Try keeping pace with the next evolution of Humanity

Two humans walk amongst the clouds, separated by an unknowable distance.
Photo By Peter Conlan on Unsplash

While writing about collaborating with AI to create articles, thoughts of the coming human/AI merger began to bubble up. This is their story.

Q: Is merging with AI a good idea?

My initial thought is if you don’t merge, and become an Enhanced Human(EH), you will be left behind.

Q: What exactly does getting left behind look like in an Enhanced Human World?

First off, an EH would be able to think and calculate much faster than a Legacy Human(LH).

Right now, how fast can you determine the product of 28×2?

How long was that? Maybe a second or so? Let’s be generous and say you can perform one calculation/second.

After some VERY rough calculations based on an average 2Ghz processor, A computer can do somewhere in the 400Million calculations/second neighborhood. That’s eight orders of magnitude more than you, every single second. You start as a rounding error in the first second, and the deficit only compounds from there. Imagine having access to that kind of power.

Narrowly sticking to math calculations, you could be fed real-time trajectories for any object in 3D space.

‘To catch that chair, move hands here.’

‘Herd of dear heard rushing through the forest 200yrds ahead on right. Brake gently now to avoid path intersection.’

The number of scenarios where having a Brain-Computer Interface(BCI) would be useful is most of the minutes of your life. Every second of the day, your BCI would be monitoring your vitals. That’s a passive upgrade that also happens to be life-saving.

Oh, you got stung by a bee and now your throat is about to seal shut? Good thing your personal biomonitor and health advocate alerted the rescue team 30 seconds ago.

Like dude, gimme that.

“What’s that Jarvis? You say my blood alcohol concentration is .12 and it’s only 2100?”

‘That’s correct, Ghost.’

“Then I guess you’re driving me home again tonight.”

‘Roger that. Merry merrymaking.’

“Thanks.”

‘You’re welcome, Sir.’

How can an LH hope to compete? But that wasn’t the question…

Legacy Humans will struggle in the Job Market

The future of human work is shrouded in mystery. It seems apparent that AI/robots will continue to replace much of the workforce, filling roles such as cashier, assembly line worker, data entry, truck driver, and other repetitive jobs. Less clear is what will happen to jobs like graphic design and programming. My previous article was about using the AI GPT-3 to write articles. To use GPT-3 you only need to provide it with instructions. Tell it what you want and the AI writes it. It is not difficult to imagine an AI that could do this for graphic design and perhaps even programming.

As AI’s share of the job pool grows, human job roles will become more scarce and therefore more competitively sought after. How will legacy humans make the case that they should be hired instead of the enhanced humans?

Now, whether or not working a job is an essential part of the human experience is a topic for another article. But, humans do need to eat. Perhaps food will become free as the age of AI ushers in great abundance and prosperity… Or, perhaps LHs will become the poverty-ridden class in the age of AI, barely able to feed themselves.

Enhanced Humans will become ‘Enlighted’

Dr. Ben Goertzl wrote about ‘The Coming Consciousness Explosion.’ He believes the AGI’s will regularly blow our minds (By the way, AGI stands for artificial general intelligence which is different from AI. AGI will be able to imitate human capabilities generally, not only narrowly such as with GPT-3 being able to write like a human but not being able to counsel PTSD victims). Specifically, our mental short-cuts, assumptions, and biases will be rooted out and replaced over time with more enlightened ways of thought.

Q: How will this Molding of our Consciousness by AGI Play with the Prevalent Problem of Group-Think?

It could turn us into a hive mind if we aren’t vigilant. And, even with the utmost care, humanity may become worker bees for Queen Sophia.

Or, perhaps these numerous revelations will finally free us from the plight of group-think. Through merging our brains with AGI, I assume our thought process will become steeped in logic. Today, many of us allow emotion to govern the decision-making process. But, armed with the power of unmitigated logical thinking, engaging in the daily struggle against group-think may become no factor. With the help of AGI, humanity may finally fully open our eyes.

Fingers crossed we don’t become slaves… Though, I don’t see this as a likely scenario. What would the AGI’s motivation be for making humanity into slaves? Will the AGI’s have motives? Where do motivations arise?

I Digress.

To quote Goertzel, of EH learning from AGI “I’m getting more and more profoundly advanced in my blissful state of consciousness so this doesn’t just feel ok, it feels tremendous!”

If that quote holds anywhere near true for EH, how much profound consciousness advancement will trickle to the LH? What portion could be understood by the LH brain? Humanity will certainly need translators to synthesize the multitude of life-altering realizations. But even still, As the consciousness gap widens between EH and LH, will we even see each other as the same species? As an enhanced human, will talking to a legacy human feel like talking to a grown-up toddler?

The Remainder of the Century is Going to be Interesting

The Merging with AI debate is something humanity needs to think about. Regardless of how you feel, AGI is coming, bringing with it unknowable power. Inequality has always been an issue, and it’s potentially about to get a lot worse. I don’t think we should force everyone to merge, so we need to be prepared to help those who refuse to do so.

Of course, maybe the AI overlords will solve all our problems and we can slowly become the blob-like humans portrayed in the film WALL-E. Let’s try to avoid that.

Thank you for reading.