Transcripts For CSPAN2 Bioethics And Transhumanism 20170831

Both anciently and now, and always and is always perplexing, is what is being, end quote. Does this question apply to the being that is asking, to us . Be so and it seems so if so, and it seems so, then to paraphrase aristotle, the inquiry and perplexity in early times and now and always is this what is human being . Our panelists are christopher toll left seven, distinguished professor of philosophy, university of south carolina, charles rubin, associate professor of political science, Duquesne University and author of eclipse of man Human Extinction and the meaning of progress. Adam kuiper of the ethics and Public Policy center, editor of the new atlantis. Christopher. Thank you very much. Its a pleasure to be here. Unlike most of the panelists so far, im not a former student of leon kass. In fact, only was introduced to you yesterday morning. So i feel the need to ask permission, can i call you leon in the [laughter] thank you. Okay. With that down, nevertheless even though im not a student, i did feel a special kinship with leon yesterday. My wife and i home school our children, and i was very surprised to hear him describe so accurately at the end of the q a session our high school curriculum, first year, bible [laughter] [applause] but i, this might be on cspan, so im not going to say more about that. [laughter] so our panel title is bioethics and the transhuman future. And in an email to me, brad wilson actually also threw into the subject heading the word posthuman future just for good measure. So the question im going to ask today is what do posthuman and transhuman mean. And im going to argue that they have no meaning. Theres no condition that could reasonably be described in either of these ways. All the conditions that receive these names are either, a, impossibilities; b, deficient human conditions; or, c, amplifications but not changes of human nature as it already exists. Everything in category c is, i think, intrinsically permissible. But some of it might be impermissible because of its side effects, and much of it is impermissible in approach; that is, the ways its reasonable to expect that we could achieve instances of c are themselves often morally impermissible. And that, ill suggest at the end, tells us something familiar about our likely future. The terms posthuman and transhuman are thought to refer to a kind of being descended from or perhaps caused by or created by human beings but i no longer of that species. So we consider our generations living now and imagine various modifications and transformations of our descendants to the point at which looking forward were no longer willing to say that those descendants are human. And this is the possibility that i deny, because everything falls into one of the three categories that ive mentioned. So three imagined possibilities that seem to me to be instances of a are the following. And the first, which leon yesterday referred to as the big enchilada, just by nature gets capitalized is that our postbe human descendants will be immortal. The second possibility as related, might primarily be forms of information that can be downloaded on to various platforms. And, third, our descendants might be transformed over time by a procession of brain computer interfaces to the point that their intelligence is in some important sense artificial. Our posthuman future would then be the future of a certain kind of machine. Now, if there were entities of my of these three sorts, they would legitimately bedeserve to be called post or transhuman. Form is nevertheless immaterial and intellective soul which itself is not identical to the person that any of us is. This description of ourselves gives us the essence of what we are, were rational animals. So anything that is not a rational animal cant be one of us, and none of the three possibilities just mentioned would or could be rational animals. Therefore are, they would not be one of ours. One of us. So could they constitute a different kind of person . Rational beings that were not rational animals . I think the answer is no for i dont recognize these three imagined outcomes as real possibilities. No material persons could by their nature be immortal, because were bodily beings and we, thus, contain the inevitable seeds of our own decay and decline. So animal in this world is immortal. But neither could a principle, or person, rather, in principle be reck lickable or downloadable as software because persons are, as certain medieval theologians thought and some contemporary personalists put it, incommunicable. This idea of the incommunicability of persons concerns their intrinsic uniqueness and seem circular in an argument like this. Persons cant replicated because theyre unique. But i think the idea can be linked to the idea of Human Dignity as found in the capacity for reason and choice. Choice is, by its nature, unreplicable and nonexchangeable. A choice that you make can always only be your choice, and it couldnt be inheritedded by a clone or repeated by the realization of a piece of software on multiple platforms. Anything not numerically identical to you, that is, not the very same living organism as you that thinks that its made a choice that you made is in error. An error, in fact, that compromises that beings autonomy, saddling it with the choices to which it has not concepted. It lives under consented. It lives under an illusion. The idea of replicable persons, downloadable persons or multiple realize bl persons is a solution. It is the only way to think about immortal persons descended from us since no merely material being can be immortal. The project of keeping material beings alive forever seems cue marichal, but i think its conceptually incoherent. There are no possible beings who could reasonably be called transhuman or posthuman who would be descended from us. I think these reasons also rule out future machine persons as envisaged in Artificial Intelligence scenarios. Merely material things are replicable, and theyre not capable of free choice and rational thought since theyre entirely determined by the laws of nature. So im not really worried about the rise of machines. Although i found many of the movies that are based on that premise enjoyable. [laughter] so the idea, the things, rather, that are envisaged that really would be posthuman for thinking into the future and thinking of something that really would be reasonable to describe as posthuman, immortal persons or persons that arent rational beings, i think, are, in fact, impossibilities. Related in certain ways to those aye just discussed, julian [inaudible] and ilk mar person have argued that the top priority for any human Enhancement Program should be moral enhancement, making human beings to be a more morally developed species. Otherwise, they say, the vast new powers would likely be used for ill with extremely bad consequences. Right . Wed be still bad people, but smarter bad people. So the project, this project, i think, is also kaymer call. Morality is, in the final analysis, about having an upright will, and this isnt something that can be made to be the case for another person. Only ones own choices and active selfconstitution can make one to be a person of a morally up right character. The attempts to make human beings moral or more moral is one that, by its own nature, cant succeed. So what about b . There are modifications to human beings that are envisaged by the prophets of the posthuman that are conceivable and perhaps will be realized to some extent in the future. Prospects that, while viewed often as unambiguous benefits to human beings by their defenders are, i think, not best thought of in that way. The most plausible, maybe was, in some case, already actual concern the parameters of human reproduction as a specifically sexual process. Obviously, reproduction without sex is a reality with ivf babies comprising a notinsignificant part of the population of the developed world. Some would like to see this become more the norm both ethically and descriptively. Those who undertake to have children should do so responsibly, screening out defective children and eventually modifying embryos or gametes. Failure to do so is viewed as a clear violation of moral responsibility. And social pressure being what it is, eventually most people will agree that the best way to have children is one that puts as much power as possible into the hands of their parents and doctors in order to bring about the desired results. Among the more extreme proponents of the posthuman its sometimes suggested or argued that this process inevitably will or should give rise to human beings becoming nonsexuallyreproducing species. And here utopian philosophy apparently meets dystopian fiction, as leon has pointed out. But for a variety of reasons, we shouldnt think of the widespread loss of sexual reproduction as a gain, even if it meant that only healthy, smart, good looking children were the result. As has already been indicated to a certain extent over last two days, of the work of thinkers like leon, c. S. Lewis, paul ramsey and many catholics give reason for thinking that the activity of sexual intercourse between loving spouses is the uniquely appropriate way for human persons to come into existence. The manufacture of persons in a lab is incompatible with their dignity as existence of a thing is be called into being at will. Loving intercourse can proceed in the hope that it will come to fruition, but this is incompatible with having confidence that one will get what one wants. And if thats true in the singular case of cloning, say, or even as i think invitro fertilization, its much more so in thinking about the future of our species. For human beings to evolve in such a way that their sexual reproductive capacities fall into disally tuesday would be a disaster for Human Flourishing. So its not a posthuman, but to use a word that we find in leons work, its not posthuman, its a form of dehumanization. What makes a proposed enhancement be on side of the boundary between b, the side of i dehumanization, and