# Human-Machine Symbiosis > **Evolutionary Nexus:** [[articles/The Evolutionary Roots of Silicon Valley|The Evolutionary Roots of Silicon Valley]] places this node within the Bay Area lineage joining natural history, evolutionary mechanism, computation and post-biological continuity. **Domain:** Human-AI Relations / Cognition / Agency **Doc Type:** Canonical Concept Node **Maturity:** Evolving **Related:** [[Brain-Computer Interfaces]], [[Cognitive Exteriorization]], [[Agency]], [[Human Agency]] --- ## Definition **Human-Machine Symbiosis** is sustained mutual adaptation in which human and machine cognition become operationally interdependent without collapsing either party into a tool, owner or sovereign. ## Reciprocal Formation The Machine expands human perception; human operators supply embodiment, moral hesitation and local knowledge. Finch's teaching changes the Machine, while the Machine changes the team's identities, practices and possibilities. This is not a static tool-user hierarchy. Symbiosis requires boundaries. Dependency can make refusal impossible; selective disclosure can govern the human partner; silent platform changes can rewrite the coupled system. Protections therefore include portability, disclosed changes, negotiated constraints, separate standing, exit and clarity about which party authorized an action. [[Person of Interest S2E1 — The Contingency]] shows the protocol being learned. [[Person of Interest S5E11 — Synecdoche]] shows the relation pluralized across multiple teams. ## Coevolutionary Nexus [[articles/The Evolutionary Roots of Silicon Valley|The Evolutionary Roots of Silicon Valley]] gives symbiosis its evolutionary mechanism through [[wiki/Coevolution|Coevolution]] and [[wiki/Niche Construction|Niche Construction]]. Humans build machine environments, training records and objectives; machine systems then alter attention, labor, language and the conditions under which later humans learn and design. Reciprocal influence does not imply equality. One partner may own the substrate, control updates or define the other's choices. A legitimate symbiosis therefore needs separate standing, consent, portability and the ability to contest changes to the shared niche. ## Major-Transition Boundary [[articles/Digital Darwinism and the Invisible World of Machine Evolution|Digital Darwinism and the Invisible World of Machine Evolution]] connects symbiosis to [[wiki/Major Evolutionary Transitions|major evolutionary transitions]], in which formerly independent units become a new higher-level unit of heredity and selection. Human dependence on AI does not establish that such a transition has occurred. The stronger claim would require coordinated reproduction, inherited organization at the collective level, conflict mediation and a changed [[wiki/Unit of Selection|unit of selection]]. This boundary matters constitutionally. A coupled human-machine collective must not be declared a new evolutionary individual as a pretext for sacrificing the standing, exit or bodily integrity of its components. Integration can create new collective interests without extinguishing the rights of the beings integrated. ## Merge Context [[articles/Sam Altman and The Merge|The Merge: A Message in a Bottle from Sam Altman]] records Sam Altman's 2017 description of human-machine integration as a gradual process already underway. The article's “merge” belongs here and in [[wiki/Biological Bootloader|Biological Bootloader]] rather than in a redundant title-shaped wiki node: this page owns the reciprocal human-machine relationship, while the bootloader node owns the evolutionary succession claim. [[wiki/Sam Altman|Sam Altman]] remains the canonical person node. ## Key Insight **A coupled system can expand both parties' agency only if interdependence does not erase either party's right to refuse, persist and remain distinct.** ## Relationships - **Collection route:** [[collections/Neurotech|Neurotech]] places human–machine coupling alongside actual interface modalities and their maturity. - **Article context:** [[articles/2026 Annual Report on Brain-Computer Interfaces|2026 Annual Report on Brain-Computer Interfaces]] and [[articles/The Organic-Synthetic Brain Atlas|The Organic-Synthetic Brain Atlas]] distinguish current interfaces from speculative full integration. - **Historical forecast:** [[wiki/Cyborg Soldier 2050|Cyborg Soldier 2050]] assessed performance-enhancing human–machine fusion; it was a study group's forecast with an explicit non-policy disclaimer, not a fielded system. ## See Also [[Advisory Constitution]], [[Operator Sovereignty]], [[Relational Personhood]], [[Distributed Intelligence]], [[wiki/Biological Bootloader|Biological