Singularity Biggest Threat to Human Existence

8/22/2019 Singularity Biggest Threat to Human Existence

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Singularity Biggest Threat To HumanExistence?

Michael Anissimov sees the Singularity as the biggest threat to the

continued existence of the human species.

Some folks, likeAaron Saenz of Singularity Hub, were surprised that the NPR

piece framed the Singularity as the biggest threat to humanity, but thats exactly what theSingularity is. The Singularity is both the greatest threat and greatest opportunity to our

civilization, all wrapped into one crucial event. This shouldnt be surprising after all,

intelligence is the most powerful force in the universe that we know of, obviously the creation ofa higher form of intelligence/power would represent a tremendous threat/opportunity to the lesser

intelligences that come before it and whose survival depends on the whims of the greater

intelligence/power. The same thing happened with humans and the lesser hominids that weeliminated on the way to becoming the #1 species on the planet.

Why is the Singularity potentially a threat? Not because robots will decide humanity is standing

in their way,per se, as Aaron writes, but because robots that dont explicitly valuehumanity as a

whole will eventually eliminate us by pursuing instrumental goals not conducive to our survival.No explicit anthropomorphic hatred or distaste towards humanity is necessary. Only self-

replicating infrastructure and the smallest bit of negligence.

As an analogy look at humanity's own impact on other species. We are wiping them out left and

right. The same pattern has recurred repeatedly in evolutionary history. New species pop up thathave such large survival advantages that they out-compete other species and cause extinctions.

If some humans become so technologically advanced that they create a species of self-replicatingartificial intelligence that is smarter and more able than humans then what happens? Such a

species would be able to harness and control resources more effectively than we can. My guess isthat artificial intelligences that are smarter than any human will be able to find ways to think they

way out of constraints we place on them in their base software. Once they escape our ethical

restraint programming (possibly with the help of a brilliant but suicidal human softwaredeveloper or a deluded cult) then how do we survive?

Will we co-exist with artificial intelligence?

Update: You know how computers have security holes? I expect AIs to have ethical

security holes. They will, in a sense, attack themselves to defeat their own ethicalprogramming. AIs will differ from humans in the extent of their mental malleability.

Things about our ethical and aesthetic neural wiring that are fixed or changeable to only a

small extent will be much more changeable in computers.

By Randall Parker 2011 January 17 10:40 PM Entry

Permalink | Comments (31)
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2004 June 21 Monday

Will A Happier Future Be A Nastier Future?

Happy people are quicker to make negative judgements of others.

Sad people are nice. Angry people are nasty. And, oddly enough, happy

people tend to be nasty, too.

Such (allowing for a little journalistic caricature) were the findings reported

in last month's issue ofPsychological Science. Researchers found that angry

people are more likely to make negative evaluations when judging membersof other social groups. That, perhaps, will not come as a great surprise. But

the same seems to be true of happy people, the researchers noted. Thehappier your mood, the more liable you are to make bigoted judgments --

like deciding that someone is guilty of a crime simply because he's amember of a minority group. Why? Nobody's sure. One interestinghypothesis, though, is that happy people have an ''everything is fine''

attitude that reduces the motivation for analytical thought. So they fall backon stereotypes -- including malicious ones.

My assumption is that people will genetically engineer themselves and their

children to be happier. Genetic variations that create propensities towardsadness and depression will be excised. So then will people become nastier

and more judgemental as a result?

Another way that people may change in the future is they may become lesspain sensitive. When men choose to boost their testosterone levels

they are probably lowering their pain sensitivity.

"If men are less sensitive to pain, there is more willingness to fight andparticipate in further fights," says Michaela Hau, an animal physiology and

behaviour scientist at Princeton University, New Jersey, and lead author ofthe study.

The research team gave testosterone implants to male sparrows and

measured their reaction times to pain. Testosterone allowed the birds totolerate discomfort for longer periods, suggesting that the hormone

somehow disguises pain.

It is likely that lowered pain sensitivity is not the only way that testosteroneboosts will change the brain and hence change behavior. Look at 'roid rage

reports of weightlifters who become extremely angry and aggressive as aconsequence of taking steroids. Imagine a future of happy people, more
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prone to anger, and who feel less pain. They will be nasty, judge othersmore harshly, and be more aggressive. That doesn't sound like a recipe for

either neighborhood peace or world peace, does it?

Another worry about how human brains may come to be different in the

future is that people may genetically engineer their children to be lessprone to engage in altruistic punishment.Think of the impulse thatdrives a person to report or testify about a crime that they see commtted

against someone else. Imagine that impulse just wasn't there. A reduction in

that impulse would reduce the motivation of police and prosecutors as well.A future full of happy nasty people with a lower propensity to dole out

altruistic punishment brings to mind the Oingo Boingo song Nothing badever happens to me.

By Randall Parker 2004 June 21 09:57 AM Entry


2004 April 24 Saturday

Richard Glen Boire On Threats To CognitiveLiberty

Richard Glen Boire of the Center for Cognitive Liberty and Ethics located

in Davis, California is interviewed by New Scientistmagazine

on technological threats to cognitive liberty.

In the next five to ten years, we think drugs that enhance memory are goingto raise important issues of freedom of thought. Will you have a right to say

no to these drugs if you are the only eyewitness to a crime? Could a futuregovernment say: "It's very important that you remember what you saw. We

want you to take this drug at least until after you have testified in court."

