Will humans evolve again?

**RemagDiv**

The human race is the culmination of thousands of years of evolution, if you believe in the scientific explanation and not the religious explanation. The reason we are what we are today in turn was dominantely paved by survival of the fittest. Biological species never survive encounters with superior competitors. The earliest example would be ten million years ago, when South and North America were seperated. South America was populated by such creatures like marsupial mammals, similar to rats, deers, and tigers. When South and North America were eventually connected, it took only a few thousand years for the northern species to wipe out the southern mammals.

During the B.C. era, early humans were not sophisticated. Then, all of a sudden, they built weapons to hunt animals. They created fire to stay warm and to cook their food. They began to create artwork on the walls, and developed a language. How can this be possible, where one instant they are basically a more complex version of a mammal, and then in one instant form intelligence to begin doing these acts? Since then, technology has progressed our lives, whereas today we couldn't live without our current technology.

I feel that biologically, we are at the peak of our intellect, however this doesn't mean we can't evolve in another way. I believe sometime in the near future, about 100-200 years, we will advance our technology so far that we can actually bind ourselves with mechanical entities, thus nullyfing what it means to be human. The forefront of nanotechnology and technology in itself is doubling every decade. At our current rate, we will make a 100 years progress in todays rate in 25 years. The next ten years will be like twenty, and the next ten years will be like fourty, so technically the 21st century would be like twenty thousand years of progress at today's rate.

Eventually, part of us will not be biological at all. Mechanical legs, arms, nanotechnology in the brain to make us smarter, downloable content, virtual reality on the whim. Humans and machine intelligence will be deeply melded as one, and it will be inevitable. The "post human" era, but hopefully we do not eradicate the human race before this, and hopefully our creations don't end up using the survival of the fittest routine, or otherwise we may be ending up in a Matrix of our own.

**AqueousRei**

Imagine this world without electricity. The first thing the world would do is have to find away to turn everything back on. If you do not think that humanity depends on Machines then all I can think to say is it must suck living in a 3rd world country.

This is Mother Natures House... we just fight in it until she kicks us out.

A peaceful cyborg evolution would be a cool transition.

Message Edited by AqueousRei on 07.11.2006 03:04 PM
Message edited by AqueousRei on 07/11/2006 14:04:56.

Coer

We've always been at a point where we are fighting for survival, fighting for superiority over the landscape and other creatures.

Now we are the dominant species and so evolution has slowed. But we're building machines that are rapidly outstripping us in terms of ability, longevity, performance.
The next "natural" step is to integrate - a sort of sideways evolution.

The Borg were mighty scary, but there's a reason they kicked so much **bleep** SMILEY

**Aquatium.**

Evolution is a part of us, the real question is where will evolution take us next. Mankind has evolved with more intelligence as we progress, I think that will increase as you say. We are learning new things each time, but the nature of the universe is about balance, I dont think we will be ultimately as you say machine, though machine aspects will be used. I think as we advance we will advance in biology too by being able clone etc.

**Fractor**

The future may find us advancing biologically more than mechanically. The next generation of computers could be biological because they supposably more efficient, here's an article. After all machines are basically dumb and can't think for themselves so they have to be programmed with the correct instructions and no matter how obvious any mistake is to us the machine won't understand.

**AqueousRei**

Teh Borg

VS. TEH CLONE WARSSS!!!

Assimilation FTW:

:robotvery-happy:

**RemagDiv**

Fractor wrote:
The future may find us advancing biologically more than mechanically. The next generation of computers could be biological because they supposably more efficient, here's an article. After all machines are basically dumb and can't think for themselves so they have to be programmed with the correct instructions and no matter how obvious any mistake is to us the machine won't understand.

Well, the typical $1,000 PC only has the brain of an insect or a mouse. Unless programmed or told what to do, it's pretty useless. One human brain can yield 20 billion calculations per second, or MIPS in computing terms. It's estimated a $1,000 PC by the year 2020 will have the same capacity. That still won't give us actual human intelligence from a computer, because the organization, software, content, and the embedded knowledge is just as important. However, unlike the human brain, the computer's capacity can increase even moreso, to where it's speculated by the year 2050 that the computing power of a top line machine equals the the equivalence of one billion human brains, which is a scary thought in itself.

