imaginary material for ideologies. “Aspects of cosmology are expanded and elaborated into ideologies that explain and justify the power aspirations of specific groups over society” (Wolf, 1999: 290). The cosmology-ideology relationship is the way in which Wolf tries to answer the question of how ideas and power are connected. In this sense, taking Singularism as an ideology requires searching for which cosmological and cultural ideas underlie its power project. Ideology looks for the justifications that will make elites bet on its politics. It finds this in cosmologies.
Singularism as an ideology is composed of multiple cosmologies, which seek structured imaginings that give strength to political projects. In the study presented below, we do not intend to reduce cybernetics to a cosmology of Singularism. Rather, we point out that Singularism seeks justifications for its power project in cybernetics. It is how Singularism uses cybernetics that makes it a cosmology particular to that ideology. Ideologies seek in cosmologies the justification for truths and inevitabilities. To understand how Singularism uses cybernetics as justification is to understand which aspects of cybernetics have been selected and/or reinterpreted to give Singularitarians their roles as cosmological delegates and spokespersons for inevitable truths which must be acted upon. It is in this process that cosmological delegation has a double effect. As Wolf says: old ideas are reformulated to fit very different contexts, and new ideas are presented as historical truths (Wolf, 1999).
Among the Singularitarians: The various ways of understanding the Singularity
Yudkowsky is a prominent Singularitarian researcher. In addition to being the founder of organizations promoting Singularism, he has scientific and political production on singularity and its adjacent issues - especially artificial intelligence. This author started the effort to characterize the schools of thought of Singularitarians (Yudkowsky, 2007). Among them, there are divergences about what singularity is, and these differences are often important for the construction of the authors’ argument. We describe below how each of these schools sees singularity and how to get there. If they share optimism about this inevitable future, the way to arrive at that future and how the world should prepare for it are objects of constant dispute. From now on, we will be able to observe how the different schools of Singularism flirt with very particular interpretations of cybernetics to sell their ideas. Yudkowsky (2007) associates each of the three schools with Singularism leaders. Here, we will work with a prominent author for each of the schools. Vernor Vinge for Event Horizon, Yudkowski for Intelligence Explosion, and Ray Kurzweil for Accelerating Change.
Event Horizon - Vernor Vinge
Vernor Vinge’s definition of the singularity is quite important to understanding Singularism. Although the author himself cites an earlier use by John Von Neumann - one of the leading scientists in cybernetics - and is probably metaphorically refering to a concept in physics, the concept of the singularity is often attributed to Vinge (1993). His 1993 article “The Coming of Technological Singularity” perhaps marks the beginning of a systematization of ideas that would culminate in Singularism. Vinge was the first to use “singularity” specifically enough for it to be considered a new concept. When John Von Neumann spoke of the technological singularity, he generally referred to the progress of technology (Vinge, 1993). The science fiction metaphor appropriated from physics, on the other hand, comes from both the concept of the singularity and the “event horizon” that gives its name to the singularist school which employs Vinge as a reference. In a black hole, the event horizon is the boundary beyond which there is no return. In other words, beyond that point, everything becomes part of the singularity. A singularity is thus a region of null volume and infinite density, and everything that crosses its event horizon becomes part of it.
Vinge (2008) says that the Singularity will come about due to as-yet undetermined combination of one or more of five scenarios:
-
The creation of superhuman artificial intelligences (AI);
-
The improvement of human intelligence through human-computer interfaces in which amplified intelligence can be achieved;
-
Increased intelligence through improved neurological brain operations;
-
Humanity, computers, and databases becoming powerful enough to be considered a superhuman beings;
-
A network of embedded microprocessors that becomes powerful enough to be considered a superhuman being.
According to Vinge, all these scenarios will culminate in a point of no return, beyond which a singularity will exist.
I think it’s fair to call this event a singularity (“the Singularity” for the purposes of this paper). It is a point where our old models must be discarded and a new reality rules. As we move closer to this point, it will loom vaster and vaster over human affairs till the notion becomes a commonplace (Vinge, 1993: 6).
Vinge’s (1993) reflections make an association between the theory of evolution and “Moore’s Law”. His central argument for the potential existence of the posthuman lies in his belief that, just as men in the past have become the “smartest inhabitants of the planet,” the time when humans will be evolutionarily surpassed is at hand. Moore’s Law refers to technological progress. As early as 1965, author Gordon E. Moore argued that the number of transistors on chips would double every eighteen months while their price would remain stable (Vinge, 1993). This, in practice, meant that the processing power of microchips would double every eighteen months while their price would remain the same. Over the final decades of the 20th century, this prediction came true and this has become a central argument almost all Singularitarians employ in justifying their belief of the proximity of the singularity. Vinge sees Moore’s Law as supported by evolution. In his view, post-human intelligence will be a natural advance of technology as a means of improving human intelligence. Later, the author gave the internet a decisive role in this process of accelerating intelligence (Vinge, 2006).
