It is a strange time. In the midst of severe financial problems and a probably unprecedented lack of effective leaders, and the promise of further problems ahead, we can still look forward to this century bringing us fantastic new technologies. We will soon have computers as smart as people, the ability to connect them to our nervous systems, and later to our brains, making us superhuman. We will mine asteroids and start to develop space. We will have electronic immortality and be able to cure almost all diseases. It is a good time to be alive, at the dawning of a new era. But I am not going to blog today about all the wonderful stuff coming down the road. There is lots to be excited about, but it won’t be a technotopia. There is no such thing as a free lunch and these are some of the costs we should expect along the way. Forewarned is forearmed. By being alert to the dangers, we may be able to avoid some of them, or at least reduce their impacts.
It would take too long to write them all up in detail, but I think most are self-explanatory with just a simple heading. So here is my initial list. I am not aiming for completeness here, really just capturing headings for potential future blogs.
Living with robots
Gladiatorial combat between sentient machines
Robot psychos
Robot ‘mental problems’
Relations between robot, AI and human cultures
Robots owning other robots
Robots enslaving people
Living with virtuality
Reality confusion – blurring of real and virtual self
Augmented Reality identity theft
Augmented reality tribalism
AR objectification of women
Gender play – option to switch between genders freely could prove a problem
New genders, with associated social, cultural and legal problems
Age play – resulting difficulties from ability to portray oneself or others as any age.
Problems with virtual neighbours in shared virtual spaces
Virtual vandalism and other conflicts in virtual shared spaces
Digital trespass, provision of competing services on another’s property
Living with digital permanence
Inheritance of in depth personal records
Changing technology exposes secrets from earlier life
Wide implications of electronic immortality – may not be able to die fully
Partial death
Partial & Delayed Birth & ebay-bies
Trade in and collection of DNA listings, virtual embryos, virtual kids etc, that could actually be fabricated at some stage
Re-birth, potential to clone and download mind or use direct brain link to live in younger self
Demands by gays to be enabled to have babies
Conflicts between organic and electronic humans
Living with high longevity
Increasing acceptance of euthanasia
Conflicts over rights to live longer
Living with brain-machine links
Shared and communal minds
Mind control
Enslavement
Identity confusion
Blurring of self
Absorption
Literally split personality
Personality exchanges and modifications will cause many problems
Living with advanced surveillance
Mind reading and policing, potentially zero privacy
Thought crimes
Transhumanist tensions
Demands to constrain transhumanism v demands for freedom of development
Decisions on human and AI nature
Transhuman diversification
