Posted on 12/25/2016 1:35:45 AM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
As we close out 2016, if you’ll allow me, I’d like to take a risk and venture into a topic I’m personally compelled to think about… a topic that will seem far out to most readers.
Today’s extraordinary rate of exponential growth may do much more than just disrupt industries. It may actually give birth to a new species, reinventing humanity over the next 30 years.
I believe we’re rapidly heading towards a human-scale transformation, the next evolutionary step into what I call a “Meta-Intelligence,” a future in which we are all highly connected—brain to brain via the cloud—sharing thoughts, knowledge and actions. In this post, I’m investigating the driving forces behind such an evolutionary step, the historical pattern we are about to repeat, and the implications thereof. Again, I acknowledge that this topic seems far-out, but the forces at play are huge and the implications are vast. Let’s dive in…
A Quick Recap: Evolution of Life on Earth in 4 Steps
About 4.6 billion years ago, our solar system, the sun and the Earth were formed.
Step 1: 3.5 billion years ago, the first simple life forms, called “prokaryotes,” came into existence.These prokaryotes were super-simple, microscopic single-celled organisms, basically a bag of cytoplasm with free-floating DNA. They had neither a distinct nucleus nor specialized organelles.
Step 2: Fast-forwarding one billion years to 2.5 billion years ago, the next step in evolution created what we call “eukaryotes”—life forms that distinguished themselves by incorporating biological ‘technology’ into themselves. Technology that allowed them to manipulate energy (via mitochondria) and information (via chromosomes) far more efficiently. Fast forward another billion years for the next step.
Step 3: 1.5 billion years ago, these early eukaryotes began working collaboratively and formed the first “multi-cellular life,” of which you and I are the ultimate examples (a human is a multicellular creature of 10 trillion cells).
Step 4: The final step I want to highlight happened some 400 million years ago, when lungfish crawled out of the oceans onto the shores, and life evolved from the oceans onto land.
The Next Stages of Human Evolution: 4 Steps
Today, at a massively accelerated rate—some 100 million times faster than the steps I outlined above—life is undergoing a similar evolution. In this next stage of evolution, we are going from evolution by natural selection (Darwinism) to evolution by intelligent direction. Allow me to draw the analogy for you:
Step 1: Simple humans today are analogous to prokaryotes. Simple life, each life form independent of the others, competing and sometimes collaborating.
Step 2: Just as eukaryotes were created by ingesting technology, humans will incorporate technology into our bodies and brains that will allow us to make vastly more efficient use of information (BCI) and energy.
Step 3: Enabled with BCI and AI, humans will become massively connected with each other and billions of AIs (computers) via the cloud, analogous to the first multicellular lifeforms 1.5 billion years ago. Such a massive interconnection will lead to the emergence of a new global consciousness, and a new organism I call the Meta-Intelligence.
Step 4: Finally, humanity is about to crawl out of the gravity well of Earth to become a multiplanetary species. Our journey to the moon, Mars, asteroids and beyond represents the modern-day analogy of the journey made by lungfish climbing out of the oceans some 400 million years ago.
The 4 Forces Driving the Evolution and Transformation of Humanity
Four primary driving forces are leading us towards our transformation of humanity into a meta-intelligence both on and off the Earth: 1.We’re wiring our planet 2.Emergence of brain-computer interface 3.Emergence of AI 4.Opening of the space frontier
Let’s take a look.
1. Wiring the Planet: Today, there are 2.9 billion people connected online. Within the next six to eight years, that number is expected to increase to nearly 8 billion, with each individual on the planet having access to a megabit-per-second connection or better. The wiring is taking place through the deployment of 5G on the ground, plus networks being deployed by Facebook, Google, Qualcomm, Samsung, Virgin, SpaceX and many others. Within a decade, every single human on the planet will have access to multi-megabit connectivity, the world’s information, and massive computational power on the cloud.
2. Brain-Computer Interface: A multitude of labs and entrepreneurs are working to create lasting, high-bandwidth connections between the digital world and the human neocortex (I wrote about that in detail here). Ray Kurzweil predicts we’ll see human-cloud connection by the mid-2030s, just 18 years from now. In addition, entrepreneurs like Bryan Johnson (and his company Kernel) are committing hundreds of millions of dollars towards this vision. The end results of connecting your neocortex with the cloud are twofold: first, you’ll have the ability to increase your memory capacity and/or cognitive function millions of fold; second, via a global mesh network, you’ll have the ability to connect your brain to anyone else’s brain and to emerging AIs, just like our cell phones, servers, watches, cars and all devices are becoming connected via the Internet of Things.
3. Artificial Intelligence/Human Intelligence: Next, and perhaps most significantly, we are on the cusp of an AI revolution. Artificial intelligence, powered by deep learning and funded by companies such as Google, Facebook, IBM, Samsung and Alibaba, will continue to rapidly accelerate and drive breakthroughs. Cumulative “intelligence” (both artificial and human) is the single greatest predictor of success for both a company or a nation. For this reason, beside the emerging AI “arms race,” we will soon see a race focused on increasing overall human intelligence. Whatever challenges we might have in creating a vibrant brain-computer interface (e.g., designing long-term biocompatible sensors or nanobots that interface with your neocortex), those challenges will fall quickly over the next couple of decades as AI power tools give us ever-increasing problem-solving capability. It is an exponential atop an exponential. More intelligence gives us the tools to solve connectivity and mesh problems and in turn create greater intelligence.
