Societal Implications of
Emerging Technologies:
the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
Dr. David Gibbs
Department of Mathematics and Computing
University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point
Stevens Point, WI 54481
Dave.Gibbs@uwsp.edu
RMM Technology Fair
Westwood Center
Wausau, Wisconsin
April 20, 2006
Why Am I Here?

this UWSP course –
CIS 300: America in the Age of
Information
Critical assessment of impact of information
revolution on American society, including
contemporary life, professions, privacy, security,
education, law, government and employment.
CIS 300 Course Components

Readings
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3 books
Web readings
Assorted hand-outs, including “anonymous”
Student Presentations
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all “lectures” of the content
e-News (current events in the Information
Society)
BYC – “Because You Can” technologies
“Because You Can” (BYCs)
Q: Why would they create that?
A: Because they can…
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The LumiTouch Project
MP3 Implants
Neuticles
Verichip (at right)
CIS 300 Course Components

Writing Emphasis
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Interim - 6 written papers in 12 days
Activities

Debate: National ID Cards
• Including Biometric device discussions
• Including DNA analysis as the ultimate
identification scheme
the authors

Neil Postman, Technopoly: The Surrender
of Culture to Technology
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Ray Kurzweil, The Age of Spiritual
Machines: When Computers Exceed
Human Intelligence
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Aldous Huxley, Brave New World
Neil Postman
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1931-2003
NYU Professor,
media theorist,
and cultural critic
18 books,
200+ articles
Technopoly:
The Surrender of Culture to Technology
“Legend of Thamus”
from Plato’s Phaedrus (dialog)
King Thamus entertaining Theuth,
the inventor of numbers, calculation,
geometry, astronomy, and writing.
Legend of Thamus
Theuth, on his invention of writing:
“Here is an accomplishment, my lord the
king, which will improve both the wisdom
and the memory of the Egyptians. I have
discovered a sure receipt for memory and
wisdom.”
Legend of Thamus
King Thamus, on Theus’ writing:
“Theuth, my paragon of inventors, the discoverer
of an art is not the best judge of the good or
harm which will accrue to those who practice it.
So it is in this; you, who are the father of
writing, have out of fondness for your off-spring
attributed to it quite the opposite of its real
function. Those who acquire it will cease to
exercise their memory and become forgetful;
they will rely on writing to bring things to their
remembrance by external signs instead of by
their own internal resources.”
Legend of Thamus
King Thamus, on Theus’ writing continued:
“What you have discovered is a receipt for
recollection, not for memory. And as for wisdom,
your pupils will have the reputation for it without
the reality: they will receive a quantity of
information without proper instruction, and in
consequence be thought very knowledgeable
when they are for the most part quite ignorant.
And because they are filled with the conceit of
wisdom instead of real wisdom they will be a
burden to society.”
Legend of Thamus
Why does Postman begin his book
with this story?
Why do I begin this talk with it?
Legend of Thamus
Thamus was right – but only halfright.
Writing is NOT just a burden – it is
both – and at the same time – a
burden and a blessing.
CIS 300 Course Components

First written assignment
“Benefits and Harms of Technology”
 6 technologies

• 3 positive, or beneficial
• 3 negative, or harmful

Present (and defend) your choices in
class
• Examples: cell phones, tv, i-pods, nuclear
power
Technology is non-neutral
ALL technologies bring blessings and
burdens.
CHALLENGE: find a technology that is
either ALL good or ALL bad.
With apologies to Clint Eastwood
NOT the Good, the
Bad, and the
Ugly… BUT
The Good AND Bad,
and the Ugly
Technopoly:
The Surrender of Culture to Technology
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
Taxonomy of Culture, a timeline
Intersection of Tools/Technology
and Culture
1.
2.
3.
Tool-Using: rocks, fire, to 1776
Technocracy: 1770s to 1910
Technopoly: 1910 to present
The Taxonomy: stage 1