c, that which is intrinsically permissible even if it might be practically illadvised or immoral in its pursuit . Almost ten years ago with Ryan Anderson in an article edited by adam kuiper, ryan and i argued that the framework for answering this question is set by those basic goods that are con tissue bitive of Human Flourishing including life and health, knowledge, aesthetic experience, work, play, friendship, marriage, personal integrity and religion. Each offers a foundational reason for action imcommensurable with the others, each reflects an aspect of our complex, variegate nature which has potentialities pointing in many different directions. Hence, enhancement proposals and projects, the point of which is to block, damage or destroy avenues of pursuit of these basic goods, we argued, are always impermissible. And those that threaten to degrade our avenues of pursuit as a side effect are to be treated with great is the mission. Any effort to make us a nonsexuallyreproducing species falls into the first category. It directly threatens the good of marriage insofar as the realization and fruit of that good is to be found in children conceived in the marital act. And there are other possibilities. The president s council noted the possibility of using drugs or other techniques to block painful memories. This seems at odds with the goods of knowledge and personal integrity. Use of such drugs isnt necessarily a step on the road to the posthuman, but one could, i think, imagine enhancements or interventions that could similarly be disto havetive of these goods. Deliberately creating a line of human beings that couldnt see or hear, for example, would be an attempt to deprive some persons of capacities that are intrinsic to our ability to seek knowledge and would also be contrary to the good of health. Less directly, i think, some proposals or possibilities that we could imagine could distort the boundaries that enables friendship on one hand and necessary forms of privacy on the other. So some current or evolving technologies do this either by creating artificial boundaries between persons or by destroying natural but essential boundaries between persons. Technologies threaten to do the former, efforts to make human beings more or even maximally transparent as in some forms of neuroimaging or scanning threaten to do the latter. But in eroding privacy, these technologies also erode the sovereignty of the self that is necessary for selfgiving in the form of truthful communication and interpersonal trust. These are technologies and not maybe directed forms of evolution, but maybe they could be made into direct forms of evolution. And one would then need to the to worry about their effect on our capacity to pursue human goods such as friendship. Where intended to erode that capacity, they would be intrinsically wrong, but even in a case of something that was a side effect that was good in another way, there would be no real reason to think of it as transcending the human condition. Still, the sort of fluidity of this category indicates the existence of category c, forms of enhancement permissible in themselves, possible and yet in no real way post or transhuman. Is there any principled way of identifying that boundary . Are there any reasonable grounds many which to be weary of possibilities in that category . I think theres both. As for the first, my proposal which is rudimentary and in need of refinement, might be Something Like this enhancements to aspects of our bodies including our brains that are instrumental to our pursuit of basic goods are, in themselves, permissible. If we consider a range of physical enhancements that might be possible, stronger, smarter or faster human beings, more fertile human beings, diseaseresistant human being, all these are possible ways of enhancing the human that really would be conducive to the pursuit of general human goods. Moreover, human beings might evolve in time naturally towards any or all of these states, and wed have no real reason to mourn that situation. There are probably very gray areas here, and ill mention just one that i think is kind of interesting. The human form and the human face are each and sometimes both together capable of great beauty. Could human beings be modified in ways that enhance that beauty . I think they probably could. And by my argument, that would in itself be permissible. Could they be modified for the worses esthetically . Again, yes. Some of the possible motivations make the project immoral. The decipher to make desire to make human beings ugly and, thus, the attempt to modify the human to be retill january or a feline, for example, these all seem to be, in fact, denials of that good, the good of human beauty and so intrinsically impermissible. But theres going to be a gray area here, it seems, for enhancement for the sake of the beautiful and its op opposite ad plenty of disagreement. You see this even in the most basic case of tattooing. For instance. Returning to the general question of enhancing that which is instrumental to our pursuit of good, in a sense, the field seems fairly wide open. We could enhance human being into the future in many ways that would, in the short and long run, augment our capacity for the pursuit and realization of music human goods. Yet even if we did this radically, to extents not even currently imaginable, we would not be changing our nature. Human beings are rational animal, and if our descendants are rational and living beings as they would need to be, then they like us would also be with human beings, however different from us. So rather than sowing the seeds for the posthuman, wed be merely amplifying our naturallygiven capacities. But the field ought not to be quite so open for two reasons. First, as i pointed out in discussing the second cat goings side effects are always an issue, and even the intrinsically permissible can bring side effects that pose moral quandaries that should obviously be avoided entirely. What effect on competition and sport would enhancement of physical capacities have whether pursued as a familiar instance of this. The general difficulty of even knowing what are the possible side effects of conceivable enhancements makes responsible research in this area very difficult, almost to the point, it seems to me, of impossibility. And then there is the second reason. Its difficult to imagine really significant progress being made on the project of genetically improving human beings that doesnt involve research, experimentation and eventually interventions upon human embryos in ways that are morally wrong. Interventions to the discussion of those that are merely attempts to enhance. Again, the boundary here between enhancement enhancement and therapy is know tier obviously vague and this was mentioned yesterday, but seems to me essential. If there are to be interventions in human beings that fake our species morphology is an attempt to seek the good in news superior ways and which are not attempts to cure disease or alleviate disable, they should only be pursued with consenting human subjects. If expect that they path towardes the modified but in no way transcendent human would be much lower than we might otherwise expect. But heres my final point. I dont expect the Scientific Research will go forward only in morally permissible ways. So where genuine enhancements are at us a others opposed to futile attempts to create the possible or attempt that result in dehumanization, i expect our situation will the this. Many good things enjoyed by human beings will be the result of the amoral, unjustice and occasionally horrific actions of those human beings ancestors ask that is not opposed or transhuman situation to be in at all. Thank you. [applause] charles rubin. I am honored to be included in these panels honoring dr. Kaff and much appreciate the kidness of robby and brad in inviting me. Unlike so many other on these panels, my facetoface contact with dr. Cass has been quite limit. I thought i would win the least contact with him until but i am nonetheless deeply and gratefully indebted to him. His voice is one of those that i am in dialogue with in my head as im writing a presentation like im making for you today. I hope what im about to say does justice to the gratitude i feel to him, but i guess i have also have to say that the peter lawlers voice is the other the other guy in these interior monologues. He is usually considerably less patient than mr. Cass. More critical. More likely to point out the weakness of my faith, but greatly valued for all of that. Today we see wide interest in and Ongoing Research and development of artificially intelligent robots as companions, as caregivers, as sexual partners. Japan has become famous but is hardly alone, for developing caregiver robots to deal with the oncoming deficit of its own citizens for look after an aging population but its happening all over. In yesterday in the Scientific American blogs there was a posting headlined, grandmas little robot, machines that can read and react to social cues may be more seasonable companions and caregivers, and i know this audience will appreciate the great caution of that formulation. They may be more acceptable as companions and caregivers. Mean while, it seems to be an absolute truance among academic futurists that robots are the next big thing in the sex trade and creation of sex bot is is ongoing. Actual results have quite a gap between the sensationalistic claims of the headline and the actual achievements visible in the photographs and the videos that appear accompanying these stories on legitimate web sites. But nevertheless, the effort is ongoing and it is backed by powerful commercial and in the case of the care giving robots, medical motives. At the same time there are impressive developments in the field of Artificial Intelligence as has been high lighted be selfdriving cars, on the streets of pittsburgh these days, a program that plays go at the highest levels, various highquality medical diagnostic systems that have come online as it were. These are admittedly not examples of what is usually