Emergent Technologies and the importance of Reality

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Both Vannevar Bush and Ben Goertzel provide visions of emergent technological systems. In Bush’s As We May Think advancements in technology are used to frame a thought and information mapping device called a memex. In Goertzel’s World Wide Brain philosophy, the Internet, and science fiction flesh out Goertzel’s vision of collective web intelligence. Ultimately Bush’s attempt is more successful due to its practical sensibility and strong grounding in reality. Goertzel’s World Wide Brain is not truly an emergent technology, as Goertzel himself believes, but a divergent one, in that it would require subversion of the fundamentals of nearly every societal force.

Bush carefully outlines the basis for his system using existing technologies and plausible potential advances in said technologies. Aspects of microphotography, the vocoder, the stenotype, and the automatic telephone exchange all contribute to Bush’s plan. In framing the computational aspect of his memex Bush references electrical devices built for solving complex equations and completing tasks such as analyzing the tides. He proposes that formal logic and circuit relays will be used to structure information in the memex, an extremely perceptive prediction of things to come. Bush keeps his ideas progressive, but makes sure to keep aware of practical limitations. “Man cannot hope fully to duplicate this mental process artificially,” he points out. Bush makes it clear that the memex is a supplement to memory and not a replacement for it. This clear basis in existing technologies and technological concepts is precisely what makes Bush’s creation an emergent technology. Bush carefully outlines exactly how he sees the technology emerging from those already in existence.

Instead of starting out modestly as Bush does, Goertzel begins with, “the birth of an entirely new kind of intelligent organism, a global Web mind.” Some of the key flaws in Goertzel’s theory are his starting points. Goertzel claims that his theory is grounded in cognitive science and cybernetics, but fails to show any significant connection to actual science in the way that Bush does. Another key starting point for Goertzel is the Psynet model, which he himself points out has not actually been proven or even tested in reality. An unverifiable theoretical system of the mind is not the best basis for another theory of intelligence. The Psynet frames the mind abstractly and thus Goertzel’s system resides mostly in the abstract realm. Abstract units called “magicians,” an appropriate term for such a fantastical system, alter each other in abstract ways through abstract processes. Goertzel ignores a number of realities including the fact that, fundamentally, computers and brains do not operate in the same way. The brain does not operate on logic functions. The mind-body problem is the largest mystery of the brain. No one knows how the physical processes of the brain account for subjective human experience and no computer can come close to replicating this. Goertzel appears aware, pointing out that there is no computer with the power of even a chicken’s brain, but he fails to fully understand the source of this limitation. Goertzel’s Webmind system of intelligent mind sites seems to have some basis in the real Internet, but he ignores the reality of how such a website comes to be. Goertzel claims that there are ways to create such a systems of sites, but he fails to show any evidence of such a possibility, nor does he explain any example of these sites and their interactions in any specific way.

Goertzel’s theory is full of technical holes, but he is perhaps even more ignorant of the implications and utility of his system within society. While Bush possesses a clear goal and outline for the social utility of his memex, Goertzel’s World Wide Brain seems to lack an explicit purpose. It appears that Goertzel wants to develop a new type of intelligence simply for the sake of newness. The very idea that any individual, let alone every individual, would upload himself to a digital collective intelligence, forfeiting his individuality, is far-fetched to begin with. For the World Wide Brain to exist politics, the economy, individuality, and virtually every aspect of how society operates would all have to be turned on their heads. Goertzel compares resisting the idea of the World Wide Brain to calling for the destruction of modern society. What he fails to realize is that the W.W.B is the destruction of modern society. Goertzel’s system is contrary even to the patterns of evolution on the web. While it is true that the Internet transforms the world into more of a global collective, it also promotes and enhances individuality within this collective. The recent emphasis on websites such as youtube and facebook, which are user driven, highlights this point.

David Williams provides an accurate critique of the W.W.B. The W.W.B. serves no purpose except to consume and contain the whole of human intelligence, a digital fungus. Williams also points out that, to an extent, the W.W.B already exists, and bringing it to literal fruition is entirely unnecessary and actually damaging. Instead of dealing with the issues that Williams brings up, Goertzel merely dismisses him as wrong, taking things too literally as usual. There already are “magicians” roaming the Internet and altering it and each other to produce a collective form of intelligence. They are called users and without them the Internet is merely a fungus. Bush’s purpose was simple and innovative: create a device that can assist in the mapping and recording of memory in a unique and useful way. Goertzel’s purpose is unclear, misguided, and not particularly emergent at all. In fact, Goertzel’s system represents a complete divergence from the general evolutionary pattern of technology and the Internet.

The key to the prediction of emergent technologies lies in a clearly reasoned basis in both technical and societal realities. A technology is emergent precisely because it can logically follow from things already in existence. While Vannevar Bush has a definite foundation in all of the realities and difficulties of his creation, Ben Goertzel prefers to live in a fantasy world. Clearly Goertzel is deluded even to the nature of his own system. The World Wide Brain lacks any true sense of emergence and actual becomes a divergent system through necessitating a complete change in the way the mind, computers, and society in general operate. Emergent technologies must emerge from reality.