Book Review: Prospects for Human Survival by Willard Wells

I recently read one of the latest releases from the Lifeboat Foundation titled, Prospects for Human Survival by Willard Wells. As a member of the Lifeboat Foundation Advisory Board, I was asked to review the book. While I’m not one for doom and gloom, alas I always hold out hope for humanity, I found Prospects to be an interesting read.

This is a very casually and yet carefully written treatise based on a formula that the author, Willard Wells, has been working on for some time. A Ph. D. in Physics from Caltech with a minor in math makes Wells quite qualified in his research into an equation that can predict the half-life the human species. For those of you who enjoy math, the time spent describing the logic behind his equation is very thorough. In addition, the appendices are filled with proofs and other research to back up his thesis, which is essentially that the our technological civilization has a half-life of only 20 – 50 years, unless we implement appropriate interventions.

The major reason Wells believes this to be a possibility is the invention of AI, which he claims has a destruction potential so great that this alone may spell our doom. He assumes in this book that AI will basically ruin us unless we begin to create a kind AI, one that’s programmed to love and serve humanity. Interestingly, he calls this the Nanny AI. I’ve seen this argument before, that the only way to stop a bad AI is a good AI. However, while I understand that AI has the power to destroy us, I also don’t think truly independent thinking machines are as much of a danger as we think. First, the technology to reproduce Artificial Consciousness or Sentience hasn’t even been invented yet. And it’s not even considered possible by most computer scientists. To base our future survival rate on something that may remain in the realm of science fiction is unrealistic. At a minimum, the value it’s given in Wells’ equation is at best exaggerated.

However this book isn’t only about the threat of AI. Wells does a great job covering many other scenarios, from the gray goo nanobot takeover to nuclear war/winter. He includes global warming and biological warfare as well. He’s created a fairly complete list and has taken the time to give some conspiracy theories some thought. While many of the hazards he lists may also seem like science fiction, the exercise of thinking about them is important. At a minimum, a science fiction writer could use this book to get some great story lines, which is something Wells encourages!

And to me, that’s one of the most interesting parts of this book, the author’s encouragement that we continue to use storytelling as a way to both awaken us to the dangers technology brings to our race, as well as the solutions. Wells rightly suggests that storytelling has a purpose in our learning as a species and allows us to delve deeper into scenarios in a way that mere mathematical formulas and data crunching can’t do for us. When we tell a story, we look at the danger from the perspective of many characters, and the plotline can reveal not only solutions, but touchpoints or places where decisions must be made, or else our chance to save ourselves will pass us by. To me, Wells is brilliant to encourage such exploration in storytelling, but then again, I’m a science fiction writer for that reason—I want to look at technology from all angles and see where might be headed.

Lastly, Wells spends a decent amount of time discussing Wall Street and their technology, specifically stock traders and their quants, Wall Street’s name for their computer finance geeks. Rarely do I see this aspect of our technology mentioned in a list of dangers to humanity, but it is one of the most nefarious aspects of our society right now. Quants are designing AI that will, “know as much as possible about human nature so they can exploit human biases in their evaluation of stocks.” Wells points out that this is a powerful AI already and unfortunately resides in the realm of Wall Street, a place where lawmakers are indifferent to risks or enacting legislation. Take the 2008 economic meltdown, caused by our “too big to fail” banks. It was a disaster and those responsible were barely held accountable. Instead they were rewarded with a HUGE bailout. Quants have already created a computerized money making scheme—high frequency trading (HFT), which allows traders to exchange millions of shares on a time scale of milliseconds that no normal investor can possibly track. As Wells puts it, “It is a parasitic activity that destabilizes the system without performing any useful service to anyone. By acting on price fluctuations milliseconds before anyone else, they essentially levy a tax on everyone else.”

Why include this in our list of hazards for the human race? One, the HFT technology can completely destroy our economy which can lead to widespread disease, hunger and social meltdown. Second, our Congress doesn’t care. Spread Networks, a telecom provider recently built a high-speed fiber-optic cable between Chicago and New York, shaving 3 milliseconds off the communication time between the two cities. Who wanted this? High-frequency traders, and they were willing to pay $300M to create it, most likely knowing that Congress has no plans to shut down or legislate HFT at all. Over time, as quants develop more and more sophisticated software, without any oversight, one can only imagine where it will lead. Combined with the accumulation of immense wealth in the hands of a few, Wells is right to point this vulnerability out, because of all the threats humanity faces, economic meltdown at the hands of an AI designed to exploit us in order to make money is probably the most likely disaster that will strike us. In fact, it's almost guaranteed unless some sort of regulation on the part of our government takes place.

Overall Willard Wells has written a very readable book for those who think about the end times and want suggestions on how to prepare. His writing style is both casual and chatty, as well as mathematically rigorous. If you’re wondering what your best next steps are in the face of potential technological devastation, then I think you’ll find Prospects for Human Survival a worthwhile read.

