Worzel's World - A matter of Survival

 

Dinosaurs were, mostly, large powerful beasts with very thick skin who dominated their environment. With the exception of the small retiring tuatara they are no more. The sabre tooth tiger was fast and fearsome. This consummate predator can no longer run down an antelope, tackle it with razor sharp claws and crush its neck in vice grip jaws. These too have failed the test of time. The moa and the dodo were large, tasty, stupid, flightless birds, their chances of long-term survival were never great. These, like so many others, were hunted into extinction. 

Humans cannot uproot trees with ivory tusks or harvest food with their trunk. We cannot glide effortlessly through the limitless oceans catching and eating fresh fish. We don’t climb trees very well or swoop down from the skies onto unsuspecting rodents, nor can we live on a diet of grass. Yet year by year more species of animal become extinct whilst the number of humans on the globe increases exponentially. 

What is it that separates man from the animals? Round here it is only the front door, but in general our survival has depended on the advantage of abstract thought and an ability to communicate. I get on very well with most animals. Sadly, I find people more difficult. Like Dr Dolittle I can understand some animal languages. The various pig dialects are easy enough. Most of their conversations, though, lack intellectual rigour and, like those of football players, are principally about either food or sex.  Humans can, if they so choose, discuss the relative merits of, say, Madonna over Brittany Spears. Although why anyone would want to do this is a mystery, but it is something we can do that animals cannot. Many may think animals fortunate in this. 

We have thrived while many seemingly better-equipped species amongst our animal counterparts have either thrown in the towel or are struggling in the fight for survival. However this business too is still ongoing and it may be that the cockroach will outlast us all. 

In our advantages though lies our greatest threat. Had they survived, neither the woolly mammoth, the sabre tooth tiger, nor the dodo for that matter would have developed nuclear intercontinental ballistic missiles. Since the mid 1960’s mankind has had sufficient quantities of these to render practically everything extinct in less time than it takes a sabre tooth tiger to scoff an antelope.

We have learned to live with such a powerfully explosive threat to the continuance of life on earth. Recently we have developed another threat that may well challenge mankind’s long held dominion over the earth and its creatures. Artificial intelligence, and what is called trans-humanism may, like a malignant parasite, undermine humanity from within. 

Artificial intelligence has many advantages over its authentic human counterpart. It has no bias and is not influenced by emotion. It has no need of food or sleep. It works faster for longer and is more reliable. Already robots have taken over many tasks once performed by people. Provided all the connections are wired correctly and the power is on, AI makes no mistakes. There is now talk of implants in the brain that will connect humans to an all-pervasive data cloud. This is but a logical next step from the hand held devices increasingly connected externally to eye and ear. 

There are many who maintain that humans are no more than intelligent animals. If we admit that the ability to process information is the source of intelligence then we must also admit that humanity is in the process of creating an intelligence greater than our own with more potential than ourselves. This type of technology already has the ability not only to replicate itself but to design improved versions. This is in effect a god of sorts. But is it a god that we want, and how would such a god of our own creation treat us? With an absence of empathy or indeed any human emotion it might logically deal with us in the same way we treated the dodo and the moa.

If intellect alone is the extent of human consciousness then the absorption of humanity into a cyber world would be no loss. If, however, we subscribe to the existence of spirit and soul; if life and choice is comprised of more than the correct assessment and correlation of available data; if such things as fear, anger, hatred, lust, pride, envy, greed, faith, hope and love actually exist and have vital and indispensable rolls to play in our human drama; if this is what defines us rather than cold hard facts and dispassionate logic then the push towards increasing dependence on invasive artificial intelligence must be resisted.

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We have learned to live with such a powerfully explosive threat to the continuance of life on earth. Artificial intelligence, and what is called trans-humanism may, like a malignant parasite, undermine humanity from within.