Help me with my research paper on 23andme!
December 29, 2008
Got a few minutes? Have a few thoughts on direct-to-consumer genetic testing? Haven’t done enough nice things in 2008 yet? Well then you should help me with my research paper! Answer as many of the questions below as applicable to you. I’d really appreciate it!
MacKerricher State Park!
December 27, 2008
Full title: MacKerricher State Park… now, with rain!
As I type this I’m sitting in the back of a car, covered in blankets (me… not the car), and clothed in warm fuzzy fleece pants and a giant fleece zip-up. Outside I’m surrounded by a whole lot of trees, a whole lot of mud, and a whole lot of rain.
So where are we? Fort Bragg, California! That’s right, Eric and I decided a while back that a mini-trip up the coast before Christmas was just what we needed. Eric just finished his fall quarter at UCLA (and got a 4.0!) and it was high-time I used some of my 100-odd vacation hours.
Saturday morning we headed out from San Francisco and took HWY 1 up the coast all the way up to Fort Bragg. Here’s a list of what we planned on doing:
- A long run (this is my doing. I’m training for a marathon which means every weekend I’m doing a progressively longer long run. This weekend I was scheduled to do a run somewhere between 110 – 120 minutes [or 1hr50min to 2hrs]. Eric was, you can imagine, was not too excited about this one.)
- Cycling (We brought our road bikes and hoped to spend a day biking either North up to the Lost Coast area and beyond or back South through Mendocino. We had to get cycling shoe wind cover bootie thingies because it’s too friggin cold right now to be riding without them. For those non-riders out there, the wind goes through the shoes and makes your feet go numb… which really gets in the way of the whole being-able-to-pedal thing.)
- Hiking (There are some beautiful redwood forests around here – even, I’ve discovered, a virgin redwood grove [“virgin” because the grove has never been logged which, I’m told, is a feat in itself in these parts since North coast redwoods were heavily logged to support the building of San Francisco…twice [once during the Gold Rush and again after the big fire (which I think was during the big earthquake… both of which I’m too comfortable right now to turn around and fact check)]])
it’s clear I like parentheses
- Exploring (The lost coast area is so called because during the building of all the highways and what not up and down California, the builders decided that that area was too rugged to lay down roads. So, instead of HWY 1 hugging the coastline, they decided to hook it up with the more inland 101. This means there’s a big chunk of the coast that isn’t easily accessible. So, it’s lost! In order to get out there you basically have to 4WD it over tight, unpaved, currently super muddy, roads. Which is all another way of saying this is an area Eric has decided he absolutely must see in his new luxury vehicle (aka a Subaru Outback).
- Eat (I’m all about nature stuff – trail running, exploring, hugging redwoods, you name it, I’m there – but what I really love about going to new places is the chance to try brand new restaurants! And what is better than running for two hours and then going somewhere for a delicious breakfast filled with the sweet tastes and aromas of maple syrup (real only!), hot chocolate (not that water instant pack crap), salty things (like sausage!), and the like?
Answer: Nothing. There is simply nothing better.
So it’s Monday night and I’ll let you know what we’ve done so far:
- On the drive up we stopped in Mendocino for a bit of walking and eating. The town is super cute but holy gods! I’ve never smelled so much pot in my life. Actually there’s a funny story here. We were walking down the main street (called, conveniently, “Main st.”) and passed by a beat up truck and a bunch of 1/2 punk 1/2 hippy people. Right as we walked by I smelt the pot. And, without thinking, I blurted out “Gosh, it smells like pot everywhere we go in this town!” At which point they turned to me and one guy, who, Eric tells me, was at that time holding said pot, and said, “Not everywhere!”
You know me, always making friends!
Anyways, other than smelling a lot of pot (used by young and old alike), we got truffles from the local chocolate shop (didn’t really do it for me but Eric seemed to enjoy eating both of ours!), checked out some truly gorgeous views of the sunset over the rocky beach, looked in lots of super neat artsy expensive shops, fantasized about owning things from said super neat artsy expensive stores (note: this part may have been done more by me than Eric), ate dinner at a really good pub with surprisingly delicious food, and got a book filled with information about outdoorsy things to do in the area.