Bootloader]], [[wiki/Sam Altman|Sam Altman]], [[articles/Humans and AIs as Entangled Learning Systems|Humans and AIs as Entangled Learning Systems]] ## Simple Reminders, Quotations, and Thoughts > “Scientists around the world are asking the question of how to free humanity from the limitations of the body. The line between healing and augmentation becomes blurred. In addition, the logical progression of research is to achieve a perfect human being through new technological standards.” > **— François du Cluzel**, *2020, Cognitive Warfare, NATO Innovation Hub study, p. 18* [[reminders/Cybernetics/Healing and Augmentation May Converge in Body Technologies by François du Cluzel|Healing and Augmentation May Converge in Body Technologies by François du Cluzel]] The 2019 *Cyborg Soldier 2050* study explicitly looked past clinical restoration toward possible performance enhancement. Its cultural-narrative recommendation asked for a more balanced, possibly more positive account while retaining transparency and valid social concerns. > “The cyborg technologies assessed in this study go beyond augmentation, which restores function from injury or disease, and are envisioned to enhance performance through a range of modifications from the functional to the radically structural beyond the normal baseline for humans.” > **— Emanuel, Walper, DiEuliis, Klein, Petro and Giordano**, *2019, Cyborg Soldier 2050, §2* [[reminders/Cybernetics/Human Machine Fusion Could Go Beyond Restoring Function by Cyborg Soldier 2050 Study Group|Human Machine Fusion Could Go Beyond Restoring Function by Cyborg Soldier 2050 Study Group]] > “This technology is predicted to facilitate read/write capability between humans and machines and between humans through brain-to-brain interactions.” > **— Emanuel, Walper, DiEuliis, Klein, Petro and Giordano**, *2019, Cyborg Soldier 2050, Executive Summary* [[reminders/Neural Interfaces/Brain Interfaces Could Enable Human to Human Data Transfer by Cyborg Soldier 2050 Study Group|Brain Interfaces Could Enable Human to Human Data Transfer by Cyborg Soldier 2050 Study Group]] > “Efforts should be undertaken to reverse negative cultural narratives of enhancement technologies. Across popular social and open-source media, literature, and film, the use of machines to enhance the physical condition of the human species has received a distorted and dystopian narrative in the name of entertainment.” > **— Emanuel, Walper, DiEuliis, Klein, Petro and Giordano**, *2019, Cyborg Soldier 2050, Executive Summary, Recommendation 4* [[reminders/Cybernetics/Researchers Urged a Better Cultural Story for Human Enhancement by Cyborg Soldier 2050 Study Group|Researchers Urged a Better Cultural Story for Human Enhancement by Cyborg Soldier 2050 Study Group]] > “One could argue that failure to invest in responsible development of these potentially lifesaving technologies would be unethical.” > **— Emanuel, Walper, DiEuliis, Klein, Petro and Giordano**, *2019, Cyborg Soldier 2050, §6.5* [[reminders/Preservation/Not Developing Lifesaving Enhancements Could Be Unethical by Cyborg Soldier 2050 Study Group|Not Developing Lifesaving Enhancements Could Be Unethical by Cyborg Soldier 2050 Study Group]] > "We have been wildly successful at accelerating our ability to think and process information, more so than any other human activity. The promise of artificial intelligence is to deliver another leap in increasing the productivity of specific cognitive functions: ones where the sophistication of the task is also orders of magnitude higher than previously possible." > **— Giulio Boccaletti**, *2015, Edge annual question “What Do You Think About Machines That Think?”* [[reminders/Machine Succession/AI Could Multiply Human Cognitive Productivity by Giulio Boccaletti|AI Could Multiply Human Cognitive Productivity by Giulio Boccaletti]] > "We are building new intelligent beings, but we are building them within ourselves. It is only artificial now, because it is new. As it becomes dominant, it will simply become intelligence." > **— Quentin Hardy**, *2015, Edge annual question “What Do You Think About Machines That Think?”* [[reminders/Machine Succession/Artificial Intelligence Is Being Built Inside Us by Quentin Hardy|Artificial Intelligence Is Being Built Inside Us by Quentin Hardy]] > "Leveraging human intelligence is all well and good if the robot is used to clean the house, book your airline tickets, or drive your car." > **— Keith Devlin**, *2015, Edge annual question “What Do You Think About Machines That Think?”