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Page added on January 19, 2016
Could this be humanity’s LAST century?
It won’t be war, politics or poverty that eventually wipes out humanity.
According to Seth Shostak, our end will come about as a result of designer babies and artificial intelligence.
The outspoken director of the Search for extraterrestrial intelligence (Seti) Institute believes developments in these areas will lead to new ‘alien’ species.
It won’t be war, politics or poverty that eventually wipes out humanity. According to Seth Shostak, our end will come about as a result of designer babies and AI. The outspoken director of the Search for extraterrestrial intelligence (Seti) Institute believes developments in these areas will lead to new ‘alien’ species
‘We can eventually produce offspring that are as different from us as dogs are from grey wolves,’ he said in an opinion piece for Seti.
‘I’m not talking about the various self-destructive threats of the moment – the ones that fill the papers and spark pontification on the nightly news,’ he says.
‘No, the three big things that I believe will take place in the 21st century are more profound, and not necessarily bad.’
The first change, Shostak believes, is that we will finally understand biology at a molecular level.
As a result, humanity will be able to cure all diseases, and usher in an era of ‘designer babies’.
He also believe that humanity will expand into nearby space in a drive to gain more resources, such as copper, zinc and platinum.
This, he says, will also help alleviate overpopulation.
‘We can eventually produce offspring that are as different from us as dogs are from grey wolves,’ said Seth Shostak in an opinion piece for Seti
‘Everyone expects our progeny to establish colonies on the moon or Mars, but the better deal is to build huge, orbiting habitats in which you can live without a spacesuit.
‘Think of scaling up the International Space Station a few thousand times. We can put unlimited numbers of people in such engineered environments.’
But it’s not just designer babies and space colonies that will change humanity as we know it.
Before 2100, Shostak predicts that we will develop generalised artificial intelligence (GAI).
This will allow machines to take over jobs normally done by humans.
‘Such machines won’t necessarily be large,’ he said.
‘A synapse in your brain is a few thousand nanometers in size.
‘A transistor on a chip is hundreds of times smaller. The hardware necessary for human-level smarts – even today – could fit in an iPad.’
The scientist claims that these developments, over the long term, will dwarf concerns in politics, war, or economics.
But, he adds, they will also change us.
‘Putting large numbers of people in off-Earth colonies will inevitably lead to a kind of speciation.
The first change, Seth Shostak believes, is that we will finally understand biology at a molecular level. As a result, humanity will be able to cure all diseases, and usher in an era of ‘designer babies’
‘After all, their physical environment is somewhat different than Earth, and history suggests that their social environment will also be special.
‘A thousand years from now, the inhabitants of a Martian colony may not be so similar to those still living on Earth.’
‘Re-engineering our children will transform our species even faster.
This might sound like a dramatic shift, but Shostak predicts it will be super-intelligent robots, that will have the most significant impact on humanity.
‘It is less a matter of improving our descendants than replacing them with our engineered successors.
‘Perhaps we can promulgate our culture and ourselves by putting chips in our brains or simply uploading our brains to the machines.
‘But you can be sure that the result will not be Homo sapiens as we’ve known him for 50,000 years.’
WILL TECHNOLOGY TRANSFORM US INTO IMMORTAL CYBORGS?
We could all soon witness a day when man and machine combine to make humans immortal, says Zoltan Istvan, a third-party presidential candidate
We could all soon witness a day when man and machine combine to make humans immortal.
That’s the firm belief of Zoltan Istvan, a third-party presidential candidate who wants to not only beat Trump at the polls, but also cheat death itself.
‘I’m hoping I will live indefinitely, that’s a major priority,’ the 42-year-old tells DailyMail.com. ‘Even if don’t, I would freeze myself or use some other type of mechanism.’
Istvan says one possibility is uploading parts of his personality to a machine so that future generations can reconstruct a realistic avatar that recreates his being.
‘What happens is you take a complete scan of the brain with incredible detail using technology that is already available to some extent,’ he said.
‘Then in 20 or 30 years when the technology arrives, we upload these detailed scans to a machine, which reconfigures the brain circuitry using sophisticated algorithms.’
If all goes well, it may be possible to have an uploaded consciousness that exactly resembles someone’s personality.
From this point, he says, people could transform themselves as an avatar and live in virtual reality.
By then, robotics would be so advanced that you wouldn’t necessarily be able to tell the difference between who is a real human and who is a machine.
‘In the next 20 years we’re going to become cyborgs, we’re going to become healthier, and probably a lot more interesting.’
11 Comments on "Could this be humanity’s LAST century?"
adamc18 on Tue, 19th Jan 2016 4:10 pm
The Daily Mail -Hahahaha!
What on earth is this drivel doing here?
penury on Tue, 19th Jan 2016 4:21 pm
I will never disagree with Ste[hen Hawkings.
Apneaman on Tue, 19th Jan 2016 5:27 pm
“our end will come about as a result of designer babies and artificial intelligence.”
It better crank up the pace because the trifecta of doom, AGW, ocean acidification and the 6th mass extinction, are ahead by 9/10ths of a lap.
Seth Shostak is a religious retard and SETI is a fucking joke. Although I did sort of like the movie Contact.