After that we drove the rest of the way up to MacKerricher State Park, which is where we’re car camping.
Alright that’s enough for this post! I’ll explain the rest of our trip in my next entry.
All the pictures can be found here
Why Atlas Sports Genetics is scary and stupid
December 2, 2008
Full Title: Direct-to-Consumer Genetic Testing (aka: why Atlas Sports Genetics is scary and stupid)
Three things have led me to this post.
First, I read “Born to Run? Little Ones Get Test for Sports Gene” in the NYtimes over the weekend and it definitely raised (and then spun in fancy pretty ways) red flags in my mind.
Second, for a class I’m taking through Harvard I have to do a large end of semester project on something that has changed substantially due to the “technological explosion. I’ve decided to do mine around the question, “How does direct-to-consumer genetic testing change individuals’ conception of self — both as individuals and as members of a larger society?” And I think consistently writing up my musings on the topic will help me more cogently and tightly express myself in that project.
Third, I’m committed to submitting a paper to this upcoming philosophy conference I’ve heard about. The conference is themed around, among other things, autonomy and moral obligation. So in other words, I’ve decided it’s high time I got my shit together and wrote something up based on the year-long project I’ve mentioned before. As a reminder, that project has to do with, again among other things, how my being a person who can live a flourishing (eudaimon) life depends in large part on my ability to have certain kinds of meaningful relationships with people in my community (which then I think gives rise to certainty responsibilities and obligations we have to each other). And I think genetic testing like the sort described in the article and generally provided by companies like 23andme has the power to alter my identity as both an individual – both understood in the discreet solo-going sense and in the member-of-a-larger-community sense.
Which is a long winded way of saying I think taking this sort of genetic testing seriously is critical if we want to make sure we give ourselves the chance to live good lives. And writing up little blog posts are small moves in the direction of writing up something presentable.
Alright with all that said, I want to go back to company featured in the NYtimes article – Atlas Sports Genetics.
- First, if you go to their homepage the first thing you see is an image of three blond kids in soccer uniforms. And under that it says “Genetic Testing for Speed/Power and Endurance Events”. So here’s my first piece of free advice – probably not a good idea to have only blond beautiful kids on your genetic testing for superior athletic performance website. You’re trying to get away from that whole evil eugenics thing, right? Alright take my advice – diversify that shit.
- Second, take a look at this graph that shows the relationship between genotype frequency and different elite athletes. Notice anything interesting? How about the fact that this test really doesn’t tell you much of anything about whether you’re genotype is shared by elite endurance athletes. And why is that? Because it seems there really isn’t a certain genotype (at least based on the ACTN3 gene) that is more frequent in elite endurance athletes than the controls. So I seriously have no idea what they’re talking about when they say having two copies of the R577X allele predispose you to endurance sports.
- Third, as was pointed out in the article, there exist examples of Olympians who have genes that, based on their test, would suggest they would be unsuccessful in their sport. Will this test create a sort of self-fulfilling prophecy. When a parent gets this test done on their children they won’t encourage their participation in certain sports – and so over time less and less children with the “wrong” genes do that sport. And so, over time, the top level performers in that sport only have the “right” genes… namely because nobody with with the “wrong” genes is doing it.
- Fourth, do we think parents should be getting these sorts of genetic tests done on their children? There’s no medical purpose and the child can’t autonomously agree to it.
- Fifth, how will this impact the relationship between parents and children. When a football-fanatical father finds out his son doesn’t have the “right” genes to play – how will that change their relationship?
There are lots of interesting questions here and with comments like,
“China and Russia, Mr. Epley [President of Atlas] said, identify talent in the very young and whittle the pool of athletes until only the best remain for the national teams. ‘This is how we could stay competitive with the rest of the world,” Mr. Epley said of genetic and physical testing. ‘It could, at the very least, provide you with realistic goals for you and your children.’”
I think we’re letting people frame them in pretty scary ways.