The book can be purchased at http://amzn.to/1P4ibiE

The Social Fabric of a Technically Advanced Society

There is so much human potential. I see it everywhere I turn. Yet something seems to hold us back, ever so slightly, from actually becoming a stable species. Yes, we have come a long way, yet at this moment in time it seems we have but two choices before us, begin to cooperate and live in harmony, or destroy everything, including our planet.

I’m not sure I’m an optimist, but I don’t think spending too much time on doomsday scenarios is a good use of my time. Deep down I believe we can use our minds, hearts and technology to completely transform the human experience across the globe—taking a world where 50% live on only $2 a day and turning it into a world where technology is shared with everyone—and all humans, animals and the planet benefit from this collaboration.

Rather than label such a place utopia, can we simply agree this is the final implementation of the Technological Revolution? Long ago, we began to organize in new ways with the Agricultural Revolution. More recently, the Industrial Revolution changed humanity.We’re now in the middle of shifting into the Information Age, but as long as half of us don’t have running water, live in war torn nations, and die of curable disease, we really aren’t there. We’re half way there.

It’s like starting college and taking one hundred years to graduate. And it’s driving us insane.

How do we complete the current Technological Revolution? We can’t merely rely on technological advancement to do it, because we can’t create a new paradigm from within the old paradigm. Rather we must step out of our scarcity mentality and create a society that truly supports a technically advanced world. This is a very different social fabric than the one we see right now. Currently our currency is greed, at any cost. Technology is only pursued if there’s profit and thus most people do not benefit from the revelations we’ve made.

Our innovation is being held captive by greedy, small, fearful minds and the systems to which they cling.

To move forward and truly become a technically advanced society, we must change the story of our lives from competition to collaboration. From fear to courage. From greed to need.

Rather than focus on the end of the world, I want to look at the next evolution of humanity. We ushered in the Technological Revolution, it’s now time to complete it and make it a reality across the globe.

I’m not sure how to get there, but here are a few key aspects I think one might see if they suddenly woke up in a technically advanced society:

1.       An economic system of abundance

      

      In his article titled, The End of Capitalism Has Begun, author Paul Mason writes, “…all mainstream economics proceed from a condition of scarcity, yet the most dynamic force in our modern world, information, is abundant and wants to be free.” Of course, many classical economists mock Mason’s premise, but I think he’s on to something. If we landed on a planet with a technically advanced society, we’d see abundance everywhere, because information age would have been fully realized and it will upend everything as we know it. Our businesses since the Industrial Revolution have relied on materials and labor. Information knows nothing of such limitations. “Yet information is abundant. Information goods are freely replicable. Once a thing is made, it can be copied/pasted infinitely.” [Mason]

      We are only just beginning to see the effects of the information-based economy on our goods and labor force. What once took over 100K employees to deliver (photos developed by Kodak) now takes less than 20 people to implement and issue (Instagram.)

2.       Universal Access to Information

In a technologically advanced society, all information is retrievable in a straightforward manner. Some call it the “Great Mind” of humanity and I think it’ll be something close. Every thought, idea, invention, picture, item of legislation, etc. will be available online. Nothing can really be hidden in such a world, especially if everyone has network access. Thus the “Great Mind” grows, changes and morphs as more and more people access it, add to it, and use it. Think of Wikipedia on a grand scale. Most importantly, NO ONE is locked out. Network access is a given and every human being participates according to his/her need. In such a world our imaginations will be held as critical assets to productivity. As Mason writes, “The power of imagination will become critical. In an information society, no thought, debate or dream is wasted.”

3.       Decentralization of food, healthcare, education, currency, and manufacturing.

In other words, it’s an open sourced world. Gone are the days of limiting the distribution of life-saving technologies in order to increase the value of a company’s stock. Once the “Great Mind” is in place, anyone can begin to create their products, and then share them with everyone else. Eventually forcing all of our large, monolithic monopolies to come to terms with the fact that they no longer hold the patent, or the exclusive path, to any service. From health care to infrastructure to energy distribution, a technically advanced society is an Open Source society. I think there’s a reason Minecraft is so popular with the youth, they long for such freedom of creativity and sharing in our “real” world. Perhaps they’re on to something.

4.       Decoupling of work and personal definition

In a technically advanced society, people are imaginative and lithe. They move from task to task as their interior and exterior needs guide. No one choses a career at 18 and remains stuck in the wheel for life, for no job can really last that long. Ideas as well as society’s needs are always changing. Humans are educated to take part in shaping their world and assisting where their current skill set is needed. Yes, there will still be inventors, coders and health care workers, but other work, like cleaning up the environment, teaching the youth, raising our children, caring for our old, bringing countries online, installing renewable energy will also be important. Just as no idea is wasted in a technically advanced society, no work is beneath anyone (besides, we’ll have robots to do the nastiest, most dangerous work, right?) Nor is work the only thing that matters. The main goal of education now becomes enabling children to discover themselves and figure out how the world needs their skills, rather than being told what skills are needed. How could anyone truly know the most important skillset of the 21^st century, with technology changing the game at every turn? Better to be inspired and imaginative than intelligent, at least by today’s standards.

