It is thanks to science and technology that we are living longer and healthier lives. Technology has greatly improved our quality of life. We even have bionic limbs, such as bionic arms, and exoskeletons for patients with full spinal cord injuries. Yet in spite of all this, we are still contending with serious shortcomings. Transhumanist Max More, who was born as Max T. OConnor, wrote a letter to Mother Nature:
Mother Nature, truly we are grateful for what you have made us. No doubt you did the best you could. However, with all due respect, we must say that you have in many ways done a poor job with the human constitution. You have made us vulnerable to disease and damage. You compel us to age and diejust as were beginning to attain wisdom. [] You gave us limited memory, poor impulse control, and tribalistic, xenophobic urges. And, you forgot to give us the operating manual for ourselves!
Transhumanists hope to use genetic modification, synthetic organs, biotechnology, and AI techniques to enhance the human condition. What intrigues me here is the moral enhancement aspect. This deliberately sets out to improve peoples character or behavior. Scientists are seeking ways to improve levels of morality through the use of medication and technology, such as moral neuroenhancement. These so-called neurotechnologies directly change specific cerebral states or neural functions in order to induce beneficial moral improvements. Academics, for example, are exploring the feasibility of increasing empathy with medication. This leads to interesting questions.
We all harbor prejudices as well as a tendency to feel more empathy for people we know or who we can identify with, but what is the right amount of empathy if you want to increase it? If you felt responsible for every other person on the planet, life would most likely become unbearable, as you would be overwhelmed by all this misery. Moral enhancement by means of biotechnology is controversial ethically speaking. A great deal of criticism has been leveled at this, among other things, concerning the limitations of autonomy.
Studies in the medical world indicate that AI systems are at least as good, and sometimes even better, than doctors in diagnosing cancer. For example, researchers have trained deep neural networks with the help of a dataset of around 130,000 clinical images of skin cancer. The results demonstrate that algorithms are on the same level as experienced dermatologists when it comes to predicting skin cancer. While Deep Minds AI even beat doctors in screenings for breast cancer.
Consequently, AI systems are capable of supporting doctors in making diagnoses. But what about AI that would help us make moral decisions? An AI system is conceivably more consistent, impartial, and objective. Although this does depend a lot on the quality of the data that is used to train it. Unlike people, AI can process massive datasets, which may perhaps result in better-informed decisions being made.
We often fail to adequately consider all the information that is needed to make a moral decision, in part due to stress, lack of time, limited scope for information processing, and so on. So, might we eventually turn to a moral AI adviser? A kind of virtual Socrates that asks pertinent questions, points out flaws in our thinking, and ultimately issues moral advice based on input from various databases.
In order to be able to engage in an in-depth, meaningful philosophical dialogue with an AI system, the technical challenges are undoubtedly enormous, not least in the field of Natural Language Processing. The complexity of morality also presents immense challenges, given that it is so context-sensitive and anything but binary. Numerous ethical rules even the ban on homicide depend on the context. Killing in self-defense is evaluated differently in moral and legal terms. Ethics is the grey area, the weighing up process.
And that brings me back to one of the most wonderful quotes on morality. From Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn in The Gulag Archipelago: If only it were all so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?
Computer says no.
About this column:
In a weekly column, written alternately by Tessie Hartjes, Floris Beemster,Bert Overlack, Mary Fiers, Peter de Kock, Eveline van Zeeland, Lucien Engelen, Jan Wouters, Katleen Gabriels, and Auke Hoekstra, Innovation Origins tries to figure out what the future will look like. These columnists, occasionally joined by guest bloggers, are all working in their own way on solutions to the problems of our time. So that tomorrow is good. Here are all theprevious articles in this series.
