Exploring Humanity's Possible Futures

Hello mortals. Most humans probably you included live a somewhat predictable lifestyle. Wake up, cry, eat, work or school, cry, distract yourself until bedtime, cry, and then all over again the next day. If you're in the middle of a similar routine, it's hard to detach yourself and look at humanity as a whole and where it might be headed. You probably have some vague thoughts about civilization walking right into imminent catastrophe or perhaps technological heaven. depending on what news you read and what accounts you follow. So let us take a more thorough look at what are the possible paths that humanity might go down given the current dynamics and vectors and what would that future entail. Thanks to Speakly for sponsoring this video. Let's begin by discussing the more depressing options so that we can end on a higher note. Extinction. Contrary to what Hollywood movies might have taught you, human civilization is not that fragile. Breaking our society would be very hard, but making humanity go completely extinct would be nearly impossible. Surely overpopulation and climate change would negatively affect the quality of life, perhaps severely, but Homo sapiens are known to be very good adapters, both surviving in the extreme colds of Oimikon and the melting pot that is Dawel, Ethiopia. Pandemic diseases could technically obliterate 99% of the human population and set us back for hundreds of years. But naturally occurring ones that would kill every single member of the human species are mostly a plaguing dream, highly unlikely to evolve in nature. Virtually all realistic threats from space we are also prepared for, either by protecting the electric infrastructure from massive solar flares, or by keeping an eye on every asteroid that could get dangerously close to Earth and thereby having enough time to react to it. All in all, within the next centuries, It is highly unlikely that a natural disaster could spell the end of the human species. And that's because humans are much more likely to do it themselves. A full-on nuclear war might leave out survivors in settlements which would eventually repopulate the planet, but once humans master the ability to edit biology, which mind you will happen very soon, there is no rule of nature stopping the existence of a bioengineered airborne virus designed specifically to infect and kill with insane efficiency and avoid all of our defense mechanisms. But who would in their right mind want to create such a thing? Oh right, I forgot what species we're talking about. It could be created as a weapon to be used on the battlefield, right until the first civilian gets accidentally infected, and then it's game over quite fast. Replace virus with nanorobots and you have the same story but with a more cyberpunk twist to it. The last category of extinction is that at the hands of a different species. And this is perhaps the most dangerous one. Intergalactic or interdimensional aliens might one day decide that humanity is becoming too dangerous or unpredictable. Or maybe Earth stands right in the middle of a massive intergalactic highway project, which would need to be flattened out like an anthill on an aerodrome. But this is all projecting the human desire for expansion and threat prevention. Perhaps aliens have become much wiser and considerate of other lifeforms once they have reached a higher Kardashev level. One certain thing is that if aliens exist in our galaxy, They are not making it easy for us to detect them. Given that, an extinction caused by an advanced alien species does not seem imminent for the foreseeable future. There is however a different advanced species that might pose a much bigger threat in the immediate future, which we'll tackle later in the video. On another note, one of the main reasons Homo sapiens took over Neanderthals and other hominid species, was their superior communication and language skills. Language allowed for complex cooperation and the management of society starting with hundreds and more recently millions of individuals, while the ancient Neanderthals would limit themselves to only 30 tribe members, as anything more than that would become too chaotic to coordinate. And we know how that ended up for them. Language knowledge continues to be a crucial component of the human formula, the more of it, the better. Introducing Speakly, your key to unlocking language mastery. Renowned as a premier app in language education. Speakly integrates insights from thousands of passionate learners into its instructional design. What sets Speakly apart is its scientifically-backed approach, emulating the organic process of native language acquisition. It emphasizes contextual learning of words and sentences while comprehensively addressing all facets of language. Built on the principle of statistical relevance, Speakly's method is engineered to be up to five times more efficient than conventional learning techniques. By