Will neural lace save us from the super-intelligent robots?

Source: Gifts for professionals

If neural lace sounds like something out of a science fiction novel that is probably because that is where the idea originated. A couple of months ago, however, a group of scientists published a paper about injecting an ultra-fine mesh into brains to create neural lace. The mesh has been tested on mice, which survived the implantation and are thriving. Suggested uses for neural lace include “monitoring brain activity, delivering treatment for degenerative disorders like Parkinson’s, and even enhancing brain capabilities”.

In terms of economics, innovations to enhance brain capabilities seem to have many characteristics in common with other innovations. It seems reasonable to expect that, as with other successful technological advances, entrepreneurs developing the technology will initially be able to charge a high price for it. As suggested by Anders Sandberg, of the Future of Technology Institute at Oxford, the price of some brain enhancements (pills and gadgets) can be expected to fall as a result of competition, while the price of service-heavy enhancements (genetic engineering) is more likely to stay expensive. On that basis, there could be potential for the price of neural lace to fall fairly rapidly and for it to become widely used within a few decades, if it offers substantial benefits to users.

 Another reason to expect the price of neural lace to fall rapidly is that research in this area is likely to be undertaken in several different countries. It seems unlikely that the government of any one country will be able to protect the rents of entrepreneurs who develop the technology by suppressing international competition for a prolonged period.

Elon Musk’s proposal to develop neural lace to prevent humans becoming house pets of intelligent machines provides a further reason to expect neural lace to be priced for the mass market. Elon has several other highly ambitious projects on his plate, but he seems willing to add neural lace to the menu. His attitude: “Somebody’s got to do it. If somebody doesn’t do it, then I think I should do it”.

Elon Musk established OpenAI as a not-for-profit venture, so his neural lace project would presumably not be aimed at maximizing shareholder value. Perhaps Elon can attract sufficient potential investors (or donors) to be able to fund the necessary research and development.

So, why not join Elon’s fan club and help him begin work on neural lace as soon as possible to save our descendants from the robots? Michael Cook, a bioethicist, has given three good reasons to proceed cautiously:

“Take privacy. If you can hack a computer, you can hack a brain. Integrating your memories and cognitive activity with the internet allows other people to see what you are doing and thinking 24/7 — a kind of upscale parole bracelet.

Take autonomy. In our culture, this is the most cherished of our personal values. But once brains are integrated into an information network, they can be manipulated in increasingly sophisticated ways. And since technology always serves its owner, we could easily become the tools of Google or the government.

Take responsibility. There might be no crime, as the neural lace could shut down the ‘hardware’ whenever passions threaten to overwhelm social norms – as defined by the network.”

Elon Musk’s claim that humans are already cyborgs should be rejected. The fact that we, as individuals, may have a presence on social media does not mean that we have ceased to be uniquely human. Individuals can have brain implants and still be uniquely human.

Neural lace will not be worth having unless it can be developed in such a way as to enable humans to protect the privacy, autonomy and responsibility that is integral to their individual flourishing.  

Is human well-being subjective or objective?

I usually try to begin the discussion of topics on my blog by explaining why the question and my answer might be of interest to potential readers. That is difficult this time because I am attempting to answer the question in the hope that doing so will help me to become less confused about the topic. However, confusion about subjectivity and objectivity seems fairly common - particularly so among economists - so hopefully what I am about to write will have a potential audience of more than one person.

In Free to Flourish I wrote:

“Observers can clearly make judgements about the extent that individual humans are flourishing or languishing in much the same way as they can make such judgements about plants and animals. In the case of humans, however, the subjects are capable of telling an observer how they feel about their own lives and their opinions usually deserve more respect than those observing. For example, it may appear obvious that people with poor physical health or very low income have a low quality of life, but if the individuals concerned feel content, what right has any observer to imply that they do not know how they feel?

As noted previously, individual flourishing involves a variety of factors including emotional wellbeing and life satisfaction, as well as more objective factors such as physical health, education and wealth. The relative weights any individual gives to these factors reflect personal preferences. …

If we were to substitute community values for personal preferences we would be at risk of attempting to measure the extent that an adult is flourishing according to values that he or she does not agree with. That would certainly be inappropriate.” (Chapter 5).

I stand by what I wrote. (At least I did earlier in the day when I wrote the preceding sentence.) 

Does that mean that I believe human well-being is objective or subjective? The first sentence in the quote implies that well-being is objective. Are the sentiments in the final paragraph of the quote consistent with those in the first sentence?

Before reading the first part of Well-Being: Happiness in a worthwhile life, by Neera Badhwar, a philosopher, I believed that well-being is subjective. Now I am fairly sure that there are objective standards of well-being.  (Many of the relevant issues are also discussed by Neera Badhwar in an article published last year.)