An Attack on Island-Autonomy
November 3, 2008
Full Title: Why individual flourishing takes a lot more than the individual: An attack on island-autonomy pictures
In light of my post on the problems I had with the Singularity Summit, and the Singularity movement generally, I thought I’d share a short paper I wrote that fleshes out one area of my concern. Basically it’s an attack on island-autonomy through the lens of a science fiction novel.
Keep in mind, for any philosophy or ideology there are two things it important to distinguish between. One is the concepts they employ to explain their position. The second is the conception, or perhaps better still, the picture, that is created from the specific employment of those concepts. For instance, Aristotle’s virtue ethics employs the concept of the good life (eudaimonia). Now, the concept of the good life can mean a lot of different things. In other words, our conceptions of that concept can vary greatly. Some people think the good life is one filled with honor, others that it’s filled with volunteering all your time to help those less fortunate, and others still think it has to do with having good friends and intimate relationships. All these people are employing the same concept (the good life) but their conceptions differ.
In both Transhumanism and Singularitarianism (though I think much more in Transhumanism) the conception they have of the good life, one where my happiness can be achieved with no concern for the wellbeing of others, is untenable upon further reflection.
I would love feedback on this.
Title: Beggars in Spain: The values we ought to live by, the creatures we could be
Introduction and Overview
There are tensions in the philosophical principles and life-structuring narratives we hold. We want to find ourselves and yet we want to make ourselves anew.[1] We think a just world is one where every child has an equal opportunity to succeed and yet we work in order to ensure that our own children have better opportunities than we did – that they get the head start we wish we had. And, especially deep rooted in the American psyche, we want to be autonomous, where that conjures up visions of man-as-an-island, as someone who doesn’t depend on (or, God forbid, need!) anyone else. And we aspire to that ideal while also deeply and sincerely wanting to be a member of a loving supportive community – a community of individuals who help each other not because they’re in some way contractually obligated or morally bound to, but because they want to, because they take pleasure in the helping – in the loving.
How we come to understand the interplay between these final two discordant ideals in our lives such as to structure their value in our lives hierarchically is of profound importance as we form arguments concerning the permissibility (moral and otherwise) of human enhancement technologies. We aim at creating ourselves in the image of that which we find good and beautiful. Accordingly, we find the principles and narratives shaping our lives as good and beautiful – as worthy of our pursuing them because their actualization is seen as a manifestation of the good and beautiful that we seek. When one holds the principle “treat others as ends in themselves,” one thinks that a good principle to hold – that a life aiming to align itself with it is a better life than one without it.
How we come to view certain principles as good, and narratives as worth acting out, is complicated. It seems clear that some of these life-structuring notions and tensions are so embedded in our culture that they are never raised to the level of conscious reflection. In contrast to the culturally-indoctrinated ideals, others are consciously chosen and pursued only after critical reflection. The point however is that no matter how we come to identify certain ideals as good, once we do, they profoundly shape our lives.
How we resolve the island-autonomy/ social-community tension will be reflected in how we view ourselves in relation to others, which in turn will shape what we think we owe each other and what a flourishing, beautiful, and good life will look like to us. Thus, how we came to hold these conflicting ideals is, at this point, irrelevant. We hold them. We must now raise them to the level of conscious and critical evaluation. The views we have on enhancing ourselves and our progeny are saturated in a context founded on these deeper ideals that shape our conception of the good and beautiful life. In other words, our views on enhancement technologies are merely the result of applying these deep-set ideals to the real-world questions that confront us. As such, if we want to make good, just, and beautiful decisions at the level of application we must first and foremost think deeply about the ideals and tensions that shape our values, and more fundamentally, our lives.
In her novella Beggars in Spain, Nancy Kress grapples with just this tension. And, by constructing a world in which value and meaning are derived from things other than, and arguably more basic than, the contract, Kress makes a potent and moving case against our viewing ourselves as island-autonomists. In this paper I will discuss how Kress makes her case by exploring how she constructs the various sources of value for her characters. I will then discuss what her conclusion implies about what it means to be human and what it is we should be asking of ourselves and others as we venture further down our techno-laden rabbit hole.
