Birth of the Nanobot Generation

The next generation may be different than anything we ever imagined, and it is not implausible to think of a scenario where we might find ourselves at odds: us against them, not unlike a scene from the popular television series Star Trek—The Next Generation.

Making a case for computers becoming humanlike, scientist Martin Greenberger, in a session addressing "Computers and Consciousness" at the State of the World Forum, used two of Star Trek's beloved characters, Captain Jean-Luc Picard and the human-like android Lt. Commander Data, as his frame of reference. He quoted the following observation from Capt. Picard:

"Commander Riker has demonstrated to this court that Commander Data is a machine. Do we deny that? No. It's not relevant, because we too are machines—just machines of a different type. Commander Riker has also reminded us that Lt. Commander Data was created by a human. Do we deny that? Again it's not relevant. Children are created from the building blocks of their parents—DNA. Are they property?"

On Star Trek, Commander Data eventually proved he wasn't property, and non-biological beings like him may very well be part of our future, said Greenberger, one of four panelists, including MIT Professor and author Ray Kurzweil; Jean Houston, trustee of the Foundation for Mind Research, and Senior Tibetan Lama Gelek Rinpoche. In many ways, the words of Capt. Picard are windows into where computers are headed, added Greenberger, IBM chair at UCLA's Anderson School of Management, and president of the Council for Technology and the Individual.

"By 2030 or 2035, we will have reverse engineered the human brain," said Kurzweil. "We will have computers that are vastly more powerful, in terms of processing power, than the human brain. We will be able to create non-biological entities that are similarly complex."

Science fiction, said Houston, has had a way of predicting tradition and has long been preoccupied with making computers in man's likeness. But what exactly can we expect from the human-like generation of computers?

"We will encounter machines—which is to say non-biological entities—whose behavior is so subtle and complex, and rich, which are based on copies of the human brain and body, and copy the human entity in such supreme detail that they will act very human," Kurzweil pointed out.

And they won't be a million times simpler than human beings," he stressed. "They will be as complex as human beings, and they will act in emotional ways. They will act upset. They will get the joke. They will act like they suffer, and they will have all the subtle, rich, emotional cues that we associate with a human being. They will be very convincing. They will be very compelling. So much so that human beings of biological origin will be convinced that these entities are conscious. That's an objective prediction."

Nanobots, microscopic robots capable of entering and scanning the brain, could eventually allow art to become reality. "We'll be able to have millions of little scanning robots go inside the brain—through the capillaries of the brain, and actually scan the brain from inside," he said. "We actually have the technology today which would put the scanning tip right next to the neuro-features to see what goes on with the brain with tremendously fine precision. So, we could scan my brain today and see everything that's going on by just moving that scanning tip in very close proximity to every neuro-feature in my brain."

On their delicate mission, the blood-cell-sized nanobots would all be on a wireless local area network, their computational ability assembled into one parallel computer.

"By 2030," said Kurzweil, "we could send billions of these nanoboxes into the brain that could take every path in the capillaries, travel by every neuro feature, and create a tiny data base—a map of all the key salient features in the human brain. And that would be equivalent or comparable to what we have already done with the human genome."

The downside to all this could give cause for worry.

The danger of these machines, said Greenberger, "is greater than the danger of the simple computer machine, because you don't set down the tactics for what it does. You just set down the strategy and let them work out the tactics for themselves."

Working out the tactics may mean machines becoming conscious beings, able to make decisions, engage in relationships, and consistently improve their own performance. The question is, "Are we creating a new race?" asked Houston.

But, while others worry that this new android race could bring more than the problems we already experience within the human race, Kurzweil says the bullet is already out of the gun, and it would be foolhardy to even try going back.

"The creation of more and more intelligent machines is an economic imperative," he noted. "People sometimes say maybe we'll get to a point where we'll decide not to build these machines because they'll be too threatening, but it's not a realistic scenario. We'd have to repeal economic competition, free enterprise, capitalism, to stop that progression. Anytime anyone creates a machine that's a little bit more intelligent, it takes over the market. There are tens of thousands of projects with the force of economic competition driving the whole process forward."

Kurzweil believes humans are likely to be the greatest benefactors of the new technology. "I think the primary implications of that," he said, "will not be some alien invasion of intelligent machines coming up on the horizon, but actually making ourselves more intelligent because nanobots can also enhance our brain and amplify it.

"There is going to be a tremendous incentive to learn about the brain, to learn the secrets of intelligence, and then replicate those methods. If you ignore this resource of the human brain, then you might say that we'll never figure out the software of intelligence."

But, while many people are excited about the ever-increasing capability of the microchip, ethical concerns remain, especially those bringing science into conflict with the spiritual as they seek to qualify the difference between man and machine.

Even Kurweil expressed his doubts in an interview in the January/February 2000 issue of Technology Review in which he stated:

"You could scan my brain while I'm sleeping, and recreate this new, non-biological Ray Kurzweil, which could come to me in the morning and say, 'Hey, Ray, good news. We've successfully copied and reinstantiated your brain and body; we don't need your old brain and body anymore.'

"I might see some flaw in that philosophical perspective. I'll wish the new Ray well, and I'll probably end up being jealous of him because he'll be able to succeed in endeavors I could only dream of, but I'm here in my old, biological body and brain. It's not clear how one gets over that divide to the other side."