Tuesday, October 23, 2007

Humanity's place in an AI's world


Having concluded that AIs will eventually permeate society, and that they will be better than humans at anything, where does that leave us?

What will we have left to contribute to society that computers can't? Well... Nothing. Suddenly, it's not computers aiding human society, it's humans holding back computer society.

Well, perhaps we could separate ourselves. We could just form two societies, one of humans and one of robots. But computers are so convenient. We wouldn't just give them up and eventually, AIs would once again permeate human society.

Or perhaps, we'd just dwindle and eventually go extinct. The AIs wouldn't need us. They might not even notice our absence.

What I think will happen is that we'll become computers too. By this time, computers will be immensely powerful, thousands of times more powerful than computers now. Also, advanced will be made in neurobiology, so we'll be able to better understand how memories are formed, and how the mind works in general. So, such advanced computers will be able to simulate a human mind, or in other words, we'll be able to upload our consciousness onto a computer, thus gaining the advantages AI has over us, and keeping our place in the new society.

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