Do We Really Want EVERYONE to Live Forever?

“To those who can hear me, I say, do not despair

The misery that is now upon us is but the passing of greed

The bitterness of men who fear the way of human progress

The hate of men will pass, and dictators die

And the power they took from the people will return to the people

And so long as men die, liberty will never perish.”

~Lyrics from ‘Iron Sky’ by Paolo Nutini

Immortality. The end of death. Calico. Radical life extension. These are the topics near and dear to many of our greatest minds. At its heart, this is the dream of a future time where man no longer succumbs to biological death.

Our desire to beat death is not new. Long have we tried to avoid it, even though death is the only guarantee in life. Not all will drive a Tesla, study at university or even get to eat today, but everyone will die. It is our constant companion. Some learn to live with this inevitability, focusing on the now. Others make all sorts of deals with various spiritual practices in order to ensure the after-life is pleasant. Still others wake each morning in fear of their deaths, unable to live fully because they’re analyzing every activity from the stand point of whether or not it will keep the Grim Reaper at bay.

In the end , we all die. Yet our efforts to avoid life’s final moments have not been in vain. Through science we have changed the game of life significantly. Thanks to vaccines and antibiotics, we’ve added decades to human living. While this has consequences on human evolution and biological reproduction, one thing is clear—we are already living longer. Death still comes for all, but we’ve radically extended human life by conquering the virus and bacterial worlds on a fairly significant level. Have we eradicated disease? No. But we have made progress. The average life expectancy in 2018 is 79 years. In 1920 it was 54.

Yet as long as death still makes her final call, many see time as against us. There are radical life extension programs popping up everywhere. Some focus on genetic cures, others on eradicating disease, others on hormones or organ replacement therapies. Many look to the Singularity, or a merging of our consciousness with machines, to bring the solution. Whatever it is, humanity has long chased this dream and there aren’t any signs of it stopping.

Yet as we march towards an immortal utopia, I can’t help wondering if it’s a good idea. Individually, I’m not sure I’d want to live forever, so as long as there were laws that ensured I could opt out of immortality, I’m fine with progress continuing down this path. But before we get too far, I think we need to ask ourselves, “Do we really want EVERYONE to live forever?”

Now before ya’ll start screaming eugenics, I’m not talking about whether or not some group or race is worthy of immortality. Technology is to be shared, and anytime a single group hoards it, we all suffer. What I’ve been thinking about is the effects of immortality on governance. Because if there’s one thing we can all agree on, it’s that those in power like to stay in power. Death is one of the only ways we can get rid of them. And if a bad leader can’t die, because we’re no longer capable of dying, then how in the world do we recover from devastating leadership?

We don’t have to think like a sci-fi writer to work this out. Right now we can see the effects of improved longevity and poor leadership within the American political and business sectors. Men, and a few women, who refuse to leave their posts as they grow older. Who remain in power, even though there are able bodied folks much younger than them ready to lead. Who refuse to even groom the next generation because they have no intention of stepping down until—you guessed it—death herself forces their hands.

Take the US Congress. A recent study done by Quorum, a public affairs platform, states the following:

“Today the average American is 20 years younger than their representative in Congress. This should come as no surprise, considering that over the past 30 years the average age of a Member of Congress has increased with almost every new Congress. In 1981, the average age of a Representative was 49 and the average of a Senator was 53. Today, the average age of a Representative is 57 and the average of a Senator is 61.”

Further breakdown shows that within the Democratic Party, the average age is actually 72 years, whereas the Republicans hold an average age of 48. Why is that? I think the emergence of the Tea Party within the Republican Party, which can be seen as a reformation on that party’s politics, did a fairly good job of sweeping out the old, for better or worse. The Democrats haven’t had that type of insurgence take over—yet.

It appears that by and large, congressional Baby Boomers aren’t letting go, unless forced to do so as the Tea Party candidates can attest. Unless someone kills them, or their careers, they’re not going anywhere. Only cancer, party rebellion, or a homosexual affair, will get them to leave.

Not only does this create a power vacuum where no new ideas can come to life, it also prevents the younger generations from taking their rightful place at the table. We’ve had one  sort-of Gen X president, Barack Obama (technically he might be a Boomer, as he was born in '61 and most consider '63 as the Gen X cutoff), who is now 56 years old, yet the election of 2016 gave us Trump (69 at that time), Hillary (68) and Bernie, who was a whopping 74 years old.

Where are the younger Democrats? Are they not involved, or is all the gold going to the elders? Is anyone mentoring them and preparing them to take the reins, or will Generation X be skipped completely, with Millennials taking office at age 60 when the Baby Boomers finally die?

This is an issue, especially in a world where the most powerful have access to the latest life extension technologies. A dictator used to need sons to continue his tyranny, and even then a son could end up being too weak to continue the path. The same thing went with our kings. Good ideas die with people, tis true, but bad ideas need death as a reset, do they not?

I’m not saying we should stop seeking the philosopher’s stone. By all means, keep at it you alchemists of medicine, physics and engineering. But as a society, we need to prepare ourselves for the eventuality that those in power will stay in power, forever, unless we set up restrictions now.

In a society where the life expectancy is already 79, term limits are needed more than ever. Not forced retirement, but forced rotation of work. People will need to keep themselves busy during their golden years (which are now at least 40 years long) and there’s only so much golf that can be played, unless you’re the President of the United States, of course. But we need to encourage people to step down after a certain amount of time. We limit the presidency, we need to limit congress as well as the judiciary branches. A retirement age based on years of service, not an arbitrary age, seems appropriate.

It’s easy to imagine how horrible it would have been if Hitler, Pol Pot or Stalin had lived forever. How about a world where the same people are elected over and over, never stepping down, allowing in the random whipper snapper when a seat becomes vacant? How can one person understand a lifetime of technological and medical advancements at every turn? How can someone stay up-to-date, in order to serve the people and understand the cultural phenomena as they emerge?

Oh wait, no need to imagine such a dismal state of affairs.

I think the Zuckerberg trials made it abundantly clear that we’re already letting our leaders lead for too long—and it will only get worse when death’s kiss is no longer felt on this earth.

The TV Series Humans: A Deep Look into Our Humanity

[MAJOR, HUGE Spoiler Alert]

I recently binge watched my first TV series, Humans, which airs Sunday nights on AMC. As a science fiction writer myself, many people have been suggesting I check it out for weeks now. Finally I gave in, sat down on the couch, and watched the first six episodes over the course of two days. Not bad for a mother of two. And now, two weeks later, I’ve finished the entire first season.

First and foremost, this is a lovely science fiction TV series. Well written, acted and produced, it was a joy to have something to look forward to on Sunday nights. From the X-Files like opening credits to the way consciousness, both “real” and “artificial” are intertwined, I found myself interested on many various levels.