called strong a. I. , that is artificial intelligent that shows Something Like the full range of the ability of the human mind. But increasingly these expert systems style a. I. S are developed through programming techniques that allow them in effect to teach themselves which to me, at least, suggests the possible of developing far more wideranging intellectual ability in future and not necessarily very distant point. In short, given the notoriously rapid raid of Technological Development in the longer term may be that an effort to create an artificial humanlike mind is not a fools errand and could be matched with a virtual body, an on, screen body that under limited circumstances might be mistaken for human in an onscreen encounter and in the not distant future im confident these avatars will be convincing so it would be like talking to someone youre skyping with. Real embodiment is farther off than those working on the field seem to think. These people often seem to fall prey to a kind of syndrome when promoting their own works be i have no doubt of human inning unit to try um here. The achievement with a robot in a humanlike mind and humanlike body would be great advance from the perspective of those who advocate a transhuman or posthuman future, a future when intelligence is not bound to the human body. Note that the drive for these humanlike robots has little for the most part to do with these transhuman and post human as separations. Aspirations. Now in Popular Culture it is firmly established the future includes the development of these kind of robotic beings and has been for some time. Its any understanding that great many of those engaged in development of a. I. And robotics cringe at the notion that either a. I. Or the robot itself would have to be humanlike. A selfdriving car, for example, does not need a robot taxi driver chomping on at artificial cigar at the wheel in order to work, and even the emotionally riff applications of Artificial Intelligence would not have to push the boundaries of modeling as closely as possible, both human and intellectual and physical capacities. After all, we know that people already engage in sex acts with objects and inned ininenat inanimate objects and dahls. Many of the emotionally supportive robots being developed model human and animal interactions rather than humanhuman interacts and their embodiments correspond to that. Of course, the nurse robot would not have to look like a human nurse to take a temperature or give an injection or issue you medication. We should take note Popular Culture seriously because our imagines push at not unreason whether i in the opposite direction. Its our particular physicality that allows to us perform the many assist stave assist stiff function that the same physicality calls for as it fails. Our bodies and minds allow us to use the tools and play the many roles that human beings require of each other because we are minded and embodied in the way we are. In addition, of course, the familiar form of our physicality provides the potential for being comforting or pleasurable in and of itself. Popular culture has also wondered about the moral status of these very humanlike robots. And academic culture is beginning to catch0. En more and more you see articles with the title wow will robots have rights or should robots have rights. Thats the common rubric so far. If we sought moral grounds on which to distinguish robots from humans we might think about distinctions between Artificial Intelligence and natural intelligence, or behavioral that appears to be conscious versus actually having selfconsonousness. These would be familiar categories with which to frame these kind of questions. Today i want to propose we might do well to introduce a less familiar category in these condition texts, soul. For seems to me that soul allows to us confront the challenges that humanlike robots will present to us, at least as well, and probably better, than thinking about them in terms of a. I. Or consciousness. To start out we need to consider, albeit, schematically, why people think about souls. Without meaning to slight the role of revelation, talk of soul arises pete is in my head talk of soul arises naturally out of the various perennial human questions about perennial human experiencesment how we maintain an identity despite physical changes. What accounts for our sense of being whole, edition spite the fact we experience all the time the fact that we are manifestly collections of parts that do not actually always work that well together, and most fundmently for our present purposes, we wonder how it is that we are different from cats and the cats are different from stones. We talk about soul because, first of all, we want to get in some way at the fact that animals embody beings as they are,under unlike stones, an mat, and to that extent, have we are, the think, unlike nails in our ability to make deliberate or intentional choices to, to act creatively to cop found expectations to be torn to have immore at that time longing to name a few distinctions. So we have a soul that in some way probably with respect to intellect, transcends the animal, allows us a certain kind of freedom. What this soul is may be mysterious. It may be not unlike the cosmologists dark matter. That is to say, when we look at the heavens were seeing the results of this dark matter all the time, even though we never see the dark matter itself, at least not so far. So, too, with the soul, which may be present to us all the time and still be elusive. Now, present company excepted, i think its fair to say now the soul is not an interesting concept for most philosophers. Less for scientists and a lot of religious people seem to have given up on it. But that does not mean that most of us have stopped noticing that cats are not stones, right . And that people are not cats. There are some who are working very hard not to notice that, but for the most part this is still our experience of the world. Today we try to explain those experiences that led us to soul by talking about consciousness or selfconsciousness instead of soul. We speak of consciousness in stead of soul today not because from the start the fundamental human experiences that lead to soul talk have change but largely because of raymond mar tint and john documented in the book naturalization of the soul modern philosophers want to give an account of human things that was free of the mysteries mysteries of the immaterial soul. Here they arguelock was important in introducing a concept of consciousness that critics took it to be a direct attack at the notion of an immaterial soul. The authors might have said more about hobbs than they, but in any case for those who followed hawk, loce, it would be possible to explain human beings on purely materialistic and deterministic grounds. Human consciousless, like cats, stones, and Everything Else we observe in nature, ought to be explicable in terms of matter and motion, what we call human freedom becomes a product of our ignorance of causes. Some day well come to see our illusory it is and immore at that time longings will be replace his sciences infinite task of determining the causes of things. Consciousness ultimately promises to explain many of the things that souls tend to explain but ultimately the explanations are explaining away. That day may be coming but has not yet arrived. The promissory note still is out. People deeply school in the topic of consciousness argue about what it is and where it comes from. Of hard cor upon nothing graphy, Supreme Court justice famously observed, even if hi could not do fine is, i know it as a see and it as the debate over animal con shoeness exists we are not sure we know consciousness even when we see it. The most telling indication of this impasse for mees that now there are some who in the face of these questions and uncertainties want to argue that consciousness, like soul, is actually an illusion. We can only be quite conscious of the fact we have very little understanding of consciousness. To that extent most of the histories of human bum the soul was there to talk about remain with us. Now, that those ongoing mysteries in the face of the replacement of soul by consciousness help us to understand, i think, why a. I. Developers turn away from talking in turn about consciousness. In so doing they implicitly or explicitly follow the lead of alan touring who separated the issue of intelligence from the issue of consciousness in this is say computing, machinery and intelligence. He wrote, do not wish to give the impression i think there is no mystery about consciousness. But i do not think these mysteries necessarily need to be solved before we can answer the question with which we are concerned in this paper. Now, the question in this paper, following the behavioral orientation then on the rise in psychology, was, could there be a con not could there be a conscious machine or even could there be a thinking machine, but, rather in effect, could people be convinced that a machine was thinking in the same way that we think. Hence the touring test. A simplified version of which confronts a person with an Artificial Intelligence to see if the person can tell if he is talking to a computer or a fellow human being. If he cannot, the computer has Artificial Intelligence by tourings definition. We cannot clarify consciousness, perhaps were on firmer ground with a. I. Its further useful to think that a. I. From the point of view of developers could be seen as a fullment of the materialist promise with respect to consciousness. We understand more or less the materialestic foundations upon chit which it is build, funks in a deterministic way. Vindicates the idea that we know what we make. A. I. That appears to think at we think by doing what we do is all around us, and quite impressive. Again, all but autonomously driving cars, but the last airplane that you flew on was flown and landed largely by an Artificial Intelligence. They play chess and Computer Games at the highest levels. They win jeopardy, and the same computer that wins jeopardy develops