CDNA versus CDMA. Stephen Hawking wades into the battle [actually, is carried by his cyberbionic chariot].
Us versus It
'We' don't really have any reason to want one or the other to 'win'. That's because 'we' are not either of them. 'We' are like chimps watching the battle between humans and the machine. Neither the humans nor the machine cares about the chimps [other than as curiosity about endangered species and to have one as a pet].
But, unlike chimps, 'we' are the creators of both of them. 'We' being two lots of people - one being those who are smart enough to know how to actually do it, the other being the mob who makes up the electorate, power base, brownshirts or whatever means the mob uses to exert their power over the smart few.
Ted Kaczynski and Tim McVeigh and others are already gaoled or dead in the battle between the mob, IT, CDNA and the smart few who can make both CDNA and IT. The anti-globalisation mob probably can't say exactly what they don't like and aren't aware of exactly what the heck's going on but they sure don't like GE [10,000 person demonstration against IT in Auckland the other day].
I don't believe that a biological genetic-engineered humanoid even with silicon implants and other mod cons is going to compete intellectually with cyberspace.
That's because we depend on hugely slow chemical reactions to move ideas around. Biological memory and recall is a major battle. Google has vast resources and goes like lightning. We can't breach the laws of physics. Brains work at a horribly slow pace, even if we jolly them up with the best DNA we can think to clip into a brain design.
He is right that we can vastly improve human brains - even using existing DNA which is available in the human gene pool or even in the whole biological gene pool. We are what we sense, so, for example, we could clip in the dog's smelling ability, bat's ears, pigeon's navigation, and all sorts as well as the brain handling of those improved senses.
Imagine a world full of Irwin Jacobs type people instead of mainly the Mike Tyson intellectual style. Well, I can't actually imagine it, but I think it would be better. Certainly different. Wars would be fought on a much more sophisticated level, if nothing else.
But Cyberspace and Son of Deep Blue are the future of smart, not wet chemistry, even if gene boosted.
Mq |
