YOU'RE GONNA DIE!Gigadeath and Other Terrifying Thoughts of Hugo de Garis
Photo by Thomas Hooper (taken from his Book of Skulls which is reviewed here)
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 Within the next 30 years, technology will advance at such a rate that it will produce an intelligence explosion, cause a world war, and create new variations of the human species. According to Hugo de Garis, a professor at Xiamen University in China and a leading researcher in the field of artificial intelligence, this will kill his grandchildren, me, you, and pretty much everyone else on earth.
Vice: What’s going to happen over the next few decades?
Hugo de Garis: An explosion in electronic capacity. We will have a growing marriage between neuroscience and neuro-engineering. We will work out how the biological brain works, put that into a machine, then speed it up a million times with no limit on memory.
That sounds ominous.
The IQ gap between robots and humans will close. I see a major war over the issue. Imagine a grain of sand: if it could be fully “nano-teched” you could put one bit of information on a single atom. And that bit can switch a trillion times a second. Imagine the number of atoms in a grain of sand, all switching—there is more computing ability in that grain of sand than the whole human brain by a factor of a billion or something. So imagine adding that grain of sand to a newborn baby’s brain, then that baby is no longer human, it is an artilect. It’s terrifying.
OK, so how will the artilects cause a war?
I see humanity dividing into two, maybe three major ideological camps. I call the people who will be opposed to building artilects “terrans”—they think humans are the number one priority. The second group are “cosmists”—they want to build artilects. They think it’s human destiny to progress to that next level, they will think normal human life is pathetic. We have racism now, but wait till you see speciesism. So you have at least two murderously opposed ideologies and they will be the new capitalism vs. communism for the 21st century.
So the threat comes from the way the technology divides people?
I reject the Terminator scenario where it’s humans versus machines. That problem can be anticipated, people will become alarmed before the machines get really smart. I see political parties being formed on either side of the debate, and the more extreme individuals and groups on both sides taking matters into their own hands—there will be acts of sabotage, assassinations, and very possibly world war. A major war in the late 21st century could result in billions, not millions, of deaths. Take into account 21st century weaponry, and the passion involved in a fight for human survival. It’s a very gloomy scenario I call “Gigadeath”.
Wait, aren’t you making an artificial brain?
Yes. The decision about whether to build these artilects or not is binary, we either build them or we don’t. I think it would be tragic for humanity to freeze our development at the puny present level.
But on the other hand, if we build these artilects, humanity runs the risk of extinction, either by war or possibly the artilects may decide, “Oh, this oxygen is bad for our circuitry, let’s get rid of it,” for example. They could inadvertently wipe us out. If I walk over the carpet I am probably killing billions of bacteria with every step, but I don’t give a damn.
BRUNO BAYLEY
See all articles by this contributor Anonymous, on May 22, 2009 wrote:
you don’t kill bacteria by walking on them. yeah, i’m sorry | | Anonymous, on May 19, 2009 wrote:
Cool. I always wanted to be a scanner. | | Anonymous, on May 16, 2009 wrote:
Why don’t they make these ’grains of sand’ compulsory for everyone so we all become super-human, nano-brained, giga-machines?
