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Just back from a meeting of the Symbiotic Autonomous Systems Initiative in New Brunswick, NJ, where we had some interesting discussions on the topic bordering on philosophy.
Human beings have been characterised, to a certain extent, by the tools they made and used, to the point that historical epochs are named after the predominance of a specific tool, starting with the “Stone Age”. Notice that the idea of a tool is related to an artefact, more or less sophisticated but still manufactured by a human being to serve a specific purpose. The Stone Age was an age where our ancestors learnt to shape stones to have them fitting a specific purpose (cut, drill, hit,…). Subsequent tools shown an increased capability to deal with materials (and “create” new materials, like bronze) to get more effective tools.
Till the XVIII century tools where an extension of our body, they were powered by our muscles. Levers could trade displacement for strength but basically the power was limited by our muscle power (water/wind mills pre-dated steam but their application was constrained by location).
With the invention of the steam engine, all of a sudden humanity acquired the capability to use external power in its fabrication. The point became the one of “control”.
Electricity provided a new, and further source of energy, easier to control and therefore it took the upper hand in manufacturing tools.
In the second part of the last century the invention of computers made available a new “quality” of tools. They are improving the effectiveness of “control” and more recently they are becoming tools for improving our reasoning and thinking capabilities.
We are in the Computer Age, because a lot of our tools are –directly or indirectly- tied to computers. However, we are starting to see the emergence of a Digital Age, an age where the material to be manipulated and to be used for “construction” is no longer (just) atoms but bits.
In a way, there are some similarities in the juxtaposition of atoms and bits with the juxtaposition of body and soul, of brain and mind. We are now on a path leading to the manufacturing and control of meaning.
The technology evolution is towards the availability of a seamless integration (at different levels) of these computer/digital tools with us, the user. These tools are becoming seamless extension of our body and mind, as the hoe was an extension of the farmer arm. This seamless integration is very important because it implies that these new tools are fading from our perception, we take them for granted and they become an integral part of our life.
Think about the (many) times you take your smartphone to “google” an information. You are basically extending your brain memory, your knowledge, without giving it a second thoughts.
We are slowly entering into human 2.0 or, as somebody calls this, transhumanism and we are doing this through a symbiotic relation with our “tools” that having become complex entities are probably better referred to as “systems”.
There is more, and I am going to address it in the next post.
