This article was first published in New Dawn Magazine issue 163, July - August 2017. © Brett Lothian. All pictures used are free use.
Will Humanity Be Obsolete in Elite's Future World of Cyborgs and A.I.?
With the
advent of artificial intelligence, cybernetics and the ever growing problem of
humans being replaced by machines, we must ask the question, are the lower
ranks of the human caste system being made obsolete? Are we creating a world
where the average Joe is no longer needed? I think the answer is a resounding
yes. The fact is that machines are constantly being created to take over the
work of the working class, from factories to the local supermarket checkout, we
are slowly but surely being replaced by machines, so the super-rich elite can
make even more money. Unfortunately we are even taking an active role in this,
by using technology for the sake of ease and convenience. Worse still, is the
advancement of cybernetics or transhumanism, for the elite. Elon Musk of SpaceX
and Tesla fame has been working on a Neuralink, a human-computer brain
interface company. Neuralink’s ultimate aim may actually be the most ambitious
of all three of his companies, surprisingly, the foundational ideas behind
Neuralink goes deep within what Musk hopes to achieve by creating better,
higher-bandwidth connections between our brains and computers.
Basically,
Musk’s vision would enable direct “uncompressed” communication of concepts
between people and machines, Neuralink’s tech aims will also be able to help humans
keep pace with the rapid advances in A.I., and would achieve this by basically
integrating A.I. with human consciousness. Neuralink’s tech would enable human
use of A.I. as just an additional faculty, like our sense of selves or other
higher in-brain thought faculties or perhaps vice versa. Making it possible to
connect with such a high bandwidth directly into the brain would allow us to
integrate cloud-based A.I. computing within ourselves in a way that’s
indistinguishable from our core selves. Getting worried yet? Musk says that
it’s probably going to be at least “eight to 10 years” before technology the
company produces can be used by someone without a disability. Neuralink is
aiming to create therapeutic applications of its tech first, which will likely
help as it seeks the necessary regulatory approvals for human trials. In other
words, the disabled will be the altruistic guise and Guinea pigs for the
inception of these technologies, which later on only the elite will be able to
afford.
The science
may seem a bit science-fiction, but Stanford University has already
successfully created a brain-computer interface (BCI), BrainGate, and early BCI
tech allows people with paralysis to type messages on a computer by picking out
letters on a screen. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is
investing $60 million over four years to develop implantable neural interface
technology. “The program, Neural Engineering System Design (NESD), stands to
dramatically enhance research capabilities in neurotechnology,” DARPA’s website
reads. “Today’s best brain-computer interface systems are like two
supercomputers trying to talk to each other using an old 300-baud modem,” said
Phillip Alvelda, the NESD program manager. “Imagine what will become possible
when we upgrade our tools to really open the channel between the human brain
and modern electronics.” To me, the Borg from Star Trek comes to mind. To the
great detriment of the majority of us, who actually like being human, the
technology isn’t that far away from becoming a reality, in comments published
by Vanity Fair, Musk said “for a meaningful partial-brain interface, I think
we’re roughly four or five years away.” When the assimilation starts thereafter
is anyone’s guess.
As reported
in New Dawn Issue 151, within the next 200 years, humans will become so merged
with technology that we would evolve into “God-like cyborgs”, says Yuval Noah
Harari, a historian and author from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Harari
researches the history of the human species, and after writing a new book on
our past, he now believes that we’re just a few centuries away from being able
to use technology to avoid death altogether – if we can afford it, that is. “I
think it is likely in the next 200 years or so Homo sapiens will upgrade
themselves into some idea of a divine being, either through biological
manipulation or genetic engineering by the creation of cyborgs: part organic, part
non-organic,” however, as Harari said only the wealthiest would benefit from
‘cyborg’ technology, making the gap between rich and poor in society even wider,
perhaps to the point of becoming entirely different species. He said that in
the future the super-rich elite may be immortal while the poor would die out.
In regards to the poor, perhaps he should more correctly say, killed off for
being “useless eaters” as Prince Phillip likes to call us who are not in the
elite.
The scary
truth seems to be that the dystopian future (for the majority) that Harari
envisions may come about far quicker than he imagined. Technology is racing
ahead at such a breakneck pace that society is struggling to come to terms with
it. Already we utilize far too much technology than we really need. We are
outsourcing our abilities to technology and it is only getting worse as time
goes on. Today, young people are struggling more than ever with simple tasks
like spelling and arithmetic, because we now have machines that do it all for
us. As a species we are devolving at an alarming rate, losing our intellectual
and physical abilities, our muscle mass, brain size and bone density are on the
rampant downslide. Whilst some may see technology and interfacing with it as
the answer, literally becoming immortal Gods over the less fortunate mere
mortals, but in reality all we are doing is rushing headlong into our own doom,
for all of us. Once we have merged with a superior artificial intelligence,
what is to stop the A.I. from taking control of us? How will we even be able to
distinguish the A.I. programming, from our own thoughts? Will it be us (well,
the elite anyway) running the technology, or the technology running us? Scary
thoughts indeed.
If we
continue on this path that has been set out for us by the elite, we will all
too soon end up with a world where the super-rich elite get to live in their
transhumanist utopia mega-cities, striving for immortality and Godhood, run by
machines, with the rest of us being surplus to requirements. According to the super-rich
elite there is already a vast surplus of human resources (otherwise known as
people) and that will only continue to grow with the ever increasing use of
machines and A.I., even as the population shrinks due to the elite depopulation
agenda. Perhaps some indigenous tribes will be kept as a curiosity, considered
mere fauna in parks to be either gawked at or hunted for sport, perhaps not. Perhaps
some of us will be kept around in a dumbed down state or completely over ridden
by A.I., to press the buttons of the machines or more likely to be used as
organ farms and subjects for experimentation. Whatever the future holds, if we continue
down the path we are currently on, life will not be worth living for the vast
majority of us. If we are even still cognizant of being alive or worse yet,
even allowed to live at all.
References:
Elon Musk’s
Neuralink wants to turn cloud-based AI into an extension of our brains. By
Darrell Etherington
https://techcrunch.com/2017/04/20/elon-musks-neuralink-wants-to-turn-cloud-based-ai-into-an-extension-of-our-brains/
Elon Musk’s
Transhumanist Agenda With Neuralink To Create Cyborgs. By Aaron Kesel
https://wearechange.org/elon-musks-transhumanist-agenda-neuralink-create-cyborgs/