Monthly Archives: March 2005

The Smart Mouse Conundrum

Randall Parker raises some interesting questions in reponse to the guidelines proposed for creating a human/mouse chimera:

What I find especially interesting about this report is the reticence to see animals made smarter. What is their motivation for this restriction? Is it that they do not want lab animals made intelligent because then experimentation on them would become too much like experimentation on sentient humans?

Or do they object more generally to modification of other species to make them become as smart as humans? If the latter, what are their reasons for opposing this move? Certainly one can think of reasons to oppose such a development. The human race could find its existence threatened if we genetically engineered some predator species to be as smart as we are. Imagine smart lions and tigers with no empathy for the human species hunting us down to eat. For that matter, imagine genetically engineered human psychopaths with no empathy for the human species. They already occur naturally in smaller numbers. Will some people ever choose to use biotechnology to produce offspring with little or no empathy?

There’s no question that the Yuck factor looms large in the setting of these kinds of guidelines. There is something…unsettling about the thought of a mouse that’s a little more like a human being than it should be.

But there’s something else, here. The question is — if we can make a mouse as smart as a human, should we do it? If we’re only doing so in order to perform experiments on the poor creature, then the answer is obviously no. But otherwise?

There, I’m less certain. Maybe a mouse would like to be smart like Stuart Little or Reepicheep in the Narnia books. Or maybe it would a tortured soul like Algernon, or Rodney in Susan Palwick’s The Fate of Mice. Maybe mice would rather not know about their mortality or anticipate future sufferings or remember past hardships. Maybe they evolved the way they did because a mousey life is their idea of the perfect existence.

Perhaps we would play the role of the Serpent in the Mouse Garden of Eden. But unlike the Serpent, we wouldn’t just tempt the mouse into advanced knowledge of his condition — we would force it on him. That would be a pretty nasty thing to do.

On the other hand, if there were a mouse of human level intelligence and we were to ask her whether she would like to continue as she is or go back to being like her unmodified brethren, which do you think she would pick?

Surely intelligence is more of a gift than it is a curse. But of course I think that. I’m a human. Whether smart mice would see us as the Serpent or as Prometheus remains to be determined.

Synthetic Biology

gem-dna.jpgOn Friday, Newsfactor Technology News published an article entitled, “The Bleeding Edge of Computing” which contained this speculation:

Professor Drew Endy in biological engineering at MIT says that soon we will be able to write DNA — perhaps even building and coding living organisms capable of conducting work for us on the nano-scale. It is even possible that programmers might adopt natural coding as a computer language.

“Synthetic biology” means leveraging natural structures as a way of building things on the molecular scale. “If you can write DNA, you’re no longer limited to ‘what is’ but to what you could make,” said Endy. “The science you get out of that is more than ‘Here’s this gene and what it does.’ It’s ‘What are the physical limitations of biological systems?’”

via KurzweilAI

I would expect biological systems to have some physical limitations that would keep them from being the all-purpose nanobots we futurists like to imagine. But what’s to keep an enterprising programmer from writing the code for an organism that eats carbon and excretes petroleum?

Any bets that genetic algorithms won’t be an important tool in this emerging field? Technology is coming full circle.

I recently asked:

How much tweaking is required before we consider a formerly natural organism [like yeast] to be an artificial nanobot?

Possible answer: when we move from tweaking natural genes to writing the code ourselves from scratch.

New Kurzweil Book

The Singularity Institute has the scoop on the new book by Ray Kurzweil, a follow-up to The Age of Spiritual Machines, which will be available in September:

The Singularity Is Near portrays what life will be like after this event–a human-machine civilization where our experiences shift from real reality to virtual reality and where our intelligence becomes nonbiological and trillions of times more powerful than unaided human intelligence. In practical terms, this means that aging and pollution can be reversed, hunger solved, and our bodies and environment transformed by nanotech to overcome the limitations of biology, including possibly death.

The Institute is making advanced signed copies available to donors who give $200 or more. Pretty good deal!

