WIE: Biotechnology and nanotechnology have both borne the brunt of fierce criticism in recent years. Many feel that the potential perils of these new technologies outweigh any potential benefits, no matter how remarkable they might be. Yet you seem to be advocating a no-holds-barred relationship to these developing technologies. Do you feel the risks have been overblown?

RK: Technology is a double-edged sword. It empowers both our creative and destructive sides. I had this conversation with Bill Joy in September 1998 and gave him a copy of my book The Age of Spiritual Machines, which led him to write the Wired cover story “Why the Future Doesn't Need Us” and articulate the downsides of genetics, nanotechnology, and robotics. What was controversial about his article was his call for relinquishment: “Let's keep the good technologies, but there are dangerous ones like nanotechnology and biotechnology—let's just not do those.” I pointed out that all technologies are leading, in the end, to those dangerous technologies; that technology is inherently dangerous. And in fact, banning a technology at a broad scale just drives it underground, where it's actually more dangerous, because then the responsible practitioners we're counting on to protect us don't have easy access to the tools. So I think the most dangerous route would be to attempt to relinquish these technologies. If one seriously tried to do that, it would require a totalitarian system. And Bill Joy himself has evolved his position. He's now working as a venture capitalist actually investing in nanotechnology to accelerate renewable energy and other environmentally friendly technologies.

However, there are downsides. We talked about some of the tremendous benefits of genetics and the whole biotechnology revolution in terms of overcoming disease and extending longevity, but it also could empower a bioterrorist with tools found in a routine college biotechnology laboratory to create a biological pathogen that could be quite dangerous. It could be spread easily and be stealthy and deadly.

The answer, though, is not to relinquish these tools. In broad strokes, it is to put more stones on the defensive side of the scale. We're close, for example, to broad tools that could combat biological viruses in general. Now if we can get those quickly enough, we don't have to attack each new virus as it comes along. So what we need to do is identify these risks. We need ethical standards, which have worked very well in the genetic community—at least to prevent inadvertent problems, to prevent intentional abuse or misuse by terrorists, for example. But the fact that there will be risks is just inherent. I mean, technology is power, and it does empower all of our dispositions, creative and destructive.

WIE: What would you say to the idea that it's unnatural to want immortality? That this quest for life extension goes against the natural cycles of birth and death, and that if we attained immortality, we would have stepped so far outside the natural order that in some sense, we would no longer be human?

RK: In my view, we are the species that seeks to go beyond our own boundaries. Fundamentalism is the idea of putting artificial constraints on what humans can be—defining humans in terms of our limitations rather than by our ability to supersede our limitations. We didn't stay on the ground, we didn't stay on the planet, we're not staying within the limitations of our biology, and we're not staying within the limitations of our intelligence. The noblest purpose of human life is the creation, communication, understanding, and appreciation of knowledge in all its forms: from different art forms to different levels of expression in science and technology.

WIE: Some people would say that the meaning of life is, in a sense, defined by our mortality. That our limited life spans push us to spend the time we have wisely, creating a sense of urgency that tends to bring out our best qualities. That such things as courage and heroism, and even creativity, arise from the recognition that “I only have so much time here, and so does everybody else.” What would you say to the idea that if we were faced with the opportunity to live forever, we would quickly lose our edge, become lazy, start to take life for granted, and ultimately become more apathetic, self-centered, and indulgent?

RK: I think defining meaning in terms of death—saying that death gives life meaning—is to define us in terms of our limitations. In my mind, what's noble is the pursuit of knowledge, and that's going to expand through this exponential process along the law of accelerating returns. That's really the future of human life.

If you see human beings as no different than peaches on a tree that grow old and fall and die, then that view has merit. But there is something unique, after all, about humans. I mean, it's been said many times that science has thrown humanity off our pedestal of uniqueness and centrality. We discovered that the universe didn't revolve around the earth, that human beings were not anointed directly by God, and that we evolved from worms. And so we've continually had our egocentric view of the importance of humans shattered by these scientific insights. But there actually is one really important way in which humans are unique: We are the only the species that passes knowledge down from generation to generation, where that knowledge base is growing exponentially, and where we go beyond our limitations. Whereas other animals can be seen statically using tools, they don't create technology that evolves. You know, the combination of our cognitive capability and our opposable appendage, the thumb, enabled us to change our world. And that's what's ennobling, and gives life meaning.

Up until now, we've had no opportunity to circumvent our mortality. So we had no alternative but to rationalize this tragedy—which is what death is—saying, “Oh, it's really a good thing. And it's ennobling; it gives life meaning.” A large part of religion is to rationalize this tragic loss of knowledge and skill and personality as something positive. But really, what's positive about human beings is our pursuit of new frontiers.

WIE: It is well known among evolutionary theorists that the chief catalysts for change are stress and challenge. Whether we look at technological innovation, personal transformation, or collective evolution, positive change in any form tends to be driven by external pressures, by challenges that push us to reach further, dig deeper, create, and innovate. Even this rush for life extension is being driven by the stress of imminent death. In the utopian immortal future you envision, what do you see as the catalyst for continuing evolution, development, and change? In securing for ourselves a trouble-free future in eternity, will we inadvertently be ensuring our own stasis and depriving ourselves of the conditions needed for our own continued development?

RK: Well, already we can see that that's not the case. We are now pushing evolution forward. Biological evolution is not the cutting edge—it's really our technological evolution. We've taken over the driving force of the evolution of complexity from this evolutionary process that created it. And I think that the evolutionary process has its own urgency because there are still competitive pressures, and time becomes increasingly valuable when things are moving more and more quickly. We're not motivated only by the realization that we're running out of time because we're going to die in a few years.

You see lots of people competing to create new businesses and new knowledge, competing in the academic and artistic arenas. And by and large, they're not propelled by the need to put the next meal on the table. We don't need death to propel that forward. We have a hierarchy of needs: air is pretty much a need, but if you have air, then you worry about food, and if you have that, you worry about shelter. But most of us have already moved on to worrying about ego needs, and beyond that, there are desires to create meaningful knowledge and so on.

WIE: What is your response to the observation that death is part of a process of regeneration, and that it's through the cycle of death and rebirth that the very process you're speaking about happens? That in some sense, evolutionary progression wouldn't really be possible once the regenerative dimension were taken out of it?

RK: Religion talks about transcending death, but it has a mystical answer to how that happens. In fact, we find this transcendence in the real physical world. We find it in technology. If you put materials and energy in the right configurations, magical things happen. You get powers that go beyond the original materials. That's what excites me about being an inventor.

And we will transcend death and that natural cycle. We're not just grapes on the vine—we are overcoming that natural process that we emerged from. Yes, we came from nature, but we are going to surpass it through the power of our technology, which comes from our mind made manifest in the real world.