T<sub>RANSCENDING</sub> H<sub>UMANISM</sub>
Another famous narrator of the superhumanist variant in the digital discourse is Hans Moravec. In his Wired portrait he is described as “a pioneer of robotics” and “our most gung-ho advocate of technology as a tool to transform human being and make us more than we are” (Platt 1995b). Why should humans be transformed, Moravec asks, and in what sense should we be made more than we are now? Moravec embraces posthumanism as a response to the limitations of humans. Compared with computers’ calculating and rational capabilities, humans don’t fair that well. The human form, Moravec says, “clearly isn’t designed to be a scientist. Your mental capacity is extremely limited. You have to undergo all kinds of unnatural training to get your brain even half suited for this kind of work . . . You live just long enough to start figuring things out before your brain starts deteriorating. And then, you die . . . wouldn’t it be great . . . if you could enhance your abilities via artificial intelligence, and extend your lifespan, and improve on the human condition?” (Platt 1995b).
Humans, according to Moravec, have been stretched to the limits of their capacity to handle human life, a life that is now spilling over into a new technological history. The world is “screwed up,” Moravec says, because “we have a Stone Age brain, but we don’t live in the Stone Age anymore. We were fitted by evolution to live in tribal villages of up to 200 relatives and friends, finding and hunting our food. We now live in cities of millions of strangers, supporting ourselves with unnatural tasks we have to be trained to accomplish, like animals who have been forced to learn circus tricks” (Platt 1995b).
While human capacities are limited, those of artificial intelligence, like a robot, can potentially grow infinitely. According to Moravec, when such robots reach a point where they learn and adapt (around the year 2020), they will become more like humans: “Success or failure will be defined by separate programs that will monitor the robot’s actions and generate internal punishment and reward signals, which actually shape its character—what it likes to do and what it prefers not to do.” Such robots will “mimic human traits.” By 2030, those robots will “emulate higher-level thought processes such as planning and foresight.” They will also be interlinked so they can learn from each other’s experience, and they “will no longer need our help to show them how to do anything.” Their interaction with humans will allow the robots to create their own consciousness. At this point, by 2040, “there will be no job that people can do better than robots,” the robots will do everything, and we’ll live in “a world of comfort, health, and boundless plenty” (Platt 1995b).
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Media and New Capitalism in the Digital Age