Humans is the story of a world where robots have become a standard appliance in the household. Called Synths, these robots have all the capacities to cook, clean, harvest food, drive cars, care for children, administer medicine, have sex and basically do everything humans can, except love. They aren’t true artificial intelligence, think Siri inside of a mannequin, but they look so much like real humans, one doesn’t even know the difference during sex!

This choice in itself is very telling—why would we want our servants to look like us? Shouldn’t a machine look like, well a machine? I’ve always imagined my household robot to look like Rosie from the Jetsons, or C3P0, but not Barbie and Ken. The fact that Synths look just like the most beautiful of us, but act like programmed machines without fear or emotions, makes the plot more compelling. Synths aren’t able to lie, or disobey the orders of their primary users. They’re completely complicit in all actions, even in sex. Which leads to all sorts of human abuse, from whorehouses to Smash Clubs, where humans can pay a fee to beat Synths with a baseball bat for fun.

The writers of Humans cover a ton in this opening season. Within the first hour, we’re introduced to four main sets of characters, each with their own relationships to Synths covering a range of emotions—from jealousy to adoration—all for inanimate objects built to serve them.

The Hawkins family is at the center of this drama. Laura Hawkins is an attorney who travels a lot for work. Her husband, Joe, is often left behind caring for the family while trying to balance office employment as well. Their eldest child, Mattie, is a brilliant high school upperclassman who can hack into Synths, and other computer systems, at will. Her idea of fun is hanging out on a Hackers website downloading code to make the Synths at her school steal equipment, or fail at their jobs. Toby, her younger high school aged brother, is your typical adolescent male—awkward and horny, yet kind and earnest in a sweet way. Their last child, Sophie, is in grade school, eight years old at most, and still needs her family to care for her in ways they all seem too busy to handle.

The series starts with Laura’s most recent trip away going longer than intended and Joe not wanting to be the mother while she’s away. So off the Hawkins go, to the local Synth store, to pick up their very own, brand new Synth. This Synth, whom Sophie eventually names Anita, happens to be beautiful, charming and much better at everything it seems, than Laura.

The writers of Humans play with this idea a bit in each of the first five episodes—how inadequate Laura feels to Anita when it comes to homemaking. Even though Laura is excellent at her career, she’s triggered by her children’s love for the Synth (Sophie would rather Anita put her to bed and Toby himself forms a crush on the beautiful robot.) Rather than bring them closer together, Joe’s purchase adds stress and tension to an already overloaded family life.  It seems the Synth’s existence puts parenting, and marriage, at risk of becoming redundant.

Another aspect of relationship covered is sexuality. Toby’s crush on a robot displays the innocence of loving something that can’t love you back. Joe eventually falls for Anita as well, using her sexually to make up for the distance that seems to be getting bigger between him and his wife. When Laura eventually discovers that Joe has, “initiated the Adult Sequence,” she’s angry and hurt. He can’t understand why, because after all, Anita’s, “…just a sex toy.” Laura’s response is startling, “She cares for our children, and you call her a sex toy?
”

It isn’t just the women who are made to feel inadequate by their Synth companions. Detective Pete Drummond finds himself in a similar situation, only the Synth in his house is Simon, given to his wife, Jill, after an accident injured her ability use her legs. The Health Service mandated a Synth in the home until she gets better. Simon thus helps the injured Jill in ways that Peter thinks should be his role. His feelings of inadequacy are succinctly summarized in his line, “I’m an analog man in a digital world. I’m redundant.” Just like Laura, he feels replaced, and his partner has left him for a droid that had been forced into their house by the insurance company.

Which brings us to the last home we’re introduced to, George Millican and his Synth, Odi, one of the first Synths ever made. Odi is a Class D model, which happens to be the series that George himself helped to make. But Odi is getting old, falling apart, and losing his memory. Not unlike an aging man, he is no longer able to care for George, who is an old man himself. Yet George loves him dearly, just like a son. Because George has had a stroke, he’s on a Health Service plan and is required to upgrade his Synth to a newer model, one that will follow his General Practitioner’s orders without question, and force him to take his meds, get to bed on time, and eat only approved food. The irony that his own invention would eventually remove all his personal freedoms is not lost. It’s everyone’s worst nightmare and in some ways is worse than losing your job to automation—losing your right to choose your health care protocol is no small matter.

But Humans isn’t only about Synths and their uses in the home. It’s also about artificial intelligence and true consciousness. For Anita, the Hawking’s Synth, isn’t a brand new model, rather she’s part of a special group of Synths that were given true consciousness by their maker, David Elster, who was the mastermind behind the Synth project. He’d lured George from MIT to work with him, eventually creating the early Class D models. But Elster desired more from his project—he planned to create true consciousness within Synths, and George wanted no part of that. He left the project, but it seems that ten years later, Elster did have his way, and managed to create five perfectly conscious Synths, robots who can think, feel and understand the world they live in.

Anita is one of these, stolen from her owner, Leo Esther, reprogrammed and sold to the Hawkins. Leo, along with one of her “siblings” Max, is trying to get her back. In addition, two of her other “siblings”, Fred and Niska, were also stolen and put back into the Synth world. Both are pretending to be normal Synths, while waiting for Leo to rescue them.

These four special Synths, plus Leo, have been on the run since David Elster, who is also Leo’s father, committed suicide for reasons yet unknown. Humanity in general would fear them if they discovered their true essence. And of course, the government officials want them for various nefarious reasons, and often it seems there is nowhere for them to be safe.

And then there’s Karen Voss—a truly conscious Synth who’s been undercover as a Human detective working alongside Pete Drummond for some time. Why isn’t she with Leo and the others? Her maker is one and the same, but through rejection and the insanity of Elster, she lives alone for most of her life trying to find a way to fit into the human world without blowing her cover. She’s lonely and fears her own kind. How Drummond, who hates Synths, comes to still trust and care for her even after he knows the truth is a glance at what it will take in the future for us to overcome the technological xenophobia that surely must be on the horizon.

All three households, as well as Leo’s gang of perfect Synths, come together while trying to avoid being caught by the government, who wants to own them. Along the way their activities address the deepest issues of our humanity. It would take another thousand words to address all of them, but I’d like to end with a few quotes that I think hit on some of the key themes of the series.

First, when confronted with killing a man after spending days being abused in a whorehouse, Niska, the beautiful, fully conscious blonde replies, “You act as though life cannot be manufactured.”

Second, when the Mattie asks Max, “What’s it like to be you?” he responds with a smile, “Fearful. Intense. Like my emotions are too big. What’s it like to be an adolescent girl?”

She looks at him, shrugs and replies, “The same.”