Or, if you want to be a cheapskate, click the link below to pre-order an unsigned copy at the normal price. You might as well pick up a couple other Kurzweil titles while you’re at it.

Why Live Longer?

Sure, this seems to be good news, but what’s really the point in adding years to our lives? Healthy life-extension advocate Reason has some thoughts:

What would I do with a thousand-year lifespan? I’d probably spend some of it trying to find a way to live longer. But I would not otherwise lack for things to do. It would take me at least 200 years to read my way through my book collection. I would like to gain mastery of mathematics, physics and chemistry. I would like to learn and practice medicine. I want to understand jurisprudence and practice law. I would like to master carpentry, plumbing and electrical skills — and build houses. I would like to master industrial design & fabrication, computers and biotechnology so as to start & operate productive businesses. I want to build financial empires. I want to learn to play musical instruments and explore the many worlds of music. I want to join and organize communities for social experimentation. I want to write great books. I want to do experimental scientific research. I want to explore the planet Earth with a deep enough knowledge of flora & fauna & geology that I can appreciate what I am seeing, hearing, smelling and touching.

He goes on to point out that it’s difficult to sell the idea of a longer lifespan to people who aren’t all that excited about life right now. Read the whole thing.

Reason’s comments about living longer remind me of what Aubrey de Grey had to say on the subject a while back:

Well, first of all I have a lot of catching up to do — all the films I haven’t seen, books I haven’t read, etc.— while I’ve been spending every spare minute in the fight against aging. But in addition, there are masses of things that I enjoy doing and will always enjoy — spending time with my wife and friends, taking a punt out on the river Cam, playing a game of Othello, etc.— and I reckon I’ll just carry on doing those things forever.

At root, the reason I’m not in favor of aging is because I like life as I know it.

Here’s to life as we know it, and life as we’ve only imagined it. I’m not sure when this place closes, but I suggest we all have at least one more round.

ITF #163

In the future…

…your overheating coffee machine will send you a helpful text message.

Futurist: M104 member Robert Hinkley, who further speculates:

And in the far far distant future, the machine will switch itself off rather than texting you a reminder of your foolishness.

Keep dreaming, Rob. Keep dreaming.

Stillness Backgrounder

Here are the answers to a few questions you might have about Stillness.

What is Stillness about?

Stillness is about the end of the world. Or, as one of the characters explains
it, not really the end of the world. Something much bigger than that…

Where does it take place?

The action moves around quite a bit: from the US to Russia to Italy to Southeast
Asia; from corporate offices to a criminal hideout to a monastery to a strip
joint, from commonplace locales to some very remote places, indeed.

Who are the characters?

We’ve got your ex-CIA agent, your super-genius kids, your corporate drone loser
who is a mere cog in machinery he can’t hope to understand, your cocktail waitress,
your antiques dealer who doubles as the head of a secret society that may hold
the key to saving the universe, your eccentric millionaire, your scientist,
your writer dying of a mysterious disease, your creepy ex-Stalin Appartchik
with a penchant for deadly games of chance, and so on.

Why publish it as a serial on your blog?

I’m having fun watching it unfold. And by not publishing it all at once, I
get to keep adding stuff and changing the ending.

What are the readers saying?

I’m so glad you asked. Check it out.

Ooh, I got a little shiver…

A week is too long to have to wait!

Terribly engaging story. Congrats.

I’ve never had all that much patience for serial stories (as they were being released, anyway). But I look forward to each new chapter of Stillness.

Reminds me…of John LeCarre.

More? Please?

Holy smokes, it’s John D. MacDonald, Stephen King, and Douglas Adams rolled into one!

One helluva story, but it really needs a copy
editor! (Wait a minute, how did that one get in there? — Phil)

Awesome. Just awesome. You rock, Phil.

No, you rock, readers. Thanks for making Stillness such a success. And for those of you who haven’t yet joined the party, here’s your big chance…

Stillness Part VI, Chapter 62

It seems that that we are at a bit of an impasse. We are all here together at my conference table—yours truly, the Frenchman, the knockout, and the freakazoid.

