Sentient animals, machines... and even plants!

Oh, sure, politics is important and fun!  But science is even better.  So for our weekend posting... a rundown of cool things we never knew, till now!

== Intelligence: Smarter animals == 

Why the octopus is so smart: fascinating new research indicates that their DNA sequence is expanded in areas otherwise reserved for vertebrates: "It's the first sequenced genome from something like an alien," joked neurobiologist Clifton Ragsdale of the University of Chicago, in a report in Nature.

And now we have super-smart mice: When researchers altered a gene in mice to inhibit the activity of a particular enzyme, these mice showed enhanced cognitive abilities. They tended to learn faster, remember events longer and solve complex exercises better than ordinary mice. See this explored in Science or Science Fiction: Uplifting Animals in Yale Scientific.

Will the mice rise up? See the theme song for.... Pinky and the Brain! 

Meanwhile, evidence of social learning: New Caledonian crows have been observed to pass tool use from one generation to the next.

In the recently released book, Beyond Words: What Animals Think and Feel, Carl Safina reports on the intricate social interactions, family bonds and distinct personalities observed in mammals such as elephants, orcas, primates, dogs and wolves. Safina delves into the latest scientific research that reveals layers of complex thought and behavior throughout the animal kingdom

Why we're smarter than chickens: A single molecular event in a protein called PTBP1 in our cells could hold the key to how we evolved to become the smartest animal on the planet, University of Toronto researchers have discovered. 

Researchers find new insights into the impressive brain power of dolphins and whales... and how their intelligence evolved. And the variety of dialects (clicks called codes) among pods of the deep-diving sperm whales may indicate signs of cultural transmission of vocalization patterns.

It's long been believed that giraffes were silent creatures; it turns out that they hum to each other -- a low frequency drone, done only at night.

Now it's chimps against drones -- a smack down with a stick. There are increasing signs that drones are harassing wildlife and disrupting their natural patterns. Recently, the National Park Service banned the use of drones in California's Yosemite National Park.

And...sex would be simpler if we were bonobos!

In Resurrection Science: Conservation, De-extinction and the Precarious Future of Wild Things, M. R. O'Connnor takes an in-depth look at the increasing numbers of animal species threatened with extinction, and the methods scientists use to try to save them, including habitat restoration, captive breeding and genetic management. O'Connor also considers the ethics and problems we face as genetics enables us to resurrect or bring back already extinct species. Will they live in zoos... or newly recreated ecosystems? What would they eat... and what would eat them?

Will humans continue to get smarter as well? See this video discussion of the dilemma of potential human enhancement.  

== Smarter machines ==

A rodent brain chip? A fascinating article describes IBM’s new “True North” chip architecture, which propels the “neuromorphic” revolution in computing, mimicking many of the pattern-recognition capabilities that seem to work so smoothly in the cellular brains of animals… like us.  

What about sentient machines? Oh but will Artificial Intelligence stay loyal?  That’s the quandary getting discussed ever-more, outside of science fiction nowadays. But here’s an interesting offshoot from that question. Will AI entities be subject to addictions?  This interesting article features experts claiming that would be “illogical.” But what are Asimov’s so-called “three laws” if not a kind of ingrained addiction process?  My brief bit in this piece answers.  “They had better be!”

Augmented Reality rolls along. For example, in EXISTENCE I portray a future time when advertisements and meta data about your surroundings will display in banners or postits or symbols, overlain on “reality.”  Now a virtual signage company Skignz can let you place a virtual pin on objects -- pop one above your car, for instance, and it will help you find it when you're in the supermarket car park. Or you can drop a roving pin on a friend at a festival to keep track of him via GPS. Or festival operators can offer signs above the concessions and toilets… or adverts, or rock videos and close-ups of the band, onstage. (See the chapter at the futurist conference, in Existence!)

Following up: in most sci fi depictions, this era will see a tsunami of noise and unavoidable adverts booming out at you, as in Steven Spielberg’s “Minority Report.” That modality is “push” and I don’t think folks will put up with it.  In Existence… and earlier in Earth (1989) I portray this being a matter of “pull.”  You will select among a myriad realms or levels of AR space, picking one whose offerings and services and rules suit your current needs.