The problem is conceptual. My previous view that well-being is subjective was based on the view that it must be because it contains important subjective elements. That seems to have been the view of the welfare economists who declared interpersonal comparisons of utility to be impossible. It is also the view of the philosopher, Wayne Sumner, who suggested that the term ‘objective’ be reserved for the view that well-being is simply a matter of meeting certain objective standards, regardless of the individual’s emotional condition and her evaluation of her life.

At this point I recall a discussion a long time ago with an economist who pointed out to me that people often make interpersonal comparisons of utility - so we can hardly claim that such comparisons are impossible. In our everyday lives we often make judgements about whether other people are happy or sad, satisfied or unsatisfied with their lives, whether they feel that they are achieving anything worthwhile and so forth. Those judgements are based on what people say and do. They are often ill-informed, but that does not necessarily mean they are not objective. 

I suspect that it is only in their professional lives that economists have ever refrained from making interpersonal comparisons of utility. These days, many economists (self included) view the subjective ratings that individuals place on their happiness, satisfaction with life etc. as objective evidence pertaining to important aspects of their well-being relative to other people.

Neera Badhwar suggests that we should view theories of well-being as objective if they make objective worth essential to well-being. She argues that for individuals to be flourishing their lives must be supremely desirable and worthwhile, and therefore eminently worth living. They must not only meet the individual’s own standards of worth but be able to pass muster according to objective standards of worth.

The author argues that objective well-being requires self-direction:

“the idea of objective well-being is perfectly compatible with the idea that objectively worthy lives can take many different shapes depending on the interests, opportunities and abilities of the individual and, in fact, must take a shape that both suits the individual’s own psychological nature and meets her standards to count as a life of well-being”. (p 8)

Neera Badhwar answers those who argue that objective theories of well-being are paternalistic by pointing out that theories of well-being in themselves do not tell us to promote other people’s well-being, let alone to promote our conception of their well-being.

That is consistent with the position that I have previously taken that “the case for individuals to be responsible for their own lives does not necessarily rest on each individual being the best judge of what is good for himself or herself”. In my view it rests on the proposition that adult humans cannot fully flourish unless they accept responsibility for their own lives. (Free to Flourish, Chapter 3.)

Coming back now to the last paragraph of the quote at the beginning of this post, if I now accept that a flourishing life must pass muster in terms of objective standards of worth, can I still maintain that it is inappropriate to measure the extent that an adult is flourishing according to values that he or she does not agree with? 

I don’t think so. I can acknowledge that objective standards of worth are relevant, whilst also urging researchers to accept the implications of the fact that “community standards” can be controversial. But that does not mean that it is never appropriate "to measure the extent that an adult is flourishing according to values that he or she does not agree with". For example, it is appropriate to assert that it is not possible for slaves to flourish, even though it is possible that an individual slave might claim that freedom has no value to her.

Should we put our faith in development experts or democracy?

The Tyranny of Experts, by William Easterly, is an important book which deserves to be read by anyone with an interest in economic development.  

Easterly argues persuasively that in viewing economic development as a technical problem requiring expert solutions, development economists have strengthened the hands of autocrats and deprived the poor of their rights.  His examination of economic growth experience suggests that leaders matter very little for either good or ill – the influence of leadership is overshadowed by other factors such booms and busts in commodity prices. 

He concludes:

“This is not good news for the experts. If leaders do not drive growth, then the experts advising them do not drive growth either. The experts had promised to deliver high growth in return for giving them and their autocratic pupils more power. There is no evidence that they have delivered. The growth-payoff justification for the Tyranny of Experts has turned out to be spurious”(p326).

In my view, Bill Easterly’s attack on strong political leaders (and their expert advisers) involves too much collateral damage. My reading of history (as well as my own experience in the economic advice industry) suggests to me that strong political leadership is not always at variance with “spontaneous solutions arising from political and economic rights”. Some strong political leaders have been able to use democratic processes to overcome interest groups which have been using their political muscle to restrict freedom. Surely the relevant choice is between freedom and its alternatives. I will return to this point later.

Bill Easterly argues that proponents of the technocratic approach to economic development have failed to establish that it delivers greater development in exchange for sacrifices in individual freedom. He does not argue that such aid always requires sacrifices in freedom. The technocrats who claim rigorous evidence in favour of some forms of development aid (e.g. treated mosquito nets and deworming drugs) can reasonably claim that such assistance expands opportunities available to individuals without in any way restricting their freedom.

Easterly’s point is that by viewing development as a purely technical problem, the technocrats systemically overlook the human rights abuses of the autocrats they help to keep in power. He cites the example of Meles Zenawi, an Ethiopian autocrat who has been praised by Bill Gates and Tony Blair for reductions in child mortality that may not actually have happened. Zenawi used aid funds to blackmail starving peasants into supporting his regime and he forcefully relocated farmers in the Gambella region to model villages so that he could sell their land to foreign investors.

In some other instances there is a more direct link between aid and the abuse of individual rights. For example, the book begins with the story of a World Bank funded forestry project in the Mubende district of Uganda. This aid project involved the forced evacuation of local farmers to enable a British forestry company to take over their land.