A Tool-Using Culture

Tools solved the immediate problems of
physical life, or,
• Water power, windmills, plow

Serve the symbolic world of art,
religion, politics
• Cathedrals, castles
The Taxonomy: stage 2

Technocracy
A society loosely controlled by social
custom and religious tradition
 Tools moving Europe from a tool-using
culture to technocracy:

• Clock
• Printing press
• Telescope

Origins of the “scientific method”
The Taxonomy: stage 2

Technocracy

Began in late 1700s
• 1765 James Watt, steam engine
• 1776, as defined by Adam Smith in Wealth
of Nations

Communications “Revolution” began
• Books (now affordable), telegraph,
typewriter, transatlantic cable, photography

Life just “sped up”
The Taxonomy: stage 3

Technopoly
The submission of all forms of cultural
life to the sovereignty of technique and
technology.
 Began in early 1900s

• 1925 Scopes “monkey” trial
• 1910 Frederick Taylor, Scientific
Management – EFFICIENCY maxims
The Principles of
Scientific Management
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The goal of human labor and thought is
efficiency
Technical calculation is superior to
human judgment
Human judgment cannot be trusted
(laziness, ambiguity, subjectivity)
What cannot be measured either does
not exist or is of no value
Technopoly:
The Surrender of Culture to Technology
To summarize:
 Tool-using


Technocracy
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Technology is integrated into the culture
Technology attacks the culture
Technopoly

Technology becomes the culture; efficiency is
the paramount goal
Truisms

If what you have is a hammer, everything
looks like a nail.

If what you have is a computer,
everything looks like data.

If what you know is the scientific method,
everything is solvable by applying science
or engineering.
Gibbsian Truisms

Technology serves to distance
people.
Warfare
 Communications
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
What technology makes easy to do,
we tend to do.
Ray Kurzweil



born 1948
Inventor,
Author,
Entrepreneur,
Futurist
Video Intro
Kurzweil the Author

The Age of Intelligent Machines (1989)
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The 10% Solution for a Healthy Life (1993)
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The Age of Spiritual Machines: When Computers
Exceed Human Intelligence (2000)
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Fantastic Voyage: Live Long Enough to Live
Forever (2004)
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The Singularity is Near: When Humans
Transcend Biology (2005)
Kurzweil the Entrepreneur
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Kurzweil AI.Net
Kurzweil Computer Products
Kurzweil Technologies
Kurzweil Music Systems
Kurzweil Applied Intelligence
Kurzweil Educational Systems
Kurzweil CyberArt Technologies
FatKat
Ray & Terry’s Longevity Products
Kurzweil the Futurist
Predictions from 1989 book / Reflections from the 2000 book
P: Computer will defeat human in chess by 1998
R: IBM’s Deep Blue defeated Gary Kasparov in 1997
P: World-wide information network will emerge
R: The Web emerged in 1994 and then took off
P: Software-based technologies will dominate in warfare
R: The (first) Gulf War established this paradigm
P: Biometric identification will replace locks and keys
R: Speech and facial pattern recognition used to control access
Kurzweil the Futurist
Predictions from 1989 book / Reflections from the 2000 book
P: School classrooms will get “wired”
R: Programs were in place in most states
P: Most commercial music will be created on synthesizers
R: TV, movies, recordings use synthesizers, sequencers, sound
generators
P: Continuous Speech Recognition with large vocabularies
will emerge in the early 90s
R: Available by 1996
Aldous Huxley

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1894 – 1963
British Novelist/Essayist
Brave New World (1932)
Science Fiction: utopian
(dystopian) picture of life
in 2532 A.D.
Brave New World
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Babies are “decanted” from jars after 267 days
on assembly line
Caste-like society: alphas to epsilons
Conditioning from pre-birth throughout; books
outlawed
Promiscuity is required
No family; “mother”, “father” are obscenities
Soma
Worship “Our Ford”; spirituality turned into sex
orgies
Consumption (consumerism) is preeminent
Kurzweil before Congress
Testimony (2003)
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“Size” of technology is shrinking
Moral imperative to overcome human affliction
Economic imperative, in a competitive economy
Most of technology will be “nanotechnology” by
2020
“With the advent of nanotechnology, we will be
able to keep our bodies and brains in a healthy,
optimal state indefinitely.” (p. 3 of 45)
Kurzweil: here’s why…

