Heroes of the Future – Thoughts on what will be:

“The Virtual Triad – The new Core Processes of a Multi-Optional Society”

In Q4 1999, GDI Impuls, the forward thinking publication of the Think Tank of the GDI Research Institute, published a summarizing article on “The Virtual Triad”, my book in the making. Upon my request, the graphics department did an amazing job in illustrating the article with photographs of Stelarc, one of the most amazing and pioneering Cyborg, Man-Machine Artists, whom I was following and had the chance to meet earlier in Zurich at a performance in the renowned “Dampfzentrale” (a place for art and drum & bass music).

 

Short thesis on “Heroes of the future”

“The heroes of the future are androgynous cyborgs who successfully balance their work, relationship, and community portfolios in an increasingly virtualized and bionized lifeworld, and in doing so are able to keep free non-virtualized, non-technicalized oases of calm in which they draw strength from authenticity.”

                    – Daniel Diemers

 

Full Article as PDF (in German). Courtesy of the GDI Research Institute Archives.

 

DanielDiemers-GDI_Impuls 4.99 (1)

 

Link to Stelarc’s performance in Zurich, Switzerland in the same year:

 

 

 

English Translation of an extended, “director’s cut” version of the Article:

 

The Virtual Triad

by

Daniel Diemers

 

The Virtual Triad is a visionary model for locating and analyzing developments in new media and telematics. It focuses on the transformation of economy, state and society through the technologically induced processes of virtualization, cyborgization and bionization, which are viewed and discussed integratively and coherently for the first time within the framework of this model. According to the author’s assessment, it is these core processes that will profoundly influence our modern multi-option society in the coming decades and change it in many areas. The virtual triad as an orientation framework and system from a sociologically informed perspective can provide important impulses and food for thought for decision-makers in business and government.

The Model of the Virtual Triad

The virtual triad is a process-oriented model within which technological developments in various areas can be integrated and the resulting social, political and economic effects analyzed. It is assumed that in the next decades the need for a sociologically informed perspective on new media and telematics will increase. Particularly as decision-makers in business and government, this can lead to an increased sensitivity to the processes within the virtual triad. This sensitivity is increasingly important in the context of an increasingly turbulent environment characterized by globalization dynamics, technological challenges, and novel contingencies.

The virtual triad as an orientation framework and systematics

The virtual triad as a model of virtuality in modern society lends itself to the following functionalities in a visionary, integrative and inspiring way:

• The virtual triad is a process-oriented, systematic orientation framework into which research fields, technological developments, observations and questions can be synergistically placed. In view of the thematic complexity and the network-like interconnections of developments in a wide variety of technological fields, such attempts at systematization are becoming increasingly meaningful and necessary.
• Within the framework of the virtual triad, different developments are combined in one model for the first time. The processes of virtualization, cyborgization and bionization, which have so far usually been discussed separately, are brought together in the model of the virtual triad, which makes it possible to show systematic connections between such diverse elements as artificial intelligence, neuroprostheses, cyborgs, biochips, virtual reality or cyberspace.

As a systematic locating grid grounded in scientific research, the virtual triad supports managers and decision makers in developing early warning systems, in-house technology assessment, or designing and elaborating trend analyses, scenario analyses, brainstorming sessions, future workshops, and employee workshops.

The three integral processes of the virtual triad

The virtual triad consists of the three processes of virtualization, cyborgization and bionization.

The process of virtualization

The process of virtualization forms the main process of the virtual triad. At the heart of virtualization is the increasing proliferation of virtual realities virtual worlds, virtual datasets, virtual networks, etc. and their increasing social embedding in traditional, cultural vessels. In the course of virtualization, these virtual realities become more and more an integral part of people’s everyday lives in modern society. Thus, life is characterized by a multitude of virtual and non-virtual life worlds that can compete or complement each other.

Key technologies of virtualization

The three key technologies of the virtualization process are information technology data processing, data transmission and “virtual reality” technology. In the case of data processing, the trend toward permanent performance improvements and miniaturization will continue to dominate in the following decades. In data transmission, ever higher capacities will become possible thanks to fiber optic cables and satellite networks; one keyword here would be internet-in-the-sky. In addition, there will be increasing convergence between telecommunications and information technologies to create telematics proper.