4. Opening the Space Frontier: Finally, it’s important to note that the human race is on the verge of becoming a multiplanetary species. Thousands of years from now, whatever we’ve evolved into, we will look back at these next few decades as the moment in time when the human race moved off Earth irreversibly. Today, billions of dollars are being invested privately into the commercial space industry. Efforts led by SpaceX are targeting humans on Mars, while efforts by Blue Origin are looking at taking humanity back to the moon, and plans by my own company, Planetary Resources, strive to unlock near-infinite resources from the asteroids.
In Conclusion
The rate of human evolution is accelerating as we transition from the slow and random process of “Darwinian natural selection” to a hyper-accelerated and precisely-directed period of “evolution by intelligent direction.” In this post, I chose not to discuss the power being unleashed by such gene-editing techniques as CRISPR-Cas9. Consider this yet another tool able to accelerate evolution by our own hand.
The bottom line is that change is coming, faster than ever considered possible. All of us leaders, entrepreneurs and parents have a huge responsibility to inspire and guide the transformation of humanity on and off the Earth. What we do over the next 30 years—the bridges we build to abundance—will impact the future of the human race for millennia to come. We truly live during the most exciting time ever in human history.
One I never saw....thanks!
I always loved her shows.
This sort of naive yearning and dreaming, combined with the scientific and technological ability to make it reality, will lead to things hideous beyond imagining. As in the days of Noah, so shall the coming of the Son of man be.
It can work both ways. Do you think technological achievement has not been foreseen or approved of by God? I see Gods hand in our improving lives and the reduction of many sorrows. Christendom has been at the heart of most improving technology.
There is no reason that God cannot work to do good through technology. Perhaps it is part of God’s plan to use mankind to spread life throughout the Universe.
Bttt
As we say here in Texas, “Aw, HELL, no”....
That was my first thought - Scientists smoke dope, too.
I prefer the story where God speaks everything into existence....Merry Christmas.
Nano technology will make changes we can hardly imagine in the not distant future
Nah, the asteroid is going to wipe out mankind and bring back the displaced dinosaurs first, so that proves the humanity explosion thing is Fake News for click bait.
It's going to take 30 years or more to fix the mess we have made in the last 60 years...
Considering a large part of the western world will be under Sharia law in a couple generations, I don't see much progress happening, unless women covered in black and beheadings, torture and no freedom is now the new definition of progress..
With technology, the world can be operated by a small, educated population enjoying a mostly life of leisure and short work hours only to maintain the machines.
The future has no place for billions of illiterate, unskilled peasants.
Yeah but if Jihad does take over, how are they supposed to shut down the internet? The means to broadcast and help the world to despise tyranny is the Internet.
Am I the only techie out there that enjoys being disconnected from time to time? Sometimes I just need to be left to my own thoughts.
Before artificial intelligence, can we put intelligence in Liberals first?
If you think California has a problem with generating enough electric power now, just wait til we are all connected together.
If we are all connected to everything, and know all there is to know, wouldn’t that make us all exactly the same?
What then would be the point of it all?
“In both these works, the exploration of space proved to be a dead end, as there is little to be gained by near-solar system interplanetary space travel and the vastness of space itself makes intergalactic space travel impossible to achieve.”
With unlimited energy available (both solar and nuclear), the solar system alone offers hundreds of times the livable habitat available on Earth. Raw materials abound in asteroids, comets, moons and planets. It was just discovered that Ceres contains vast amounts of water. Constructing massive space habitats is within the reach of current technology, as well as colonizing the Moon and planets.
Even the Oort cloud is available, again with unimaginable resources and wealth. Eventually, and perhaps sooner rather than later, interstellar ships will bring humanity to new star systems, and Man will become an interstellar species.
Intergalactic travel won’t be of interest for a very, very long time if ever. The Milky Way has over 100 billion stars to explore in its own right.
The future is very literally boundless.
I tell my wife, from my time in intelligence, that if they’re presenting something to you as science fiction, they probably already have it.
Despite Gilbert Ryle's gentle mockery there does actually appear to be a ghost in the machine and we don't know what it is or where to find it. "We" aren't going anywhere until we do.
It is already happening.
ADHD results in wiring in the human brain that does not cease creating connections when a child approaches 21-years of age as is normal. Instead, the brain continues creating connections until the age of 24 to 26. That is why it is important to prevent youngsters from using illegal drugs and alcohol before they are in their late 20s.
The amazing thing here is that brain capacity can be expanded within the braincases many of us already possess.
“...the solar system alone offers hundreds of times the livable habitat available on Earth.”
I appreciate your thoughtful response, but I respectfully disagree. The Sahara Desert is vast, but few people would choose to live there. In the near solar system, everything necessary for life would have to be brought along and generated locally, including the air you breathe. Whatever raw materials you might find would have to be heavily processed in difficult conditions. Everything you did would be an effort to recreate in a distant place what you already have close at hand here on Earth.
Interplanetary space travel is driven by the search for another Earth-like planet. The practical realities of such travel makes it unlikely that you’d ever find such a planet or be able to get there if you did.
The future for Man is not “boundless”. Only God is boundless with the Universe being less so. To assert otherwise is simply post-modern atheistic hubris expressing Man’s lack of humility.
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