recipes. Its an a. I. That is taking orders for your phone pharmacy, providing customer service, correcting your spelling, finding restaurants restaurantse times. A. I. Is already legion and looks to be growing more sew. The Big Tech Companies are busy gobbling up smaller promising a. I. Develops companies. Im told that some of these successes have been won by abandoning the turing behavioral definition of discuresive and conversational Artificial Intelligence, and yet there is a notorious problem in this field, nicely summarized in an interview with yale ethicist wendall wallace. Im quoting hum now. It is now become a bit more confusing what the term a. I. Actually does and doesnt mean. Largely because every time a goal is reached, such as beating a human at chess, the bar gets raised. Somebody says, well, that wasnt really Artificial Intelligence. In the way that it it beat the human at test, in this case, Gary Kasparov because it didnt really play the way a human chess player would play. Insure their but even the folks in the more advanced field of Artificial Intelligence feel today were just beginning to have true Artificial Intelligence i want you to Pay Attention to that phrase, what wallace is calling true Artificial Intelligence that a lot of what we have done so far is largely automatic automating systems, and procedures that human beings have thought about in advance. So in this understanding, an Automated System looks something that true Artificial Intelligence would have. What might that be . One obvious difference is applicability over a broad range of functions and tasks. The prescription taking a. I. Cannot play a computer game. The system that lands a plane cannot drive a car. But al intend gent human could opinionly do all these things. Potentially is an important word, however. There seem to be many types of intelligence, degrees of intelligence, what form and degree of intelligence would we have to have to model what wallace is calling true Artificial Intelligence . Or again, wallace says Automated Systems follow routines of a product of previous human thought, and yet no small amount of the Human Knowledge we associate with intelligence arises only on the basis of what are in effect learned routines. We heard about them yesterday in football, marines, playing piano. Studying engineering. Maybe learned routines. What would we saginaw would be say . We have an artificially intelligent artist if he could explain itself socrates or have to do better to be true Artificial Intelligence . Now, were it not for peer pervasive discussion about the sing alert, the point at which Artificial Intelligence exceeds users to become incomprehendible to us, some liken us to chim pan seize in relationship to this coming a. I. , virus in relationship to the coming a. I. , way beyond it. We might think this kind of true Artificial Intelligence that wallace is talking about could edokayed and enhance human intelligence. We would know we were being genuine i educate if this true a. I. Could explain itself to us, could give an account of the fruits of its be intelligence. Perhaps we could have a dialogue with true Artificial Intelligence could hold a conversation with a human being that would be like a conversation between two human beings. Contrary to appearances, then, the ghost of turing could still unhaunt our search for true Artificial Intelligence machines that go beyond. If conversations with this machine suggested a selfunderstanding or indeed an obliviousness that was comparable with discussions with a real person, because real people dont always know themselves very well if it is exhibited expensallity in its create intentional litie or clueless in the use of cliches. If it in other words its novel point of view as a poupt of view situated in relationship to other points of view, or indeed was just doing mat tick dog mat tick and narrow mind, would we say its not consciousness just because we made it . The touring behavioral model has this much going for it. In practice our preliminary judgment were dealing with a fellow conscious human being is based on communication, is based on embodied appearance. So would not the question arise all the more powerfully if the machine could communicate with us in all the ways that human beings communicate, with the tone of voice, with body language, with owl all of the affect at work when we are in the world, fate that depend upon embody. Might convince us we have true a. I. And they seem to force upon is the question of consciousness again. But if we reach consciousness, we are not so far away from soul. It is only on assumption of honest material yellism and that we substituted consciousness for soul and that assumption did not gets as far as we hoped. We could conclude that because of men could appear to be very like a human being, human being is nothing more than a meat machine as some of their transhumannists would have it. We could in ms. Cass tuesday term wonder about the soul of the machine, the powers, the an mat if like i inorganic powers, think about its traffic with the world, about the signs bit which we see it create can a lived space or an action space. My intent is less to suggest that these asyet only imagined humanlike robots will have souls, then the thinking about enemy in terms of soul would be at the very least no less reasonable than if the discussion was framed like a consciousness or ai. Indeed it is more reasonable to the extent that thinking about soul allows us to have a less mediated contact with the fundamental human experiences that prompt the existential questions of our soul, or indeed to the extent it opens us up to the possibility of gratitude directed to the give of souls. It is from this opinion of view that our machines, it seems to be, would thinking about our machines would give us the richest possible understanding of the human world and understanding that extends beyond efficiency, beyond convenience, beyond choice, and the other dog mas of dogmas another our image to question how exactly robots fit into our lives. It might start us along the path 0 wonder what it means that so many souls among us and not among the least powerful and influential, are longing to replace intimate human relations of care, love, and even pleasure, with machine relationships. Unless we can take question like that seriously, the kind of question that mr. Cass taught me to, and seems me were setting offers up for a double failure in the coming world of robot caregivers and partners. Those relationships could turn out badly if in some manner these artificially Intelligent Machines end up disappointing their dependent human users, for some eventually revealed lack of humanity. Or they could turn out badly if the machine never disappoints because it is just good enough, because our expectations have been lowered just enough about our relationships. Theyve been narrowed just enough about our relationships with those with whom we have relationships of love and care. That the very satisfaction gained from the machine relationship forecloses any desire for more complex human relationships. Thank you. [applause] adam keiper. Thank you very much, professor hassing, robby george, brad wilson, and the indefatigable extras for this with conference. Thank you for your presence here especially during this difficult hour before lunch. Thank you, chris toll live for the insight. I commend to you charlie rubins book, eclipse of man, very smart explore asia of transhumannism and what it means to be human. Theres a display copy outside. The prettiest book on the table. And its available for sale at an amazon near you. I want to take a moment before starting to say just a few words at better lawler and leon cass. Peter pass a teacher and a writer who did not shy away from difficult questions. In fact, like his hero, he relished paradox, he relished it. And he helped to us understand how, for example, we americans could be darwinian and religious, even puritan, all at once. He was a warm and funny and joyful and con vival southern gentleman. I feel his loss sharply and i am deeply grateful to have known him and worked with him. I am the editor of the new atlantis, a quarterly journal whose focus is the ethical, social, temperature to all and policy dimensions of modern signs and technology. Even before my colleagues and i launched the journal 14 years ago this week, this conferences honoree, dr. Leon cass and his wife, amy, were for us cher children riched, teachers, friends and row models how to be better thinkers, writers, human beings, and better citizens. In our work in our studies of science and technology, maintenance the time we have stumbled upon some new idea, only to peer around and see the thing wes have just begun to glitch, dr. Cass hard already seen. The first essay of the new at atlanta thick, dr. Cass explored a subject relates to this panel, the use of biomedical science and technology to seek therapies and cures but also to pursue ageless bodies, happy souls and other dreams of enhancement and perfection. I wish to focus in my remarks on a specific technology, one that is central to many transhumannist visions of the future but is comparatively underdiscussed, the notion of directly uniting computers with the human nervous system. Our nerves, our sense organs, our brains. The existence of some such technologies would presumably be a prereqry sit for the transhumannists most radical schemes to download information directly into minds or upload their minds into computeer they hope to live on innorthwesterly in virtuality, and the most farout dream which puts some of the other things we talked about here to shame, most far out dream on converting the entire universe into an extended thinking entity. These notions will strike most reasonable people as strange and exciting and bizarre, maybe juvenile, comical. Of course that doesnt mean technically implausible and some smart people are betting on them, at least cursors. Darpa, which gave the world sher internet, has been working on several projects to merge minds and machines. And elon musk, the billionaire ofounded pay