Finding your peak isn’t as easy as you think
A couple of weeks ago, I had the enjoyable and slightly discomforting experience of watching a film called Mountainhead. For those of you who don’t know anything about it, the film features four wealthy men who meet up in an isolated retreat to reconnect and play poker. Written and directed by Jesse Armstrong (who was also responsible for Succession) the film is a satire and quite a punchy one at that with lots of zingers.
One of the protagonists bears a more than passing resemblance to Elon Musk and some of the ‘philosophy’ they share regarding the future of the planet illustrates the dangers of giving credence to people who believe that the vast wealth they have accumulated makes them intellectually superior to the rest of us. Suffice to say, the group’s stratospheric levels of self-importance are laid bare in their increasingly unhinged plans to take advantage of a crisis engulfing the outside world which, ironically, was caused by the technology let loose upon that world by one of the quartet. Well done if you can guess which one.
It’s not much of a spoiler to let you know that right at the start of the film we learn that the elder statesman and crackpot philosophical intellectual leader of this group, played by Steve Carell, has terminal cancer. Naturally, he is keen to discuss the subject of uploading human consciousness into the cloud as a form of eternal life with the other members of the group, all of who agree it’s going to happen in the future.
And that’s the subject I wanted to focus on in this column. While I have no doubt it may well be possible to upload a version of a particular human’s consciousness into the cloud at some point in time, I wonder if it might be worth discussing what that version will be. By that, I mean that there are very few instances where digitising something does not require making it conform to a set of rules that are slightly different from the analogue version.
For example, people talk about the sound being different between a track played on vinyl and one that is streamed. Similarly, music made with technology that gears it to a streaming world is different not only in sound but also in form. Check how short the instrumental introductions are and how quickly the vocals come in on modern songs – and how often those vocals are auto-tuned.
All of which means that, in many cases, the music is no longer the same. Now, imagine that process being applied to the contents of your consciousness so that it could operate more effectively in its new digital nirvana.
The other question people need to ask is what would be the best version of themselves to upload? Think about yourself and who you are now. Is that the best version to upload for an eternal existence in the ether? Or would it be better if it was the person you were at an earlier age when you were more idealistic and had a much more optimistic view of the world and the people in it? What is the optimum age to upload the best version of you?
Limiting capacity
Perhaps just as pertinent is to ask how many consciousnesses will be uploaded to this ‘heaven’ in the cloud? If we think of these billionaires and tech bros as the gatekeepers to this eternal existence, we need to ask ourselves, what’s the price of entry? How many other consciousnesses will they permit to exist alongside them and what will their ‘roles’ be?
You can be sure that whatever this future utopia might be, they will be very keen to ensure the dominance they have achieved in the physical corporeal world through their wealth will be replicated, if not magnified, in any future virtual existence. This probably means that uploading of consciousness outside their own circle might be restricted to the easily cloneable contents of people who work for them already. Or maybe they just won’t bother. Perhaps the best we can hope for is that someone shuts off their power or an artificial intelligence does it.
All of which is by way of saying, that yes, this film took me to a mountain top. But the promised land I saw was a promise I hope no one keeps.
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