Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies (10 page)

Figure 6
Composite faces as a metaphor for spell-checked genomes. Each of the central pictures was produced by superimposing photographs of sixteen different individuals (residents of Tel Aviv). Composite faces are often judged to be more beautiful than any of the individual faces of which they are composed, as idiosyncratic imperfections are averaged out. Analogously, by removing individual mutations, proofread genomes may produce people closer to “Platonic ideals.” Such individuals would not all be genetically identical, because many genes come in multiple equally functional alleles. Proofreading would only eliminate variance arising from deleterious mutations.
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Other potential biotechnological techniques might also be relevant. Human reproductive cloning, once achieved, could be used to replicate the genome of exceptionally talented individuals. Uptake would be limited by the preference of most prospective parents to be biologically related to their children, yet the practice could nevertheless come to have non-negligible impact because (1) even a relatively small increase in the number of exceptionally talented people might have a significant effect; and (2) it is possible that some state would embark on a larger-scale eugenics program, perhaps by paying surrogate mothers. Other kinds of genetic engineering—such as the design of novel synthetic genes or insertion into the genome of promoter regions and other elements to control gene expression—might also become important over time. Even more exotic possibilities may exist, such as vats full of complexly structured cultured cortical tissue, or “uplifted” transgenic animals (perhaps some large-brained mammal such as the whale or elephant, enriched with human genes). These latter ones are wholly speculative, but over a longer time frame they perhaps cannot be completely discounted.

So far we have discussed germline interventions, ones that would be done on gametes or embryos. Somatic gene enhancements, by bypassing the generation cycle, could in principle produce impacts more quickly. However, they are technologically much more challenging. They require that the modified genes be inserted into a large number of cells in the living body—including, in the case of cognitive enhancement, the brain. Selecting among existing egg cells or embryos, in contrast, requires no gene insertion. Even such germline therapies as do involve modifying the genome (such as proofreading the genome or splicing in rare alleles) are far easier to implement at the gamete or the embryo stage, where one is dealing with a small number of cells. Furthermore, germline interventions on embryos can probably achieve greater effects than somatic interventions on adults, because the former would be able to shape early brain development whereas the latter would be limited to tweaking an existing structure. (Some of what could be done through somatic gene therapy might also be achievable by pharmacological means.)

Focusing therefore on germline interventions, we must take into account the generational lag delaying any large impact on the world.
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Even if the technology were perfected today and immediately put to use, it would take more than two decades for a genetically enhanced brood to reach maturity. Furthermore, with human applications there is normally a delay of at least one decade between proof of concept in the laboratory and clinical application, because of the need for extensive studies to determine safety. The simplest forms of genetic selection, however, could largely abrogate the need for such testing, since they would use standard fertility treatment techniques and genetic information to choose between embryos that might otherwise have been selected by chance.

Delays could also result from obstacles rooted not in a fear of failure (demand for safety testing) but in fear of success—demand for regulation driven by concerns about the moral permissibility of genetic selection or its wider social implications. Such concerns are likely to be more influential in some countries than in others,
owing to differing cultural, historical, and religious contexts. Post-war Germany, for example, has chosen to give a wide berth to any reproductive practices that could be perceived to be even in the remotest way aimed at enhancement, a stance that is understandable given the particularly dark history of atrocities connected to the eugenics movement in that country. Other Western countries are likely to take a more liberal approach. And some countries—perhaps China or Singapore, both of which have long-term population policies—might not only permit but actively promote the use of genetic selection and genetic engineering to enhance the intelligence of their populations once the technology to do so is available.

Once the example has been set, and the results start to show, holdouts will have strong incentives to follow suit. Nations would face the prospect of becoming cognitive backwaters and losing out in economic, scientific, military, and prestige contests with competitors that embrace the new human enhancement technologies. Individuals within a society would see places at elite schools being filled with genetically selected children (who may also on average be prettier, healthier, and more conscientious) and will want their own offspring to have the same advantages. There is some chance that a large attitudinal shift could take place over a relatively short time, perhaps in as little as a decade, once the technology is proven to work and to provide a substantial benefit. Opinion surveys in the United States reveal a dramatic shift in public approval of in vitro fertilization after the birth of the first “test tube baby,” Louise Brown, in 1978. A few years earlier, only 18% of Americans said they would personally use IVF to treat infertility; yet in a poll taken shortly after the birth of Louise Brown, 53% said they would do so, and the number has continued to rise.
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(For comparison, in a poll taken in 2004, 28% of Americans approved of embryo selection for “strength or intelligence,” 58% approved of it for avoiding adult-onset cancer, and 68% approved of it to avoid fatal childhood disease.
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)

If we add up the various delays—say five to ten years to gather the information needed for significantly effective selection among a set of IVF embryos (possibly much longer before stem cell-derived gametes are available for use in human reproduction), ten years to build significant uptake, and twenty to twenty-five years for the enhanced generation to reach an age where they start becoming productive, we find that germline enhancements are unlikely to have a significant impact on society before the middle of this century. From that point onward, however, the intelligence of significant segments of the adult population may begin to be boosted by genetic enhancements. The speed of the ascent would then greatly accelerate as cohorts conceived using more powerful next-generation genetic technologies (in particular stem cell-derived gametes and iterative embryo selection) enter the labor force.