See the article here:
Moral advice straight from the computer: is it time for a virtual Socrates? - Innovation Origins
- Pioneering Transhumanism: a conversation with Natasha Vita-More - February 6th, 2023
- Transhumanist Party - Wikipedia - December 18th, 2022
- Transhumanism: advances in technology could already put evolution into ... - November 24th, 2022
- Bidens transhumanist EO calls for natural biology to be programmed ... - October 4th, 2022
- Nvidia and the 3D Future of the Internet - TechNewsWorld - October 4th, 2022
- Doomsday bunkers, Mars and 'The Mindset': the tech bros trying to outsmart the end of the world - The Conversation - October 4th, 2022
- Leo Hohmann: Biden's Executive Order Designed to Release Transhumanist ... - September 16th, 2022
- Prebunking Disinformation | prebunking disinformation - Patheos - September 8th, 2022
- WEF agenda envisions an augmented society ruled by Internet of Bodies, digital ID - The Sociable - September 8th, 2022
- Transhumanist Bioweapon & Deactivating the Bluetooth Chips - Hope ... - August 22nd, 2022
- History of a hard man: Neil Balme memoir stands out from the pack - Sydney Morning Herald - August 22nd, 2022
- Economism vs Common Good Part Three | Demythicizing Economism - Patheos - August 22nd, 2022
- The Importance of Medical Ethics Highlighted During the 75Th Anniversary of the Nuremberg Code - The Epoch Times - August 22nd, 2022
- Fringe: TV Has Never Been The Same Without This Sci-Fi Show - Fortress of Solitude - August 22nd, 2022
- Why death matters - Big Think - August 14th, 2022
- Horror stories of cryonics: The gruesome fates of frozen bodies - Big Think - August 5th, 2022
- What Kathleen Stock gets wrong about the Tories, trans and feminism - CapX - July 27th, 2022
- Tyranny by Numbers | John Waters - First Things - July 27th, 2022
- There Is No Such Thing As A Lightning Wallet - Bitcoin Magazine - July 27th, 2022
- What Is A Human? - The American Conservative - July 19th, 2022
- Exposing The Agenda To Implement Global Totalitarianism Based On ... - July 3rd, 2022
- There exists an Agenda to implement Global Totalitarianism based on ... - July 3rd, 2022
- What is Truth? | What is truth? - Patheos - July 3rd, 2022
- Dr. Zelenko Crimes Against Humanity and the Transhumanist Agenda - Ben Stein ... - April 19th, 2022
- Transhumanism: The Plot to Control Your Life! - Jonathan Brentner - April 19th, 2022
- Facebook and radicalisation: how can we regulate the internet to prevent harm? - Stuff - April 6th, 2022
- The Power of Pain | Peter J. Leithart - First Things - April 6th, 2022
- Values of the U.S. Transhumanist Party U.S ... - December 24th, 2021
- U.S. Transhumanist Party Official Website U.S ... - December 24th, 2021
- Another Year Without A Family Christmas? - newsconcerns - December 24th, 2021
- Will We Ever Cheat Death and Become Immortal With Mind Uploading? - Interesting Engineering - December 10th, 2021
- Pig Kidney Successfully Transplanted From Hog to Human - November 22nd, 2021
- As Facebook evolves to Meta, what is the future of consciousness and control? - Baptist News Global - November 8th, 2021
- International Symposium on Sorgner's "We Have Always Been Cyborgs"Back to Events - Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies - November 8th, 2021
- Crypto leaders are obsessed with life extension. Here's why Cointelegraph Magazine - Cointelegraph - August 18th, 2021
- Inside the Wild Ride of "Titane," the French Body-Horror Film That Just Won the Palme d'Or - InsideHook - July 21st, 2021
- We Can't Cheat Aging and Death, Claims New Study - Reason - June 23rd, 2021
- Third parties in the U.S. What options do voters have? - Deseret News - June 6th, 2021
- Building the Ark - Architecture - E-Flux - June 6th, 2021
- A Closer Look at the AI Hype Machine: Who Really Benefits? - Common Dreams - February 5th, 2021