As this school of thought’s title indicates, following the metaphor of a black hole, one cannot ascertain what will occur once the event horizon is crossed. Yudkowsky (2007) argues Vinge feels that one cannot know what will come after the singularity, because to understand that, we would need to be as intelligent as a post-singularity intelligence. In the 1990s - and again, a decade and a half later -- Vinge affirmed (1993, 2008) that he would be surprised if singularity did not occur before 2030. He also opines, however, that this event may not occur. “Well, maybe it won’t happen at all (...) But if the technological Singularity can happen, it will” (Vinge, 1993: 10-11).
Intelligence Explosion
Let an ultraintelligent machine be defined as a machine that can far surpass all the intellectual activities of any man however clever. Since the design of machines is one of these intellectual activities, an ultraintelligent machine could design even better machines; there would then unquestionably be an “intelligence explosion,” and the intelligence of man would be left far behind. Thus the first ultraintelligent machine is the last invention that man need ever make, provided that the machine is docile enough to tell us how to keep it under control (...) It is more probable than not that, within the twentieth century, an ultraintelligent machine will be built and that it will be the last invention that man need make (I. J. Good apud Vinge, 1993: 7).
Yudkowsky (2007) situates both himself and I.J. Good in the Intelligence Explosion school. Good was a British mathematician who worked with Alan Turing and, later, in the USA. Good was also a consultant for Stanley Kubrick on the production of 2001: A Space Odyssey (Vat, 2009). He is often credited with creating the concept of the “intelligence explosion”. Yudkowsky’s idea of the singularity approximates Good’s predictions and takes them further. According to Yudkowsky (2007), intelligence has always been the source of technology. For the author, given the possibility of technologies that significantly improve human intelligence, a positive feedback loop will be created. That is, if there is any intelligence that is more capable than the human, this new intelligence will create new technologies that are even more capable in a never-ending cycle. Each “generation” will be fully aware that improvement of intelligence is possible, which leads the author to characterize this positive feedback loop. Yudkowsky compares this cycle to the chain reaction of an atomic explosion. This process does not necessarily increase exponentially, however, as Kurzweil (2005) argues. For Yudkowsky, the singularity is thus defined by this cycle towards a “greater-than-human” intelligence. Unlike Vinge, the author does not see the singularity as a one-off event, but simply as the possible future of the world based upon scientific evidence. Therefore, the author offers neither dates nor descriptions of the post-singularity future. Unlike many of his fellow Singularitarians, Yudkowsky behaves more like a researcher engaged in accelerating the process of the intelligence explosion rather than as a futurist. Because he believes that the singularity is desirable, and, on the other hand, based upon a positive feedback cycle, he also believes that the singularity will only occur through the efforts of human intelligence to improve technologies and intelligence itself, both human and artificial.
Accelerating Change
This is perhaps the best-known version of the singularity, in large part because of the work of Ray Kurzweil. The author of best-selling books and films that promote him as something of a spiritual leader for an entire techno-utopian media network, Kurzweil is the guru of Singularism. Accelerating change is also conceptually linked to a specific reading of the theory of evolution associated with an adaptation of Moore’s Law. Yudkowsky and Vinge discuss the singularity in a much more restrained way than Kurzweil. The first two place it within the scope of possibility and, although they believe that it is more likely to happen than not, they try to consider the concept’s limitations and what technological developments have to be made before the event horizon is crossed. Kurzweil, on the other hand, does not hesitate to offer lengthy descriptions of what the post-singularity future will be like, nor does he hesitate to give an exact date for this event: 2045 (Kurzweil, 2005).
For Kurzweil, the notion of the singularity takes on almost mystical contours. Transcendence goes much deeper, with a radicalization of the hybridization process between human and machine; biology, and technology. In the so-called Kurzweilian merger (Miller, 2012):
Just as a black hole in space dramatically alters the patterns of matter and energy accelerating toward its event horizon, this impending Singularity in our future is increasingly transforming every institution and aspect of human life, from sexuality to spirituality. What, then, is the Singularity? It’s a future period during which the pace of technological change will be so rapid, its impact so deep, that human life will be irreversibly transformed. Although neither utopian nor dystopian, this epoch will transform the concepts that we rely on to give meaning to our lives, from our business models to the cycle of human life, including death itself. Understanding the Singularity will alter our perspective on the significance of our past and the ramifications for our future. To truly understand it inherently changes one’s view of life in general and one’s own particular life (apud Kurzweil, 2005: 22).
The author speaks explicitly about spiritual transformation, conceptual modification, and, mainly, of overcoming death. Although he is saying that the singularity is not in itself utopian or dystopian, even a shallow perusal of his writings or interviews shows that Kurzweil considers the singularity to be the solution to almost all the world’s problems. The author says that with it, we will transcend the limitations of the body and the brain.
Yudkowsky (2007) says that Kurzweil’s school refutes the way we normally think about change. According to this view, humans tend to think of change in a linear way, taking into account the changes that have occurred in their own lifetimes. Supported by an extrapolation of Moore’s Law, supporters of this school will argue that technological change is accelerated and that it occurs today faster than it has in the past. Our own pasts are therefore a poor guide to understanding the dynamics of technological change. “The key idea underlying the impending Singularity is that the pace of change of our human-created technology is accelerating and its powers are expanding at an exponential pace” (Kurzweil, 2005: 23).