The Construction of Value: Through an Attack on Objectivism
The first step is to get clearer on which island-autonomist view of a good human life Kress is specifically arguing against. As Kress has explicitly stated, she was “enraptured” with Ayn Rand in her early twenties. She found the emphasis on the individual’s responsibility to lead and make good their own life seductive. Eventually, however, she saw the fundamental flaws in Objectivism and decided to use her old view as a pole she would engage and critique in Beggars in Spain.[2] Now that I hope it’s clear what formal view she’ll be arguing against (Objectivism), it makes sense to say a few things about what that view consists in.
Objectivism, the philosophy of Ayn Rand, argues that the moral purpose of life is “the pursuit of one’s own happiness.”[3] To help add some substance to that rather formal account I find it useful to include a quote from John Galt, Rand’s protagonist in Atlas Shrugged, “I swear by my life and my love of it that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask him to live for mine.” As I hope the quote suggests, the Objectivist account of how an individual ought to live their life fixates on individual achievement irrespective and independent of the doings of others. One will not live for another, nor want another to live for them. You’re on your own. If you want to interact with others, it’ll be through a contractual agreement made between equals. If there’s no explicit contract, there’s neither duty nor obligation to help, nor even, to interact. For Objectivists, you don’t owe anyone anything unless you explicitly agree to. In fact, if you do sacrifice your own ends for those of others, that’s immoral, as you’re going against the maxims that you, as a rational self-loving agent, ought to be living by. This, in more detail, is the view Kress wishes to critique.
In order to mount an attack on this view, Kress employs multiple techniques including what perhaps is the most obvious method – a final inner dialogue her protagonist, Leisha, has where she concludes that an ecology of help is how one ought to view the nature of human relations. I however find this final dialogue to be less powerful than her other more subtle method of critique. I want to argue that by contrasting the slogans and philosophical commitments Leisha says she holds with the way she actually behaves, Kress shows us that value construction is unavoidably and inextricably connected to our being active members of social communities filled with people we care about and goals we mutually pursue.
The Views She States, The Views She Lives
During a heated conversation with Tony about his creation of Sanctuary, an isolated area owned by the Sleepless from which they can safely live, create, and trade, Leisha is asked to spell out her beliefs. She says,
“I believe in voluntary trade that is mutually beneficial. That spiritual dignity comes from supporting one’s life through one’s own efforts, and trading the results of those efforts in mutual cooperation throughout the society. That the symbol of this is the contract. And that we need each other for the fullest, most beneficial trade.” (236)
From this we can easily see Leisha’s philosophical commitments. I will now go through what I take to be her two main commitments and show how, throughout her life, Leisha will find and construct value in ways that contradict those maxims. Additionally, I hope to show that the values that arise from deviations from the ones she advocates above are values we, as humans, think one ought to have. In this way Kress shows us how we are committed to non-island-autonomist values in our lives - not by making arguments in a philosophical vacuum, but instead by showing us a good life and asking us what makes it that way.
Maxim One: Mutually beneficial voluntary trade as the foundation of interaction
The main counterexample to this first maxim is exemplified in the relationship between Leisha and her non-genetically altered fraternal twin sister, Alice. The basis for their interaction is not rooted in a desire to trade, but instead, on love for the other as an end in herself.
When one places trade as the foundational motivation for interaction, one is viewing the other as primarily a means. By “means” I mean that one is viewing the other primarily as a tool or instrument one can use to achieve some end. In other words, when trade is my first goal, the value I assign to you will be derived from how you can be used to achieve that goal. In this way, I’ll see you as firstly a possible means to my end. In contrast, when I first look at you and see you as an end in yourself before turning to my goals, I respect and appreciate your worth irrespective of what you can do for me. Furthermore, in intimate relationships, I come to see the goals and values you hold as beautiful and good such as to want you to purse and achieve them even if their actualization does nothing for me – even if it provides me no commodifiable good.
