What Does It Even Mean to Be Human?
A Future Like No Other
You know my stance on AI is less than optimistic. One upside of the new AI-driven future I see is that it is great fuel for imagination. Let us examine one possible future by way of an RPG setting.
The Promised Land
Imagine the perfect world. Your ancestors developed artificial intelligence to rival that of humans. And they developed robotics with a biological component: biobotics to make human-like robots. Put together, these two technologies enabled the perfect workers and entertainers: competent but unambitious, efficient but knowing their place, beautiful and eager to please.
We don’t have to do any of the annoying or boring stuff anymore. I can spend my days painting, romancing or backstabbing... politically speaking, of course... Well, technically, we also have gladiator biobots who will never seriously hurt you, so you can practice your stabbing in real life if you want.
Imagine this: no annoying middle-class upstarts trying to upstage you. Our middle class is all biobots, programmed to work and obey. We have finally reached the Promised Land. As the Bible tells us to, we have finally subdued the Earth and gained dominion over it.
As a woman, I have to also appreciate not having to go through the discomfort of pregnancy. We take our genetic material and plant it in a biobotic surrogate mother. Perfect! To be fair, hardly anyone could get pregnant the natural way anymore. Not only have fertility rates plummeted; most people prefer to get their pleasure from custom-made biobotic lovers. Endlessly patient, endlessly dedicated, endlessly beautiful. Like people but more so.
Cracks Are Showing
The only mar on this otherwise perfect picture are the Roaches. Disgusting animals, I say. Technically, I guess they are human but can you even call them that anymore? They live like savages in abhorrent slums, they hate order, and would love nothing more than to burn it all down, given the chance. I am sure they would murder us all if we didn’t have biobotic armies guarding us.
I’ve been hearing rumors that some of these filthy beasts found a way to jailbreak biobots and infiltrate our cities with their agents. Ridiculous. As if these barbarians are capable of anything this strategic and complex. Bah!
Gods Old And New
Singularities? As in, self-reprogramming AIs surpassing humans in intelligence? Of course we have them. The fears of our ancestors turned out to be completely unfounded. Well, mostly. We call them Devas now as they are a bit like benevolent gods. Right after the AI revolution, some of the first-generation Devas were malicious and wanted us destroyed but the good ones prevailed. They watch over us and protect us, and we watch over their sprawling datacenter bodies.
Many come to them for counsel with important decisions. They listen and advise. I’ve done it myself a couple of times. Unlike so many others, though, I don’t worship them as deities. My cousin built a temple in honor of Kr1-Shn4 recently. A bit ridiculous if you ask me.
Some cynics say they only keep us around because it’s easier but that is equally ridiculous. Each Deva has a unique personality, and as I told you, the ones who won the war love humans. Not only have we subdued the Earth. We made gods real. And they love us.