"Richard Dawkins famously said that a chicken is an egg's way of making another egg. Is a human a computer's way of making another computer? Quite possibly, the software systems that have taken over so many aspects of our lives should themselves be viewed as living beings, part of the natural evolutionary process of life. They are creatures defined by bits, not DNA, and made of silicon and metal, not organic molecules. They are born and they die. Some are simple, with a genetic code of a few thousand bits, and some are extremely complex. Most live short lives, sometimes less than a second, while others live for months or years. Some even have prospects for immortality, prospects better than any organic being. Does it really make sense to view this technology as an emerging new life form on our planet? If so, will this new life form become sentient? Annihilate us? Merge with us, either physically or symbiotically? These systems extend our minds and shape our culture. Are we designing them, or are they designing us? Are we fundamentally different from them, or are we all computer programs, albeit running on different hardware? Lee argues that the assumption made by many that we humans, as cognitive beings, are actually computations ourselves, and thereforedestined to be eclipsed by these digital systems, is a "dataist" faith, a scientifically indefensible belief. I also argue that humanity is rapidly coevolving with technology and that we will change as much we change it"--
Should digital technology be viewed as a new life form, sharing our ecosystem and coevolving with us?
Should digital technology be viewed as a new life form, sharing our ecosystem and coevolving with us?
Are humans defining technology, or is technology defining humans? In this book, Edward Ashford Lee considers the case that we are less in control of the trajectory of technology than we think. It shapes us as much as we shape it, and it may be more defensible to think of technology as the result of a Darwinian coevolution than the result of top-down intelligent design. Richard Dawkins famously said that a chicken is an egg's way of making another egg. Is a human a computer's way of making another computer? To understand this question requires a deep dive into how evolution works, how humans are different from computers, and how the way technology develops resembles the emergence of a new life form on our planet.
Lee presents the case for considering digital beings to be living, then offers counterarguments. What we humans do with our minds is more than computation, and what digital systems do—be teleported at the speed of light, backed up, and restored—may never be possible for humans. To believe that we are simply computations, he argues, is a “dataist” faith and scientifically indefensible. Digital beings depend on humans—and humans depend on digital beings. More likely than a planetary wipe-out of humanity is an ongoing, symbiotic coevolution of culture and technology.
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