SERIOUS WONDER | Against Technological Relinquishment (Part Three)

Editor’s Note: This article is Part Three of a series. Read Part One and Part Two.

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[easyazon-image align=”left” asin=”0091910471″ locale=”us” height=”160″ src=”http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41rs3KwMknL._SL160_.jpg” width=”99″]To be wary of the potentially-negative potentials of high technology is not to be a neo-luddite unless technological relinquishment is your chosen solution-paradigm. Indeed, if one looks they will find that most of the people making the biggest noise about concerns over the safety and ethicacy of emerging, converging and high technology are Techno-Progressives. The safe and ethical use of technology has been a predominant aspect of Transhumanism, especially Democratic Transhumanism, since at least the 1998 Transhumanist Declaration, as well as prior to that in the works of FM-2030 as well as Max More and the Extropy community. Moreover, the people and organizations that are working the hardest to analyze existential risk and Global Catastrophic Risk, and strategize how best to mitigate them (the best current solution paradigm being Bostrom’s notion of Differential Technological Development), like The Future of Humanity Institute and Lifeboat Foundation, express H+ or TechProg inclinations or else come from H+ roots. They are also the ones speaking the most frequently and making the most salient points about X-Risk and GCR.

And I don’t think all Techno-Pessimists are Neo-Luddites, nor all people who are wary of the dangerous potentialities of emerging technologies. Neo-Luddites are the very specific subset of these larger categories that advocate or endorse technological relinquishment. This is the categorical qualifier. And the only reason that technological relinquishment is a big enough concern to warrant a category distinct from Techno-Pessimists is that it is simply an ineffectual solution-paradigm, ultimately bound to fail in securing its intended end-goal.

[easyazon-image align=”left” asin=”B00BI2TASW” locale=”us” height=”160″ src=”http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41HpB-fn7kL._SL160_.jpg” width=”115″]The central problem is that any technological relinquishment will not be global technological relinquishment unless we have global governance (which itself is problematic for a variety of reasons, one being the fact that if it ripens with corruption there isn’t any other global force to do anything about it and another being that one set of policies stifles not only innovation and progress itself but also robustness by eliminating evolutionary diversity, in the sense of Universal Darwinism and necessarily not genomic and phenotypic evolution per-se). If we ban a technology to avoid its destructive capabilities then it will likely be developed somewhere else (i.e. a foreign and potentially non-democratic country) where we will have less oversight, less developmental transparency, less control over its ultimate embodiment and less potential to shape its development into one that embodies our own desires and values. This is why differential technological development is a better solution paradigm than relinquishment even if your projected end-objective is ultimately to negate or deter its destructive potentialities rather than to foster its autonomy-expanding and empowering potentialities.

Outright relinquishment just won’t work because it’s never global relinquishment, which ultimately just gives us less oversight and capability to shape its outcome into a good one. Thus even if you seek only to mitigate high technology’s dangerous potentialities (as opposed to a real desire to foster its transformatively-beneficial potentialities), then outright relinquishment only works to undermine your objective. Increased deliberation of what forms we want out technology to take and an increased effort to (1) determine what we want from technology and (2) realize it safety and ethically, in conjunction with differential technological development, is the best solution-paradigm currently on the table, regardless of whether you’re a techno-optimist or a techno-pessimist, and indeed even regardless of whether you’re a Techno-Progressive or a neo-luddite.

[easyazon-image align=”left” asin=”B00C7NLIV8″ locale=”us” height=”160″ src=”http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/519Nq5WyKpL._SL160_.jpg” width=”114″]So you can be a Techno-Pessimist Techno-Progressive. You can be very wary about NBIC technologies being used to facilitate harm or a loss or freedom, and still think that the best way forward, and the best method of mitigating emerging technology’s potentially destructive, disenfranchising or marginalizing effects is by deliberating upon (1) what constitutes the best embodiment of emerging technologies and (2) how to best shape emerging tech so as to embody our values and what we think are its best (i.e. safest, most ethical) ultimate embodiments. In such a case you’d be a Techno-Pessimist Techno-Progressive.