== Intelligent plants? ==

In Brilliant Green: the Surprising History and Science of Plant Intelligence, plant neurobiologist Stefano Mancuso and journalist, Alessandra Viola, make a case not only for plant sentience, but also plant rights. Interesting, though science fiction authors have been doing thought experiments about this for a long time, e.g. in Ursula LeGuin’s novel “The Word for World is Forest” and in my own “The Uplift War.” Jack Chalker's "Midnight at the Well of Souls" portrayed sentient plants, as did Lord of the Rings.

There is a level where I am all aboard with this.  Ecosystems are webs of health that combine fiercely interdependent predation/competition with meshlike interchanges of sight/sound/chemicals that clearly manifest types of cooperation, even communication.... as I elucidated in “EARTH.”  

On the other hand, I also step back to see the qualities of this book that transcend its actual contents, for it fits perfectly into the process of “horizon expansion” that I describe elsewhere.  A process of vigorously, righteously, even aggressively increasing the scope of inclusion, extending the circle of protection to the next level, and then the next. See also this Smithsonian talk I gave about the never-ending search for “otherness.”

None of this is to undermine the process! Only to help understand it. I fully expect our great grandchildren will all be vegetarians supplementing with tasty, dish-grown meaticultures… and their own rebels will demand that all food come from algae or Star Trek replicators, terrific!  Just pause and step back often enough to see the big picture.

== Biotech updates ==

Tree of Life

Biologists have drafted the first comprehensive tree of life covering 2.3 million species of named animals, plants, fungi and microbes, available for download and browsing.

A new study adds to evidence that viruses are living entities which share a long evolutionary history with cells, and might even be the oldest living creatures.

Might amputees regrow limbs, using their own stem cells laced through a scaffold… made either by 3D printing or using a denatured monkey-arm? It’s an idea explored in my short story “Chysalis” (before I get much, much weirder). But it is also being taken very seriously in labs across the planet. 

In fact, BioBots now offers a relatively inexpensive 3D printer that can print human tissue and skin...and potentially, replacement human organs. However, there are currently regulatory obstacles.

Pathogens travel between species

A disturbing -- and revealing -- look at how pathogens travel between species. A new paper in Scientific Data indicates that as many as three-fifths of human diseases may have been initially passed on by animals.

Everywhere you go... you emit your own unique microbial cloud -- a personalized signature of your own microbiome. Have  you had your microbiome tested? You can have it sequenced at μBiome, to gain insight into the multitude of microflora co-inhabiting your body.

MIT researchers have developed a low-cost, paper-based device that changes color, depending on whether the patient has Ebola, dengue, or yellow fever. The test is designed to facilitate diagnosis in remote, low-resource settings, takes minutes, and does not need electricity to read out results. “Color-changing paper devices that work like over-the-counter pregnancy tests offer a possible solution. “These are not meant to replace PCR and ELISA [lab tests], because we can’t match their accuracy,” Hamad-Schifferli says. “This is a complementary technique for places with no running water or electricity.” 

See this way-cool “spaghetti monster”creature at the borderline between coral-like colonies of cells and jellyfish and more complex styles of life.  A reflection on how more complex metazoans got started? Weird-looking, anyway.  

Will we uplift other species to sapience?

This time, let's veer into an area wherein I actually know a thing or two!  The matter of whether humanity might someday... or even should... meddle in other creatures on this planet and bestow upon them the debatable "gift" of full sapience -- the ability to argue, ponder, store information, appraise, discuss, create, express and manipulate tools, so that they might join us in the problematic task of being worthy planetary managers.

These scribbles were created (as you might guess) as part of an interview.

What first inspired you to write about uplifting?

Some other authors (e.g. H.G. Wells, Pierre Boule, Mary Shelley, and Cordwainer Smith) dealt with this general concept before, but always by assuming the process would be abused -- that the humans bestowing this boon would spoil things by enslaving their clients of creations. Of course that is one possible (and despicable) outcome. Those were good "warning" stories with wholesome messages.

But that vein is overworked, so I wondered -- what if we someday begin modifying higher animals -- and I think we clearly will -- guided by the morality of modern liberal society?  Filled with hyper-tolerance and eager for diversity? My uplift novels portray a future in which sapient dolphins and apes serve on our councils, offer their own styles of wisdom, art and insight, enriching an Earth civilization that is no longer only human.  