Bill Easterly presents evidence that poor people value freedom as an end in itself, but his defence of freedom is not based entirely on those grounds. He argues that freedom promotes individualistic values that favour economic development. By contrast, autocrats promote the interests of the kingdom (or state) above those of the individual and foster collectivist values that are inimical to economic development. That view is consistent with the recent history of rapid economic growth in countries such as China, as well as with the longer history of economic growth in high income countries. Easterly points out that the rapid economic growth in China can be related to the major change toward greater freedom that occurred in China after 1978.

This might be an appropriate point to return to a discussion of the merits of strong leadership. Autocrats sometimes promote freedom. Mancur Olson’s distinction between the incentives faced by roving and stationary bandits (discussed here a few years ago) comes to mind at this point. However, I am more concerned to defend the strong leadership of democrats like Margaret Thatcher than that of autocrats like Deng Xiaoping.

                                       

Bill Easterly recognizes that voting is not a sufficient condition for individual rights, but in my view he does not pay sufficient attention to the current problems of democracies, which were discussed here last week. Some democracies have had relatively good records of defending individual rights and ensuring widespread opportunities for individuals to flourish. In recent years, however, weak leadership in quite a few democracies has permitted an explosive growth of public debt which has ended up subjecting citizens to the “tyranny” of experts in the IMF and ECB. 

Democratic political institutions are not always good enough to ensure that political rights produce spontaneous solutions to economic policy problems.

Will 'Lincoln' encourage people to give more thought to modern forms of slavery?

Since seeing 'Lincoln', the movie, I have felt a need to find out more about modern versions of slavery – often described as human trafficking and debt bondage. Why? The movie made me feel that as author of a book entitled Free to Flourish and of this blog about freedom and flourishing, I should be making more of an effort to come to understand the issues involved in modern versions of slavery and similar restrictions on liberty.

'Lincoln' is basically about wheeling and dealing of politics, at a time when politics was possibly even more venal than it is today. Some people (myself included) find that kind of thing intrinsically interesting. This movie manages to entertain a broader audience because it has colourful characters and a story-line in which the goodies have to win in the end. In my view, the story is inspiring because it shows that fallible leaders can sometimes use democratic political processes to overcome entrenched interests for worthwhile purposes.

Given the history of slave ownership in the US it is not surprising that many politicians would have seen powerful reasons to keep deferring abolition, even while claiming to be opposed to slavery. While slave ownership remained profitable, slave owners had an interest in seeking to retain what they would have seen as property that they had acquired legally. Against that background, it seems amazing that sufficient numbers of representatives were eventually persuaded to take advantage of the opportunity to abolish slavery before the end of the civil war. (I still find it hard to accept that the civil war was necessary, but that is another story.)

I was intrigued by the part of the movie in which Thaddeus Stevens (played by Tommy Lee Jones) tempered his remarks in congress to avoid frightening conservatives that abolition of slavery would be a slippery slope leading to full equality. He refused to be goaded by an interjector to support the view that 'all men are created equal', rather than supporting 'equality before the law' even though he was a lifelong advocate of full citizenship rights:

'How can I hold that all men are created equal, when before me stands stinking the moral carcase of the gentleman from Ohio, proof that some men are inferior, endowed by their Maker with dim wits impermeable to reason with cold pallid slime in their veins instead of red hot blood! …

After further castigating the interjector, the passage ends:

' … even worthless unworthy you ought to be treated equally before the law.'

Those looking for further discussion of the movie should read, among other things, Jim Emerson's article, 'It's true because it works'.

I haven't managed to get far at this stage in learning more about human trafficking and debt bondage. Human trafficking has been defined to include a range of nasty activities - some worse than others in my view.

The UN's 'Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons' defines human trafficking as: 

'the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of persons, by means of the threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation'. 

The US State Department's Trafficking in Persons Report (2012) suggests that trafficking doesn't necessarily require movement of people:

'People may be considered traficking victims regardless of whether they were born into a state of servitude, were transported to the exploitative situation, previously consented to work for a traficker, or participated in a crime as a direct result of being traficked. At the heart of this phenomenon is the trafickers’ goal of exploiting and enslaving their victims and the myriad coercive and deceptive practices they use to do so'.

The State Department also uses the ILO's term 'forced labour' to describe human trafficking. The ILO's estimate of the number of people engaged in forced labour throughout the world is 20.9 million – not much less than the population of Australia. Most forced labour apparently takes place in Asia, although prevalence as a percentage of population is higher in former communist countries of eastern Europe and Africa.

It is fairly easy for people in countries like Australia to claim that that human trafficking is a minor problem as far as we are concerned - and largely beyond our influence. However, people associated with the abolitionist movement in Britain in the 19^th century – people such as John Bright who was also a prominent advocate of free trade – did not take that view with respect to slavery in America.

When Lincoln was assassinated he apparently had in his pocket a testimonial from John Bright calling for him to be re-elected.