The Augmented Olympics
If robotics and AI play out as many expect, we could find that humanity will become something of a collective term, referring to a spectrum of human conditions:
- Traditional humans.
- Chemically-enhanced humans (using eg. testosterone, gene therapy).
- Physically-enhanced humans (using eg. prosthetics, turbo-charged organs, brain bolt-ons).
- Robots with human cognitive abilities.
Very few of us fit into the traditional human category, unless we are a paleo diet eschewer of digital technology.
Possibly we could have Olympics for each of these humanity-variants? It seems that today we have a combination of the first three groupings. This is of course not fair on the ‘traditional’ athletes. These Olympics could also be a test of mental abilities as well as physical. Maybe the best from each Olympics enters an Uber Olympics. But where would we find a sponsor?
This could work in our favour, if we constrained each ‘enhanced’ category to only use technologies that will benefit mankind, and nature, in the longer term.
Over the last fifty or so years we have seen a move away from sport as a vehicle for the pursuit of excellence to the pursuit of highly profitable entertainment. Thus we would need to be careful that the rules of the games are focused on benefiting humanity and not the short term interests of shareholders.
The pursuit of excellence is essential if we are to evolve. Our evolution started to converge with that of the technology industry the day we first used a spear to achieve an objective. Convergence is inevitable. But maybe we can manage this convergence in a graceful manner by acknowledging what is happening and not losing sight of what we once were.
About the author Ade McCormack advises organizations on the near future, particularly in respect of the digital economy and the associated anthroeconomic implications.