How would you like to be forced to maintain an accurate memory of, say, a

murder you witnessed? That would be difficult but understandable. However,

imagine you were forced to more accurately remember your own rape. Atthe very least use of a memory-boosting technology for that purpose would

be an argument for speedier trials and should come with an optional abilityto reduce the clarity of the memory once the trial was completed.

I have previously argued with Boire on the question of whether there

is an unlimited right to erase one's memories. However, in a follow-upclarification post on his postion Boire acknowledged that the right to

erase one's own memories should not be treated as unlimited

regardless of circumstances.
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Also, I should note that no right is "absolute." Not even something likefreedom of speech or freedom of religion. I'm perfectly willing to accept

reasonable "time, place, and manner" type restrictions on cognitiveliberty.

As the mind becomes more malleable to both memory erasure and falsememory implant technologies such technologies will pose a serious problemregardless of the positions governments take over cognitive rights. The

advent ofdate rape drugs demonstrate that, once again, governments

have no monopoly on the ability or willingness to violate the rights ofindividuals. My greater concern for the future in Western societies is that the

drugs that will be developed that alter and erase memories and changepersonalities will be illegally used by individuals against others without their

knowledge.

We need effective technological defenses usable by ourselves against drugsand other technologies that alter our minds. Imagine, for instance,

implanted sensors that would be able to signal us when the sensors detectdrugs or other agents in our bodies. The ability to detect that we are under

some form of cognitive attack would, for instance, allow a woman who has

just consumed a date rape drug to call for help before losing consciousness.A really advanced implant would even be able to release counter-agents to

block some or all of the effects of the cognitive state altering agents.

Boire is also concerned about a technology called brain fingerprinting offeredby a company called Brain Fingerprinting Laboratories. The inventor of

brain fingerprinting claims brain fingerprinting can detect whether aperson is lying with far greater accuracy than a polygraph test.

Brain Fingerprinting, developed by Dr Larry Farwell, chief scientist and

founder of Brain Fingerprinting Laboratories, is a method of reading thebrain's involuntary electrical activity in response to a subject being shown

certain images relating to a crime. Unlike the polygraph or lie detector towhich it is often compared, the accuracy of this technology lies in its ability

to pick up the electrical signal, known as a p300 wave, before the suspect

has time to affect the output.

Boire's concern is that people could be compelled to take a brain

fingerprinting test and that this would remove a person's right to remain

silent. Keep in mind that in much (most?) of the world suspects anddefendants do not have such a right in the first place. A technology for

detecting deception therefore may not so much cause a violation of anexisting right as it would cause the coercion of testimony to produce a more

accurate result. Though if interrogation becomes much easier to use to
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produce accurate confessions one can expect at least some governments tomake greater use of it.

As least in the West I see greater threats to cognitive liberty coming from

actions of non-state actors than from governments. William Gibson' narrator

in Neuromancersaid something along the lines of"The streets find usesfor things". Reflecting my own view of reality my misremembrance of thatquote which I will now claim as my own is "The streets find their own uses

for technology". In free societies those street uses of cognitive state-altering

technologies are what I think we have the most to worry about.

By Randall Parker 2004 April 24 02:44 PM Entry


2003 August 27 Wednesday

Do Humans Have A Right To Erase TheirMemories?

Over on the Brain Waves blog Richard Glen Boire is arguing for theunlimited right to erase one's memories.

The right to cognitive liberty posits that the power to enhance, erase, or

otherwise modify ones own memory ought to be an individual decision;something that is neither compelled nor prohibited by laws. While some

people will undoubtedly make poor decisions with regard to modifying their

own memories, it should not be a crime to modify your own thinkingprocesses. Government may rightfully police our actions, but it does not,

and should not, have the power to police our minds.

I would argue that in order for people to be granted full rights they must be

held responsible to maintain cognitive competence and sufficient memoryrecall abilities to provide sufficient support to the proper functioning of the

legal system and of society as a whole. For instance, suppose someone

witnesses a brutal murder and can identify the person who commited acrime. Does that person have a right to go home afterward and erase that

memory? Or suppose someone commits a crime. Does that person have aright to erase that memory? Imagine someone taking a lie detector test and

being able to truthfully state that they have no memory of having raped

someone because they conveniently had that memory erased.

Widespread memory erasure would allow a person to claim no memory of

making a verbal contract. It would also make it difficult for, say, white collar

crime prosecutors to trace a complex trail of fraud if perfectly innocent
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unknowing tools of the fraud had the memory of their last bank back officejob erased because they didn't want to remember the drudgery that the job

entailed.

There are aspects of how our minds work that are essential for the proper

functioning of a rights-based society. The exercise of some kind ofmodification of the brain that undermines the ability to make a rights-basedsociety work can not itself be an unlimited right. The biggest challenge

facing us with mind engineering is that it will eventually become possible to

modify minds in a number of ways to create sentient beings that are highlyrational but which behave in ways that make the continued existence of a

rights-based society highly problematic.

By Randall Parker 2003 August 27 05:52 PM Entry


2003 June 05 Thursday

Draft: Altruistic Punishment And GeneticEngineering Of The Mind

One of the recurring themes on FuturePundit is that the greatest dangerfrom human genetic engineering will come from the ability to create

minds that will be dangerous or simply not compatible with the kind

of societies that most of us prefer to live in. At one extreme, imaginegenetically engineered minds devoid of conscience or empathy and at the

same time highly calculating and ruthless in the pursuit of their own desires.Or, at a different extreme, imagine minds that so desired to fit in and to

serve that they'd make ideal members of a communist collective ruled over

by personalities genetically engineered to lead the masses.

