It usually takes a lifetime for a radical
political movement to graduate from the margins to the mainstream.
That’s okay, since Zoltan Istvan is planning to live 10,000 years.
Zoltan, whom I’ve profiled here, is a transhumanist.
Transhumanists, broadly speaking, are people who want us to become "beyond human".
It’s an umbrella term for a broad family of ideas united by the vision
that technology now, or at least soon will, allow us to greatly enhance
human intellectual, physical, and psychological capacities. That means
everything from bionic limbs to 3D printing organs to uploading our
entire brains on to memory sticks and carrying them around with us as
back up.
But ideas are not enough for this fledgling movement. Transhumanism remains a smallish but well-funded movement – Humanity+,
the largest formal umbrella group, has just under 10,000 members from
around the world, and they are largely rich Californians, technology
geeks and scientists (sometimes all three). And it remains mostly
confined to the West. That’s why, in October this year, Zoltan decided
to form the Transhumanist Party, and run for president in the 2016 US
presidential election.
As you might
have guessed, Zoltan will be running on a pretty interesting policy
platform. First up – and a particular interest of Zoltan’s, who I’ve
come to believe is genuinely determined to live forever – is life
extension. This is the study of keeping people alive for as long as
possible, either by slowing the ageing process or extending lifespan.
"Few fields of study offer so much for civilisation," Zoltan tells me.
"And we’re not far off the science being available so people can start
living a lot longer – maybe even 50 years or 100 years in the very near
future". I’m not sure how accurate his timelines are – others in the
Transhumanist movement are a little more cautious. But as it stands he
reckons there’s hardly any investment in research of this type – about
$1 billion a year (and most of this is on diseases like Alzheimer's and
Parkinson's). In terms of what Zoltan considers life extension science –
stopping ageing and eliminating death entirely – it’s far, far less.
Because of that Zoltan thinks we’re letting people die unnecessarily. In
a tidy populist touch, he plans to significantly curtail military
spending in favour of research into all this. With enough resources, he
thinks we can "conquer" ageing within a decade. The Transhumanist Party
advocates spending at least a trillion dollars over ten years directly
on life extension research.
Then
there’s perhaps the most important policy of all: how to manage the
existential risks of rapid scientific advance: engineered viruses,
nano-technology, home-made bio-hacking, and of course, artificial
intelligence. Ray Kurzweil – probably the world’s most famous
Transhumanist, who works for Google – thinks "the singularity" (the
point at which artificial intelligence becomes so smart that it starts
making even smarter versions of itself, leaving us mortals trailing
behind) will be with us in 2045. It’s a terrifying prospect. The
Transhumanists themselves seem divided, although most agree that it’s at
least a possibility this century. No party, argues Zoltan, is thinking
properly about any of this, but they could become major threats to
civilisation in the near future. "I’m not entirely sure yet how we’d
regulate it, but the Transhumanist Party will make this a top priority,"
he explains. "Of course I support AI, nano-technology and other radical
engineering, and would increase funding for all of it significantl, but
strict safeguards need to be in place too."
Zoltan also wants to make college mandatory, and
free, for everyone. Which in fact sounds rather good. "If we all live to
140, we’re going to need a smarter, more capable population", he
explains, when I suggest it sounds a bit Scandinavian for a
Californian-based party that has tones of libertarianism. Of course, the
Transhumanist Party doesn’t yet have thought through policies on the
bread and butter of government: immigration, housing policy, social
welfare, and so on. Not that it matters, since at this point Zoltan
doesn’t really intend to win – rather raise awareness about the party
and the movement. Running for President will give him a platform, he
hopes, to demonstrate that science and technology is good for people,
for health and for wellbeing. (Interestingly, Zoltan thinks that his
main adversaries in the future will be religious groups).
So what are his chances? It’s true we’re living in an age of political radicalism, and Zoltan hopes to capitalise on the frustration with centre-Left and Right "establishment" parties. Across Europe and the US the share of the vote among the big mainstream parties has been falling for years, with the leftovers being picked off by Tea Partyers, Ukippers, the Five Star Movement, and so on. "I realise I won’t win it this time around," he tells me. "But by 2024 we will be a real, legitimate party with likely over half a million members – approaching the Greens or the Libertarians. That’s when we’ll really make our move."
I think he’s right that there will be space in politics for a movement that addresses our relationship with technology explicitly. I’m not sure how accurate his timeline is (scientists I’ve spoken to are more sceptical), but it’s certainly true that there are mind-boggling things under way. At Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden, scientists are already connecting robotic limbs to the human nervous system of amputees: the first arm surgeries are scheduled to occur in less than 12 months. Then there’s the "Iron Man" armour suit being created for American soldiers. Panasonic will be releasing an exoskeleton suit shortly. Injectable oxygen shots are already here. Some video games are already being played via mind-reading helmets. Enhanced contact lenses will soon allow people to have infrared night vision. It does all throw up important ethical and philosophical challenges. Is an uploaded mind still human? Should we give "human rights" to an artificial intelligence with a superior intellect to a human? Then there’s the social problems. Presumably, human enhancement technologies would be disproportionately available to those with greater financial resources, creating a genetic divide. And if you lived forever, are you taking up the place of another generation? What about the more mundane things: what would be a fair prison sentence for murder if we could all live for 200 years? Or the right retirement age. I’m guessing it won’t be 70 if we can all make thirty score and ten. Above all: are we happy about all of this, and can we stop it?
