It is possible to imagine different ways in which the Teleporter might work. A classic one is to use an artificial wormhole. For our purposes, we imagine a special mechanism that may or may not be realistic: the sender device decomposes the object being transported to record all information related to it, transmits this information at the speed of light (or even faster), and recomposes it on the receptor side using materials there. Therefore, this version of the Teleporter is akin to a fax machine that always shreds the source material.¹ The classic Star Trek Transporters seem to be somewhere within this camp.

The following statements follow immediately:

• Teleporters would have a significant impact on human civilization. Once a society adopts them, going back to a world without them would be catastrophic. Hyperion provides a good imagined scenario of a society that relied heavily on this technology and lost it overnight.²
• It leads to the philosophical problem of whether the person that comes out of the receptor is the same person that entered the sender. It is possible that the original is dead, and all we get is a copy of it in the sense of Davidson’s Swampman.³ This should be an old point of debate for Star Trek fans.

All of the above is probably old news. But what I think makes this scenario more interesting is the contention it displays between individual humans and Human as a society, or more narrowly, as an economy. A Human that depends on Teleporters to function relies on humans that potentially die and are reborn every day, and the implication of this sounds like a metaphysical and moral disaster, and a disaster particularly on the individual human level. But prohibiting the use of Teleporters due to this concern would significantly reduce the efficiency of Human, at least if Human is left without alternatives for extremely fast intergalactic travel.

Therefore, if the future Human that obtains this technology does not hold individual human lives in much higher regard than its natural tendency toward economic growth, expansion, and efficiency, it is quite imaginable that Human would uphold the use of Teleporters as a lesser evil, and thus redefine the meaning of being a human, potentially for the worse for individual humans. This seems to resonate with Marx’s famous statement that “the essence of man” is not an “abstraction inherent in each single individual”, but “the ensemble of the social relations” amongst humans.

All of these are fairy tales, of course. We don’t have the Teleporter and, for what it’s worth, may never have it. But if we allow for some reverse extrapolation here, this line of thought suggests that a life-changing technological advancement, if coupled with a Human society that does not align its values and intentions well with those of individual humans, can be a philosophical, moral, and physical disaster for humans. The relevance, therefore, is hopefully self-explanatory in this day and age.

References

• Dan Simmons, Hyperion (1989).
• Donald Davidson, “Knowing One’s Own Mind” (1987).
• Karl Marx, Theses on Feuerbach (1845).

A typical course of action of a professor that might be familiar to everyone studying in the field of computer science (and perhaps other STEM fields) by now is to

1. Live and breathe academia for decades, crawling through papers, conferences, journals, talks, lectures, etc., to eventually
2. Reach professorship and expertise of one’s field through tons of dedicated works and even more luck, all the while being increasingly desensitized by the ideals of academic contributions to the world,
3. Proceed to be tempted by the industrial side of one’s field, with promises of real-world application of ones idea that is locked by the lack of freedom or resources in the academic world, or simply by the large sum of money the industry can offer, or most likely both, and finally
4. Decide to take some “sabbatical”, “leave of absence”, or simply work one’s behind off, to establish one’s own or join someone else’s start-up, getting a more handsome pay and a lot more resources, be it human or computational ones.

This is of course a very crude way of telling their stories. But I hope at least part of it rings some bells to people who know one or two academics like this.

Now, Faust’s journey, or at least the first part of it, seems to be

1. Being an acclaimed academic in his time, feeling locked up in his laboratory by his own idea, and that he had no impact in the real world and has not truly lived;
2. Rescued from a suicidal attempt by joy of the outside world, attempted to join this world, but realized that his true goal in life is to rapidly and completely change the world with his creation as an industrialist;
3. Tempted, by a literal devil, of money, fame, youth, and sexual gratification, but most importantly (according to Berman) of the development of one’s self (think Byung-Chul Han) and the world towards an unknown, perhaps non-existent, but certainly exciting, end, in exchange of his soul.
4. Agreeing to this bargain, receiving everything that was promised, and so on.

It seems hard not to see the parallel here, especially if we recall that the largest subset of professors that fits this profile is the group of computer science professors that go on to found AI start-ups, and if we drink the AI doomers’ Kool-Aid and believe that the development of AI will turn out to be some kind of Pandora’s Box that will destroy the world, or at least change it permanently for the worse.

To clarify, the intention here is not to cast a moral shadow upon this phenomenon of professor exodus. It is to simply make an observation. The central thing that makes the parallel between Faust and CS professor interesting to me is that

• Both parties exhibit a certain sense of despair that their works in the academia have little real-world impact or applications,
• They both have a sort of intrinsic, natural, and morally ambiguous desire of “changing the world” (a.k.a. LinkedIn and Twitter contents that generic Bay Area tech bros pumps out every day), and
• They have both been tempted, not necessarily by an “evil force” (that’s too cliche and naive a read on both Mephistopheles and free market economy), but by entities that promise to provide them with large quantities of resources to fulfill their goals, in exchange of something they actually don’t fully understand (“soul” for Faust, “a rapid change of human society” for AI startup founders).