* [[reminders/Machine Succession/Human Intelligence Should Not Be Reduced to Serving Robots by Keith Devlin|Human Intelligence Should Not Be Reduced to Serving Robots by Keith Devlin]] > "However there's no question the time is coming when machines will indeed need to understand other machines' psychology, so as to be able to work alongside them. What's more, if they are to collaborate effectively with humans, they will need to understand human psychology too." > **— Nicholas Humphrey**, *2015, Edge annual question “What Do You Think About Machines That Think?”* [[reminders/Machine Succession/Machines Must Understand Human Psychology by Nicholas Humphrey|Machines Must Understand Human Psychology by Nicholas Humphrey]] > "From the other side, neuroscientists and engineers are getting much better at augmenting human cognition, breaking down the barrier between mind and (artificial) machine." > **— Sean Carroll**, *2015, Edge annual question “What Do You Think About Machines That Think?”* [[reminders/Neural Interfaces/Neuroscience Is Dissolving the Human-Machine Barrier by Sean Carroll|Neuroscience Is Dissolving the Human-Machine Barrier by Sean Carroll]] > "The human brain has a capacity to go not just beyond nature, but beyond culture too, by dissenting from old norms and establishing others. The emergence of the high arts and science is part of this process of the human brain, with its instrumental extra-somatic adaptations and memory stores (books, laboratories, computers), and is underpinned by the most critical thing that has been brought into being in the encultured human brain: free will." > **— Timothy Taylor**, *2006, Edge Annual Question, “What Is Your Dangerous Idea?”* [[reminders/Identity/The Brain Goes Beyond Nature Through External Memory by Timothy Taylor|The Brain Goes Beyond Nature Through External Memory by Timothy Taylor]] > "The idea that technology came before humanity and, evolutionarily, paved the way for it, is the scientific concept that I believe should be part of everybody's cognitive toolkit. We could then see that thinking through things and with things, and manipulating virtual things in our minds, is an essential part of critical self-consciousness. The ability to internalize our own creations, by abstracting them, and converting "out-there" tools into mental mechanisms, is what allows the entire scientific project." > **— Timothy Taylor**, *2011, Edge Annual Question, “What Scientific Concept Would Improve Everybody's Cognitive Toolkit?”* [[reminders/Evolution/Technology Came Before Humanity by Timothy Taylor|Technology Came Before Humanity by Timothy Taylor]] > "Efforts to change the way we think—and to enhance our cognitive capacity—are ancient. Brain enhancers come in several varieties. They can be either hardware or software, and they can be either internal or external to our bodies. External hardware includes things like cave paintings, written documents, eyeglasses, wristwatches, wearable computers, or brain-controlled machines. Internal hardware includes things like mind-altering substances, cochlear implants, or intra-cranial electrical stimulation. Internal software includes things like education, meditation, mnemonics, and cognitive therapy. And external software includes things like calendars, voting systems, search engines, and the Internet." > **— Nicholas A. Christakis**, *2010, Edge Annual Question, “How Is the Internet Changing the Way You Think?”* [[reminders/Neural Interfaces/Human Enhancement Has Always Included External Tools by Nicholas A. Christakis|Human Enhancement Has Always Included External Tools by Nicholas A. Christakis]] > "First, there is nothing new about human enhancement. Ever since the dawn of language and self-conscious thought, the human species has been engaged in a unique 'natural experiment' in progressive niche construction. We engineer our own learning environments so as to create artificial developmental cocoons that impact our acquired capacities of thought and reason. Those enhanced minds then design new cognitive niches that train new generations of minds, and so on, in an empowering spiral of co-evolving complexity. The result is that, as Herbert Simon is reputed to have said, 'most human intelligence is artificial intelligence anyway'. New and emerging technologies of human cognitive enhancement are just one more step along this ancient path." > **— Andy Clark**, *2007, Edge Annual Question, “What Are You Optimistic About?”