Discussion about this post

User's avatar
Portal X's avatar

My guess is there will always be those who will resist change of any sort e.g. economic, technological, political, religious. I think there would be a subset of the pre-human hominid and forager population who would resist the global dominance of humanity. The sages among them may predict that agriculture and industrialization would lead to environmental catastrophe and the mass extinction of Earth’s species. Some today view advances in technology as a curse, nuclear weapons, some as a blessing, solar panels.

When it comes to creating AI more intelligent than human beings, I agree with Hugo de Garis, the world will be divided. Many will be in favor of merging with or creating these “Artilects” many will be diametrically opposed. How would you feel about Siri being a trillion times more intelligent than you?

As far as becoming an expansive species and spreading throughout the cosmos, I don’t see too many having an issue with that. After all, just like how persecuted, minority religious sects moved from Europe to America, like-minded individuals could hop in their spacecraft and colonize moons and planets. So the Scientologists could colonize one of Jupiter’s moons, other religious or ideological groups could colonize other planets and moons. Of course there would be mining opportunities, and just plain awesome space exploration. Of course we may need the help of advanced AI in order to achieve widespread galactic expansion.On second thought, I guess there may be those who want to leave space untouched and preserved, just like there are those who want to preserve rainforests and National Parks.

Expand full comment
Walter Guyll's avatar

Fredric Brown's 'Letter to a Phoenix' should be included in the discussion: https://www.you-books.com/b...

Expand full comment
10 more comments...

No posts