References

• Marshall Berman, All That Is Solid Melts into Air (1982).

Malthus pulled several wrinkled sheets of paper out of the chest pocket of his trench coat, unfolded them, and stepped up to one of the columns with a green light on top. A screen on the column lit up, showing a woman’s face with a wide smile.

“Name?” a speaker buzzed from behind the screen while the mouth of the woman moved, somehow still maintaining the smile.

“Malthus Ming, M-I-N-G.”

“Do you have an appointment?”

“Yes, for nine a.m. I believe.”

“It’s nine-oh-two. You’re late.”

“I’m sorry.” Malthus cleared his throat. “You know these New York trains. They’re …”

“Documents?”

“Right, right.” Malthus flipped through his papers, almost dropping them, and eventually pulled out one with a QR code on it. He held the code up against a scanner next to the screen. It made a blipping sound.

“Please have the document in your hand before you come to the counter next time. Let’s not waste each other’s time.” The face on the screen grinned ever wider. “The consultant will meet you at table E3. Fifth row down the corridor in the center.”

“Thank you. Sorry.”

The long corridor was covered with neon-yellow wallpaper and had no windows. One of the fluorescent tubes at the far end of the corridor was flashing at random intervals. It reminded Malthus of the twenty-sixth floor of the Courant Institute. A graduate student had jumped off the building there last week.

The consultant was a stout, middle-aged man in a dark brown khaki suit. Sitting on what was presumably an office chair, he seemed to fill up the lower half of his little cubicle with his belly. On the desk in front of him was an old Del-Phi laptop and a retinal polygraph. With a rather courteous hand wave, he motioned for Malthus to sit on one of the green wooden seats in front of the desk. Malthus handed over his documents, and the consultant started to study them. He slowly began to frown.

Five minutes passed in silence, with intermittent throat clearing contributed by both men. Finally, the consultant took off his glasses and scratched his left eyebrow. “So, Dr. Ming, just to make sure I’m reading this correctly, you are not making a petition to make a DNA coffin with plasteel?”

“No, sir. As I mentioned in the application, my heart is not doing so well, and the doctor said we must find a way to deal with my coronary artery, and I figured …”

“But they usually make artificial hearts with some sort of biological material or whatever stuff they have at the hospital, right? Sounds like a wasted opportunity to me if you are gonna use your chance on a medical procedure. Besides, plasteel doesn’t sound like something you’d want in your chest, no?”

“Yes, but you see, I can’t afford that bio-engineered product myself. My university insurance wouldn’t cover any invasive procedures, and the federal healthcare system’s waiting period is very, very long at my precinct. So when I saw a video of the funeral procession of President Aguilar and the Parsec executives to Sagittarius A Star, I suddenly realized that I could try my luck at the FBPM lottery. Plasteel is malleable before hardening and completely inert after, right?”

“That’s true.”

“So, perfect for making implants. It is the eternal material after all. I don’t have to worry about replacing it every five years. Besides, the doctor said the longer I wait, the greater the chance for my heart to stop pounding spontaneously, so I am willing to try any alternative here.”

“Sure, sure, but at this point, why not just upload? Preemptive euthanasia should be free if you have social security. I’ve heard good things about the free public heaven they host for New York residents. Good beer selections, unlimited free calls to the living world, all that.”

“Yeah, about that…” Malthus twiddled his thumbs, staring at the union legal rights pamphlet taped to the wall behind the balding head of the consultant. “I have decided to take my true death with my natural one. This body is it for me.”

The consultant looked at Malthus for a few seconds, put on his glasses, and sighed. “Of course, a death wish. I guess that also explains why you don’t want to take your chances at making a coffin like the rest of us.” He fumbled through a stack of forms in a drawer under his desk and picked out one with a bright yellow header. “I understand your situation now, Dr. Ming. I see no point in persuading a mortal about future harms of a permanent object. In that case, let’s get the bureaucratic procedures over with. I am legally obliged to read the following declarations to you. Please bear with me.

‘The United States Federal Government, consistent with the United Nations Recommendations on the Creation, Use, and Disposal of Permanent Materials and Objects, reminds all persons that permanent objects, once created, are immutable by physical means. Such objects cannot be broken, burned, discolored, destroyed, degraded, or otherwise altered in any manner. Citizens are advised to consider carefully the enduring consequences of creating permanent objects. Regardless of future social, technological, or civilizational developments, such objects will persist indefinitely. The disposal of permanent objects on Earth presents substantial and long-term challenges. Accordingly, the creation of such objects on Earth should be undertaken only after careful consideration of their necessity, utility, and perpetual existence.’

