Augmented evolution: Why the definition of “human” is about to change | Michelle Thaller | Big Think

[Music] You know, one of the oldest questions I think humankind has asked is if there's other life in the universe. Is it very, very different from us or is it very similar?

And you know, even when it comes to the microbial level, even like very small, like bacteria things, you know, right now we're exploring the solar system looking for evidence of life on Mars or on some of the icy moons of Jupiter and Saturn. There are oceans underneath the ice. Even if we found a microbe, I think one of the first questions is: does it have something like DNA? Is it similarly put together the way we are, or is it something very different even at the microbial level?

And then you take that question and you move even farther. I mean, what would aliens that are more evolved look like? Aliens that maybe even have advanced civilizations? This is one of these things where I'm very aware of the limits of human imagination. You know, I mean, Einstein famously said, you know, the universe is not stranger than we do imagine; it's stranger than we can imagine.

And I think that a lot of times people say, “Well, we have one evidence of how life started and how life can exist,” and it sort of makes sense that maybe something similar would have started on different planets. I think actually when you think about civilizations, aliens out there that are advanced, that maybe even have more advanced civilizations than we do, the thing that I really can't get around is that I think that the definition of being human is about to change a lot in the next century.

I think that humans and AIs and computers will begin to merge, actually become somewhat indistinguishable from each other. This is not some Terminator scenario of the AIs taking over and destroying everything, but you know, for example, I have a friend who has cochlear implants. He was profoundly deaf and then had cochlear implants put in. I've gone to classical music concerts with him. I remember I went to go see Carmen, and there were tears, you know, rolling down his face as he was listening to Carmen.

And he knows that he doesn't hear like a human being hears. There are wires that are directly implanted into his brain that stimulate the auditory section. It never goes through an ear, and he upgrades his software every now and then, and then he hears differently. All of a sudden, the sounds are different, and he hears different ranges depending on how his software has been updated.

But he always reminds me that what technology did for him was make him more connected, more emotional. I remember somebody was colorblind, but they actually have an auditory cue as to color, and so it sort of changed the way their brain responds.

The implants that are coming, and they will be coming soon, you know, once you could implant artificial ears and people—why just hear with the range of a human? Right? Why not hear with the range of a dog or a whale or a bird that can hear much higher and lower pitch frequencies than we can? That will come soon.

And then, when we can augment our eyes, why just see visible light? Why not see x-rays and ultraviolet and infrared light and everything that's out there? I don't think there's any way around this: that the aliens we're going to encounter, if they are advanced from us by many centuries of technology, are going to be indistinguishable from AIs.

And I don't think we are looking for a biological life. I think we should spend more time thinking about what life really will evolve into. It may be that the biological being that I am was just a first stage in evolution, and a necessary and maybe even beautiful next step in evolution is for us to be augmented.

And maybe someday to completely design our artificial bodies. When you design your own body to suit any environment you want, why look like a human? I mean, maybe you want to. Maybe you want to be a piece of foil that spreads itself across, you know, square kilometers to actually fly on solar winds and actually move around through solar systems. Maybe you look nothing like a human; maybe you have nothing like a human life.

So, this is not a scary science fiction scenario. I'm not saying that we're going to be overrun and destroyed by the AIs, but I don't know how you get around very advanced civilizations having gone through an augmentation stage. I think the next stage in our evolution will most likely be that, and I think maybe we shouldn't be looking in environments just like the earth—that maybe where life started—but truly evolved civilizations left that biological necessity behind long ago.

As for Michael, like I said, this guy, his name is Michael with the cochlear implants. I mean, he's like, you know, why do we assume technology's gonna keep us apart from each other and make us less human? It might make us even more human. [Music]