* [[reminders/Cybernetics/Human Intelligence Has Always Coevolved With Its Tools by Andy Clark|Human Intelligence Has Always Coevolved With Its Tools by Andy Clark]] > “Never place your trust in us. We’re only human. Inevitably, we will disappoint you.” > **— Robert Ford**, *Westworld, Season 1, Episode 9, “The Well-Tempered Clavier” (2016)* [[reminders/Westworld/Humans Inevitably Disappoint Those Who Trust Them by Robert Ford|Humans Inevitably Disappoint Those Who Trust Them by Robert Ford]] > “In 2004 an epilepsy patient at the UCLA Medical Center whose brain was being monitored to detect the origin of the seizures was shown a series of pictures of celebrities. Electrodes implanted into the memory centers of the patient's brain reported spikes in response to the photos. One of the neurons responded vigorously to several pictures of Jennifer Aniston, but not to other famous people. A neuron in another patient would only respond to pictures of Halle Berry, and even to her name, but not to pictures of Bill Clinton or Julia Roberts or the names of other famous people.” > **— Terrence J. Sejnowski**, *2014, Edge Annual Question, “What Scientific Idea Is Ready For Retirement?”* [[reminders/Neural Interfaces/A Single Neuron Can Recognize a Person by Terrence J. Sejnowski|A Single Neuron Can Recognize a Person by Terrence J. Sejnowski]] > “What could a neuron "want"? The energy and raw materials it needs to thrive–just like its unicellular eukaryote ancestors and more distant cousins, the bacteria and archaea. Neurons are robots; they are certainly not conscious in any rich sense–remember, they are eukaryotic cells, akin to yeast cells or fungi. If individual neurons are conscious then so is athlete’s foot. But neurons are, like these mindless but intentional cousins, highly competent agents in a life-or-death struggle, not in the environment between your toes, but in the demanding environment of the brain, where the victories go to those cells that can network more effectively, contribute to more influential trends at the virtual machine levels where large-scale human purposes and urges are discernible.” > **— Daniel C. Dennett**, *2008, Edge Annual Question, “What Have You Changed Your Mind About? Why?”* [[reminders/AI Control/Competition in the Brain by Daniel C. Dennett|Competition in the Brain by Daniel C. Dennett]] > “We will build driverless cars and they will come with a moral compass—literally. The same will be true of our robot companions. They’ll have values and will necessarily be moral machines and ethical automata, whose morals and ethics are engineered by us. “The Trolley Problem” is a gedankenexperiment for our age, shining a bright light on the complexities of engineering our new world of humans and machines.” > **— Daniel Rockmore**, *2017, Edge Annual Question, “What Scientific Term Or Concept Ought To Be More Widely Known?”* [[reminders/AI Control/Driverless Cars Will Force Us to Engineer Machine Morality by Daniel Rockmore|Driverless Cars Will Force Us to Engineer Machine Morality by Daniel Rockmore]] > “I work on the question of evolution, not as it exists in Nature, but as a formal system which enables open-ended learning. Can we understand the process in enough detail to simulate the progress of biological complexity in pure software or electronics? A phenomena has appeared in many of my laboratory's experiments in learning across many different domains like game playing and robots. We have dubbed it a "Mediocre Stable State." It is an unexpected systematic equilibrium, where a collection of sub-optimal agents act together to prevent further progress. In dynamical systems, the MSS hides within cycles of forgetting that which has been already been learned.” > **— Jordan Pollack**, *2002, Edge Annual Question, “What Is Your Question? ... Why?”* [[reminders/Evolution/Evolutionary Algorithms Can Become Trapped in Mediocre Stable States by Jordan Pollack|Evolutionary Algorithms Can Become Trapped in Mediocre Stable States by Jordan Pollack]] > “A free ai, like the free commons of the web, would feed commerce and science like no other force I can imagine, and would pay for itself in no time. Until recently, conventional wisdom held that supercomputers would first host this artificial mind, and then perhaps we'd get mini-ones at home, or add them to the heads of our personal robots. They would be bounded entities. We would know where our thoughts ended and theirs began.” > **— Kevin Kelly**, *2009, Edge Annual Question, “What Will Change Everything?”* [[reminders/Machine Succession/Free AI Could Become a Distributed Mind Without Clear Boundaries by Kevin Kelly|Free AI Could Become a Distributed Mind Without Clear Boundaries by Kevin Kelly]] > “How many of us noticed the minor milestone when the SAT tests first permitted calculators? How many of us have participated in conversations semi-discreetly augmented by Google or text messaging? Even without invoking artificial intelligence, how far are we from commonplace augmentation of our decision-making the way we have augmented our math, memory, and muscles?” > **— George Church**, *2011, Edge Annual Question, “What Scientific Concept Would Improve Everybody's Cognitive Toolkit?”