With the exponential growth of technology, one can describe and prescribe one’s future, so that, following this model, one will be able to tell precisely when the singularity will occur. It is by believing in and tracing this exponential acceleration pattern, inspired both by Moore’s Law and by von Neumann’s writings, that the accelerating change school differs from the others. The intelligence explosion school does not believe that one can establish an exact date for the singularity, nor does it even believe that one can establish that the progress of technology is exponentially growing. The event horizon school, in turn, is incisive in saying that one cannot know what will happen after the singularity, so that descriptions of the post-singularity future can only be merely speculative.
The Singularity will represent the culmination of the merger of our biological thinking and existence with our technology, resulting in a world that is still human but that transcends our biological roots. There will be no distinction, post-Singularity, between human and machine or between physical and virtual reality. If you wonder what will remain unequivocally human in such a world, it’s simply this quality: ours is the species that inherently seeks to extend its physical and mental reach beyond current limitations (Kurzweil, 2005: 23).
After all, what is the singularity?
Yudkowsky’s three schools of Singularism do not exhaust the question of what the singularity would be. All these definitions’ similarities and differences demonstrate a political dispute over the term and an attempt to circumscribe which concepts of the singularity are compatible with a more general version of Singularism as an ideology.
I’ve heard (many) other definitions of the Singularity attempted, but I usually find them to lack separate premises and conclusions. For example, the old Extropian FAQ used to define the “Singularity” as the Inflection Point, “the time when technological development will be at its fastest” and just before it starts slowing down. But what makes this an interesting point in history apart from its definition? What are the consequences of this assumption? To qualify as a school of thought or even a thesis, one needs an internal structure of argument, not just a definition (Yudkowsky, 2007: no page).
Some of the other definitions of the singularity touch on different points, but end up being related to the schools described above. This seems to be the case with Miller’s (2012) proposal in his book “Singularity Rising”. Here, the author speaks of the Singularity as a chain of mutual influence between economic prosperity, technologies, and intelligence: intelligence is necessary for the creation of technologies; technologies are necessary for economic prosperity. In this scenario, utopian bets on cybernetics are extrapolated to give a basis for a system of economic prosperity that is inseparable from technological progress. For Miller (2012), the Singularity is “a threshold of time over which AIs that are at least as smart as humans, and/or augmented human intelligences, radically remake civilization” (Miller, 2012: x).
In short, we assume that Yudkowsky had published his text with explicit political intentions, using his leadership position in Singularism to emphasize which ideas regarding the singularity can coexist well together with the goal of promoting a singularist ideology. A small cultural review of the history of cybernetics will show us what principles and ideas Singularitarians have sought in cybernetics to justify the alleged indisputability of their power project. Supported by predictions of cybernetics that were partially true, Singularism promotes an inductive leap in which the inspiration found in these predictions corroborates the inevitability of the belief system’s own propositions. To use Wolf’s terms, we see Singularitarians turning to cybernetics, among other cosmologies, in order to promote themselves as delegates of the cosmos.
The communicational utopia of Norbert Wiener’s cybernetics
Cybernetics is a field that influenced many areas of knowledge. Its development was the target of political disputes that must be understood in order to comprehend the advent of computing and of the information society. In cybernetics, Singularism seeks structured imaginings that provide philosophical and scientific principles for a power project. This is evident when we observe the importance of cybernetic ideals in the constitution of Silicon Valley, but it is also present much more directly, as in Singularitarians’ constant citation of authors such as Norbert Wiener and John von Neumann (two of the authors more strongly associated with the creation of cybernetics).
The beginnings of cybernetics can be found in the Macy Conferences, held in New York between 1941 and 1960. At these conferences, intellectuals from both the natural and social sciences met with the aim of creating interdisciplinary bridges. These researchers were “dedicated to breaking down barriers between the various academic disciplines” and “looking for a meta-theory which could be applied within both the natural sciences and the social sciences” (Barbrook, 2007: 44). A common language that would break the disciplinary barriers would renew human ways of apprehending the world.
Cybernetics became simultaneously “popular” in two directions: as an interdisciplinary branch of scientific knowledge, with a decisive influence on both the natural sciences and the humanities; and as the main source of nourishment of a new utopia, that of communication, which guided the imagining of the second half of the 20th century and of the still nascent 21st century. (Evangelista & Kanashiro, 2013: 58).
