Whatever our faults, I think we can all agree the human race as designated Homo Sapiens, has come a long way since its beginning about 200,000 years ago. From living as nomadic tribes, and existing each day hand to mouth, evolution has steadily given us the ability to build the society we have today. We are the alpha species on this planet. The world we live in now is unrecognisable to our distant ancestors. And with the advances made in computing power, air travel and many other areas, our world would be fantastical to people living less than 100 years ago. We have even walked on the Moon and plan to go to Mars. Evolution has been the driving force behind all of this.
But, this begs a question. What is the future of evolution? Will we continue to evolve in a positive way? Or will we revert? This last statement sounds very strange, but there is a scenario which shows that this could be our future. Let us take a more positive view first. At the present time, it appears we are still evolving. Advocates of this point to the way we are still pushing forward the frontiers of technology.
We have so many ways to gather information and learn new things. Just think, a matter of only a few hundred years ago, you had to be very rich to own a book. Now, the knowledge of the world is literally at your fingertips. On the whole, our lives are still getting longer, even though in some countries, this is beginning to revert. Medical advances will ensure that more things which kill us will be curable. Surely, technology will make our lives even easier and allow us to evolve in a positive way.
But there is another side to this argument. Technology is doing more and more for us. Yes, to achieve this, we have trained specialists who can build, repair and innovate. More importantly, we are at the beginning of the Age of Artificial Intelligence or AI. The present ability of AI is that it can compute information and analyse it much quicker than we have been able to do in the past. It is already changing our lives and this rate of change is going to quicken substantially in the very near future. Many activities employed by highly trained professionals such as doctors will be aided by AI. Soon, you may be talking to an AI before perhaps seeing a human doctor. Driverless cars are already here and they will grow. All these things will come.
This all sounds great. So, what could go wrong? Many scientists including the late Stephen Hawkins, have warned that AI could get out of control and possibly become an active enemy of the human race. Is this science fiction? Unfortunately, it is not. It could happen. Why? Artificial Intelligence could not only repair itself but could eventually renew and improve itself without any human taking part. If that were allowed to continue without any controls, it might lead to two bad things in the future.
It is possible that one day, humans will be looked at as a lower species and just as we have taken advantage of animals, AI might do the same with us. Scary enough, I am sure you will agree. But, this could also have an effect on our evolution. If we become less and less important in keeping our world going and inventing new technology, then perhaps we will lose these abilities with the danger of devolving in these aspects.
When Aldous Huxley wrote “Brave New World” he may not have realised that he might be proved right.
John Pullen 