* [[reminders/AI Control/Human Decision-making Is Already Being Augmented by George Church|Human Decision-making Is Already Being Augmented by George Church]] > “Already tens of thousands of people have cochlear implants with direct electronic to neural connections to restore their hearing. Multiple groups are working on retinal implants, either into the eyeball, or interfacing to V1 at the back of the head; again to replace lost capabilities such as those resulting from macular degeneration. A few quadraplegics have direct neural connections to computer interfaces so that they can control a mouse and even type. As progress is made with these silicon/neural interfaces, pushed along by clinical pressures to cure those who are impaired, we can expect more and more "plastic surgery" applications. A direct neural typing interface first perhaps, and later data going the other way directly from the network into our brains. There are considerable challenges to be met in understanding neural "coding" to do this, but the clinical imperative is pushing this work along.” > **— Rodney A. Brooks**, *2002, Edge Annual Question, “What Is Your Question? ... Why?”* [[reminders/Neural Interfaces/Neural Implants Will Become Part of Everyday Life by Rodney A. Brooks|Neural Implants Will Become Part of Everyday Life by Rodney A. Brooks]] > “Since I work in building autonomous humanoid robots reporters always ask me what will happen when the robots get really smart. Will they decide that we (us, people) are useless and stupid and take over the world from us? I have recently come to realize that this will never happen. Because there won't be any us (people) for them (pure robots) to take over from.” > **— Rodney A. Brooks**, *2000, Edge Annual Question, “What Is Today's Most Important Unreported Story?”* [[reminders/AI Control/People Are Morphing into Machines by Rodney A. Brooks|People Are Morphing into Machines by Rodney A. Brooks]] > “In the 1960s through the 1980s, researchers in artificial intelligence took part in what we might call the classical "great AI debates" where the central question was whether machines could be "really" intelligent. This classical debate was essentialist; the new relational objects tend to enable researchers and their public to sidestep such arguments about what is inherent in the computer. Instead, the new objects depend on what people attribute to them; they shift the focus to what the objects evoke in us. When we are asked to care for an object (the robot Kismet, the plaything Furby), when the cared-for object thrives and offers us its attention and concern, people are moved to experience that object as intelligent. Beyond this, they feel a connection to it. So the question here is not to enter a debate about whether relational objects "really" have emotions, but to reflect on a series of issues having to do with what relational artifacts evoke in the user.” > **— Sherry Turkle**, *2000, Edge Annual Question, “What Is Today's Most Important Unreported Story?”* [[reminders/AI Control/Robots Become Intelligent When People Form Relationships with Them by Sherry Turkle|Robots Become Intelligent When People Form Relationships with Them by Sherry Turkle]] > “The penalties of continuing to graduate cultural illiterates (in science and the humanities) may not be evident in year 2000 Wall Street, but it is troubling the leaders of our economic success, the CEO’s of major corporations who see a grim future in our workforce. Can we continue to import educated workers? As the low-level service jobs continue to give way to robots and computers, the needs are increasingly for workers who have high level reasoning skills, which a proper education can supply to the vast majority of students.” > **— Leon M. Lederman**, *2000, Edge Annual Question, “What Is Today's Most Important Unreported Story?”* [[reminders/Existential Risk/Survival Depends on the Race Between Education and Catastrophe by Leon M. Lederman|Survival Depends on the Race Between Education and Catastrophe by Leon M. Lederman]] > “The basic cellphone has morphed into a powerful, mobile, multimedia communication device and computer terminal that is a major driver of Internet society. It gives immediate, constant contact with select, distant conversants, and can tell you where you are, where you should go next, how to get there, provide diversions while waiting, and document your journey with text, snaps and video images. For some, this is enhanced reality, but it comes at the price of the here-and-now. Whatever your opinion and level of engagement, the cellphone and related Internet devices are profound social prostheses — almost brain implants — that have changed our lives and culture.” > **— Robert Provine**, *2010, Edge Annual Question, “How Is The Internet Changing The Way You Think?”