Homo sapiens turns out to be a very confident species that can call itself "smart." And although it is a stretch to call us wise, we come to the point where sooner or later we will be able to open the gates for someone else, perhaps even our own creation. Here are ten options.
Evolved animals
The idea of raising animal species with human intelligence is far from new and dates back to Dr. Moreau's Island by HG Wells.
Cordweiner Smith portrayed advanced animals as an oppressed class fighting for their rights, and David Brin's War for the Exaltation presented a universe in which nearly all sentient beings owe their intelligence to patronizing species, and humans explore the world with sentient apes and dolphins.
Some theorists, like George Dvorsky, argue that we have a moral imperative to elevate other species to our level of intelligence as soon as we have the necessary technical means. Dvorsky points to contemporary attempts to legitimize great apes' right to "identity" and argues that the natural next step would be to empower other animals with the cognitive abilities to identify and participate in the society of living things.
Human monopoly on intelligent thought gives us an unfair advantage over other animal creatures, and if there is a way to help dolphins, monkeys and elephants gain intelligent thought, then it is our moral duty.
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Others disagree. In terms of animal life, Alex Kapp believes the costs will be too high to justify this. Elevating a species will require embryonic DNA changes, which will lead to inevitable failures before we succeed. Again, the question arises of how to ensure that a successfully elevated embryo is hatched.
Such experiments can be morally flawed if they do not result in intelligent animals suffering from deviation and early death due to human intervention. Even if successful, human beings cannot provide the necessary social and emotional conditions for intelligent chimpanzees, bonobos, or parrots. In other words, elevated animals can be emotionally traumatized as a result of human clumsy attempts to raise them.
Some are also concerned about problematic aspects of specific species, such as the cruelty of chimpanzees and the propensity of dolphins to rape, whether they will prevent them in a reasonable way. It is also believed that intellectual self-awareness is an ecological niche that only one species can hold, which explains the destruction of Neanderthals and other human relatives. The emergence of intelligent animals can create evolutionary competition with humans, as well as damaged creatures with a system of psyche and values that we simply will not be able to understand.
Borg
Star Trek introduced a race of cyborgs that sought to unite all sentient species in the universe into one collective mind. Many would come to the conclusion that this is bad, but some agree with this outcome.
Travis James Leland argued that the emotionless, sterile painting of the Borg is some kind of Luddite propaganda - and a step forward towards collective intelligence will lead to the happiness and freedom of all representatives of the hive.
Indeed, one of the reasons why we go to the Internet and social media is to be closer and in connection with our appearance, this is a manifestation of the collective in its purest form.
Integration with technology and interconnection does not diminish individuality; they just make it easier to connect and express your individuality in the nascent global consciousness. Some argue that the technology for creating a "telepathic noosphere" is already available with our current technology. We can already send video, audio, and motor information between the brain and the Internet via electrodes, and the information bandwidth required for the swarm mind may well be available.
The technological infrastructure used for modern telecommunications and wireless Internet can further evolve into neural interfaces, although initially they will be imprecise and rather difficult to use. Some call these theoretical swarm minds "boorganisms" and advocate their creation for social and political reasons.
There may well be many benefits to the collective mind, as it essentially allows us to become a superhuman entity capable of feats that go beyond what is possible for individuals. The ability to coordinate large scale projects will increase, planning for complex tasks will be more efficient, and people will understand each other better.
Of course, there are also a number of disadvantages. Along with the existential fear of losing individuality in the mass consciousness, the threats of viruses and hackers remain in the system in the early stages, not to mention other concerns, such as who will control the technology. The advanced swarm intelligence of social media will be very different from the swarm intelligence of soldiers and secret intelligence agencies designed for military purposes.
Some believe that advanced organisms will be quite vulnerable to dangerous memetic infections (which will require the development of strict "mental hygiene"); it will also be necessary to combat social parasitism and selfishness in groups within the hive.
Genetic castes
Political scientist Francis Fukuyama believes that transhumanism is one of the most dangerous ideas floating around today. He sees a fundamental danger in trying to improve our basic humanity.
