Do you think you know yourself,
as well as what drives you
and the world around you?
We might consider the times we live in
to be crazy,
stressful and chaotic,
but there is one thing we know for sure about the present:
it is humans who rule the world.
In his writings, Yuval Noah Harari
examined the history of humankind with a keen eye,
subsequently turning his attention to its future.
So, let's see what do we know about ourselves, by now?
Well, on a large scale, humans overcame famine,
epidemics
and war.
And while these still persist,
they are something to be "fixed"
– the sooner the better –
but they're not a real threat
to the overall survival of our species.
Famine has turned into malnutrition,
which is slowly and hopefully disappearing,
diseases are being studied and controlled,
and war on a nuclear level,
would be devastating for all parties,
leaving no one as the sole survivor.
After having overcome these adversities,
humans soon set their sights elsewhere
better health,
better lives,
better selves.
This is us,
here,
now,
trying to become gods,
to reach immortality,
bliss,
and unimaginable powers.
How did humans arrive at this stage –
to the total control of the ecosystem,
from being just another mammalian species in Africa?
The first revolution was cognitive.
Which really makes humans special
– and by special we mean
powerful above all others –
is their ability to cooperate flexibly
with one another,
in large numbers
and with an outstanding imagination.
It is through storytelling that humans crafted their way
to technical progress and eventually
to the domination of the planet.
But how exactly did they manage this?
Well, they made an "agricultural deal" with the gods.
It is through belief
that they shaped their world.
Humans would be given power
over everything on the planet,
in exchange for faith in supernatural beings.
Animals would be entirely at their disposal
and humans would rule over the world,
under the imagined command of almighty gods,
acting as a bridge
between the divine and the mundane.
Empires were formed
with the birth of writing and money,
and empires fell.
One group of people met another
and over time they progressed,
triggering the scientific revolution.
This one would change things drastically,
doing away with the gods.
Why keep them then,
when humans can explain and control
more and more of what was previously deemed unknowable?
Humans became the center of the universe,
each human for himself,
unique as a snowflake.
Liberalism did wonders for this creed,
for if the individual knows best,
the consumer knows best,
the voter knows best
and all revolves around him or her.
But as scientists begin to poke at our brains
and organisms in more depth,
they are noticing more and more that we lack
what it was that previously made us so special.
No soul was found,
no matter how much they looked for it.
And what's so special about a couple of neurons firing anyway?
Humans became to be seen as complex algorithms
and nothing more.
And if one actually considers it fully,
humans don't possess just one single self.
They are conflicted inside,
wanting this,
and this,
and this,
not knowing themselves as well as they think they do.
With enough of your personal data and information,
Facebook can know more about you
than your friends and even your partner.
The big question is:
how long before each of us has an app
as a personal assistant,
which knows how to keep us happy
and functioning better
than we know how to function alone?
And
what
would be
so bad
about
that
anyway?
Well, if humans are only complex algorithms,
then electronic algorithms
can be more complex than us,
and might overpower us in knowledge
in a not so distant future.
What use will we be
if most jobs are fulfilled by computers?
Of course, this is just one path for the future
but
it is not unlikely.
Rarely do humans invent
new,
core values,
however one is emerging that might shape
the lives of our children and grandchildren,
and could even affect us in our lifetimes.
That is
information wants to be free.
If information itself is valuable,
and algorithms of information could one day
operate the earth and all there is in it,
what will we humans still be good for?
This possible new religion,
known as dataism,
commands us to maximise the data flow,
share and consume all information,
and connect everything to the network.
You might think you know yourself,
but Google and Facebook might soon be able
to tell who you really are,
what you like
and what you really want to do,
better
than you can.
So, what is more valuable to us,
consciousness
or intelligence?
Hint:
If we look closely at how we still,
in this day and age,
treat other conscious beings
of lesser intelligence than ours,
it could give us a glimpse of how
we too will be treated.
We're just wondering…
what would the world look like
if non-conscious,
but highly intelligent algorithms
came to know us
better
than we knew ourselves?
Subtitles by the Amara.org community
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