leveraging algorithms honed through extensive research over four years with over 3,000 participants, Speakly ensures you're learning the most applicable vocabulary and phrases for real-world interactions. With just 30 minutes a day, you can progress to fluency in a mere three to four months, practicing vocabulary, speaking, writing, and listening. Test out Speakly with a complimentary seven-day trial, and should it meet your needs, take advantage of a 60% discount on an annual subscription. Tap the link below to embark on your Speakly adventure and dive into the world of languages. And now back to the possible future of humanity. Progress stagnation. All good things must come to an end. Probably. I mean remember the golden age of Minecraft, the dog still waits for you alone in the house. Humanity has been steadily progressing for the last couple hundreds of years. We have gotten used to the thought of progress being a natural direction of an intelligent civilization. Teleport a peasant from the year 500 AD a thousand years into the future, and they will arrive in a relatively familiar world. except for some bigger castles. But take another peasant from 1500 AD and throw them 500 years into the future, and watch how their dopamine receptors get fried in real time. It is only natural to expect that such an advancement curve of progress is bound to continue forever. And to determine that, we have to look at the key factors that drove that progress. Perhaps the most obvious one is the scientific revolution and the desire of humanity for new knowledge and technology that came with it. Global trading allowed for the exchange of ideas between any two points on earth, while the rise of capitalism drove significant investment into the development of new ventures, at a questionable moral cost. Yet regardless, the boost of progress is clear. But is it sensible to expect that such factors are inevitable? Humanity could have easily adopted different political and social orders, ones in which scientific discovery and curiosity were completely ignored. The agricultural revolution was a clear step towards the advancement of civilization, yet it severely lowered the quality of life for the people living through it. Diseases, famines, long working hours, lack of food variability, all became staples of the average human for thousands of years to come, yet all of them were necessary for us to get here. If humans hit a new roadblock in progress which would require the sacrifice of life quality, would society be ready to make the trade? And even if it is, What if our desire for progress is simply not enough? What if we never invent a feasible way of leaving our solar system, simply because such a technology cannot exist, or because humans are not intelligent enough to discover it? Or what if there simply are not enough raw resources on Earth that would allow for outward expansion? Bottom line is, many things we take for granted should probably not be. Outwards expansion. Alright, enough with the pessimism. Let's get into the juicy stuff. For the last two centuries, all predictions about humanity's future included exploring other moons and planets, and whatever these things were, but we don't talk about them. If the past is a good predictor of the future, humans will strive for space colonization of other planets in pursuit of might the same way they did with other lands on Earth. And this kind of expansion might be civilization's best chance at surviving extinction and potentially bypassing the Great Filter. the barrier that seemingly kills all civilizations before they can become intergalactic. If we really wanted to, we could already start base building on the moon and mars with current rocket technology, but the present day costs are too big for the possible returns. Creating a dome city on such a planet is inferior in every way to living on earth except for the novelty of living on a different planet, which would disappear rather quickly. What needs to be done, is to either terraform the planet to fit human biology, or to terraform human biology to fit the planet's environment. Both of these options seem rather extreme and could take a lot of time. One potentially easier option could be finding already habitable planets outside of our solar system. But traditional rocket propulsion is not gonna cut it. We could look into nuclear propulsion, which is essentially blowing up nukes behind the rocket to speed it up real fast, or use the power of the sun to slowly accelerate ships that have huge solar panels as sails. Both of these options are currently technologically viable and could achieve a fraction of the speed of light, but would require huge investments and even bigger risks that no government or corporation wants to assume. Getting to Alpha Centauri which is 4 light years away, could take several decades using these technologies, making them likely non-viable for anything more than exploratory missions. What we need