I highly recommend the Humans. If you haven’t watched it, sorry for the spoilers. The good news is, there are only eight episodes in the first season, so you can catch up very quickly before the fall. Enjoy!

Sex is Fun! The Future of Family Planning

"Sex is natural sex is good, not everybody does it, but everybody should..."

~ George Michael

 

I’ve been thinking lately a lot about sex and family planning in the age of genetic testing, IVF and other advancements. It all started with a conversation I had a few months back with a beautiful, young, Silicon Valley startup founder who is female and fast approaching thirty-six years of age. She told me that she had already frozen her eggs once and was considering doing another round as insurance to her future as a mother. “Right now is not a good time to have a child,” she’d said. “We’re about to consider another round of investment in the company and that means more hours in the office for me.” I thought about it and agreed—to birth a brand new business and a baby at the same time seems like setting yourself up for failure. When I was a young professional though, women didn’t talk like this. We didn’t have the option to freeze our eggs for the future, and even though I’m only five years older than the lovely executive, I entered the realm of professional motherhood long ago, before such technology was considered mainstream. 

Next, I ran across an article about Apple and Facebook, which have begun to offer the benefit of freezing eggs to female employees. Wow! How times change. I began to wonder, what would I have done if this had been an option when I was just getting started? I’m not sure. Would I have saved my eggs for later, in exchange for investing myself in my career back then?

This past week, the idea of saving off your eggs, and sperm, was in the news again. Carl Djerassi, the “father of the pill” has been quoted as saying,

"Women in their twenties will first choose this approach [in vitro fertilization, IVF] as insurance, providing them with freedom in the light of professional decisions, or the absence of the right partner, or the inexorably ticking of the biological clock…For them the separation between sex and reproduction will be 100 percent."

The article continues by giving the reasons for this family planning choice, that both men and women will opt to harvest their eggs and sperm in their twenties, before sterilizing themselves. Then, later in life, they’ll use genetic screening combined with IVF to begin their families when the time is right.

I understand the career aspect for women, but why would men do this? I’ve spoken to several twenty something males who’ve answered in a very similar manner—they really can’t afford children. Combine their high student debt with a poor job market and this generation can’t afford a house, much less a child. So saving off their sperm and getting a vasectomy allows them to have a girlfriend, without the fear of brining a kid along for the very bumpy financial ride called Millennial life after college.

Thus it appears that the current generation is all for this idea. IVF is working fairly well for infertile couples, why not wait and use the technology in this way for fertile couples? I think that this is mostly a good idea, but it also lacks the realities of those who’ve found themselves in their 40’s longing for a child, but unable to conceive. IVF takes a toll on the female body, and it doesn’t always work. Miscarriage is painful to the heart and the entire process can suck the joy of living right out from under you. Until it works, and then the pain was worth it. But sometimes, it doesn't work and the couple finds themselves out $40,000 and looking at other options.

Yet I can still see this as our future. With the technology to screen for disease, we’re already running down the path of normally fertile couples using IVF as a means to conceive. Add the fact that both male and female Millennials are interested in postponing parenthood for financial reasons, and it’s not crazy to imagine a world where sex is 100% for fun.

And here’s one more thing to consider…the ectowomb. As author and Transhumanist Zoltan Istvan wrote in his highly successful article on the subject, “So, here’s a prediction: Instead of adapting our jobs to accommodate the demands of biology, we will adapt our biology to accommodate the demands of our jobs. The fact that only women can give the gift of life is an enviable distinction, yet it is also a burden that can make it harder for working mothers to reach the pinnacle of their professions. One way to ease this burden would be to move away from pregnancy as we know it and toward a reliance on artificial wombs.”

Wow! Can you imagine it? Known as ectogenesis, this technology would allow women to be as old as they wanted when they started their families, and avoid some of the hardships of IVF. In addition, men could start a family with a new sense of freedom as well. This is still in the realm of science fiction, but IVF and designer babies were once myth as well.

Many people are against these sorts of technologies and I understand that. Raising children is seen as sacred, why change the way it’s been done for millions of years? But I’m not in the business of maintaining the current moral standards, instead I’m one who looks into the future, asks “what if?” and follows the line of thinking right down the rabbit hole. I myself will not partake in these family planning adventures. I’ve had my children and am in the homestretch at this point in time. But who knows, maybe my “grandchildren” won’t arrive in the traditional way at the traditional time. Perhaps instead they’ll come from an ectowomb when my son is 60 years old himself? Would I love him, or the child, any less? Hell no! Life is life and precious to me, regardless of the path it has taken to get here.

I Voted Today: Big Fucking Deal

It’s Election Day in good ol’ America. Yippee. Hooray. And yes, I voted, but not because I felt strongly about any one candidate or proposition on the ballot. It was my friend Greg Zerkis’ Facebook status that got me to drag my ass into the polling station.

He wrote, “If you fail to vote then you are failing democracy. If you don't like the options, run for office.”

Well, thanks a lot Greg. Way to guilt trip me. Obviously there are a million reasons why I can’t run for office—I’ve smoked marijuana and enjoyed it, I have no religious affiliation, I have two children so I can be easily threatened by dark operatives if necessary, I’m not afraid to drop the F-Bomb, I don't think sex is dirty and support alternative lifestyles to traditional marriage, I have no political connections, I can’t abide red tape, partisan nonsense, or illogical ideologies even the slightest bit without wanting to strangle someone and most of all, NONE of the parties on the ballot represent my views.

That’s right, NONE of them. I went into the booth today and was disappointed to see only two choices for each office—Democrat or Republican. Really? That’s the best we can do? Vanilla or chocolate? Not a single Independent, Green or Libertarian. Hell, not even a Peace and Unity party candidate. It was bland and dismal. The same names, the same faces. To make matters worse, I’ve watched enough Abby Martin, Jon Stewart, Bill Moyers and even Fox News to know that Democrats and Republicans aren’t really different. Sure, their sound bytes during elections are crafted by their handlers in order to make us believe we have a choice, but in the issues that really matter at this juncture in time, like the military industrial complex, citizen rights, the environment, education and campaign finance, they’re pretty much on the same page.

So I went into the voting booth, which was really just a shaky table with blinders on either side, and cast my votes almost randomly. Well not entirely, I’d investigated the propositions before hand. I left the polling place, holding my “I Voted!” sticker wondering, “If none of the parties really represent my truest values as a human being, what party platform would?”

Dare I ask myself such a question? Yes, I dare, and as I drove home surrounded by redwoods and Santa Cruz Mountain beauty, what I need from my leaders became crystal clear. In an attempt to both celebrate this glorious day that represents all that’s beautiful in democracy, I’ve taken the time to write them down. So Greg, not only did you get me to vote, you also inspired this week’s blog.