It's an attractive outcome...

...but the path to get there is fraught with dangers and moral hazards.

How close do you think we genuinely are, scientifically, to being able to uplift certain species? And is there a scientific imperative to do so?

We are rapidly tracing the genetic mutations that empowered a sub-population of Homo erectus to transform into something theretofore never seen on Planet Earth - or possibly anywhere in the galaxy.  It appears that only a few dozen protein and regulatory genes made the crucial difference.  Already, some of these alterations are being tried in laboratory mice, so we can better understand some tragic human ailments.  

There are - at present - rules against doing such insertion experiments on higher creatures like apes. But when the prospect looms closer, can you doubt trials will begin? If it isn't allowed in the open, western scientific community, then it will happen in secret, elsewhere.  Frankly, I'd rather see this realm explored in the open, under relentless transparency and scrutiny, than let it turn into some secret, Michael-Crichton-style excuse for I-Told-You-so regrets.

A recent article in Popular Mechanics: If You Give a Mouse a Human Speech Gene, It Learns Faster. Mice that receive a human version of a speech and language gene display accelerated learning! Don't expect these findings to lead to a rush of smarter, "uplifted" animals—though they might just reveal something new and fascinating about the evolution of human speech and language.

"What surprised me most was that the humanized gene actually improved the animal's behavior rather than messing up the system," says behavioral neuroscientist Kyle Smith. Science writer Charles Q. Choi notes,  “The gene for the protein called FOXP2 has been firmly linked to human speech and language. Humans with just one functional copy of this gene experience difficulties in learning and struggle with spoken and written language. The gene itself is not unique—chimps have a version of it. But because the human and chimpanzee lineages diverged roughly 6 million years ago, they don't have two key changes in amino acids that humans have evolved."

And so, it begins.

Will "uplift" include resurrecting ancient - extinct species?

I portray this happening with Neanderthals, in my recent novel EXISTENCE. 

Now that we have a Neanderthal genome, what's to stop someone from doing this?  Especially doing it in stages?  I am at this moment involved in a research group hoping to insert Neanderthal genes into tiny clusters of neurons to see how differently they behave.  It is a small step, but it might shed light on why our cousins were so conservative in their lifestyles and too change-resistant to adapt.

Likewise, I think we'll see mammoths restored in stages, with maybe just ten genes at a time inserted into elephant embryos.  There will be protests!  The work will be driven underground!  (As I portray in Existence.) But someone will do it.

You talk about how 'many other species on Earth appear to be stuck under a firm glass ceiling' - can you expand on this?  

A while back, we were told that only humans used symbolic speech and tools.  Later, it was only dolphins and chimpanzees who could parse simple sentences.  In recent years, both rudimentary language skills and tool use have been documented in grey parrots, corvids (ravens), sea lions, elephants, every variety of ape, and even prairie dogs! Some people -- admirably empathic folks -- have declared that "this means we humans aren't so special, after all." And yes, in a sense it does mean that. Certainly, it is right that we expand our respect for Nature's other wonders and fight to preserve them.

But there is another way to look at this. If so many species -- all coming from different directions -- appear to have plateaued at about the same level, then it implies that both Darwin and Mother Nature are generous, but only up to a point. "This far, you may rise easily, many of you! But no higher.  There is a glass ceiling through which you may not pass!"

Think about it.  If so many species achieved rudimentary linguistics and tool use today, would it not have been equally likely for the top-brainy dinosaurs?  Were velociraptors equally endowed? Can we ever know? Alas, because none of them managed to put together a space program, all dinosaurs helplessly perished.

No, the lesson from all this is to be even more amazed that humanity pushed through this glass ceiling.  Smashed through it, actually, by orders of magnitude! Which then demands of us not to feel overweening pride, but a sense of duty and obligation.  To use our titanic brains to benefit the planet, not just ourselves.

But it goes beyond that. If getting past the barrier is rare, then don't we owe it to our neighbors and cousins to turn around and offer a helping hand?

What are your takes on ethical arguments against uplifting?  