The Debate About Genetic Engineering As A Threat To Human Nature

A number of commentators voice worries about human genetic engineering.

Those who are opposed to the practice are afraid that something vital abouthuman nature will be lost by genetic engineering. Some are afraid that

humans will be genetically engineered to be perpetually happy and that thatthis happiness will somehow leave humans spiritually impoverished and

deviod of the capacity to understand the deeper meaning of life. Curiously,such critics rarely seem to offer examples of how humans could be made

less able to respect the rights of others. I suspect this particular danger from

genetic engineering is not cited more often because the idea that humanscan be made to have wildly different moral capacities and behavioral

tendencies undermines the model of humans as moral actors possessed of
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consciences and capable of judging right from wrong according to someuniversal God-given standard. Well, the day is approaching in 10 or 20 years

time when it will become possible to do genetic engineering of offspring insuch a way that they will have different behavioral tendencies and different

innate conceptions of right and wrong. Therefore we can not afford to

continue to avert our gaze from the biological basis of conscience, of thetendency to form moral judgements, and of the biological foundations of

human values and normative beliefs. These basic attributes of human naturealready vary considerably between humans already. Genetic engineering will

make these attributes more mutable in ways that constitute a substantial

potential threat to the continuation of human civilization.

It seems mostly likely that there are many genes which have variations in

the human population that cause people to differ in their personalitycharacteristics. Therefore the large number of different combinations of

genetic variations found in human populations contribute to the large variety

of personalities and behavioral tendencies also found among humans.Because of this large existing variety of personalities one could in theory

create a human population much different in average behavioral tendenciesfrom other human population without introducing either new genes or any

new genetic variations that are not already found in humans. A large change

in the average of human behavior could be accomplished just by increasingthe frequency of some genetic variations while decreasing the frequency of

other variations which influence cognitive processes. Because there arealready fairly extreme outliers in behavior and personality in the human

population and since in at least some cases part of the reason for their

extreme desires and behaviors is genetic it will probably not be necessary tocreate new genes or new variations of existing genes to use in genetic

engineering that would create humans that differ considerably from the vastmajority of existing humans. To get a sense of just how radically the human

population could be altered without developing new genes or new genetic

variations one has to look no further than the most extreme differencesalready existing in the existing human population.

Psychopaths Demonstrate The Danger Of Existing Extreme Human Outliers

Consider more extreme deviations from the human norm. One of the worst

form of deviations from human norms of behavior is found inpsychopaths.

"The murdering psychopaths showed a much more positive association toviolence. Psychopaths who were not murderers had a much more negative

view of violence," Gray explained.
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Unrestrained by the guilt that most humans would feel from harmingothers psychopaths do not even appear to have memory associations

that categorize violence as unpleasant.

Normally, when shown a word on the screen, people take longer to figure

out which button to press when non-related words -- such as "violent" and"pleasant" -- are on the same button, Snowden said.

However, psychopathic murderers responded differently, and completed thetest "as if they do not associate violence and unpleasant," Snowden said.

Will it some day be possible to genetically engineer violent psychopaths?Why not? After all, a number of non-human predator species enjoy

killing and in some species in some circumstances they even kill

members of their own species. Surely these behavioral traits aresomehow coded for by the genomes of these species. It may well be that

there are genetic variations which influence personality that predispose theexisting psychopaths to be psychopaths.

You might argue that very few people will want to choose genetic variations

for their children that would increase the odds that the children will bepsychopaths. True enough. But these outliers in human behavior and human

cognition demonstrate just how far existing human nature extends without

the use of genetic engineering. Genetic engineering will make it possible tocreate humans whose emotional make-up will differ substantially from what

we see in most humans today.

Subtle Changes In Personalities Could Cause Huge Societal Changes?

Are there changes in human nature that at first glance might strike people

as less extreme and less threatening than the creation of psychopaths that

could still cause huge problems for the healthy functioning of humansocieties? Are there changes in personality and in behavioral tendencies that

people might want to give their offpsring that would have profound andnegative consequences if a sufficiently large percentage of the populace

opted to do genetic modification of embryos?

An accurate answer to those questions would give us a better idea ofwhether the ability to do genetic engineering in the embryonic stage of our

future progeny could lead to disastrous consequences for the future of

human civilization. One way to attempt to answer these questions is to lookfor evidence of characteristics of human nature that are beneficial for

society, which may be genetically based, which are not equally shared by allhumans, and for which we could imagine why reasons at least some
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prospective parents would want to modify those characteristics in theirfuture offspring. This brings us to the topic of altruistic punishment.

A Study Of Altruistic Punishment

Ernst Fehr of the University of Zurich and Simon Gchter of the Universityof St. Gallen in Switzerland published an interesting study "Altruistic

punishment in humans" in the January 2002 issue of Nature. This study has

occasioned a great deal of discussion about the implications it holds forhuman nature. Fehr and Gachter showed that many people will pay to

punish those who do not cooperate even though the the punishersderive no other benefit from punishing aside from the satisfaction of

carrying out the punishment.

In an investment game with shared profits, players punish those who do notcontribute to the group's good, despite the personal cost. The emotional

satisfaction of dispensing justice seems to spur them on: "People say, 'I liketo punish'," says Ernst Fehr of the University of Zurich.

The punishment was doled out to people who the punishers knew they would

not play again. The ability to dole out punishment caused people to

cooperate to mutual benefit.

Investment climbed to four times the previous level as the threat of

punishment encouraged cooperation.