Either way, campaigning should be fun. At present Zoltan has a tiny team helping him, but he’ll be launching a Kickstarter campaign in January to raise more funds. In the summer, he’ll be touring California – his home state – on a campaign bus along with what he hopes will be a handful of six-foot-tall robots. Not everyone is happy though. There are those within the Transhumanist movement – many of them scientists – who don’t like politics mixing with their pure research pursuits. Zoltan is a high-profile, but controversial, character within the movement – especially after his book The Transhumanist Wager, which is a philosophical near-future dystopian thriller in which Transhumanists manage to launch the third world war from their floating "seastead". "The Transhumanist movement has a lot of older white males with egos," he explains. "But I’m representing a new part of the movement. Young, revolutionary, and political." This has caused him some problems. "Some of the older community are not very friendly to me," he says, a little forlornly.
In the end, I suspect the Transhumanist Party, or something like it, will become part of the political furniture. It might take a little longer than Zoltan’s hopeful projections, but technology and humanity’s relationship with it is certainly changing fast, and will increasingly be an important part of political debate. That’s usually a slow progression, but who knows? Sometimes political parties get thrust into the limelight because of events.
A human being killed because of the decision of a piece of artificial intelligence, for example, would certainly propel the party forward. Or perhaps something even more dramatic? "If I got shot while campaigning in 2015 the party I could really rise to prominence quickly,", he says, almost hopefully. I couldn’t tell if he was joking.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/11310031/Meet-the-Transhumanist-Party-Want-to-live-forever-Vote-for-me.html
So what are his chances? It’s true we’re living in an age of political radicalism, and Zoltan hopes to capitalise on the frustration with centre-Left and Right "establishment" parties. Across Europe and the US the share of the vote among the big mainstream parties has been falling for years, with the leftovers being picked off by Tea Partyers, Ukippers, the Five Star Movement, and so on. "I realise I won’t win it this time around," he tells me. "But by 2024 we will be a real, legitimate party with likely over half a million members – approaching the Greens or the Libertarians. That’s when we’ll really make our move."
I think he’s right that there will be space in politics for a movement that addresses our relationship with technology explicitly. I’m not sure how accurate his timeline is (scientists I’ve spoken to are more sceptical), but it’s certainly true that there are mind-boggling things under way. At Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden, scientists are already connecting robotic limbs to the human nervous system of amputees: the first arm surgeries are scheduled to occur in less than 12 months. Then there’s the "Iron Man" armour suit being created for American soldiers. Panasonic will be releasing an exoskeleton suit shortly. Injectable oxygen shots are already here. Some video games are already being played via mind-reading helmets. Enhanced contact lenses will soon allow people to have infrared night vision. It does all throw up important ethical and philosophical challenges. Is an uploaded mind still human? Should we give "human rights" to an artificial intelligence with a superior intellect to a human? Then there’s the social problems. Presumably, human enhancement technologies would be disproportionately available to those with greater financial resources, creating a genetic divide. And if you lived forever, are you taking up the place of another generation? What about the more mundane things: what would be a fair prison sentence for murder if we could all live for 200 years? Or the right retirement age. I’m guessing it won’t be 70 if we can all make thirty score and ten. Above all: are we happy about all of this, and can we stop it?
Either way, campaigning should be fun. At present Zoltan has a tiny team helping him, but he’ll be launching a Kickstarter campaign in January to raise more funds. In the summer, he’ll be touring California – his home state – on a campaign bus along with what he hopes will be a handful of six-foot-tall robots. Not everyone is happy though. There are those within the Transhumanist movement – many of them scientists – who don’t like politics mixing with their pure research pursuits. Zoltan is a high-profile, but controversial, character within the movement – especially after his book The Transhumanist Wager, which is a philosophical near-future dystopian thriller in which Transhumanists manage to launch the third world war from their floating "seastead". "The Transhumanist movement has a lot of older white males with egos," he explains. "But I’m representing a new part of the movement. Young, revolutionary, and political." This has caused him some problems. "Some of the older community are not very friendly to me," he says, a little forlornly.
In the end, I suspect the Transhumanist Party, or something like it, will become part of the political furniture. It might take a little longer than Zoltan’s hopeful projections, but technology and humanity’s relationship with it is certainly changing fast, and will increasingly be an important part of political debate. That’s usually a slow progression, but who knows? Sometimes political parties get thrust into the limelight because of events.
A human being killed because of the decision of a piece of artificial intelligence, for example, would certainly propel the party forward. Or perhaps something even more dramatic? "If I got shot while campaigning in 2015 the party I could really rise to prominence quickly,", he says, almost hopefully. I couldn’t tell if he was joking.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/11310031/Meet-the-Transhumanist-Party-Want-to-live-forever-Vote-for-me.html
