The Individual, the Internet, and the Future of Humanity

Today, we live in the Digital Age. Remarkably, our current age was barely conceptualized in 1962 when Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s (MIT) head computer researcher, J.C.R. Licklider only, “envisioned a globally interconnected set of computers through which everyone could quickly access data and programs from any site.” Advancements in technology led to a number of breakthroughs, and on October 24, 1995, the Federal Networking Council (FNC) officially recognized the existence of the “Internet” as we now know it. Fast forward two decades later, and our increasing dependency on computer technologies and virtual data has completely transformed society.
 
The question I wish to pose is this: What is the Internet? To resolve this question, consider Aristotle’s predication theory. In Categories, Aristotle sought to classify all manner of things into one of ten possible praedicamenta, or categories. Those ten categories break down as follows: substance, quantity, qualification, relative, where, when, being-in-a-position, having, doing, being affected. The category of substance most comprehensively defines the Internet.
 
In the natural world, there exist two types of substances: primary and secondary. In Aristotle’s view, the individual man represents a primary substance for he “is that which is neither said of a subject nor in a subject.” Humanity as a species, however, denotes a secondary substance since the genus “man” may be predicated on an individual (primary substance). Aristotle further theorized that “a substance…can receive contraries. An individual man, for example, being one and the same, becomes now pale and now dark, now hot and now cold, now bad and now good.” I categorize the Internet as a primary substance operating as a subject of predication. While there are multiple genera of networks, there is only one Internet (always capitalized) and its existence and functionality depends on very specific predicates. And, unlike other primary substances, the Internet’s predicates may present as virtual as well as physical.
 
Future advances, now being realistically conceptualized and tested on animals, purport to fuse two primary substances together: the individual and the Internet. In technological jargon, the process of entity coalescence is dubbed “the Singularity.” The term, first coined by John Von Neumann in the 1950s, originally denoted “the ever accelerating progress of technology” leading to “some essential singularity in the history of the race beyond which human affairs, as we know them, could not continue." Murray Shanahan, an expert in the field of cognitive robotics, appropriated the term in his 2015 monograph, The Technological Singularity, to signify the moment in time when “the ordinary human is removed from the loop, overtaken by artificially intelligent machines or cognitively enhanced biological intelligence and unable to keep pace.”
 
A testament to the extent which artificial intelligence has permeated our cultural imaginings, the cover of Shanahan’s book contains a black background with nothing but an illuminated red circle and a yellow pin-pointed dot in its center; undoubtedly this image alludes to a specific character in the Stanley Kubrick film 2001: A Space Odyssey. The character HAL 9000 (Heuristically-programmed ALgorithmic computer), was a pre-programmed, sentient computer installed into a spacecraft that carried human crew members. In the film, HAL somehow became corrupted resulting in the machine killing a number of the humans placed in its charge.
 
The popularity behind science fiction stories like 2001 is that they combine reality and myth. Films evoking artificial intelligence and other seemingly far-off technological advancements blend the actual with the imaginary by inspiring scientists and engineers to develop the technology portrayed in their favorite stories. Mark Strauss of Smithsonian Magazine reports on a number of science fiction inspired technological inventions, from the rocket and the cell phone to the virtual world of Second Life. Philip Rosedale, the inventor of Second Life’s virtual community, credits Neal Stephenson’s 1992 novel Snow Crash with inspiring him to create his virtual world located within the Internet. Then, there is the immensely popular Ghost in the Shell series and the Netflix original film Blame!. Both stories are set in a futuristic world where cyborgs are commonplace and humans have figured out how to connect to the Internet directly.
 
Outside of film and literature, men and women remain dedicated to changing the future of our species through the implementation of advanced neurotechnology. These visionary engineers and scientists work to harness the power of the Internet and the potential of it to progress the human species into a new era; an era of Direct Brain Communication through brain-machine interface (BMI). So, who leads the charge for this species-advancing, neuro-technological movement? Elon Musk.
 
In 2016, Musk created a new company he called “Neuralink.” The technology is marketed separately by Neurological Integration System (NIS) to healthcare professionals. Their website declares, “it is committed to developing proprietary healthcare methods for a spectrum of complaints.” Recently, Musk drafted the talents of blogger Tim Urban to help him translate the benefits of BMI and Neuralink so that the average person could better understand the potential applications of this technology.
 
In order to take advantage of the obvious medical benefits of BMI technology, cofounder of Neuralink, Flip Sabes explains how we must first “use engineering to get neurons to talk to computers”. Thus, if we want to harness the potential of the brain, we must first rely on computers to teach us what we do not already understand about our brains.
 
In his wonderfully written article, (really, you should read it) Urban offers us a lively metaphor of a wizard hat to better conceptualize the type of technology necessary for fusing the Internet into our brains. A wizard hat refers to Musk’s vision of a “digital tertiary layer” or “a new physical brain part to complement the other two” parts of our brain: “our animal limbic system (which could be called our primary layer) and our advanced cortex (which could be called our secondary layer).” This means, in order for humans to enter the next era, we must bring about the Singularity, i.e., we must fuse two primary substances into one mega-substance. In his blog, (did I mention how well written it is?) Tim Urban dubs the mega-substance the Human Colossus.
 
In Urban’s view, and my own, the Singularity is already upon us, thanks to the invention of the Internet so many decades ago. What’s more? The Internet is its own substance. In order to keep up with its ability to advance way beyond the natural capacity of human evolution, humans must figure out how to merge our organic selves with this created substance. Musk and Neuralink are a means to try to accomplish exactly that.
 
In short, the Internet’s eventual takeover of non-adapted animals is a process that must occur as a natural part of its evolution. Musk realizes this and recognizes that if we do not adapt, we will become extinct. And I am sure most of you are familiar with the talk among biologists that we are dangerously close to fomenting a sixth mass extinction. It’s really just a matter of time before life on this planet changes drastically. We just don’t know exactly what those changes entail. For those of you familiar with the storyline for Terminator, think of the Internet as the precursor to Skynet, but based on actual facts and very real technology. But, like the philosopher Slavoj Zizek says, if you want to know the future, look at Hollywood.