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| Thought Archive How does a scientist resist the temptation to ignore the troubling implications of their work? Perhaps this site itself can be a good example. As I use this public journal to jot down my ideas, I am spurred by imagination and curiosity to look at every angle of the  discoveries I dryly help create from 9 to 5 at Delfina. Perhaps this site can be to my research what a dream is to the human mind. Through taking thoughts, wishes, images and ideas and randomly cutting them up, taking them out of context and experiencing them out of order, the mind becomes somehow refreshed and renewed each day. The capacity for irrational thought actually reinforces the capacity for rational thought. Daydreaming on this website could provide a similar function.
On the other hand it could merely help me compartmentalize- providing an outlet that can falsely assuage my conscious without requiring any direct action on my part. I could derive just enough satisfaction from writing about how we should change things that I end up letting myself off the hook when the time comes to make a hard decision. I love my work- not in spite of the way it challenges me ethically but because of that. There is something intoxicating to me about these issues. There is something Promethean at work here. Stealing fire from the gods. And there will always be those who argue over the essential meaning of the Promethean paradigm. Does stealing fire from the gods make us heroes, spreading secrets, democratizing information and decentralizing power? Or does it make us presumptuous and due for an eternity of having our livers eaten daily by a proverbial vulture? My thoughts on dreams make me wonder if artificial intelligences could benefit from dreaming as well. Could a system exist where the days computational factors are taken out of order and experienced by a machine in a subjective, or at least a random way? Would a chipset be able to work quicker and more efficiently if rather than powering down and going on standby, it experienced something similar to REM sleep? If computers could dream, what would they dream about? Perhaps they would dream of us, the way children dream of their parents. Technologies all seem to reach a point - at the risk of confusing this with other notions I will call it a “singularity” - where they become so ubiquitous that they vanish. Gears are everywhere, and now we don’t see them. Unless you’re a mechanic you don’t think of gears when you look at watches, cars, or tape decks. Reading and writing were once considered a highly coveted technology, hoarded by a priestly class who could read and write and use their understanding of an existing technology to retain power over the illiterate. Now we don’t necessarily think of paper when we see a book- not the way we used to- with any sense of novelty. Noticing a technology shows that the technology is in its infancy. We notice so much about computers these days, breathlessly wondering how they will change our lives. When this technology matures we will no longer notice computers at all. The buzzword right now is interactive. TV must become more interactive. I’ve just watched a commercial for an interactive encyclopaedia. How long will it be before interactivity is so pervasive it is not mentioned? In the last few years people have all but quit mentioning “virtual reality.” Have we given up on the concept, or have we realized that without requiring any clumsy goggles, we visit a virtual reality daily when we check our emails or create websites such as this one? Technologies that allow machines to interface with human minds and vice versa are being created everyday. At work we test nanobots on rats to see if we can make them harm themselves. Humans have a wealth of different behavioural modes, rats really only have one- self preservation. The only way to see if we can effectively change their brain patterns is to make them harm themselves. I have to remind myself of this all the time. We’re not creating ways to make humans harm themselves, we are opening up an exciting realm of possibilities in the field of man machine interfaces. When I doubt myself I think of the way artists use every technological advance to enrich their palate of self expression. The musicians using every bit of processor power in the best and newest computers to create beautiful electronic music. Visual artists using computers to create a hybrid of photography, collage, and paint. Animators modelling three dimensional objects… What will the artists of the future do with our achievements? Could a performance artist share a piece of software that will allow you to experience a poetic synaesthesia of sights, sounds, thoughts and emotions? Could they beam their art directly into your mind? Will they create musical instruments whose only input device is the human mind? I picture a nanotechnology augmented jam session of the future and I am astounded. Then I picture a shady despot using the same technology to control the masses and I shiver. Is one more likely than the other? Aren’t both inevitable? With the internet, information is being decentralized in a way that I hope could provide more cheques and balances to the information economy. Basically, it is becoming harder and harder for people to hoard information. Will the democratizing element of these new technologies counter-act the potential for small groups to use them in oppressive ways? The medical advances will be stunning. Nanobots binding themselves to tumours will allow us to better target and perhaps one day eradicate cancer. Chemotherapy is like a bludgeon, eradiating both healthy and unhealthy cells, but with nanotechnology we can be so much more precise. I have written a lengthily report on this for Delfina, but they are still more interested in neurological stimulation through Nano-receptors at this point. |