[Fwd: Re: Review of Ray Kurzweil's The Singularity Is Near]
From:
"Paul D. Fernhout" <pdfernhout@kurtz-fernhout.com>
To:
Bryan Bishop <kanzure@gmail.com>
Date:
04/29/08 09:15 am
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Re: Review of Ray Kurzweil's The Singularity Is Near
Date: Sun, 04 Feb 2007 22:06:01 -0500
From: Paul D. Fernhout <pdfernhout@kurtz-fernhout.com>
To: Ray Kurzweil <ray@kurzweiltech.com>
References: <200702041540265.SM00480@KTIRAY2>

Ray-

Thank you for the reply -- and in under thirty minutes? That makes it hard
to believe there is a person on the other side and not some AI. :-)

On your reply, starting from a point of strong agreement, on page 498 in
the very first note for Chapter one, you write: "one can advance the
singularity and make it more likely to represent a constructive advance of
knowledge in many ways and in many spheres of human discourse -- for
example, advancing democracy, combating totalitarian and fundamentalist
belief systems and ideologies, and creating knowledge in all its diverse
forms: music, art, literature, science, and technology."
That puts it very well. If a singularity (or phase change) is going to
happen, how can one help make it a good one for humanity and the rest of
life? You suggest we do not need to compromise efforts to make now better
and that is a good thought I can very much agree with.

If you get the chance, I would urge you to read James P. Hogan's sci-fi
novel _Voyage from Yesteryear_ (from around 1983).
   http://www.jamesphogan.com/books/book.php?titleID=29
It discusses the culture shock of people from a monetary profit-driven
society (similar to our own) encountering another human society using
advanced production technology (fusion energy, flexible robotic
manufacturing, and AI) -- and the conflict as the profit-driven society's
leadership try to assert control over the newer one with all the usual
dirty tricks. (Avoid the Wikipedia article as it is a big spoiler!) Hogan
also touches on this theme in other later books. In that particular book,
he uses the term "phase change" to describe what happens to a society
developing advanced technology, which is where I take the term from.

The reason I mention Hogan's book is that while I think you are correct
that open source and proprietary approaches to copyrights and patents
currently coexist in our society, and perhaps could indefinitely were the
state of affairs to remain as it is, in a world changing in the way you
suggest towards a singularity, I do not think they can -- or even should,
given the needs you outline for a positive singularity for humanity.

Consider what you write on page 339-340 about "Intellectual Property". You
write: "Clearly, existing or new business models that allow for the
creation of valuable intellectual property (IP) need to be protected,
otherwise the supply of IP will itself be threatened." Yet, does that
really make sense in the future you propose? Where there would be no
material wants as everyone would have a Star Trek replicator making "Tea,
Earl Grey, hot" or whatever they want? How would we then have a shortage
of new digital materials when people have so much spare time to make them
suddenly? When no one needs to be told what to do? The big problem with
free and open source software today is mainly people not having enough
time to do it because of other pressing commercial activities they need to
do to keep their families fed -- not lack of motivation.

And consider these studies by Theresa Amabile and Mark L. Lepper cited in
an article by Alfie Kohn: http://www.alfiekohn.org/
  "Creativity and intrinsic interest diminish if task is done for gain"
  http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/motivation.html
Unlike, say, ditch digging, creative work is apparently later of lower
quality and quantity if paid for earlier. Granted, we all need to eat, so
people need money in our society to survive. But that constraint pretty
much goes away in the future you envision -- and quite soon. So why fixate
on worrying about a supply of new materials drying up? If anything, it
should increase if people do not need to work for a living. And it has,
judging by the internet (e.g. blogs, web pages, free software, etc.). My
wife and I like to say, in regard to giving away eight person-years (now
more) of our work for free on the internet (three software products) that
we may have gotten essentially no money out of it -- but we got the
internet instead -- which is a great deal for such a small investment of
our time (even though originally we had started out with the intent to
make a profit. :-)

Again on page 426 you echo this theme: "Ray: That's possible. It's fair to
conclude that software security is going to be the decisive issue for many
levels of human-machine civilization. With everything becoming
information, maintaining the software integrity of our defense
technologies will be critical to our survival. Even on an economic level,
maintaining the business model that creates information will be critical
to our well-being."