- Deadpool's Monster Army and the X-Men's Nation Share a Surprising Tactic - Screen Rant - February 5th, 2021
- Masks Against the Coronavirus: How the Rejection of Mask Use, Unites the Extreme Right and the Extreme Left The Costa Rica News - The Costa Rica News - September 5th, 2020
- The Honorable Dr. Dale Layman, Founder of Robowatch, LLC, is Recognized as the 2020 Humanitarian of the Year by Top 100 Registry, Inc. - IT News... - September 4th, 2020
- Frontrunner for the VA GOP's 2021 Gubernatorial Nomination Rallies in Honor of Far-Right Paramilitary Group Member; As Del. Jay Jones Points Out, the... - July 7th, 2020
- Why Humanize? A New Effort to Defend the Unique Dignity of Human Beings - Discovery Institute - June 3rd, 2020
- How Britain's oldest universities are trying to protect humanity from risky A.I. - CNBC - May 30th, 2020
- The Proto-Communist Plan to Resurrect Everyone Who Ever Lived - VICE - April 22nd, 2020
- Is It Moral To Work For A Tech Giant? - Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies - April 19th, 2020
- First human to live 1,000 years may already be alive says scientist fighting to end ageing - Express.co.uk - March 1st, 2020
- 5 things to know about Miss Anthropocene by Grimes - Vancouver Sun - February 25th, 2020
- Information on all 50 NH Primary candidates (including the Hartford Whalers guy) - Manchester Ink Link - February 12th, 2020
- The tree family - Frontline - February 2nd, 2020
- 'Cyberpunk 2077' Delayed as CD Projekt Red Polishes 'Crowning Achievement' Over 'Witcher 3: Wild Hunt' - Newsweek - January 20th, 2020
- Transhumanism, AI, gaming and human biology to feature at Mumbrella MSIX with new session announced - mUmBRELLA* - November 5th, 2019
- Religious and spiritual online forums consist of chaotic, impactful ideas - Lamron - November 5th, 2019
- Publishers are going to live or die based on their relationship with readers: How Quartz is rethinking its membership offerings - Nieman Journalism... - October 19th, 2019
- Sports Man of the Future - The Good Men Project - October 14th, 2019
- Could a robot be prime minister? Machines will soon be smart enough to run the world, says futurist - CBC.ca - October 8th, 2019
- Heavy data protection regulation looms in Labour plans for post-Brexit flows and IoT devices - The Register - October 8th, 2019
- Education and Enhancement in a Transhuman Future - Patheos - October 8th, 2019
- Transhumanism - The Next Step to Super Humans? - April 21st, 2019
- Transhumanist politics - Wikipedia - April 12th, 2019
- Christian Transhumanist Conference 2018 Tickets, Sat, Aug ... - March 29th, 2019
- Nanochips & Smart Dust: New Face of the Human ... - March 29th, 2019
- Yudkowsky - Simplified Humanism - March 18th, 2019
- FM-2030 - Wikipedia - March 18th, 2019
- Space Fence: Connecting the Surveillance and Transhumanist ... - March 18th, 2019
- Biological immortality - Wikipedia - February 28th, 2019
- Transhumanism - Ascension Glossary - December 31st, 2018
- Transhumanism - H+Pedia - hpluspedia.org - December 31st, 2018
- Nick Bostrom - Wikipedia - December 4th, 2018
- Leadership U.S. Transhumanist Party Official Website - November 8th, 2018
- 2045: A New Era for Humanity - YouTube - August 16th, 2018
- The Transhumanist Wager: Zoltan Istvan: 9780988616110 ... - July 24th, 2018
- George Dvorsky - Wikipedia - June 18th, 2018
- Stronger, smarter, happier - what if a drug could make you a better version of yourself? - CBC.ca - August 23rd, 2017
- Bloodborne, Transhumanism and Cosmic Cyberpunk - Kotaku UK (blog) - August 22nd, 2017
- Ambrosia: the startup harvesting the blood of the young | Society ... - The Guardian - August 22nd, 2017
- Immortality: Silicon Valley's latest obsession ushers in the transhumanist era - South China Morning Post - August 17th, 2017
- Transhumanism Is Not Libertarian, It's an Abomination - The American Conservative - August 17th, 2017