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<\/a><\/p>\nDan Falk \u00a0| \u00a0MACH
\nNBC News<\/p>\n
Evolution is a slow affair, taking some 5 million years to turn a chimpanzee-like creature into us. But what happens when we push down the accelerator and take command of our bodies and brains instead of leaving it to nature? What happens when biotechnology and artificial intelligence merge, allowing us to re-design our species to meet our whims and desires?<\/p>\n
Historian Yuval Noah Harari explores these questions in his runaway bestseller, “Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow<\/a>,” a kind of sequel to his 2014 book, “Sapiens.” The title of his new book suggests a startling stage in our evolution: Homo sapiens (\u201cwise man\u201d), far from being the pinnacle of creation, is a temporary creature, one soon to be replaced by Homo deus (\u201cgod man\u201d).<\/p>\n \u201cIt is very likely, within a century or two, Homo sapiens, as we have known it for thousands of years, will disappear,\u201d Harari\u00a0told an audience<\/a>at the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs recently. \u201cNot because, like in some Hollywood science fiction movie, the robots will come and kill us, but rather because we will use technology to upgrade ourselves \u2014 or at least some of us \u2014 into something different; something which is far more different from us than we are different from Neanderthals.\u201d<\/p>\n Harari makes no pretense of being able to peer into the future \u2014 but the advances humans have made suggest where we may be heading. Breakthroughs in biotechnology, including gene-editing methods like\u00a0CRISPR<\/a>, hint at the power we\u2019ll soon have to change our genes, our bodies, and perhaps our brains.<\/p>\n At the same time, advances in artificial intelligence, including\u00a0machine learning<\/a>, may soon let us build brain-computer interfaces that will blur the line between man and machine. So far, we\u2019ve muddled along as biological creatures, but we may one day become something new \u2014 a novel mix of the biological and the technological; of flesh and silicon.<\/p>\n Professor Yuval Noah Harari\u00a0NurPhoto Via Getty Images \/ Jonathan Nicholson\/NurPhoto<\/p><\/div>\n Harari said we\u2019re already moving in that direction: We depend on our smartphones for a staggering number of decisions every day \u2014 and that dependence is growing.<\/p>\n \u201cIn 2050, it is likely that your smartphone will not be separate from you at all,\u201d Harari said by e-mail from his home in Israel. \u201cIt will be embedded in your body via biometric sensors, and it will monitor your heart rate, your blood pressure, and your brain activity 24 hours a day.\u201d Your smartphone will constantly analyze that data, and \u201cwill, therefore, know your desires, likes, and dislikes even better than you.\u201d We see versions of this today, with our Amazon accounts, which seem to know our taste in books and music better than we do.<\/p>\n Humanity has been through revolutions before, but this one will be different, Harari said. When our ancestors first picked up stone tools to hack away at an animal carcass, some 2 million years ago, it was a game-changer \u2014 but it primarily changed our culture, not our bodies. Now we\u2019re entering a new era, in which rather than using tools, the tools might be using us.<\/p>\n \u201cPeople are delegating more responsibility to AI and they are already merging with their smartphones and their Facebook accounts,\u201d Harari said. \u201cThese are no longer dumb tools like a hammer or a knife \u2014 they are intelligent entities that constantly study us, adapt to our unique personality, and actively shape our worldview and our innermost desires.\u201d<\/p>\n In the future Harari envisions, we\u2019ll gradually merge with machines thanks to biometric sensors and brain-computer interfaces. This may sound like science fiction, but it\u2019s already a reality. At Miguel Nicolelis\u2019s lab at Duke University\u2019s Center for Neuroengineering, patients with spinal cord injuries can use\u00a0a brain-machine interface to control a motorized \u201cexoskeleton\u201d\u00a0<\/a>to regain some sensation and muscle control in damaged limbs.<\/p>\n \u201cHumans will merge with computers and machines to form cyborgs \u2014 part-organic, part-bionic life forms,\u201d Harari said. \u201cYou could surf the Internet with your mind; you could use bionic arms, legs, and eyes; you will augment your organic immune system with a bionic immune system, and you will delegate more and more decisions to algorithms that know you better than you know yourself.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/a>BLURRING THE HUMAN-MACHINE BOUNDARY<\/h3>\n
“We will use technology to upgrade <\/strong>
\nourselves … into something different.”<\/strong><\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n