In the fifth article of the series, Prof. Valori looks into whether there be a place for a human mind, memory and consciousness a robot’s brain

As artificial intelligence travels through the solar system and gets to explore the heliosphere (enclosing the planets), it will adapt by making decisions that enable it to do its job. Many people in the field of astrobiology are in favour of the so-called post-biological cosmos vision.

Is it because of the desire to conquer space that we humans are sowing the seeds of our own destruction in favour of artificial intelligence? Or are we unconsciously following some sort of master plan in which flesh and blood beings are destined to become extinct and be hybridised by silicon and synthetic materials? As for the mind, memory, consciousness, could there also be a place for humans in a robot’s brain? Should our mortal shells be replaced by something more robust and durable, could we still consider ourselves human?

The proof of this is a series of fairly recent experiments that seem to suggest that robots will not only be able to acquire human consciousness but also reproduce it. Ottawa, Canada, June 2017: Carlton University’s Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering announced the development of a technology that would revolutionise the future of space travel. Engineers hope to create a 3D printer that will one day be able to build structures on the moon using only minerals from there, but probably even more shocking is the fact that it will have the ability to self-replicate.

As man goes ever further in his attempts to colonise space, technology is being developed – as mentioned – through which a 3D printer can self-replicate using materials collected on the surface of a specific celestial body. In this way, printers will be able to double in number from time to time. This would mean that by using artificial intelligence and 3D printing, installations and bases can be created on celestial bodies, including satellites, planets and asteroids.

Although there are strong doubts that mankind will be able to develop a technology that makes machines capable of self-replicating in the near future, there is a project known as RepRap that has been going on since 2005 to design a 3D printer that can make everyday objects and even create some spare parts. 3D printing is a huge step forward for the development of scientific progress. What is even more incredible, however, is that this type of printer is capable of reproducing itself and we are therefore dealing with a technology that is capable of surpassing its own purpose and will also be able to build better machines that are faster and more powerful.

In the 1940s – over 20 years before man set foot on the moon – the Hungarian scientist John von Neumann (1903-57) – one of the greatest mathematicians in modern history and one of the prominent scientific personalities of the 20th century, as well as creator of the game theory – believed that self-replicating machines would enable man to venture beyond our solar system to explore the entire galaxy.

According to Japanese-born astrophysicist Michio Kaku – a summa cum laude graduate of Harvard University: “Man is led to believe that, in order to explore the stars, you need a huge spaceship, but this is not the case. The most effective way to explore the galaxy with so many planets is to send a small probe like John von Neumann’s”.

Von Neumann’s probe is a self-replicating machine that explores space and uses materials collected in the universe to create identical copies of itself. For example, if a probe is sent to Jupiter, once it gets to its destination it will collect material from that planet to give birth to the next generation of itself. At that juncture, the new probe will continue its journey to other worlds, and once it reaches its destination, it will in turn collect material to self-replicate again and again. In this way, the chances of reaching the edge of the heliosphere will increase exponentially.

Many believe that one of the obstacles of interplanetary space travel is the time it would take a spacecraft to travel from one place to another. However – apart from the help of warp drive and wormholes (faster-than light travels according to the Einstein-Rosen bridge theory) – at that juncture, instead of spaceships full of humans, could not the universe be explored and populated with probes like von Neumann’s? We now know that flesh and blood people are not suitable for space travel.

Exploration scientists have been working for decades on the project of turning mankind into mechanical or transhuman beings in order to create an entire cloned race of robots.

Transhumanism is a philosophical and intellectual movement that advocates improving the human condition by developing and making widely available sophisticated technologies that can greatly enhance longevity and cognition. It also predicts the inevitability of such technologies in the future.

In essence, it will be possible to upload our consciousness (in the form of digital information) onto a computer and transmit data to a specific location in space, as we shall see later.