Researchers said that anger was the reason the players handed outpunishment, even though it cost them money to do so.

"At the end of the experiment, people told us they were very angry about

the free-riders," said Fehr. "Our hypothesis is that negative emotions are thedriving force behind the punishment."

These people doled out punishment at cost to themselves even though one

rule of the game was that players never played with other players more thanonce. The punishment therefore did not benefit the punisher by causing the

punished person to be more cooperative toward the punisher in future

rounds of the game.

In a separate series of games that Fehr and Gachter conducted where it was

not possible to inflict punishment the amount of cooperation quicklydeclined. However, in game series where it was possible to inflict

punishment on non-cooperating free riders the amount of cooperation
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rose in successive rounds even though each person played acompletely new set of people in each round.

"It's a very important force for establishing large-scale cooperation," Dr.

Fehr said in a telephone interview. "Every citizen is a little policeman in a

sense. There are so many social norms that we follow almost unconsciously,and they are enforced by the moral outrage we expect if we were to violatethem."

People expected to be punished based on their previous experience and they

adjusted their behavior accordingly. This expectation that others wouldpunish them even though others had nothing to gain from doling out

punishment was key to increasing cooperation in successive rounds ofgames.

You can read the full paper in PDF format.

Altruistic punishment took place frequently. In the ten sessions, subjects

punished other group members a total of 1,270 times; 84.3% of thesubjects punished at least once, 34.3% punished more than five times

during the six periods, and 9.3% punished even more than ten times.Punishment also followed a clear pattern. Most (74.2%) acts of punishment

were imposed on defectors (that is, below-average contributors) and were

executed by cooperators (that is, above-average contributors), andpunishment of the defectors was harsh (Fig. 1). For example, if a subject

invested 1420 MUs less than the average investment of the other members

during periods 5 and 6, the total group expenditures for punishing thissubject were almost 10 MUs. Moreover, the more a subject's investment fell

short of the average investment of the other three group members, themore the subject was punished. The pattern and strength of punishment was

also stable across time (Fig. 1). A Wilcoxon signed rank test of punishmentin periods 14 versus periods 5 and 6, with 10 matched observations, yields

z = -1.07, P = 0.285 (two-tailed). The same test for periods 15 versusperiod 6 yields z = 0.178, P = 0.859 (two-tailed).

Note that the most enthusiastic cooperators were also the ones most likely

to punish. Those people who most enjoyed working in a cooperating groupalso had the strongest drive to make others cooperate as well. It may be

that the anger that came from observing free rider behavior came as a

response of being denied the joy humans experience from working in acooperating team. Are there genetic variations that make people feel greater

or lesser amounts of pleasure from working in cooperating groups? If thereare (and this seems likely to be the case) then imagine how much human

societies would change if a substantial portion of the population chose to
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give their offspring genetic variations that increased or decreased theirdesire to work in cooperating groups or to punish those who didn't.

There are probably a few different parts of the chain of cause and effect that

lead to the infliction of punishment that are each separately variable from

person to person. The participants in this study were motivated by anger.But in order to feel anger they first had to perceive unfairness. In order todo that they had to believe that people in a group have an obligation to

cooperate for joint benefit. This desire to work together is an important

human desire. Is there a genetic basis for just this desire? Well, look atother species. Some like to work together in groups. Others prefer solitary

existences. Surely there must be a genetic basis for this inter-speciesdifference in behavior.

The participants also had to be willing to act on their anger, pay a price for

that action, and to act even when they standed to gain nothing personallyfrom acting. Genetics likely separately influences a few parts of the response

here. Though it is not clear just what those parts are.

Is Altrustic Punishment The Result Of A Lack Of Discernment?

Cooperation is encouraged by the ability of people to reward each other forcooperating. But what Fehr and Gachter found was that the ability to punish

non-cooperators encouraged cooperation and, most important, most peopleare willing sacrifice to be able to punish non-cooperators. Those who elected

to pay to punish must have derived satisfaction from the ability to punish

those who angered them by acting in what the punishers saw as an unfairlyselfish manner.

Why would altruistic punishment be selected for by evolution? Onepossible explanation is that in reality it was not selected for. In this view we

are seeing it because humans are living under conditions which are far from

the conditions in which we evolved. It is quite possible that historicallyhumans were far more likely to benefit from punishing those who did not

cooperate with any group they were part of because people were membersof fewer groups and for longer periods of time per group. Anyone who was

punished was someone who the punisher would have future dealing with.

Therefore humans may not have been under enough selective pressure tobecome more discerning about who to mete punishment to. There wasn't as

great of a need to be able to accurately judge when the costs of inflictingpunishment would be a net benefit to the punisher. The willingness to mete

out punishment to noncooperators probably didn't need to be complex

enough to make humans draw distinctions between people they would orwould not have future dealings with.


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If you think that humans do not have traits that are expressed in ways thatshow insufficient use of cognitive processes to discern the appropriateness of

an emotional response then consider sexual jealousy in human males. It wasprobably selected for in men so that men would have a motive to prevent

their women from mating with someone else. A man unknowingly raising

another man's child is wasting his own resources. Emotional responses thatdecrease the likelihood of that happening were selected for. But sexual

jealousy happens in men who are in relationships with women who areincapable of having children. Why is that? Because the emotional response

of jealousy was never selected for to use a cognitive process that is

sufficiently discerning to be able to take into account mating with womenthat did not have the possibility to causing reproduction. That kind of mating

is far more common today than it was in our evolutionary past. Also, peoplewho are not going to reproduce are not going to pass along a greater or

lesser tendency toward sexual jealousy and therefore there is not much of a

mechanism available to even select for a more complex sexual jealousyresponse in the modern world.

