The more advanced and efficient society becomes the greater the reliance on machines, and the more efficient and productive the machines the more advanced the society becomes. Better technology speeds up tasks and reduces waste and inefficiently. Robotics technology will soon reach a point where the ultimate efficiency is achieved by super automation - creating fully self sustaining self propagating automated factories with no human input required.
Computers are one key technology used to automate machinery replacing humans as control
systems. Advances in technology typically result in faster, more efficient and reliable machines.
We find that processes which can be defined precisely can be performed
faster by computer than by the human mind. As we discover the underlying
process and logic behind the way things work the greater diversity of processes
we can automate. Our advanced technology gives us the ability
to do things that we could never dream of doing alone. (try and loosen
a nut without a spanner if you don't believe this). Technology extends
human capabilities far beyond natural capability.
The ultimate symbiosis of man and machine may be to redesign ourselves.
Thus extending human capabilities mentally, physically
and in ways we can only speculate about. Free from human limitations
artificial life will travel to other planets and solar systems and flourish
where the ordinary human physical form or biological life forms could never
hope to survive, or perhaps this may be the only life left capable of surviving
on earth after a natural disaster like an asteroid strike , or we haphazardly
pollute or alter the earth's equilibriums beyond it's habitable limits.
Humans are the most successful species on earth because of our ingenuity ,creativity and technology, and this is will be the source of the evolutionary change which is needed to continue to grow, and will give rise to new ways of life and eventually a new artificial species. Just as the relentless forces of nature carving into the DNA of species upon species over millions of years eventually gave rise to multicellular life, primates, and then homo sapiens. Everywhere forces beyond our control the most powerful of which is humanity it's self, continue to shape the future. To survive people are driven to change and adapt new ideas, forced to higher level branches on a hopefully never ending evolutionary line to survive the challenges the future brings with it. History shows that for us there are only two possibilities extinction or evolution.
Have modern people and societies changed so much we can no longer describe ourselves as just human ? could modern society, organisations, business and it's people exist without machinery, telecommunications , computers, cultural knowledge and technology ? How many people have been directly saved by technology and skills without which they may be dead or injured. Diabetics ,asthmatics, epileptics, and many others rely for day to day survival on manufactured chemicals above and beyond any naturally occurring food source for their survival. Most people have been treated with vaccines , antibiotics, anti inflammatory and other drugs at some stage, viral and bacterial diseases are prevented from decimating the population by modern vaccination methods. People are saved from cancer, severe physical injury and other ailments, with complex surgical techniques. Is a person still just human after they replace their heart, limbs, hearing system, kidneys, lungs even parts of their brain with manufactured items. Is it natural to use our advanced technology to keep humans alive who could never survive without assistance ,or to genetically screen human embryos for certain features or defects. Are people with artificially modified genes still human or are they genetically engineered machines. These are all things which we in the western world take for granted but these things did not exist as little as one hundred years ago. Humans have reached the point where we can not only manipulate our environment and minds as we please, now we can also manipulate our own genetic makeup which makes us what we are, and that of our future generations as well. It seems humans are changing very rapidly indeed, in both genetic makeup and culture.
Many people are working to produce more intelligent machines their ultimate goal being to make machines with full human type intelligence or higher (it should be noted that biologists are conceiving artificially modifying the human genome to make more intelligent and healthier humans as well). Can we ever reach this goal the answer is yes (there are no foreseen barriers which can't be overcome.) we will soon have the capability to design intelligent machines. We can make these machines and give them the same motivation for learning, self improvement and survival that we have. Left to their own devices these machines would eventually follow in our own steps by replicating and eventually designing and creating more advanced versions of themselves just like we have. If machines are able survive and replicate without people, then they truly are alive.
The technology to produce intelligent, self modifying, replicating machinery becomes more advanced every day, if successful this "life form" would have characteristics beyond anything ever seen before - designed and manufactured not evolved and grown and able to pro-actively design their own next generations and mutations. What the world will look like when these machines are completed is something that we can only speculate about.
While it often seems humanity is inadvertently pushing other species to extinction,
we may be about to compensate with a new era of understanding and creation.
Genetics and robotics technology can reinvent life, create
life forms and new species in a myriad of forms beyond imagination. The
present phase of life on earth is about to experience a blooming of new
forms and growth which will go to new levels and beyond the earth itself.
Created 10/3/1999 Last update 10/4/2005 author S.Humble