Embracing Competitive Balance: The Case for Substrate-Independent Minds and Whole Brain Emulation

Abstract

More important than debates about the nature of a possible singularity is that we successfully navigate the balance of opportunities and risks that our species is faced with. In this context, we present the objective to upload to substrate-independent minds (SIM). We emphasize our leverage along this route, which distinguishes it from proposals that are mired in debates about optimal solutions that are unclear and unfeasible. We present a theorem of cosmic dominance for intelligence species based on principles of universal Darwinism, or simply, on the observation that selection takes place everywhere at every scale. We show that SIM embraces and works with these facts of the physical world. And we consider the existential risks of a singularity, particularly where we may be surpassed by artificial intelligence (AI). It is unrealistic to assume the means of global cooperation needed to the create a putative “friendly” super-intelligent AI. Besides, no one knows how to implement such a thing. The very reasons that motivate us to build AI lead to machines that learn and adapt. An artificial general intelligence (AGI) that is plastic and at the same time implements an unchangeable “friendly” utility function is an oxymoron. By contrast, we note that we are living in a real world example of a Balance of Intelligence between members of a dominant intelligent species. We outline a concrete route to SIM through a set of projects on whole brain emulation (WBE). The projects can be completed in the next few decades. So, when we compare this with plans to “cure aging” in human biology, SIM is clearly as feasible in the foreseeable future—or more so. In fact, we explain that even in the near term life extension will require mind augmentation. Rationality is a wonderful tool that helps us find effective paths to our goals, but the goals arise from a combination of evolved drives and interests developed through experience. The route to a new Balance of Intelligence by SIM has this additional benefit, that it does acknowledges our emancipation and does not run counter to our desire to participate in advances and influence future directions.

Philip Rubin on Koene’s “Embracing Competitive Balance: The Case For Substrate-Independent Minds and Whole Brain Emulation”

Building Brains

When I read about the singularity, brain emulation, and similar concepts that push us to consider the extrapolation of recent developments in science and technology and possibilities of a future in which science fiction could become reality, I often come away with a mix of fascination and considerable frustration. I am drawn to the enthusiasm that stems, in part, from rapid developments and the enormous potential in areas like genomics and proteomics, quantum physics, materials science, nanontechnology, microelectronics, neuroscience, and many other domains. At the same time, I am frustrated by the hubris and by the lack of adequate consideration for the complexities that make the work in many scientific disciplinary areas so difficult, challenging, and often rewarding.

What is a brain? How could we emulate it? Well, before we take on that challenge, how about considering a “simpler” one. What is chair? How do we emulate it? For us humans, a chair is something that we might sit on. For a mouse, it could provide shelter from the rain. To an elephant it is, perhaps, something to step on and crush. Thus, the way in which a physical object is used, considered, and possibly characterized in an emulative process, can depend on what it affords to a living entity in a dynamic, interactive process.

If our goal is to “build” or model a brain by reverse engineering it, we need to know a bit about what its function is, just as it would help to know how a radio or an Arduino is intended to be used before starting to reverse engineer them. But functionality in the brain spans many levels. Things like meaning, perception, and emotion are often secondary considerations when thinking about building a brain. Our focus is often on the extremes—either at the lowest levels, driven perhaps by the mechanistic and reductive tendencies that our scientific tradition and its successes force us in, or on the highest levels, such as consciousness, perhaps because it is so elusive and alluring. But the problems frequently can be both harder and more mundane than this. When considering the brain we need to ponder multiple dimensions and scales, from neuron to neighborhood, with consideration of the temporal, spatial, cultural, and conceptual extents that these entail.

I remain an optimist and an enthusiast regarding understanding brain, mind, and behavior, but I also believe that problems in domains like neuroscience and the behavioral, cognitive and social sciences, are deliciously hard ones. Making progress in these areas can require more than just an understanding of how primitives and fundamental low-level entities, such as neurons, or genes, or words, function at their most basic levels, interact, combine, and form aggregates and networks. We also must consider the context within which these entities arise and exist. To my mind this requires including in the scientific/technological enterprise concepts like: meaning, abstraction, culture, embodiment, temporality, multimodality, animal-environment synergy, ecological validity, complexity, recursion, affordance, and more. It is disappointing to me that so many of the forwarding-looking ideas underlying the potential technological rapture avoid the richness and nuance of these areas and concepts. It does not bode well for the future that many want to see and the progress that may be attainable. March 2012