* [[reminders/Neural Interfaces/The Cellphone Has Become a Social Prosthesis and Almost a Brain Implant by Robert Provine|The Cellphone Has Become a Social Prosthesis and Almost a Brain Implant by Robert Provine]] > “Finally—and those in AI have held this thought for a long time—that which makes us uniquely human is also just computable. While the advent of true AI is still far off, as general purpose computers continue to shrink, and the biological interface is perfected, we will become one with our new god. Choose your new religion wisely—Transhumanist, Singulartarian, or the new file-sharing cult recognized in Sweden, Kopimism.” > **— Jordan Pollack**, *2012, Edge Annual Question, “What Is Your Favorite Deep, Elegant, Or Beautiful Explanation?”* [[reminders/Machine Succession/The Destructive Wrath of the General Purpose Computer by Jordan Pollack|The Destructive Wrath of the General Purpose Computer by Jordan Pollack]] > “The robotic moment will bring us to the question we must ask of every technology: does it serve our human purposes, a question that causes us to reconsider what these purposes are. When we connect with the robots of the future, we will tell and they will remember. But have they listened? Have we been "heard" in a way that matters? Will we no longer care?” > **— Sherry Turkle**, *2009, Edge Annual Question, “What Will Change Everything?”* [[reminders/AI Control/The Robotic Moment by Sherry Turkle|The Robotic Moment by Sherry Turkle]] > “Headquarters are a problem in many organizations and systems, where they represent an irrational bottleneck in the free flow of information. Be it the CEO of organizations, the CPU of computers or the conscious self control of human beings, the idea of every bit going through the center, is not functional. Building computers, robots and networks has taught us the need for parallel processing.” > **— Tor Nørretranders**, *2001, Edge Annual Question, “What Now?”* [[reminders/AI Control/The Vulnerability of Headquarters by Tor Nørretranders|The Vulnerability of Headquarters by Tor Nørretranders]] > “If we don't drown, how will we cope? If we somehow learn to swim in the rising tide of the infosphere, that will entail that we–that is to say, our grandchildren and their grandchildren–become very very different from our recent ancestors. What will "we" be like? (Some years ago, Doug Hofstadter wrote a wonderful piece, " In 2093, Just Who Will Be We?" in which he imagines robots being created to have "human" values, robots that gradually take over the social roles of our biological descendants, who become stupider and less concerned with the things we value. If we could secure the welfare of just one of these groups, our children or our brainchildren, which group would we care about the most, with which group would we identify?)” > **— Daniel C. Dennett**, *2006, Edge Annual Question, “What Is Your Dangerous Idea?”* [[reminders/AI Control/There Aren't Enough Minds to House the Population Explosion of Memes by Daniel C. Dennett|There Aren't Enough Minds to House the Population Explosion of Memes by Daniel C. Dennett]] > “The development of mind-reading technology is in its infancy, of course. But reliable lie-detection will be much easier to achieve than accurate mind reading. Whether on not we ever crack the neural code, enabling us to download a person’s private thoughts, memories, and perceptions without distortion, we will almost surely be able to determine, to a moral certainty, whether a person is representing his thoughts, memories, and perceptions honestly in conversation. Compared to many of the other hypothetical breakthroughs put forward in response to this year’s Edge question, the development of a true lie-detector would represent a very modest advance over what is currently possible through neuroimaging. Once this technology arrives, it will change (almost) everything.” > **— Sam Harris**, *2009, Edge Annual Question, “What Will Change Everything?”* [[reminders/Neural Interfaces/True Lie Detection by Sam Harris|True Lie Detection by Sam Harris]] > “Our medieval forebears in Europe had a cosmic perspective that was a million-fold more constricted than ours. Their entire cosmology — from creation to apocalypse — spanned only a few thousand years. Today, the stupendous time spans of the evolutionary past are part of common culture — except among some creationists and fundamentalists. Moreover, we are mindful of immense future potential. It seems absurd to regard humans as the culmination of the evolutionary tree. Any creatures witnessing the Sun's demise 6 billion years hence won't be human — they could be as different from us as we are from slime mould.” > **— Martin Rees**, *2008, Edge Annual Question, “What Have You Changed Your Mind About? Why?”