I'll agree with the software security need. But, again, I will echo my
challenge on the economic model to meet that need. I have a solar panel
that put about about 120 watts in peak sun and cost about $650. The human
body used about 100 watts, about 1/3 of that for the brain (so about 33
watts). So, given average solar radiation  is about 1/6 of peak, that
means that panel can produce about 20 watts average continuously (ignoring
battery and transmission losses etc.) Which is essentially about all the
power my brain needs if it ran on electricity (with occasional naps :-).
So, if we have a civilization of digital beings, then do they need much
more capital than this to sustain themselves indefinitely? And this is not
even considering how much cheaper or more efficient solar panels would be
in the future, or how much more energy efficient computation would become
along the lines you outline.

So where is the crushing need for business models to keep paying for minds
to produce information? Minds produce information, be it music, dance,
conversation, art, or software as a byproduct of existing. There is no
need to motivate them to do so. And even if you do use motivational
tricks, like distribution ration units (dollars), in the end almost all
intellectual labor is voluntary anyway, as it is almost impossible to tell
if someone is thinking, or to fairly measure the output of creative
activities on a fine scale. Someone might sit alone for seven years in an
attic, and then one day, they have solved some mathematical puzzle. How do
you measure productivity for such effort? After even just seven months,
any good manager would be hard pressed not to fire Andrew Wiles for
loafing and not showing up for second-shift work.

What do people really need to be creative? They need a sense of "flow".
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flow_(psychology)
Having spent quite a bit of time in places like IBM Research in the past
as a contractor I can say the modern industrial R&D lab seems designed on
many levels exactly to prevent flow. :-) But then so is the modern
classroom -- the reason that increasing the money spent on education you
point to is actually another negative trend. :-) See:
  http://www.newciv.org/whole/schoolteacher.txt
How can promoting those systems get us any closer to a positive singularity?

Or, as Vice Provost of Caltech David Goodstein puts it:
  "The Big Crunch"
  http://www.its.caltech.edu/~dg/crunch_art.html
"Let me finish by summarizing what I've been trying to tell you. We stand
at an historic juncture in the history of science. The long era of
exponential expansion ended decades ago, but we have not yet reconciled
ourselves to that fact. The present social structure of science, by which
I mean institutions, education, funding, publications and so on all
evolved during the period of exponential expansion, before The Big Crunch.
They are not suited to the unknown future we face. Today's scientific
leaders, in the universities, government, industry and the scientific
societies are mostly people who came of age during the golden era, 1950 -
1970. I am myself part of that generation. We think those were normal
times and expect them to return. But we are wrong. Nothing like it will
ever happen again. It is by no means certain that science will even
survive, much less flourish, in the difficult times we face. Before it can
survive, those of us who have gained so much from the era of scientific
elites and scientific illiterates must learn to face reality, and admit
that those days are gone forever."
See also his testimony to Congress:
http://web.archive.org/web/20060509161315/http://www.house.gov/science/goodstein_04-01.htm
So, we see a 1970s phase change negatively impacting science and education
and attitudes -- as exponential growth ended! Goodstein outlines what
happens when science meets competition as exponential growth ends in the
1970s and it isn't pretty (e.g. the break down of peer review as
conflict-of interest and corruption sets in).

Similarly for when academia meets the Bayh-Dole Act and secrecy stifles
academic communication. See:
  "The Kept University"
http://www.newamerica.net/publications/articles/2000/the_kept_university

Granted, aspects of the approaching singularity may reverse these trend --
but only IMHO to the extent that creativity becomes once again separated
from economic competition.