In the 17th century, the French philosopher Descartes developed the concept of mind-body dualism, according to which human consciousness is not produced by the body, but is distinct from it: the body and mind of a human being, therefore, do not interact with each other because they are two separate things.

While observing – with perplexity – the progress and horrors of the industrial revolution, on June 13, 1863 the English author Samuel Butler (1835-1902) wrote in the Christchurch (New Zealand) newspaper, The Press, a prophetic letter to the editor entitled Darwin Among the Machines, in which – inter alia – he stated with great foresight and vision:

“The views of machinery which we are thus feebly indicating will suggest the solution of one of the greatest and most mysterious questions of the day. We refer to the question: What sort of creature man’s next successor in the supremacy of the earth is likely to be.

“We have often heard this debated; but it appears to us that we are ourselves creating our own successors; we are daily adding to the beauty and delicacy of their physical organisation; we are daily giving them greater power and supplying by all sorts of ingenious contrivances that self-regulating, self-acting power which will be to them what intellect has been to the human race. In the course of ages we shall find ourselves the inferior race. Inferior in power, inferior in that moral quality of self-control, we shall look up to them as the acme of all that the best and wisest man can ever dare to aim at. No evil passions, no jealousy, no avarice, no impure desires will disturb the serene might of those glorious creatures. […].

“We take it that when the state of things shall have arrived which we have been above attempting to describe, man will have become to the machine what the horse and the dog are to man. He will continue to exist, nay even to improve, and will be probably better off in his state of domestication under the beneficent rule of the machines than he is in his present wild state. […] Day by day, however, the machines are gaining ground upon us; day by day we are becoming more subservient to them; more men are daily bound down as slaves to tend them, more men are daily devoting the energies of their whole lives to the development of mechanical life.

“The upshot is simply a question of time, but that the time will come when the machines will hold the real supremacy over the world and its inhabitants is what no person of a truly philosophic mind can for a moment question. Our opinion is that war to the death should be instantly proclaimed against them. Every machine of every sort should be destroyed by the well-wisher of his species. Let there be no exceptions made, no quarter shown; let us at once go back to the primeval condition of the race.

“If it be urged that this is impossible under the present condition of human affairs, this at once proves that the mischief is already done, that our servitude has commenced in good earnest, that we have raised a race of beings whom it is beyond our power to destroy, and that we are not only enslaved but are absolutely acquiescent in our bondage.” (Samuel Butler, A First Year in Canterbury Settlement With Other Early Essays, A.C. Fifield, London 1941, pp. 182-185).

John Von Neumann argued he started from Descartes’ theory and Butler’s assertions to arrive at the assertion that self-replicating machines need to be used to explore other planets. However, Rabbi Ariel Bar Tzadok stated: “If we were to create an artificial life form and if it developed, evolved and grew, it could become superior to modern man. This would create a moral problem, since human beings tend to worship what they believe is greater than themselves.”

Are we probably close to a new phase in human evolution during which we will become transhuman? Prof. Kaku replied: “I think that by the end of the century we will be able to digitise consciousness. Everything known about man such as personality, memories, emotions, and even the nerve pathways will be digitised. What will it be used for? To place our consciousness on a laser beam and direct it into the sky: in a second, human consciousness will arrive on a specific celestial body where it will be downloaded into a central system and then inserted into a mechanical avatar. I call it laser transfer.”

If the technology of transhumanism is successful, the content of our brain will soon be stored in the cloud.

Hence, as the human civilisation prepares for the next phase of its evolution, will those we consider human beings become extinct or transhuman? That is, with intelligence developed in AI-driven cybernetic bodies. Numerous scholars deny this possibility, arguing that a human being is more than a mix of flesh and bones. Man means thought, ideas and especially feelings that make him a being different from any of his fellows and all other living creatures in the universe.

This awareness should reassure and motivate us as we prepare to fulfil mankind’s ultimate destiny, i.e. to turn ourselves into a future generation that will explore worlds for now far away from us.

Giancarlo Elia Valori