Authors: Al Gore
The global nature of the revolution in biotechnology and the life sciences—like the new global commercial realities that have emerged with Earth Inc.—means that any single nation’s moral, ethical, and legal judgments may not have much impact on the practical decisions of other nations. Some general rules about what is acceptable, what is worthy of extra caution, and what should be prohibited have been tentatively observed, but there is no existing means for arriving at universal moral judgments about these new unfolding capabilities.
As noted earlier, China appears determined to become the world’s superpower in the application of genetic and life science analysis. The Beijing Genomics Institute (BGI), which is leading China’s commitment to genomic analysis, has
already completed the full genomes of fifty animal and plant species, including silk worms, pandas, honeybees, rice, soybeans, and others—along with more than 1,000 species of bacteria.
But China’s principal focus seems to be on what is arguably the most important, and certainly the most intriguing, part of the human body that can be modified by the new breakthroughs in life sciences and related fields: the human brain and the enhancement and more productive use of human intelligence.
Toward this end, in 2011 the BGI established
China’s National Gene Bank in Shenzhen, where it has been seeking to identify
which genes are involved in determining intelligence. It is conducting a complete genomic analysis of 2,000 Chinese schoolchildren (1,000 prodigies from the nation’s best schools, and 1,000 children considered of average intelligence) and matching the results with their achievements in school.
In the U.S., such a study would be extremely controversial, partly because of residual revulsion at the eugenics scandal, and partly because of a generalized wariness about linking intelligence to family heritage in any society that values egalitarian principles. In addition, many biologists, including Francis Collins, who succeeded James Watson as the leader of the Human Genome Project, have said that it is currently scientifically impossible in any case to
link genetic information about a child
to intelligence. However, some researchers disagree and believe that
eventually genes associated with intelligence may well be identified.
Meanwhile, the speed with which advances are being made in mapping the neuronal connections of the human brain continue to move forward significantly faster than the progress
measured by Moore’s Law in the manufacturing of integrated circuits. Already, the connectome of a species of nematode,
which has only 302 neurons, has been completed.
Nevertheless, with an estimated 100 billion neurons in an adult human brain
and at least 100 trillion synaptic connections, the challenge of fully mapping the human connectome is a daunting one. And even then, the work of understanding the human brain’s functioning will have barely begun.
In that regard, it is worth remembering that after the completion of the first full sequencing of the human genome, scientists immediately realized that the map of genes was only their introduction to the even larger task of
mapping all of the proteins that are expressed by the genes—
which themselves adopt multiple geometric forms and are subject to significant
biochemical modifications after they are translated by the genes.
In the same way, once the connectome is completed, brain scientists will have to turn to the role of proteins in the brain. As David Eagleman, a neuroscientist at the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, puts it, “Neuroscience is obsessed with neurons because our best technology allows us to measure them. But each individual neuron is in fact as complicated as a city, with millions of proteins inside of it, trafficking and interacting
in extraordinarily complex biochemical cascades.”
Still, even at this early stage in the new Neuroscience Revolution, scientists have learned how to selectively activate specific brain systems.
Exploiting advances in the new field of optogenetics, scientists first identify opsins—light-sensitive proteins from green algae (or bacteria)—and place into cells their
corresponding genes, which then become optical switches for neurons. By also inserting genes that correspond to other proteins that
glow
in green light, the scientists were then able to switch the neuron on and off with blue light, and then
observe its effects on other neurons with a green light. The science of optogenetics has quickly advanced to the point where researchers are able to use the switches to manipulate the behavior and feelings of mice by controlling the flow of ions (charged particles) to neurons, effectively turning them
on and off at will. One of the promising applications may be the
control of symptoms associated with Parkinson’s disease.
Other scientists have inserted multiple genes from jellyfish and coral that produce different fluorescent colors—red, blue, yellow, and gradations in between—into many neurons in a process that then allows the identification of different categories of neurons
by having each category light up in a different color. This so-called “brainbow” allows a
much more detailed visual map of neuronal connections. And once again, the Global Mind has facilitated the emergence of a powerful network effect in brain research. When a new element of the brain’s intricate circuitry is deciphered, the knowledge is widely dispersed to other research teams whose work in
decoding other parts of the connectome is thereby accelerated.
Simultaneously, a completely different new approach to studying the brain—functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI)—has led to exciting new discoveries. This technique, which is based on the more familiar MRI
scans of body parts, tracks blood flow in the brain to neurons when they are fired. When neurons are active, they
take in blood containing the oxygen and glucose needed for energy. Since there is a slight magnetization
difference between oxygenated blood and oxygen-depleted blood, the scanning machine can
identify which areas of the brain are active at any given moment.
By correlating the images made by the machine with the subjective descriptions of thoughts or feelings reported by the individual whose brain is being scanned, scientists have been able to make breakthrough
discoveries about where specific functions are located in the brain. This technique is now so far advanced that experienced teams can actually identify specific
thoughts
by seeing the “brain prints” associated with those thoughts. The word “hammer,” for example, has a distinctive brain print that is extremely similar in almost everyone, regardless of nationality or culture.
One of the most startling examples of this new potential was reported in 2010 by neuroscientist Dr. Adrian Owen, when he was
at the University of Cambridge in England. Owen performed fMRI scans on a young woman who was in a vegetative state with no discernible sign
of consciousness and asked her questions while she was being scanned. He began by asking her to imagine playing tennis, and then asking her to imagine walking through her house. Scientists have established that people who think about playing tennis demonstrate activity in a particular part of the motor cortex portion of the brain, the supplementary motor area. Similarly, when people think about walking through their own home, there is a recognizable pattern of activity in the center of the brain in an area called the parahippocampal gyrus.