You write in your reply to me: "The open source movement exists in the
context of a free market society, and will coexist with  the continued
success of proprietary forms of information." Yet is that true? Hardly a
day goes by when I do not see some new legal thrust to expand the scope of
patents and copyrights. One day they are to be extended in duration.
Another day they are to be expanded in what they cover. Another day they
are to be increased in a new geographical area. Another day they are to be
protected by more draconian legal penalties than for murder instead of
civil penalties. Another day and they need be defended to the utmost as
otherwise "pirates" use the resulting funds promote terrorism. Another day
and hardware that does not defend them is to be made illegal. And so on.
All these trends are continuously fought of course, but all are
continuously pressed by those who want to get state sanctioned monopolies.
And they are further justified by what you write in your book.

The bottom line is that no one can enforce scarcity of digital information
without widespread use of police force and ubiquitous surveillance. And
right now, the legal penalties for copying a CD in the USA to share with a
few friends are indeed stricter than for murdering those same friends.
Something is wrong with a society that punished sharing worse than murder.
Ultimately, we will have a choice -- a police state or a free state. Since
studies have shown reward is no motivator for creativity, there is no
economic justification for patents and copyrights anymore in a digital
age. Clearly patents and copyrights are slowing down new forms of online
creativity -- both directly and by chilling effects. You (and others
including myself) propose a future where matter replicators take care of
all our basic needs. Simpler versions are already here:
  http://reprap.org/bin/view/Main/WebHome
  http://www.zcorp.com/products/printersdetail.asp?ID=2
  http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn4764
  http://kmoddl.library.cornell.edu/index.php
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/03/technology/circuits/03chef.html?ex=1265086800&en=86bc342e2ce05d47&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt
So, what are we left with for the justifications of patents and
copyrights? Only this -- political power by control of state granted
arbitrary monopolies by those who already have political power and wish to
maintain it. But political power in relation to the singularity is not a
topic you really explore much in your book. Maybe you should in the next one?

Technologies designed to amplify and extend the scope of corporate greed
likely just will not have the same positive basis as ones built out of joy
and humor and love. If you ever watch the British sci-fi comedy Red Dwarf,
greed seems much more likely to design "Queeg" than "Holly".
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queeg_(Red_Dwarf_episode)
Langdon Winner writes about related issues at length in his classic
_Autonomous Technology_.

In short, I feel it likely you are clinging to outdated disprove
assumptions about motivation and creativity and economics. And I speculate
that the reason is in part ironically from your past success. Those
assumptions may be holding you back, and holding on to them may indeed
help bring about a very negative side of the singularity you want to avoid.

I beg you to reflect on that. I beg of you to spend even just one day
imagining an extreme situation (not that I advocate this except as a
thought experiment): what if no one was legally allowed to be paid to
produce digital works? Would they still get produced? And at what level of
quality?  What would the world be like? And would we be closer to a humane
singularity or father away from one in such a world?

And, please, please, read Hogan's _Voyage from Yesteryear_ book to get
some more ideas on alternative visions of economics in an age of
abundance. I have no direct connection to him -- though I have
corresponded with him a few times and met him once 25 years ago at a
sci-fi club event; I'm just a fan of both him and you!

All the best.

--Paul Fernhout

P.S. By the way, "Intellectual Property" is a loaded term, as Richard
Stallman would say, as it begs the question of how we should handle
copyrights, patents, trademarks, trade secrets, and so on -- since it is
not clear whether any of them should they be treated like some form of
property or not is a big question of our age. Certainly we don not tax
them annually the way we do real estate -- so how are they property? Yet,
like real estate, they do pose a burden on society -- requiring courts,
government agencies, public subsidy of information highways, producing
chilling effects on innovation in similar areas, and so on.