I’d be up for beta testing | | Anonymous, on May 11, 2009 wrote:
Old hat. Singularity theory, which is what this guy is essentially talking about, is pioneered by the BRITISH, and has been, for the last 20 years. Vernor Vinge and Neil Bostrom (Head of Future Studies at Cambridge) would probably have b een better sources. PIGSWILL. | | Anonymous, on May 10, 2009 wrote:
Replicants murdering my kids and grandkids? I could’nt give a fuck...I hate kids. | | Anonymous, on May 8, 2009 wrote:
"If I walk over the carpet I am probably killing billions of bacteria with every step, but I don’t give a damn"
oh man. what a bad ass. | | Anonymous, on May 8, 2009 wrote:
If Miles Dyson, oop! I mean de Garis can make sleazy android babes, like they had in Blade Runner, I’M IN! | | Anonymous, on May 8, 2009 wrote:
this is a manic depressed dude’s rants - sounds like some kids stupid ideas. any time a nerd says " I call it *blank* " you know it’s going to be downs syndromy. | | Anonymous, on May 8, 2009 wrote:
All the black robots and all the white robots are going to fight. and then midgets will have to figure out if they should stay together as one or segregate to save themselves, or have sex with the robots to produce mini-androids, which are much scarier than tall, proportionate androids. | | Anonymous, on May 8, 2009 wrote:
So often, vice will interview death predictors with such interest and nonfrightened ability i feel like they’re in on it. Keep making the robots, vice, im on to you. | | Anonymous, on May 8, 2009 wrote:
I wonder if that skull and bone picture is of a guy who bit it from gigadeath or a bad case of poison ivy. | | Anonymous, on May 8, 2009 wrote:
"Is anyone else reading the title in their best Axl Rose voice?"
Yes!...YOURE IN AN EXPLOSION OF ELECTRONIC CAPACITY BABY!!! | |
| anonymouse, on May 8, 2009 wrote:
if i’m going to get fucked up by a robot it had better be one of the melty liquid metal ones. if i’m going to have my brain smashed i want it to be tripped first. | | Anonymous, on May 8, 2009 wrote:
All this convergence between human and AI and all this jazz isn’t holding any water with me when we’re still putzing around with a combustible engine alog a shitty highway for 100 years. | | Anonymous, on May 8, 2009 wrote:
Wow, theres so much wrong with this article it’s whack-tastic! First off: does this guy carry a copy of Brave New World in one pocket and 1984 in the other? Thats right Hugo you watched too many 80’s b-budget post-apocalypse films. It probably doesn’t help much either that he lives in (Red) China.
The fact that he vocally refuted the "Terminator" theory basically speaks volumes about this mans intellect. Differentiating between reality and a movie about a killer time traveling robot played by the Gov. of Calif. is pretty out of character for a professor at a community college, let alone at a university (even in China). | | Anonymous, on May 8, 2009 wrote:
It will be like my book Maximum Overdrive only human vs. human. - Stephen King | | Anonymous, on May 8, 2009 wrote:
Is anyone else reading the title in their best Axl Rose voice? | | Anonymous, on May 8, 2009 wrote:
what does this mean for captured! by robots? does that guy really become a musical slave? | |
| captain cheesepuff, on May 8, 2009 wrote:
time to build my super taser and monster blowtorch. i’m going down in a blaze of glory and melting metal. | | Anonymous, on May 8, 2009 wrote:
interesting article, and well structured, thanks for sharing, cheers | | Anonymous, on May 7, 2009 wrote:
I guess I better start making a whole bunch of electromagnetic pulse bombs to fry their "superior" electronic brains then... This is stupid. | | Anonymous, on May 7, 2009 wrote:
wait’ll they come out with gigadeath metal | | Anonymous, on May 7, 2009 wrote:
Gigadeath! Thats so Metal! | | Anonymous, on May 6, 2009 wrote:
If we ever get in a war with robots, I’m going to hide all the battery chargers. Bang. War over. | |
| bad news brown, on May 5, 2009 wrote:
the same would apply to men and women. i mean, they even made a book about it right? men are from mars.....women are from venus? | | Anonymous, on May 5, 2009 wrote:
the most racist of racists already think they are speciesist because they truly believe blacks and white are different species. | | Anonymous, on May 5, 2009 wrote:
i made kind of an artificial brain from jello and a plastic mold. that shit was delicious! | |
| fuck russia, on May 5, 2009 wrote:
Killing billions of bacteria is a wee bit different than killing billions of humans. | | Anonymous, on May 5, 2009 wrote:
i perform gigacide everytime i beat off into the toilet and flush it | | Anonymous, on May 5, 2009 wrote:
ok so he doesn’t think we should halt progression in technological development, yet he also believe that these "artilects" will overthrow humanity as we know it. hmmmm..so when do you know that it’s time to slow down development? | | | Next 30 comments > |
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