Intuitive Linear View vs. Historical Exponential
View

Law of Accelerating Returns

Human intelligence has limitations; machine
intelligence does not

Specific technological paradigms exhibit S-curve
growth (e.g. Moore’s Law)
S-curves
Start slowly,
accelerate rapidly,
and taper off
(until the next
paradigm kicks in
and the process
begins anew)
Linear vs Exponential
1200
1000
800
600
400
200
0
1
2
3
4
5
Linear
6
7
Exponential
8
9
10
What is meant by “doubly”
exponential?
It means exponential growth in the
rate of growth, that is, in the
exponent.
Exp: 2^x Doubly 2^(2^x)
 Many information technologies
exhibit this – as costs decrease,
more resources are deployed
(Singularity, p. 25)

What will be the impact of
Smaller, Faster, Convergence?
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Biotechnology
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Genetics
Nanotechnology
 Robotics
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Biotechnology
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Genetically modified
organisms (GMO)
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Transgenic plants, animals
Can humans be far behind?
(“designer genes”)

Choose your offspring
• (What technology makes easy
to do we tend to do)
• (Technology serves to distance
people)

Good? Bad? Ugly?
Nanotechnology
1 nanometer (nm) = 10-9
(one-billionth of a meter)
Water molecule: 0.3nm
DNA chain: 2.5nm across
Red blood cell: 7,000nm
Typical human cell: 20,000nm
Human hair: 80,000nm across
Nanotechnology
Combined with “robotics” (artificial
intelligence) yields –
 “Nanobots”

e.g. Foglets (as per Michael Crichton, Prey)
• 100 micrometer = 100,000nm
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Deliver chemotherapy directly to a cancer cell
Multitudinous medical uses
Issues
• Malicious use?
• Self-replication?
Nanobots
Good? Much more than good!
 Bad? Maybe so!
 Ugly? Easy to paint an ugly
picture!

RFID Chips
Radio-frequency-identification
Components
Chip (with unique ID#)
 Antenna
 Reader

RFID chips
(syn: tags, transponders)

Passive Tags

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No internal power
source
Activated by a “reader”
Active Tags
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Contain a battery, thus
larger
Used in electronic toll
gathering (right),
parking lots
Parking Lot with RFID
How does it work?
EPC – electronic product code
 96 bit code; i.e. 2^^96

or 7.92 x 1028 unique ids
EPC and RFID
 How many things can be tagged
with 1028 unique ids?

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Everything? People too?
The “Internet of Things”
Every tagged item could have its own web page!
Early applications of RFID included
 automatic highway toll collection

supply-chain management (for large retailers)
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pharmaceuticals (for the prevention of
counterfeiting)
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e-health (for patient monitoring)
RFID anywhere, everywhere
More recent applications
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sports and leisure (ski passes)
Tracking cattle (carcasses)
personal security (tagging
children at schools)
Access to bars like the Baja
Beach Club in Barcelona
Military ID (dog-tags, etc.)
Login to your computer! (at
right)
RFID
E-government applications under consideration:

RFID in
 drivers’ licenses
 passports
 Currency (prevent counterfeiting)

RFID readers are now being embedded in mobile phones.
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Nokia, released RFID-enabled phones for businesses
with workforces in the field in mid-2004
plans to launch consumer handsets in 2006.
Retail Purchases?
1.
2.
Put items in your cart
Walk out!
(provided you have an RFID yourself
– embedded or otherwise)
“And he causeth all, both small and
great, rich and poor, free and
bond, to receive a mark in their
right hand, or in their foreheads.
And that no man might buy or sell,
save he that had the mark, or the
name of the beast, or the number
of his name.”
Rev 13: 16-17
RFID
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Good?
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Bad?
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Market-supply management
Big-brother, done to ourselves by ourselves
(what computers make easy to do we tend to
do)
Ugly?