P.P.S. On a side issue, regarding page 405 (the section "Our  Simulation
is turned off") it may well be what makes an interesting simulation is
precisely delaying the singularity. For example, we can assume entities
running such simulations or creating alternate universes already have
experienced a singularity. Naturally they may be curious about how it
might have happened. On the other hand, they may know all they want to
know about that already (having experienced it), and have no need for the
paucity of new information replicating that even might produce. What might
interest them most would be how it might have been different -- the same
way many strategy gamers refight old battles in hopes the other side might
have been able to win with just enough good leadership. Or they might be
interested in what life was like before the singularity -- so an obvious
point to turn things off is at the point of the singularity. Or they might
be facing a new singularity, and what to learn something by seeing how the
original one might have turned out different if delayed or altered. So, I
don't think you consider all the possibilities there -- an example of
selective bias. I'm naturally guilty of that myself oftentimes (or so my
wife says :-), but I just wanted to make you aware of that (since almost
certainly statistically we are in a simulation if such indeed would be
done). And consider -- maybe the entities running the simulation (if
mainly logical digital creatures) might be more interested in things like
art, music, poetry, love, compassion or parental devotion which might be
rare or incomprehensible in hauntingly beautiful but otherwise rigid
crystalline worlds of the future and so on rather than having any interest
in seeing the emergence of (to them) obsolete computer technology once
again. Or they might be humorous, artistic, creative entities who want to
see where the roots of their humor came from in such a serious 21st
century filled with war and hatred. Anyway, if you are going to play "what
if" then it seems you could consider more scenarios than the one that it
seems you most want to hear (justifying advancing the singularity). I do
not claim to know what might interest such creatures. To me, I think the
singularity, like death, is a mystery. But it is sometimes in the quest
for unobtainable certainty about mysteries that we betray ourselves. Or as
has been said by others, "when people start talking religion, hold onto
your wallet". :-)

Ray Kurzweil wrote:
> I am in fact very enthusiastic about the open source movement.  As virtually
> everything will ultimately be information (within a couple of decades), the
> open source movement will achieve the goals of communism ("to each according
> to his/her needs, from each according to his/her abilities"), goals which
> communism was so spectacularly unsuccessful in achieving.  Those goals
> actually were first articulated by the anarchist movement in the late
> nineteenth century.  The open source movement exists in the context of a
> free market society, and will coexist with  the continued success of
> proprietary forms of information.  
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Paul D. Fernhout [mailto:pdfernhout@kurtz-fernhout.com]
> Sent: Sunday, February 04, 2007 3:12 PM
> To: Ray Kurzweil
> Subject: Review of Ray Kurzweil's The Singularity Is Near
>
> Ray-
>
> The last time I wrote to you was 03/18/2001, "Comments on "The Singularity
> is Near", so a lot has changed in the world since then. Still, I think some
> parts of your argument have not adapted as much as needed along the lines I
> suggested then. :-)
>
> I just wrote this about your 2005 book and I send you the first copy.
> Essentially, I suggest that while you are right in presenting the trends
> leading up to the singularity, ultimately your view of what should be done
> as we approach it and afterwards is more a result of the mirror effect of
> the singularity reflecting your own unacknowledged current personal biases
> in a quasi-Republican/Libertarian direction. The most productive response to
> the singularity may come from a very different perspective -- that of a
> return to the gift economy ideals of most hunter/gatherer societies, as
> exemplified by GNU/Linux these days.
>
> Good luck with your next book if there is one, and maybe you'll hear from me
> again then (another six years? :-)
>
> All the best.
>
> --Paul Fernhout
> [snip]
> (Princeton '85, so "the pot calling the kettle black". A decade or so ago I
> might have written of similar solutions to ones your propose, before much
> soul searching and exploratory reading in a variety of fields. As the
> character Elwood P. Dowd  says in the movie "Harvey", "My mother used to say
> to me, 'Elwood' -- she always called me Elwood -- 'Elwood, in this world you
> must be oh-so clever, or oh-so pleasant.' For years I was clever. I'd
> recommend pleasant -- and you may quote me."