Being Reasonable: The Beginning of a New History?

Here I was, ready to write a fascinating little essay about Francis Fukuyama's misunderstood "Then End of History and the Last Man." My thesis was to be that Fukuyama was right about men, but wrong about history; I was going to put an AI/ transhumanist spin on things and argue that the era of human history--in spite of the recent rise of fundamentalism--is probably over, but that a whole new era driven by non-human intelligence and unknown value systems is about to open up.

But alas! Hopping over to Amazon to see whether Fukuyama had published anything else since The End of History, what did I find but this:

"Our Posthuman Future: Consequences of the Biotechnology Revolution"

Gah! Perhaps I subconsciously knew that Fukuyama had gone in this direction, but I'm pissed off anyway. Nevertheless, with apologies to my boy Francis, here is my take on the issue.

By way of review, let's take a look at Francis's original thesis. What he claimed, first in a short essay, and later in his grandly philosophical book, were two things:

1. Human history is a one-way street. Because knowledge accumulates and we have self-awareness of our past, we are free from a deterministic fate where we endlessly repeat the same historical patterns of philosophy, government, etc.
   
2. We are at the end of this historical street, from a philosophical and political perspective. We are unlikely to come up with a "better" model than free-market economy/liberal democracy, and it's only a matter of time before all human societies adopt a variant of that model.

Of course, these are controversial statements open to numerous valid lines of attack. Interestingly, though, many of the actual attacks that were made reflected a knee-jerk reaction to the title ("The End of History") and a rejection of claims that Fukuyama hadn't even made. The war in Kosovo, for example, was proof that history hadn't ended; the recent rise of global terrorism has made Fukuyama's thesis laughable. The problem here is that Fukuyama never claimed that war was a thing of the past, or that conflict would ever be fully eradicated. His proposition rests on issues at a much higher level: philosophy itself and the roots of human satisfaction.

We will never know if Fukuyama is correct. An infinite amount of time would have to pass before we could verify either of his claims. However, I feel that he is right, and with a progressivism that seeks to maximize human happiness on a global scale, I hope that he is right. Our primary challenge, then, is to accelerate the pace with which free-market, liberal democracies are established worldwide in such a way that minimizes human suffering.

But wait. Will there truly be no new philosophies? No new models of government? Ten thousand years hence, will I really be able to live in the good old U.S. of A., eat a cheeseburger at McDonald's, and vote against one of George W. Bush's progeny?

Of course not. The critical element that Fukuyama left out of his original essay--and subsequent book--is technology. Fukuyama assumed then that human beings today would resemble human beings tomorrow. And, what is more, he didn't consider the scenario where human beings are no longer the only folks around who are able to contemplate life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Though I have not yet read it, I get the sense that Fukuyama's subsequent book tackles the first technological issue--the changing nature of humanity--by exploring the consequences of genetic engineering on human society. I believe that the second issue is more important, though: is human philosophy really destined to be the dominant philosophy on planet Earth?

This is a good opportunity to take a look at two possible models of the future of intelligence.

1. Model 1: what I'll call the Transhuman model. In this case, humans employ technology to improve our own intelligence. That is, we use biotechnology, genetic engineering, electrical engineering, and other approaches to improve upon the basic functions of our own brains. Encompassed also here is the idea of emulation, where we transplant an essentially human consciousness into a non-biological substrate (electrical, optical, etc.). The key here is that we retain an essential humanity, in that the underlying engine for our intelligence works like the human brain works today.
   
2. Model 2: the Artificial model. The fundamental difference here is that there is no essential humanity behind the intelligence. Though there may be similarities in design, we're talking in this case about truly artificial beings, engineered independently of the constraints of a human brain. Although it isn't clear today how a truly self-aware artificial intelligence will emerge, it is a spectacularly good bet that it will nevertheless emerge at some point. In the 2020s, the inherent processing power of a desktop computer will surpass the processing power of a human brain, and it shouldn't be many years beyond that point until true artificial intelligence (in the Turing sense or in whatever sense you want to define) emerges.

With either model, it's not difficult to see how History would inevitably grind into action again. In the first case--Fukuyama's case--where humanity still rules the roost, you nevertheless have a fundamentally changed humanity, with altered powers of calculation, communication, and reasoning. The gaps we bemoan today between the haves and have-nots in society may grow to become gargantuan gulfs--gulfs that significant portions of human society may not even be interested in crossing. Fundamental changes in ethics, economy and political philosophy are certain to arise, and History will surely start off in an entirely new direction.

But why should humans remain the dominant philosophers forever?

I personally believe that Model 2 is destined to supplant Model 1 as the defining driver of History. Although both models will likely develop for some time, I see a future that is analogous to transfer mechanisms in heat flow. There, you often find that, while two mechanisms both theoretically contribute to the dissipation of heat (e.g. convection and radiation), at certain temperatures one of those mechanisms becomes totally dominant, such that the specifics of the other mechanism become irrelevant as a contributor to the overall process. So it may be with artificial intelligence. Once a machine intelligence is essentially able to evolve itself, I see no reason why the envelope of intelligence will not be driven completely by non-human innovations.

This Model 2 scenario could, of course, unfold exactly as it does in the Terminator movie franchise. Or, the AIs could be benign, and humans could be completely satisfied to have machine intelligence act as our caretakers. Or, there could be a crossing-over of sorts, where there is no simple differentiation between Model 1 and Model 2 entities. Regardless, each of these Model 2 scenarios implies its own major shift in ethics, economy, and political philosophy--the same outcome as Model 1.

Thus, it seems inevitable! History will keep on trucking. Realistically, though, we may still be living at the end of the current historical era for many decades. And while we're all waiting for History to start up again, I feel that we owe it to ourselves to maximize the happiness of those of us who have to live through the experience.
- posted by John @ 2:19 PM