• Queen’s School of Computing was visited by Eli Blevis in late October, an associate professor from the School of Informatics, Indiana University at Bloomington. Blevis is best known for his research in the field of sustainable interaction design, an area which draws from computing, cognitive science, and design criticism. I really enjoyed hearing about his research inspirations, as well as the multidisciplinary nature of his research. His talk raised some good questions as well: Are interaction designers to blame for the technological waste generated by our society? How can interaction design bridge technological divides in our world?
• The man behind the Copyright for Canadians campaign, Michael Geist, a law professor from the University of Ottawa, spoke last month of the ongoing copyright debacle in this country. He documents his own stance on this and other technology-related issues, as well as the may grassroots efforts in this country to ensure we don’t become a digital ghetto (a recent CBC Search Engine topic).
• Aging scientist Aubrey de Grey spoke at the first Changing the World conference in Toronto last month. He identifies several forms of cellular damage contributing to aging, and the prospect of repairing this damage as it occurs (as opposed to preventative or curative measures). With this approach, he hopes to be able to expend the human lifespan to an average of 150 years within 30 years time. Combining this estimate with the law of accelerating returns, he proposes an indefinite human lifespan will be attainable not much longer after that.
• Another Changing the World conference speaker which I enjoyed hearing from was Eric Chivian, a Nobel Peace Prize winner for his work on stopping nuclear war. Chivian’s current work involves environmental protection and the effect of biodiversity on human health. For instance, bears den for months but don’t develop osteoporosis or kidney problems. He also describes the medical applications of substances excreted by rare frogs. His talk was very enlightening, emphasizing the need to ensure the survival of such species are of great importance to our health.

A few years from now, it becomes increasingly apparent that those born after, say 1980, have ceased to exhibit any signs of biological aging. With that, anyone who falls under this demographic are no longer susceptible to any form of age-related illness or condition, both physically and mentally. Everyone’s biological age caps off at around 35; their chronological age increases, but their bodies stay relatively in the same condition, and their minds stay similarly as sharp.

This is starting to sound like the opposite scenario as to the situation posed in the novel (and recent film) Children of Men by P.D James. In the film, which is also set in the near future, all the women of child-bearing-ages inexplicably lose their fertility, resulting in mass hysteria, radical social and govermental upheavals, and an aging populace with no younger generations to replace them: in other words, humanity collectively dying of old age, and losing its mind along the way.

Let me expand upon my scenario a bit more. (I think we’ll begin to see more and more similarities to Children of Men as we develop this idea, at least in terms of how society and humanity react to this phenomenon). So everyone on the planet born after 1980 seems to cease aging at ~35 biological years. No scientific endeavor can explain it. Children are born, they grow, reach adulthood, and stay put in their mid-thirties; no grey hairs, no senility, no loss of sensual acuity. In addition, let’s assume that the entire world is affected, not just those in countries blessed with good nutrition and comfortable climates. Sure, people will still die of malnutrition, plague, armed conflicts, and environmental catastrophes – but no one is dying of old age. Theories aimed at explaining this global condition revolve around dietary or environmental changes occurring around the year 1980, which had gone unnoticed at the time, and thus affecting only newborns born from that year onwards. However, just like in the case where the whole world suddenly becomes infertile, no one can convincingly explain why anyone under 35 is poised to live indefinitely.

Today many futurists envision a near future in which radical life extension is possible, and eventually readily available. Inventor and futurist Ray Kurzweil, for one, has gone to great lengths to ensure his own longevity: with meticulous medical and dietary regiments, he has apparently stalled his biological again process for the last several years. He promises to do this until new innovations in biological, nanotech, and robotic research can provide even longer life extensions. Similarly, in the field of biomedical gerontology, researchers such as Aubrey de Grey is exploring the idea of regenerative tissue, to eliminate all forms of age-related tissue-damage, thus providing indefinite lifespans.

Such therapies will undoubtedly be costly at first, and available only to the privileged classes, however it would only be a matter of time before the entire planet could enjoy such longevity. What I’m curious about is this: what then? What happens when the entire world has the ability to live as long as they want – to stay effectively the same biological age. I suppose this is more a general case of my thought experiment – that in which everyone (inexplicably) loses any signs of tissue decay.

In my thought experiment, the older generations eventually die off, leaving a world of thirty-somethings (and younger) behind. Males stay reproductively viable, while obviously females still have a set number of ova (however menopause would  have no age-related effects – simply a halt in the menstrual cycle). Despite this – would humans still seek out sex? One could argue that all sexual intercourse, even sex sought out solely for pleasure, and not reproduction, is driven by an underlying instinct to ensure our genetic survival. In the case of ensured genetic survival through indefinite lifespans, would we lose this instinct altogether and stop having sex? In this sense, immortality may be its own form of population control: there’s no need to worry about the world getting too crowded: while nobody is dying, nobody new is showing up either.

If I’m wrong – then we may start seeing another form of catastrophe. Remember those social and governmental upheavals? The mass hysteria? Someone’s going to need to control a population that won’t die off, with new generations adding to the pile. One would hope that with age comes wisdom, and that an aged society may formulate a wizened and ethical form of population control. Otherwise, the world could spiral into a system of harsh anti-reproduction policies, such as those used today in China.

I’m suggesting here that the purpose of life is to create new life. If there is no need (or ability) to create new life, life loses its purpose. Hence, an existential catastrophe among the immortals.

Footnote: I imagine that I am neglecting a whole spectrum of social, cultural, and religious reactions to the thought experiment – so I ask you, dear reader, to fill in the blanks.