A political party that I could get behind with all my heart and mind would have the following platform:

1.    Human and planetary health and wellness are the cornerstones of our strength as a nation.

2.    Investments in technology, engineering and science will create the tools necessary to implement a nation of engaged, vital human beings.

3.    Investments in the arts support our quest for a technically advanced society, for we recognize that art is the vehicle for true innovation and creativity.

4.    The education of every person is guaranteed and educators are supported and rewarded for their work.

5.    Money is a story we have all agreed upon, and we’re willing to change that story for the good of all, regardless of profit margins or long dead economic theories.

6.    Local governments are trusted and empowered to carry out 1-5 to the best of their abilities, for they will have intimate knowledge and understanding of what the people of any given region need to thrive.

Each of these ideas can be worked into more details, but I think this covers what I want from my government. If human and planetary health were the most important goals of our society, we could begin to tackle homelessness, hunger, poverty, environmental destruction, pollution, agriculture, animal husbandry, illness, health care, child care and elder care, to name a few. With the health of every person and the planet guiding our policies, rather than profit or money, the nation would be different. I put it first because then we’d know how to invest in technologies that enable free and clean energy, affordable health care for all, and a chance at a meaningful life. Joblessness and debt would eventually be addressed as well, because we’d be willing to invest in the arts, teachers and education, creating an extraordinary workforce capable of inventing and seeing the solutions of the future.

And most importantly, if we had the courage to rethink the story of our money, and trust to let it go and rewrite a new, more egalitarian and modern version of currency, we’d see local and crypto currencies flourish, and even de-growth policies would be allowed because the stock market and quarterly profits would be declared nonsense, illogical and even dangerous on a finite planet with a growing population.

Lastly, why emphasize local governments? Because I believe that within the community of neighbors, we know how best to use technology, education and currencies to take advantage of our specific location on the planet. The internet has made us global, and that’s a good thing—by combining open sourced technology at a global level with educational, environmental, and humanitarian policies at the local level, we can move towards a place where the terroir of humanity is kept alive and thriving, rather than a complete standardization of what it means to be human. Thus the dance of technology and individualism can be kept alive, rather than one forcing it’s hand against the other.

If these are my values, then what political party choices do I have? I think a blend of The Venus Project, the Green Party, the Libertarian Party and the Transhumanist Party, recently formed by Bay Area local, Zoltan Istvan. I know, I should just pick one, but each individually seems lacking. If I ever ran for office, I'd need a platform founded on the six basic sentiments I’ve listed above. What would I call it? I have no idea.

What I do know is that all of the Third Parties deserve our time and attention, for the bi-partisanship of Washington DC has failed us miserably. Perhaps as some of these independent movements gain steam, I’ll be drawn to support one of them whole-heartedly. Until then, I’ll just keep dreaming.

The Right to Choose

I dedicated my research today to the subject of wearables and was pleased to find that way cooler things than the Apple Watch are out there. From jewelry like objects that can use your body’s energy to recharge your cell phone to the famous magnetic finger implants that are all the rage within the biohacker community, people are obviously interested in manipulating and changing the human body in brand new ways. What impresses me most are the potential implantable technologies of the future. Wearables are really just a stepping stone for bringing the technology outside of us, inside of us, and forever changing the human being.

It got me thinking, is this really a new trend? Humans have been modifying their bodies since the beginning of time. Egyptians removed their body hair, makeup has been a mainstay for both men and women, our founding fathers wore powdered wigs and breast and butt augmentation are becoming the norm. I color my hair differently to pass the seasons and have several tattoos, as well as pierced ears.

Modifying the body is a very human thing to do. We are creating and re-creating constantly.

So the addition of computer interfaces, eye scans, RFIDs and nanobots into our physical being seems like the next step in our evolution. We are a species that takes our technology and experiments upon ourselves. This is the reason we can effect the world the way we do—we’re intrusive in our experimentation.

Yet part of me hesitates, the way I do about plastic surgery or shaving my legs. Why must I change this body? Why can’t I just be happy with what is, with what I am?

I’m caught between the thrill of advancement and wanting to just Be.

I believe very strongly that this next wave of technological enhancements to the human form—by which I mean the point where wearables become implants—will change the entire face of the human race. While it comes from the ancient impulse to change and craft ourselves, it will have the power to create a whole new species. The difference between those who chose to adopt these technologies into their bodies and those who don’t will be much greater than the differences between those who are tattooed and those who aren’t. Famous actresses may change their looks to remain young, but they aren’t really younger. In the future, there is the potential they actually could be younger through technology.

I don’t fear our future and I encourage technological advancement. To stop humans from their path of creativity is wrong. Yet it would be even more wrong to force implants into someone who doesn’t want them. The key is choice. We need to begin to get comfortable with others choosing paths different from ours. Rather than judge that woman for having Botox, respect her decision. Rather than state there’s only one way to love, or one way to be married, or one way to look, or one way to worship God, we need to move into a place where we can just be with ourselves, and one another, without judgement.

If we can’t get over telling others how to live their lives, then the future isn’t so bright. As technology finds its way into our bodies, our xenophobia will turn from the current divisions of race, sex, and religion to those who chose to adopt and the non-adopters. Given that adopters will most likely be more technically advanced, they’ll find themselves in a place of power, which often leads to domination.

If someone doesn’t want to jump on that ship, if someone would like to live a simple life unplugged from the systems, defining technology to their own beat, then they should be allowed to do it. The freedom to chose what goes into our bodies must be held sacred, no matter how far technology advances.

We’re still having a hard time allowing people to chose their path in freedom. Let’s work as hard on the skill of acceptance as we are on our scientific advancements.

Time For An Aging Upgrade

It seems everyone I meet is afraid of growing old. It’s so bad that even thirty-six year old women bemoan that they’re reaching the age of no return, unless they can get married and have a child soon. There’s a race in our society to accomplish as much as we can, as soon as we can, because once we hit forty, we’re doomed.

Doomed from promotion, if you’re a salesperson. Doomed from motherhood, if you haven’t conceived yet. Doomed from starring in a Hollywood movie, if you’re an actress. Even in Silicon Valley, the race continues, and if you haven’t created some new great app and sold your company by the age of thirty, you might as well hang it up old man.

Personally, I think this behavior is incredibly silly. Most would say that our society encourages this insane idea that life is over by forty through advertising, media and entertainment. That advertising never worked on me. Even when I was younger, I wondered why people seemed to give it their all until middle age and then either turn to treatment after treatment to stay “young”, or let it all go and grow unhealthy quickly, as if waiting for Death to knock on their door at any minute.

The truth is, Death isn’t going to knock on our door at forty. Or even fifty. Nor is life even close to being over at middle age. What if our obsession with youth has nothing to do with what’s sold to us? What if instead, it’s an old, biologically based fear that lives within us so deeply, we don’t notice it? 

