Transumanar

More voices from Second Life and Life 2.0

My article on Life 2.0: augmentationists in Second Life and beyond has received many comments, some positive, some negative, and all very interesting. Besides this blog, the article has been commented on the IEET site, Gwyneth Llewelyn’s blog, the Second Life Insider, Sophrosyne Stenvaag’s blog, and Identity In The Digital Age. It has been a very interesting discussion with interesting people.

I consider voice as just one more cool technical gadget in the Second Life interface, available to those who want to use it. Not really the sort of issue that deserves a passionate debate. But of course, the debate is not about voice in Second Life - it is on freedom and social pressure, tolerance and cultural norms. Even hardcore immersionists concede that everyone should be free to live her or his (first, second...) life as (s)he wishes as long as (s)he does not harm others. But some of them think that those who use voice in Second Life, even those (like me) who would never think of criticizing those who choose not to use voice, _do_ harm them in some sense.

This is interesting. How can my own personal choices of technology options harm others? Having and using a cell phone does not damage those who do not have one or do not use it. Talking in Second Life should not harm those who, for any reason, cannot or do not wish to talk. And, once these options will be available, using technology to extend our lifespan or escaping the prison of the flesh by mind uploading will not harm those who cannot make the transition to Human 2.0 or, for whatever reason, prefer to stay Human 1.0.

I have and use a cell phone, talk in Second Life, and look forward to become Human 2.0. I will not give up any of these options because others do not like them. But I understand that it may make others uncomfortable.

However, the voice debate is over and Second Life - Life 2.0 are moving on. The really interesting thing at the interface between virtual worlds and posthumanity is that online worlds such as Second Life will soon become training grounds for artificial intelligences (BBC). See the Novamente website and Ben Goertzel’s blog: “What’s exciting about virtual parrots-that-talk — and the intelligent virtual agents space generally — is the way it poses an incremental path by which getting more and more customers for products is directly connected to making the AI underlying the products smarter and smarter (which in turn will attract more and more customers). This is exactly the kind of virtuous cycle one wants to see in an AI start-up company (in my never-very-humble and admittedly rather biased opinion!)”.

In the image above (George Dvorsky), Ben Goertzel appears with Philip Rosedale and Marvin Minsky at Transvision 2007. See his blog with a quote from Reason Online: “Finally, Rosedale mentioned the possibility of creating AI avatars that could learn from interacting with the avatars of humans in Second Life. “I find it very likely that any artificial intelligence we create will live first in a world like this,” said Rosedale. Rosedale’s last observation flowed nicely into the next talk by Novamente AI researcher Ben Goertzel. Goertzel wants to create baby AI’s that can learn and insert them into virtual worlds where human avatars can teach them...”.

Posted by on 09/14 at 05:47 AM

Guilio -

You’re quite right that the debate over the SL Voice client is over. Interestingly, SL-the-community has resoundingly rejected *this implementation of the technology* (nobody ever had a problem with Skype), while its use seems to be confined to Sl-the-corporate/educational-platform, which is a sensible and appropriate outcome.

But - “How can my own personal choices of technology options harm others?” Really, Guilio, I have to believe you’ve thought this through more thoroughly than that! I’ve never thought about this before, and I can come up with quite a list of answers! :)

Let’s set aside “incompetent use of technology” as too obvious - people who cause accidents because they can’t manage a cell phone while driving (or can’t manage driving in the first place).

Let’s also set aside direct pollution, where your technology use poisons me. But how many people every year are killed or seriously physically or financially injured by those two categories?

You don’t have to look much more subtly, though, to see other injuries that work like pollution does. Frex, cell phone use generates quite a lot of social pollution, which is where one set of objections to the badly-designed SL Voice client came from. This could be dismissed as merely “harshing my squee,” but one of the fundamental property rights is “quiet enjoyment,” isn’t it?

So, we have a set of harmful uses of technology that fall somewhere between poisoning and bad manners.

There’s also a denial of expected outcomes, from bringing a gun to a knife fight, to the use of enhancement technologies in sports. In both cases, there’s a violation of either explicit or implicit rules of conduct - more fundamentally, unfairness. Fairness is a powerful concept that shapes most all of human behavior, and failure to account for it can be *really* problematic!

And that’s where concerns about Human 2.0 come into play, of course. Mind you, I’m immensely in favor of transhuman technologies - but I try not to make the engineer’s mistake of not seeing the humans behind the technology.

There are ways to ensure that your technology use *doesn’t* harm me. I can think of two right off - segregation (enhanced and non-enhanced sports leagues, the de facto segregation of Voice to corporate spaces in SL), and universal access (though that can look like everybody getting harmed all the time, which is pretty much the outcome of ubiquitous cell phones and ubiquitous bad manners). Hopefully you’ve thought of others… :)

Posted by Sophrosyne Stenvaag on 09/14 at 11:23 PM
Hi Soph!

I am, of course, well aware that my own personal choices of technology options CAN harm others, intentionally or as unplanned side effects. But relinquishment is a cheap and flawed cure - we should find, as you say, “ways to ensure that your technology use *doesn’t* harm me”.

Easier to say than to do of course.

I am for both universal access AND segregation: technology options (voice in SL, cell phones, ..., immortality, mind uploading...) should be affordable to everyone who may wish them. If someone doesn’t like, “soft segregation” is the way to go. Soft means that it is not enforced but, again, available as one more option - you have the option to stay in a voiceless part of SL, or in a human1.0 world - and I have the options to use voice in SL or avoid death in RL.

I am a smoker who has no problem with the fact that smoking is not allowed in public places - I support the right of non smokers lo be in a smoke free environment. Just don’t tell me that I cannot smoke in my house with other smokers, that would be a unacceptable limitation of personal choice.

Best,
G.

Posted by on 09/21 at 10:35 AM
Hi Giulio!

Thanks for your response! I’m delighted to see that we’re in complete agreement!

Posted by Sophrosyne Stenvaag on 09/22 at 03:35 AM