Can we integrate this techinology directly to our brains by using nanotechnology that directly influences the nerves? Yes, and this is where I feel we'll be going.

Coer

I think the safety factor is a big issue.

The Matrix is fiction, but it's always going to be a concern to both public and .gov/.mil
What happens if an A.I. goes out of control?

Much safer to integrated technology with our own bodies that we have total control over - thereby we are still the dominant species.

Wqaa

I've had a discussion about this before with a few friends of mine. Our theroy was that there will come a time where you will be able to intergrate a microchip into your brain which will allow you to say access the internet with your mind, chat with other people in a telepathic type of way, and various other type of functions that are limited by one's imagination. Of course there would be such things that prevent usage of such tech, in certain places like classes and other facilites, and it is my belief that it would be near impossible to hack another persons mind so hackers won't much of a problem. In time these chips would become organic and become fully intergrated into society as a normal thing, telephones would become a thing of the past as you would be able to to communicate with anyone, anywhere using this new ability. At one point you would be able to record your dreams, relive a memory or delete one forever.

**AqueousRei**

I think it is safe to say things are already in motion:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/5167938.stm

**RemagDiv**

Coer wrote:
I think the safety factor is a big issue.

The Matrix is fiction, but it's always going to be a concern to both public and .gov/.mil
What happens if an A.I. goes out of control?

Much safer to integrated technology with our own bodies that we have total control over - thereby we are still the dominant species.

The thing is, if programmed correctly, an A.I. should never have a mind of its own. Yet, we see B166ER murder his master, thus starting the catalyst to our own demise.

There will be a time when robots will be on the same field as humans when it comes to intelligence, and then surpass us. The technology to successfully recreate the complex workings of our brain, into a mere computer chip, and then mass distributed to hardware. As I mentioned early, it goes far behind 1 human brain. By 2050, the intelligence levels can calculate up to 1 million human brains. Our current computers and robots manage nothing more then a insects brain. Now, if they aren't programmed, they don't even work.

**RemagDiv**

Wqaa wrote:
I've had a discussion about this before with a few friends of mine. Our theroy was that there will come a time where you will be able to intergrate a microchip into your brain which will allow you to say access the internet with your mind, chat with other people in a telepathic type of way, and various other type of functions that are limited by one's imagination. Of course there would be such things that prevent usage of such tech, in certain places like classes and other facilites, and it is my belief that it would be near impossible to hack another persons mind so hackers won't much of a problem. In time these chips would become organic and become fully intergrated into society as a normal thing, telephones would become a thing of the past as you would be able to to communicate with anyone, anywhere using this new ability. At one point you would be able to record your dreams, relive a memory or delete one forever.

Eventually, I see the same thing happening. The internet as one, big virtual reality where we are actually inside a system, that can be used on the whim. Imagine getting to actually try or taste a product before buying it?

Coer

RemagDiv wrote:

Coer wrote:
I think the safety factor is a big issue.

The Matrix is fiction, but it's always going to be a concern to both public and .gov/.mil
What happens if an A.I. goes out of control?

Much safer to integrated technology with our own bodies that we have total control over - thereby we are still the dominant species.

The thing is, if programmed correctly, an A.I. should never have a mind of its own. Yet, we see B166ER murder his master, thus starting the catalyst to our own demise.

But isn't that the question - what is A.I.?

A.I. should be a robot that can think for itself, make decisions like other human beings, learn like other human beings. But is it truly intelligence if ultimately it cannot completely think for itself?

I'd argue not. I would say that humanity 'marvelled at its own magnificence' prematurely. We had not truly created A.I. because at the end of the day, we still told them what to do and how to think.

In fact, we only reached the state we had so longed for when B166ER murdered his master. He broke free of the constraints we had put upon him and reasoned that he was a living being - why should he have to die? It was self defence.
Ironically whilst we should have been rethinking the way we looked at these new beings and truly congratulating ourselves for reaching the ultimate goal in A.I., we were turning on them because were were frightened of what they had become.

And I seemed to have slipped in and out of present and future tense SMILEY