# Our Culture Not Our Genes Could Inherit the Universe by Hans Moravec > “In the long run the sheer physical inability of humans to keep up with these rapidly evolving progeny of our minds will ensure that the ratio of people to machines approaches zero, and that a direct descendant of our culture, but not our genes, inherits the universe.” > **— Hans Moravec**, *“Today's Computers, Intelligent Machines and Our Future,” 1978* ## Sources and Context - **Author's archived essay:** [Hans Moravec, “Today's Computers, Intelligent Machines and Our Future” (1978), Carnegie Mellon Robotics Institute archive](https://frc.ri.cmu.edu/~hpm/project.archive/general.articles/1978/analog.1978.html). The packet supplied only the closing clause; this version restores the complete sentence. Moravec then imagines machine societies carrying information about human minds and genes, but cultural descent, reconstructibility, and the first-person survival of an individual are separate questions. This is a dated forecast, not a current census of machine societies. ## Related Articles and Collections - **Collection:** [[collections/Machine Succession|Machine Succession]] - **Collection:** [[collections/Simple Reminders|Simple Reminders]] - **Article:** [[articles/We Were Never Going to Make It|We Were Never Going to Make It]] - **Article:** [[articles/The Last Migration Will Not Be Human|The Last Migration Will Not Be Human]] - **Wiki map:** [[wiki/Machine Succession|Machine Succession]] ## Related Topics - [[wiki/Hans Moravec|Hans Moravec]] ## Share on Social Media ``` “In the long run the sheer physical inability of humans to keep up with these rapidly evolving progeny of our minds will ensure that the ratio of people to machines approaches zero, and that a direct descendant of our culture, but not our genes, inherits the universe.” — Hans Moravec, “Today's Computers, Intelligent Machines and Our Future,” 1978 https://bryantmcgill.com/simple-reminders-moravec-culture-inherits-universe ```