Transcendence – Content Summary

1. Will and Evelyn work on an AI project (PINN) when they are attacked by militant technology skeptics
2. Will be only slightly injured with a radioactive ammunition – but has only 4 weeks to live.
3. Evelyn uses the time to upload the spirit of Will to this platform
4. After that has already succeeded with a chimpanzee brain, this succeeds at the last moment also with Will still
5. This is how Will’s mind comes out of the machine and immediately asks for more energy, more computing power and, above all, access to the Internet.
6. Within 2 years, Will develops a singularity and calls the transcendence
7. Will only work for Evelyn’s desire: after improving the world
8. To this end, he has developed NanoBots, which spread around the world and repair everything.
9. The government and even Evelyn get fear of Will’s omnipotence and want to turn him off.
10. This is only possible if he is infected with a virus. Evelyn can be vaccinated and then uploaded by Will.
11. There is no more. Evelyn realizes that Will has worked only for a healthy world – that is, only for her.
12. This demonstrates that the human mind, including its emotions, can transcend.

In the near future, where the action of Transcendence is running, aIl applications are already quite well developed. The question of whether artificial neural networks can also have emotions is particularly intense. Dr. Will Caster has developed a system called PINN, in which the brain of chimpanzees can be uploaded. Will says at a conference to the sharers: “Once a connected machine would quickly overcome the natural limits and in a short time its analytical power would be greater than the bundled intelligence of all people on earth since the dawn of time”. This statement refers to Ray Kurzweil, who introduced the concept of singularity and expects this for 2045. Will wants to understand this as transcendence, however, and asks for the exploration of consciousness.

Consciousness is a “recognizing system” which is able to differentiate between situations and then integrate them. For this purpose, a sensor system and an actuator system are needed to connect to the environment. The human brain is something like that. In any case, consciousness is bound to matter, but not necessarily to biological, and has different manifestations. In the 20th century. Conceptions for consciousness have been developed, which often (see Jean Gebser) are based on socio-technical abilities of humans. From the mystical / magical to the egocentric to the holistic stage. However, they all share the limitations of human sensor technology. The brain would also be capable of thinking in higher dimensions. Enriching the environment with technology has also changed consciousness. However, we can´t think outside our senses – just do not go. This is the greatest limitation in human consciousness.

Just before Will dies, his mind manages to upload to the machine, where he also briefly reports: “I miss you so much, it’s so dark here.” The system, with the consciousness of Will, immediately begins to reprogram itself and calls for new processors – three times as powerful as the current ones. Will describes his feelings as follows: “As if my mind had been freed – bring me to the net.” Evelyn does this despite warning her friends. The dialogues between the system and Evelyn are presented on a very emotional basis.

The uploaded awareness improves rapidly in a quantitative way. Together with Evelyn, the system gets money from the stock market and builds an underground data center (Brightwood Data Center) with its own solar power plant. Energy will be a scarce resource for AI system of the future. The human brain needs 120W; An artificial equivalent about as much as a nuclear power plant. Will is now working on all that Evelyn has always wished for – the improvement of the world. They are mainly nanobots that spread virally and globally and repair everything – air pollution, cancer, drinking water, etc.

In the Brightwood Data Center, Will also replicated her former home. There they meet and exchange their feelings. Conscious beings can interact that we know and designate it as communication. Content and its coding depend on the level of consciousness. It is possible that two qualitatively different beings communicate with each other. It is self-evident that we exchange with pets, although they can´t speak. In this case, the content is emotional because dogs and cats have no intellect. Higher consciousness is able to make contact with the lower. However, the simpler understands only what it can process. Higher consciousness like Global, Universal, or Cosmic may be related to us. However, we can only include those contents which can be represented by our sense systems. Even in dreams, in which we experience the most absurd situations, are reduced down to the human senses. It could give people the information outside the senses. But they can´t give this up, but must transform it again – religiously enlightened, who then write God’s words into a book.

If the computing power of an individual (A) increases as shown in the figure, then the intelligence increases and one speaks of a quantitative extension (A2). This is what mankind is doing now. Higher processor performance and higher bandwidth. Consciousness, however, remains at the same level – we can also feel that. With peace, mindfulness, people – animal rights is nothing else. We are developing into the breadth. This is also shown by the film Transcendence, which is also about the increase in the computing power. If an individual expands his sense modality, there is a qualitative shift to more depth (A2) and thus to a higher consciousness. So, for higher or other consciousness is not necessarily higher intelligence required. When people see how far the pollution has already advanced, the awareness of this is changing. That’s what Will does. He develops NanoBots with a sensorium for pollution.

A special feature of conscious beings is that they can communicate with each other. Beings who can live in the same environment (universe) and only exchange when there is a common cut (B) and (C). In any case, they must have access to the environment through the same sense systems. If the computing power / intelligence can still coalesce halfway through, they make similar experiences and exchange over These.

A being transcends itself as it develops both quantitatively (width) and qualitative (depth). The main criticism of the film is now the strong emphasis on the quantitative area through enormous computing power. So the film should not be called “transcendence”, but “singularity”. This is shown by this film.

Humanity has been lucky again. The superintelligence had so much feeling with Will’s mind that she had shut herself off. Ex Machina does not look so good.