The emphasis on technology in H+ and TechProg communities does not come from disdain for our humanity (i.e. the silly “contempt-of-the-flesh” trope) or sheer technophilia. Rather it is because (1) we seek to better determine the determining conditions of world and of self (which are to some extent symbiontic and interconstitutive), leave more up to choice and less down to chance, and (2) because technology is simply Man’s foremost mediator of change, of effecting our affectation, and thus the best means of shaping the state of self and world for the better, whatever your definition of better happens to be.

[easyazon-image align=”left” asin=”B0098OEQ3G” locale=”us” height=”160″ src=”http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/31FCkVUevkL._SL160_.jpg” width=”160″]Techno-pessimists, Neo-Luddites, Revivalists and Relinquishists alike are not wholly wrong, just mostly. Rather the backlash against technology’s profoundly transformative potentials represents one small step in the right direction, and one giant leap left-field. So let’s unite in their plight to ignite consideration of the dangerous potentialities of technology in the eyes of humanity, but fight them when they move to stop the motion with a whimpered halt, rather than to continue the discussion with daring determination and impassioned exalt of aug and of alt.

We should not shy away from the transformative essence of high technology but instead utilize it to transform the technological landscape into one that heeds our desire for safety and ethicacy. I have argued that relinquishment simply isn’t a tenable solution-paradigm to the dangerous potentialities of high technology because relinquishment here is never relinquishment everywhere. Even if your goal is to mitigate the dangerous potentialities of high technology, your most promising solution-paradigm is not relinquishment but rather deliberative, directed development.

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September 28, 2013 By Franco Cortese

About the author

Franco Cortese is a Futurist, Author, Editor, Poet and Speaker. He writes for several publications including Institute for Ethics & Emerging Technologies, H+ Magazine, and Immortal Life Magazine. He is on the coordinating committee for Zero State, and is an Adviser for Lifeboat Foundation. He is also a supporting member of the World Future Society, Humanity+, the Institute for Ethics & Emerging Technologies, Foresight Institute, Immortality Institute for Unlimited Lifespans, London Futurists, Zero State, British Longevity Society, Mormon Transhumanist Association, Turing Church, Immortalist Society, Healthy Life Extension Society and the Methuselah Foundation.

Michael

Hello mr. Cortese,

I’ve read all of your articles here with great interest but i have some trouble with some of the points being made inside of them.

In article 1 you “advise” your reader not too quote : automatically jump to out-snuff their wild-fires of panic. end quote.

My concern about this is, that when such issues are left unattended these demagogues will continue their rants and with every minute”air-time” they receive, there will be people becoming convinced of their views which in itself might lead to a public fear of tech in an unreasonable way which could lead to serious troublesome developments.

I am especially pointing out the current “iraqi situation” which in itself was started by creating fear in the public opinion for the tech being used in order to manufacture WMD’s

To stay in this region of the world, the same could be said for Iran concerning data secured by intelligence services about certain installations found there which were explained to be created solely for the construction of WMD’s (whilst other data analysts said, these might be simulations of a reactor meltdown and its safety procedures.)

Thanks to these people, nuclear energy whilst in itself a troublesome form of power, is being presented as a “bad” form of tech which not only stemmed development in the field (and as a ironic side effect the development of better safety measures)

but also deemed it only as a way to create horrible weapons.

Now if the “public” was well informed at the time about the tech itself and the possibilities concerning it, there might have been another reaction than to start a war.

Furthermore if “we” are to allow these people to keep “feeding the flame” we’ll still be defending “good” tech from our soapboxes and arguing for more development of it.