Those arguments are strong and persuasive and perhaps compelling!  For example, here's one: "Other species have their own honor and dignity and beauty and styles of intelligence!"

Yes, I agree on all counts.  And if commencing a program of uplift on, say, Tursiops dolphins would cause all of those things to vanish, then I would say stop.  But that is zero-sum thinking. And it is fallacious.

We must preserve and help the bright dolphins and elephants and parrots and sea lions foremost by restoring and expanding their habitats and natural populations.  But any uplift project would work only with a small, selected sub-population that would soon be a new and different species, on its own path of destiny. All the richness of the old root stock would be preserved. You can retain the old -- and everything worthy of respect -- while creating the new.

Likewise, the proclamations that uplift would be typical "human arrogance, playing god," seem easy to answer.  How about typical "human generosity"? Lending a hand to others across nature's chasm, so they might then join us building starships?

Or so their ingrate teenagers might eloquently blame us for their adolescent angst, sneering "Hey!  I didn't ASK to be this smart!"

The one argument against uplift that I find most compelling is the simplest. Yes, the goal is a beautiful one, to vastly expand the diversity of Earth's sapience, with dolphin and chimp and bonobo and gorilla and even elephant sages sitting on our councils and sharing unique insights? Great. I portray them having problems, in my novels, but the product is still a lovely dream. (To be clear, while artificial intelligence might be possible, uplifted sapience is demonstrably beyond plausible, even very likely.)

All of that sounds fine. Only... in order to get there, the chosen sub-populations will have to go through generations of awkward fits and starts. No matter how carefully and lovingly we move ahead, there will be some pain. And I can understand folks who declare that they would - on that account alone - oppose uplift, no matter how wondrous the final outcome might be.

In the end?  I (very) respectfully disagree. All generations are built for one purpose... the one fine goal that Jonas Salk spoke-of... to be good ancestors.  To suffer what we must, for our grandchildren. I can think of no greater function than to sow, so that those descendants may reap.

Dolphin parents make similar choices every day.  If they could envision what their heirs might become... the earthly and alien seas they might explore... I think they would volunteer.

 Aside from the ethical reasons you've presented, what would be the benefits - commercially or scientifically - in doing so?

The oceans of planet Earth are a vast mystery, filled with both physical wealth and unique treasures to preserve.  We are trying to learn to be good planetary managers (often stymied by other members of our own, short-sighted species.) But I doubt we could fill that role all by ourselves, anywhere near as well as if sapient dolphin partners (and critics) were by our side.  The same holds for countless other opportunities for both profit and wisdom.  (I believe that -- and portray in stories -- descendants of elephants might be the perfect living inhabitants of asteroidal colonies!)

Our biggest danger is not the one preached by Michael Crichton and so many others -- human ambition and hubristic pride.  No, our biggest danger comes from zero sum thinking. Proclaiming that we cannot seek - and sometimes achieve - the win-win. Doing well while doing good. 

What measures can be taken to protect the rights of animals if uplifting as a practice is pursued?  

I've been a little unkind to Michael Crichton in this interview.  But in fact, every single one of his dire-danger scenarios preaches a single valuable lesson, and it is not "don't do new things."  If you read the books and watch the movies, you soon realize that the true lesson is: "don't do new things in SECRET."

The only possible way that uplift, or any other grand project, can be done well is if it is performed in the open, subjected to relentless criticism by opponents who seek out every flaw, every danger and mistake.  Only then, ironically, will the project move ahead with some strong chance of minimizing the pain... and maximizing the benefits for all.

Anything else you'd like to say on the matter? 

I think you'll like my novella "Aficionado."  It takes a while to get to the uplift part.

See a page dedicated to the Uplift Universe

and my article Intelligence, Uplift and Our Place in a Big Cosmos.

Above all, let's not paint our kids in a corner, binding them to our vows, based on this generation's obsessions.  Those kids will be smarter and better than us.  If we make a civilization of decency, tolerance, maturity, thoughtfulness and fun... then they will answer all of these questions better than we slightly advanced cavemen ever could.

Are animals intelligent ... enough?

A recent, fascinating recent study is Decoding Animal Languages, by Con Slobodchikoff.  At one level, it is an inspiring demonstration of how new technologies can liberate us from preconceptions and open new avenues of empathy, helping humans to understand the other species who co-inhabit this planet with us.