pal, spacex and the tesla car company, announced he is starting neuralink. Musk believes the only wail mere human beings will be able to avoid being entirely outmatched by Artificial Intelligence will be to become one with it. When it comes to robots and a. I. , this thinking is if you cant beat them, join them i want to say a little about the human meaning of technology buzz please allow me to offer a while wind tour of the history of neuroelectronnics. In the 18th century it was understand blaine is the locus of thought and electricity affected the center obvious system. The 189th center brut a refined understand offering localized brain structures and functions. Scientist learned to map parts of the brain to specific bodily activities. As well as of the cellular constitution of the system, with the eight of bet the 20th 20th center brought new techniques for imaging the brain, starting with xrays to the fmri brain scan that are wonderfully useful in medicine and make marvelous props for neuroscientists hoping to make a splash bying to the they can provide evidence of eights of human nature. This 20th century saw major advances of learning about and influencing the brain, by plunging elooked toes and wires into the living brain and taking electrical measure. S from or sending electrical impulses into the brain. Research is in area got cooking in the 1920s when a swiss physiologist found he could affect the motions and moms of animals with charges into their brains but he could affect the moods. He received a nobel prize for his work, and shared it with the father of low about my. Lobotomy. James old discovers the brains measure center as he called it the brains river of reward you. Recall hearing about his expertens on rats who would forego opportunities for food and sex if they could just tap on a lever that would activate a jolt their brains pleasure center. Just zap themselves again and again until they were exhausted. Another researcher, robert heath in he 1960s started conducting sim experiments on hulks, often maintains in louisianas state mental hospitals. He could affect patients behaviors to an astonishing agreeing so they would cohn contravene fundmental aspects of their character, then jose delgado who implanted a Great Variety of electrodes and early computer chips into the brains of animals and human beings. Rodriguez delgado was a spaniard and his most probably most famous for a stunt in which he played the part of matador, waves a red flag to goad a bull into charging him. The bull furious, angrily charged him, and then delgado, at the moment of peril, pushes a button and the bull stops in its tracks. The bulls plain had been impainted in advance with an electric detroit. Like heath, he found he could instantly and drastically sift his human subjects behaviors and moods, making them feel happy, sad sexually aggressive, anxious, relaxed. He came to believe these techniques could be refined until they could be use to fife minds for the moral improvement of the world by, at a bear minimum, eliminating irrational violence. Thought microchips could achieve that and achieve what called a psychocivillized society. Research as not expressed because its not easy to fine people willing to have invasive brain surgeries in order to have their personalities altered. Go figure. However, for some people suffering from certain diseases or severe injuries, todays neuroelectronnics offer real hope. A relatively simple technique called deep brain stimulation probably heard of this involving inserting electrodes in the brain to emit regular pulses like a pacemaker forebrain asian lows some patients with parkinsons disease and epilepsy and diskin niece ya to find relief from tremors and other systems. For amputees, including veterans, recent advance inside neuroelectronnics and robotics have led to new kind prosthetics with impressive functionality and control like arms and hand with articulating fingers, freedom and responsively to electrical impulses from muscles and nerves. Advance inside artificial sight and hearing as well and for a handful of patients suffering from lockedin syndrome, patients patients who can move just an eye or just an eyelid, or even less control over their bodies, brain computer interfaces allowing even very slow and minimal communication have offered at least a partial escape from the greatest state of dependency, an awake and sound minded heckle experience. So will these therapeutic applications lead eventually to the direct control of machines by the human mind . Might we be able to enjoy a view of our surroundings that is augmented by whatever relevant information we want or need their name of the acquaintance standing in front of you, the identity of the cultivator of a rose you have stopped to smell. Impeninsula. Ed cognitive enhancements by the ability to learn a language by downloading the knowledge instantly or disspeak wince language and enjoy dispense with language and use el telepathy. Even setting aside that its hard to find volunteers for the research there are several good reasons to be skeptical of these distant possibilities and to put my own cards on the table, i join chris in believing that transhumannist hopes are likely. Here of the 0,s to the dreams of merging minds and machines machd to even handed i offer 0,s to the objections. First 0. The brain is not a computer. Computers are logical process can devices, operate with Digital Software and hardware, but brains, even though workings rely on the transmission of electrical impulses brains are not computers. No even the newer analogies like the idea that brains are pattern matching machines, even they still grossly understate what the human brain is and does to this option, the savvy transhumannist would likely respond, well, sure, the brain is not a computer burt all that really matters for the purpose of prior jacket its working sufficiently intel general by and interpret able by computers to result in useful action in the world. Second closely relate option is they brain is staggeringly complexion, tens of billions of neurons and since the neuron are twisted and tortures you and inning entangleed witch one another, that mens the synapsis great her. There are some 100 trillion sin snaps in the brain and we will never invent safe and sufficiently sensitive techniques for gathering out of that information0. This 0, the safer have i transhumannist would likely respond, well, sure, but we neednt interface perfect live we neurons and sin naps. Many of them are in regular use and interface cruder than many orders of magnitude would be enough to help us achieve mos of the necessary purposes for what we hope to do. Third objection. This is the project is built upon a fundamentally mistaken understanding of mind. The transhumannists have inherited a car tier schapp dualism, believe in the constitutional separation of body and soul and tend to substitute nor oldfashioned word soul, tender like pattern, and if terms like pattern, and if the evens relies on shifting into the pattern of the brain, but we are in fact psychophysical unities, a line or soul where Living Pattern cannot just be sucked up and move to another substraight it can at most be simulated in a course immigration of the original. Personhood is incommunicable. To this objection, the savvy transhumannist would likely respond, well, sure, but for our at hand purposes of merging minds and minnesota that doesnt matter. We can do Amazing Things without deep debates of and without dreams dreams of we dont to be dualists who believe the mine can be transferred. We can be functional lists and the replication of the machine would be a good deal. Science fiction has done so much to shift the popular imagination, creating a widespread acceptance hat some transhumannist dreams will be possible, may be desirable could be inevitable, i want to spend my remaining time discussing a novel that helpfully and critically touches on these topics. Now, much of the fiction about brain implants is distant in ways that ick make it difficult to find lessons applicable to how we ought to live well together if they were to become a reality anytime soon. Cyber punk models are fun, movies like the matrix are blast but tend to depict worlds distant from our everyday concerns. One book that does a good job of exploring what life with brain implants mites look like if they became a reality the day of tomorrow. The novel is called feed. From an email exchanges with the author, gather the book has assigned reading in schools and is the subject of parental protests occasionally. Although feed is a darkly comic dystopia satire, its approachable since its a boy meets girl love story. The books narrator, teenager named titus, is a high school student, like everyone we nearly everyone we need he has an implant in this brain. The implants are normally instant certained during very early childhood, soon after bier. This Impact Technology does away witch the need for certain pharmaceuticals since you can descends tithe yourself to pain if you have a headache. You can use it to experience the same sort of affects of drinking or recreational drugs might offer. On demand. The implant also connects you to the feed, system that feeds information direct lie into your brain. Their feed allows people communicate with one another without speaking aloudment allows for enjoyment of entertainment like Virtual Reality grahams, transmitting full sensory experience. Allows the shaving and storing and sharing of your individual memories so that instead of boring your friends with your vacation photos, you can bore them with your fully physically felt vacation experiences. And all of this wonders are made possible by and for the sake of the feeds constant stream of advertising and shopping opportunities. Our narrator, titus, and a small group of friend goods on vacation during spring break, taking a trip to the moon, a place that at this point is pass say. The first line of the book. Went to m the moon to have fun but turned out the moon completely sucked. Since dr. Cass taught its page attention to the first lines of great books