WHAT IF?
Peter Nelson
Economist and Fellow Chartered Accountant, as an International Financial Consultant have carried out assignments for all major international donors in many countries.
WHAT IF?
What if humans were not constrained by their physical being and the brilliance of their minds retained for future development?
Except we have become constrained in the standard theory of evolution not looking past that, while at the same time witnessing the continued changes in the universe even if only understanding a part of it. Humans still can't get past how it is easier to believe in stories to justify that the universe has some meaning. Humans simply accept that they are born, procreate, move on and die. That’s it. ?
As herd animals following natural selection, you know you have to pass on and no one is going to commit suttee and volunteer to accompany you. But should not humans refuse to accept their eventual extinction along with the other now 99.9% of species which have passed and keep looking for some future outcome planning ahead. Again, we are born, live, procreate then have to die. I ask why? Just because as with animals who see it as just what it is, why do we have to just accept that? ?
The possible response to this Big Question seems so farfetched that no one takes it seriously but just think for a moment. What we have is computers and AI which can work faster than humans ever will on information humans put into them. They are now at the stage beyond that where they can gather their own information, interact and repair themselves. They can answer almost any question except can’t yet determine what question to ask. Think about that for a moment. Back to the Big QUESTION which for now remains with humans. Can the computer yet have a desire built in to replicate itself even if Yuval Harare says it can identify sexuality better than humans having known he was homosexual before he did??
And yes, AI can now even clone itself to an individual and that person’s life span and know more about the identity, feelings, choices etc. than the person would know themselves. It can store and build on that data. From this and the rapid increase of AI capability integrating with an individual it will soon be able to make suggestions and become part of a person’s being while alive and be able to programme an ongoing future interaction after the person has died keeping the algorithms going with inbuilt interfaces. Anyone else still get messages online from web sites of people who died some time ago??I get yearly reminders to send birthday wishes to people I know don't physically exist anymore.
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OK, to date, the body dies and retaining an aged body with freezing is an unlikely option [Stephen Hawkins would agree] but since certain countries have succeeded in their [illegal human] cloning experiments not to be admitted to because human perception can’t handle definition of gender let alone cloning, would it not then be possible to interface an individual’s personality and life time memory via AI into the cloned younger body to then continue life with all the knowledge and attributes of the original? Obviously many further problems arise beyond the ethical such as gender of the next body, do the clones reproduce physically and how many of these will be needed, what sort of people would one want to recreate and what happens to those who miss out? These along with many ethical questions would ask, why would you want to???
The point of raising this issue is that AI possibilities of this nature are just around the corner and need to be considered in light of the evolution of the human species which might survive but not perhaps in a form we would like since large strong bodies would no longer be demanded as against easy transportable ones. The big issue will logically become not in achieving what is suggested here but rather how one deals then with Harare's postulated ''useless people'' but that is a separate questions that AI will resolve when handed the QUESTION.??
But in the end towards infinity, humans [in ultimate changing forms] towards permanent survival would also need to establish settlements on other planets so if humans on earth are destroyed by some atomic war, or with an asteroid, or by a Covid type plague, life would continue elsewhere, perhaps not with humans as they are now but it will have defeated this otherwise perceived conclusion that death is inevitable. And remember how when a person’s persona could be enshrined in an AI bubble it could be sent off into the universe over thousands of light years to be activated pristine on arrival...
All too much to handle? Perhaps just continue accepting the dying...
www.pjnelsonco.com