BEGIN
Like an errant kid the world is surely bent on killing itself. This time around even the cockroaches won’t be spared.
If you think that someone is going to throw a nuclear bomb, think about it, who wants to die when MAD (mutually assured destruction) is a known consequence? Not even a super power wants to be an overlord of a nuclear wasteland.
Technology is advancing at such a rapid clip that one day we are going to reach what is called Singularity – that point when the line between man and machine is blurred beyond recognition. Or worse still when machine blurs out the memory of men.
Think about it, once you do a machine that can make itself better, the end is nigh. And this is possible. While at the university my project was on genetic algorithm and I coded a simple program that increasingly makes itself increasingly better. So imagine smart guys coding a software that can recode itself better and better each day. One day it would be smarter than human and we are all going to have new overlords.
Watch Transcendence and see what is possible. It is not a joke. Trust me, Terminator would be a Mickey Mouse to what could happen. Time travel is another thing though.
Some scientists are already talking about this and for the first time top minds are calling attention of the world leaders on what could be humanity’s last invention. You never know maybe we human are some inventions that went awry in the past. For Christians, even the bible pointed to it at Genesis 6:6.
Truth is a smart machines first move would be to wipe humanity off. We are bad and mean to each other. We destroy the environment. We waste resources.
Sometimes I can’t argue if we don’t really deserve this fate?
Along the line, a smart benevolent machine could dig up our DNA and restore memories. Would they invent emotions? Will they end up organic? Will they have aspirations? Will they study the past?
Just wondering what I could ask this machine when it finally takes over – what is your purpose? It’s probably going to make a nasty grunt, twitch its digital nose and reach for CRTL-ALT-DEL.
END
Discover more from Adedeji Olowe
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.