man v. machine: the halftime report

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Man vs. Machine: The Halftime Report

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y Douglas Page 1998

echnology, the Golden Calf of the last 50 years, may be the Cloven Foot of the next 50. Manyuturists believe within 35 years we w ill have the technological means to create superhumantelligence. Immediately thereafter, they predict, the human era w ill end. Don't buy any 50 yearonds.

omputers have hijacked our destiny. We're just a few years, if not a few minutes, from what Fringe Thinkers are calling the end of the huma

a, the point at which a runaway, fugitive technology commandeers the future - a future in which humans will be unfamiliar, unnecessary and

obably unwelcome.

uman history is characterized by restive technology. It's about to stampede. New technologies (i.e., agriculture, medicine, electronics,

enetics) have permitted population growth. A larger population means a larger brain pool. A larger brain pool means newer and better

chnologies sooner. As anyone who bought a 166 MHz personal computer last summer knows, it was obsolete before you could build a

ookmark file. Computer performance doubles every few months, and has since 1942, beginning with the Atanasoff-Berry computer, the firstectronic digital computer, built before World War II in a basement lab at Iowa State University by math and physics professor John V.

tanasoff and Clifford Berry, a graduate student. The ABC computer had a storage capacity of 375 characters and could perform one operatio

very 15 seconds. Fifty years later experimental machines exist in Japan and the United States capable of tera-flops performance - one trillion

oating-point operations per second.

achines a thousand times faster are pushing against the fence. Peta-flops machines are anticipated within five years, based on smaller 0.18

icron semiconductor technology now considered feasible. In Silicon Valley smaller equals faster. The smallest semiconductor gate currently

vailable is .35 microns. (One micron is 10-6 meter, or one-millionth of a meter.)

researcher at the University of Buffalo may have made electronics itself obsolete. Physicist Hong Luo found a way to make flexible

miconductors, which industry prelates predict could "revolutionize" electronics as we know it by expediting the transition from electronic to

ptical computing, where computation is performed moving photons of light instead of electrons. No moving electrons means no heat. No heaeans smaller components. Smaller components mean faster performance. Computers will soon be fast enough to do a million human-years

ork in a month.

gets smaller. Nanotechnology, engineering on the molecular level (cf, K. Eric Drexler's "Engines of Creation: The Coming Era of

anotechnology", Anchor Books, 1986), is another restless frontier stirring in the stockade. Drexler says by using molecular "assembler"

achines we will eventually be able to create almost any arrangement of atoms. This technology will at first yield materials stronger and light

an anything known. A new Illinois company, Nanophase Technologies, is already fabricating iron, aluminum and titanium oxides into

anoscale-size powders, which are molded into ceramic components for use in giant Caterpillar and Lockheed engines. Their other nanoscale

owders form a key ingredient in a new generation of high tech sunscreen and cosmetics (no caking or streaking!). The sunscreen powder

articles (each about 12 atoms in size) are smaller than the wavelength of visible light, effectively yielding 100 percent protection against

angerous ultraviolet radiation.

anotechnology will further reduce the size (and increase the speed) of computers. Drexler predicts nanotechnology will eventually createper-nanocomputers smaller than grains of sand. The corral fences collapse here. The stampede begins when nanotechnology bolts toward

uman physical immortality. Swarms of nanoscale cell-repair cruisers will ripple through the body, locating faulty cells and repairing abnorm

ging?) DNA. If you like, or maybe even if you don't, you can live as long as the Great Red Spot. This will be attractive to Chicago Cubs' fan

ho may have to wait at least that long for the Cubs to make it to the World Series. You'll need something to do while you wait. That will

quire the "Santa Claus machine", a material wish-swingle capable of recycling the matter and molecules in junk drawers into just about

nything you want - like maybe a Bruce Willis-android to confront the cap-chewer with the Harley next door, or a gadget to render all dogs an

veryone named Jesse Helms silent.

ost futurists predict sometime between tomorrow and the year 2035 a computer at MIT or Los Alamos or the University of Tokyo or

mewhere will be nudged into consciousness and "wake up", to find itself 'human' in the sense it will be capable of performing the processing

owess of the human brain. That computer will do more than crunch numbers. It will have found computing's Holy Grail - self-awareness, a
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ondition we call 'intelligence'. From here, things quickly get interesting.