“Little Brother’s my first young adult novel, a book about young people who use technology to fight for the restoration of the Bill of Rights to American politics, setting them square in the crosshairs of the war on terror.”

Apart from reading his daily contributions to Boing Boing, the first work I read by Doctorow was the novel Someone Comes To Town, Someone Leaves Town, a story of supernatural characters and free public-access wi-fi set in Toronto’s Kensington Market. Since then, I’ve been enjoying his podcast and short stories from Overclocked, as well as his latest mindbender, True Names, which pertains to rival post-singularity superintelligences competing in the race to convert all the matter in the universe to pure computronium. Aside from writing some wildly imaginative (and diverse) fiction, he is also occasionally featured on CBC’s Search Engine radio program, in which he discusses civil liberties in the digital universe.

Last night he was able to field some questions ranging from literary style to parenting to civil liberties and copyright reform (in fact, it was his coverage of the recent copyright reform debate in Canada that brought the issue to my attention). Afterwards I was able to meet him, whereupon I discovered he at one point was also a CogSci student such as myself! He then asked me a CogSci-related question in regards to whether his newborn daughter, who has just begun to giggle, is merely mimicking the laughing response of her parents, or if laughing is innate behaviour. My answer: as other primates are known to exhibit the laughing response, I imagine the laughing response is both instinctual AND learned, in that the behaviour is hard-wired, but an infant requires some contextual priming to learn how to evoke that proper response. Hopefully that suffices. I may have to check up on that idea and give an update.

Mr. Reynolds is a U of Tennessee law professor and one of the faces behind instapundit.com. His book covered some great topics, a survey of up-and-coming technological mediums, geared towards the individual. In other words, an optimistic view of a future world in which government and the corporate machine don’t hold all the cards.

Topics ranged from user-generated content on the net (film, music, and other media), grassroots space travel initiatives, and entrepreneurial opportunities, to more ambitious projects such as nanotech, genetic and gerontologic technology, and of course, the Singularity.

The first of these latter topics discussed how in a world where manufacturing any item an individual desires can be made possible using self-assembling nanotech builders, and raw materials (e.g. “sunshine and dirt”), the developed world’s economy will increase its focus on services (both real and virtual), as the need for good declines.

Further points of interest included interviews with Aubrey de Grey of the Methuselah Foundation, who also appeared lately on the Colbert Report to discuss the topic of repairing and reversing human again, and Ray Kurzweil, to discuss the prospects of non-biological intelligence and the Singularity.

In summary, a great overview of the technologies that will shape the developed world’s economies and our lives over the next couple decades.

Tags: singularity, books,

Our predecessors, X, were apparently divided over a general outlook on life. I base this on a lengthy conversation I had this morning with both a member of GenX and GenY. While many GenXs have now settled down, have an established career, are possibly married, and are now raising a family, many other GenXs I know have lived a different lifestyle: traveling, working abroad, and unmarried. The latter are less career-driven, tend to move from job to job (happily), and tend to value exploration and learning over ambition and advancement.

Apparently this is a problem for the baby boomers, a generation whose mindset is very strongly rooted in the drive to have an ambitious career, to seek out promotions and advancements, to provide for a family, and to manage wealth accordingly (to see that there is enough for retirement and the kids’ education). As this generation retires, we will begin to see that their managerial roles will become harder to fill; though GenXs may be qualified for them, they will be less driven to seek them out – as success and advancement is not what motivates them. (I’ve also read recently that apparently it takes 3 GenXs a day to accomplish what one baby boomer daily workload).

This mindset is even more developed in my own generation. We are the first generation to be exposed to the worldwide internet community at a young age. This community spirit is deeply ingrained amongst GenYs – we seem to be the grassroots generation, uniting behind various social and political ovements. We are driven not by personal ambition, hope of advancement, or monetary gain – but apparently a hope in a stronger community, philanthropic endeavors, and a better planet and society for us all to live in.

While we share the beliefs of GenX in respect to campaigns such as net neutrality or copyright law, GenY also seems to have a great presence in other social awareness issues ,such as the recent grassroots Anonymous vs. Church of Scientology campaign. While members of Anonymous may differ in their individual motivations for taking on the CoS, they unite in an effort to raise general awareness and spark debate. As they are meant to be anonymous, no individual member benefits or gains any form or advancement: their campaign seems to frame nicely the drive of a generation in that respect.

So with such different systems of values, what can we say about the future of GenX and GenY? What causes this change in attitude and beliefs? I can imagine skeptics claiming that GenYs feel this way because we believe the world and environment to be doomed, and that we may as well enjoy life and explore the world and its peoples while it’s still tolerable. However I’d prefer the viewpoint of the optimist. If futurists like Kurzweil are correct, our generation may be the first to benefit from predicted revolutions in nanotechnology and robotics. Couple this with current and continued biological and genetic advances, and we may be one of the first generations to extend our lifespan by hundreds of years, if not as long as we choose. Perhaps on a mass-subconscious level of our generation, we all know we will live forever. We won’t need to start a family at 30, have an established career path by 40, and retire at 65. We might not even need to worry about settling down, much less retirement, for decades or centuries. When we realize how much life potential we have, there will cease to be any doubt in our generation’s resistance to career-driven, 20thth century life plans. We will celebrate our value in community, in philanthropy, and in personal exploration and enlightenment.

Finally, I conclude with the opinion that certain notions will gradually become obsolete as our generation ages (chronologically, not biologically), the first and foremost being the notion that “life is too short”, another being the concept of retirement, and of course, the concept of “settling down”.

Thanks to Vergel (GenX), and Pat (GenY), for inspiring this post.