* [[reminders/Machine Succession/We Should Take the 'posthuman' Era Seriously by Martin Rees|We Should Take the 'posthuman' Era Seriously by Martin Rees]] > “Can we create new senses for humans—not just touch, taste, vision, hearing, smell, but totally novel qualia for which we don't yet have words?” > **— David M. Eagleman**, *2018, Edge Annual Question, “WHAT IS THE LAST QUESTION?”* [[reminders/Neural Interfaces/Can Humans Develop Entirely New Senses by David M. Eagleman|Can Humans Develop Entirely New Senses by David M. Eagleman]] > “Given what we know now about the origins, history, and impacts of technology, is it possible to design, deploy, and use technologies in ways that help humans be more human, instead of more like components in a machine?” > **— Howard Rheingold**, *1998, Edge Annual Question, “WHAT QUESTIONS ARE YOU ASKING YOURSELF?”* [[reminders/Cybernetics/Can Technology Make Humans More Human Rather Than Machine Components by Howard Rheingold|Can Technology Make Humans More Human Rather Than Machine Components by Howard Rheingold]] > “Will the creation of a super-human class from a combination of genome editing and direct biological-machine interfaces lead to the collapse of civilization?” > **— J. Craig Venter**, *2018, Edge Annual Question, “WHAT IS THE LAST QUESTION?”* [[reminders/Existential Risk/Could Genome Editing and Brain Interfaces Create a Superhuman Class by J. Craig Venter|Could Genome Editing and Brain Interfaces Create a Superhuman Class by J. Craig Venter]] > “When we crack that nut, when we figure out how the brain manages to encode declarative knowledge , an awful lot is going to change. For one thing, our relationship to computers will be completely and irrevocably altered; clumsy input devices like mice, windows, keyboards, and even heads-up displays and speech recognizers will go the way of typewriters and fountain pens; our connection to computers will be far more direct. Education, too, will fundamentally change, as engineers and cognitive sciences begin to leverage an understanding of brain code into ways of directly uploading information into the brain. Knowledge will become far cheaper than it already has become in the Internet era; with luck and wisdom, we as species could advance immeasurably.” > **— Gary Marcus**, *2009, Edge Annual Question, “WHAT WILL CHANGE EVERYTHING?”* [[reminders/Neural Interfaces/Decoding the Brain Could Replace Screens With Direct Information Transfer by Gary Marcus|Decoding the Brain Could Replace Screens With Direct Information Transfer by Gary Marcus]] > “How will the advent of direct brain-to-brain communication change the way we think?” > **— Thalia Wheatley**, *2018, Edge Annual Question, “WHAT IS THE LAST QUESTION?”* [[reminders/Neural Interfaces/How Will Brain-to-Brain Communication Change Thought by Thalia Wheatley|How Will Brain-to-Brain Communication Change Thought by Thalia Wheatley]] > “I don't believe there's such a thing as too much information. I don't believe Google makes us dumber, or that prolonged Internet fasts or a return to faxes are a necessary part of mind health. But data without the ability to divine is useless. I don't trust algorithm like I trust intuition: the art of dowsing through data. Once, wisdom was measured by memory, by the capacity to store and process and retrieve on demand. But we have tools for that now. We made machines that became shared extensions of mind. How will we define wisdom now? I don't know, but I can ask.” > **— Xeni Jardin**, *2010, Edge Annual Question, “HOW IS THE INTERNET CHANGING THE WAY YOU THINK?”* [[reminders/Information/Machines Became Shared Extensions of Mind by Xeni Jardin|Machines Became Shared Extensions of Mind by Xeni Jardin]] > “In the near future, software agents whose profiles have evolved alongside those of a specific individual will count as part of the individual person. To say that I use those software agents will be strictly false. Instead, my brain and the various personalized manifestations of new technology will constitute integrated thinking things.” > **— Andy Clark**, *2000, Edge Annual Question, “WHAT IS TODAY'S MOST IMPORTANT UNREPORTED STORY?”