One of the intellectuals at the Macy Conferences became a great exponent of cybernetics by proposing this interdisciplinary language necessarily involved the equation of man and machine in such as to unify the social and natural sciences. Nobert Wiener was responsible for the elaboration of this first communications utopia, which would later have its meaning expanded by McLuhanism as applied to the internet and computer networks. Together with the Silicon Valley electronics industry, cybernetics grew up during Cold War, in an environment in which military and state funding was a fundamental for research in science and technology. Wiener, at the time a mathematician at MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), was very much involved in this context and worked on a project to improve the accuracy of anti-aircraft weapons for the US government. It was in this research that the mathematician took his first steps towards the notion of feedback, which would become a landmark in cybernetics studies. By showing the importance of anticipating the movement of an aircraft, Wiener supported the comparison (and symbiosis) between man and machine that gave the latter the same ontological status as the former (Le Breton, 2007). The mechanical, computerized gunsight predicts the position of the enemy plane and joins the pilot in a symbiosis that makes him more prepared and more effective (Barbrook, 2007).
Thus the nervous system and the automatic machine are fundamentally alike in that they are devices which make decisions on the basis of decisions they have made in the past. (...). The machine, like the living organism, is, as I have said, a device which locally and temporarily seems to resist the general tendency for the increase of entropy. By its abihty to make decisions it can produce around it a local zone of organization in a world whose general tendency is to run down (Wiener, 1954: 33-34).
We have already seen in the previous section that the notion of feedback is fundamental to the Intelligence Explosion school. Yudkowsky does not use Wiener’s concept accidentally. Among all the Singularitarians mentioned here, he is the figure most directly linked to scientific research in artificial intelligence (AI), a field of research whose history is rooted in cybernetics. The idea of artificial intelligence, characterized by its artificiality, is thus given by a comparison between the natural and the artificial. Placed side by side with human intelligence, AI is therefore an idea dependent on the typically cybernetic hybridization process. This perspective equating man and machine found support in the studies carried out by Alan Turing. Turing is often credited with being the inventor of the first computer, but the importance of his studies goes well beyond that. It was with Turing that the notion of artificial intelligence began to take shape, as well as the idea that a computer could be as capable of thinking and making decisions as human beings do. Turing’s “imitation made the typical stimulus-response behavior into a foundation for rationalization and decision-making, both in humans and machines.
For Wiener, cybernetics showed there was a continuous interaction between information and action, which was the basis of machinic and human behavior, and worked according to the mathematical equation (Barbrook, 2007). Norbert Wiener made this comparison between humans, animals, and machines as equally informational beings into one of the bases of his writings. In one of his most famous popular works, The Human Use of Human Beings: Cybernetics and Society, when talking about how the functioning of the body is also governed by informational rules, Wiener postulated that “the physical identity of an individual does not consist in the matter of which it is made” (Wiener, 1954: 101), He joked that it would be…
amusing as well as instructive to consider what would happen if we were to transmit the whole pattern of the human body, of the human brain with its memories and cross connections, so that a hypothetical receiving instrument could re-embody these messages in appropriate matter, capable of continuing the processes already in the body and the mind, and of maintaining the integrity needed for this continuation by a process of homeostasis (Wiener, 1954: 96).
The influence of Wiener and cybernetics should not be measured solely in terms of their scientific contributions. Theories about the role of information in defining an ontology of nature (including human nature), combined with Wiener’s imagination regarding the implications of these discoveries, relate to a whole range of topics that continued to be explored, whether in popular science fiction (see TV series like Westworld and Battlestar Galactica ), or in Singularitarian philosophy.
The documentary Transcendent Man (2009), directed by singularity enthusiast Barry Ptolemy, centers its narrative around Kurzweil’s obsession with life after death and his attempts to evade the death of the physical body. In this regard, two situations portrayed in the film stand out. The most dramatically effective for the work depicts Kurzweil’s quest to resolve the trauma caused by his father’s death when Kurzweil was a boy. The resolution does not come through a process of acceptance, but through his pursuit to bring his father “back to life” by trying to build a computerized version of his mind from a vast collection of outputs and communication traces he produced in his lifetime. From this information, it would be possible to produce a model of how Kurzweil’s father communicated, which would simulate the “consciousness” of the father. In the same documentary, we also see Kurzweil take approximately 200 pills a day, including vitamin complexes and drugs to combat heart problems, the ailment from which his father died at 58. Kurzweil’s approach to diseases is also informational. Diseases are treated as communication problems between parts of the body, and medications are seen as informational corrective adjustments. For the singularity, information is not just a means of managing the physical and biological world. Its proper manipulation leads to transcendence, to a hitherto superhuman capacity. At the end of the documentary, Kurzweil states “if I were asked if god exists, I would say not yet.” Moreover, he responds this way when the matter of his father is brought up by a viewer during a public screening of the documentary:
...I have this desire and inclination to preserve the knowledge and skill he represented. How do you present that? You could present it as a big database of information - that’s not how we interact with people. The best way to interact with that would be an avatar that represented his personality and skills. That’s something I would find personally gratifying. I’ve discussed it with many people and surprisingly people who aren’t into the Singularity find this idea appealing. Especially if they are struggling with dealing with the loss of someone they care about. The way I would know if I had succeeded would be if it passes a Frederick Kurzweil Turing Test. That’s getting to be an easier test as time goes by because my memories are fading. I would argue that this avatar would be more like my father than he would be if he had lived. That’s not impossible: he would be 98 now. If he were 98 he’d be much less like he was when I remember him at 58 (Saenz, 2011).
