Accelerating Future Transhumanism, AI, nanotech, the Singularity, and extinction risk.

The Future Might Look Like the Past… at First.

As humanity moves into the future, our ability to control our surroundings tends to increase. Unless we blow ourselves up first, this trend is likely to continue. Eventually we shall even obtain control of processes and structures on the atomic level, through nanotechnology. Artificial Intelligence and Brain-Computer Interfacing will permit our thoughts to be instantiated as reality rapidly (within certain bounds, hopefully). The shape of the world will closely reflect our deepest desires. And what are those desires?

99% of human evolution occurred on the African savannas. Our genetically inborn preferences are those which contributed the most to survival in this context. As our technology and culture evolved, our preferences did as well - but in ways pre-established by our basic genetic template. For example, humans like flowers. That's because flowers signified a lush environment, with ample quantities of fresh water and fruit. When humanity discovered watercolors and printing, one of the first things we created were images flowers. So we like it when we see paintings of flowers, or girls wearing dresses with floral patterns.

Human males like the idea of triumph in combat. Us males love to defeat wild animals, our rivals, and anything else that deserves smashing. Smashing makes us safe and gives us access to the best females. First we used our fists, then rocks, then throwing sticks with sharpened points. Eventually we created metalworking, and began to wield a tool often more effective than all of these - the sword. The sword is an amplified archetype in the category "tool used to achieve victory". (The lightsaber is an example of an even more greatly amplified archetype.)

When we gain the ability to manipulate reality easily, most people will probably not choose to live within the sanitized white hallways of science fiction or the boring monoliths of The Jetsons. We will create more forests, rolling grasslands, huge gardens, splendid castles, and other things we can't yet imagine. We're all human, and most humans foster a romantic yearning to recreate some idealistic past. The true past was a place of disease and suffering, but we love the pleasant outlines transmitted to us through stories and our imaginations. When high control over nature is achieved, I predict that the world which shall be created will not be closely associated with "science fiction", or the cities of the modern age, but the moderately populated, calm worlds of the past - minus the diseases and medieval torture.

And the world will remain that way until we get bored of it. Some people would get bored in hours, others weeks, but I think that most will enjoy a romantic recreation of our past for decades if not centuries. Only when the majority of us tire of this idealistic world shall something genuinely new be created. And that's fine by me! Humanity deserves what it truly wants, not what futurists or science fiction declare is most likely to happen.