Oh, and of course the three boxes.

“So what game are you playing?” LeClaire asks Markku. He’s been studying the boxes for the past few seconds. He seems troubled by their presence.

Markku does not respond. Daphne looks on, half-interested, apparently secure in the knowledge that Monsieur LeClaire has things well in hand.

Vanessa has come and gone, leaving fresh hot beverages and a basket of delightful blueberry muffins in her wake. I offer them around, but there are no takers. Daphne smiles sweetly and makes some throwaway comment about watching her weight. LeClaire gives me a polite, if distracted, merci non. He’s only got eyes for the big man. For his part, Markku registers absolutely no interest in my offer.

So, having done my hostly duties, I grab one, drop it on one of the dainty little china plates that Vanessa left for each of us, split it in half, and begin applying a generous helping of butter.

Perhaps the smell of the split muffin catches Markku’s attention—although I thought they smelled pretty good anyway. Good enough to get the old stomach rumbling, anyhow. Or maybe I was buttering too loudly. I don’t know. Anyway, whatever the problem is, Markku whips around and gives me a sneer.

“Do you require food? Now?”

Well, ah, gee…I guess I do, actually. I mean, I’m not sure that I actually require it. All told, I would probably benefit from a somewhat diminished blueberry muffin intake. But dammit, this is my office. And these are my muffins. Just because this mutant bird freak shows up and starts casually talking about how impractical it would be to kill me, does that mean I have to go without eating?

In case I haven’t mentioned it lately, this entire situation sucks.

Life Expectancy on the Rise

LifeSpanmedium.jpgThe CDC is reporting a 3.6-month increase in life expectancy for children born in 2003 over children born just a year earlier.

Those born in 2003 can expect to live 77.6 years on average, up from 77.3 years in 2002 and a record high for U.S. life expectancy, according to preliminary figures from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Life expectancy is a misleading concept. It is not a good predictor of whether a child born in 2003 will die at age 77 because it doesn’t predict the state of health care at that time (or in the intervening years). It is a picture of health care today. If health care were to remain static, no improvements (or new health challenges) for the next 75 years, then it would be a decent predictor.

Even Aubrey de Grey’s most impassioned critics don’t accept a static future. There are always new developments and new challenges. Historically, our advances have outpaced the challenges:

People of both sexes born in 1900 could expect to live 47.3 years on average…

That’s a 30-year improvement in the twentieth century. Two data points don’t equal a trend, but the 3.6-month improvement between 2002 and 2003 is consistent with the 30 year per century improvement. [3.6 * 100 = 360 ; 360 / 12 = 30]

Most of the improvement in life expectancy during the twentieth century came as a result of a decline in infant mortality.

Infant mortality [between 2002 and 2003] remained relatively steady at 6.9 deaths per 1,000 live births in 2003 compared with 7 deaths per 1,000 in 2002.

Since infant mortality remained steady between the 2002 and 2003, the 3.6-month improvement had to be made at other points in the life span. That’s good news for we non-infants. But should we think of an annual improvement of 3.6 months good news? That’s sooo twentieth century. I’m expecting better as we move further into the twenty-first century.

Cloaking Device?

Like time travel (at least the going back in time part) and teleportation (as it applies to anything other than photons), invisibility has been one of those standard plots devices of casual science fiction — that is, TV and movies — with very little theoretical grounding. But that may be changing:

The idea of a cloak of invisibility that hides objects from view has long been confined to the more improbable reaches of science fiction. But electronic engineers have now come up with a way to make one.

Andrea Alù and Nader Engheta of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia say that a ‘plasmonic cover’ could render objects “nearly invisible to an observer”. Their idea remains just a proposal at this stage, but it doesn’t obviously violate any laws of physics.

“The concept is an interesting one, with several important potential applications,” says John Pendry, a physicist at Imperial College in London, UK. “It could find uses in stealth technology and camouflage.”