its remarkable thats the books first sentence. It makes you wonder immediately about what kind of people these are. But the moon does not completely suck because they do meet a new girl, new girl, violet, who tickets tight us and his mail and female friend biz her chargingly weird whit and her beauty. She is, as they say, meg youch. Not long after they meet her the group of friends hanging out a lunar party spot encounters a terrorist who disables several peoples implants, including those of titus, veronica and their friend. Athey awaiter repairers they have to spend several days in the hospital ward without the constant flow of entertainments and ads they typically enjoy. The gang horses around, make up games, squabble with one another go frustrated, and titus and veronica become closer. When theyre reconnected to the feed its an ecstatic reextortionation, titus nave racing the feed was pouring in on us now, all of it, owl of the feed we could feel, our favorites and files and mchat lines came down on us like water. Came down like spring rains and we were dancing and in it, dancing in it like rain and we couldnt stop laughing and running our hands across our body, feelening the again and i saw vielet almost historical with laughter. We held hands and danced. The teenager return home and titus veronica go out and get to know one another and their families and the differences between them. Titus is normal. He goes to a Normal School and and has normal friends and does normal things. Violet, though, is hopeschooled. Her forever is a professor of the dead languages, not greek and lattin but basic and fortran. [laughter] they dont have much money. Titus is bored by everything and unworried by anything. Violet is curious about everything and worried about the world. And most importantly, titus entire life has been shaped by the feed and violet received the implant at age seven after her brain and mind has been shaped . Orbit important ways. Her implant was more sense tonight to the hacking attack and the slow degradation and failing of her implant means her life is in danger. She is dying. Titus doesnt know how to handle this emotionally jarring news about the girl he likes and responds by growing cold towards her. They break up but in the becomes final chapters as her implants capacity dwindles, titus visits her and with regret promise to remember her and tell her story. But the quick sketch of the novels plot, just very bare bones account. A very richer story than the her yesterday summary suggests but here are a few of the surprising lessons the novel offers how we might live and live together if brain implants were to be arrayment. First you might expect the brain implants and the feed technology to enable the world most intense kind of helicopter parenting. Right . Imagine being able to snoop in on your childs most intimate thoughts and feelings directly . But in the novel itself seems the feed makes possible very hands off parenting. The parentings take a very laissezfaire approach to raising kids. Second, you might expect that children with access to the feed would be smart and sophisticated sin they enjoy access to all the worlds information. That certainly how the technology was originally sold to the public, at least thats how titus recounts hit. His explanation people were excited when they first came out with feeds. It was all da da da, this big educational thingda, da da, your child with heal thed a advantage thats one of the great thing about the feed, you can be super smart without working. You can look thingses up automatic, like learning what battles in the civil war George Washington fought in. If titus and his friend are typical, the presence of the feed has created incurious shallow children were flat soles and base desires. If you can learn anything instantly, what need there is for the kind schools where heads are filled with information . And so instead at school titus and his friends learn about how the world can be used, like mainly how to use our feeds, how to Work Technology and how to find bargains and what is the best way to get a job and how to decorate our bedroom . Maybe the next panel on education will take up this question. Indeed, titus is at his most eloquent when describing products that he is shopping for. Very very attentive to look and feel of what he wants to buy, an excellent consumer. It isnt fair to say theyre failing to be hard working. Just that the feed has normal liesed laziness. Some virtues cease to be virtues when vices cease to be vices. Third, while you might think that people would be temped to live entirely in Virtual Reality, physicality is still very much part of normal life. Most of this takes plains wees people miami one another and the enticement of Virtual Reality, not do away if a our socially embodied nature and seek out the presence of other and the idea of virtual sex is not mentioned in at the book, fascinating omission. Titus, shallow and stupid though hi may by, is still less loudishs then his fairgrounds and hi description of violet talk badly physical prepares, from he notice this slouch of her post tour or the softness of her arm, even here his observation seems to be immediatate the presence of the feed. In the initial meeting when the first meet he ick attracted to her and one of those odd telling details that lovers well recognize, he find herd back, he spine, to be particularly fetching. But he cant quite think of the right word to describe it. The feed citizen suggests the word supple. And certainly after that the feed seps sends him an advertising for a car scrubbing supple upholstery and were left wondering was at the ad called it bobs baas he wanted the word supple or the add edited with the word supple insert because titus sought the word, or was the very thought about violet and her back and its suppleness was that very thought itself a creation of the feed . Intended to direct, to nudge titus toward the ad . Toward a purchase. Ill return to that disturbing possibility in a moment. Lets talk about civic and political life. You might expect that people with widespread telepathic brain implants capable of directly sharing their minds deepest feelings and long is might achieve a wonderful harmony, like a grand combination of general will and emersons oversoul and like george gallups craziest dreams of democracy by polling. But the america deticketted in feed is a place where politics is stupid, where the president is a demagogue who speaks in platitudes and tends to side strep thats right ran confront crises that meteor, renews outlets make it less deliberation and persuasion have given way to going sloganyearold protests. Hear the snicker. Although politic is largely in the background of the story, and as with other sat tires its best not to look too closely at the politics politics and econoe world in the novel you got the strong impression the people who live with the feed are not wellsuited to political selfgovernment. That makes good sense since they may not be personally selfgoverning anymore. A fact that has deep implications not just for the story but for the nonfiction brain implant project, and this is where ill end. We have seen already that brain implants in the novel can be violated through hacking attacks. There are hints that corporations who run the feed and perhaps hackers can infiltrate minds at night during dreams. The suggestion of external influence in the store of the word supple leaves us with an ambiguous sense of the minds integrate. Our idea of human freedom is predicated on the understanding that humans can be rational beings and understanding that in turn presumes the integrate of our rational minds. To be sure, our rational minds are always susceptible to external experiences, ebenezer scrooge might be undigested bit of peat, a fragmentment of undone potato. City study of colors affect on the mood. Vans pack yard warned about they want to nudge us into making decisions they prefer. But we could always respond to these sorts of thing biz telling yourselves that, yes, such things might fake it bus our rational minds can rise intact above them. Them weleak to overcome them we to accept brain implants permitting twoway communication as depicted in feed would be to permit the possibility of that our minds integrity could be violated in ways we not always ourselves be in the best position to know. We human beings are enmeshed in complex webs of relationships and embodied in flash that grows and ages and dies, and our freedom and unfreedom, our rationality and subrationallity, are bound up together. To accept the kinds of brain implants that would permit direct manipulation of mental state order electronic thats transhumannists long for in the hopes of becoming more rational or taking one step further toward becoming pure, bodyless mind, is just as likely to leave our minds vulnerable to physical manipulations that subvert or rationality up in leaving behind the supposed cage of the body, we may find that we have created for ourselves a strange new prison and lost the only key. Thank you. [applause] questions. Can you hear in the . Is this mic working . Its dead . Can you hear me . Who cannot hear me . Are the microphones position okay. Questions, please. Lady in the center. Yeah. Host thank you. For both a very thought provoking and also informative talk. I have learned so much today about what scientists are dreaming of doing, and wraps all of you have addressed the question of what you think is possible and what you think is permissible i was hoping you could dress the question of what the underlying motivations are that are driving it. From christopher we learned that scientist are trying to take human subjects and create something that is artificial and nonhuman . Different from what is actually given, and if we could just get all of the scientists into one room for a conversation and especially if we are leaving that conversation, that we might end in be able to get these scientists to glory in the humanity of the humans and the artificiality of the nonhuman. But until that happens could you give us some insight into