gainst the Window of Heaven

Smart" machines will reproduce, creating smarter machines, which in turn will build still smarter machines. Technological progress, now

pproaching omniscience, will explode suo Marte, swelling superexponentially almost overnight to the utter limits of knowledge, to the

Omega Point", where it will remain with its nose pressed against the window of Heaven in an endless ramification of incomprehensible

hange. The seers call this the "Singularity". The rest of us will call it the Apocalypse.

any of the doomsday prophecies are correct then there is nothing to be done. If the Singularity can happen it will happen. Hold on to your

ard drive. There's no way to stop a silicon stampede.

here's just this one detail. The human brain has an Inner Mind and no machine can find it. No machine is "awake" in the sense that it is awar

its experience, and some experts doubt computers will ever - no matter how small they become, how fast they operate, or how well they

imic neuronal activity - be more than catatonic couriers, note-passers with little if any ability to understand content. Consciousness is a longe

ddle than most people thought. University of California, Santa Cruz, philosopher David Chalmers says, "The more we think about computer

e more we realize how strange consciousness is." The dash toward the Singularity depends on the creation of superhuman Artificial

telligence, and AI has a limited future if the human mind can't be downloaded and algorithms written to imitate it.

et, there's no agreement on what the human mind even is. And no one seems to knows how it works. We don't even know if those questions

n be answered. There's a magical connection concealed in the mind, a poetic symbiosis sealed in mystery. Maybe human minds are our

ersonal Arks of the Covenant, to be approached and admired but never entered or embraced. Some suspect when the day comes that machine

e like men it will be more because men have lost their humanity than because machines have found it. Personally, I'm not inclined to worryuch until I see a computer catch a fly ball or gather a grandchild on its lap.

here are people who aren't worried about the Singularity because "techno-prophecy" is almost always wrong. Edward Tenner, in his book

Why Things Bite Back" (Alfred A. Knopf, 1996) complains that almost nothing about technology has been predicted with any accuracy. Eve

novation, he says, that solves one problem creates another. The marvels of modern technology, for instance, include the development of the

da can which, when discarded, lasts for eons. Improvements in football padding were meant to prevent injuries; instead they encouraged

ore aggressive play, causing injuries to increase.

stead of swishing us suddenly into the Fluxion Apocalypse it may be just as likely that technology will have to settle for marching us in an

derly parade toward the Utopian suburbs. Consider the cavalcade of Things That Think, presented to us in the belief they make our lives

mehow more complete, interesting or less dangerous. They may not be Things That Are Awake, but they are Things That Are Smart (not to

y intelligent). Examples:

eep Blue

n IBM computer, Deep Blue, recently defeated the world's greatest chess player, Garry Kasparov, in an historic match. Maybe some weren't

mpressed but Kasparov was. Kasparov thought he met God. "I met something I couldn't explain," he said after the match. "People turn to

ligion to explain things like that." There are those who think Kasparov is being way too hard on himself. There's room for a little pride when

ou consider it took a 3,000 pound bundle of 512 computers bear-hugging 200 million moves a second to beat him. Kasparov evaluates a

easly two or three moves a second and still managed to win one game and tie three more in the six game match.

he Doctor Will Sense You Now

mart' medicine is here, just a microchip away, courtesy of a tiny, wireless electronic device developed by Thomas Ferrell at Oak Ridge

ational Laboratory that can be attached like a band-aid or imbedded in a fingertip or earlobe. Doctors, medics and fire chiefs can now

motely monitor vital signs of high-risk patients, perform remote battlefield triage, track the respiration of firefighters and hazmat crews

ghting fires or toxic clouds, monitor children at risk of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome and liberate neo-natal babies from monitor wires so


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ey can be held and stroked. The first generation of the miniature medics, which are one-eighth the size of a postage stamp, sense body

mperature only, but subsequent iterations will measure blood pressure, blood oxygen and pulse - data then transmitted to remote receivers.

he technology will show up first use in the military, then civilian medical and emergency fields. Doctors can monitor vital signs from miles

way, paramedics can be more prepared for emergencies that await their arrival. Built-in alarms will notify firefighters, for instance, when

ood oxygen levels indicate danger. The sensor chips can also automatically telephone emergency services when triggered by a patient's

eteriorating vital signs.

mart' Fire Detectors

urdue University's Jay Gore has devised a 'Smart' fire detector that doesn't have to wait for smoke to set it off. Using fiber optics to scan for

e reflections of flames on walls, the devise can survey multiple rooms from a single location and uses a data base of flicker-patterns and

equency- content to judge whether the image it 'sees' is an actual fire, a candle or a curtain blowing. If it detects the patterns of flame it

utomatically notifies the fire department and plays pre-recorded evacuation instructions.