He calls it “factor X” and says that “it cannot be reduced to moral choice, reason, language, sociability, awareness, emotion, creation, or any other quality that is put forward as the basis of human dignity. All these qualities, combined in a person, make up the X factor”.
Fukuyama believes that the development of genetically modified people will mean the end of liberal ideas of political equality for all people. Access to technology for gene modification will lead to the emergence of genetic castes and undermine our common humanity, the rich will be able to create designer children with abilities that exceed those of other, less wealthy masses. Fukuyama is conservative, but many people share his fears.
The Society of Geneticists expresses concern that "techno-eugenics" will lead to the formation of a gap between the "gene-rich" and "gene-poor."
Some argue that the complexity of gene modification and the cultural rejection of child experimentation make this scenario unlikely. Others say that even if it does exist, it will not transfer to the political plane, since political rights do not depend on physical characteristics. However, questions remain about whether parents have the right to choose physical and intellectual traits for their children. This may include choosing IQ, height, gender, and even skin color.
The science of designer babies already exists in the fields of pre-implantation genetic diagnosis and in vitro fertilization, which are gaining popularity in the light of the prevention of genetic diseases. Some fear that taboos on technology, in light of fears of genetic castes, could exacerbate the problem, and the rich may still be able to travel to a country where child gene editing is not prohibited.
Gray slime
In 1986, engineer Eric Drexler instilled fears of a nanotechnology rebellion against the human race.
While he detailed the many potential benefits of nanotechnology, such as destroying cancer cells and repairing DNA, he also expressed concern that molecule-sized self-replicating robots could displace plants and microorganisms, occupying all ecological niches and ultimately consume all earth's resources: this is the scenario called "gray mucus" is also known as "global ecophagy".
Concern about such predictions led to the convening of a "nanotechnology summit" by the forces of Prince Charles at his estate in Gloucestershire. Non-technologists like Richard Smalley replied that such "molecular manufacturing" for creating nanobots is not scientifically possible.
To manipulate atoms (which are sensitive to the electronic bonds of surrounding atoms), molecular assemblers must have additional manipulators, "fingers", but there is no place for them at the atomic level. This is the so-called “fat fingers” problem.
There is also a problem with “sticky fingers”: atoms moved by manipulators can stick to them firmly. Drexler himself, in response to Smalley's comments, felt that he simply wanted to reduce the level of public fears and protect funding for research in the field of nanotechnology.
One solution proposed in light of protection against the mythical gray goo involved another form of nanotechnology: blue goo. It should be a self-replicating police of nanobots that will destroy autonomous and bad gray goo. However, they also need to be ubiquitous, strong, reliable, and resistant to gray goo, while remaining under the control of humans. Because if the blue goo is absorbed or goes over to the side of the gray goo, it may well turn against us.
Other potential restrictions on the spread of gray goo include limiting the possibility of self-production or the use of rare elements like titanium or diamonds in the manufacture of molecular assemblers. Since the human body contains few of these rare elements, mucus is unlikely to extract them from us, unless it devours our smartphones. If all else fails, the world will be flooded with swarms of nanobots.
Artificial Intelligence
Artificial intelligence is a subdivision of computer science that aims to create machines that can perform tasks at a level comparable to human intelligence. There are two forms of AI in theory: narrow, narrow, weak or soft AI, and general, general, or strong AI.
Soft AI is inspired by the human brain, but does not try to imitate it - it is statistically oriented machine intelligence, capable of sorting various data using algorithms and playing chess, answering quiz questions, placing orders, and giving GPS directions.
The solutions to problems that this intelligence performs have little to do with how humans solve them.
Strong AI is designed to simulate human intelligence in reasoning, planning, learning, visualizing, and communicating in natural language. Proponents of strong AI hope to reach a singularity, a point where a machine will catch up and surpass human intelligence, after which technological progress will skyrocket, and we will no longer be able to predict or even understand the future development of civilization.
Entrepreneur Elon Musk is very worried about the risks of artificial intelligence: “In The Terminator, they did not create AI, expecting such an outcome. This is something from Monty Python: no one expects the Spanish Inquisition. Nonsense, of course, but you need to be wary."
