I want kids one day. I really do. Despite the fact that I’m twenty-five and the mere idea of marriage and motherhood scares me almost senseless, I know that’s where I’m headed. Or at least I hope that’s where I’m headed.
What do I mean by hope? Well, I mean that I hope that the genetic concoction that I am will be succesful in the mating game, thus rearing a competent and postitively modeled variation of myself that will, in turn, succesfully produce an even stronger and well-equipt variation of itself. In other words, I hope I do m’Darwin proud!
And who’s to say that won’t happen? After all, when you add the current technological advancements of the late twentieth-century to the domestication of all of our bestial predators, there exists virtually nothing to stop almost anyone from duplicating themselves! As far as man is concerned, it’s conquered almost every objectionable element in nature that would have stood in the way of procreation. In other other words, without nature to fear, the process of selection no longer exists. Beat it Darwin! You’re SO nineteenth century!! Unless…
One of my favorite things to do on a rainy Sunday is read the newspaper. In today’s NY Times, there was an article on the front page that immediately grabbed my attention. Entrepreneurs See A Web Guided By Common Sense, by John Markoff.
What you talkin’ ’bout, Markoff?? I thought to myself. Is this another sci-fi tale of how computers are going to take over the world and artificial intelligence is going to leave us humans in the dust, or better yet, turn us to dust with super-powered super-human magnetic minimalizers that make us midgets in mere moments?!
Though the article didn’t detail anything as dramatic as midget-making machines, it definately did spook me. It revolved around the future of the internet, and how there are secret, high-tech men out there, like Radar Network’s founder Nova Spivack, who are working night and day to create an internet that, well, works like a human.
Spivack and other techie gurus are working on the creation of what is being called Web 3.0, a new version of the internet that will not only offer users lists, but advice. In other other other words, it will be able to think like us, reason like us, and ultimately, dare I say, replace us.
Poppycock! No computer can take the place of a human being! Well, unfortunately, they already have, and in more ways than one. Just look around you for many examples of how jobs that used to be done by people are done by machines. Sure, people monitor the machines, but labor-intensive work has outdated itself. The result is an abundance of service jobs that rely upon reasoning and analytical skills. Jobs that revolve around our minds.
So, in light of these trends, there is much to fear from a world where reason can also be manufactured. If Web 3.0 is created and users can turn to their computers to answer complex questions like, “Where should I go for vacation if my husband hates beaches?”, then say goodbye to travel agents. Take this example and apply it to any service providor and you’ve obliterated an entire industrty in one fell-swoop.
And how can all of these people survive if their jobs no longer exist and, even worse, their purpose aborted?
The answer is yet to be seen, but I tell you this: The lion’s in its cage. The measles muted by meds. Nature’s done selecting, but don’t think you’re safe! Your new enemy, my friends, is yourself! Men are creating their competition and we’re choosing them daily, cause, let’s face it. Computers are the superior species. You’re looking at one now, aren’t you? Bwa-hahahaha!!!!
Posted by Rebecca White on November 12th, 2006 under Technology, Spirituality, Web, Books, Culture, Science. Comments: 5 | EMail This Post
Comments
Comment from Michael
Time: November 13, 2006, 8:09 am
Two words for you: Peak Oil. Our industrialized and automated infrastructure rests on obscenely cheap energy. If we experience an energy crunch then human labor will have great value (assuming we’re not all herded into camps during the ensuing political chaos).
Comment from ooghe
Time: November 14, 2006, 9:10 am
I think that our ideas about consciousness would change so that our understanding of what being human would change along with the awareness of Web 3.0.
I haven’t read the NYTimes article, but I was talking with a search engine designer who was getting at this concept once. It boils down to the distinction between a vast search engine and AI. How can I enter “Is the King of France bald?” into Google, and have Google respond with the fact that the question is itself in factual error. This gets at the root of the relationship between rules of language and consciousness, between just organizing data and actual “knowing”.
Web 3.0 is a literalization of someone’s best guess as to that distinction, which is a philosophy of consciousness and language. And it raises more questions as to what it means to be human than it answers. And actually, literalization is the wrong word- since Web 3.0 depends on our human understanding to have meaning, or else it would just be a bunch of numbers.
Travel agents are already largely obsolete because of the web- but computers aren’t a separate consciousness any more than the day when cavemen used bones to bust skulls it meant that “bone cyborgs” had run amok and replaced “humanity”. We just added that aspect of consciousness which allowed the use of bones to bust skulls and have that be considered a human act (and it’s not accidental that the example here is, at best, a morally neutral one- but I use it because ultimately these are questions of human *responsibility*)
The big question is whether we think what it means to be human is more than the fact that we can perceive information, reason, and share it with other humans to practical effect. If we’re just walking, talking advanced search engines, and language/consciousness really is just the froth sitting on top of all that- then we already are computers and whether some human beings engineer a silicon version of that notion is after-the-fact. But I get the feeling Web 3.0 will just beg the question from more people in the same way that Darwins’ 19th century machine-age theories- once made literal by machine based societies in the 20th century, evoked horror and deeper perspective on what being human actually is and isn’t in a way that went way beyond just possessing the ability to reason.
Comment from Rebecca
Time: November 14, 2006, 10:33 am
In response to OOgh…whom i am not sure who that is…but very astute! I initially wrote this because i was actually hopeful that humanity, once freed from remedial tasks such as “thought” and “reason” would be able to evolve further into a realm of life we cannot even imagine.
Though it did not become the thesis of this blog, it was my intial inspiration. I feel that, in terms of survival and Darwinian competetion, everything will be forced to be bumped up a notch with every technological advancement. Though it is true computers will never TAKE THE PLACE of humans, they will and already have lessened our load.
Comment from Lexa Rosean
Time: December 27, 2006, 11:36 pm
Hi Rebecca
I really enjoy your writing. I’m hoping you will repost your interview with me soon as I have several readers commenting on my blog that the link is no longer valid and I’d like to update. Wishing you a happy healthy and creative New Year.
blessings
Lexa
Comment from zihoqvadbo
Time: July 3, 2007, 1:32 pm
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