Throwback to two million years ago…
Caveman A shouted, “Woogah! Fire! Cook! Good!”
Caveman B refuted, “Fire! Burn! Pain! Bad!”
Okay, they definitely did not speak English, but we all know what would happen in the upcoming millenniums.
Fire provided our ancestors with better food, protection and productivity. Indeed, fire could be dangerous and deadly, yet it was undeniably the most important catalyst that fuelled humans’ evolution.
Fast forward to today. Are we witnessing the beginning point of a new evolutionary wave, this time brought by artificial intelligence (AI)?
I recently came across the term “singularity”, of which a futurist, Ray Kurzweil, boldly predicted human minds will come to a merge with AI sometime in the mid-21st Century.
The concept first sparks senses of excitement and curiosity in me- Does that mean we are receiving another major upgrade for our intellect?
For the cavemen who knew nothing but survival rules, they had not the slightest clue what the hullabaloo would be for something we now call mathematics, literature, space travel, and much more.
So, what about us? When the day of human-AI merging comes true, will we be enlightened with more fields of knowledge that we have never reached of?
Imagine a device that allows us to undo mistakes in our real life, just like how we hit Ctrl+z and things revert to their previous good state.
A revolved medicine that stops ageing at our peak age.
Commercialised space flights to Jupiter, Neptune, or even Uranus.
Or the simplest, an average human brain that could thoroughly process an essay of a thousand words within a minute.
Like my AI companion comments, we can hardly call out something beyond our current boundaries of knowledge.
But, the question is, how many of us are wholeheartedly willing to embrace this evolution without any fear?
Setting aside the remaining technological constraints to be overcome, what about the imperfections in humans that might make us afraid, hesitant, or reject it?
If we trace back the path of the cavemen, it was those who dared to master fire shaped the upcoming human ages. Similarly, in most species, evolution created better descendants. Perhaps with AI coming into the game, a new, inevitable revolution of humans will come upon too.
Hoh Chee Meng is a content creator under the Newswav Creator programme, where you get to express yourself, be a citizen journalist, and at the same time monetize your content & reach millions of users on Newswav. Log in to creator.newswav.com and become a Newswav Creator now!
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