And he is far from alone. Bill Gates expresses similar concerns, Stephen Hawking sees it in an even darker light:
“The primitive forms of artificial intelligence we have at our disposal have proven to be useful. But I believe that the development of full-fledged artificial intelligence will mean the end of the human race. Once humans develop artificial intelligence, it will do its own rework. People limited by slow biological evolution will not be able to compete and will be replaced."
Many scientists dismiss these fears as exaggerated and believe that the development of artificial intelligence will complement humanity, not destroy it.
Wireheads
Wirehead is a science fiction idea that involves an individual stimulating the brain's pleasure center with an electric current and thus becoming addicted.
The idea first appeared in Larry Niven's Known Space in the 1970s, but has since become a common theme in cyberpunk. It is probably rooted in experiments in the 1950s, when James Olds placed electrodes in the mesolimbic dopamine pathways of rats.
The rats stopped eating and sleeping in favor of endless bursts of pleasure until they starved to death. Olds repeated these experiments on other animals and humans, who later described the experience as "orgasmic."
Some believe that adopting this technology will help you cope with the suffering that comes with experiencing life without harming others or the environment.
This is the dream of the so-called Abolitionist project, which is looking for a way to combine head wires, developed drugs (drugs) and genetic engineering to create an ideal society. True, dubious orgasmic happiness is likely to lead to global extinction, so the idea is not without its flaws. Wearable technology can allow you to change your mood and state of mind to calm or agitated without side effects or any medication.
Thync technology is based on DC transcranial brain stimulation, an inexpensive way to send electrical current to the brain to improve intelligence, learning, alertness and memory. It also helps with chronic pain, depression, schizophrenia, Parkinson's and fibromyalgia.
And yet, futurists are still hoping to get their hands on another form of mind-altering technology: transcranial magnetic stimulation. This technology can be used to induce psychopathy by temporarily shutting off the fear portion of the brain, or to gain clear thinking while drunk.
There is a fear that in the future, people will be able not only to tune their mood, but also turn off fear and empathy when necessary. And while these concepts may not be genetically identical to modern humans, their emotional and social worlds can become beyond recognition.
Info-morphs
In 1991, Charles Platt published The Man of Silicon, a book about the quest for immortality by copying the human mind into computers, from which creatures called "infomorphs" were created.
In 1996, the Russian artificial intelligence theorist Alexander Chislenko borrowed this name to describe a theoretical entity based on distributed intelligence.
Such networked minds could easily exchange knowledge and experience than we do, which would lead to massive changes in the concepts of personality and individual, like the swarm consciousness that we talked about above.
Not limited to physical organs, these entities would find many human concepts alien and meaningless, even strange. The term is also used to describe downloading human consciousness into computers for the purpose of creating backups of the human brain.
The mental structure of a person is transferred from a biological matrix to an electronic or informational one. The benefits of mind uploading include economic growth, the ability to reprogram yourself to heighten intelligence or happiness, reduced environmental impact, and freedom from the laws of physics and the inevitability of death.
There are many potential problems associated with uploading consciousness and transcending our human form. Technical arguments include the impossibility of reproducing unpredictable and non-linear interactions between the brain cells that make up human intelligence, not to mention the fact that we have no idea what consciousness is.
There are also ethical issues in the development of this technology. For example, we may never know if it really works: how do we understand that the loaded consciousness is really aware of itself, and does not imitate human behavior, without having any mental state? The threat of informorph abuse and manipulation also remains non-illusory.
Transgenic people
Transgenic animals have a foreign gene intentionally incorporated into their genome. This technology has been used to create glow-in-the-dark mice and fish.
This technology has been used in attempts to revive the woolly mammoth, and the debate over the use of transgenes in primates continues. The prospect of the emergence of transgenic humans is ahead, which will benefit from the use of genes of other animal species.
The emergence of transgenic people will require a number of steps. The appropriate transgene must be isolated and expressed at the right place at the right time, and then placed inside a human cell grown in tissue culture.