The arts would also flourish in a technically advanced society because artists and storytellers would be freed from forced labor to enlighten, engage and inspire the population.

Today many people spend their working lives doing jobs they think are unnecessary. As David Graber has written, we create “…bullshit jobs on little pay…” in order to prop up our current economic paradigm. We often describe ourselves as our work. A technically advanced society challenges us to describe ourselves as our skills and interests.

5.       Universal Basic Income

As I’ve written in previous blogs on the topic, I believe the disassociation of work from wages is necessary for us to free our technology and truly advance into the information age. The basic housing, food, transportation and health care costs MUST be granted to all citizens, in every nation. To see one another as worthy of life is a first step. I realize this is a hard thing, but technology demands it of us.  We won’t get there with the economics of scarcity, which is why I started this list with the Economics of Abundance. The information age is the great equalizer. The sooner we understand this and guarantee a basic income for all individuals, the sooner we can truly reap the benefits of the promise of the future.

6.       Servant Leadership

Decentralization still needs leaders, but not rulers. This is often called Servant Leadership—those who are willing to work to create space where other people’s needs are met. We currently have the mindset that to need something makes us weak, but in a technically advanced society, needs point the way towards innovation, improvement and ingenuity.

I recently worked at an education conference where George Hoffecker, co-founder of Hoffecker Burgess Consulting and advocate extraordinaire of Appreciative Inquiry, spoke of needs as “life expressing itself.” Our needs, he suggested, are life giving, but our strategies for getting our needs met can be a problem. A Servant Leader does not fix the person’s need, but instead makes space for others to express their needs and be heard. From there, solutions can be figured out together. He also suggested that a Servant Leader often hears the Yes behind the No by making the effort to understand the needs of the one who is showing resistance.

This is a very different paradigm than what we see in Washington DC right now, and I’d suggest that in a technically advanced society, the governmental structure we have would need to be dismantled. Servant Leaders need to be close to the people they work for. Local governments would become more important and Servant Leaders would spend their days with the people inspiring them to create a community that at the same time allows the freedom of the individual.

How then would we create laws that affects the whole? Who needs Congress, or the EU, when we have…

7.       Direct Democracy

With everyone connected to the network in some way, be it a telepathic neuro-implant or a Smartphone, legislation can be brought to our finger tips. Reddit-like boards will exist to allow dialogue. Servant Leaders will moderate and encourage us to be civil using tool sets like Appreciative Inquiry to enable the Internet Troll to become extinct. Laws can be recommended, shut down, or modified, and then voted upon by all subscribers. Voter registration is encouraged for all citizens, but not forced. Yes, we’ll need a great security system, and this form of democracy can only exist if the previous six items have been established. In addition, we need an EDUCATED population, but if we’ve decoupled work from identity and wages, the education of our children now has the goal of creating informed, inquisitive and imaginative members of society.

Imagine something like TPP or the Patriot Act happening under such a system. Anything can be corrupted, I know. But if our leaders are truly servants and our technology is truly open sourced, many of the issues we see now in politics are naturally removed from the picture, finally enabling us to fully embrace and implement the Information Age.

8.       A Planetary Identity

Nationality no longer has a place in a technically advanced society. We are all beings sharing the same network, information and data as well as natural resources. Information truly is the great equalizer. Take this example: 3D printing. Trade is completely different in a world of 3D printing from home. Danit Peleg, an Israeli fashion designer, just created an entire clothing line and 3D printed it from her house! Check out her video, it’s amazing and her work will change the entire fashion industry. Now, shopping becomes designing our own outfit, or purchasing designs online and printing out at home, thus creating an online fashion community, with an individual bias.  The concept of a multi-international company like The Gap selling slave made clothing falls away, leaving us with a global citizenry. We’re almost there and our social media is bringing us together faster than anything else. Her video went from 1000 views to over 1 Million in just seven days. Good ideas spread like wildfire on a global network.

Our planet's resources are shared. What happens to the people in the Congo in order to get minerals for our iPhones, matters. What happens to the Pacific Ocean garbage patch, matters. No longer can we drain the aquifers in one place without causing a drought somewhere else. We are connected, one people, one race. Rather than focus on national exceptionalism, in a technically advanced society, the people focus on human exceptionalism as stewards of one another and the land, and all cultures are shared and honored. We are the people of Earth. Once we understand that at our core, we will see the promise of technology finally shed its shackles, and we will truly become a technically advanced society.