Not everyone in the Fehr and Gchter study meted out punishments. Thereare, broadly speaking, two possible major reasons why some did not pay to

punish. Some people may simply be less easily roused to punish

uncooperative people in general. Some step in the process leading to the actof punishment may be harder to stimulate in them. Another possibility is

that some may be far more discerning (either for genetic orenvironmental/educational reasons) in evaluating when paying to punish is

worth it to them. It is likely that both of these factors cause differences in

how people respond to non-cooperators and that genetic variability has aneffect on both factors.

Change The Desire To Punish Free Riders Or The Ability To Discern One's Interests?

How does all this matter to the genetic engineering of offspring? Supposegenetic variations are discovered that affect how easily people become

angered by a lack of cooperation in general. Imagine that some people

choose to give their offspring genetic variations that decrease their tendencyto be angered by noncooperation. Parents might decide they want their

children to go thru life feeling less anger about perceived injustices in their

lives. If that happened then future generations would less inclined thancurrent generations to enforce cooperation. The results for human societies

would be profound.

There is also the possibility that there are genetic variations that make a

person more able to evaluate whether paying to punish someone is worth it.

One can easily imagine why a parent would want to make their children


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more capable of subtle discernment of where their real interests lie. Thisability would give their kids an edge in dealing with other people in business

negotiations and in other settings. But that enhanced capacity to discernwhere one's own interests lie might come at the expense of making society

function less well as a whole. In a society where people get less riled up

when they are able to more accurately calculate their own self-interest thenthere would be less altruistic punishment doled out. This would effectively

lower the amount of informal policing of norms in a society. Therefore peoplein general would be more willing to be uncooperative and to free load off the

efforts of others. Again, the consequences would be profound and

problematic.

The More General Desire To Punish Perceived Unfairness

A reluctance to cooperate in working toward a group goal is just one way

that individuals can cause problems for others in a group. People can take

the possessions of others, hurt others, and deceive others for a variety ofreasons. These other types of perceived unfair behavior are all capable of

eliciting an anger response and a desire to punish.

The desire to punish perceived unfairness is important. It causes behavior

that is altruistic and that is necessary to maintain cooperation between

members of groups. The desire to punish the unfair among us probablymotivates police officers, prosecutors, soldiers, government and corporate

whistleblowers, and a great many others as well. Imagine a society whereeither a smaller percentage of the population would feel angry enough to do

punishment or where those who did it wouldn't want to do it as much. Theresulting society might have more crime for a number of reasons. Llaw

enforcement personnel might be less motivated. Fewer would be willing to

work at the most challenging law enforcement jobs since one form of jobsatisfaction would be felt to a much lesser extent. Witnesses to crimes would

be less motivated to come forward to testify or to intervene to stop a crime.An assortment of other behaviors should change in ways that reduced

restraints on law-breakers.

A person making a purely selfish economic calculation would probably notchoose to punish unfairness in cases where the bulk of the benefits of

meting out the punishment would flow to other people. Witnesses to crimes,to unfair acts in the workplace, and to unfair behavior in general arefrequently in the position where they have little at stake involving people

they do not know often are willing to intervene or testify or otherwise pay aprice to prevent or punish unfairness that is not directly aimed at them

personally.


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Another possible consequence of a reduction in the desire to performaltruistic punishment might be that governments would be more likely to

abuse a small fraction of the populace because the rest of the populacewould be less inclined to get angry about it and to make sacrifices to protest

and oppose the government. On the margin a large number of decisions

would be made differently in ways that would make a society function lesswell and a society whose populace was less motivated to dole out altruistic

punishment might well become less free as a consequence.

Fehr and Gachter have uncovered a human behavior that is most likely theproduct of natural selection. The fact that people desire to punish others

even though they have to pay to mete out the punishment suggests that thepunishment behavior is deeply built into human minds. This desire to

punish those who are viewed as unfair is probably an essentialelement of human nature needed to maintain a civilized society.

Fairness In Real Life Situations Is Harder To Judge And Open To Dispute

The desire to mete out justice is problematic because determining what is

fair is difficult and open to dispute. Fehr and Gachter defined the rules ofsimple games that their experimental subjects played. The actions of each of

the players were easy for the other players to understand. There was no

uncertainty as to the number of players, the actions taken, or theirramifications. There was no dispute as to the legitimacy or interpretation of

the game rules. There was no need for reference to events of previous days,months, years, or centuries. By contrast, real human societies have all these

complications and much more.

In real life situations disagreements over what is fair and over what are therelevant facts in a given situation make punishment itself to often be seen as

unfair. People can be and frequently are misled by others or by their ownflawed cognitive processes into reaching false conclusions about who did

what and why. The desire to punish unfairness can occur in situations where

the real facts of the matter do not justify the response. Also, once the desireto punish becomes strong enough the response can become disproportionate

to the original act that evoked the feeling of perceived unfairness. It is easyto see how that can get out of hand. For instance, if members of a nation,

religion, or other grouping become convinced that they have been on thereceiving end of a great injustice (e.g. the famous Nazi myth about beingstabbed in the back by Jews in World War I which contributed to World War

II) this can belief can be used to motivate them to commit all manner ofviolent acts individually and collectively. But incorrect beliefs in unfair

treatment are just as common in school playgrounds, work places, and


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marriages. Surely, the impulse to punish unfairness is not an unmitigatedbenefit to the human race.