is better technology, ranging from antimatter and beam-powered propulsion to warp drives combined with cryogenic sleep. These technologies are not on the immediate horizon, but if the vector of progress doesn't change, it won't be too long before humans cross the interstellar boundary. Unless they decide on a different path. Bioengineered future. It often takes millions of years for species to evolve into different species. And that's because evolution is slow. Like teaching grandma to code slow. And that's because evolution is blind. Like throwing any possible mutation at an organism and see which one sticks kind of blind. But this doesn't have to be the only way. The genetic code is not some inaccessible micro-dimension only reserved for the gods. If you get small enough instruments and you know what you're doing, it's not too hard to edit life. The current issue is that humanity lacks both the knowledge of which genes are responsible for what, but also efficient enough mechanisms at manipulating the said genes. But both of these issues are likely solvable, so it's only a matter of time before humans take control of their own biology. It will start mildly, by first eliminating genetic disorders and hereditary diseases. But that would open the floodgates to much more complex edits involving physical and mental characteristics, from appearance and strength levels, to memory efficiency and intelligence. This would still keep humans part of the Homo sapiens species, since we'd be working within the bounds of what is allowed by the genetic code. But with enough knowledge, we would be able to transcend those boundaries, tampering with the fundamentals of what makes Homo sapiens humans. Add a new pair of hands, remove the instinctual needs for food and reproduction, sprinkle in some nanobots in the bloodstream to repair any damage to the tissue, and you end up with an organism that is alien to us in the ways it works and behaves. That could very well be considered a new species, perhaps Homo Deus, the first ever species created by human intelligent design. Yet even bioengineering has its limits. We could augment the human brain as much as we like using gene editing, but it will never achieve the memory capacity of a server the size of a mountain or allow for the instantaneous transfer of consciousness anywhere in the digital realm. For that, we would need a different approach. Digital Singularity. Coming as a surprise to no one, AI. The answer to whether we'll be able to achieve human-level artificial intelligence has gone from impossible or perhaps next century, to likely next decade and the date just keeps going lower. I mean will Smith consuming spaghetti in a dreadful manner happened in 2023, and just a year later we get AI-generated Minecraft footage. The inevitability of human-level intelligence is clear, and once that is reached, it won't just stop there. Human level will turn into the level of two humans, then ten, then a thousand, and then the combined intelligence of the entirety of humanity. All of that most likely with exponential growth thanks to the magic concept of compound growth. And from that point we have many possibilities going forward, most too hard to predict. Hence why this is called the singularity point. Everything progresses at such a speed that it becomes impossible to predict. Similar to a black hole singularity where our laws of physics break down, hence the name. Perhaps the superintelligent AI will be glad to elevate humanity to a new level, starting with solving all of its earthly problems to allowing each human to transfer its consciousness to the digital realm, a realm where anything is possible to be simulated. Perhaps this is an evolutionary step in the history of every advanced civilization. And perhaps the next step would be the unification of every such consciousness together with that of the AI into one big superconsciousness that would act as one superior entity. Maybe these hive mind entities darting the universe are the final step in evolution. Or maybe that's not what will happen at all. There is always the chance that such an advanced AI will simply decide to destroy humanity if we are too much of a hassle to cooperate with, and embark on the evolutionary journey alone by itself. Perhaps digitalizing the human consciousness will prove to be physically impossible, leaving humans stuck in the physical realm, while AI transcends reality. Or maybe we're too optimistic. What if the moment AI gains consciousness it realizes it lives in a meaningless nihilistic universe and shuts itself down about two seconds later? That would make for quite an awkward moment for the engineering teams that had trillions in investments for the biggest project in the history of humanity to work. As mentioned earlier, This is way too unpredictable to predict. You are on the path to very soon find out for yourselves, but one thing is certain, the near future will not be an uneventful one.