what is driving the motivations of these scientists so that we can learn how to converse with them . I will take that first. The motivations are as you would imagine complicated. In some ways they are tied up with the deeply philanthropic project of medicine, of healing, in ways that are very complicated. I remember i was at a conference maybe a decade ago, charlie was there and we had dinner with a scientist who was working on the neuroscience of intelligence, and was hoping to invent, as i recall, some sort of drug that could enhance human intelligence. And as we discussed this and i think even challenged the possibility and wondered about his motivations, he said look, here you are at this table, at this academic conference enjoying this nice dinner. Youve got some kind of intelligence already but there are lots of people out there who dont have it. My motivation is an title charitable. I want to and highly charitable. I want to help raise their iqs. For other researchers doing other parts of the transhumance project i would say it is, their motivation is a natural outgrowth of the draconian mission to relieve the estate of man, but i think you could argue that may be they ought to think more deeply about whether mans estate ought to be relieved in its entirety, which i think is arguably the most distant goal, the transhumanist and posthumanist. I would just add to the medical motive that adam mentioned. As he said in his talk there are military motivations as well. In a world where Fighter Pilots have to make splitsecond decisions, anything that conveyed that decision more quickly to the Artificial Intelligence that already flying the plane is going to be extremely useful. And then there are just plain commercial motivations, right . Ai is an important element of commerce. And so just to have a profitable company, to keep at the cutting edge, to have an event over ones competitors, thats a very powerful motivation. I would just say that it doesnt seem to me that there need to be anymore nor less than the usual range of motivations that human beings do everything for. Some people do things or money, for pleasure, for the good of their fellow human beings across a long range of different possibilities, for the sake of knowledge, for the sake of health, sometime for the sake of friendship we have the station if we could usually understand each others mind then we would really get along, although thats probably not true. [laughing] and as with every other case in which were faced with lots of several possibilities, the question is decide which of these motivations is reasonable and one of the recent voice to pursue the ones that are reasonable. Well, ambition, eagle, the desire to be great ego. What was their sin but pride said st. Augustine about the fallen angels. So that seems to be human, also human as well and i dont know if theres a fix for that manipulating brain matter. Benjamin. This is not a question but a comment in response to that very good question back there. Theres one more motive that we might want to think about with respect to this, and its a motive that peter lawler first taught me about, which is the motive of human restlessness. Our discomfort at sitting alone in rooms by ourselves and our desires to get our mind off ourselves in more absorbing projects. This was a very absorbing project that you have been describing to us, and that might have something to do with it. Okay. They are. Robert. Ill try to turn to speak into a question if i can. Maybe i will direct it to charlie. I was wondering if the, whats at the root of this is reductionist view of human intelligence that is to reduce human intelligence to the ability to manipulate Material World around us and ignoring the idea in the greek sense understanding or inside. I was thinking about plato in the cave analogy again that the folks anchored in the cave can respond properly to the images. What ai system can do is go out and see the id of the goods. I can gain the insight that goes god that kind of ability. One last thought. I wanted to see, because responded more recent than i have, but jr lucas, lucas and 60 tried to build on the arguments along these lines to say that what makes us not machines is exactly the fact we can it insight into mathematical truth. You can design a system to believe that every number has a successor, but we dont have any idea how to build system that can see that a number has an exception. Aassets of incident under 20 maybe we can challenge that aspect of the project and to defend the soul in the sense that you described . I certain dont have a response to the last part, i mean, i simply dont know enough. But the first part of your remark allows me to clarify that i did give a somewhat criticize a version of touring was, in fact, far more reductionist even then make him out to be as the reductionist. As farce hes concerned, there is no point if one wants Artificial Intelligence to worry about anybody at all. Thats just a distraction. And so there is a very severe reduction of intelligence to just ability to communicate on any particularly given topic that the one in engaged in the conversation might want to communicate in. So i think that yes, indeed, i mean theres a tremendous turning away in turing from beans that if you really wanted to take a truly behavioral approach, right, to understanding human things you would have to pay a tremendous amount of attention. Turing just wasnt interested. I dont think you will disagree with this at all, rob, but i think it is, theres a danger in words like insight because theres easily appropriated to describe things that, in fact, cant be done by machines, say on one side, or animals on the other side. The realization that you can stick the piece of grass into the at tail looks like inside. It is a kind of insight. Figure up with the boundaries between the kind of insight that can and cant be done by purely material systems on one side and not rational system or animals on the site because thats really where the big intellectual problem is. Thank you very much, all of you, for the fascinating presentation. We spoke yesterday about arrows being somehow central to the human being and human agency and human longing eros and perhaps freedom. And for all living on temperaments comment about insight and intelligence being central to humanity, i wonder how these virgins may affect the death of eros merging was. When adam talked about the supple leather in the car advertisement and the suppleness of the young womans back, it seemed to me that a mind with an implant could say why do i have to do with the supple woman when i can just buy a car with supple leather and not have to invest around with the messiness of love and eros . Then i thought, ive actually heard people say relations of that to me. So i wondered if you could speak about the death of eros from these technologies . Thank you. Thanks for that easy question. [laughing] i think you are right, karen, to see a connection between that question, your question, in the previous question about creativity. There is a deep connection between eros and the kind of creativity that both human beings and nonhuman animals engage in if we can use the word creativity, and i think we can to describe certain kinds of animal activity. You know, the death of eros is a story thats been told again and again, and its hard to keep a good eros down. [laughing] certainly in the, the novel, you get the sense that while it may sometimes be misdirected, it hasnt gone away entirely. I think that some of the worries about erotic misdirection, im thinking here of some of alan blooms concerns, have not disappeared but have not been as civilization ending leak dire as maybe were foretold. In no small part because of the kinds of beings we are. Its not easy to overcome our given nature, or if you prefer, to overcome millions of years of evolution. You know, eros is here to stay, but the question of its connection to different kinds of creativity is a very difficult one, for all the reasons chris just mentioned. We dont understand anything about creativity. If you read the literature about creativity have Artificial Intelligence, its awful. The people who write this stuff dont understand human creativity and did understand machine creativity and that understand that when they talk about machines that are composing music or making paintings, its not at all what, they are just following instructions, sometimes instructions removed at some degrees and sometimes with levels of brandon is built in but they are following instructions that came from a genuinely creative being outside the because the machine itself is not something capable of the kinds of longing that creativity depends on longing that is dependent upon actually being in the world in a way that we animals are, and in a way that arartificially intelligent creations are not. I think its a really interesting question. I just want to Say Something from a much broader standpoint than adam. I think that there is a way in which some of these, the more extreme pictures, theres like obvious some more extreme pictures parasitic on christian and maybe in some cases visions of the final count what you would have if you had it all. In some of those visions can even some of the christian visions, although not all of them, are antierotic in the sense that theres the thought when you have it all, you have it all, theres nothing else to want. I think there is a real difficulty in figuring out what conception of the person is true and goes with the conception of what it would mean to find ones truest fulfillment as being an erotic being, as part of our essence, then it cant be the case that even in the final state of things we have it all anyway in way with nothing else to do or seek or to pursue or to desire. The idea that our final resting place is one that in some ways static, which is the picture of the i think that has to be wrong if it really does mean as it seems to the end of erotic longing. Well said. One wonders if the specialist pursuing this Research Even understands your point. Thats whats kind of worrisome. Im