What uses haven’t we even thought of?
Kurzweil on “evolution”

Evolution takes place at an exponential rate.

Evolution is not just the process of organisms,
but includes their “tools” (technologies)

Technologies evolve, exponentially

Evolution is ONE process, from single-cell to
multi-cell to humans, to humans with
technology, to human/technology sameness.
Kurzweil:
The History of Evolution
“Evolution is a process of creating patterns of
increasing order.”
 Epoch 1: Physics and Chemistry
 Epoch 2: Biology
 Epoch 3: Brains
 Epoch 4: Technology
 Epoch 5: Merger of Technology and Human
Intelligence
 Epoch 6: The Universe Wakes Up
(Singularity, pp. 14-15)
Epoch 1:
Physics and Chemistry
Big Bang
 Physics
 Chemistry


Information in atomic structures
Epoch 2:
Biology
Carbon-based compounds
became increasingly intricate
 Development of precise digital
mechanism (DNA) to store
results of the evolutionary
experiments


Information in DNA
Epoch 3:
Brains
Begins as animals recognizing
patterns
 Eventually creating abstract mental
models

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Information in neural patterns
Epoch 4:
Technology

Increasing brain size (protein
sources?) and opposing thumbs
result in the evolution of humancreated technology.

Information in hardware and
software designs
Epoch 5: Merger of Technology
and Human Intelligence

This marks the beginning of the
Singularity – in Kurzweil’s view,
around 2040

Integration of biology (including
human intelligence) with the
exponentially expanding human
technology base (i.e. computers)
Epoch 6:
The Universe Wakes Up

Patterns of matter and energy in the
universe become saturated with
intelligent processes and knowledge

HOW? By reorganizing matter and
energy – focusing on the goal of
spreading out from planet Earth
Kurzweil:
How to live forever?


MUST REACH THE SINGULARITY!
Fantastic Voyage website

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
Reprogram your biochemistry


Q&A
“I take 250 supplements a day and really feel
that I’m reprogramming my biochemistry, just
like I would reprogram my computers.”
“We advocate being active in reprogramming
your biochemistry to achieve optimal health.”
Three Bridges to Immortality
Three Bridges to Immortality

Bridge 1: Applying Today’s Knowledge


Bridge 2: Biotechnology


Re-program your biochemistry (NOW); “best” practices
and lots of supplements
Genetic tweaking, of both babies and baby boomers
(within the NEXT decade)
Bridge 3: NanoTechnology

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Nanobots in your bloodstream
destroying pathogens, removing debris, correcting DNA
errors, and reversing aging processes
and then….
The Singularity is Here

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Human life is transformed
Humans will transcend the limitations of
biological bodies and brains
Extend and expand “thinking”
“By 2100, nonbiological intelligence will
be trillions and trillions of times more
powerful than unaided human
intelligence.” (Singularity, p.9)
In a post-Singularity world...
“There will be no distinction, postSingularity, between human and
machine or between physical and
virtual reality.”
(Singularity, p. 9)
Summary

Postman: Technopoly
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Huxley: BNW
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Machines and humans in tension
Humans are (biological) machines
Kurzweil: two techno-steps to the Singularity
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Biotech
Nanotech
No discernible difference between humans and
machines
What to do, what to do?

Reverse the truisms – in your own life

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Stop “distancing” people – (HOW??)
Don’t always do what technology makes easy
to do – (DIFFICULT!!)
Remember the “human”; what do you
value?
Remember the “sacred”; there’s a reason
those belief systems have been around
for millennia
Thanks!

http://www.uwsp.edu/cis/dgibbs/RMM

Dave.Gibbs@uwsp.edu