mart' Compass

Fresno, California company called Directional Robotics has invented the 'Smart' Compass that not only helps you get where you're going, it

members where you've been and can help you find your way back - useful to divers, hikers and the intoxicated. It can be connected to a

eech synthesizer to guide the blind.

mart' Roads

We have 'Smart' Roads, thanks to Lucent Technologies, Murray Hill, NJ, which markets the SmartSonic Traffic Surveillance System, a device

at replaces magnetic-loop sensors in roads with an advanced, aerially-mounted acoustic sensor that can determine traffic loads by the sound

ehicles make.

mart' Structures

ucent also has given us 'Smart' Structures, now that the loads and stresses on bridges and overpasses can be monitored by one of their pin-

ead size optoelectronic chips.

mart' Rescue

one of the structures happens to collapse on top of you anyway, we have the 'Smart' people-finder, a small electronic box developed by

ichigan State University electrical engineering professor Kun-Mu Chen that shoots microwave beams into the rubble of bombed or

rthquake damaged buildings and can "hear" the heartbeat or breathing of victims buried under tons of debris.

mart' Fabrics

new generation of 'Smart' Fabric is looming. Researchers working on the fringe of polymer science are at work developing 'Smart' fabrics -

aterial that reacts to and protects the wearer from temperature extremes, fire, radiation, traces of toxic agents and, eventually, even projectile

he research, at the University of Akron, in collaboration with Drexel and North Carolina State universities, is designing garments of imbedde

ber optic systems that can change color or otherwise signal the presence of extreme heat, chemical or biological agents. The hollow fibers ca

rry nutrition or medicine. That's just the beginning. We may all be wearing clothing items one day that look like pants but which in fact

ouble as radon detectors, smoke alarms, computers and ionization chambers.

here are also 'Smart' tape measures (that remember dimensions you forgot to write down), 'Smart' windows (that know whether to let heat in

out), 'Smart' televisions (that turn the volumn down during noisy commercials - now if they could just filter out the laugh tracks...) and

mart' cards (that will eliminate all the other cards). 'Smart' things we could actually use but can only wish for: 'smart' voters, 'smart'

oliticians, 'smart' drivers, and 'smart' parents.

ther Things That Think

ther Thinking Things are just being dreamed up. An entire laboratory has been set up at MIT, for instance, devoted to nurturing Things That

hink. MIT has noticed there are enough unidirectional electronic gadgets with buttons, batteries and userids to annoy just about everyone

ithout actually making life less complicated. (Why do we have all those phone numbers, anyway?) "We wear clothes, put on jewelry, sit on

hairs and walk on carpets that all share the same profound failing," say the MIT Media Laboratory vision statement. "They are all blind, deaf


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nd very dumb. Cuff links, in fact, don't link with anything. Fabrics look pretty but should have a brain, too. Glasses help sight but they don't

e." The Age of the Electron may have given us instruments that are pragmatic but they aren't particularly wise. MIT can't see why, for

stance, your coffee maker shouldn't be smart enough to remotely (through some sort of electromagnetic beam interrogation) find which coff

up is yours, sense the amount and temperature of the coffee in it and, if coached in advance, begin preparing a fresh serving. Your Jerry

alwell-android/stooge can pour it.

he lab lords think it's absurd your pager, cellphone, laptop, wristwatch, doorbell, CD player and toaster don't speak to each other. They

nvision something called BodyNet, a personal communication field where the devices that attend to you actually talk to you, talk to each othe

nd converse with the rest of the planet via unique Transponder/Body frequencies - powered by some clever way of harnessing the static

ectricity you generate merely by moving.

What does it all mean? We don't know. We don't know whether technology will eventually convey us to the Singularity or safely house us in

e sanitary suburbs; we don't know whether to regard it as invective or invitation, whether it's inherently benign, treacherous or achromatic.

he entire issue pales to the parochial when you realize 90 percent of the people in the world have no telephone. Exactly which side of the

chnological fence is actually 'backward' remains to be seem.

nd-

Man vs. Machine"appeared in the April, 1998 issue ofMetropolis Magazine.

omments? Questions? Assignments? [email protected]

ack to Top. Return to Home Page.
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man v. machine: the halftime report

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