Episode: 20 Cyberpunk Special

In this special episode Richard and Michael discuss ideas relating to cyberpunk, are we headed for a cyberpunk dystopia and if so what technological and society factors are pushing us in that direction?

Timestamps

00:00:32 - Intro
00:02:10 - Are we heading for a cyberpunk future?
00:04:21 - Defining our terms, What is cyberpunk? [1]
00:05:00 - Cybernetics [2]
00:07:00 - The cybernetics that are already with us: PCs, smartphones etc.
00:08:15 - We won’t remember your birthday unaided, we’re lucky if we remember our own
00:10:28 - A eulogy to the personal computer / smartphone & Linux [3]
00:15:08 - Cyberpunk as a genre of literature [4]
00:16:16 - (‘This’ is refering to Richard’s phone which he has forgotten that you cannot see he is holding)
00:16:30 - The tech is creeping up on us and we have not addressed the may societal issues it raises, may are adressed in fiction [5,6,7]
00:17:16 - Issues in current tech supply chains, conflict minerals, slave labour, bad incentives [8]
00:18:10 - Once tech is in your body and/or brain it gets personal
00:18:59 - In the limit freedom of compute is freedom of thought
00:19:42 - Bodily autonomy, software freedom, trust, and the commons [9]
00:21:09 - The need for effective political discussion of technology
00:21:51 - Cypherpunks, cryptography as a means to resit overreach by the state [10]
00:25:00 - When cryptography was considered a munition [11]
00:26:30 - Crypto can help balance power between people and non-state/corporate actors, increased differentiation of social class in cyberpunk
00:27:54 - Corperate hiveminds and their misaligned incentives - the problem with shareholder primacy [12]
00:29:13 - Reinternalising externalities, a role for government in increasing market freedom [13]
00:30:58 - Trust corporate entities only insofar as their utility function is aligned with your own, something that is seen a lot in cyberpunk
00:32:20 - Nestle are bastards
00:33:19 - Human machine interfaces, genetic engeneering to improve the precision and bandwidth of human machine interfaces, optogenetics [14]
00:37:00 - Obligatory neuralink mention [15]
00:40:12 - The challenge of differences in speed and architechture between brains and computers
00:40:54 - Evolution does not adhere to software engereering best practices and biology is the worst legacy code problem in history [16]
00:42:09 - The challenge is in the translation (joke for maybe 1 other person You thought dynamic binary translation betwen x86 and arm was bad hahahaha)
00:42:48 - Mind uploading, recent Kurzgesagt video [17] other books [18, 19, 20]
00:44:43 - Ads in your dreams! futurama got there first (we misremembered Fry’s name) [21]
00:45:40 - The importance of free software once you have hardware in your body [ cory talk insulin]
00:50:16 - Free as is speech (libre) not free as in beer (gratis) [9]
00:52:20 - Bad incentives in proprietary software, lock-in and worse devices with embedded computing [9]
00:56:47 - Deep brain stimulation devices [22]
00:58:36 - Current implant tech pacemakers, insulin pumps etc. [23, 24]
01:03:55 - Zoom contact lenses [25]
01:04:09 - Hugh Herr TED talk Prosthetic legs [26, 27]
01:06:12 - Cyber security of implanted medical devices. Don’t rely on security through obscurity, if it’s public weaknesses can be found and patched [28, 29]
01:10:00 - Surveillance Capitalism using data about us for the benefit of others not ourselves [30]
01:14:22 - You can still hack airgapped electronics [31]
01:16:12 - AWS outage stops ‘smart’ vacuums and doorbells from working [32]
01:19:00 - Dystopian uses of facial/gait recognition - The vast underworlds of cyberpunk are implausible in a surveilance panopticon as complete as the ones we are building
01:25:26 - The relationship between digital rights and rights in ‘meatspace’ when we increasingly live online [33]
01:26:58 - The false trade-off between security and privacy
01:27:12 - Encryption backdoors are a terrible idea that don’t work
01:27:58 - The failure of dragnet surveillance
01:28:36 - The new online arena for fights over civil liberties
01:30:25 - The problem of amplification of inaccurate or misleading content
01:32:36 - The incentives to maximise viewing time and click through rate promote divicive content.
01:34:18 - We can do this better ‘polis’ finding rough consensus in online consultations [34]
01:37:53 - Vote for policies [35]
01:40:00 - Finding reliable information in a sea of bad dis/misinformation, Countries with exposure to a neighbor with propaganistic media do well in media literacy education [36]
01:42:28 - Genetic engeneering, pre-implantation genetic diasnosis [37, 38]
01:45:50 - Gene therapy in adults [39]
01:47:11 - The double edged nature of heritable Germline genetic engeneering, permanant fix ~ permanant harm [37].
01:48:22 - First ‘CRISPR babies’ Chinese scientist He Jiankui [40]
01:50:02 - Trade-offs in genetic engeneering, you can’t be an optimal sprinter and an optimal long distance runner
01:51:16 - Geopolitics of the supersoldier, Liam Neeson, nukes, and killer robots
01:53:29 - bioengeneered organ farms
01:55:02 - Biology is nanotechnology
01:56:36 - The ‘pure’ humans vs the modified
01:57:22 - GATTACA [41]
01:57:51 - New forms of inequality and limitations of social mobility through the predetermining effects of particular genetic optimisations
02:01:00 - We need to have a productive societal conversation about Genetic engeneering.
02:04:02 - Technology gives us the capability to do more both bad and good
02:04:58 - Concluding remarks, the need to more conversation on these topics
02:09:45 - Outro

