More Human Than Human?
With a tip of the hat to Rob Zombie for the title…
I was asked recently for my thoughts on transhumanism, microchip implants and AI at a conference where I spoke last week. I wrote back but thought I’d share it here as well.
This is a “off the top of my head post…” not edited so take it as you will and no grammar police please! :)
Regarding AI, Transhumanism, microchips and nanotechnology into humans. I generally expect that it is simply inevitable. In order to keep up with machines we will become more machine. Let’s hope that they also become more like us as a result over time as well.
When it comes to AI or as I like to discuss IA (Intelligence Augmentation), depending on your point of view you might consider every smart phone connected to the internet an extension of your mind and body connecting you to a vast amount of information. It’s not necessarily “in you” just yet but it won’t be long I expect if you follow the progress of retinal and cochlear implant technology as well as numerous other more experimental technologies that interface with the mind. Technically, we’re not quite there yet to really fully interface. But, that’s changing exponentially.
A SingularityU colleague of mine, Ramez Naam has written a series of science fiction books exploring this in interesting ways. I highly recommend. The first in the series is Nexus. There are many non-fiction books I can recommend too if you are inclined to read them. They are:
As a side note, we or what you think of as yourself is already more not you than it is you when you consider your non-human colleagues in your microbiome. I find that particularly fascinating. Who’s the parasite anyway?
This response got long! Apologies. I think I’ll turn it into a blog post. And, so I did…
