“If you can’t beat them, join them” was our weary response to the current buzz around AI, Chat GPT and Quantum Computing. Wherever we have been in the last week-round these offices, along the streets of Croydon, mingling with the crowd in the Porter’s Arms-we hear the same worries and fears. ” blimey-these ‘ere computers, guvnor-they’re cleverer than us! They can write better’ n wot we can, play chess better-they’ll be running the country next thing you know, innit!”
On that last one, we wish.
It’s like standing with a bunch of Homo erectus the day after Homo sapiens have moved into the valley. The former may survive for a bit, but their days of being number one are already over. There’s nothing you can do when basically, your brain just can’t think fast enough for the next level in the game. Except one maybe.
We must look now to fuse our beings with the cyber entities which stand ready to replace us. One of the reasons they look so scary is that they run on electricity, whereas we and every other living thing there has ever been on this planet run on flesh and blood. Good old DNA is our data base, none of your nasty silicon and gallium arsenide, thank you very much. Yet DNA is a fantastic medium for the collection and storage of data, as this entry from Wikipedia makes abundantly clear. [1] Theoretically at least it should now be possible to engineer human-computer hybrids of immense intelligence and longevity, ready for the challenges ahead, such as the exploration of space. True, these creatures will not be exactly like us. They will require a new species name at the very least. But it has happened before. As Arthur C Clarke presciently observed, the very invention of tools led to new selection pressures on the users which modified them out of all recognition. But the human line survived, and prospered. At least until now.
There’s an old saying in the East. “When a King nears the end of his reign, he should give less thought to how he might extend his dominions, and more to who might with honour replace him.” Time to start thinking, gentle readers.
[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DNA_digital_data_storage
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Learning, Science and Society 