>In 1966, Sagan and Shklovskii speculated that technological civilizations will either tend to destroy themselves within a century of developing interstellar communicative capability or master their self-destructive tendencies and survive for billion-year timescales. Self-annihilation may also be viewed in terms of thermodynamics: insofar as life is an ordered system that can sustain itself against the tendency to disorder, Stephen Hawking's "external transmission" or interstellar communicative phase, where knowledge production and knowledge management is more important than transmission of information via evolution, may be the point at which the system becomes unstable and self-destructs.Here, Hawking emphasizes self-design of the human genome (transhumanism) or enhancement via machines (e.g., brain–computer interface) to enhance human intelligence and reduce aggression, without which he implies human civilization may be too stupid collectively to survive an increasingly unstable system. For instance, the development of technologies during the "external transmission" phase, such as weaponization of artificial general intelligence or antimatter, may not be met by concomitant increases in human ability to manage its own inventions. Consequently, disorder increases in the system: global governance may become increasingly destabilized, worsening humanity's ability to manage the possible means of annihilation listed above, resulting in global societal collapse.
So which is more realistic and more likely to be implemented?
> self-design of the human genome
or
> enhancement via machines (e.g., brain–computer interface)
taking into account that
> to enhance human intelligence and reduce aggression, without which he implies human civilization may be too stupid collectively to survive an increasingly unstable system
is a goal.
So which is more realistic and more likely to be implemented?
> self-design of the human genome
or
> enhancement via machines (e.g., brain–computer interface)
taking into account that
> to enhance human intelligence and reduce aggression, without which he implies human civilization may be too stupid collectively to survive an increasingly unstable system
is a goal.