What if our consciousness hasn't caught up to the fact that humans in the Information Age live much longer than we’re programmed to think?

In the 1900’s, the average life expectancy for a male in America was 46.3. Women got a few extra years, 48.3. As the nation grew, so did the life expectancy, little by little. By 1920, the average male lived to be 53. Slowly the age went up to the 60’s by the late 1940’s and when our fathers were born, the average was at an all time high of 66!

This meant that during the advent of our entertainment, business and advertising sectors, people really did die between 40 – 50 years of age, quite regularly. So it was true back then that if one didn’t achieve their dreams by forty, they only had a few years before Death arrived and it was all over. With time, this sort of thing became the expectation—and our dreams, hopes and visions as a people went with it. But along with the growth of our nation came improvements in health care, vaccinations and medical innovation. Science has changed the game.

Fast-forward to today and you’ll find that life expectancy has gone up, even in the past few years. In 2009 it was 78.6, in 2010 it was 79! This means that we’ve gained an extra 30 + years in a little over a century! And it certainly means that life isn’t over at forty and if you buy into that lie, you have almost forty years of waiting around for a death that just isn’t going to happen as soon as you think.

It gets even better. In my own circle, many of the grandparents are nearing 100 when they die. In our family alone we had a grandmother live to be 92, another almost 97, an uncle who was 96 and a third matriarch who passed at 101!

When I look at these numbers I don’t feel the least bit old at forty-two. Not even close. Hell, I’m not even halfway there. I look back at all I’ve done in four decades with the satisfaction of knowing that I get to do all that, and more, in the four decades to come. Imagine it! All the people I’ve met and all the people I’ve yet to know. All the things I’ve seen, and the big wide world still waiting. All the love I’ve shared, and the intense amount of love I have yet to experience. It’s like I have a second life that's just begun. In many ways, my questions are those of the high school senior. What shall I study? Where shall I live? What's my next step as I venture out once again?

Of course, Death can take anyone at any time. Accidents happen. Cancer, heart attacks and other modern plagues are concerns. But if we’re aging naturally, which is how most of us are going to experience life, then why in the world do we race to get it all done by forty?

Personally, I can’t sit around for the next sixty years assuming I missed my chance. Every precious minute of my life is my chance.

It’s time for us to re-boot our life expectations, embrace our humanity and expect to live much longer than we ever have on this good, green Earth. Life isn’t over at forty, or fifty or even sixty. Life is long and we’re all better for it.

Besides, I haven’t even begun to take into account the Singularity, which we all know is just around the corner…

Book Review: The Transhumanist Wager by Zoltan Istvan

Finally, after two months of summer parenting duties, I’ve found time to review another independent author’s work. This time around I’ve chosen, “The Transhumanist Wager” by Zoltan Istvan. I had the pleasure of meeting Zoltan at a Transhumanism conference near Berkeley, CA. In general, he’s a staunch advocate of the Transhuman movement and his blogs on the Huffington Post often get a rise out of people. To put it simply, Zoltan is passionate about his work and he doesn’t mind stepping on a few toes to get his message out there. As a matter of fact, the more toes stepped upon, the more people discuss his blog, which in the end is a good thing when you’re trying to get people to think about the future.

The parallels between Zoltan and his main character, Jethro Knights, are not lost on anyone who’s followed him. Yet Jethro is indeed his own man in many, many ways. A young college co-ed at the beginning of the novel, Jethro Knights prides himself on his perfect ability to reason. His love and devotion to logic are obvious, to the point that any conclusion that considers human emotions is silly and meaningless to him. He views humanity through a lense that makes him an outcast at best. No one could possibly ever understand such a detached human being. Many have compared Istvan’s work to “Atlas Shrugged” by Ayn Rand but I would disagree. Jethro Knights is not John Gault at all. “The Fountainhead” would be the more appropriate Rand analogy to "The Transhumanist Wager"-- Jethro Knights is Howard Roark, purely devoted to his craft, without the sado-masochistic love relationship.

Disgusted by the religiously biased current in his curriculum, and the government as a whole, Jethro leaves the university, after pissing off some very important people, and makes his way around the world on a sailboat he’s rebuilt by hand. During his sojourn, the United States government invests in a War on Transhumanism, fighting against science and any gains it might make to improve human life.

While overseas, in a surprising moment of weakness for this otherwise emotionless man, Jethro meets Zoe Bach, and falls in love with her, despite his own war on irrationality that he’s been waging his entire life. Some have said this love story is unreasonable, for nothing is more irrational than falling in love, but I find Zoe, and her relationship with Jethro, to be one of the most delightful, and insightful story lines in the book. While her presence in the story is too short, her impact was lasting for me. It was Zoe’s take on life, which she accurately calls “Quantum Zen,” that showed the most obvious path to immortality. Much more than Jethro’s avid atheism, which is just as narrow-minded as the Christian doctrines his antagonists carry with them, Zoe’s outlook on life, aging and death were engaging, interesting and full of potential.

Which brings me to the narrow-minded Christian antagonists-- they’re developed slowly within the storyline, and we don’t actually get to see them in full action until Jethro returns to the US and takes up his mantle as the new face for the Transhuman Movement. At that point Jethro becomes Enemy Number 1 of the state, and enter Reverend Belinas, your typical sleazy televangelist. The kind of Christian that makes you go, “Yuck.” On many fronts, Istvan is accurate in describing the zealous nature that drives Belinas to commit crime in the name of the Lord. Belinas is exactly the reason we need the separation of Church and State—people like him often throw out Christ’s entire message of peace and love for the one line in the Bible where the prophet declared, “Only through me shall man enter the kingdom of heaven,” thus giving Christians the right to manipulate politics to their dogma, since that’s the only way to get to heaven.

“The Transhumanist Wager” tackles this aspect of our society in a scathingly honest way. I have no doubt that the reason our governments spends .65 of every tax dollar on the war machine rather than on infrastructure, technology and education, is to further zealous idealisms like the ones Reverend Belinas supports. This sort of intrusive thinking is also what limits technological research and fuels the anti-science movement we’re witnessing. From the tone in this novel, I can see that Istvan is very concerned about this religious-political environment and how it will affect his dreams of living forever. Jethro Knights likens it to genocide of sorts-- that denying people the right to radical life extensions due to religious fears is a form of murder on the part of those in power.

Overall, the technology in “The Transhumanist Wager” is fun to think about. Transhumania, the sea city Utopia Jethro is forced to build in order to invest in Transhuman technologies without government intrusion, is every libertarian's dream.