Whilst they will keep pointing out the “bad” tech and thusly confusing the general public and
about what is in our best interest to research in contradiction to what we should leave on a drawing table.

all the whilst these demagogues will still be keeping their claim on these people, since few emotions create such a strong emotional response as fear does.(and they know this)

I personally am a strong advocate for speaking out against such individuals since they do not help anything or anyone with their stance upon things.
(well maybe their wallets)

Furthermore you advise “us” to be quote “be sure to be there waiting, ready to refute their specific and untenable solutions, and not their call for fear” end quote.

Even though i do agree with you on the fact that we “should” be there in order to be able to show the public the beneficiaries of technological progression.

Your call to NOT give into their fear mongering won’t keep these people from doing it and thusly influencing the public opinion about technology or the advancement of certain fields.

And whilst “we” are agitating against the decisions made about tech which (we know/believe) will be beneficiary, on the internet and in our own “little circles” (i’m doing it right now, I’m well aware of this ;) )

We will still NEED the public in order to vote in favour of our propositions when we want to develop something further/new.

A casus concerning which clearly illustrates this is
the controversy about a electronic patient dossier here in the Netherlands.

The idea was that in order to be able to offer better care for patients and especially patients with long term ailments, the healthcare system would create ONE file which would be accessible only to the patient and their healthcare professionals.

Great idea right ? patient and professionals won’t be obstructed by the slow response which occurs when multiple organisations need to offer information about the same patient.

Cue the demagogue , who kept on going on about privacy issues and the misuse of these dossiers by “evil entities” and bla bla bla.

All of these concerns presented by this individual were easily discarded, since we could use a specific decryption method on these dossiers and by implementing a dedicated network accessible ONLY by the healthcare professionals.

I take it i don’t need to explain what happened next when the topic was handled by our political body. (hint: we still work with multiple files for one patient)

Concerning part 2 of your series.

In it you speculate that whilst we will start the development of tech based on our own “wishes and dreams”
The tech itself will surpass these and will start developing itself.

Even though this is (hopefully) true, one must keep in mind that this form of tech might differentiate in such a way from our initial design that this might lead to not being useful or even dangerous for humans to operate / live with.

Furthermore we will be there when we development starts and it will be our values defined in the soft and hardware that will steer the evolving of said AI.

So this will lead to a event that we as “parents” need to decide : will we leave our AI to develop in ways we can not foresee or will we steer it clear from things we ourselves deem inadvisable.

Because of this i have to disagree with you on the fact that the moral ambiguity of technology is a virtue.

Mainly because morals and ethics seem to be very sensitive to zeitgeist and populism.
And as such there might be a difference about what “we” want (at this time or in the future) and what the AI would want to achieve.

e.g. “nanny bot” tells child not to run across street. can’t use logic/reasoning since its a child and needs to physically restrain the child from getting injured.
Even though this sounds logical since there was a prevention of serious injury this might STILL lead towards a debate concerning restraining someone.

Unless we predefine morals, but as this might lead to paradoxes in themselves i advocate caution whilst addressing such issues.

Concerning part 3.

Even though i agree with you on the fact that relinquishment in itself isn’t a solution for mitigating the concerns about High tech, i have to admit frowning upon your “3d’s hypothesis” since WHO will lead this or take responsibility for the decisions being made ?

Software engineers like myself don’t tend to take into account possible effects our algorithms might have on a greater scale than our systems.

Since most software engineers i know tend to build them in a confined environment and as “toys” or “mind exercises” at most when it’s not for a specific goal.

Basically it’s just that we like to see what “tricks” we can learn it.

Even though this might lead into areas which (sometimes rightly so) might cause ethical concerns, the fact that we build it does sometimes lead towards a solution for a problem which in itself was never a focus but a nice little side effect.

Whilst this in a way , this form of development / discovery does abide to your “3d’s of engineering” it also at the same time breaks with it, since this will raise questions concerning the development outside of observed channels and this in itself will act as fuel to the fire for the demagogues.

I look forward to more of your writing and if you have any thoughts on my rantings please let me know.