Al's Cyborg Projeckt (sic)
                      Initial planning document.


                       alangrimes@starpower.net

        Greetings! What you are about to read is a proposal for the most
ambitious project in human history. Even that is likley an understatement. I
hope that my presentation here will give the reader an appreciation of the
enormity of the project and a desire to participate in its completion.
        Firstly I feel it necessary to testify to my own sanity in considering
this undertaking. There are those who would say that any tampering with
"Nature" is inherantly wrong in any of countless ways. I say that the human
body is a physical object that is equally accessable to man's efforts as any
other object in the universe, except black holes perhaps. There is no prior
reason to reject an effort to re-design the body. The only arguments I have
heard on the subject involve superstition and emotional hysteria. Should
some unforseen tragedy befall the over-adventurous researcher, then the next
person along will be more cautious. A much greater tragedy, however, would be
the abandonment of research into human enhancement because doing so would,
over the next several decades, condemn every person on this planet to certain
death.
        The next accusation that could be leveled at me is that I am a
meglomaniac who is doing this for his own ego, who thinks he can do the
impossible. There is some grain of truth in that but is pride really a greater
sin than abandoning your only true dream? Is it more noble to resign yourself
to certain death than it is to reach for your only chance to survive? Does it
make more sense to work with the best available scientific evidence than it
does to put all of your faith into some ancient fairy tale? I may be guilty of
dreaming beyond all hope of practical realization but I am not guilty of
letting emotions or even desires get in the way of accepting the hard cold
facts, to the limited extent I am presently capable of understanding them.

        Enough of that, lets move on to the main attraction. My purpose here
is to present my latest and most detailed proposal following a line of
childishly crude sketches of the same project as well as a copious volumes of
writing that could best be described as "Science Fantasy" in which I, excuse
the pun, fleshed out my ideas. Basically, I propose to take all of the best of
science, including biology, chemestry, physiology, nanotechnology, physics,
computer science, math, and artificial intelligence and combine them all into
the creation of a new class of lifeform as well as at least one example
species. To reap the full rewards of this creation, I will require some
technique to transform myself into an individual of this new species.
        People in transhumanism like to use the word "transcension" or
"augmentation". Both of these words are loaded by implying that the new
species will be inherantly superior to humans. It is merely different. It is
nothing more than the expression of my tastes in what I want my next body to
be. It would be silly for me to go go around claiming my body was better
because I don't have any idea what you would want in a body. If this project
ever begins to promote some varriant of my the body-design I intend to create,
it will only be for the purpose of recruiting sponsors or even attempting to
create a business model around some subset of the technologies involved.
Unfortunately, there is little in our culture to suggest how a venture of this
nature and scope will be received.
        I expect the reader will want from me a more detailed description of
the features and concepts that I plan to include in my cyborg design.
Unfortunately, I must withold those details. Because the body and people's
aditudes thereto is of such great emotional weight for so many people I fear
that if I were to say much at all about the body design, people would tend to
focus on that and say any manner of things ranging from "That's perverted!"
to "Gah! I don't want that!". They would then be very likley to write off the
project completely rather than seeing that in the technologies that go into
making my somewhat eccentric ideas possible can make almost any wish possible.
For that reason the balance of this text will focus almost exclusively on the
problems, promise and opportunities. If you really must know what it means to
me, and you are willing to spend some hours with google you can probably find
some of my (more like a ton of my) writings from long before I knew how to
write. They probably wouldn't reflect well on me or my character but they're
there.

                                * * *

        In working on a plan for this project I have identified five major
areas of endeavour, each of which would be a mamoth undertaking in its own
right. At first glance, they wouldn't seem to be related to one another
except by their contribution to the finished product. Because of this, it
is difficult to choose an order to present them here which will seem to make
the most sense. Here is a brief contents of the rest of this presentation:


Area 1: Revised human project.
        Goal: To research novel biological capabilities and genetic techniques
                through a series of incrementally revised humanoid lifeforms.
        Primary Contribution:  The organic part of the cyborg.


Area 2: Android project.
        Goal: To study mindmaking, the essentials of cybernetic lifeforms,
                software design practices, extreme reliability power and
                computer systems. (reliability as in 0.00001 failures per
                million years...)
        Primary Contribution: The machine part of the cyborg (although there
                will likley be several "models" with varrious mixes of flesh
                and machine...


Area 3: Med-Pod project.
        Goal: To produce a completely automated device capable of delivering
                all forms of medical treatment.
        Primary Contribution: Part of the system to allow humans to transform
                into cyborgs.
        Secondary contribution: MONEY.


Area 4: "Cybermetal"
        Goal: To produce an integrated utility nanotech system with advanced
              and probably overly ambitious capabilities.
        Primary contribution:  As a component and accesory technology to the
                cyborg species.