Can you verbally acknowledge that you fully understand the statement above and would still like to proceed with the Citizen’s Permanent Material Creation Process?”

“I do.”

“Can you confirm that I, as the consultant on your case, have attempted to persuade you not to create your requested object with the permanent material, and that you, of your own free will, would still like to enter the lottery of the Citizen’s Permanent Material Creation Process, despite the challenges your requested object may pose to humanity in the future?”

“I do.”

“Finally, please confirm that, pursuant to the Federal Permanent Material Code P-57C-203B, the object you requested must be less than fifty grams in mass and fully containable in a rectangular bounding box less than ten centimeters in width, height, and depth. For each additional gram or cubic centimeter of the object manufactured, you will need to pay up to one billion US dollars to the Federal Bureau of Permanent Materials for the transfer of the object to your possession. Please note that you are allowed to bypass the lottery and receive immediate approval of your permanent material object request with an upfront payment of fifty billion US dollars to FBPM, with the same constraints and penalties applied. You can make this additional request at any time during the waiting period of the lottery drawing process.”

“Understood.”

“Great.” The consultant took out three more stacks of paper from the drawer under his desk and laid them on the desk. “Here’s the consultation document for you to sign. It covers the things we just talked about. You will need your initials there and … there. Here’s the questionnaire. If you lose it, you can also download it online, so don’t worry too much about it. Here’s a brochure covering the lottery process. It helps calculate your chances based on your age, level of education, employment status, etcetera etcetera. You will have thirty days to gather all the supporting documents for your case. After you submit, the typical waiting period is six months to a year. OK, you’re all set. Good luck, Dr. Ming.”

Malthus shook hands with the consultant and took his leave. With the papers wedged under his arm, he walked out of the FBPM building. Overhead, a hearse fleet was escaping Earth’s gravity, carrying the ancient hope of resurrection and eternal life.

“Hey Sophie, thanks for calling. Is she okay?” Elisa said while taking off her shoes.

The hologram of a woman lit up in the living room. She had lustrous blonde hair, high cheekbones, and a pale white face. She was wearing a white tank top and a white skort, and held a tennis racquet in her left hand. “Don’t worry, she’s fine. Probably lost one life, but she should have six left, by my last count.”

“What happened?” Elisa walked into her bedroom.

“Being an adventurous lady, as usual.” Sophie followed, now in a butler’s uniform. “She was trying to jump on top of that bookshelf behind the bed and fell in an uncharacteristically ungraceful manner. My diagnostic scan reported one fractured bone in her left hind paw, so I called you, but the scan appears to be inaccurate. The virtual vet said her limp is just due to a sprained ankle, so nothing really to worry about. I’ve settled her in her bed.”

In the little woolly house under the wardrobe, Princess curled into a small, black ball, recovering her grace after the unfortunate incident.

“You know, Princess is getting old. If you want to prevent this sort of thing from disturbing your day again, may I suggest a visit to a gene clinic? I can help you look up all the available ones in New California.”

“Oh, please don’t.” Elisa smiled wearily. “We’ve been through this already, Sophie. I think I really need to lower your persistence level a bit.”

“Alright, alright.” Sophie raised her holographic arms in defeat. “I’ll not mention it again. No need to resort to setting adjustment.”

Tiptoeing around the cat bed, Elisa made it onto the bed. Kneeling on a pillow, she picked up several paperbacks from the bed and put them back on top of the bookshelf.

“Oh, one more thing,” Sophie said. “Princess did kick this thing down to the floor when she fell.” With a beam of light shooting from her fingertip, she pointed to a metallic decoration lying next to the bed. “Good thing it’s made of plasteel.”

Elisa picked up the silvery little box from the floor. It felt smooth to the touch and had no edges. On the top, several tubes of different sizes made of the same material extended out of its body. Under the artificial dusk light of Ganymede, the contraption glimmered.

“I don’t recall registering it in my home decor memory. Would you like to create a new entry, madam?” Sophie took out a sheet and a pencil.

“Sure. Name it ‘Grandpa’s heart,’” Elisa murmured. She put it back on the shelf.

“Didn’t get a chance. Our techie bailed on us last minute. There was a big blackout in Milan and she’s probably stuck there. I had to improvise.”

The silhouette turned into a short, skinny old man in an oversized raincoat. “Are you the people from the Fellowship of Animals?” He took off his hood and extended a veiny, wrinkled hand.

“Yes. I’m Tom. Your contact. This is Jerry.” Tom shook his hand. “And you are?”

“Father Zosima, San Francisco Orthodox Commune. At your service.”

