Futurists and scientists from various fields of knowledge, dealing with solving the problems of the future, suggest that the era of technological singularity awaits humanity ahead. In it, the potential of people due to the progress of biotechnology, nanotechnology and artificial intelligence will become incredibly low in comparison with self-programmed computer intelligence. This can lead both to the death of civilization and the end of the world, and to the displacement of its founder - man, posthuman - by the next stage of development of our species.
The reasons for the death of humanity
The article "Threats to Existence: Analysis of Scenarios of Human Extinction and Other Similar Dangers" by the Swedish philosopher and futurist Nick Bostrom reflects the probable causes of the death of human civilization. It classifies risks into 4 categories: explosions, constrictions, squeaks and whimpers.
Explosions
With an explosion, humanity will cease to exist due to an unexpected catastrophe that arose as a result of an unfortunate coincidence of circumstances or a deliberate act.
The dangers that could provoke an explosion include a nuclear holocaust, spurred by an arms race, and the misuse or willful misuse of dangerous molecular nanotechnology.
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Incurable diseases or genetic medicine can contribute to the destruction of humanity. The latter, in the process of finding effective drugs, could create vaccines with deadly pandemic side effects.
Physicists have every chance to contribute to the demise of Homo sapiens by playing with experiments on high-energy particle accelerators. Poorly programmed artificial intelligence, which, rebelling against its creator, will destroy all living things, can pose a great danger to society.
Uncontrolled global warming or a collision with a celestial body, be it a comet or an asteroid, can lead to the death of society.
Bostrom's hypothesis, according to which people live in a simulation modeled by some Higher Intelligences, seems no less unusual. The duration of the existence of this computer simulation may depend on both human behavior and external factors, so at any moment it can be turned off and humanity will disappear into oblivion.
In any case, the explosion version implies the disappearance of a person at one time or within a short period.
Constrictions
This concept means further development not along the path of progress, but along the path of regression. The causes of global degradation can be natural disasters that make it impossible to use resources to create developed systems.
In the phase of contraction, mankind will be able to live by adapting to the changed living conditions, but will irreversibly lose the ability to develop into a posthuman society. Having returned to the stage of primitive society, people will not be able to re-reach the current technological level.
The English writer and philosopher Aldous Huxley describes another scenario of narrowing, according to which a certain world government consisting of conservative ecologists or religious fanatics-orthodox will become an obstacle for a person to achieve a posthuman society.
There is a version that humanity will not be able to develop further due to the depletion of its intellectual resource.
Squeaks
If humanity nevertheless manages to move to the stage of posthuman society, but it can use only a small part of what is desired and possible, then we can talk about achieving the form of a squeak.
Lacking sufficient potential for programming superintelligence, a person runs the risk of giving the cyborg erroneous data that will not only inhibit development, but also harm people.
Whimpers
The destruction of humanity according to the sob scenario assumes that people, evolving, will get to a posthuman civilization, which, contrary to expectations, will move towards oblivion of things dear to each individual.
The so-called posthuman, representing a cyborg with programmed mental activity and easily replaceable parts-organs, will replace in the evolutionary chain "Homo sapiens", who created him with his own hands.
Posthuman civilization
American inventor Raymond Kurzweil has hypothesized that the inhabitants of the new era will have access to unlimited computing power that will incredibly expand their range of possibilities.
Futurologist Alexander Bolonkin assumes that this new stage of development will be more perfect than human civilization, which, having marked the beginning of the electronic era, will leave the historical stage, having played its intermediary role.
The world will be fueled by electronic brains or E-brains, which will first displace a person on the reservation, and then completely destroy them along with the attendant problems such as disease, aging, suffering and death.
The posthuman will treat a person in the same way as the modern individual does with defenseless animals, whose intelligence and level of development are much lower than that of humans. One should not expect condescension to oneself, since an artificially created posthuman will be an inhabitant of a transhuman society, the slogan of which will be progress for the sake of progress.
Having the ability to reproduce in a few moments from the necessary resources a posthuman creature like himself, he will leave in the past slow biological reproduction, in which the minimum interval between generations is as much as 15 years.
It is not known which type of activity will become in demand in the future and which one will be unproductive, but Bostrom assumes that those professions that will be able to bring the greatest economic benefit to the posthuman society will win.
In turn, Bolonkin notes that representatives of the E-society will be able to simultaneously solve several problems and, having chosen the most promising technological and scientific directions, instantly make a breakthrough in them. He will have access to the entire knowledge base achieved by mankind throughout the history of its development, for the development of which it will only be necessary to save data in the memory of the E-brain.
Valentina Smirnova