Area 5: "Public Relations and promotion."
        Goal: To introduce and promote these ideas to the public and to
                assist in designing a version of the design that is acceptable
                to the general public (under no circumstances will I accept
                anything less than my own design when it's my turn to use it.)
        Contribution: Public support, political managment, promotion and
                fundraising.


                                * * *

Discussion of the individual areas:


# 1 #

        The most intuitively obvious sub-project is probably the human revision
subproject. The basic strategy is to advance the tools of genetic engineering
to the state where they can be used for genomes as complex as the human's.
When that is accomplished it will be possible to begin to an incremental
advancement progress on humanoid genetics. The first phase will be to test our
assumptions about human traits by selecting the genes we beleive to be the most
advantageous and making several individuals who are co-dominant for those
traits. Ofcourse a great number of aliles are neutral in value so, for variety,
we should make each individual as unique as possible within the framework of
the project. One experamental goal for this phase will be to see what the
effect of certain advantageous genes that our ancestors had such as the ability
to make our own vitamin C.
        The next phase will be to take it a step further and explore DNA from
all known organisms for useful traits and capabilities. To be clear, I am not
proposing any significant anatomical changes to the human form at this juncture
but rather enhancements to celular metabolism and perhaps inactive copies of
genes for useful things such as chloroplasts even though they won't actually
be expressed under normal circumstances. I expect 85% of the work on the
biological end of this project will be on the sub-celular level.
        I have been told that a suprisingly large portion of the weight of a
human is in the form of symbiotic bacteria. While they may be beneficial, I
would greatly prefer it if their roles could be replaced by native tissues or
nanosystems of some sort so that the organism is easier to reproduce reliably,
and is more likley to function well. Such functions could include the ability
to metabolise more types of plant mater. Ofcourse the full scope of possible
enhancements extends well beyond what I can fit into a project overview.
        The third phase of the project will begin moving towards the final
product. In this phase, no holds will be barred. The entire organic design
will be reviewed and critical design questions will be addressed. These
include, "Is there a better means of storing genetic information than DNA with
the requirement that it can continue to evolve without intelligent intervention
and that it be reliable under harsh conditions for extended periods?" If DNA
is chosen, How is the best way to organize genes on cromosomes?, What types of
internal organs best serve the needs of this species with it's revised
metabolism? How can it be enhanced to be able to thrive under varrying gravity
conditions ranging from microgravity up to a heavy world with 2 gravities at
the surface? What is the best design for a cardio-pulminary system? I expect
a system of 3 single-pump hearts will be better than a single double-pump
heart, but making this change will require changes to the development process.)
How can the target anatomy be retained over an extended period of time
without sacrificing the ability to evolve through generations? It is highly
likley that advanced AI will be much more efficient than the human mind when
given the same ammount of basic computation. Is it possible to organicly
produce a brain based on AI principles, if it is, what is the best way to do
it? If not, what is the best possible anatomy for an intelligent organic brain?
        Finally, all components of the cyborg, from all subprojects, will have
to be combined into a tightly-integrated whole. For aesthetic purposes, if not
engineering ones, I strongly prefer the cyborg species to reflect the same
unity of design found in the human such that there aren't any "seams".

        the immediate goals of this project are as follows:

-- Establish a biology/genetics/zoology library and database.

-- Study morphogenesis and regeneration (of whole limbs) as found in lower
   animals.

-- Monitor and promote the advancement of genetic engineering technology.

-- research and develop in-vitro gestation.

-- Set up a research effort to study the best way to hybridize nanotechnology
   and biological cells.

-- Study alternate development cycles such as fabrication as opposed to growth
   (among others).

-- study how computing devices can be grown with bio-nano hybrid systems with
   an eye towards the efficiency and reliability requirements of an AI brain.

-- Begin mapping out a strategy to solve the problems of transforming a human
   into this (and by implication many other) species of cyborg.
        It would be helpful to have a philisophical basis (akin to pattern
identity theory) for this process but people in transhumanism seem perfectly
content with sophestry so anything that seems plausable at first glance will
do provided it is tighter than pattern identity theory. ;)


