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C00002 00002	.require "memo.pub[let,jmc]" source
C00004 00003	.SKIP TO COLUMN 1
C00006 00004	.cb FIVE APPROACHES TO PROBLEMS
C00007 00005	.SKIP TO COLUMN 1
C00012 00006	.SKIP TO COLUMN 1
C00015 00007	.SKIP TO COLUMN 1
C00021 00008	.cb PIONEERING IN SPACE
C00027 00009	.CB CONSEQUENCES OF POPULATION STABILITY
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.require "memo.pub[let,jmc]" source;
.cb NOTES

.BEGIN VERBATIM
the rich society
technology of guilt
birthday party
American technology in the third century.
what have we done for them lately
ai
engineers of souls - back to the drawing board
the revolution in written communication
back and forth between problems and technological opportunities
pioneers in space
there is energy enough and 10↑12 tons per person and no scientific
bar to low grade ores - like the chalk animals, if man lasts long
enough we will be sitting on 30,000 feet of our own debris, but
we are smarter than chalk animals.
The people 100 years from now will have only historic interest in
what we think they should do.
There need to be multiple societies, not a single global village.
Whether this will make us happier is hard to say, except that
I bet people will move from societies in our present technological
state to societies with these new things.
.END
.SKIP TO COLUMN 1
.CB INTRODUCTION
Ladies and Gentlemen!

	It is  an honor  to be here;  whether it  is an advantage  is
another question.

	I have studied how to flatter writers.  One expert said,
"Writers are the engineers of human souls".  I wonder how many
know who that was.  I offer only the hint that shortly thereafter
he had a fair number of writers killed.  Well if writers are the
engineers of human souls then it is time to go back to the drawing
boards.

	One technology which has made tremendous progress in the
last 10 years is the ability to generate and manipulate guilt
feelings.  Neither the technology itself nor the necessary
counter-technology has received enough explicit attention.

	The topic of my discourse is "1976 model futures",
and our firm  offers a  substantial variety for  your inspection  and
possible purchase.  The options will be presented separately,
and we will leave the consequences of buying two or more at a time
to your imaginations, trusting that that is leaving it in the
best possible hands.

	
.cb FIVE APPROACHES TO PROBLEMS

	There are five approaches to perceived social problems.  Each
is sometimes appropriate.  The numbers indicate the percentages of
support for the alternatives:

.BEGIN VERBATIM
			U.S. public	Science fiction	  My opinion

invent something		10		70		70

spend money			40		 0		10

pass a law against something	25		10		15

kill somebody			 5		50		 1

do nothing - maybe it's		60		 2		30
a mirage or will go away 
.END
.SKIP TO COLUMN 1
.cb THE BIRTHDAY PARTY

	I'll start with one which I thought  of about five years ago,
because  it will give  you fair warning  of the peculiar  way my mind
runs and will enable some of you to discount the rest of what  I will
have to say and concentrate on getting drunk.

	I thought that America should celebrate its 200th birthday by
having a birthday party and inviting everyone to come.  We would have
had to work very hard for  five years to do it, but I think  it would
have been worth it.

	First  of all  we would  have to  be able  to  transport four
billion people in and  out.  I figure  that 100,000 double deck  747s
could do it  taking 30 days to bring  them in and another 30  days to
take them out.   That's how many airplanes were made during World War
II, but those were much smaller.  The airplanes would require something
like five year's aluminum production, so this industry would have had
to be expanded.

	Second, we would have  to save up and  store the food for  an
average of 30 days.  That wouldn't have been hard at all.

	Third, we would have to house them for thirty days.  It is an
average  of 18  visitors for  every American  - man woman  and child.
Tents in a  part of the country  with mild climate would  be required
for most  of the time, but  if each family could  entertain twice its
number, then they could  each spend six days  visiting Americans.   A
lot of sofa beds and sleeping bags would be required.

	Fourth, the actual party would be held in an area with a nice
and reliable summer climate  - not too hot and not too cold.  Perhaps
a relatively high  altitude part of  Arizona or  New Mexico would  be
best.  If we imagine the people in  a square, it would be 60,000 on a
side.   Two feet apart is  common in a cocktail  party, so we have 24
miles on a side, but this would be the roof of the structure in which
they would  stay.  Giving  this structure five  stories would achieve
Russian 1960 levels of  apartment occupancy.   Crowded but it's  only
for an average of 25 days.  The airports have to be on the outside of
the configuration and the bottom level is occupied by train tracks.