But there’s a glaring hypocrisy I simply cannot ignore-- Jethro Knight’s relentless belief that his way of life is the only way of life feels very similar to Reverend Belinas’ worldview. One places his belief in an unseen God while the other places his in an unproven science. It's ironic when atheists, or those who believe only in science, use the same language as a religious zealot to justify their choices. To be against any way of life other than yours is simply intolerance, whether religious, racial or technical. There’s a scene in the novel where the Reverend is torturing Jethro, ready to kill him, in order to protect the evolution he thinks humanity should take. In that moment I of course sided with Jethro; I don’t believe that killing others to support my way of life is justified. Yet only a few chapters later, when Jethro is released and back on his heavily armed floating city, he issues an ultimatum to the world that is so eerily similar in language as Belinas, I had to laugh at the hypocrisy.

True, Jethro wasn’t calling all Christians to evangelize the world. Instead, he was calling all of those who were willing to produce and work hard for an immortal future to evangelize the world. If you didn’t agree with him, or perhaps were just lazy, then you weren’t needed. You were expendable. Yes, perhaps even murderable. For in the future according to Jethro Knights, only the capable are needed. The rest are nothing to him and taking up resources. Best to simply kill them off.

To me, this is the polarization that has kept humanity back for centuries. As long as we look at one another as either with us or against us, we’ll be limited in our growth. As long as we see our technology as either evil or good, we’ll never make the next great leap. True, we’ll keep inventing interesting stuff to control or kill one another, but to great destruction and unnecessary expense.

In my opinion, “The Transhumanist Wager” let me down at the very end not because it’s written poorly, nor because I don’t agree with the fantastic vision that Istvan has for our future when it comes to technology, but because Jethro Knights is just another bully forcing his philosophy upon the inhabitants of the world. There’s nothing novel about a tyrant. We’ve been there, done that, over and over again.

Life shouldn’t have to be either/or anymore. We can rise up and be both/and. Philosophers call it, “neutralizing the binaries.” I like that idea. When we can move from a binary way of thinking, to a more quantum view of life, then anything becomes possible.

Alas, perhaps Istvan has hidden the key to our future in this book after all, in the form of Zoe Bach’s “Quantum Zen.” Follow her, rather than Jethro Knights, and the singularity, as well as world peace and tolerance, might just be around the corner.

I'm a Believer

I haven’t blogged in a while, mostly because I’ve been busy writing the sequel to eHuman Dawn. It seems I can’t write two things at once, or at least, I don’t believe I can. The sequel has been exciting to create and while I’m pleased to announce the first draft is finished, the final product is far from complete. Now comes the time for editing and rewriting, for pulling out scenes, adding new ones and reshaping worlds, as well as words.
   
While writing the second eHuman novel, a new thought began to circulate through my head:

“How do our beliefs shape the world as we know it?” 

At the end of eHuman Dawn, the female lead, Dawn, announces that she’s about to take on a quest to search the world for humans--those who remained in the flesh after the rest of the population Jumped into eHuman bodies. (Sorry readers, if you haven’t read the book, this might not make sense. You can remedy that unfortunate situation by purchasing it at Amazon, using regular currency, or from me using Bitcoin! Just click the appropriate button above.)

Dawn believes that someone must have avoided the Great Shift, and she’s willing to give up the role of World Leader to pursue her goal of finding what’s left of carbon based humanity. Like the whisper of a grand conspiracy theory, Dawn’s belief sets the course for the rest of her life, taking her from the victorious, immortal eHuman world into the unknown, and because he believes in her, her beloved Adam follows.

Belief is defined as, “Trust, faith or confidence in someone or something” and in my opinion, is the driving force of human life as we know it. Once, we believed that the world was flat, until someone began to believe it might be round, and set out to prove the rest of us wrong.

Once we believed that illness was literally a curse, or the devil inside of us, and healthcare was practiced accordingly. With time, curious minds began to wonder, thus believe, that perhaps something else was causing the illness. Eventually a new way of curing disease was created, but it would take decades for enough people to believe in them before antibiotics were accepted as normal.

Belief guides the scientist to invest his time into finding a new solution. Belief guides the investor to give his money to a new technology. Belief guides the population to purchase and use the innovations at hand. Any marketer knows that the adoption of a product requires teaching the consumers why the product is important before they’ll buy into it.

Belief has driven men to war against others, and encouraged humans to destroy or continue practices that are harmful. Belief is the driver of all evolution and devolution. We believe in the “survival of the fittest” and therefore have created entire economic systems based on such a belief--money that rewards the “strong” and destroys the “weak.”

My eHuman novels deal with the intersection between belief, immortality, and technology. When people ask me, “Will AI destroy us?” I answer, “Only if we believe it necessary to destroy one another.” As long as we believe some of us are good, and others aren’t even human, then there’s a good chance our AI will behave the same way.

Other readers ask me, “Could we really live forever?” I answer, “Do you believe we can?” My dear Transhumanists, here is the crux of the issue--as long as we accept that an average lifespan of seventy-six is an achievement, we’ll never live forever. Hell, we won’t make it past one hundred. Before the government will invest in life extension technologies, we the people must believe it possible. We must believe the human being has only just begun it’s ascent, and that we’re at the point where we can indeed inherit our true potential as peoples of the Earth.

Of course, immortality isn’t appealing to everyone. That’s fine. I’d reckon though that most of you reading this would like to live as long as possible, and in health and wellness. If this is true, then the place to start is your belief. Seventy-six really isn’t that long. Why not expect to live to be one hundred? Why not believe that fifty is just the half way point, instead of the end of your life? Why not live as though you’ll be on this planet forever, even if no one you know personally has done it? How many decisions would be different if you believed you’d be here for a lot longer? What would you do now to live a more meaningful life? Would we, as a race, continue to destroy the environment if we believed we’d be around for a long, long time?

Whatever we believe in, we become. Whatever we believe in, we invest in. Whether it’s a government or an individual, the choices we make are based on our beliefs about ourselves, our world, and one another. 

If we begin to believe that every human being is worthy, then our AI will do the same. Perhaps then our technology will serve us and help create a cleaner, greener, more prosperous world.

If we begin to believe that one hundred is the new seventy, perhaps it would be so. What if we age merely because we expect to age, whether consciously or not?

Well, that would be something, wouldn’t it?

It's Not My Fault: The Reality of Group Evil

To create Edgar Prince, the villain in eHuman Dawn, I had to dive deep into the shadows of the mind and psyche and do some serious research on phenomena called evil. As I began work on the sequel, it became clear that to understand him better, and the world he has created, I needed to go further, and face that shadow directly within my own life and the world around me. As I surface from this journey, I've discovered something very important: One evil man does not make an evil world. We may follow him and make him our leader, (see my blog on psychopaths) but he can't be effective unless his orders are carried out by many individuals, and rarely do the orders seem purposefully evil. Instead, they often make sense from a group perspective, even if they actually cause great harm to others.

