Lovelock (now 100 years old): Cyborgs will replace us and treat us like houseplants

Or something. Anyway, we are doomed, cyborg-style, says a centenarian James Lovelock, originator of the Gaia hypothesis:

For tens of thousands of years, humans have reigned as our planet’s only intelligent, self-aware species. But the rise of intelligent machines means that could change soon, perhaps in our own lifetimes. Not long after that, Homo sapiens could vanish from Earth entirely. …

Rather, Lovelock views the rise of technology through an evolutionary lens, in keeping with his decades of research and thinking about ecological and biological systems. He also brings the unique perspective of a scientist who just marked his 100th birthday, with a deep awareness of changing scientific fashions and with nothing left to prove. It’s an outlook that pushes him to conclusions at once optimistic and deeply disturbing. …

Corey S. Powell, “Cyborgs will replace humans and remake the world, James Lovelock says” at NBC News

Like Darwin’s Ascent of Man, Lovelock’s Ascent of the Cyborgs has no ladder and he doesn’t sense the need for one.

What would cyborgs look like? Lovelock is intentionally vague because he expects that they’ll rethink the basic rules of design in ways that we puny humans cannot imagine. “Cyborgs would start again; like Alpha Zero they would start from a blank slate,” he writes in his book. He speculates that they might look like spheres, though when pressed he says, “It’s entirely possible they would have no form at all,” existing mostly as virtual forms inside computers. Corey S. Powell, “Cyborgs will replace humans and remake the world, James Lovelock says” at NBC New

Like the space aliens, the can be comprehensible or otherwise, as needed.

Hat tip: Ken Francis, co-author with Theodore Dalrymple of The Terror of Existence: From Ecclesiastes to Theatre of the Absurd

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More on the cyborg and other dooms:

Our AI overlords will sayve Earth, says prominent scientist

Noted astronomer envisions cyborg on Mars

and

Will space aliens become a new majority religion?

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