The nucleus from the transgenic human cell must then be transferred to the enucleated egg, and then grown and divided. Then the developing embryo must be placed in the uterus. The technologies that could be used to do all of this are already available, and human and non-human genes are already being used for growing in vitro and researching stem cells.
Some argue that using transgenes to modify humans could open up opportunities nature has given to other animals: sonar, keen senses, the ability to photosynthesize, or the production of essential nutrients. The potential exhaust will cover any issues related to human dignity, which, in turn, has more to do with our ability to reason than with genetic integrity. We could borrow genes from chimpanzees to improve the efficiency of our muscles, memorization of tasks and strategic planning.
But the consequences can be truly dire. Some people are concerned about the possibility of using "farmed transhumans" - which will be bred and raised with the intention of being used in medical experiments involving transgenes. There is also a fear known as "species anxiety," which has given rise to laws against the creation of multi-species chimeras. But science is moving forward, and in a hundred years the world can be filled with people with shades of chimpanzees, bats, octopuses or mice.
Cyborgs
The word "cyborg" first appeared in a 1960 article by Manfrend Kleins and Nathan Kline.
They speculated on ways to enhance unconscious self-regulatory functions through chemical or electronic means to enable people to better cope with different environmental conditions. The ultimate goal is to enable humans to explore space.
They wrote: “If a person in space, in addition to flying in his own vehicle, must constantly check everything and adjust just to stay alive, he becomes a slave to the machine. The goal of the cyborg, along with its own homeostatic system, is to provide an organizational system in which robotic problems are solved automatically or unconsciously, and the person is free to explore, create, think and feel."
This name was later applied to patients dependent on implants and prostheses, and entered culture as a metaphor for our ever-growing dependence on technology. Recent explorations in practical cybernetics include bionic arms that connect to the human nervous system, prosthetic eyes, and more.
In 2015, Professor Yuval Noah Harari of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem predicted that 200 years from now, humans will become god-like cyborgs due to our need to improve ourselves. Zoltan Istvan, founder of the Transhumanist Political Party, is promoting a platform for government funding to develop artificial hearts and cranial implants that will reduce the crisis in this area, as well as the crime rate associated with it.
Meanwhile, the military research wing of DARPA has announced the creation of a "biological technology office" (BTO) "to study the growing dynamic intersection of biology and other sciences." The agency plans to develop technologies for the soldiers of the future, including advanced prostheses, thought-controlled limbs and neural interfaces.
Another DARPA initiative sees potential in the development of artificial chromosomes. Imagine a soldier of the future who will not need sleep, who will be extremely hardy and see in the dark. A name has already been proposed for the future unification of man and machine: Homo electricus.
Several human species
Speciation is the process by which several new species arise from a common ancestral species.
This concept was first explored in fiction by Olaf Stapleton in his 1930 book The Last and First Men.
It examined the rise and fall of 18 different human species over the next several billion years as they migrated from Earth to Venus.
Not so long ago, Douglas Dixon in Anthropology of the Future: Man after Man asked the same questions, only his civilization collapses 200 years after the start of genetic engineering. Some species of humans go into space, others return millions of years later to find that humans have branched out and evolved into myriad intelligent forms (and non-intelligent ones too).
If the process of human evolution continues, it is possible that other species will appear in millions of years, although many believe that this is unlikely. A 2009 Yale University study found evidence that ovulatory traits suggest more babies are born to shorter, denser women, which means natural selection is starting to choose those physical traits.
Meanwhile, evolutionary psychologist Jeffrey Miller believes that human evolution will accelerate due to the sexual choice of modern society and the development of genetic engineering.
Cadell Last, a doctoral student in evolutionary anthropology and researcher at the Global Brain Institute, believes that we may be on the brink of a great new evolutionary transition, along with technology that is leading us to a long-lived, delayed species. Multiple species evolution is unlikely to occur as human society becomes both pervasive and closely integrated at the same time.
But if humanity travels to distant planets and star systems, the potential for the development of new species, adapted to different conditions, will increase. True, in this case, they are unlikely to inherit the Earth, unless they return four million years later, armed with weapons unknown to us and eager to administer justice and return everything to its origins.