I believe in humanity and the future. I believe that our science can and will unlock secrets needed for long life and a cleaner planet. But there's also this part of me that cautions, reminding me to look at who's offering the technology before "Jumping" into it, as the process for uploading the consciousness into an eHuman body is called in my novel. In the short term, it solves the problem of death, but who will make sure the mechanized body lives forever? Who guarantees the quality of life in a programmable world?

To give our lives to technology is to give them to those who own the technology.

I cannot escape this basic truth. Do I trust those who run our corporations and governments? For those who've read eHuman Dawn, the answer is clear: No I don't. I can't because at every turn I see evidence of evil enacted on this planet in the name of the corporate profits and government sovereignty: Wars funded to protect corporate mining interests, children forced to work for no money to make cheap clothing, rain forests destroyed to raise the beef that fuels our fast food industry, ecosystems obliterated for profits and stock markets manipulated for billion dollar bonuses. This is just a small list of the ways our businesses and governments harm humanity everyday. The tendency towards group evil is far greater than the percentage of individual psychopaths in the world.

Why is this? Why are evil policies easily enacted on behalf of the group? In his profound book, "The People of The Lie," author Scott Peck, MD, makes the following observation:

"For many years it has seemed to me that human groups tend to behave in much the same ways as human individuals - except at a level that is much more primitive and immature than one might expect...Of one thing I am certain, however: that there is more than one right answer…this is to say that it is the result of multiple causes. One of those causes is the problem of specialization."

Dr. Peck goes on to explain that while specialization is the reason for groups to even exist, we can get more done together than we can alone, it is also a main reason groups are capable of evil. This is because of what Dr. Peck calls, "fragmentation of consciousness."

"Whenever the roles of individuals within groups become specialized, it becomes both possible and easy for the individual to pass the moral buck to some other part of the group…we will see this fragmentation time and time again…The plain fact of the matter is that any group will remain inevitably potentially conscienceless and evil until such a time as each and every individual holds himself or herself directly responsible for the behavior of the whole group - the organism - of which he or she is a part. We have not begun to arrive at that point."

Thus, when asked why annual inspections were not done on an oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico, the person in charge of said inspections might say, "I was told to stop doing them by my boss." When the boss is asked, he may answer, "Corporate put a hold on all inspections until further notice." Keep going up the ladder and you find yourself in the CEO's office, the one who should be responsible. But what will he say? Dr. Peck imagines an answer something like, "My actions may not seem entirely ethical, but I had to cut expenses. After all, I must be responsible to the stockholders you know. On their account I must be directed to the profit motive."

Who then decides what actions any group will take? The small investor who has no clue how the operation even works? The mutual fund owners? If so, which mutual fund? Which broker?

Who is ultimately responsible for the actions of the group?

In this light, it becomes clear that groups are immature, and in great danger of being morally bankrupt. Since over 90% of people work for an organization, most of us are in danger of passing the moral buck when it comes to our work. Add to this the fact that the majority of people would rather follow than lead, thus allowing a power vacuum that psychopaths can and often do fill, and we have an environment ripe for manipulation and exploitation. We are all part of the problem, whether we like it or not.

It worries me how easy it would be for the world of eHuman Dawn to become a reality. I don't trust the Edgar Princes, nor the Guardian Enterprises of this world, to enable technological immortality for the love of humanity. Yet, I don't believe that halting progress is the solution. There's so much yet to discover about our humanity, and the connections between our bodies, minds and the planet.

Instead of fearing technological innovation, we each need to become responsible, right here and now, for the organizations in which we live and work. Each and every one of us must stop passing the moral buck and become worthy of the technology we're creating. This is the great work that the future requires from us, if we're going to live in a world of personal liberty and freedom for all.

Whether or not your job produces technology doesn't matter. Every organization runs the risk of passing the moral buck in some way, thus creating a mentality that the evil that surrounds us isn't our fault. Each of us has the opportunity to change that group dynamic, and create mature work places and organizations that honor humanity as a whole.

The alternative could be nothing less than the complete technocratic rule of the few over the many. I think we can do better than that.
   

Where My Demons Hide

"No matter what we breed
We still are made of greed
This is my kingdom come
This is my kingdom come"

~ Imagine Dragons, "Demons"

 

I've been spending time lately diving deeper into the psyche of the villain. My novel, eHuman Dawn, is the beginning of a trilogy about the beauty and pain that are possible in a future transhumanist society. Thus understanding power and control is key to completing the trilogy in a meaningful way. Technology is making progress in leaps and bounds, not in baby steps, and it's entirely possible that in my lifetime I will have to make a choice between dying or living forever through the aid of machines. What exactly that will be like, I can only imagine. But what I do know with all my heart is that such a "transhumanist wager", as author Zoltan Istvan has coined it, is a very serious wager indeed.

To rely on technology in order to live forever and achieve total health is to rely on those who own the technology to consider our lives as precious and important. This means that business and government leaders need to care for each and everyone of us in a way that considers human consciousness and life as valuable and worthy of investment and protection.

Take an honest look at the leadership in our society today--can we trust them with our lives? With our dreams, desires and hopes? NSA surveillance, drone attacks on innocents, dictators approving genocide, business leaders willing to take risks that leave millions without an income, jobs shipped overseas, goods made in sweatshops, children forced into slavery, mountaintops blown off to heat our houses. Yes, there are great things our leaders do, but more and more we are discovering that often our leaders in business and government act without empathy, without fear and without care for humanity and the world as a whole. Their personal interests come first, and if some people suffer, so be it. Sacrificing the many for the benefit of a few has been a theme in the story of domination for centuries.
   
What sort of a person would make such cold and unfeeling decisions? Who is able to shut of their empathy to such a degree that the enslavement of children in order to manufacture goods more cheaply is considered a brilliant business decision? Who manipulates others and markets for their own advantage? In the clinical world there is a name for such a person: the psychopath--a distinct subset of humanity who supposedly can't feel love, empathy, shame or compassion. People who operate for their own advantage, to the detriment of all around them.
   
The psychopath is real, known and well documented. That many of our leaders share traits with the psychopath is not surprising. As the modern philosopher Charles Eisenstein writes in his most recent book, "Living in a system that rewards psychopathy, it is not accident that the psychopathic rise to the top, and that the psychopathic tendencies in each of us rise to the surface. It is a mistake to blame the psychopaths for our present condition; they are a result, not a cause."
   