This man-machine approach (which culminates in an ontological change for machines) is just one of the principles of cybernetics. If we take a deep look at its development, especially its formation in the technology industry in Silicon Valley, we will reach other conclusions. If the basis of behavior is the interaction between information and action, as Wiener says, we have grounds for supposing that the contemporary importance of information in postmodernity (considered a historical period by Jameson [1984]) is due, to some extent, to the extended influence of cybernetics. Through these lenses, we could argue -- as does Kurzweil (2005) -- that information is the common basis that allows the equalization of human and machine. The author says that “Information is a sequence of data that is meaningful in a process, such as the DNA code of an organism or the bits in a computer program” (Kurzweil 2005, 44). With some inductive leaps, Kurzweil (2005) concludes that, if DNA is information, the brain is a type of biological computer. There would be no reason, therefore, to doubt that a fusion of biological and machinic methods of interacting with information would be possible. It is this hybrid that marks the arrival of the singularity for the author - what Miller (2012) called Kurzwelian merger.
The arms dystopia of John von Neumann’s cybernetics
As the Cold War and the arms race progressed, Wiener became averse to the military use of cybernetics, and refused to continue his research for military purposes. According to Barbrook (2007), the political dissent that separated the defense of cybernetics from its military use inspired a type of socialist cybernetics. This interpretation of cybernetics conducted an ethical review in which the status of ontological equity between human and machine ceases to make sense, since the evolution of machines should be controlled by humans. That is, Wiener was beginning to express as a scientist one of the most recurrent tropes of science fiction: run-away AI. This fear stretches from the very beginnings of the genre, with Frankenstein’s monster, and continues to be very present in contemporary science fiction: “The world of the future will be an increasingly demanding struggle against the limitations of our own intelligence, not a comfortable hammock in which we can lie down to be waited upon by our robot slaves.” (Wiener apud Barbrook, 2007: 46).
In striking contrast, there was another important mathematician very much inspired by the field of cybernetics and Turing’s studies. John Von Neumann, a Hungarian-American scientist and Jew, is often named as the father of game theory. It is not difficult to imagine the connections that the creator of game theory would find with cybernetics, but it was his political stance that highlighted the dispute that his version of cybernetics had with Wiener’s. Von Neumann had no qualms about using cybernetics for military purposes and personally, openly defended the intensifying of the arms race. He even declared himself to be in favor of a preemptive nuclear attack on the Soviet Union (Barbrook, 2007).
By the early 1950s, von Neumann had successfully created cybernetics without Wiener. The feedback metaphor now proved that computers operated like humans. Like the rational players in his game theory books, both living and mechanical beings responded to stimuli from their surrounding environment (Barbrook, 2007: 48-49).
This warmongering impetus, which makes more sense if considered in the context of the Cold War, was never entirely abandoned. Miller (2012), for example, raises the possibility of superintelligence recreating an arms race scenario when applied to military technologies. The enemy of the United States now would not be the Soviet Union, but China.
Successfully creating an obedient ultra-intelligence would give a country control of everything, making an ultra-AI far more military useful than mere atomic weapons. The first nation to create an obedient ultra-AI would also instantly acquire the capacity to terminate its rivals’ AI development projects. Knowing the stakes, rival nations might go full throttle to win an ultra-AI race, even if they understood that haste could cause them to create an ultra-AI destroying ultra-intelligence. These rivals might realize the danger and desperately wish to come to an agreement to reduce the peril, but they might find that the logic of the widely used game theory paradox of the Prisoners’ Dilemma thwarts all cooperation efforts (Miller, 2012: 47, emphasis added).
This bellicose evocation of artificial intelligence coupled with the prisoner’s dilemma is an accurate demonstration of a von Neumannesque interpretation that justifies a Singularist turn in military technology. Detached from the context of the Cold War, the passage cited above demonstrates a prospective and ideological impetus. Analyzing hypothetical scenarios in which both Chinese pioneerism and an explosion of intelligence beyond the army’s control become catastrophic, Miller (2012) suggests as a solution that the US military prepares its soldiers: “The best chance of avoiding this danger might be for the American military to create a Kurzwelian merger by constantly upgrading its human soldiers” (Miller, 2012: 53). It seems clear, then, at least since the Cold War and the beginnings of cybernetics, that it is difficult to separate the private sector from military investment in artificial intelligence, robotics, and other related fields. Even before the advent of cybernetics, Sturgeon (2000) stated that the Silicon Valley area was built upon a particular fusion of military investment, local university research poles from, and private sector.
An emblematic contemporary example shows that this key to development still has everything to do with Silicon Valley, with cybernetics, and with military investment. The data giant Google has a company called Google[x] which is located a few meters from the company’s headquarters in Mountain View, in the heart of Silicon Valley (Rowan, 2013). In 2013, Google[x] bought Boston Dynamics, an applied robotics company. One of its most famous projects, the “Bigdog,” is a dog-shaped robot, attentive to reflexes and able to recover its balance even after being kicked. The “Bigdog” test videos can easily be found with a simple internet searcs. The main aspect here is that this is a project that was funded by with investments from the US military (Hambling, 2006). Although Miller’s (2012) predictions seem to be of date and therefore lack credibility, there is in these Singularitarian predictions both a specific reading about what cultural changes Singularism aims for and what reinterpretation of cybernetics they are willing to make.