This desire to see the other happy and fulfilled regardless of its impact on you is displayed in Leisha’s actions concerning Alice. In a conversation Leisha has with her father, Camden, Camden explains that Alice sleeps and isn’t special. (216) He says this after telling Leisha that she is very special and that one day she’d find her specialness and that it would be a “specialness the world hasn’t ever seen before.” (217) Leisha’s response to her father’s prediction was, “when I grow up, I’ll make my specialness find a way to make Alice special, too” and at that we’re told that “Daddy stopped laughing.” (ibid) Based on what principles and values would Leisha decide that finding the specialness of Alice would be worth pursuing? This sort of desire is, I think, clearly not coming from a view that sees others as primarily means or tools for one’s own ends. Nor is it the sort of desire that comes from someone who lives their life as an island. This instead is a desire motivated by love – Leisha loves her sister, she cares about her wellbeing and she wants to see her happy – irrespective of its effect on Leisha.
Camden (who stands as a character-manifestation of the island-autonomy/ Objectivist view) failed to understand two things. First, that an individual pursuing her own conception of the good life may see as constitutive of that good life the flourishing of those she cares about, where this in turn implies that the individual’s happiness cannot be achieved if she lives like an isolated island. And secondly, that the motivation for interacting with others is not most basically one of trade. Instead, our motivation is fueled by and sensitive to needs we have as social creatures who are invested in our fellow community members’ happiness. Sometimes we interact because we want to trade, but we go into that interaction already having views about the respect deserved of our peers as ends in themselves.
Another example of Leisha interacting without mutually beneficial voluntary trade as the impetus is highlighted in her first conversation with her peers at Harvard. After Hannaway bullies her about how she’ll outperform them with her “pretty little-girl hair and [her] pretty little-girl brain,” Leisha retorts that she will outperform him, but that after doing so she’d be glad to help him study so he can pass, too. (229) After Hannaway leaves she even reaffirms her commitment, “‘But I meant it’ Leisha said. ‘I will help him study.’” (ibid) How can we understand her wanting to help her peers based on the principles she expounded to Tony? They have nothing to trade that she needs. It isn’t mutually beneficial. The answer Kress leads us to is that there are other richer reasons for interacting than the ones that come from viewing oneself as an island that finds trade as the only motivation for interaction. We see ourselves as members of a community that is filled with people we care about. And, in caring about them, we care about their achievement of their own goals. We see value in things that can neither be traded nor commodified. We seek each other out because we are the sorts of creatures who need each other for many different reasons, only one of those being for trade.
By putting Leisha in these two situations and having her react in the ways she does, Kress shows us indirectly how we have values that can only be understood as coming from social and compassionate creatures. And in so doing, Kress suggests that we should not see the island-autonomist ideal as worth structuring our lives around.
Maxim Two: Spiritual dignity is derived from supporting one’s life through one’s own efforts and trading the results.
Leisha’s second maxim can be countered by showing that her own life, and her identity and dignity therein, are thoroughly indebted to the support and influence of others.
Leisha’s father had a monumental impact on her identity, values, and life goals. Not only did he introduce her to Yagaism , the philosophical movement whose ideals are identical to those of Objectivism (218-219), he provided her with the best schooling (217), encouraged her to succeed (216), and, in his own way, loved her. Even when she left home, it was her father’s voice that echoed in her head alongside her philosophical values. When Richard, Leisha’s old lover, visited her at Harvard and said he had decided they were too individualistic, Leisha’s response was one of sweeping disappointment, “she saw her father’s face: Excellence is what counts, Leisha. Excellence supported by individual effort….” (239)
My point in describing the above is to make the following (long) point: “spiritual dignity” for Leisha, since it’s derived from certain actions, is not an intrinsic worth one has such as to merit respect and esteem. Instead, dignity is the worth we get by doing good things. But, what we find to be good is based, as I tried to show in my introduction, on what deep-set ideals and beliefs we hold. The ideas and beliefs we hold are in large part based on cultural values and influences outside our control and efforts (for example, our parents [what ideals they instill in us, how they treat us, etc.]). So what we find to be good, and what Leisha thinks one has to do in order to merit dignity, are highly influenced by others. Thus, I want to argue, an account of spiritual dignity that neglects to recognize the impact the values and decisions of others have on our own life plan is, in meaningful ways, deficient. We do not develop a sense of dignity in isolation.[4]
