Human integrates computer
Such developments may not have had the intention of creating a global superbrain, but they can still function as the little steps that lead towards that future. And things are moving rapidly, with companies like Facebook working on a Brain Machine Interface (BMI)-project that implants the internet directly into your brain. ‘First we had a few mainframes per country, now every person has their own smartphone. It’s just a small step from where we are now to planting chips in people, like a built-in smartphone that does not require internet.’
Experiments with robots sharing sensor-data with humans have already proven that the human consciousness is not attached to its biological body. A mind could be anywhere, at any time - like in virtual reality. Once detached from its physical manifestation, can a post-individual consciousness develop, like it did in bees and termites?
Superintelligent, or superstupid?
‘If superintelligence will develop, it will develop as a combination of human and artificial intelligence,’ the philosophical anthropologist expects. And just like the script altered our ways of thinking, so will today’s new technological means. ‘Oral cultures were based on direct communication between its members. The development of script allowed us to communicate over larger distances and to think on a more abstract level, but it also led to estrangement. You might regret that, but it is not a path that can be changed.’
‘As an anthropologist, I see that the world around us is getting ever more complex. To deal with issues like the environmental problems we are facing we need to combine human intelligence in a network that allows us to manage these complexities. So I am not against the swarm mind, though personally I do have a problem with the way companies like Google and Facebook use it: to make more money, sell us more stuff we do not need. We may not be able to stop the supermind, but we may be able influence its development. I think we should listen to people like Jaron Lanier, who suggests Google pays us for our likes, instead of vice versa - stop the rich from getting richer, make the system work in a way that promotes equality.’
Jos de Mul studied philosophy, art history and social sciences at the universities of Amsterdam, Utrecht and Nijmegen (The Netherlands). At present he is full professor Philosophy of Man and Culture at the Faculty of Philosophy, Erasmus University Rotterdam. He has also taught at the University of Michigan (Ann Arbor, 2007-2008), Fudan University (Shanghai, 2008), and Ritsumeikan University (Kyoto, 2016). In 2012 he became a visiting fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, USA. From 2005 to 2011 he was Vice-President of the Helmuth Plessner Gesellschaft, and from 2007 to 2010 President of the International Association for Aesthetics.