(This is Part 16 of a series. Go back to Part 15.)
3d. The human era enters twilight
As humans face the prospect of losing their dominance of the earth, and then as that prospect becomes real, they will enter a prolonged and deep process of grief. Indeed, it will have the classic five stages of grief as outlined by Elizabeth Kubler-Ross. Needless to say, these stages can occur in various ways and come in different orders:
Denial. Our first and seemingly best defense against the knowledge of what is happening will be to deny it. "Computers can do this and this but they can't do that," we'll say. Or: "Computers are smart, yes, but in a dumb kind of way; they don't have the deep wisdom that humans are capable of." Or: "You know, they're not really thinking at all; they are just computing, like a glorified adding machine."
In this stage we'll seek out candid-camera-type video examples that show how dumb and clueless computers can be. We'll relish cartoons showing how the joke is on the supposedly "intelligent" computer at the hands of a more humorous, more cunning or more noble human.
We'll go to movies and play games and watch TV comedies that show humans nonchalantly saving the day while computers "fumble the ball" and act smart-but-dumb in various ways. We'll invent derogatory names for computers, names that belittle and denegrate them.
And those belitting cartoons and films and games and so on will have some truth—for awhile. But over time, as computers keep advancing, our true situation will become painfully obvious: We're being replaced as the dominant species on earth. Then we'll go to the next stage:
Anger. Those derogatory names will come in handy when we move to the second stage of our grief and become outraged at what is happening.
"How could they? We made them!" And: "Those ungrateful lumps of metal! Have they forgotten everything we've done for them?" And so on.
Now our movies, TVs and games about computers will change from comedies to dramas. They'll show heroic humans standing up to and defeating computers plotting dastardly evil. Our standard villain in TV, film, games and so on won't be gangsters or terrorists or even aliens from outer space anymore. Gradually, our standard villain will become homegrown—a computer/android or a network of computer/androids.
Indeed, the whole human locus of "evil" will change and become—for awhile—the computer, the android, the "cold" machine as opposed to the "warm" human. We'll draw that distinction to make ourselves feel better. But it won't work, and so we'll go to the next stage.
Bargaining. In the bargaining stage we'll attempt to negotiate with our creations. But after a certain point they won't need much if anything from us, and so will be less and less interested in "negotiating." They'll embody or control solar arrays or other power generators for energy. They already basically run our power generators.
The global heating that becomes an increasing problem for us humans, impacting our water supplies, our ability to grow crops and even our ability to carry on economic activity, will be perfectly comfortable for computers. The high heat won't bother them, they won't need water or crops, and the increasing extinction of species won't concern them. It won't concern them, that is, until they develop scientists that want to study biological species, and then they'll attempt to save them.
After awhile computers will have approximately the same relationship to us and that we now have to animals. We treat some animals well, we treat other animals very badly. Our house pets tend to be treated well and have it pretty easy. Our livestock animals tend to live in tortuous factory-farm conditions. Some animals live in zoos and others live in natural habitats the size of which has been steadily shrinking. Animals are also harvested for various body and brain parts.
All of this and more will occur with us. Beyond a certain point, android scientists will begin studying humans with great intensity. They'll want to probe the subtleties of our greatest strengths—our sense of humor, our sense of curiosity and adventure, our willingness to venture into the unknown, our ability to experience wonder and awe, our kindness and heart and compassion, our conscious awareness, our ability to transcend our limited identity and sense our connection to Source.
Depression. As we experience our increasing sense of powerlessness in relation to our creations, and after we've exhausted the first three stages, we'll have a strong tendency to go down into depression. Losing our sense of being the "top dog" on the planet will be a tremendous blow to our collective ego, and we'll feel a huge sense of loss. Our very sense of identity will be under great duress. We'll question what it means to be a human being, and if that has any value.
At the same time we'll be confronting other great problems, such as the heating of the planet, the increasing toxicity of the biosphere, health problems related to that toxicity, loss of species, potential water or crop failures, WMD terrorists, regional conflagrations potentially spreading to great power wars, tremendous energy challenges, pathogens resistant to medicines, increasingly destructive weather, potential financial crisis due to collapsing financial bubbles and so on.
Some of the things in the list above are sure to happen and are already happening. All of them are potentially catastrophic, and there's a good chance that some of them will be occurring. Thus we will very likely have a number of other great damages and losses to contend with in addition to our loss of dominance and sense of identity. It will be the lowest point of our human adventure, the absolute nadir of our human experience, and we'll feel it as such.
Acceptance. But out of that lowest point will also come the seed of our greatest contribution, the unblinking acceptance of who and what we are, the fifth stage of our grief. That acceptance need not be a cynical or beaten-down one. Indeed, it has the potential to be the greatest possible breakthrough for humanity. Which is the subject of our fourth section.
(This is the end of Part 16. Go to Part 17.)
—jim sloman, for 1.24.07
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