As Temple Grandin has pointed out, in her campaigns to reform the meat industry, we do not have to entirely abandon the omnivorous cravings of our caveman ancestry. But we are obliged to offer our fellow creatures the best deal that's compatible with our legitimate needs. Doing that entails finding paths of greater care and understanding. Prof. Grandin explores the language of animals through her gifts as the world's most impressive and high-functioning fully autistic person. Dr. Slobodchikoff is doing it with acoustical science.

I have some history in this area, having visited many researchers to learn about animal communications, in preparation for my "uplift" series of novels. These portray a future in which humanity meddles with the intellectual capacities of higher animals.  

Prior authors explored this territory -- HG Wells, Pierre Boule, Cordwainer 
Smith - so I avoided their standard scenario that, in arrogating the promethean powers of God, humans would reflexively opt to be cruel or to enslave the new minds.  Instead, my readers explore what problems neo-dolphins or neo-chimps might have, even were the endeavor done with skill, kindness and best intentions.

The end result - 200 years down the road, might be a pan-Terran civilization filled with broader styles and more diversity of wisdom - a fine dream. But are we willing to pay the price? Which would be pain.  Lots of it, unavoidable, for those intermediate generations of cetaceans and simians, and for ourselves, as some of the steps and missteps along the way prove awkward, mistaken, or even or tragic.

I have no doubt that powerful forces from both left and right would unite (as I portray in my new novel, Existence) against any such effort, one side decrying any hubristic attempt to revise God's plan and the other proclaiming that natural species are already smart enough, with great linguistic abilities and their own nobility of spirit, equal in value to our own.  I do not wholly disagree with the second of these objections!  But it is, in the end, wrongheaded.

Consider the recent work of Dr. Slobodchikoff and others, demonstrating the basic linguistic ability of prairie dogs, adding them to a long list of species who can signal complex arrays of factual-practical information.  And the smaller but significant number of even-smarter species who seem capable of genuine sentence structure, questions, answers and basic logical-semantic interpretation. Those who can do all this, with vocabularies in hundreds of words, include dolphins, apes, parrots, corvids (crows), pinnipeds (sea lions) and dozens more (with dolphins and chimps slightly ahead).  Is this evidence, as Dr. Slobodchikoff implies and as many on the left insist, that all these threshold races have what's sufficient, noble, and in no need of human "help"?

Or does it suggest the very opposite? All seem to crowd against an obdurate and perhaps natural limit, bumping against the same glass ceiling. Evolution brought each, separately, to the point where individuals can interact tribally, solve basic riddles, organize a few, primitive-coordinated activities, and perhaps (in a few cases) contemplate some kinds of irony, esthetics or even whimsey. But Darwin is stingy. He allows urgent species (sometimes) to achieve their minimal needs. But it is another matter to get what you want.  

And speaking purely anecdotally, I can tell you that the dolphins who interact with sincere human researchers appear to want - desperately - to be smarter than they are. It is a subjective impression I have heard from the scientists themselves, a number of times.

There is growing evidence that something very special happened to a few thousand African hominids, half a million or so years ago… and in accelerating stages ever since, up to today. That special thing - a runaway selection process that made a race capable of contemplating what YOU are contemplating, right now - was certainly unique on Earth and may be unprecedented across vast stretches of the Galaxy. It enabled us to rise so high that our abilities and numbers may threaten the whole planet.  Or else - if we choose - empower us to save the Earth, and heal it and tend and manage it.

Either way, that's power, man.

Those who attempt to downplay this leap, by saying animals have "language" too, miss the point.  It s not in simple, qualitative, on-off switches like "tool use" or use of basic semantics that we are so profoundly different.  It is the additive, multiplicative, exponentiated effects that have come from combining a myriad skills in a stunning momentum of mind.

While some of our savants ponder how to analyze, emulate and even amplify these powers in silica, it may be time, as well, to contemplate the cousin consciousnesses that we already have, all around us.  Natural beings who may not have to bump against the hard ceiling of their pre-sapient limits forever, but whose destinies may be broad and vast indeed… providing we grow wise and good and skilled enough to show the way.