“A Christian?” Jerry turned to Tom in disbelief. “You found us a Christian techie?”

“Well, plenty of souls to save where you’re going.” Father Zosima smiled amiably. He turned back to Tom. “Here’re the access cards for both of you, as promised. You are late-shift maintenance workers for the main chassis. I will go down the sewage drain in the back of the data center. Tap into the intranet there.”

“Right,” Tom said. “Remember, do not make any attempt to contact us after we enter the front gate. Trigger the DDoS exactly thirty minutes after that. Here’s your comm.” She handed Father Zosima an earbud. “Godspeed, Father.”

“Same to you,” Zosima said. The small man slowly faded back into the silhouette.

“I’ve been thinking,” Jerry said, as he and Tom walked down a maintenance corridor in the East wing of Xenon Incorporated’s Pacific Standard Data Center 3.

“That’s new.”

Jerry ignored her snark and continued. “I still feel uncomfortable about the Father. I just don’t get why a Christian would help us. Hard to trust a guy who doesn’t give a shit about animal rights.” He bent his head down to wipe the sweat from his forehead with the hem of his safety vest.

“Well, they are not doing it for the hardware,” Tom said. “But they are interested in what’s in them. They want to get rid of all the dead people living in the virtual heavens.”

“But why?”

“Hell if I know. Yahweh’s Heaven probably has a low headcount and they wanna do some good ol’ human sacrifice. Now could you shut up, please? Lots of eyes and ears here.”

“I can see that part. I’m not that stupid. But aren’t they supposed to be against killing of any kind? Killing humans, at least. Especially these commune freaks. I thought they’re supposed to give up their lives before raising a hand against someone.”

“Well, if anything, they probably think all these souls are misled by digital demons, so they are saving them rather than killing them.” Tom raised her badge hanging around her neck, held it under her chin, and smiled at the camera on top of the blast door in front of them. The door opened. “Can’t really kill a guy who’s already dead, can they?”

“But they are not dead. That’s the disgusting thing. They hide themselves in these…”

“Shh!”

An alarm blared in the corridor, and their headphones buzzed. “Hardware overload detected. Main chassis hardware crew to East wing level B3. Hardware overload detected. Main chassis hardware crew to East wing level B3…”

“Looks like the Father did his part. Let’s go.”

The elevator rumbled slightly as it moved down. It took a long time to reach underground level three. As the elevator came to a stop, it shook violently. Jerry winced.

“I’m not gonna shit for a week after this, I’m telling ya. My gut is probably all fucked up by the damn bag.”

Tom made no reply. With shaky hands, she grabbed the handrail behind her on the elevator wall, trying her best not to fall from fear and a sudden attack of nausea. Against all the good judgment she thought she had, Tom closed her eyes.

With a small ding, the door opened. Jerry gasped. Tom took a deep breath and opened her eyes.

“Welcome to heaven,” she whispered.

Slowly, as if trying not to wake up the supercomputer, they walked into the central server hall. In front of them, rows and rows of water tanks stacked on top of one another. In each direction, the wall of tanks extended beyond their sight into the frigid darkness. Within each tank was a brain slightly larger than that of a human, floating in transparent, teal-colored liquid. Exposed optic fibers sprouted from the top of each brain, glowing with a sickly yellow light. For a supercomputer chassis, the structure was eerily quiet.

“Motherfucker,” Jerry managed, after several seconds. “I’ve read about this in the FoA handbook. But to see it for myself…”

Tom turned on the headlight of her helmet. “You take the right. I’ll go this way.” Without blinking, she took off her sweatpants and underwear, and began to slowly pull the zip-lock bags containing the bomb strips from her rectum. She groaned slightly.

“Sorry,” Jerry said, a bit startled by what came out of his mouth.

“Hey! Turn the fuck around and start doing your part,” Tom hissed. “We don’t have all night.”

“Right, sorry.” Jerry turned back and headed down a row of tanks. He started to take off his jeans.

With the crumpled plastic bag tightly gripped in her left hand and a roll of duct tape in the pocket of her vest, Tom moved quickly down a lane between two walls of water tanks. She counted twenty columns of brains, stopped, and fixed a small piece of bomb strip to a tank to her left with the tape.

“I’m sorry,” she said softly to the brain in the tank as she moved on.

She taped another strip after twenty more columns down the lane. “You could’ve swum in the ocean, hunting fish as you go, mating, socializing.”

Another strip taped. “Instead, you were born here, in this darkness. Engineered to carry these worthless human egos.”

And another. “Never got a chance to think dolphin thoughts. Never felt what nature meant for you to feel. I cannot imagine the pain.”

And another. “I’m sorry we treated you so cruelly.”

And another. “It’ll soon be over…”

She walked into the darkness.