Beginning with the comparison between human and machine, this bellicose version of cybernetics expanded its metaphor so that social institutions could be studied as cybernetic organisms. For this reason, and for von Neumann’s frank adherence to Cold War militarism, Barbrook (2007) considers von Neumann’s cybernetics to be conservative and right-wing, heavily publicized and inspirational for various disciplines, eventually becoming the main version of cybernetics.
For military-sponsored researchers at US universities, von Neumann’s interpretation of cybernetics provided a self-congratulatory story to cover up their dubious activities. Programming computers to guide missiles, control bombs, direct armies, and play war games was no longer the way to plan the nuclear holocaust. Rather, as Turing and von Neumann proved, these military applications were an essential step towards the ultimate goal of artificial intelligence. Technological fetishism had absolved computer scientists of any responsibility for the consequences of their actions (Barbrook, 2007: 50).
Barbrook (2007) comes to the conclusion that, by selling the utopian imagining of artificial intelligence, such as space travel to the moon and other typically American techno-determinist utopias, Cold War cybernetics sold one thing and offered another. What moved the endless research and funding of the military was not artificial intelligence, but the efficiency of the war machine, whose goal was to create artifacts capable of killing as many people as possible. This bellicose feature, however, seems to have been swept under the rug with the fall of the Berlin Wall. What remained for cybernetics were the utopian imaginings which, without a doubt, Silicon Valley used as a springboard for its vertiginous growth.
In his book Singularity is Near,Kurzweil (2005) seeks in cybernetics more than just a justification for the inevitable equivalence of humans and machines via information. The very notion of accelerating change, in addition to Moore’s Law, explicitly mentions von Neumann:
In the 1950s John von Neumann, the legendary information theorist, was quoted as saying that “the ever-accelerating progress of technology... gives the appearance of approaching some essential singularity in the history of the race beyond which human affairs, as we know them, could not continue. Von Neumann makes two important observations here: acceleration and singularity. The first idea is that human progress is exponential (…) rather than linear (…). The second is that exponential growth is seductive, starting out slowly and virtually unnoticeably, but beyond the knee of the curve it turns explosive and profoundly transformative (Kurzweil, 2005: 24).
Kurzweil (2005) acknowledges that the term “singularity” was first explored by von Neumann. He also attributes to von Neumann the notion of exponential progress in technology. Another mathematician cited here, I.J. Good, who also did research with von Neumann, was the creator of the concept of intelligence explosion, which inspired Yudkowsky to name the school of Singularism with which Good identifies. In short, by taking out of context and reusing fragments of cybernetics history and theory, Singularitarians hope to not only support their power project, but also catapult themselves into the position of futuristic geniuses who foresaw the advent of the singularity.
Structured imaginings for a power project
Barbrook’s (2007) arguments in opposition to the cybernetics of von Neumann and Wiener seem quite important here. Both versions of cybernetics produced different imaginings. On the one hand, Wiener’s “socialist” cybernetics sees an artificial superintelligence as possibly dystopian, that is, as a danger to all humans. On the other, von Neumann’s conservative cybernetics goes the other way. Its utopianism resides in the idea that this artificial superintelligence is desirable and its potential harm to humans is a positive factor in the context of the Cold War. If the cybernetics of Wiener and von Neumann seem incompatible, as cosmology of Singularism these conflicting ideas seem to coexist well in their various fragments. Wiener’s McLuhanist communicational utopia combines with von Neumann’s utopia of slave robots and an artificial intelligence explosion without any major problems in Singularist ideology. The advent of the internet and new information technologies adds to the nostalgia for slavery that dreams of zeroing the cost of labor in order to formulate a futurism that, like the “California ideology,” is hippie and yuppie at one and the same time (Barbrook and Cameron, 1996).
In an article published in Nature in 2006, Vinge (2006) calls the internet “the creativity machine”. Vinge (2008) takes for granted two scenarios that rely on the internet to reach the singularity. The first of these, called the “Internet Scenario,” speculates as to whether human beings connected to their machines in a network, with infinite databases, could be considered to be a type of super-human. The second scenario, named by Vinge “The Digital Gaia Scenario,” speculates whether the network itself could become a super-intelligence. Both scenarios, combined with the descriptions in the aforementioned Nature article, highlight a version of Vernor Vinge’s thoughts. Vinge is deeply enchanted with the possibilities of the internet and, indirectly, with the cybernetics of communication:
We humans have built a creativity machine. It’s the sum of three things: a few hundred million computers, a communication system connecting those computers, and some millions of human beings using those computers and communications. This creativity machine is the Internet. (…) In the end, computers plus networks plus people add up to something significantly greater than the parts. The ensemble eventually grows beyond human creativity. To become what? We can’t know until we get there (Vinge, 2006: 411).