Another way Kress puts pressure on Leisha’s second maxim can be best explained by asking a question: are there ever any meaningful efforts we achieve in island-like isolation? As a child, Leisha’s goals and desires depended on the help and cooperation of her father (among others). In order to get an education (which Leisha valued), she had to engage in a joint enterprise – she depended on the teachings of others and the security of a system that recognized and valued her efforts. In law she depended on an entire social and government system – on laws we work together to write and enact, on a system that is just. In her personal life she depended on the love, support, and empathy of others in order to have meaningful relationships, validate her own experiences as a Sleepless, and be comforted in times of crises. (224; 259-260) When she had goals, she enlisted the help of other Sleepless who had access to the information she needed, and “it had been given instantly. Without trade.” (232)
The point Kress makes is that we cannot pursue goals merely on our own efforts as islands.[5] We depend not only on the help and support of other individuals, but on the structures and institutions we’ve come together as a community to create. When we recognize the importance of our relationships, we can better appreciate how fragile and precious our spiritual dignity truly is. The island view of autonomy fails to do this, and thus, fails to recognize many of the values that make up a good life.
Conclusion: Final Questions
What does Kress’ conclusion imply about what it means to be human?
The best way to address this question is by first explaining what her conclusion does not imply. Kress is not suggesting that we align ourselves exclusively with some ‘we-are-just-one-piece-of-a-community’ ideal where everything is about the absolute solidarity of the group and the individual is a myth. As I mentioned at the start, Kress used Ayn Rand’s island-autonomy as one pole to which she responds. The other pole was Ursula LeGuin’s Anarres in The Dispossessed. Anarres is “LeGuin’s version of anarchy, which is an intensely social system … where solidarity is the basis for the construction of the society.”[6] Kress wants to explore the tension between two currents that run through our zeitgeist. She thinks submitting exclusively to either would be a mistake.
We, as individuals, are autonomous and we absolutely must be recognized as such. The issue, and critical question Kress asks us to face, concerns the sort of picture we have of what autonomy implies about both our understanding of self and our relations to others. In the United States especially we have very strong narratives that suggest autonomy in the island sense. The lone cowboy exploring the frontier, the one-man superhero who saves the whole world, the solo champion – these two-dimensional narratives give credence in our hearts and minds to the island conception of autonomy. However, as I hope this paper has suggested, these sorts of narratives are based on a misunderstanding of autonomy. My autonomy, my individuality, my specialness, does not come to be ex nihilo. All of these things originate in a social context. I can’t be special unless others recognize me as such. My autonomy, too, depends on my seeing you as respecting me. I have my own goals and dreams and quirks, and they really are mine (and I should feel a sense of pride in that individuality and my authorship of it), but it’s a misunderstanding to think that that autonomy is threatened or in tension with my simultaneously viewing myself as deeply dependent on others in my community.
As for what this implies for what it means to be human, I hope it’s becoming clear. Being human means being an autonomous social being. It is the clarification and then synthesis of these two, prima facie conflicting, ideals that allows us to grasp something fundamental about our nature. We are individuals with individual conceptions of the good, but those conceptions, and my seeing myself as the sort of creature who should pursue goodness and beauty, comes from my relationships to those in my community. We must recognize and value both dimensions of ourselves in order to truly appreciate what we have the potential to be – wonderful, colorful, diverse individuals who all participate in, and derive value from, the community from which we arise. This is the conclusion I think Kress wants us to reach.
What should we be asking of ourselves and others?
By appreciating the delicate relationship between our autonomy and our membership in a community, we can see that there are important questions we should be asking before we engage in new enterprises. The first of which is: in what ways does our pursuing a good life depend on others? In other words, what (in more detail) do we need from each other in order to make manifest our autonomy? When we answer that question we can then ask how specific technologies affect the satisfaction of those, our most basic human needs. If an enterprise, like human enhancement technologies, threatens to undermine our ability to relate and work together in the ways we need, we should consider that a grave threat to our ability to lead good lives as socially constructed autonomous individuals.
