Issue link: https://cp.revolio.com/i/5039
21 www.hplusmagazine.com achieving immortality are often arduous; for instance Taoist Yoga has techniques involving lifelong celibacy and meditation focused on eventually giving birth to one's immortal self through the top of one's head. Many Chinese would be very open to immortality or life extension pills that could deliver the same benefits at lower cost and with greater reliability. So far this attitude has not translated into dramatic funding for life extension research, but the potential certainly is there — as is the economic motivation, since China will face a severely aging population around 2025-2030, similar to what Europe is facing now. David Chambers of the Methuselah Foundation, discussing the 2006 Tomorrow's People Forum at Oxford university, compared Western and Chinese attitudes on life extension technology as follows: "Europeans don't look forward to a better future — but rather a managed version of the present. There's a distrust of revolutionary ideas.... [But] while Euros and Americans might have their various hang-ups about the ethics and implications of the new biology, China doesn't. Pei Xuetao, of the Beijing Institute of Transfusion Medicine [a leading institution in stem cell research and regenerative medicine], made it very clear [in his talk at the Tomorrow's People Forum] that China is open for business." Alongside research aimed at curing cancer and other diseases, Xuetao and his colleagues have made important discoveries involving cellular senescence and apoptosis, working toward an understanding of the genetic networks that make us age. These differing attitudes toward immortality may be connected with attitudes toward AGI. Western skepticism about AI may not be entirely due to prior AI funding fiascos, but may also be tied to deep-seated cultural issues. The same Christian memes that tell us we're supposed to die and go to heaven also tell us that machines can never truly be conscious because they lack an immortal soul. Yet Changle zhou, the dean who supervises de Garis's Artificial Brain Project, regularly refers to Hugo's work as the "Conscious Robot Project." Chinese culture has little of the West's subliminal resistance to thinking machines or immortal people and this cultural difference may manifest itself in the next decades in subtle ways. Another cultural difference to remember is that extrapolating progress in China by plotting linear or exponential curves often doesn't make sense. Progress in China often matches the biological notion of "punctuated equilibrium" — long periods of relative stability punctuated by surprising and sudden changes. The Cultural Revolution and the recent shift to market- oriented "Socialism with Chinese characteristics" illustrate this phenomenon — as do the sudden initiation and cessation of Chinese global seafaring in the 1400s, and dozens of other instances in China's long history. It's easy to imagine a single technological breakthrough catalyzing one of these sudden shifts in the near future. It could be intelligent robotics, it could be life extension or something else wild and unforeseen. While this article was in the editing process, I heard some fascinating talk about a very substantial amount of funding being allocated by Beijing to a project called the "head brain instrument" (three Chinese characters) intended to improve neural function and hence accelerate human learning. I don't know enough about it to assess the viability but if it works out, it sounds like the sort of thing that could punctuate any nation's equilibrium! The possibility of a Chinese Singularity may strike fear into the hearts of American nationalists or Eurocentrists, but it's not clear that it will make a big difference which nation makes the crucial breakthroughs. In today's scientific world "information wants to be free" — and since the most likely path to a Chinese Singularity involves collaboration of Chinese and Western researchers, the odds of an insular Chinese Singularity uniquely serving Chinese national interests seem fairly low. The work in Hugo's lab in Xiamen centers on open-source software development. It's evolving cooperatively with work done by AI coders outside China and it's delivered freely to the international research community. So what's the verdict? Given China's lack of hang-ups about AGI and life extension, its powerful economic growth, its large population of smart and hard-working young scientists, and its eagerness to import Western research leaders — will the Singularity be launched in China? I'll give the last words to two creative young scientists from Xiamen university. Min Jiang made a statement I found intriguing given China's ongoing obsession with its 5000-year-old culture: "Today's China is a young boy, and as you know, eighteen is the age full of curiosity and fantasy about the future!" And Ruiting lian, a PhD student at the Artificial Brain lab focused on multilingual natural language comprehension, generation and dialogue, cut to the chase more directly: "In China, the best answer to every question is 'maybe.'" Ben Goertzel is the CEO of AI companies Novamente and Biomind, a math Ph.D., writer, philosopher, musician, and all-around futurist maniac. The Chinese government should create a Chinese Artificial Brain Administration, consisting of thousands of scientists and engineers to design artificial brains for the Chinese home-robot industry. Wu Yulu's funky robots http://gargles.net/chinese-farmer-sells-his-robots/ http://www.canada.com/news/CHINA+ROBOT+FARMER/1951349/story.html The Nao robot in the Artificial Brain Lab at Xiamen University http://novamente.net/example/ First Solar http://www.pe.com/business/local/stories/PE_Biz_S_solar09.3efff25.html Taoist Yoga and Immortality http://www.amazon.com/Taoist-Yoga-Immortality-Charles-Luk/dp/0877280673 Stem Cell China http://www.stemcellschina.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=97& Itemid=14 and some of their work on aging... http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18201843?ordinalpos=9&itool=EntrezSystem 2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_DefaultReportPanel.Pubmed_ RVDocSum An academic survey of AI in China http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/freeabs_all.jsp?arnumber=4747606 Agile software development in China http://www.infoq.com/articles/Agile-adoption-study-china Gavin Menzies' controversial history of Chinese exploration and invention http://www.1434.tv/ http://www.1421.tv/ resources