Alien fantasies are just more terrified apes hoping to be saved by some higher power. Our secular sifi deity. If there were aliens they would not want anything to do with us. Probably view us like we view locust. They would be right and would be doing the rest of the universe and earth species a solid by eradicating us.
shortonoil on Tue, 19th Jan 2016 5:42 pm
It is more likely, “Murphy’s First Law; If it can go wrong, it will”; nanotechnology will get out of hand and they will turn the world into one big puddle of gray goo. Look how well we handled nuclear technology, and that’s child’s play in comparison! The illusion that we can handle any technology that we can create will be what will eventually destroy us. Its a forgone conclusion, if ten million other things, don’t get us first.
Boatk humans can on Tue, 19th Jan 2016 5:45 pm
apeman,
LOL, I see Aliens are now justified in eradicating the human race. Is it acid, mushrooms, or crank that got you rolling today.
Apneaman on Tue, 19th Jan 2016 6:08 pm
Boatk humans can (wtf kinda handle is that?) I’m contractually obligated, by the aliens, to spread the gospel of doom to the monkey peoples of earth. Shrooms is a bonus.
Apneaman on Tue, 19th Jan 2016 6:13 pm
A two-fer. Dr doom and the paranormal people.
SHATTERED REALITY!A paranormal podcast with your hosts Kate Valentine and Fahrusha
Dr. Guy McPherson of “Nature Bats Last” #23
“This episode may be disturbing to many, because our guest causes us to consider the annihilation of homo sapiens and other species due to the ravages that civilization has wrought upon the biosphere of our dear Mother Earth. This conclusion does not arise from one single cause but a variety of contributing factors at play including burgeoning population, temperature rise, methane release, burning of fossil fuels, nuclear meltdowns and death of the oceans to name a few.”
https://shatteredrealitypodcast.wordpress.com/2016/01/16/dr-guy-mcpherson-of-nature-bats-last-23/
Davy on Tue, 19th Jan 2016 6:49 pm
The human mind is amazing. The fantasies we can dream up. Many of the things we dream up we have no business dreaming up especially when we have capabilities. What we have done and what many still want to do is in effect destroying our planet and closing the door on survival for many. We must end this madness we find with these so called best and brightest minds in the world. It is hubris with worship of false prophets. We have a very short time to make some significant changes. This is a very tiny window before our capabilities to save our asses to some degree slams shut.
These techno-optimist are mad men. They should be discredited and their skills put to other uses. What will happen is they will capture the imagination of those with power and money. The great cornucopian game of techno-hopium will continue with tragic results.
All that should matters now is preparation for a journey back in time before we had our modern support systems. This is going to be traumatic and ugly. Our population will be decimated. Our standard of living pummeled. Hopefully this systematic unwind will not happen too fast. Hopefully climate change will not abruptly change too fast. Maybe we can avoid NUK war.
We may have a few years but we could have a few more years if people like we see in this article would be discredited. They will suck valuable resources and knowledge away from activities with a future. These activities revolve around simplifying our lives with focus on living closer to a natural system with localized living and food production. Anything else is a joke.
It may not matter anyway. We have to get the population down to 1BIL or less in a generation. Maybe we should just let these idiots do their thing. If we follow this path we will get to a smaller population and consumption level much quicker.
makati1 on Tue, 19th Jan 2016 7:00 pm
I read the headline and thought this might be a good read. Nope! More hopium and dreams from the wannabee god crowd.
The techie religion is getting out of hand just like all of the other religions. The drugs they are using seem to be getting stronger as we approach the extinction event.
I’m not worried about their plans for our future. Mother Nature is going to take care of us soon, and not in a good way. Wait and see.
theedrich on Wed, 20th Jan 2016 1:58 am
I’m afraid that Mr. Shostak is a few thousand years too late with his millennialisms. At the beginning of recorded history we find myths predicting wonderfulness of all sorts not far off. Indian mythologies are full of the stuff. The Old Testament has stories about a “promised land” the cult deity is supposed to give to a “chosen people.” (Never mind the fact that scholars have found a correlation between the description of the boundaries of that “promised” land [as described in Numbers 34:1-15, Josh. 15:1-12; Ezek 47.13-20] and Levantine territory under Egyptian control at the end of the 13th century B.C.) Christianity and some parts of Judaism hold fervently to the expectation that an “Anointed One” will come (usually “soon”) to establish a heaven on earth for believers. Various parts of Mohammedanism have miscellaneous versions of the same idea.
But it seems that humans have a need to swallow such hopium whole. Otherwise, Shostak & Co. would not be given the time of day. Promising not only infinite BAU, but that all problems will vanish as humans become gods due to techno-miracles, will likely result in a pay raise and more publicity for the fiction writer.
theedrich on Wed, 20th Jan 2016 2:21 am
Denizens of the Third World are not waiting for Shostak’s vision to materialize. They want their paradise NOW. So they are swamping the Camp of the Saints and demanding “their share” of Whitey’s riches. The elites are making vast sums of money bringing in the sludge both as cheap labor and as new voters for the Demonic Party and similar factions in other ex-White countries. If, via futuristic fantasies, Whitey can be convinced to imagine paradise is just around the corner, he can be diverted just long enough to drown his civilization forever. And that will be the end of not only science fiction but science itself.