Hello Fellow Time Travelers, as we head into tomorrow ...
My book posits that very soon, or in the not so distant to middling future, certain technological developments will happen ... or at least, have a high chance of happening. Many of these innovations might not be stoppable even should we try, no more than criminalizing drugs, prohibitions on pirated software and banning the darker corners of the internet have been successful in halting their spread. It is likewise most possible that such technologies and inventions could be subject to misuse by bad actors, or not used for the best of purposes, although they might be used for great human good instead.
If such is the case, should not ethical Buddhists, together with other concerned individuals around the world, do what we can to have such technologies used for the greater good when and if they appear on the scene?
My book tosses out a few examples in its introductory chapter. Assuming, for the moment, that technological possibilities like the following actually shall come to be, and that they cannot be stopped by protests, nor banned or effectively regulated away by law (please assume the foregoing for purposes of this exercise), what should be the response of Buddhists and others people world-wide concerned for the future of humanity? Please don't blame me for these potential happenings and technologies, or hold me to be their advocate or inventor or salesman. Nor am I guarantying that all of this will definitely happen, although some or much of it sure seems like it might. I am just the messenger and story-teller here, asking you "what if" questions about tomorrow's technological cross-roads, the ethical choices we face, raising scenes of very possible future histories.
My question is, if such things are coming down the pike, what is our best response as Buddhists and citizens concerned for the future of our planet and the human race? Just to close the door and walk away? To write criticisms in books and essays, but take no real action? To attack in a Luddite way? Pass laws, even if likely ineffectual? To try to use these technologies in good ways ourselves, even though bad actors might do the opposite?
What do we do should some of these come to be?
From my book:
~ ~ ~
In a matter of years, the biology of the human body will be merged with machine, the mind with AI and other enhancements. Indeed, this union has already begun via today's primitive attempts at neural stimulators and robotized artificial limbs. Soon our arms and legs will be made more powerful, the paralyzed will walk, our heart and lungs will be supplemented or replaced by human made devices or laboratory-cultivated organs. Our very DNA will be modified, repaired or supplanted with designer genes that will cure diseases and give us abilities and talents known only to other species and superheroes. Strength, dexterity, durability, adaptability, quickness and IQ will all be greatly enhanced. Children’s mental powers and personality traits will be selected and molded. Physical beauty and appearances will be designed and crafted according to fashion and taste, much as we now choose clothes, haircuts and body ink.
...
We homo sapiens will be the first species to plan and build our own successor species (likely many species, in fact, each specialized for its intended work and environmental needs), rather than passively waiting on natural selection to take its tortuous course. We will bio-engineer a menagerie of creatures, limited only by the possibilities of genetics, physics, market demand and human imagination, and will do so as simply as gardeners today breed new roses. Animal DNA will be added to our own, latent genes will be activated, and brand-new genes and stem cell applications will be invented in labs, all with flesh, flash memory, nerve fibers and optical fibers blended seamlessly. Our brains may have direct access to the online world, with links to the most powerful databases and computer networks flowing right into the cortex … but, if we are lax, with hackers, viruses and ransomware flowing in too!
...
Soon, the entire barrier between the “real” and “enhanced” or “virtual” reality will drop. After all, the entirety of what you are experiencing right this second as “your life” and “your room” in which “you” sit is but a mental model being created in the neural matter between your ears, based on sense data contacted by the sense organs, which is turned into electro-chemical signals, then interpreted, categorized, and refashioned in the mind as your present experience. Buddhists have said basically as much for thousands of years. ... If we replace that incoming data, alter those electro-chemical signals, reprogram how the neurons process and interpret it all, then the “real” experience can be very different, and perhaps any experience we might choose to purchase or install.
...
In the near future, lifespans may become incredibly long, perhaps attaining hundreds of years (and from there, who knows?) ...
...
[Perchance] some of our computers will themselves become so smart, so self-aware, that we would have to call them living, feeling, intelligent “sentient beings” too. Our creations soon might begin to design even more powerful creations of their own, all without our help or oversight, better and faster than can any human designer. Then, if history is any guide, those more powerful “artificial” sentient beings will take over completely, run the show, make discoveries which we struggle to understand, not need us to slow them down, will evolve into our replacements as the dominant species on this planet, then on other planets; perhaps, if we are fortunate, they’ll keep human beings around as useful servants, zoo specimens, and cute pets. Maybe we’ll somehow manage to keep control over our smarter creations, or become part of them, or become them. After all, Cro-magnon man is still around, within us, deep in our genes: We will be found as hitchhikers, deep in the DNA and programming of creatures and machines to come. In fact, are they not who we shall have become?
After all, if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em!
...
The development of solar and other alternative energies, laboratory grown foods and hyper-productive agricultural methods, new inventions and artificial substitutes for vital minerals and other raw materials, genetic techniques to restore and replenish the oceans, processes to clean the air by removing carbon and other pollutants, electric vehicles, digital printing and other advanced methods of producing whatever we desire at the push of a button in cheap and ample supply, may solve issues of shortage, resource depletion, pollution and poverty. Things we now hoard and, too often, fight wars over will become plentiful. Nutritious foods will become available to all. Both necessary and luxury goods will be cheaper and easier to produce, and the world may become cleaner and better preserved due to more efficient manufacturing and pollution-free energy. On the other hand, such riches could lead to even greater materialism, endless hungers for the latest fads and shiny things, much as we have seen in the consumer driven West where our ever-expanding ability to produce something “new” seems merely to feed ever expanding desires and waistlines. Some nations will keep polluting just because it is cheaper than not. Mass production could result in even greater environmental harm or destruction, and overflowing supplies of food and fuel will mean little if unequal distribution and selfishness leads to some with too much and some with too little, or none at all.
Will we satisfy desires and cravings, or only expand them with expanding production?
The future will bring technological revolutions, stunning innovations, new discoveries and near-miraculous cures. But will we use them wisely? Will our inventions serve as tools to build a better, kinder, fairer world, or as weapons of violence, robbers of resources, and Orwellian means of oppression? Can advances in scientific ability go hand-in-hand with heightened respect for nature, a cherishing of sustainability and stillness, a willingness to slow down or stop the non-stop assembly lines? Will increased social complexity be infused with simplicity, a prioritizing of human well-being and human rights, equal opportunity and freedom, instead of raw economic expansion, self-interest and social inequalities? Can human beings learn to live in harmony with the planet, or will we continue to disrespect and destroy nature, too easily overlooking life’s simple treasures in favor of our continued consumption frenzy and addiction to “progress?” Will our economic systems function to improve the quality of human life over raw quantity, allowing us to share in health and healthy living, or will we enslave humans in the service of industrial and other masters, some of whom may themselves be “enhanced” lifeforms and machines not “human” at all?
Can we bring future heavens to earth, or only hells and hungry ghosts of our own making?
Zen and other Buddhist values, common to good people of many creeds and philosophies, might serve as a shining beacon, illuminating healthier paths.
It remains largely up to us whether tomorrow brings dystopian nightmares to rival any Hollywood fantasy, or realizes paradise and the Pure Land on this earth. Buddhist wisdom and compassion can guide us in good and healthful directions.
(to be continued)
Gassho, J
stlah
)
Thank you, Abe. 
Comment