A second question we should be asking of each other concerns the narratives and principles we allow to dominate our culture. In Kress’ world, Yagaism employed rhetoric that suggested an incorrect picture of the nature of both autonomy and the good life. That philosophical tradition, though mistaken, was hugely influential in the lives of many. The lesson is that we should all examine what our principles and ideals really imply, and when we see misunderstandings manifested in the narratives and stories we tell each other, we should speak up and point them out. Batman has Alfred and Robin and Superman has Lois and Pete, and it’s important we remember and recognize that in the stories we tell about those we consider exemplars of autonomy.
Final thought
Beggars in Spain, by grappling with the island-autonomy/social-community tension leads us to examine which values and ideals we have committed ourselves to (consciously or not) and, in so doing, implores us to normatively evaluate these commitments. It is then up to us to decide: which values really are a part of a good life and which are misunderstandings or perversions of values we ought to have and cherish as the wonderfully complex, morally sensitive, and ethically beautiful creatures we ought to push ourselves to be.
[1] See Carl Elliott’s Better Than Well: American Medicine Meets the American Dream and A Philosophical Disease: Bioethics, Culture, and Identity
[2] http://www.lysator.liu.se/lsff/mb-nr28/Interview_with_Nancy_Kress.html
[3] http://www.aynrand.org/site/PageServer?pagename=objectivism_essentials
[4] One can also look to cases of trauma and abuse and see quite clearly that my ability to have a sense of dignity depends on those around me recognizing me as the sort of creature who can have that sense of dignity. See Susan Brison’s Aftermath: Violence and the Remaking of Self, Judith Herman’s Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence – from domestic to political terror, and Robert Stolorow’s Trauma and Human Existence: Autobiographical, Psychoanalytic, and Philosophical Reflections for rich accounts of this.
[5] For an interesting discussion of how even when we are being our most individualistic (when we are being creative) we depend in deep ways on the creativity of others, see Lawrence Lessig’s Code: Version 2.0
[6] http://www.lysator.liu.se/lsff/mb-nr28/Interview_with_Nancy_Kress.html
The Singularity Summit
October 29, 2008
On October 24th and 25th I attended the Emerging Technology Workshop and Singularity Summit, both hosted by the Singularity Institute.
“The Singularity” is basically a point in the near-future where technology has expanded and evolved to such an astounding degree that, from where we stand today, we cannot even conceive of it. Part of the reason for this, Singularitarians believe, comes from the fact that eventually AI will surpass human intelligence and then continue to improve itself. So we standing here can’t understand what that further-future technology will be like because AI more intelligent than us will be creating it. It’d be like a small child trying to predict what a genius engineer is going to make next. The kid just doesn’t have the cognitive tools necessary to do that.
Now I’ve been interested in the intersection of technology and ethics for quite some time – I got funding from UCLA to go to Stanford’s Human Enhancement Technologies and Human Rights conference back in 2006 and started a project during my senior year at UCLA on constructing an ethical framework from which to view enhancement technologies (or basically anything that has the potential to alter our relationships), oh, and I took a fantastic Science Fiction/ Speculative Fiction course at UCLA during my senior year that Katherine Hayles taught. So I’m into this. That’s not to say I’m “pro” the Singularity – I just find thinking about these topics engrossing.
But here’s the problem: I fear that the vast majority of the people who go to these sorts of conferences (both the one at Stanford a while back and this one last weekend) are so infatuated with the prospect of these technologies that they fail to take seriously the sorts of moral and ethical questions that ought to be raised in light of them. There is such a blind naive conviction that technology is both inevitable and good that their moments of reflection come off as little more than a mere gesture to the worries people are raising. A gesture and nothing more.
There are exceptions, though. I spoke a bit with Eliezer Yudkowsky (mostly I listened… since another guy ended up hijacking the conversation) and the sort of stuff he’s working on is an example of someone actually thinking about how to answer people’s Asimov-type worries that AI that is self-improving could end up harming us. So the question he thinks about is sort of a meta one (if I understand it correctly) – what sort of governing principles would you give to AI such that it would be "friendly” in all its future incarnations. We can’t foresee all the situations this AI will be in, we can’t even foresee what it’ll be like, but suppose you can create fundamental principles that would govern it’s future self-improvements.