References

• [1] Cyberpunk https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyberpunk
• [2] Cybernetics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cybernetics
• [3] The linux kernel https://github.com/torvalds/linux
• [4] Lawrence Person https://slashdot.org/story/99/10/08/2123255/notes-toward-a-postcyberpunk-manifesto
• [5] Cory Doctorow https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cory_Doctorow
• [6] Charles Stross https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Stross
• [7] Annalee Newitz https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annalee_Newitz
• [8] Conflict minerals https://sci-hub.se/10.5465/amj.2015.0770
• [9] Free software foundation https://www.fsf.org/about/what-is-free-software
• [10] Cypherpunk https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cypherpunk
• [11] Cryptographt as a munition https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cypherpunk#Early_discussion_of_online_privacy
• [12] Corporate Alignment https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/6wvqbcCWB6rdkW4nu/agi-alignment-should-solve-corporate-alignment
• [13] Relevant degrees of freedom for markets https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perfect_competition
• [14] Optogenetics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optogenetics, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D_9rdj4SJrc
• [15] Neuralink https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuralink
• [16] DNA https://xkcd.com/1605/
• [17] Kurzgesagt mind upload https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4b33NTAuF5E
• [18] permutation city https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/156784.Permutation_City awesome often exploration of mind uploading
• [19] The age of em https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/26831944-the-age-of-em
• [20] Bobiverse https://www.goodreads.com/series/192752-bobiverse very fun world of a nerd/engeneer who becomes a von Neumann probe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-replicating_spacecraft#Von_Neumann_probes
• [21] Futurama ads in dreams https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hlCrcMeVZHs
• [22] Deep brain stimulation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_brain_stimulation
• [23] Cochlear implant https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cochlear_implant
• [24] Pacemaker https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_cardiac_pacemaker#Privacy_and_security
• [25] Zoom contacts https://iflscience.com/technology/scientists-develop-telescopic-contact-lenses-can-zoom-3x/
• [26] Hugh Herr https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8AoRmlAZVTs
• [27] Cory Doctorow referenceing Hugh Herr talk https://youtu.be/O_8J9rN1wug?t=2243
• [28] Jay Radcliffe - semimal example of hacking an insluin pump https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=avf5XF8yS60
• [29] Ken Hoyme, Systems Security Engeneering in implantable medical devices - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uISStTxmJ88
• [30] Surveillance Capitalism https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/26195941-the-age-of-surveillance-capitalism
• [31] A recent airgapped hacking method - one of many https://threatpost.com/air-gap-attack-turns-memory-wifi/162358/
• [32] AWS (Amazon web services) outage https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-55087054
• [33] IRS buys data https://reclaimthenet.org/irs-accused-of-buying-smartphone-data/
• [34] ‘polis’ https://pol.is/home use in Taiwan and Audrey Tang https://www.humanetech.com/podcast/23-digital-democracy-is-within-reach
• [35] Vote for policies https://voteforpolicies.org.uk/
• [36] Estonia https://www.foreigner.fi/articulo/work-and-study/estonia-takes-over-european-leader-of-the-pisa-report/20191203173125003676.html, Finland https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2019/05/how-finland-is-fighting-fake-news-in-the-classroom/, Taiwan ‘humor over rumor’ https://qz.com/1863931/taiwan-is-using-humor-to-quash-coronavirus-fake-news/
• [37] Hacking Darwin, Jamie Metzl https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/40597264-hacking-darwin
• [38] Preimplantation genetic diagnosis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preimplantation_genetic_diagnosis
• [39] Adult gene therapies, Retina treatment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gene_therapy_of_the_human_retina, Sickle cell treatment https://www.nih.gov/news-events/nih-research-matters/stem-cell-transplant-reverses-sickle-cell-disease-adults
• [40] He Jiankui https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/He_Jiankui
• [41] GATTACA https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gattaca

Intro: L’Etoile danse (Pt. 1) by Meydan Outro: Long Way Home by Spinning Ratio