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RADICAL ROBOTICIST 143

SOCIAL IMPACT: TRANSCENDENCE THROUGH TECHNOLOGY?

The ideas of the more radical robot theorists (including, to some extent,
Hans Moravec and even Rodney Brooks) share elements of a new future-
oriented philosophy that has been called extropianism or transhuman-
ism. The basic elements of this philosophy include a belief that humans
can increasingly master technologies that will lead to expanded mental
capabilities, ultimate control over matter and energy, and even immor-
tality. Some followers of extropian philosophy see advanced robotics as
the way to create new bodies into which human minds may someday
be downloaded or transplanted. Others prefer to focus on genetics and
the use of cloning or other techniques. Nanotechnology, or the ability
to build materials atom-by-atom, is also seen as a way to get beyond
existing limits on energy and natural resources.
Entropy can be thought of as the “running down” of the uni-
verse, leading to a gradual loss of useful energy or of information.
Established physics states that entropy is the ultimate fate of the
universe. Extropy, therefore, suggests an opposite trend: an open-
ended, potentially infinite increase in information, capacity, and con-
sciousness. Similarly, those who prefer the term transhumanism see
it as a going beyond the physical and cognitive limits of the present
human species.
Such philosophies are not new—they echo such thinkers as the
German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche and his celebration of the
“superman” and the political movement called technocracy that
achieved some influence in the early to mid-20th century. The
extropians, however, claim that the necessary technology for tran-
scendent humanity is nearly at hand. They argue that artificial intel-
ligence, advanced robots, and genetically enhanced humans will be
here soon, like it or not, so people should figure out how to use these
technologies intelligently—and indeed, use them to increase human
intelligence so we can cope with them.

1998 by the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency for
$970,000. By 2002, a successful demonstration system had been
completed.