	Fifth,  the  actual  entertainment would  be  projected  on a
cubical structure two  miles on a  side.   Using polaroid glasses  to
view it would permit two programs at  once - one for the children and
the  other for the speeches  of the dignitaries.   Listening would be
done with earphones with simultaneous translation into all languages.

	Well,  it  would have  been  difficult  but  possible.    Our
descendants at the time of the next centennial will find it easy.  My
hope is  that by  then, it  will  be considered  the obvious  way  to
celebrate such an important birthday.
.SKIP TO COLUMN 1
.cb WHAT RIGHT HAVE WE TO BE CHEERFUL?

	
	This is a long story, because so many ways of losing have
been proposed.

	However, the reason technological civilization will survive
and expand is that there is no bar to using low grade
ores provided substantial energy resources are available,
and fission can provide that.   After all this small planet
has 10%512%1 tons of matter per person.  (This is about the
total amount of matter the human race has handled in its history).

	There is a danger that we will blow ourselves up in
fighting over ideology, but once we are properly scattered throughout
the solar system and beyond, the danger will be only local.

	Of course, if we last long enough, we will
modify our planet drastically.  Even the chalk animals eventually
were living on 30,000 feet of their ancestors shells, but fortunately
for them, they didn't have any moralists to tell them it was
disgusting.

	Because of the previously mentioned technology of guilt, we
are in for a rough time till it wears off.  After that there will
be relatively clear sailing, and our descendants will be as interested
in what we think they should do, as we are in what the people of
a hundred years ago thought about what our options would be.
.SKIP TO COLUMN 1
.cb ARTIFICIAL INTELLGENCE

	Between us and  human-level artificial intelligence  lie many
discoveries.  My estimate is that

.BEGIN VERBATIM
d	=	5 Maxwells
		+ 7 Faradays
		+ 1.7 Einsteins
		+ 2.1 escapes from scientific blind alleys
		+ 0.3 Manhattan Project.
.END

(You may refer  to this as  McCarthy's formula and treat  the numbers
with the derision they deserve).

	Unfortunately for the readers of science fiction, there are unlikely
to be robots of approximately the same level of intelligence as
humans with a sufficiently similar motivational structure so that
they will either try to conquer the world or suffer prejudice and
oppression.  A technology that could produce a human-level
intelligence could produce with ε more effort a million linked
humans.

	There are two possible ways of producing artificial intelligence.
The first, which I favor, is to understand it, i.e. to understand
how information about the world is obtained and used how to solve
problems, and then design useful intelligent problem solvers.  The
second approach is to start with some kind of proto-intelligent
system and get it to evolve intelligence.  This is much more exciting
and makes better science fiction, because the intelligence thereby
produced may not be understood by its makers and therefore can get out
of hand.

	A designed artificial intelligence would be motivated only to
answer the questions put to it, but as storytellers have pointed out since
the time of the ancient Greeks, literal answers to carelessly put
questions can be misleading.  Therefore, the first question that might
be put to an artificial intelligence is, "Show me the alternate policies
that humans might adopt towards artificial intelligence, and show me
their likely consequences."

	Since I doubt my ability to forsee what possibilities the first
artificial intelligence will display for us, I can't offer a firm
predicition of what we will do with it.  However, the variant that
seems most likely to me is that we will use it to enhance human abilities
and that people will gradually or suddenly transfer more and more of
their "minds" into their robot parts.  The critical point will come
when the robot part of a person proposes to survive the death of
the biological body.  At that point humanity will have transferred itself
to a mechanical form.  They will not be much interested in our opinion
of whether this is a good idea.  (One is reminded of 1940s science fiction
stories that postulated silicon-based life analogous to our carbon based
life.  It seems that silicon-based life is likely - but in a quite different
sense, i.e. in the form of integrated circuits.  I owe this one to
Barney Oliver of Hewlett-Packard.