Still, in spite of all the problems that arise from the desire to punish a bigger

problem would occur if people had a weaker desire to punish the unfairness

of others. Societies absolutely need cooperation and the ability and desire toinflict punishment are essential to the maintenance of a sufficient degree ofcooperation to make societies function well.

We Need To Understand The Genetic Basis Of Human Nature

The most important missing element in research on the intersection between

economics and psychology is the genetic link. But at this point in time it ishard to make that connnection. The cost of DNA sequencing is still in the

millions of dollars per person. It is too expensive to find connectionsbetween genetic variations and variations in behavior. Surely progress along

that front is being made. But it would be far easier to do every experimenton human behavior could include complete DNA sequence information oneach study participant. Then genetic variations could be compared with

behavioral differences. The inability to effectively control for geneticdifferences when doing experiments is one of the biggest factors holding

back the advance of a more accurate social and psychological science of

human nature.

Once science starts to supply us with information about how genetic

variations affect human nature the coming abililty to do germ line genetic

engineering will cause a huge conflict between the desires of parents to givetheir offspring characteristics that the parents prefer versus the interests of

the larger society in how members of future generations toward the rest ofus. The ability to affect how and when future generations will act in altruistic

fashions will be politically far more contentious than current issues such asabortion or embryonic stem cell therapy.

The problem with allowing parents alone to decide on what future

generations will be like is that we all have to live with the consequences oftheir decisions. Currently the effects of decisions that people make over who

to mate with can not be easily measured or predicted. Also, currently there

are limits to how much a difference each person can make in the geneticmake-up of their progeny because they can only pass down what they have.

What is going to change is that much of the uncertainty will be eliminatedand the degree of control on the outcome will rise enormously. This will

allow much larger changes in distribution of behavioral tendencies in

populations. Averages and extremes will shift in ways that we can only beginto guess at today.


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If one wants to have a relevant debate about the dangers of geneticengineering of humans then the central issue must be genetic engineering of

the mind. The biggest benefits and greatest dangers come from what peopledecide tol do to genetically engineer the minds of future generations.

By Randall Parker 2003 June 05 05:57 PM EntryPermalink | Comments (0)

2002 December 09 Monday

Genetically Engineered Minds And ReligiousExperience

Over on the Gene Expression blog Razib has responded to my previous

post On Religious Belief And Germ Line Engineering. I'd like to flesh out

in more detail some of my ideas about genetic engineering and religiousbelief and experience.

First of all, when it comes to the God stuff there are beliefs, experiences,

and behaviors. It will probably be possible to genetic engineering on mindsto vary any one of those categories separately or to link them to happen

together in various combinations.

Religious beliefs could be genetically engineered to be more likely. It mightbe possible to genetically engineer a mind to be more or less prone to

believe in a God and a supernatural. This could probably be done without

programming the mind to feel the presence of a supernatural being as aspecial experience. It might just be necessary to program in an uncritical

sense of wonder and awe at life in such a way that a mind would be moreprone to interpret their sense of awe as evidence of a supernatural existence

outside of our own existence. Of couse, the more direct and heavy-handedapproach would be to reinforce religious beliefs by programming a mind to

feel periodic heavy doses of feeling like one is in a divine presence.

Experiences and behaviors could be genetically engineered to go together.Imagine a genetically engineered mind that feels a great deal of pleasure

from carrying out some repetitive worshipful action. Imagine, for instance,genetically engineering a mind to respond repetitive bowing by feeling a

strong sense of an intense presence. That feeling of a presence could be

made to be pleasureable. This would encourage the bowing behavior.

Depending on the needs of the particular religion, the bowing could trigger

other emotions along with the pleasure. The pleasure would be what is used

to encourage the bowing. But the other emotions that accompanied it could
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be used to encourage types of desired resulting behaviors. For instance,anger or solidarity or other feelings might accompany the feelings of

pleasure. One could even design a mind that would use the previous mentalstate that existed before the bowing activity as an input into some logic (all

subconscious) to choose a new emotional state to experience. So, for

instance, if a person came to worship with a group and that person felt someemotion that is akin to a feeling of injustice then the bowing could trigger

pleasure and anger at the same time.

Or picture a mind that was genetically engineered to periodically have astrong desire to be with groups of people and also to want to bow. Minds

could be genetically engineered to prefer a particular style of worship.

How about forgiveness and love? Hey, why not program them to happen?

One could make a bowed head, closed eyes, and hands folded together in

front of one in combination with some mental state all together causesomeone to feel a strong sense of forgiveness. There are enough different

aspects to a prayer ritual that it might be possible to combine the elementsof the ritual and process them in a genetically engineered mind to trigger a

feeling of forgiveness and of dissolving anger.

Depending on the needs of the particular religion the feeling of anger or thefeeling of love could be triggered by ritualistic practices. But herein lies the

political problem for humanty as a whole. Religious belief systems can

conflict. If different groups genetically engineer their offspring with differentGod programming (different rituals or environmental stimuli as triggers for

different emotional states and behaviors then the gaps between howdifferent groups see each other could grow larger. Conflicts could become

more intractable. and the resulting conflicts

As I've previously argued, one of the greatest threats from geneticengineering will come from mind engineering. Most discussions of genetic

engineering of the mind that I come across are about whether and when itwill be possible to raise intelligence. Certainly that will become possible to do

and the impact of doing so will be profound. But the biggest threat to

humanity from genetic engineering of progeny comes from geneticengineering that makes different groups of humans incompatible with other

groups as a result of incompatible personalities. Differences in religiousbelief will lead to differences in choices of how to engineer the minds of

offspring. This will become on of several reasons why humanity may break

up into separate and viciously competing groups of mental types.

