‘Artificial intelligence' (AI) will one day surpass human capabilities.
Once it does, keeping up with it will require us to alter and enhance our own
brains if we are to remain relevant.
Even if AI never out-competes us at all cognitive tasks, we are still left with a need to enhance our intellectual ability. The information 'explosion' alone - regardless of AI - will require us to enhance and alter our brains just to keep up. Doubling the knowledge base of all humanity took 150 years between 1750 and 1900. It took 50 years between 1900 and 1950. 10 years to double from 1950-1960. By 2020 our knowledge base will double every 73 days - with no end to this exponential growth in sight. How are we to ever keep up?
The simple fact is we won't, unless we alter our brains. The information 'explosion' will far outpace growth in our population and in our ability to use it cohesively as a species. Even if individuals specialize to the point of absurdity - competition, and limits of cooperation and bandwidth, will demand brain enhancement. The alterations and enhancements will continue at ever greater speed with the increasing deluge of information until finally we become unrecognizable to our ancestors - until we are in fact, no longer, human.
Be it to keep up with AI or our collective knowledge, combined with genetic alteration to extend life and improve health - self-directed evolution beyond human will occur in the relative near future.
We worry and fret about the existential threat of AI and how to "control it” as it evolves, when in fact we should be focusing on how best to accomplish next steps in our own evolution. AI, as we develop it, can help us get there - but we are to evolve to a next new intelligence on the planet, not just a black box in a lab.
Even if AI never out-competes us at all cognitive tasks, we are still left with a need to enhance our intellectual ability. The information 'explosion' alone - regardless of AI - will require us to enhance and alter our brains just to keep up. Doubling the knowledge base of all humanity took 150 years between 1750 and 1900. It took 50 years between 1900 and 1950. 10 years to double from 1950-1960. By 2020 our knowledge base will double every 73 days - with no end to this exponential growth in sight. How are we to ever keep up?
The simple fact is we won't, unless we alter our brains. The information 'explosion' will far outpace growth in our population and in our ability to use it cohesively as a species. Even if individuals specialize to the point of absurdity - competition, and limits of cooperation and bandwidth, will demand brain enhancement. The alterations and enhancements will continue at ever greater speed with the increasing deluge of information until finally we become unrecognizable to our ancestors - until we are in fact, no longer, human.
Be it to keep up with AI or our collective knowledge, combined with genetic alteration to extend life and improve health - self-directed evolution beyond human will occur in the relative near future.
We worry and fret about the existential threat of AI and how to "control it” as it evolves, when in fact we should be focusing on how best to accomplish next steps in our own evolution. AI, as we develop it, can help us get there - but we are to evolve to a next new intelligence on the planet, not just a black box in a lab.
Given humankind's ability for self-harm we had better get a move on figuring out how best to accomplish this, if we are to have any hope of surviving the process.
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