In a world that rewards the cool, calm and collected human being, is it surprising that our top 1% seem to be distant and callous? For the rest of us, it's no coincidence the use of anti-depressants in America is at an all-time high--we all want to numb ourselves and be distant, detached and level-headed. When our story as a society is that being tough is king and feeling anything at all is for the weak, are we surprised that a businessman might be capable of shipping our jobs overseas in order to make more money for himself? It's the American myth to be independent, self seeking and self-fulfilling. To admit we need each other to grow and learn is to admit defeat.
   
Eisenstein goes on to explain, "Given any cultural trait, there are always some people who embody it in extreme form, holding up a mirror so that we can recognize it in ourselves. These would be the psychopaths."
   
At this moment in history, we are in a place of transition between the story of domination and the story of interconnectedness. The path between the two world views is not straight, it's more like a maze. There is a way out, but in order to find it, we must see the bigger picture. Many look to technology to fix this. I would agree with them, but with a bit of caution.

If we develop the technology to live forever before leaving the story of domination, then the possible future could be one of power and manipulation unlike anything we've ever seen. The ability to own us, program us and abuse us would be very great, and extremely tempting to the psychopaths in charge. The machines would hate us, outsource us and eventually render us useless, because their creators saw humanity through those eyes first. Eisenstein suggests this is because, "…our current story facilitates the rise of psychopathy and empowers the psychopath."

But what if we change our story? What if we see that we are one and begin to look upon the connections between us as powerful, rather than as a weakness? What if we begin to see that humanity with all it's knowledge and wisdom is like the internet--connected, open, free and full of possibility? Would we settle for leaders who disdain us? Would we create machines to dominate us? Or would we create a more beautiful world, where technology serves us and the planet, in harmony with the web of life that surrounds us?

To me, the greatest threat to our race is our self-loathing. Ironically, I share this in common with the villain in my novel, Edgar Prince. Yet here's how he and I differ--He thinks humanity is unable to rise up and respect one another, therefore we must be controlled into behaving. I believe we can do it, because it's what we were born to do. Where he sees weakness, I see tremendous potential.

This is a personal development issue and yet, because we are connected, it's a global one as well. To look at ourselves and one another with respect and dignity is a place to start. From there we take it, person by person, all the way to the top. And perhaps, as a result, when we get to the top we'll discover that we aren't a pyramid at all, rather we're one large web of humanity, co-creating a future of possibility, health, beauty, and most of all, mutual respect and honor. Because when we look into the mirror of the story of interconnectedness, we'll see the light of humanity in one anothers' eyes.

Can You Teach a Computer Common Sense? .PART ONE.

"In your case, most likely, a small app would have been downloaded to your 

CPU to erase your previous few days of memory. You see, eHuman
software is really very easy to manipulate.”
~Alrisha, Lead Hacktivist for the Resistance

Artificial Intelligence. It's everywhere these days. Especially in the theaters. Last month saw the release of the movie, "Her", in which the lead character falls in love with an operating system. In addition, a trailer for Johnny Depp's new movie, "Transcendence" is now available on YouTube. Depp's portrayal of a genius espousing the future of a mind greater than all the minds that have ever been on Earth is chilling.

Can this be? Can we create Artificial Intelligence that is smarter than we are? I don't mean faster, or with a better memory. Can AI have common sense? Can it foresee complex patterns? Can AI be programmed to have our ability to sense what's wrong and make choices based on instinct and past experience? What is intelligence without consciousness? Is it possible for us to create an AI that is truly evolving, truly learning and truly greater than all of us combined?

In my novel, eHuman Dawn, the AI is Neuro, a complex operating system that organizes and guides eHuman life. The eHumans are themselves a blend of AI and their own consciousness. The ideal Transhuman solution. But is such a solution possible? Or would this technology be the end of humanity?

Two readers sent me articles this week, both discussing this theme of AI and the scientific mind. Two things stood out for me: First, our computers are only as intelligent as the engineers who program them. And second, solving the complex issues of life requires more thought than passing the Turing Test or executing a mere Google Search.

Let's begin with the first idea--just how much better can our AI be than ourselves? In "The Closing of the Scientific Mind", David Gelernter voices his thoughts about leading singularity scientist Ray Kurzweil's work:  (For more on Kurzweil's mission, see my blog post, "Can Google Stop Death?")

"Whether he knows it or not, Kurzweil believes in and longs for the death of mankind. Because if things work out as he predicts, there will still be life on Earth, but no human life. To predict that a man who lives forever and is built mainly of semiconductors is still a man is like predicting that a man with stainless steel skin, a small nuclear reactor for a stomach, and an IQ of 10,000 would still be a man. In fact we have no idea what he would be."

True confession: While writing the eHuman trilogy this exact thought has crossed my mind over and over again. Are Adam Winter and The Dawn of eHumanity still human? I want them to be, but what exactly are they? The eHuman is a product of the best of science, blended with human needs and desires. Yet those needs and desires are completely under the control of the scientists who created them. Is that a real human existence?

Remember: software is only as excellent as the people who make it. Honestly. So if we want to know what AI will look like in the future, let's consider the way science has been used to meet our human needs for the past forty years.

Do we trust the scientific mind that will cut down rain forests at unsustainable rates in order to raise cattle for our fast food chains? How about the scientists in Big-Agriculture, whose minds can only create products that kill insects and weeds--forgetting about and thus possibly destroying the very insects needed for crop pollination by inadvertently causing a global colony collapse for the honey bee? Do we trust a scientific mind that can't see and understand the web of life around us, to create the web of artificial intelligence that will guide us into the future?

Many of our stories are prophetic. They tell of a future time when our AI takes over and destroys us. Why would that be? Why would we create AI that hates us and competes against us rather than cares for us and meets our needs? Why wouldn't our AI serve us and improve our lives and make things cleaner, more efficient and better for everyone? Why must our machines eventually kill us?

Alas, the answer might just lie within our own hearts, within our own intelligence, and the way we educate our children. Remember, software is only as good as the mind that creates it. If the current scientific mindset that has controlled technology for the past century is any indication, we're in trouble. Gelernter puts it this way, "Many scientists are proud of having booted man off his throne at the center of the universe and reduced him to just one more creature—an especially annoying one—in the great intergalactic zoo." AI may kill us, but only because it will mimic what its creators believe.

Artificial Intelligence can't save us from ourselves, it can only become what we are.

Therefore if we want AI with common sense, we must hire software engineers with the most common sense. If we want AI that will lead us into a prosperous future, we need scientists to care about humanity, and the planet we live on, as a whole. If we want AI that will inspire us and grow with us, we need the business community to stop caring only about profits and instead care about life in all of its complexity.

The best of humanity must take part in this quest. Not just the smartest.

Imagine an Earth where machines and people live in harmony, rather than in competition. Is that possible? Perhaps we first need to learn to live in harmony with ourselves, each other, and the world we live in. Then we can create the machines.

To be continued...