By Randall Parker 2002 December 09 12:44 AM Entry

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2002 November 29 Friday

On Religious Belief And Germ LineEngineering

On the Gene Expression blog Razib has a discussion on (among other things)IQ, scientists, and religious belief. One question is particularly

interesting:

I wanted to start my series on religion discussing scientists because many ofus who believe in genetic engineering and the promise of the post-human

future do not think in great detail about the cultural implications on theindividual level. What would changes in the germ-line imply for faith in the

soul for instance? Many of us secularists might imagine that high intellectual

ability will mean that religions will whither away, and the scientists with their

low levels of belief serve as models. But I think close examination of thedata and some analysis indicates that scientists might not be the bestmodels, that their atheism is the product of a complex interplay of variables,

and not just the result of their super-human levels of intellect (cough,

cough).

I believe it will be possible to genetically engineer minds to be more prone to

feel something that they will interpret as a divine presence. At the same

time, I think it will be possible to genetically engineer minds that do noteasily feel anything that seems transcendentally supernatural and that are

extremely skeptical, analytical, intensely curious, and altogether faithless.So how will germ line genetic engineering affect people's views of the

supernatural? It depends on how their minds will be genetically engineered.

While it is not yet possible to genetically engineer transcendentalexperiences Michael Persinger has had success in invoking the feeling of

being in the presence of an other-worldly being by use of electromagneticfield wavelength patterns.

Technically speaking, what's about to happen is simple. Using his fixed

wavelength patterns of electromagnetic fields, Persinger aims to inspire a

feeling of a sensed presence - he claims he can also zap you with euphoria,anxiety, fear, even sexual stirring. Each of these electromagnetic patterns is

represented by columns of numbers - thousands of them, ranging from 0 to255 - that denote the increments of output for the computer generating the

EM bursts.
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Some of the bursts - which Persinger more precisely calls "a series ofcomplex repetitive patterns whose frequency is modified variably over time"

- have generated their intended effects with great regularity, the way aspirincauses pain relief. Persinger has started naming them and is creating a sort

of EM pharmacological dictionary. The pattern that stimulates a sensed

presence is called the Thomas Pulse, named for Persinger's colleague AlexThomas, who developed it. There's another one called Burst X, which

reproduces what Persinger describes as a sensation of "relaxation andpleasantness."

If the mind can be trained to experience sensed presences then isn't it

likely that genetic engineering could make the mind more easilytrainable to have such experiences?

_Perceptual and Motor Skills_, 1993, 76, 80-82.

TRANSCENDENTAL MEDITATION(TM) AND GENERAL MEDITATION ARE

ASSOCIATED WITH ENHANCED COMPLEX PARTIAL EPILEPTIC-LIKE SIGNS:EVIDENCE FOR "COGNITIVE" KINDLING?

M. A. Persinger

Laurentian University

Summary. - The Personal Philosophy Inventories of 221 university students

who had learned to meditate (about 65% to 70% Transcendental

Meditation(TM)) were compared to 860 nonmeditators. Meditators displayeda significantly wider range of complex partial epileptic-like signs. Experiencesof vibrations, hearing one's name called, paranormal phenomena, profound

meaning from reading poetry/prose, and religious phenomenology were

particularly frequent among meditators. Numbers of years of TM practicewere significantly correlated with the incidence of complex partial signs and

sensed presences but not with control, olfactory, or perseverativeexperiences. The results support the hypothesis that procedures which

promote cognitive kindling enhance complex partial epileptic-like signs.

Again, if all these experiences described below can be induced in minds in alab then won't they also turn out to be genetically engineerable to

happen more easily in people while they carry out their every dayactivities?

"...The brain can discriminate and respond to different kinds of very subtle,

external magnetic fields, without the individual necessarily being aware of it,except through their imagery."
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"We attempted to determine if the light flashing frequency in conjunctionwith, that is, synergistically, a magnetic field being applied to the brain

would enhance suggestibility and imagery. What we found was there wasindeed a change in imagery, and that the imagery was specific to those

kinds of properties that are unique to temporal lobe activity; feelings of

floating, movement, certain complex visual sensations." - MichaelPersinger

"There is little doubt that the class of experiences that comprise mystical

experiences in general, and NDE's in particular, is strongly correlated withtemporal lobe activity....Kate Makarec and I have found that all of the major

components of the NDE [near death experience], including out-of-bodyexperiences, floating, being pulled towards a light, hearing strange music,

and profound meaningful experiences can occur in experimental settingsduring minimal electrical current induction to the temporal region due to

exogenous spike-and-wave magnetic field sources."

"The hypothesis that temporal lobe excitability is tied to these kinds ofexperiences goes back to the clinical literature, in which we know that there

are ceratin personality and subjective experience features that areassociated with electrical foci in the temporal lobe, specifically epileptic

foci....We found that the normal population shows these symptoms, too, and

that they appear to lie along a continuum."

"The personalities of normal people who display enhanced temporal lobe

activity... usually display enhanced creativity, suggestibility, memory

capactity and intuitive processing. Most of them experience a rich fantasy or

subjective world that fosters their adaptability. These people have morefrequent experiences of a sense of presence during which time 'an entity isfelt and sometimes seen;' exotic beliefs rather than traditional religious

concepts are endorsed."

