Adam Kirsch gets transhumanism all wrong

Adam Kirsch gets transhumanism all wrong

This article misses two really big realities of transhumanism

• The end of the homo sapiens we understand is a near term inevitability
• Humanity’s end only requires the ability to tweak our nature — not some ultra futuristic technology

Some have argued that birth control, abortion, cell phones, computers, the internet or other existing technologies have already created humanity version 2.0 — or even humanity version 3.0 if written language was a version change.

But very loosely humans with those technologies can still meaningfully understand humans without those technologies. IMHO they aren’t enough to push homo sapiens over the edge to create a new apex species.

Homo sapiens have been around for over 300,000 years. So 1000 years for our species is the equivalent of 100 days for a human with a life expectancy of 80 years. So within the next 1000 years is very much near term for our species.

Here’s a laundry list of capabilities that seem likely in the next 1000 years and all arguably alter humanity enough to make their possession homo sapiens game changers.

• True control over hormones (Ozempic already a minor example)
• Automation of all labor requiring repetitive tasks
• Regulation of an industry via AI (does not require AGI)
• Genetic control of our children's height, looks, etc.
• Artificial womb
• End of all common simple disease — flu, acne, allergies, involuntary weight gain, vision issues, headaches, digestion issues, back problems, heart problems,…

So imagine in the next 1000 years there exist humans with some or all of the above list. Such humans would have less in common with us than we have in common with Denisovans, Neanderthal, and homo heidelbergensis.

Meeting such a human would be a much greater shock and gulf in experiences than meeting an illiterate human with no access to 2024 technologies (think Amish but can’t read). The above list fundamentally changes what it means to be human.

So Adam’s article would be better titled “The People Recognizing Humanity’s End”. However Kirsch does correctly point out that such recognition is already beginning to change our society.

Once you recognize that current humanity will near term (1000 years) cease to exist in a form we understand, then your politics and culture cannot help but be affected.

What does progress mean in a world where it leads to humans++? What moral obligation do we have to work towards a utopia that will soon no longer include humans similar to us?

Probably even the earliest humans had language but imagine a human society with very rudimentary communication working towards a full language. The pre-language humans are simply not human in the same way that the post language humans are. The invention of language would literally be their extinction.

Imagine you live in a society of these non verbal less than human individuals diligently developing the language skills that will alter them beyond recognition. What do the non verbals owe their verbal descendants? How do the non verbals cope with their way of life slowly disappearing?

In this way, the question of why humanity exists is given a convincing yet wholly immanent answer. Following the logic of sacrifice, we give our life meaning by giving it up.

We don’t have to wait a 1000 years to face such issues. Humanity is right now seeing a dramatic change in what it means to be human by having conquered the earth. Further human population increase has gone from a way of life to no longer serving any purpose. So the “renunciation of child-bearing” that Adam mentions is to some extent already upon us.

These sacrifices are ways of expressing high ethical ambitions that find no scope in our ordinary, hedonistic lives: compassion for suffering nature, hope for cosmic dominion, love of knowledge.

No that’s way, way off from the reality that faces humanity. Homo sapiens, latin for “wise human” had already defined ourselves by innovation and change. Which means that, from the beginning, it was only a matter of time before we changed things enough for homo sapiens to become some novus sapiens.

Nor can we even back down from such change without altering our fundamental nature and so again being some new form of human.

So our 2024 ultra elites have to some extent checked out. They don’t create charities that change anything and only pay attention on space travel, anti aging, and human computer interfaces.

Nor can you even take our leaders to task for this malaise when you realize humanity’s short timer status. They wanted to be historically recognized but future generations will not even see them as moderns. It’s less about cheering for humanity’s end and more about coming to grips with it and still managing to lead productive lives.

Here Kirsch’s article does make a valid meta point — one way of coping with humanity as we know it being swept away by technology is to simply pretend that only the most advanced technology imaginable is a threat:

If we are also able to build a brain scanner that can capture the state of every synapse at a given moment — the pattern of information that neuroscientists call the connectome, a term analogous with genome — then we can upload that pattern into a brain-emulating computer.

(BTW that’s not what a connectome is.) Going back to our non verbal society’s transition one can imagine non verbal parents discounting the impact of language rather than considering their children as truly different.

This head in the sand approach seems to have almost universal support. From the science we can be 90% or so certain now that COVID was created by humans but it’s not going to make the news. Nor are the real implications of Ozempic discussed — if you can fool the brain into weight loss then you can also eventually control desire for sex, violence, or perhaps even greed.

Sure there’s all kinds of discussion of AI but it’s mostly drowned in Kirsch type leaps into silly ultra futuristic possibilities. In my high school in the 1980’s we were reading Future Shock but not anything about the millions of factory workers being put out of jobs.

However head in the sand comes at the cost of not being able to get classic humanity behind any current purpose. We will instead slouch blindly towards the future with an unspoken constant unease.