A third core technology for virtualization and the emergence of cyberspace in the Gibsonian sense is virtual reality (VR). The goal of VR is to stimulate the five human senses, thus achieving a perfect simulation of reality and a total immersion experience into virtual space. With the various HMD (head mounted display) approaches, an almost perfect stimulation of the visual sense will be possible in the next few years; in the area of the acoustic sense organ, the goal has already been approximately achieved thanks to digital sound generation and 3D headphones. It remains questionable, however, whether haptic-tactile, olfactory and gustatory sensory organs can also be perfectly stimulated within the following decades, because to date only unsatisfactory solutions are available in these areas. However, the key technology to these three sensory organs could become neurotechnology, which would make exogenous stimulation superfluous through direct neuron-silicon couplings in the corresponding brain regions.

Digitization and networking

In the process of virtualization, digital coding is becoming the dominant processing, transmission, and storage code in many media domains, gradually replacing the original analog coding. This convergence to a uniform, digital code is creating a common format for handling data and media. In addition to digitization, virtual databases are increasingly being networked and can thus be accessed regardless of location. This process of networking can already be observed in many different ways and affects workplaces, public institutions, teaching institutions, libraries, as well as stock exchanges and money markets.

The virtualization of the living environment

New technologies are penetrating more and more into the everyday world of the individual in modern society and changing the way we interact with our fellow human beings. In this sense, we can speak of an increasing virtualization of the everyday world, with virtual realities increasingly overlapping the non-virtual everyday world. The remaining share of face-to-face communication will be increasingly substituted by mediatized communication in the coming decades, resulting in new opportunities but also necessities for virtual relationships and virtual communities.

The process of cyborgization

One of the foundations for the process of cyborgization was laid by Norbert Wiener with his conception of the cybernetic automaton. He described the program and the guiding idea of cyborgization simply and impressively as follows: “We have modified our environment so radically that we must now modify ourselves in order to exist in this new environment.” (Wiener 1954, p. 46).

The process of cyborgization refers to the increasing fusion of man and machine, which is increasingly turning modern man into a cyborg, a man-machine hybrid. In the course of cyborgization, man penetrates his body more and more deeply with the help of technology, and there is an increasing prosthetization of the natural, biologically imposed body. This ultimately results in a gradual abandonment and rejection of the natural body and the imposed physical limitations. The most important technological developments for the process of cyborgization in this context will occur primarily in the fields of nanotechnology, bioengineering, neuroscience and telematics.

The invasion of the body

The history of human medicine is also a history of opening up, decoding and invading the human body. A considerable range of invasive and non-invasive technologies are already available, most notably radiographic angiography, magnetic resonance angiography, endoscopy and computed tomography. However, our visual and auditory senses are also increasingly enhanced by penetrating prostheses, such as permanent contact lenses implanted just below the cornea or hearing devices positioned directly in the auditory canal in the region of the cochlea.

The prosthetization of the body

The process of prosthetization can be increasingly observed both in exoprostheses, which are worn non-invasively, outside the body, and in endoprostheses, which function inside the body. Examples of cyborgization through exoprostheses include cell phones, GPS devices, pagers, personal communicators, palmtops, laptops or multifunctional watches, while pacemakers, artificial body prostheses or retina implants are examples of endoprostheses. The guiding idea of prosthetization has always been to improve physical performance and to increase social freedom and options.

The abandonment of the body

Through increasing prosthetization, the original, natural body is gradually substituted, abandoned, and shed. Through the process of cyborgization, man thus attempts to escape the imposed, physical limitations and to transcend the boundaries of nature. This development is aptly described by Peter Gross as “the disposal of human corporeality. The hunt has begun for the human body, hobbling bashfully behind the technical apparatus, transpiring, plagued by disease, shrinking towards its death. The replacement of its organs is underway.” (Gross 1994, p. 245).

The process of bionization

The process of bionization is diametrically opposed to the process of cyborgization. Bionization seeks to assimilate the machine to the human, turning the machine into a bio-technical hybrid. In this process, the approximation occurs in parallel at the hardware and software levels, with technological developments in the fields of bionics, neuroinformatics, artificial intelligence (AI), and artificial life (AI) playing a prominent role. The ultimate goal of bionization is the creation of virtual and non-virtual artificial life. In this context, the process of bionization, like the process of cyborgization, will profoundly change the human-machine or human-technology relationship and lead to a redefinition and reevaluation of this ambivalent relationship.