With the full development of the genetic technologies described above (setting aside the more exotic possibilities such as intelligence in cultured neural tissue), it might be possible to ensure that new individuals are on average smarter than any human who has yet existed, with peaks that rise higher still. The potential of biological enhancement is thus ultimately high, probably sufficient for the
attainment of at least weak forms of superintelligence. This should not be surprising. After all, dumb evolutionary processes have dramatically amplified the intelligence in the human lineage even compared with our close relatives the great apes and our own humanoid ancestors; and there is no reason to suppose
Homo sapiens
to have reached the apex of cognitive effectiveness attainable in a biological system. Far from being the smartest possible biological species, we are probably better thought of as the stupidest possible biological species capable of starting a technological civilization—a niche we filled because we got there first, not because we are in any sense optimally adapted to it.

Progress along the biological path is clearly feasible. The generational lag in germline interventions means that progress could not be nearly as sudden and abrupt as in scenarios involving machine intelligence. (Somatic gene therapies and pharmacological interventions could theoretically skip the generational lag, but they seem harder to perfect and are less likely to produce dramatic effects.) The
ultimate
potential of machine intelligence is, of course, vastly greater than that of organic intelligence. (One can get some sense of the magnitude of the gap by considering the speed differential between electronic components and nerve cells: even today’s transistors operate on a timescale ten million times shorter than that of biological neurons.) However, even comparatively moderate enhancements of biological cognition could have important consequences. In particular, cognitive enhancement could accelerate science and technology, including progress toward more potent forms of biological intelligence amplification and machine intelligence. Consider how the rate of progress in the field of artificial intelligence would change in a world where Average Joe is an intellectual peer of Alan Turing or John von Neumann, and where millions of people tower far above any intellectual giant of the past.
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A discussion of the strategic implications of cognitive enhancement will have to await a later chapter. But we can summarize this section by noting three conclusions: (1) at least weak forms of superintelligence are achievable by means of biotechnological enhancements; (2) the feasibility of cognitively enhanced humans adds to the plausibility that advanced forms of machine intelligence are feasible—because even if
we
were fundamentally unable to create machine intelligence (which there is no reason to suppose), machine intelligence might still be within reach of cognitively enhanced humans; and (3) when we consider scenarios stretching significantly into the second half of this century and beyond, we must take into account the probable emergence of a generation of genetically enhanced populations—voters, inventors, scientists—with the magnitude of enhancement escalating rapidly over subsequent decades.

It is sometimes proposed that direct brain–computer interfaces, particularly implants, could enable humans to exploit the fortes of digital computing—perfect
recall, speedy and accurate arithmetic calculation, and high-bandwidth data transmission—enabling the resulting hybrid system to radically outperform the unaugmented brain.
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But although the possibility of direct connections between human brains and computers has been demonstrated, it seems unlikely that such interfaces will be widely used as enhancements any time soon.
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To begin with, there are significant risks of medical complications—including infections, electrode displacement, hemorrhage, and cognitive decline—when implanting electrodes in the brain. Perhaps the most vivid illustration to date of the benefits that can be obtained through brain stimulation is the treatment of patients with Parkinson’s disease. The Parkinson’s implant is relatively simple: it does not really communicate with the brain but simply supplies a stimulating electric current to the subthalamic nucleus. A demonstration video shows a subject slumped in a chair, completely immobilized by the disease, then suddenly springing to life when the current is switched on: the subject now moves his arms, stands up and walks across the room, turns around and performs a pirouette. Yet even behind this especially simple and almost miraculously successful procedure, there lurk negatives. One study of Parkinson patients who had received deep brain implants showed reductions in verbal fluency, selective attention, color naming, and verbal memory compared with controls. Treated subjects also reported more cognitive complaints.
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Such risks and side effects might be tolerable if the procedure is used to alleviate severe disability. But in order for healthy subjects to volunteer themselves for neurosurgery, there would have to be some very substantial enhancement of normal functionality to be gained.

This brings us to the second reason to doubt that superintelligence will be achieved through cyborgization, namely that enhancement is likely to be far more difficult than therapy. Patients who suffer from paralysis might benefit from an implant that replaces their severed nerves or activates spinal motion pattern generators.
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Patients who are deaf or blind might benefit from artificial cochleae and retinas.
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Patients with Parkinson’s disease or chronic pain might benefit from deep brain stimulation that excites or inhibits activity in a particular area of the brain.
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What seems far more difficult to achieve is a high-bandwidth direct interaction between brain and computer to provide substantial increases in intelligence of a form that could not be more readily attained by other means. Most of the potential benefits that brain implants could provide in healthy subjects could be obtained at far less risk, expense, and inconvenience by using our regular motor and sensory organs to interact with computers located outside of our bodies. We do not need to plug a fiber optic cable into our brains in order to access the Internet. Not only can the human retina transmit data at an impressive rate of nearly 10 million bits per second, but it comes pre-packaged with a massive amount of dedicated wetware, the visual cortex, that is highly adapted to extracting meaning from this information torrent and to interfacing with other brain areas for further processing.
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Even if there were an easy way of pumping more information into our brains, the extra data inflow would do little to increase the rate at which we think and learn unless all the neural machinery necessary for
making sense of the data were similarly upgraded. Since this includes almost all of the brain, what would really be needed is a “whole brain prosthesis–—which is just another way of saying artificial general intelligence. Yet if one had a human-level AI, one could dispense with neurosurgery: a computer might as well have a metal casing as one of bone. So this limiting case just takes us back to the AI path, which we have already examined.