# 2 #

        The other end of the "main axis" of this project is the android/
cybernetics project. It will begin with developing/making major conttributions
towards the development of fully sentient androids and their cybernetic minds.
The underlying goals of this project are to study AI, develop the tools for
designing personalities, try to find an emotional makeup which is more
appropriate to the contemporary world while retaining the ability to function
reasonably well in the ansestral environment as well. Key research issues will
be in refining the theories of robotic senses and attempting to duplicate the
experience of human-like qualia with mechanical senses and mentalities.
        Many have proposed that the advent of AI will quickly make human
efforts obsolete. That may be true in the long run but it is the hope of this
project that humans can be given the opportunity to acquire AI faculties. In
the short term, however, AI may indeed drasticly reduce the human workload on
the project but the necessity to carefully monitor the AI systems to see that
their performance is as desired and that all design goals for this project are
met *as intended* will require continued human participation.
        Because AI will be a technology both literally and figuratively in its
infancy, a great deal of work will need to be done in human-robot cooperation
to guarentee that the AI architecture is sufficiently stable and robust to be
able to function without external intervention for extremely long periods of
time -- on the order of millions of years.
        On a systems level, the goals are similar, to study ways of designing
intelligent systems so that they can be re-configured on the fly and expanded
to meet changing requirements. For example, finding a software and hardware
architecture that allows an android to efficiently use several different types
of hands.

        The immediate goals of this project are as follows:

-- do basic AI R&D. (I have already made a good ammount of progress on that..)

-- Study cybernetic systems and how to go about designing an intelligent
   system with a specified purpose or with a general personality of a desired
   nature.

-- Look at existing android projects and investigate collaborative ventures.

-- Do initial business development activities for an android venture.

-- Do reasearch on human neural interfaces as a part of the AI project and
   study how android bodies may be used for human telepresence. This approach
   can be used as an alternative to the strategy of attempting to transform a
   human into a cyborg.


# 3 #

        The third major part of my project has a number of related purposes.
Firstly, the medical establishment in the USA, at least, has gone completely
haywire. For reasons that beyond my current understanding, including, in no
small part, government regulations and tort law, medical care has become
extremely expensive. Another problem is that the medical community, has taken
on an activist role in bioethical issues. Each doctor, wheather he actually
does it or not, is charged by the establishment with upholding certain edicts
about what types of procedures are acceptable and what are not. This law seems
to dictate that medicine is strictly about curing illness and, specificly, that
all forms of augmentative methods and technologies, including research, is
prohibited. This poses an obvious challenge to any transhumanist.
        Even if the medical establishment were to be fixed by the entity "Q"
with the snap of his fingers, transhumanists who are not satisfied with the
"pre-fab" versions of transhumanism would be badly out-of-luck because, without
the wealth of a software baron or an oil tycoon, they would have no resources
with which to develop their own designs. The idea of a med-pod is that of
mass-producing medicine. With nanotech, a "med-pod" could be constructed at
very little cost and be able to provide every medical service a human could
require as well as all the resources he needs to taylor transhumanist
technologies to his own needs and tastes. It accomplishes this by combining
robotics, nanotech, and AI.
        Because practically anyone will be able to afford their own med-pod,
they will have essentially unlimited access to a copy of the best medical
mind in the world. They will be able to spend as much time as they require to
analyze all their choices. Ideally, the AI will have only the restrictions
necessary to protect the life of the user. Beyond that the user will have
unlimited freedom to request any modification that is physically possible. It
is for this reason that I consider a med-pod to be one of the most critical
enabling technologies for transhumanism. Without it the individal will be
confronted at every turn with arbitrary limitations imposed either through law
or for reason that no doctor is willing to perform the services he desires.


Near-term Goals of this project:

-- begin organizing a library of all medical and other information useful to
  this project.

-- Start mustering the legal defense of this project. Because the med-pod
   represents a paradigm shift in medicine, many laws will need to be either
   changed or repealed. The challenge of doing this cannot be overstated. The
   current establishment is deeply entrenched and highly dependant on the
   existing legal structures. They will try to argue that they are trying to
   stop us for the benefit of the patients but instead they will be working to
   protect a multi-billion dollar industry. For this reason I expect that we
   will have to be prepared to fight the courtroom equivalent of World War III.
   As things get desperate for the establishment they may even resort to
   violence against us.

-- If the technical and legal challenges can be met, the med-pod promises to
   be one of the most lucrative products ever brought to market. For that
   reason it should be made top priority. For that reason we should start
   seeking venture capitol immediately.

-- Another thing that can be started right away is technical planning. We
   should start designing early versions of the product and what technologies
   must be developed to make it work.

-- Do a survey of existing participants in the medical technology market and
   see what work in this area has already been done.



