genderphasing

i saw a post on cohost linking to silicon valley's quest to build god and control humanity, by edward ongweso jr. and when i got to this bit:

Today's transhumanist vision may appeal because of its digital gloss and futurist splendor, but [Christian fundamentalist turned transhumanist turned tech critic Meghan] O'Gieblyn notes a fatalistic undertone despite all the ideas borrowed from Christian theology. She writes that transhumanism's "rather depressing gospel message insists we are inevitably going to be superseded by machines, and that the only way we can survive the Singularity is to become machines ourselves–objects that we for centuries regarded as lower than plants and animals."

Worse yet, we are reduced to shoddy computational machines. […]

…i stopped there, in the middle of a paragraph. this hits weird.

i'm going to assume two things, both of which seem like pretty safe assumptions.

first: the human brain is not some perfect, glorious atom which is the only possible way for cognition to arise; it's one of many, even infinite forms it can take. so "generalized AI", better known as just "AI" when we don't adopt the language of the VCs, is possible, in the sense that a human could create a being with intelligence equal to or better than a human's, through advanced technology. will we ever do it? is it possible with current approaches? when will it happen? no clue, it doesn't matter. (arguably it already has, with IVF, but don't be that literal)

second: such a being would, at the minimum, be as real and worthy of life as any human. virtually regardless of how you define 'intelligence', something "as intelligent as a human" has to be a complex enough creature that its life has value, in the same way yours or mine does. it's almost a tautology? it might literally be a tautology. it depends on your reasoning for saying a human life has value. mine is simple: it's a moral axiom. i refuse to live in a world where a person does not, in and of themselves, have worth.

(and already we start to run into the interesting thoughts. what, exactly, makes something as intelligent as a human? obviously it's not just the arrangement of tissues: a fresh corpse isn't a human life. and even that phrasing ["as intelligent as a human"] is intrinsically biased; it's useful shorthand, but what even is intelligence? can you compare one thing's intelligence, in an absolute sense, to another's? but these are well-trodden interesting thoughts, and they've been written about for as long as writing has existed, so i'm going to leave them behind.)

and so, taking those assumptions, the framing of this:

the only way we can survive the Singularity is to become machines ourselves–objects that we for centuries regarded as lower than plants and animals

as a bad thing feels weird to me. after all, i'm assuming that a (sufficiently "intelligent") machine could be a person, and that machine is no less a person than i am, so… surely we should indeed cease regarding it as lower than plants or animals? even if the machine is only intelligent because a human is secreted away inside it somehow, it still seems to me that we indeed ought to lift intelligent machines to the same level as ourselves. even if it's "computational".

this hits especially weird because i, myself, am a trans. and a transhumanist. see, this world we currently live in? it fuckin sucks, dunnit. not just for the prosaic (/s) concerns of war or genocide, but for the deeply subjective issues of: my body does not fit me. my body, in my culture, does not fit me. the perception of me that others have does not fit me. at every turn i am isolated, not by who i am or what i think or do, but by the shape and color and posture of this slimy sack of meat and the various keratins visible externally. by the way my culture is so intimately and irrationally focused on that meat-sack. it's hard not to feel alienated.

most obviously: i'm agender. i present masculinely, because it's easiest with my body, but it doesn't matter; no matter how i presented, i would be interpreted as "man", "woman", or "man or woman, not sure", and none of those are correct. so rather than try and fail and have to explain with language, i don't try at all, and usually don't bother explaining.

less obviously: i'm italian. got the passport and everything. don't speak the language all that well, though, and what i've learned visiting family there is that i do not fit in. i'm the american cousin. the fat one who does tech stuff, chi non possa parlare italiano per nulla. è vero, non parlo, però capisco bene. but listening and understanding isn't enough, obviously, and neither is missing every cultural reference, local idiom, or random custom that i never had the choice to grow up with.

and of course: many of my friends are online. oh, sure, they're meat-sacks too, somewhere across a continent or an ocean, but these days their sole presence in my life is text and occasional images in chatrooms. and yet i am constrained by the sack i live in; i can at best imagine hugging them. oh, sure, i or they could travel, but even ignoring cost, having to spend a day just moving where i am to hang out with a friend pragmatically means i never will.

and hey, y'know, maybe in a world where our bodies are as self-defined as our genders, maybe this meat-sack what i wear would be different. maybe instead of getting to choose between fat man, muscled man, chubby woman, or thin woman, i could choose. i dunno. dinosaur. or robot. or hivemind across a thousand roombas. maybe i could live two lives, one in italy and one in america. or maybe i could live one, but visit the other as easily as it is to pick up the phone today. maybe all the people i love could be in one place no matter where they are in the world, but instead of being limited to text chat or swapping memes, i could hug them.

all of these options necessitate leaving behind the soggy trappings of humanity, yes. every future i can envision where i'm happy is one where i'm some "shoddy computational machine", where i've abandoned the meat to become a "machine spirit". it's not for everyone, but it's for me. is that a bad thing?

some post-cohost reflections on this:

ongweso calls himself and o'gieblyn former fundies – but this entire article reads like they still are. in particular, the assumption of the human form as the single perfect manifestation of being is, i think, what's hitting so weird. the notion of an intangible human-ness, corruptible by worldly actions, which evil villains seek to corrupt in you is just… the soul.

and i think that's why this hits so weird. because my complaint with the billionaires is that they seek absolute authority over my body – the same authority i deny to god. my view is we define ourselves; not our parents, not god, not some loser techbro. my humanity is not a perfect, pure pearl to be clutched but a burden to bear while i must and discard when i can, because it is hurting me. the way out i can see from today is technological, by becoming some "shoddy computational machine", but the point is i have goals incompatible with my current body. when they can be achieved, by any means, i will.