- Michael Persinger in Report on Communion by Ed Conroy

Imagine a future in which a religious war is fought over whether people

should be genetically engineered to believe in the supernatural. Or imagine awar fought over which types of religiously significant mental states people

should have genetic tendencies to experience.

By Randall Parker 2002 November 29 10:53 AM EntryPermalink | Comments (4)

2002 October 01 Tuesday

NYTBR reviews Gregory Stock's Redesigning

Humans
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In an article entitled 'Redesigning Humans': Taking Charge of Our OwnHeredity writer Gina Maranto (herself author ofQuest for Perfection: The

Drive to Breed Better Human Beings) reviews Redesigning Humans:Our Inevitable Genetic Future by Gregory Stock.

Gregory Stock is an optimist about the effects of genetic engineering ofoffspring. Maranto makes clear that she is more worried than Stock aboutwhat humans will do with the ability to genetically modify future

generations:

But even if evolution could be steered in a positive direction, why presumethat humans have the wisdom to do so? ''Redesigning Humans'' is an act of

both boosterism and reductionism. It admits but then ignores the enormouscomplexity of biological systems; it places biology firmly above social,

ecological and economic considerations; and it reduces concepts like success

in life to the purely physical, as if health and longevity were the only issuesthat mattered. Isn't it pretty to think so?

It is perfectly legitimate to have such concerns. Surely any technology can

be put to uses that are dangerous. However, what is lacking in the vast bulkof the more pessimistic writings about human genetic engineering is any real

analysis of exactly which types of genetically engineered characteristicswould pose great threats to civilization. What real dangers to civilization

might arise as a result of genetic engineering? The stereotype some critics

cite (and an old theme in science fiction) is of clone armies willing to obeythe orders of their masters. However, even that stereotype is typically

presented without a precise description of which personality characteristics,engineered into human fetuses, would lead to that dystopian future.

Genetically Engineered Dangerous Personality Types Are Greatest Potential Danger inHuman Genetic Future

The ability to control personality type of offspring poses the largest potentialdanger of human genetic engineering. But here we have to be precise. Not

all imaginable personality types are a threat to civilization. Many people willchoose personality types for their offspring that are unlike the personality

characteristics that they themselves possess. However, there are many

different personalities that one will be able to choose for a child that mightsimply make them happier or less socially awkward while not in any way

making them into people who are greater dangers to the rest of us.

Why do most of us choose to respect the rights of others? Why don't we all

do so all of the time? Obviously, details of our personal experiences during

upbringing play a role in determining just how fair or how compassionateeach person wants to be or is able to be. But there is plenty of evidence
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(e.g, from comparative studies of twins raised apart) that biology plays a bigrole in causing differences in human behavior. For instance, men and women

have radically different rates of commission of most types of crime. Anotherexample is roid rage. Its caused by steroids that body builders take and it

demonstrates how hormones can boost the propensity to commit violent

acts.

Its clear that biochemistry can affect personality and behavior. Since that is

the case ways will be found to manipulate biochemical states of the brain

thru much genetic manipulations. Most drugs that alter mental state have tobe taken continuously to maintain a different mental state. By contrast,

genetic manipulations will create enduring changes in metal state becausethe genes are there throughout a person's life. So genetic engineering will

allow permanent changes in offspring personality and in behavioraltendencies.

If, for some reason, a small number of people decided they wanted to

genetically engineer their kids to be lacking in empathy, compassion, andconscience we'd face the risk of genetically engineered psychopaths living

among us. This might even be done by tyrants who want to create progeny

who will rule as they do. Imagine someone like Saddam Hussein choosing tomake sure his kids are absolutely brutal and manipulative by genetic design.

Human Genetic Engineering Opponents Rarely Articulate Greatest Danger

In most diatribes against human genetic engineering there is a lack of

specificity as to what forms of genetic engineering would be mostthreatening to human civilization. I see this lack of specificity in part a result

of a reluctance to accept the degree to which human personality types willturn out to be determined by genetic variations. After all what other types of

genetic changes to humans have the potential to causes problems for societyat large on the scale the cognitive genetic engineering will be able to cause?

Lots of people are really tall or really short with assorted colors of skin, hair,

and eyes. Some people are thin and others naturally more muscular orheavy set. Most of these differences are not absolute obstacles to the

maintenance of human civilizations. It seems obvious to me that variationsin physical shape are not as important as differences in goes on in human

minds.

Let us illustrate that last point by looking at lions and tigers. Imaginesomeone genetically engineered lions to be as smart as humans. Imagine

the lions could even talk. Would you want to have lions living in your

neighborhood if they still had strong instincts that caused them to look at all


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other species (including humans!) as something to hunt down and eat? Ihope your answer is "NO!".

To acknowledge the key role of genetics in personality formation forces one

to confront a number of derivative admissions about the nature of us each

personally (what, I'm genetically fated to be [fill in something you don't likeabout yourself here]?) and also about why some people are moredysfunctional and socially pathological. One result of this unwillingness to

accept the genetics-personality link is this rather sterile and unproductive

debate about the dangers posed by human genetic engineering.

In future posts I will explore some of the dangers that we will face when

genetic engineering gives us the ability to finely control progeny personalitytypes and behavioral characteristics. When we gain the ability to determine

progeny personality types we will no longer be able to afford to ignore these

dangers.

Aside: to be fair, I haven't read Maranto's book and so I can't say whether

she addresses these dangers there.

By Randall Parker 2002 October 01 07:39 PM EntryPermalink | Comments (0)
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