# 4 #

        If there is one thing I actually am (as opposed to should be)
embarased about in my current cyborg project is what I have finally decided to
name "cybermetal". While a version of the concept has existed in my design for
more than ten years, I have not worked out its exact capabilities or it's
design. In some respects cybermetal is closely related to the concept
presented in the popular "Terminator" series of movies. In actuality, however,
it's more like my version of unobtanium. I'm certain that a number of the
things I would want it to do are simply prohibited by the laws of physics and
that's something that needs to be sorted out.
        In any event, as nanotech begins to mature, it will probably be
desirable to package nanosystems in some kind of macroscopic artifact that
humanoids can manipulate with their hands. Even though a cyborg species will
have little difficulty interfacing with a digital device of this type directly,
a handy packaging is still desirable.
        If I were to charactorize cybermetal in more conventional jargon, I
would say that it is a solid form of utility fog capable of producing
computronium, mater assembly (possibly even atomic transmutations..),
high-performance power storage and generation... (actually, I would be
overjoyed if the only thing it could do was absorb waste heat!). The cybermetal
will be both a general technology and a living part of the cyborg unit that
allows it to enjoy an android-like power cycle (recycling molecular components
internally by means of externally provided energy.) It would also provide
varrious utility functions for the cyborg including linkage between it's
brain, body, and the external technological infrastructure.
        Cybermetal also has a key support role for the cyborg, it will
eventually take on the role of the med-pod as well so that the cyborg can
survive greater injuries than would otherwise be possible. Cybermetal will
also play a key role in allowing the cyborg to reconfigure itself as it so
desires.
        I don't expect "cybermetal" will ever be a finished technology, it
will have to be revised each time a new breakthrough comes along. Today, there
is much speculation about technologies far beyond nanotech. As nanotech
is the manipulation of atoms and molecules, picotech is the speculative ability
to manipulate the weak nuclear force, and "femtotech" is the speculative
ability to build machinery at the scale of the quark within the strong nuclear
force. As these capabilities arise, cybermetal, and by extension the cyborg
species, will be upgraded to incorporate them.

        To get this project going here are some first steps:

-- Start assembling a physics library, subscribe to periodicals in related
fields.

-- Go through the list of ideas and analyze the fesability of each.

-- Look for potential subprojects and organize specific research projects.

-- Do initial planning on control software/user interface, especially
   security, reliability, and durability...


# 5 #

        Finally, the problem of promoting this project and it's products is
a major undertaking in itself. It is because of the unprecidented nature of
this kind of venture that few of the existing marketing strategies seem
appropriate. With all due respect to the pioneering work of Natasha Vita Moore,
I don't think anyone has really looked at this seriously. I hope that the
following list of ideas will make some progress in correcting that.
        One of the first things that needs doing is something that I never
bothered to do, that is name the project. I have been calling it, genericly,
my cyborg project. However, as it moves forward into active development it
should proably be given a name of its own.

-- I'm going to need a website. My current site is barely adiquate to tell
   people what I'm doing, however it now needs to be good enough to sell
   people on the idea.

-- Try to figure out how to market the idea of a massive physical revision of
   this type. All traditional marketing is aimed at the human and its needs,
   the present project aims to revise the human condition entirely.

-- Develop public informational products including conventional advertisments
   and deliver them to the public.

-- Attempt to determine the market value (wheather it's a + or a - ), of
   the varrious features of my cyborg project. Many of the ideas are almost
   totally absent from our culture. This input is essential to making a
   "public" version of the design which will be marketed most heavily while
   still advancing the basic technologies for my own design.

-- Establish or co-opt a nonprofit .org for the administration of this
   marketing project.

-- Conduct surveys to see what other people want out of that design and use the
   feedback to improve the public version.

-- train a rehetorical "swat team" for rapid deployment to any and all
   bioludite activities. (Ideally, nobody on the planet will be able to utter
   the phrase "Precautionary Principle" without ten of our guys decending on
   him and arguing with him until he begs for mercy. ;)

-- Ethics are basically a codification of what people want and is logically
   consistient. We'll need to make sure that generally accepted ethical
   principles are compatible with our project.

-- Attack and destroy the "franken-mythos" - the most effective way of doing
   something of that nature is usually to replace it with something else.

-- Compose a new, more appealing, narrative to replace the one in "Brave New
   World".

-- Look into possible institutional backing, taking pragmatics over morals.
   It is a tragic fact that the army is soaking up all the money in our
   society, it may indeed be the best course to try to divert some of that
   money to our ends. Ofcourse private sector institutions would probably
   be better contributors to the project.



###

        Well that's the story in a nutshell. In closing I wolud like to return
to the theme I started at the beginning. If we were to use an ego-centric
theory of the universe then this project aims to do nothing less than to
change the entire universe. Because how you see the universe is, in part, a
function of what you are, making such broad revisions to the self unavoidably
changes how you perceive the rest of the world.
        The only secret to making this happen is the will to do it. The rest
is just work. However, the only way to make sure it happens within our
lifetime is for everyone in the transhumanist community to commit themselves
to that work. I hope that I will be able to inspire enough people to make this
happen.