After observing that the woman responded to each of these questions by manifesting exactly the brain activity one would expect from someone who is conscious, the doctor then used these two questions as a way of empowering the young woman to “answer” either “yes” by thinking about playing tennis, or “no” by imagining a stroll through her house. He then patiently asked her a series of questions about her life, the answers to which were not known by anyone participating in the medical team. She answered correctly to virtually all the questions, leading Owen to conclude that she was in fact conscious. After continuing his experiments with many other patients, Owen speculated that as many as 20 percent of those believed to be in vegetative states may well be conscious with no way of connecting to others. Owen and his team are now using noninvasive electroencephalography (EEG) to continue this work.
Scientists at Dartmouth College are also using an EEG headset to interpret thoughts and connect them to an iPhone, allowing the user to
select pictures that are then displayed on the iPhone’s screen. Because the sensors of the EEG are attached to the outside of the head, it has more difficulty interpreting the electrical signals inside the skull, but they are making impressive progress.
A
LOW-COST HEADSET
developed some years ago by an Australian game company, Emotiv, translates brain signals and uses them to
empower users to control objects on a computer screen. Neuroscientists believe that these lower-cost devices are measuring “
muscle rhythms rather than real neural activity.” Nevertheless, scientists and engineers at IBM’s Emerging Technologies lab in the United Kingdom have adapted the
headset to allow thought control of other electronic devices, including model cars, televisions, and switches. In Switzerland, scientists at the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) have used a similar
approach to build wheelchairs and robots controlled by thoughts.
Four other companies, including Toyota, have announced they are developing a bicycle whose gears can be shifted by the rider’s thoughts.
Gerwin Schalk and Anthony Ritaccio, at the Albany Medical Center, are working under a multimillion-dollar grant from the U.S. military to design and develop devices
that enable soldiers to communicate telepathically. Although this seems like something out of a science fiction story, the Pentagon believes that these so-called telepathy helmets are sufficiently feasible that it is
devoting more than $6 million to the project. The
target date for completion of the prototype device is 2017.
If such a technology is perfected, it is difficult to imagine where more sophisticated later versions of it would lead. Some theorists have long predicted that the development of a practical way to translate human thoughts into digital patterns that can be deciphered by computers will inevitably lead to a broader convergence between machines and people that goes beyond cyborgs to open the door on a new era characterized by what they call “transhumanism.”
According to Nick Bostrom, the leading historian of transhumanism, the term was apparently coined by Aldous Huxley’s brother, Julian, a distinguished biologist, environmentalist, and humanitarian, who wrote in 1927, “The human species can, if it wishes, transcend itself—not just sporadically, an individual here in one way, an individual there in another way—but in its entirety, as humanity. We need a name for this new belief. Perhaps
transhumanism
will serve: man remaining man, but transcending himself, by realizing new possibilities of and for his human nature.”
The idea that we as human beings are not an evolutionary end point, but are destined to evolve further—with our own active participation in directing the process—is an idea whose roots are found in the intellectual ferment following the publication of Darwin’s
On the Origin of Species
,
a ferment that continued into the twentieth century. This speculation led a few decades later to the discussion of a new proposed endpoint in human evolution—the “Singularity.”
First used by Teilhard de Chardin, the term “Singularity” describes a future threshold beyond which artificial intelligence will exceed that
of human beings. Vernor Vinge, a California mathematician and computer scientist, captured the idea succinctly in a paper published twenty years ago, entitled “The Coming Technological Singularity,” in which he wrote, “Within thirty years, we will have the technological means to create superhuman intelligence.
Shortly after, the human era will be ended.”
In the current era, the idea of the Singularity has been popularized and enthusiastically promoted by Dr. Ray Kurzweil, a polymath, author, inventor, and futurist (and cofounder with Peter Diamandis of the Singularity University at the NASA Research Park in Moffett Field, California). Kurzweil envisions, among other things, the rapid development of technologies that will facilitate the smooth and complete translation of human thoughts into a
form that can be comprehended by and
contained
in advanced computers. Assuming that these breakthroughs ever do take place, he believes that in the next few decades it will be possible to engineer the convergence of human intelligence—and even consciousness—with artificial intelligence. He recently wrote, “There will be no distinction,
post-Singularity, between human and machine or between physical and virtual reality.”
Kurzweil is seldom reluctant to advance provocative ideas simply because many other technologists view them as outlandish. Another close friend, Mitch Kapor, also a legend in the world of computing,
has challenged Kurzweil to a $20,000 bet (to be paid to a foundation chosen by the winner) involving what is perhaps the most interesting long-running debate over the future capabilities of computers, the Turing Test. Named after the legendary pioneer of computer science Alan Turing, who first proposed it in 1950, the Turing Test has long served as a proxy for determining when computers will achieve human-level intelligence. If after conversing in writing with two interlocutors, a human being and a computer, a person cannot determine which is which, then the computer passes the test. Kurzweil has asserted that a computer will pass the Turing Test by the end of 2029. Kapor, who believes that human intelligence will forever be organically distinctive from machine-based intelligence, disagrees. The potential Singularity, however, poses a different challenge.
More recently, the silicon version of the Singularity has been met by a competitive challenge from some biologists who believe that genetic engineering of brains may well produce an “Organic Singularity”
before the computer-based “Technological Singularity” is ever achieved. Personally, I don’t look forward to either one, although my uneasiness may
simply be an illustration of the difficult thinking that all of us have in store as these multiple revolutions speed ahead at an ever accelerating pace.