Physicist and neuroscientist Àlex Gómez-Marín has a beef with “ the false religion of transhumanism.” Interesting title. It seems to suggest that he thinks there’s a true religion. I wonder what he thinks that is. His subtitle claims that Transhumanism is an “AI death cult.” Heard that before, about every religion that’s ever been large enough to gain a critic. And of course this criticism of Transhumanism is far from new. There’s some deep irony in the recurring claim that Transhumanism is a death cult. It usually comes from people who aspire to immaterial heavens or reject conceptions of heaven altogether. In contrast to their escapism and nihilism, Transhumanists aspire to persisting in a better world that’s as real as the light you’re using to read these words. Whether we call it “heaven” or not, it functions as a substantial affirmation of life. Defining Transhumanism Alex begins his criticism with an appeal to the risk of artificial intelligence. No disagreement there. Like all intelligence, including biological intelligence, AI is simply the goal-oriented application of power. That application of power, the goal of AI, can be for good or evil. And the goals of intelligence have little to do with their degree of intelligence. In that context, Alex proposes a strawman definition of Transhumanism: “Let us start with transhumanism, the movement that advocates for the ideological possibility (we wish), technical feasibility (we can), and moral imperative (we must) to tinker with the human condition in order to ‘enhance,’ so they say, our species, biologically and cognitively.” All ideologies, including whatever motivates Alex, are “we wish.” None matters, including whatever Alex tries, unless “we can.” And only moral nihilists avoid “we must.” So the opening to his definition is just noise. The second half is worse than noise. Transhumanists are merely tinkerers, he says, falsely implying that we’re indifferent to outcome. And he puts “enhance” in scare quotes, either falsely suggesting that our interest in enhancement in only nominal, or arrogantly implying that he knows how we should enhance ourselves better than we do. Alex does briefly explore the meaning of “enhancement,” suggesting that Transhumanists actually and paradoxically pursue a diminishment or eradication of our capabilities. That aligns well with his article’s subtitle. But unfortunately for the article, it’s nothing more than a strawman of Transhumanism. And his silly insinuations are actually a lot like it would be for me to say that Alex only claims to be a physicist while actually and paradoxically functioning as an advocate of consuming humanity in a black hole. Soul Copies Alex says Transhumanists want to “copy life, edit humanity, and delete death.” This is actually better. We do essentially wish to pursue all of those goals. And in that, we’re not so different from the most powerful human ideologies presently and historically, including Christianity. But Alex doesn’t like it. It’s an “ontological sleight of hand” in simulation and mimicry – a counterfeit. His tastes aside, we and our biological children are essentially modified copies of DNA that have repeatedly edited humanity. Would he characterize us as mere simulation and mimicry? I doubt it. My guess is that Alex harbors the notion that humans have antinatural immaterial souls that are altogether different in kind from anything else in our world. Of course, there’s no evidence for that. And there’s abundant practical reason to suppose humans, both our bodies and minds, operate much like the world around us. Singularitarian Obsolescence Alex says that Transhumanists are pursuing the Technological Singularity. That’s careless of him. Some of us are Singularitarians. Some of us aren’t. I’m not a Singularitarian because I consider the concept to be a failure scenario. If there’s ever a moment or period of time when humanity loses all ability to predict or control technological change, we’re almost certainly doomed. Most Transhumanists aren’t interested in human extinction. We aspire to remaining in control of our future, even while it’s enhanced with the powers of technological change. Do we want to become more than human? Sure. We and most other humans want to become more than human. The most influential ideologies on Earth, presently and historically, all teach that humans have greater potential than we’ve yet realized. Do we want to make humans obsolete? That depends on what you mean. If the better me makes the worse me obsolete then I’m in favor of that. But I certainly don’t wish to give up anything good about who I am already. Alex is particularly concerned that we may wish to “extinguish our animal species into the machine.” Does he feel that way about our prehuman ancestors? Does he feel that way about our human ancestors from long ago who would no longer recognize ...