The bionization of the machine

Bionics designs machines and electronic components based on the model of biological organisms. This creates smartifacts that work more efficiently and better than conventional artifacts, since – according to the guiding maxim of bionics – biological principles have been shaped in a selective evolutionary process that has lasted for thousands of years. Thus, in the future, neural computer systems, smartifacts and products based on biological principles will increasingly be embedded in the everyday life of modern humans. Within neurotechnology, parallel work is being done on the development of partially implanted, “intelligent” neuroprostheses that are capable of interacting with parts of the human nervous system. Thus, in the next decades, biocomputers based on biochips with hybrid neuron-silicon interfaces will become feasible, supporting a more extensive fusion of man and machine.

Artificial intelligence

Ultimately, however, it is at the software level of bionization that the core problem and, at the same time, the greatest challenge for bringing the machine closer to the human lies. Although there is not even a consensus within the research field of artificial intelligence on the question of what intelligence actually is, how intelligent behavior should be measured and whether intelligence can be consciously generated or only simulated, this discipline will also continue to make progress in the coming decades – despite the numerous setbacks and the large field of prominent critics. Initial, promising approaches to this can be found in the field of distributed artificial intelligence, as well as in the research fields of multi-agent systems and socionics.

Artificial life

The implicit ultimate goal of all bionization processes is the development of artificial life. In principle, two approaches are taken: the development of artificial life in a virtual environment or the development of robots for non-virtual environments. While robotics, which can also be described as the entry of artificial intelligence into the real world, still has few real resounding successes to show, plants, bacteria and viruses are already being successfully simulated in virtual environments, with genetic algorithms and neural networks responsible for reproduction, sensing and interaction.

In virtual worlds, the communication capabilities of artificial avatars are also increasingly astounding, and the Turingian time span within which a die-hard net dweller discovers the artificiality of his or her counterpart grows longer with each passing year. It is safe to assume that both approaches will achieve further stage successes in the coming decades, bringing us closer to the human dream of creating artificial life that can be traced far back in history. The popularity of Kyoko Date, Lara Croft, Duke Nukem and other virtual creatures can be taken as an indication that not only critics can be found for such a development.

The convergence of the processes of the virtual triad

The three processes of the virtual triad just described in their main features influence each other. The convergence of the three triadic processes will profoundly change the social reality of human beings in the coming decades. These technologically induced developments must be understood against the background of the cultural dynamics of our modern “multi-option society” (Gross 1994), which is characterized by the triadic processes of de-traditionalization, optioning and individualization.

 

 

References & Recommended Readings:

 

Diemers, Daniel
»Kontingenzmanagement, Frühwarnsysteme und Virtualität«
In: M. Henckel von Donnersmarck und R. Schatz (Hrsg.), Frühwarnsysteme, S. 225-245, Innovatio, Bonn 1999

Diemers, Daniel
»Die Virtuelle Triade. Mensch, Gesellschaft und Virtualität«
(in Vorb., 2000)

Gibson, William
»Neuromancer«
Grafton, London 1986

Gross, Peter
»Die Multioptionsgesellschaft«
Suhrkamp, Frankfurt am Main 1994

Gross, Peter
»Die Multioptionsgesellschaft: Das Ende der monogamen Arbeit«
In: Kunst & Kultur, Heft 1, 3/1996, S. 25-30

Gross, Peter
»Ich-Jagd. Im Unabhängigkeitsjahrhundert«
Suhrkamp, Frankfurt am Main 1999

Minsky, Marvin
»The Society of Mind«
Simon & Schuster, New York 1986

Steels, Luc
»Homo Cyber-Sapiens oder Robo Hominidus Intelligens. Maschinen erwachen zu künstlichem Leben«
In: C. Maar und E. Pöppel (Hrsg.), Die Technik auf dem Weg zur Seele. Forschungen an der Schnittstelle Gehirn/Computer, S. 327-344, Rowohlt, Reinbek 1995

Wiener, Norbert
»The Human Use of Human Beings: Cybernetics and Society«
2. Aufl., Doubleday Anchor, New York 1954