Robots will inherit the earth, BUT…

Jose Luis Cordeiro is a futurist thinker, the director of the Venezuelan node of the Millennium Project as well as energy advisor and part of the founding faculty of Singularity University (SU). In his speech at this year’s START Summit he passionately argued that things like human-level artificial intelligence or physical immortality aren’t nearly as far away in the future as most people would think, due to the power of exponential growth patterns observed in Moore’s Law and other key areas, and he shared his vision of how technology will change almost every aspect of our lives, including ourselves. His conception of the future is very similar to that of his friend, the author, inventor, director of engineering at Google and co-founder of Singularity University, Ray Kurzweil. Both are radical optimists, both believe in a merger of humans and machines and both don’t shy away from controversy. After Cordeiro’s keynote I had the chance to do a short interview with him.

(NOTE: You can view the complete original conversation here, however, warnings, you’re in for a shaky ride.)

Mr. Cordeiro, what makes Singularity University different from other universities?

Well, actually, Singularity University has the wrong name, and not only once but twice. Singularity University isn’t a degree awarding institution. The long programs are only three months long, shorter ones are even limited to one or two weeks. It only gathers people from all over the planet to teach and learn about exponential technologies. So, Singularity University is more of a business accelerator than an university in a traditional sense. Nor is it really about the singularity. The technological singularity is a relatively well defined concept denoting the point at which artificial intelligence reaches human general intelligence. Our programs aren’t explicitly about that. They are about exponential changes happening in many technologies, including my area, which is energy. Specifically, I work in the field of solar energy, which will destroy fossil fuels in the next two decades.

Speaking of that, I think you also coined a term for this: „Energularity“

Yes, it’s the time at which we will power the whole planet with solar energy. I invented that expression based on the idea of the singularity as well as on a similar term coined by Aubrey de Grey, a friend of mine, who works on immortality. He has a long beard so that he looks a little like a mad scientist and he created the concept of a „Methusalerity“. Methuselah is a biblical figure that lived a thousand years long and the term describes the point at which we gain more life expectancy than we lose.

So, will solar energy really be the only source of energy in the future or could we for example also use nuclear fusion to create our own „little suns“?

On planet Earth, solar can provide us with sufficient energy. Eventually, once we leave Earth, we will need fusion energy however. And we will colonize the Universe. Right now, there are eight programs to go to Mars and what is truly fascinating is that four of them are private. Only ten years ago that was totally unthinkable and actually I think it will be the companies that will beat the governments.

Ok, let’s switch to the technological singularity. Do you subscribe to Ray Kurzweil’s timeline on this issue?

I work with Ray Kurzweil and translated his books into Spanish, so I am 120% Kurzweilian. We both believe that the Turing test will be passed by 2029. However, 2029 is actually the late estimate, because things are happening faster than anticipated. For example, AlphaGo wasn’t expected to happen now already and compared to Deep Blue, which beat Gary Kasparov in chess in 1999, AlphaGo is new type of Artificial Intelligence, one that is actually able to learn by itself. So yeah, we will pass the Turing Test by 2029 and by 2045 we will have a device that will be smarter than all of humanity combined. This really will mark the beginning of the post-human age with enhanced humans with much more life, intelligence, abilities, love and empathy.

Intelligence augmentation is very fascinating, however, compared to Artificial Intelligence in general we will still be limited by whatever human structures we will preserve. Can there really still be a human part in a post-human future?

All this technology is developed by humans for humans. This is not an invasion of martians. What you have explained is reflective of the Western mentality. If you look at Japan on the other hand, the people aren’t scared of Artificial Intelligence or robots. They love them. The bestselling book last year in Japan was “How to make love to a robot”. So, while you might be scared of robots, in Japan they want to have sex with them, which by the way will be cleaner than human-to-human intercourse.

We really will fuse with this technology, because we will also have nanobots in our brains, which will connect our brains to the cloud, to this third half of our brain, this exocortex. At least, those who want to, because some people will not want to do it, especially for religious reasons, like for example the Amish. So, part of humanity will stay behind, because they don’t want to move forward, and that is their right. However, the bulk of humanity, lead by East Asia, will move forward into this brave new world.

To be clear, I am actually pretty excited about robots myself. Nonetheless: You have mentioned in your speech that we share about 99% of our genes with Chimpanzees and despite that, they don’t have any strategic decision-making capabilities in this world. As all other animals they are completely dependent on us and we didn’t exactly create a paradise for them, we caused the sixth mass extinction. Isn’t there some conflict potential in terms of resource allocation? Couldn’t an AI have better ways to use resources than giving us the best lives possible?

Planet Earth is a very small planet, in a very small solar system, in a very small galaxy. The Universe is incredible and full of possibilities. So, from that point of view, I don’t think that there has to be a competition for resources.

One of my old professors at MIT who died a few weeks ago, Marvin Minsky, one of the founders of artificial intelligence, famously answered the question “Will robots inherit the Earth?” with “Yes, but they will be us and we will be them.” However, even if we don’t merge with technology, ask yourself this intelligently: Would you like to have more or less intelligence on the planet? Do you want your children to be more intelligent or less intelligent than you? These new life forms, these post-humans, they will be our descendants, and in a way, they will be us. Therefore, I wish them the best.

You have also talked about immortality today. Assuming that humanity survives the singularity, in what form will we be immortal? Mind uploading seems easier than organic immortality, however, wouldn’t this just be a form of cloning?

That is why I have talked about hardware and software today. In raw materials you only cost a hundred dollars. You know that you are 70% water and you are not Evian water, you are tap water. The other 30% of you are very simple elements. So, we humans are actually very cheap to build physically and that is also one of the reasons why there is no lack of resources.

Look at cancer, it has discovered how not to age. To me, cancer is the ultimate disease because it is a series of mutations that have stopped aging. The Hayflick-limit is a bullshit limit. Cancer doesn’t care about it, cancer replicates indefinitely. It is not immortal because you can kill it and stop feeding it, but otherwise cancer does not age. The proof that organic immortality is possible is cancer. The same goes for germinal cells. Also, the first life forms that appeared on Earth are bacteria. Bacteria don’t age. They have circular chromosomes as opposed to our X-chromosomes with telomeres. Life appeared to live, not to die. We are the continuation of this vital process. In the future we can live indefinitely and I think most people will want to with a few exceptions mainly for religious reasons.


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