Hollywood has been masterful at exploiting humankind’s greatest fear in the modern age – that we will create machines infinitely stronger and smarter than we are – and those machines will terminate our position as the superior creation on the planet. That’s what SkyNet was all about, right? Robots replacing humans at the top of the existential pecking order.
Such an outcome is possible, of course, but having spent the last two years looking at the scientific evidence and philosophical commentary, I’m convinced that something else is far more likely to happen. Instead of being enslaved by machines, we will be liberated by them. We will learn how to harness their technological capabilities and use them to introduce a new era in human history, one I call the Neonaissance (neon ais sance).
What is this new era? What is the Neonaissance?
Everybody who’s made it through middle school has heard of the Renaissance – the rebirth of classical knowledge and culture that transformed Europe in the 14th through the 17th centuries. Unlike the Battle of Bull Run or the name of the 15th president, it’s one of those times in history that seem to stick in our mind and shape our sense of the world in which we live.
The Neonaissance will have a similar – and probably greater – impact on our collective sense of human history. Why? Because it will signal the birth of self-ennoblement, an age when humans will do that which before now only kings and queens could do. “Ordinary” men and women will grant the status of nobility. Not to anyone, but to themselves. They will have discovered how to elevate their own lives by infusing them with both fulfillment and tranquility.
How will that happen?
Ironically, super-strong, super-smart, super-empathetic machines – a genus I call super-capable or “super-C machines” – will liberate humans from the shackles of having to work for a living. When that occurs circa 2118, people will be able, for the first time ever, to choose and immerse themselves in experiences that have purpose and meaning for them. They will have the freedom to employ themselves in endeavors that put them in touch with both their passion (which affords them fulfillment) and their spirituality (which grants them tranquility).
Those realms of being are something only humans can achieve. They are animate experiences. They require a life, something that not even the most intelligent machines will ever acquire. They touch the wellspring of our species. So, when we reach for them – when we shape our lives with passion and spirituality – we lift ourselves up to a nobility machines cannot match and, in the process, ensure our continued superiority on Earth.
Thanks for reading,
Peter
2 responses to “Musings from Circa 2118: Robots Will Take Your Job & Open You to Something Better”
This has a Star Trek optimism to it, which may not prove realistic. The profit motive will not disappear in only a century. And the temptation to manipulate a system to provide a disproportionate amount of it will exist for some. They will, in turn, enlist others to reinforce that disparity by giving them a share (e.g., think corrupt police and military in certain countries). I hope that systems like blockchain will prevent such abuse, but I am not so naive to think loopholes won’t exist, let alone overt manipulation of those systems. But thank you for painting a less dystopian picture of our future, Pete!
Thanks for you comment, Glenn. I’m more aligned with your thinking than you may realize. As I describe in Circa 2118, the next 100 years will be a stern test for the US. In fact, I call it a Second Middle Ages. If we start to prepare now, however – and that’s what I’m working to have happen – I think we can come out of that period with something better than the dispiriting workplace we endure today.