Microsoft Word Kurzweil, Ray The Singularity Is Near doc

Fundamentalist Humanism.
With G and N technologies now beginning to modify our bodies and brains, another 
form of opposition to progress has emerged in the form of "fundamentalist humanism": opposition to any change in the 
nature of what it means to be human (for example, changing our genes and taking other steps toward radical life 
extension). This effort, too, will ultimately fail, however, because the demand for therapies that can overcome the 
suffering, disease, and short lifespans inherent in our version 1.0 bodies will ultimately prove irresistible. 
In the end, it is only technology—especially GNR—that will offer the leverage needed to overcome problems that 
human civilization has struggled with for many generations. 
Development of Defensive Technologies and the Impact of Regulation 
One of the reasons that calls for broad relinquishment have appeal is that they paint a picture of future dangers 
assuming they will be released in the context of today's unprepared world. The reality is that the sophistication and 
power of our defensive knowledge and technologies will grow along with the dangers. A phenomenon like gray goo 
(unrestrained nanobot replication) will be countered with "blue goo" ("police" nanobots that combat the "bad" 
nanobots). Obviously we cannot say with assurance that we will successfully avert all misuse. But the surest way to 
prevent development of effective defensive technologies would be to relinquish the pursuit of knowledge in a number 
of broad areas. We have been able to largely control harmful software-virus replication because the requisite 
knowledge is widely available to responsible practitioners. Attempts to restrict such knowledge would have given rise 
to a far less stable situation. Responses to new challenges would have been far slower, and it is likely that the balance 
would have shifted toward more destructive applications (such as self-modifying software viruses). 
If we compare the success we have had in controlling engineered software viruses to the coming challenge of 
controlling engineered biological viruses, we are struck with one salient difference. As I noted above, the software 
industry is almost completely unregulated. The same is obviously not true for biotechnology. While a bioterrorist does 
not need to put his "inventions" through the FDA, we do require the scientists developing defensive technologies to 
follow existing regulations, which slow down the innovation process at every step. Moreover, under existing 
regulations and ethical standards, it is impossible to test defenses against bioterrorist agents. Extensive discussion is 
already under way to modify these regulations to allow for animal models and simulations to replace unfeasible human 
trials. This will be necessary, but I believe we will need to go beyond these steps to accelerate the development of 
vitally needed defensive technologies. 
In terms of public policy the task at hand is to rapidly develop the defensive steps needed, which include ethical 
standards, legal standards, and defensive technologies themselves. It is quite clearly a race. As I noted, in the software 
field defensive technologies have responded quickly to innovations in the offensive ones. In the medical field, in 
contrast, extensive regulation slows down innovation, so we cannot have the same confidence with regard to the abuse 
of biotechnology. In the current environment, when one person dies in gene-therapy trials, research can be severely 

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restricted.
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There is a legitimate need to make biomedical research as safe as possible, but our balancing of risks is 
completely skewed. Millions of people desperately need the advances promised by gene therapy and other 
breakthrough biotechnology advances, but they appear to carry little political weight against a handful of well-
publicized casualties from the inevitable risks of progress. 
This risk-balancing equation will become even more stark when we consider the emerging dangers of 
bioengineered pathogens. What is needed is a change in public attitude in tolerance for necessary risk. Hastening 
defensive technologies is absolutely vital to our security. We need to streamline regulatory procedures to achieve this. 
At the same time we must greatly increase our investment explicitly in defensive technologies. In the biotechnology 
field this means the rapid development of antiviral medications. We will not have time to formulate specific 
countermeasures for each new challenge that comes along. We are close to developing more generalized antiviral 
technologies, such as RNA interference, and these need to be accelerated. 
We're addressing biotechnology here because that is the immediate threshold and challenge that we now face. As 
the threshold for self-organizing nanotechnology approaches, we will then need to invest specifically in the 
development of defensive technologies in that area, including the creation of a technological immune system. Consider 
how our biological immune system works. When the body detects a pathogen the T cells and other immune-system 
cells self-replicate rapidly to combat the invader. A nanotechnology immune system would work similarly both in the 
human body and in the environment and would include nanobot sentinels that could detect rogue self-replicating 
nanobots. When a threat was detected, defensive nanobots capable of destroying the intruders would rapidly be created 
(eventually with self-replication) to provide an effective defensive force. 
Bill Joy and other observers have pointed out that such an immune system would itself be a danger because of the 
potential of "autoimmune" reactions (that is, the immune-system nanobots attacking the world they are supposed to 
defend).
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However this possibility is not a compelling reason to avoid the creation of an immune system. No one 
would argue that humans would be better off without an immune system because of the potential of developing 
autoimmune diseases. Although the immune system can itself present a danger, humans would not last more than a 
few weeks (barring extraordinary efforts at isolation) without one. And even so, the development of a technological 
immune system for nanotechnology will happen even without explicit efforts to create one. This has effectively 
happened with regard to software viruses, creating an immune system not through a formal grand-design project but 
rather through incremental responses to each new challenge and by developing heuristic algorithms for early detection. 
We can expect the same thing will happen as challenges from nanotechnology-based dangers emerge. The point for 
public policy will be to invest specifically in these defensive technologies. 
It is premature today to develop specific defensive nanotechnologies, since we can now have only a general idea 
of what we are trying to defend against. However, fruitful dialogue and discussion on anticipating this issue are 
already taking place, and significantly expanded investment in these efforts is to be encouraged. As I mentioned 
above, the Foresight Institute, as one example, has devised a set of ethical standards and strategies for assuring the 
development of safe nanotechnology, based on guidelines for biotechnology.
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When gene-splicing began in 1975 two 
biologists, Maxine Singer and Paul Berg, suggested a moratorium on the technology until safety concerns could be 
addressed. It seemed apparent that there was substantial risk if genes for poisons were introduced into pathogens, such 
as the common cold, that spread easily. After a ten-month moratorium guidelines were agreed to at the Asilomar 
conference, which included provisions for physical and biological containment, bans on particular types of 
experiments, and other stipulations. These biotechnology guidelines have been strictly followed, and there have not 
been reported accidents in the thirty-year history of the field. 
More recently, the organization representing the world's organ transplantation surgeons has adopted a moratorium 
on the transplantation of vascularized animal organs into humans. This was done out of fear of the spread of long-
dormant HIV-type xenoviruses from animals such as pigs or baboons into the human population. Unfortunately, such a 
moratorium can also slow down the availability of lifesaving xenografts (genetically modified animal organs that are 
accepted by the human immune system) to the millions of people who die each year from heart, kidney, and liver 

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disease. Geoethicist Martine Rothblatt has proposed replacing this moratorium with a new set of ethical guidelines and 
regulations.
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In the case of nanotechnology, the ethics debate has started a couple of decades prior to the availability of the 
particularly dangerous applications. The most important provisions of the Foresight Institute guidelines include: 
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"Artificial replicators must not be capable of replication in a natural, uncontrolled environment." 
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"Evolution within the context of a self-replicating manufacturing system is discouraged." 
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"MNT device designs should specifically limit proliferation and provide traceability of any replicating systems." 
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"Distribution of molecular manufacturing