	Perhaps it is worthwhile to make a few remarks about the current
scientific state of artificial intelligence - warning you that my
opinions are not unanimously agreed to.

.item←0;
	#. The problem at present is in the programming  and not in
the speed or size of the machines themselves.  I believe that a
program for the Stanford Artificial Intelligence Laboratory's computer
exists - in the mathematical sense - that would make it more intelligent
than the combined personnel of the laboratory.  We are a long way
from discovering that program.

	#. The AI problem can be divided into an epistemological part
and a heuristic part.  The former is harder.
.cb PIONEERING IN SPACE


	Pioneering in space in the sense of forming colonies that eventually
declare their independence is an old science fiction theme.  I think that
the Space Shuttle can make this dream a reality, because it will put
the cost of a pioneering colony within the reach of a very large
individual fortune (too bad Howard Hughes didn't leave his money
for this purpose) or within the capabilities of organizations.

	It is a consequence of the spirit of our times that public
consideration of space colonization is dominated by O'Neill's ideas.
These are characterized by

	1. Luxury.  O'Neill's earth-normal gravity and 24 hour day
are fantastically expensive.  One of his plans required α$10,000,000
worth of steel (Pittsburgh price) per person.

	2. Environmentalism.  He seems to envisage his colonists using
this super-technology in order to live idyllic rural lives.

	3. Social concern.  He sees expansion into space as a way of
solving the world's problems, rather than the way groups will use to
solve their own problems.

	4. Governmentalism.  He envisages space colonization as a U.S.
Government project remaining under the control of the bureaucracy.

	I see the most probable variant of space colonization quite
differently.  My view is characterized by

	1. Austerity.  The total mass of the initial colonies will be a few
thousand pounds per person.  Zero gravity will be used and they will
probably have to eat algae or at best chickens that eat algae.

	2. Highly technological lifestyle.  A member of such a colony
may have to be as technologically versatile as eskimoes were.  Survival
will depend on maintaining the expertness and alertness to repair
hundreds of complicated devices faster than they can break down.
The people who will do well will be those who thrive under such
challenges - the descendents of the car freaks, hams, and build-your-own
computer people.  They will like it.

	3. Individuality.  There will be many different colonies with
different purposes.  They are especially likely to be groups who
find the current drive for social equality oppressive.
Few social thinkers today envisage as desirable a variety of societies.
Fewer still recognize the right of emigration as the fundamental
right that limits the power of a government (even of a majority)
to take from one group for the benefit of another.

	A group that was prepared to bet their lives on their ability
to repair their equipment might launch a colony for as little as
α$50,000,000 provided Shuttle launches were for sale.
Their best strategy might be to set up a recycling economy with
the material they brought along and use a very high exhaust velocity
very low thrust rocket to aim for an asteroid where they could get
more material.  They would have to develop a technology capable of
using asteroids of average composition.

	The issue of selling launches to would-be secessionists will arise
within ten years.

	Some science fiction writers have done a good job of depicting
a galaxy with planets organized on a variety of social principles.
So far as I know, no-one has shown this occurring on the very small
scale that will be possible before the end of this century.

	If as seems likely, some of these societies have population
expansion as part of their culture, the solar system may advance
towards its ultimately sustainable population of between 10%521%1
and 10%525%1.  The eventual proposal to break up the earth and
divide up its mass should be good for a few stories.
.CB CONSEQUENCES OF POPULATION STABILITY


	Imagine, if you will, that American population and technology
both stabilize.  

	In modern society, wealth is much less important than
it was even 100 years ago.  Today, a man's position is determined
mainly by his profession and his earning power and only slightly by his parents'
wealth.
It seems quite likely that the ration of national wealth to national
income is lower now than it was in Europe a hundred years ago.  Then
social position was inherited, because this ratio was high.

	After a few hundred years of stabilized population and technology
the ratio of national wealth to national income may be as high as 50 to
100.  This will make inheritance again the main determiner of social
position.  I leave it to your imagination what this wealth would consist
of, but obviously extremely elaborate and mechanized housing would be
a large part of it.  Expensive robots would fill the bill if robots
are both feasible and expensive and artificial intelligence doesn't
develop to the point where it transforms life.