Artilect Debate Goes Political, France Again
For the first time on the planet (as far as I know) politicians are getting involved in the "Artilect Debate" (i.e. should humanity build godlike massively intelligent machines later this century, which might turn on us).
In the summer of 2001, in France, a French "senateur" Rene Tregouet, of the Rhone district in France, will organize/preside over a "Groupe de Prospective du Senat" (a French senate hearing) over the issue of species dominance. Some 140 French senateurs may attend. I have been asked to present my views.
This event I believe is inevitable and to France's credit for being the first country to do such a thing. In my experience, France has consistently been the world leader in this whole debate over the past year or so. I find the US (in second place) slower on the uptake than France on the POLITICAL aspects of the artilect debate. In the US you have people like Ray Kurzweil and Hans Moravec talking about the technologies that will generate massive intelligence, but the Americans fail in my view to address the profound moral/ethical/philosophical/political/military aspects of the rise of the artilect. France on the other hand just loves to muddy its hands in such social ideological controversy, so Im finding my reception in France far better. Of course it helps that Im in Brussels, which is only 80 minutes away from Paris by high speed train (TGV), and that my French is fluent (thanks to my second wife, who was a native French speaker, who died early 2000 from lung cancer - she smoked heavily before she met me, the moron).
If Im right about this century being dominated by the artilect issue, then it is only a question of time before the politicians have to get involved, so something like this senate hearing has to happen. France will be first. Which country will be second? Maybe Switzerland, at Davos in Jan 2002? I am a Davos (World Economic Forum) Scientific Fellow (of 800 fellows in all sorts of specialties, science, economics, arts, literature, etc) who get to go, 200 per year, to Davos to intellectually entertain the billionaires, the presidents, and the ministers of finance. I will suggest to Davos that a panel discussion be held, with me, Prof. Kevin Warwick (who was a co-panel member with me at the 1998 Davos WEF), Prof. Hans Moravec and Dr. Ray Kurzweil, on the theme of "Species Dominance - Should We Build Machines More Intelligent than Ourselves?" I'm predicting the worst war in human history (gigadeath) over this issue. Today's global preoccupation with economics will in time be superceded by the issue of species dominance. Davos will change its theme (from economics to artilectual politics) over the coming few decades, I believe.