IEEE Future Directions
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Technology is not just evolving our machines, it is creating a bridge between us and them.
Bio-Interfaces are enabling seamless communications between our body, our mind, and machines. This is clearly being exploited by better prosthetics that fit naturally to replace a lost functionality as well as future prosthetics that augment an existing functionality.
The coming of context aware machines serves even better the interaction with humans and the eventual shift towards machine aware leverages their intelligence complementing and augmenting ours. This is bidirectional, our intelligence will also augment machine intelligence (in the first phases, already today, our intelligence augments machine effectiveness) creating a world where cooperation is among humans, among machines and among humans and machines.
The cooperation may be a loose one, occasional as interaction arises among two entities as they happen to operate in the same space or it can become continuous taking the shape of a symbiotic relation. This latter may result in the creation of a superorganisms, a new species, as envisaged by the transhumanism movement.
The FDC SAS Initiative is not taking any stand on this, simply take notice that there is this philosophical movement. The Initiative is focussing on the technology that can make this symbioses possible (basically requiring a seamless interaction and self adaptation by the various components engaged in the symbioses) and on creating a factual field where Ethical, Legal and Societal issues -ELS- can be discussed.
In a symbiotic relation there is an implicit creation of a superorganisms and issues of accountability arises. To what extent the superorganisms is actually recognised as an independent entity, hence potentially held accountable, and to what extent accountability remains in its components? The question is a difficult one since the behaviour may not be a sum of behaviours exhibited by each component, in which case one could direct the accountability to a specific part, rather it might be an emergent behaviour where the contribution of each part is no longer meaningful.
A strong symbiotic relation also implies that its components can no longer operate independently of one another. As noticed previously we, humans, are already living in a symbiotic relation with our ambient to the point that if we were transported to a completely different one, in the jungle, we would be unlikely to survive. Hence the evolution towards symbiotic autonomous systems, where we would be a component, is nothing radically new.
There may be reason to advocate for weak symbiotic relations only so that we can remain an independent part that is just taking advantage of the symbioses when this is feasible and keep living independently when this is not.
However, also this approach creates significant ELS issues. It is clear that a symbiotic relation confers advantages to its participants and at the same time creates a gap with those that for any reasons cannot engage in that relation. The Have vs Have Nots represents itself although the gap risks to be more significant than the one we have today between those who can access technology and those who cannot. The reason is that today the use of technology is explicit, in the future, in a symbiotic relation, it may become invisible. The advantage given to those that can have, as an example, their brain wired to the internet versus those that will be able to access the internet via a smartphone is way wider than the one we have today between those that can access internet with their smartphone and those who have no access to internet. The former will have an increased access to knowledge and an increased intelligence, the latter will have a “delayed” increased knowledge only.
There is not a clear boundary between a symbiotic relation and a mediated one. This is another aspect that needs to be faced. There are no boundaries around intelligence, hence it will be difficult to perceive a disruption point, although we are clearly seeing that we are close to an inflection point where convergence of various technologies is reinforcing their evolution and usage.