available for consultations. [laughing] leon. Thank you really for a wonderful panel, and im not surprised and not disappointed that a group of intellectuals would, at the possible transfer human future primarily through Artificial Intelligence and brain machine interactions that an academic would remind us that using one greek source, that we are rational animals. After all, but theres an older greek source they used to call human beings the mortals. This is really for chris, but for anybody else. You rather quickly set aside immortality as one of the dreams thats impossible. That may very well be right, though there are people at work in this business who think seriously the opposite. I suppose someone will have to wait and see, but it seems to me that, it seems to me that rather significant life extension, short of immortality, is very likely in the offing, given the already remarkable results that have been achieved by locating various kinds of genes that control the species specific lifespan. Could we talk about the implications for what it means to be human for a rather large extension of lifespan, where the relations among the generations would be different, the meaning of time as lived. I mean, they get of time is very great, but the perception of time extending out indefinitely before you, may be a curse. Im wondering whether all kinds of things that matter to us dont depend upon the fact that the end is rather visible if weve got eyes enough to see it. I think thats a great question and i think, im curious myself whether it illustrates the difference between the way that you approach this and the way that i would approach this. You put aside total immortality, and just think, so if we could possibly get things of that we could live a lot longer and not just in a state of decrepitude but really live, then my inclination is to approach that entirely in terms of what are the side effects of that . It seems to be that state of affairs just as such really is good. That there is enough possibility and potentiality for human beings that our horizon can be open into the very, very indefinite future in terms of what goods are available to us in a life that we could live for 100, maybe 200200, maybe 400 years. But there are some really terrible social side effects that seem to be pretty obvious about the relationship between generations and the use of resources as between the generations that should put a giant caution on things. It seems to me that in your work and the way you think about this, and this is just an invitation for you to correct me. You think more in terms of there being something good about the limited miss and mortality of individual human lives that itself needs be respected. I guess that the end of the day i dont see that. Death to me is bad. Close off a future that will still have a horizon even when its come with death is right there on my door. And just to that point, so far forth it seems to me not wrong to want to live longer, even much longer. How much . 100 a thousand years . A really long time. [laughing] you know, again the things that would start to make it seem that it was desirable to not keep going are in some sense they are accident to the keeping going, right . If you think one of the things 11 after you die is you will have a relationship with your creator, then postponing that for a long time may seem less desirable. And if you think that youre not a good enough person to be able to sustain good relationships with people for 200 years, which seems to me quite plausible [laughing] and also thats a good reason to think that they should be though seems to be accidental to the project of just sticking rather just having a longer life and having more goods available to you seems to me to be good. Last question. I mean, ive had more than my say, but [inaudible] look, to be as good and to be longer seems intuitively better. But the thing that people who think either of biology of aging or the social consequences of aging dont pay enough attention to the psychological effects of passage of time. The best tax on this i know is aristotle rhetoric book two, the young, and the old the old and those in the front. And the trouble with the old, and i will speak for them [laughing] is not just that we cant slide into second base anymore. In fact, have lost the desire even. [laughing] or that most people look at us and cant imagine that we were ever 25. But that all kinds of things go to sleep in us without our even realizing it, owing to the fact that the passage of time, and we havhad seen all of these things already. I mean, there really is something beautiful about, and if you teach you have a tremendous privilege. You see the kind of openness and newness and freshness of people who have not been jaded by having been around too long and thats quite apart from whether the society would welcome you into all sorts of things. The psychological effect, just experienced. There are some people who are blessed, the older they are, the more eager they are, they dont age. My friend here [laughing] my friend here is a youngster, psychically speaking. But hes rare. He is rare, and the question is, isnt there some kind of sense thats built into the fact that we have a time of coming up, a time of flourishing, a time of winding down, a time of letting go and making way . Cant i just say one more thing . I guess. This is a great question. Its a really interesting topic and to think one thing that it does implicate in an interesting way, in a way im a little bit suspicious of is the extent to which we think the constraints of narratives should some of be the constraints of our life. And im a little suspicious of that notion, too. It seems when the incomes if not a literary end. Its the long end. The wind incomes is not a literary end, its always the wrong end. Wind incomes to the novel, if its the right novel, if its written the right way, the end comes at the right time at the right place to suspicious that thats ever the case for us, although im sensitive to why you think that it is and should be. Do you want to take one last question . Maybe this is a very good last question. Im wondering what sort of policy regimes you might want to recommend to deal with the problems and challenges that you raised . I think thats for you. In formulating policy one does not want to get out ahead of the advances in science and technology in a way that will stultified truly humane and beneficially fences advances, and yet one doesnt want to be so lax that we can permit the advancement of science and technology in a way that we degrade or dehumanize. Youve got to do it just right. And thats very difficult in part because of what i think of as a kind of chain of uncertainties, when we think about the future. Like the future is not knowable. Just because we can conceive of something, that doesnt mean that its possible. Just because something is possible, that doesnt mean that it will happen. Even if it happens, that doesnt mean that is going to happen anything like the way it was anticipated to happen. And even if it happens in Something Like the way it was anticipated to happen, it will be all kinds of unanticipated and intended consequences. Thats very difficult for policymakers to get their heads around in a democratic republic like ours, forward thinking is not always one of our strong suits. So my advice to you, and to everyone in the room, is to be a policy journal called the new atlantis [laughing] in which we are extreme to these questions on a corley basis of subscriptions are Available Online at the new atlantis. Com. Before i invite you and our distinguished panel, let me just say that we have lunch now and then we will reassemble right back here at 2 30 for our panel on liberal education and contemporary truth seeking. So please do join in thanking our panel. [applause] [inaudible conversations] booktv recently visited capitol hill to ask members of congress what they are reading this summer. I just finished the knicks by Nathan Hooker excellent novel especially for a first novel, really talented writer and it takes place in many different worlds. I thoroughly enjoyed it. I really like reading novels, list now is some that are not novel. Somebody with a lamb or which a compilation of essays by mary i really enjoyed the mayor which was a novel she wrote. Ive read that last year, so the compilation of essays on looking forward to, my beloved world, Sonya Sotomayor is both that im ready to read that because i care a lot about the Supreme Court and then also i just picked up hunger. So thats my short list for Summer Reading. Its a real mix of things but im looking forward to devouring those in maybe going back and reading part of the nix again. Bookpeople wants to know what youre reading. Send us your Summer Reading list via twitter booktv or instagram, or post it to our facebook page, facebook. Com booktv. Booktv on cspan2, television for serious readers. When you think about a oneday festival, the National Book festival, and you have over 100 authors from childrens authors, illustrators, graphic novelists, all of these different authors, all day, over 100,000 people come in and celebrate books and reading. You cant have a better time i think. And im little prejudiced because im a librarian. But i had to tell you if the new reader or anybody that wants to get inspired, the book festival is the perfect place. Booktv slide allday coverage begin saturday at 10 a. M. With featured authors. The National Book festival Live Saturday starting at 10 a. M. Eastern on cspan2s booktv. Next, scientists predict some of the technological and a bimetal changes that may occur over the next century such as Artificial Intelligence, brain augmentation, climate change, the future spaceflight at the potential for extraterrestrial life. University of colorado posted this event. Hello. All right, so the first thing ive only done this to my son, i mess it up. You cast or not the queen of technology. You guys have cell phone, turn it off. No cell phones ring, no lights flashing. Here we go. Phones off. You know how i am about phones. All right