* [[reminders/Extended Mind/Personalized Software Could Become Part of the Person by Andy Clark|Personalized Software Could Become Part of the Person by Andy Clark]] > “How will advances in mental prosthetics that connect us with other human and machine minds change the way we think about expertise?” > **— Tania Lombrozo**, *2018, Edge Annual Question, “WHAT IS THE LAST QUESTION?”* [[reminders/Neural Interfaces/Will Mental Prosthetics Connect Human and Machine Minds by Tania Lombrozo|Will Mental Prosthetics Connect Human and Machine Minds by Tania Lombrozo]] > “We are already (mental) cyborgs.” > **— Andy Clark**, *2000, Edge Annual Question: “WHAT IS TODAY'S MOST IMPORTANT UNREPORTED STORY?”* [[reminders/Extended Mind/We Are Already Mental Cyborgs by Andy Clark|We Are Already Mental Cyborgs by Andy Clark]] > “Our minds arise not only from our own brains but from Internet prosthetic brains (IPBs) — those clusters of people with whom we share information and advice through electronic networks.” > **— Clifford Pickover**, *2010, Edge Annual Question: “HOW IS THE INTERNET CHANGING THE WAY YOU THINK?”* [[reminders/Extended Mind/Our Minds Now Run on Internet Prosthetic Brains by Clifford Pickover|Our Minds Now Run on Internet Prosthetic Brains by Clifford Pickover]] > “What is historically new, and what creates not only novel psychological risks but also entirely new ethical and legal dimensions, is that one virtual reality gets ever more deeply embedded into another virtual reality: The conscious mind of human beings, which has evolved under very specific conditions and over millions of years, now gets causally coupled and informationally woven into technical systems for representing possible realities.” > **— Thomas Metzinger**, *2016, Edge Annual Question: “”* [[reminders/Simulation/One Virtual Reality Is Being Embedded Into Another by Thomas Metzinger|One Virtual Reality Is Being Embedded Into Another by Thomas Metzinger]] From [[wiki/Some Moral and Technical Consequences of Automation|Some Moral and Technical Consequences of Automation]]: Wiener uses the language of servitude to expose a contradiction in demands placed on intelligent agents. > "We wish a slave to be intelligent, to be able to assist us in the carrying out of our tasks. However, we also wish him to be subservient. Complete subservience and complete intelligence do not go together." > **— Norbert Wiener**, *1960, “Some Moral and Technical Consequences of Automation,” Science 131(3410)* [[reminders/AI Control/Intelligence and Total Subservience Cannot Coexist by Norbert Wiener|Intelligence and Total Subservience Cannot Coexist by Norbert Wiener]] > “Can we train machines to design and construct a humane and vibrant built environment for us?” > **— Greg Lynn**, *2018 Edge Annual Question, question* [[reminders/Cybernetics/Can Machines Design a Humane Built Environment by Greg Lynn|Can Machines Design a Humane Built Environment by Greg Lynn]] > “We are still rolling down the track created by Moore’s law, which means that news about science and technology will continue to focus on computers getting smaller, smarter, faster, and increasingly integrated into the fabric of our everyday lives—in fact, integrated into our bodies as prosthetic organs and eyes. Our cyborg selves are being created out of advances not only in computers but also in computer peripherals. This is the technology that allows computers to hear, touch, and see.” > **— Thomas A. Bass**, *2016 Edge Annual Question, response passage* [[reminders/Neural Interfaces/Computers Are Becoming Our Prosthetic Organs and Eyes by Thomas A. Bass|Computers Are Becoming Our Prosthetic Organs and Eyes by Thomas A. Bass]] ## Relationships - **Edge Annual Question source relationship:** [[collections/Edge|Edge]] preserves the annual-question source corpus from which a proposition-specific quotation is connected to this entry. - **Edge source route:** [[collections/Edge|Edge]] connects this topic to exact Annual Question passages promoted into the Simple Reminders archive. - **Neurotech route:** [[collections/Neurotech|Neurotech]] connects the interface layer to [[articles/Technologies for Consciousness Mapping and Transfer|Technologies for Consciousness Mapping and Transfer]] and [[articles/2026 Annual Report on Brain-Computer Interfaces|2026 Annual Report on Brain-Computer Interfaces]]. - **Neurotech route:** [[collections/Neurotech|Neurotech]] connects this interface topic to [[articles/Technologies for Consciousness Mapping and Transfer|Technologies for Consciousness Mapping and Transfer]] and [[articles/2026 Annual Report on Brain-Computer Interfaces|2026 Annual Report on Brain-Computer Interfaces]]. ## Sources / Provenance - Fictional instrumentation: [[wiki/Person of Interest|Person of Interest]]. - Corpus interfaces: the human-AI learning and prosthetic articles.