#2: Stones to iPhones to Brain Chips

The purpose of this article is to answer the first question from the list of questions we published in Letter 1. "The Key Questions that Brain Chips Raise"

Specifically: "Questions about our evolution: Will brain chips fundamentally change our species?"

Letter #2. First set of questions - on Evolution;

We are entering a pivotal period in human history, requiring new nomenclature for our species.?

From the dawn of the species 'Homo' we have had a dualistic relationship with our tools - user and object.

We are about to enter a monistic era where we gradually merge with our tools and become one.

It was arguably our invention of the first stone tools, and our Dualistic relationship with them, that defined our species as Homo.

What happens to us when we become one with these tools, in their modern day incarnation as tech?

It may be the beginning of a period in history so transformative that it demands an entirely new nomenclature; our vocabulary for describing our place in the world simply may not be up to the task.

Getting an eerie feeling as you read this? You’re not alone.

To understand what is happening, what we can do about it, let's first take a brief look into where it all began.?

It was during a fateful, species-defining moment 2.6M years ago that a particularly creative Homo Habilis wandered the African Savannah and picked up a rock, chipped it on its edge and invented the very first tool: the badassly-named Oldowan Chopper (otherwise known by archeologists as the “Mode 1 Rock”).

Our ancestors used it to perform a diverse set of tasks (indeed, it was the first platform play!) including (1) to dig for tubers (2) to chop wood and (3) as a surrogate tooth - enabling us to cut through grain and become carnivores.

And its benefits went far beyond nutrition and convenience; the tool enabled such a dramatic change in protein intake that our brain size doubled.

What a marvel: our first tool was used to increase our brains from Australopithecus' 440cc to early Homo Erectus 930cc! This was a hint of things to come…

?There was no grand keynote, no "it's a browser, an MP3 player and a phone!" moment, just another day in the savannah.

And it changed everything. From that point on, for another 1.2M years this was the bleeding edge tech—a pun our ancestors certainly earned—and our primary, species-defining tool.

One day, a Homo Erectus used their brand new swanky 930 cc brain to figure out they can chip the other side of the rock, creating the Mode 2 rock, or Hand-Axe.?

This was so much more flexible, and unlike the Mode 1 that was typically discarded after use, the Mode 2 was carried on the user’s body from site to site. Was this the first wearable? I digress.

I recently had a conversation with Yuval Noah Harrari about his books Sapiens and Homo -Deus (very useful readings for my articles to follow), and it helped frame the relationship I had seen between tool use and brain evolution.?

To make a long (hi)story short: we leave Africa about 2.6M years later, take over the world one tool at a time, then devour most other large animal species with our more advanced "Mode 2-5 Rocks".?

We grow our brains some more, and use our capacity for development tools to create entire institutions: money, written language, communities for trading the spoils our tools reap, documentation of ownership, and everything else the modern world is built on. An intelligent species in a nutshell. (Thanks, Yuval, for keeping it simple!)?

?But there’s an interesting pattern underlying all of this.??

As dramatic as the evolution has been from the Mode 1 Chopper to the Mode 2 Hand-Axe to the iPhone 13 Pro Max, they all have something in common: they are, in essence, physically independent objects we carry in our hands and pockets.?

We use them to interact with the world around us when we need them, and we put them away when we don’t.?

?It’s the paradigm that unites virtually every tool in human history, from stone to bronze to silicon to digital bits.?

And it’s about to change.?

Over the last few years an entirely novel way to conceptualize technology has been developing behind closed doors; a host of smart people—including the company I am part of, Inner Cosmos—began building a new relationship between us with our tools, a direct merger between our brains and computers - one that may soon transcend the “Tool in Hand” paradigm we’ve evolved with altogether.?

This paradigm is called Brain Computer Interfaces (BCI), or, more simply, brain chips, and it’s every bit as revelatory as it sounds.?

Equal parts technology and philosophy, it blends the most advanced science of our age—our dawning understanding of the brain, extreme miniaturization, and user experience in the most demanding environment imaginable—with the very questions that have puzzled human thinkers for millennia.?

Namely, what does it mean to be human? And what happens if that changes?

Needless to say, there’s a lot to discuss. And in the articles ahead, it’s my goal to foster a conversation that takes us to the furthest reaches of each of these topics, and many more—including more than a few, I’m sure, we haven’t even thought of yet. Like anything worth doing in life, the prospect fills me with as much anxiety as it does excitement.

?To sum up: suffice it to say our relationship with our tools is about to change dramatically, entering a monistic relationship where the lines between user and tool - human and machine - may become blurred.?

This can possibly change the very way we define our species.?

Now, if you are asking yourself lots of questions right now, including who is this dude telling me our species is about to change, I did my job.?

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