But of course, if you’ve read “I, Robot” (NOT the movie people – the book is TOTALLY different…and by “different” I mean infinitely superior), you’ll remember that even with the three laws of robotics, a lot happened that, while aligned with the rules, was counter to what people may have wanted. [see, for instance, “The Evitable Conflict” for an enjoyable and scary example]
So there’s no doubt Eliezer has his work cut out for him 
I’m actually not really that interested in the question of whether some AI is going to enslave me. Instead, I focus my attention on a question that I think is a bit closer to home, namely, what do we need from each other in order for us to have eudaimon (or flourishing) lives as individuals. This question, when asked in the context of technological innovation, leads me to examine a technology to see if it somehow fundamentally alters our ability to get those needs met from each other. Because if that’s the case (that the foundations from which we create a base that allows us to live flourishing lives is jeopardized or corrupted), then that technology is in fact not an advancement of human good. Why? Because it’s undermining my very ability to be the sort of person who could even have a flourishing life. This is exactly the framework that I’m trying to flesh out – and I think it’s exactly the framework we should be using to examine these technologies.
So back to the conference…
While I enjoyed hearing about a lot of up-and-coming technologies (of particular interest to me was the semantic web stuff and a talk given by Esther Dyson about 23andme), I was more than a little concerned that instead of taking the time to have a discussion about the moral and ethical questions that should be addressed before we decided to move in a certain technological direction, the two days were basically spent hearing about the latest and greatest tech candy.
Here are a few things that really did stand out:
1) During the first day a guy from the Department of Defense got up and basically made a plea to the people in the room to take seriously the exploration of the ethical issues surrounding the creation of technology that can create autonomous vehicles. He said that it’s not like he’s in a position to really have those discussions but they are important. First, it was a bit disturbing to think the DoD think itself exempted from ethics discussions but that withstanding, this was quite exciting. The excitement, however, was quickly followed by disappointment. The response from those with the power to continue creating and advancing those technologies was along the lines of, “look this technology is a-moral – it just is the ability to, say, have a vehicle roam around all on it’s own. If someone ends up hooking it up to a bunch of machine guns so it can go out and kill people, that’s an ethical question about the application of the technology – which is beyond my scope.” And THAT captures the problem. The people inventing feel that the application of their technology is beyond the scope of their concern. They just want to keep working in their bubbles, oblivious to the rest of the world. And I want to contend that it’s not until the people making technologies acknowledge their moral culpability (at least to some degree) for the use of their technology that we will see compatibility between our moral and ethical convictions and the use of technologies. We are always trying to push the ethical deliberation off to someone else. That’s got to stop.
2) Like I mentioned, Esther Dyson from 23andme’s Board spoke. I about died from excitement. During the break I summoned all my courage, telling myself that “even if the rest of the conference totally sucks, it will have all been worth it if you say one sentence to Esther Dyson”. And so I did. At first I’m sure I was a bit incoherent but finally I think I asked her a mildly interesting question regarding my concerns about 23andme. She seemed interested and told me to email her so we could talk further. At that point I about squealed with delight. So that was neat.
3) People kept saying the singularity was “inevitable”. This drove me insane. Like eye twitching/ head jerking to the side insane. You are depriving yourself and all of us of our agency when you suggest that a certain course is inevitable. We are making decisions (with more or less care) and those decisions are what result in a certain future. Jamais Cascio gave the closing keynote after the first day and in the course of it said both that the Singularity was inevitable and that we were making incremental decisions every day that were leading us in a certain direction. You can’t have both dude! I’d like to stick to the latter please!
And as a side note, it’s very difficult to have a discussion about if we should proceed in a certain way if you’re talking to someone who thinks we have no choice but to!
So that was the conference. I’m happy I went – it’s given me more to think about… and a lot of things to look up!