Vinge’s theoretical and journalistic writings show much evidence of a partial adherence to a McLuhanist communicational utopia. Although it seems more coherent to associate Singularism with von Neumann’s idea of cybernetics, we cannot help but notice that the contradiction between von Neumann’s bellicism and Wiener’s global village are able to coexist - even more so when they are fragmented, dehistoricized, and removed from the contexts of their original formulations.
In Wolf’s concept of ideologies, these are forged in structured imaginings. Knowing the primary sources of truth for Singularism is a fundamental part of understanding it. The fragments that make up Singularist arguments can be historically contradictory as long as they fulfill their role of making the argument irrefutable. This is not merely a political issue: the self-proclaimed delegates of the cosmos defend the idea that an inevitable and urgent change will occur and that only they will be able to guide us in the tortuous path that opens on the horizon.
To understand the singularity, Singularism, and the Singularitarians, one must go through analyses that involve culture, cosmology, and ideology. Looking at Singularism through the lens of these concepts, we will be able to understand how this transhumanist current operates in one of its most relevant aspects: the predictive and productive preparation of a future that announces itself as a business opportunity for certain groups (and not for others). The main goal here is for the argument to be convincing enough to eventually operate as a self-fulfilling prophecy. It is certainly in relation to the process of development of capitalism, of directing productive forces, that the ideological disputes of Singularism find their greatest source of power. In the cultural context of informational capitalism and globalization, the scientific and philosophical imaginings of cybernetics emerge as a primordial source of truth for the Singularist power project. It is with contradictory fragments of cybernetics and a very particular interpretation of that field that Singularitarians justify both the inevitability of the Singularity and why it is desirable. As Wolf wagered, old ideas are reformulated to fit very different contexts, and new ideas are presented as historical truths (Wolf, 1999). Obviously, this direction, as well as the ideological disputes that are both internal and external to the field, are not processes that occur without resistance. Wolf’s ethnographies (1999) are rich demonstrations of conflictual processes, which relate to influences on productive arrangements, while at the same time impacting the broader field of constantly changing culture. It is not the purpose of this work to develop ontological discussions regarding Singularitarian transhumanism, but rather to take this as a case for analysis in which manifestations about possible technological transformations help us understand contemporary Western cosmologies.
In this regard, the Singularity Group can be cited as an empirical example of an initiative that brings together leading Silicon Valley companies in a mix of forecasting, formulation, and preparation for a proclaimed future. Founded in 2008 as the Singularity University, the institution began its activities at NASA’s facilities in Silicon Valley, California, where it began to offer short multidisciplinary courses (one nine days long and another of ten weeks) aiming to “gather, educate, and inspire a group of leaders who strive to understand and facilitate the development of exponentially advancing technologies to address humanity’s grand challenges”. In addition to NASA and Google, other initial funders of the Singularity Group were Autodesk, LinkedIn, Nokia, and the biotechnology company Genentech. Among the teachers/speakers are Kurzweil and other professionals linked to network technologies and internet enthusiasts, many boasting stints at companies like Google, Meta, and Tesla. Vint Cerf, one of the internet pioneers and now working for Google as Chief Internet Evangelist, and Robert Metcalfe, also an internet technology pioneer, have been among its faculty. Google, especially in the figure of one of its founders, Larry Page, is one of the companies that is enthusiastic about the singularity. It partnered with Kurzweil and aerospace entrepreneur and engineer Peter H. Diamandis in founding the Institution.
At the university and in meetings, Singularitarians mingle with figures from renowned academic institutions such as Stanford and MIT, venture capitalists specializing in high-risk investments, and top executives from today’s leading technology companies. The interest in transhumanism in its Singularitarian strand comes from this interconnection that seems productive - in the sense of a intersection where ideas and investments articulate to produce a certain future. Kurzweil’s speeches have this quality, blending diagnosis and a vision of a future that presents itself as inevitable with the mobilization of materially productive forces and knowledge producers towards a transformation of the human with consequent impacts on all of society. There is to be no escape from the singularity: it is to be the next evolutionary step for humanity. It is thus necessary to prepare for it and, in doing so, shape it.
References
- BARBROOK, Richard; CAMERON, Andy. 1996. “The Californian Ideology”. In: Science as Culture, vol. 6, no. 1, pp. 44-72.
- BARBROOK, Richard. 2007. Imaginary Futures: From Thinking Machines to the Global Village Reino Unido: Pluto Press.
- EVANGELISTA, Rafael & KANASHIRO, Marta Mourão. 2013. “Cibernética, internet e a nova política dos sistemas informacionais”. In: Giuseppe Cocco (org.), Gabinete digital: análise de uma experiência Porto Alegre: Corag e Imprensa Oficial do Estado do Rio Grande do Sul.
