Synthetic Super Intelligence and the Transmutation of Humankind

Chapter 5: The Race for Immortality
AI, and the Singularity. One of the great risks is, according to the same
group, “[i]ntelligent technology: A network of computers could develop a
mind of its own. Machines could direct resources towards their own goals
at the expense of human needs, such as food, and threaten mankind.” 113
If the media, however, are elevating this group to being superheroes
in people’s minds, there is reason to be cautious here. Not everybody is
buying it, thinking CSER might be working for the Establishment.
Nicholas West, from Activistpost.com, states that Hawking has hinted at
being in favor of the following technological development in the past:
Hawking himself has echoed Kurzweil when he states that 'in the future
brains could be separated from the body'.
“The cosmologist, 71, said the brain operates in a similar way to a computer
program, meaning it could in theory be kept running without a body to
power it.”
The worldview of these "superheroes" is at its heart an Orwellian one:
humanity must be eliminated in order to save it. 114
West also, in the same article, lists items related to the Singularity,
divided into two columns; one is titled “Heaven” and the other is titled
“Hell.” This creates an overview of what is to be potentially gained and lost
with nanotechnology taken to its extreme,
HEAVEN:
Re-make the planet (geo-engineering)
Create new life (and new life forms)
Re-engineer humanity (values and essence)
Abundance and plenty for all (mastery over energy and material
transformation)
Super-intelligence (omniscience)
113
Ibid.
114
Nicholas West, Sept. 22, 2013, “Dawn of the Singularity—Superheroes from Science to Rescue Humanity from
Itself. “
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