The Future of Humanity

Michio Kaku is a physicist better know as a popularizer of science after his multiple TV shows, digital media presence and nine books. The Future of Humanity is his latest work (2018) and is a futuristic effort placed way ahead in the future.

With such long time frame, Kaku can speculate anything, but he cleverly connects it with the ideas of the present. This is the main take away from the book.

On one side The Future of Humanity is about unthinkable dreams, on the other the challenges that the laws of physics impose. "there is one thing that even alien civilizations will have to obey, and that is the laws of physics." 

With these yes-but and what-if games Kaku takes the reader to the farthest spots in the universe while explaining why leaving Earth is not as easy as Hollywood makes it seem.

The starting point of The Future of Humanity is that our species "sooner or later will face global crises that threaten our very existence", and hence we have the incentives to migrate to outer worlds. Despite the hazards that we may face, Kaku consideres the drive to adventure and exploration part of the human nature. Is it? maybe not but we can't ignore that we don't need the whole species to agree. with just a few entrepreneurs (i.e. Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Richard Branson) suffice. How difficult interplanetary transportation really is? How soon will it occur? How can it be, physically or just pure information? It is almost impossible to speculate about these questions without entering into more philosophical questions like what is consciousness  "Consciousness, I claim, is the process of creating a model of yourself using multiple feedback loops—for example, in space, in society, or in time—in order to carry out a goal."

For Kaku the Future of Humanity depends on our own civilization evolution. Unless we reach at least a Type I Kardashev civilization level intergalactic travel is only a dream. A Type I civilization will require new organizational rules. Our current models are incapable of such challenges. Kaku concurs with Elon Musk when he said:

"Elon Musk has speculated that, as civilizations master advanced technology, they develop the power to destroy themselves and that the biggest threat facing a Type I civilization may be a self-inflicted one."

The Future of Humanity has an optimistic tone. The broad range of innovations in healthcare, communications, energy, etc. that we see today are the seeds of a future that is still only possible in the minds of these futurists and entrepreneurs. Are we going beyond the limite of how much resources we can dedicate to a single quest? Kaku doesn't answer key questions like who will coordinate the necessary efforts? A global government? Who will pay of it? Not even the ultrarich have enough, is tax-payers money involved? What about other day to day priorities like deseases, poverty, etc. Who is going and who is staying? Who is up to decide? Is it wise to spend huge amounts of resources and energy in these endeavors?

Is The Future of Humanity to please the masses or is it a book to take seriously? Time will tell. 

Deep Thinking

In a world of pessimism a word of optimism is always welcome. This is what Garry Kasparov has to tell in his new book, "Deep Thinking, where machine intelligence ends and human creativity begins".

Garry Kasparov is a Russian born chess world champion and maybe the best grand master in history. After living in the soviet Azerbaijan he and his family escaped during the collapse of the Soviet Union. A democratic leader and opponent to the Putin regime he had to move to the US in 2013. He is the chairman of the Human Rights Foundation and has worked in defense of human rights and freedom for a long time.

This combination of chess master, computer geek and freedom lover permeates in his new book. He is a believer in the potential of humanity under a free systems despite its natural paradoxes.

"Even the most disciplined human mind wanders in the heat of competition. This is both a weakness and a strength of human cognition. Sometimes these undisciplined wanderings only weaken your analysis. Other times they lead to inspiration, to beautiful or paradoxical moves that were not on your initial list of candidates."

In Deep Thinking, Kasparov narrates his experience loosing against Deep Blue, IBM's supercomputer in a chess match in 1997. When a computer beat the world chess champion it became a tipping point for media and the public in the race of machine against humans.  Beyond a historic recollection of the events and some inside details that were not made public back then, Kasparov's book is a call for hope. Having experienced in person the overwhelming brute power of a computer he is not naïve in being optimist.

"Few people in the world know better than I do what it’s like to have your life’s work threatened by a machine. No one was sure what would happen if and when a chess machine beat the world champion."

The main thesis of Kasparov is that we can't know what is going to happen in the future but we should start from accepting that progress is unstoppable and desirable, therefore we shouldn't pretend to defend ourselves by holding it back.

"We don’t get to pick and choose when technological progress stops, or where. Companies are globalized and labor is becoming nearly as fluid as capital. People whose jobs are on the chopping block of automation are afraid that the current wave of tech will impoverish them, but they also depend on the next wave of technology to generate the economic growth that is the only way to create sustainable new jobs. Even if it were possible to mandate slowing down the development and implementation of intelligent machines (how?), it would only ease the pain for a few for a little while and make the situations worse for everyone in the long run."

Instead we should embrace change and formulate tougher and deeper questions. The combination of human creativity and machine brute power is super powerful, instead of fear of Artificial Intelligence - AI (machines replacing humans) we need Intelligence Amplification - IA (machines enhancing humans)

"We aren’t competing against our machines, no matter how many human jobs they can do. We are competing with ourselves to create new challenges and to extend our capabilities and to improve our lives. In turn, these challenges will require even more capable machines and people to build them and train them and maintain them—until we can make machines that do those things too, and the cycle continues. If we feel like we are being surpassed by our own technology it’s because we aren’t pushing ourselves hard enough, aren’t being ambitious enough in our goals and dreams. Instead of worrying about what machines can do, we should worry more about what they still cannot do." 

It is in the proper combination of humans and machines that we can reach our full potential.

"A clever process beat superior knowledge and superior technology. It didn’t render knowledge and technology obsolete, of course, but it illustrated the power of efficiency and coordination to dramatically improve results. I represented my conclusion like this: weak human + machine + better process was superior to a strong computer alone and, more remarkably, superior to a strong human + machine + inferior process."

But Kasparov positive vision has a caveat. It won't occur unless we have ambitious projects to pursuit and make important changes in politics, R&D, international cooperation and education.

"America still possesses the unique potential to innovate on a scale that can push the entire world economy forward. A world in which America is content with mediocrity is, literally, a much poorer world. 

R&D budgets have been slashed over the years as investors take a skeptical view of anything that doesn't feed the bottom line. Government-backed research tends to favor specific budgets to fit an existing need, not ambitious, open-ended mission to answer big questions. 

Trade wars and restrictive immigration regulations will limit America’s ability to attract the best and brightest minds, minds needed for this and every forthcoming Sputnik moment.

That our classrooms still mostly look like they did a hundred years ago isn’t quaint; it’s absurd. How can a teacher or even a stack of books be the sole source of information for kids who can access the sum of all human knowledge in seconds from a device in their pockets."

Kasparov's book is recommended to those worried about the future. I rate 4 stars because the book is a little repetitive and circular which makes the message less powerful and the reading a little weary.

As an additional reference, Tyler Cowen made an interesting interview to Garry Kasparov short ago(see transcript here) here is the audio.