-
HAMBLING, David. 2006. “Robotic ‘pack mule’ displays stunning reflexes”. New Scientist, vol. s.n., n. s.n. Available from: <Available from: https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn8802-robotic-pack-mule-displays-stunning-reflexes/ >. Access on 08/23/2023
» https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn8802-robotic-pack-mule-displays-stunning-reflexes/ - KURZWEIL, Ray. 2005. Singularity is near New York: Viking Penguin.
- LE BRETON, David. 2007. Adeus ao corpo: Antropologia e sociedade São Paulo: Papirus.
- MILLER, James D. 2012. Singularity Rising: Surviving and Thriving in a Smarter, Richer, and more dangerous world Dallas: BenBella Books.
-
ROWAN, David. 2013. “Astro Teller of Google[x] wants to improve the world’s broken industries”. Wired UK, Available from: <Available from: https://www.wired.co.uk/article/destination-moon >. Access on 08/23/2023
» https://www.wired.co.uk/article/destination-moon -
SAENZ, Aaron. 2011. “Transcendent Man Plays In San Francisco. Here’s A Transcript of Q&A Session”. SingularityHUB Available from: <Available from: https://singularityhub.com/2011/04/18/transcendent-man-plays-in-san-francisco-heres-a-transcript-of-qa-session/ >. Access on 08/23/2023.
» https://singularityhub.com/2011/04/18/transcendent-man-plays-in-san-francisco-heres-a-transcript-of-qa-session/ - Sturgeon, Timothy J. 2000. “How Silicon Valley Came to Be.” In: Martin Kenney (Ed.), Understanding Silicon Valley: The Anatomy of an Entrepreneurial Region Stanford: Stanford University Press.
-
VAT, Dan van der. 2009. “Jack Good”. The Guardian Available from: Available from: https://www.theguardian.com/science/2009/apr/29/jack-good-codebreaker-obituary Access on 08/23/2023.
» https://www.theguardian.com/science/2009/apr/29/jack-good-codebreaker-obituary - Vinge, Vernor. 1993. “The Coming Technological Singularity: How to Survive in the Post-Human Era.” Vision-21: Interdisciplinary Science and Engineering in the Era of Cyberspace, NASA Conference Publication 10129, edited by G. A. Landis. Cleveland, OH: NASA Lewis Research Center, pp. 11-22.
-
VINGE, Vernor. 2006. “The Creativity Machine”. Nature, 440. Available from: Available from: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v440/n7083/full/440411a.html Access on: 01/20/2017.
» http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v440/n7083/full/440411a.html -
VINGE, Vernor. 2008. “Signs of the Singularity - Hints of the singularity’s approach can be found in the arguments of its critics”. IEEE Spectrum’s Special Report: The Singularity Available from Available from http://spectrum.ieee.org/static/singularity Access on: 01/20/2017.
» http://spectrum.ieee.org/static/singularity - WIENER, Norbert. 1954. The Human Use of Human Beings: Cybernetics ans Society New York: Double Day Anchor Books.
- WOLF, Eric R. 1999. Envisioning power: ideologies of dominance and crises Berkeley: University of California Press.
- WOLF, Eric R. 2001. “Culture: Panacea or problem?”. In: Pathways of power: building an anthropology of the modern world Los Angeles: University of California Press, p. 307-319.
-
YUDKOWSKY, Eliezer. 2000b. The singularitarian principles - extended edition Available from: Available from: http://yudkowsky.net/obsolete/principles.ext.html Access on: 01/20/2017.
» http://yudkowsky.net/obsolete/principles.ext.html -
YUDKOWSKY, Eliezer. 2007. “Three Major Singularity Schools”. In: MIRI Website Available from: Available from: https://intelligence.org/2007/09/30/three-major-singularity-schools/ Access on: 01/20/2017.
» https://intelligence.org/2007/09/30/three-major-singularity-schools/
-
1
In Westworld (Westworld. 2016. Bad Robot, Jerry Weintraub Productions, Kilter Films.), one of the central characters, Robert Ford (co-creator of Westworld), has managed to create a form of imperfect mind transfer. He is able to transfer his consciousness into the park’s system after his death, continuing to exist as a digital entity. Another character, James Delos, is the subject of numerous attempts to transfer his consciousness to a host body after his death. Battlestar Galactica (Battlestar Galactica. 2005. British Sky Broadcasting (BSkyB), David Eick Productions, NBC Universal Television) is set in a distant star system, where a civilization created a race of robots known as Cylons who eventually rebelled and went into hiding. The Cylons evolved themselves into human-like forms and returned to destroy the humans. One of the key aspects of the series is the concept of resurrection, a form of mind transfer employed by the Cylons. The humanoid Cylons possess the ability to “download” their consciousness into a new body upon death. This is facilitated by Resurrection Ships, which hold many empty bodies for the Cylons’ consciousness to inhabit. When a Cylon dies, their memories and consciousness are transmitted to the nearest Resurrection Ship, where they are implanted into a new body. This makes the Cylons effectively immortal, unless they are killed too far from a Resurrection Ship or all such ships are destroyed.
Edited by
-
Editors
Andrea de Souza Lobo (https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7525-1953)Antonio Carlos de Souza Lima (https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5260-236X)