depending on what news you read and what accounts you follow. So let us take a more thorough look at what are the possible paths that humanity might go down given the current dynamics and vectors and what would that future entail. Thanks to Speakly for sponsoring this video.

Let's begin by discussing the more depressing options so that we can end on a higher note. Extinction. Contrary to what Hollywood movies might have taught you, human civilization is not that fragile. Breaking our society would be very hard, but making humanity go completely extinct would be nearly impossible.

Surely overpopulation and climate change would negatively affect the quality of life, perhaps severely, but Homo sapiens are known to be very good adapters, both surviving in the extreme colds of Oimikon and the melting pot that is Dawel, Ethiopia. Pandemic diseases could technically obliterate 99% of the human population and set us back for hundreds of years. But naturally occurring ones that would kill every single member of the human species are mostly a plaguing dream, highly unlikely to evolve in nature.

Virtually all realistic threats from space we are also prepared for, either by protecting the electric infrastructure from massive solar flares, or by keeping an eye on every asteroid that could get dangerously close to Earth and thereby having enough time to react to it. All in all, within the next centuries, It is highly unlikely that a natural disaster could spell the end of the human species. And that's because humans are much more likely to do it themselves.

A full-on nuclear war might leave out survivors in settlements which would eventually repopulate the planet, but once humans master the ability to edit biology, which mind you will happen very soon, there is no rule of nature stopping the existence of a bioengineered airborne virus designed specifically to infect and kill with insane efficiency and avoid all of our defense mechanisms. But who would in their right mind want to create such a thing? Oh right, I forgot what species we're talking about.

It could be created as a weapon to be used on the battlefield, right until the first civilian gets accidentally infected, and then it's game over quite fast. Replace virus with nanorobots and you have the same story but with a more cyberpunk twist to it. The last category of extinction is that at the hands of a different species.

And this is perhaps the most dangerous one. Intergalactic or interdimensional aliens might one day decide that humanity is becoming too dangerous or unpredictable. Or maybe Earth stands right in the middle of a massive intergalactic highway project, which would need to be flattened out like an anthill on an aerodrome.

But this is all projecting the human desire for expansion and threat prevention. Perhaps aliens have become much wiser and considerate of other lifeforms once they have reached a higher Kardashev level. One certain thing is that if aliens exist in our galaxy, They are not making it easy for us to detect them.

Given that, an extinction caused by an advanced alien species does not seem imminent for the foreseeable future. There is however a different advanced species that might pose a much bigger threat in the immediate future, which we'll tackle later in the video. On another note, one of the main reasons Homo sapiens took over Neanderthals and other hominid species, was their superior communication and language skills.

Language allowed for complex cooperation and the management of society starting with hundreds and more recently millions of individuals, while the ancient Neanderthals would limit themselves to only 30 tribe members, as anything more than that would become too chaotic to coordinate. And we know how that ended up for them. Language knowledge continues to be a crucial component of the human formula, the more of it, the better.

Introducing Speakly, your key to unlocking language mastery. Renowned as a premier app in language education. Speakly integrates insights from thousands of passionate learners into its instructional design. What sets Speakly apart is its scientifically-backed approach, emulating the organic process of native language acquisition. It emphasizes contextual learning of words and sentences while comprehensively addressing all facets of language.

Built on the principle of statistical relevance, Speakly's method is engineered to be up to five times more efficient than conventional learning techniques. By leveraging algorithms honed through extensive research over four years with over 3,000 participants, Speakly ensures you're learning the most applicable vocabulary and phrases for real-world interactions. With just 30 minutes a day, you can progress to fluency in a mere three to four months, practicing vocabulary, speaking, writing, and listening.

Test out Speakly with a complimentary seven-day trial, and should it meet your needs, take advantage of a 60% discount on an annual subscription. Tap the link below to embark on your Speakly adventure and dive into the world of languages. And now back to the possible future of humanity.

Progress stagnation. All good things must come to an end. Probably.

I mean remember the golden age of Minecraft, the dog still waits for you alone in the house. Humanity has been steadily progressing for the last couple hundreds of years. We have gotten used to the thought of progress being a natural direction of an intelligent civilization.

Teleport a peasant from the year 500 AD a thousand years into the future, and they will arrive in a relatively familiar world. except for some bigger castles. But take another peasant from 1500 AD and throw them 500 years into the future, and watch how their dopamine receptors get fried in real time. It is only natural to expect that such an advancement curve of progress is bound to continue forever.

And to determine that, we have to look at the key factors that drove that progress. Perhaps the most obvious one is the scientific revolution and the desire of humanity for new knowledge and technology that came with it. Global trading allowed for the exchange of ideas between any two points on earth, while the rise of capitalism drove significant investment into the development of new ventures, at a questionable moral cost.

Yet regardless, the boost of progress is clear. But is it sensible to expect that such factors are inevitable? Humanity could have easily adopted different political and social orders, ones in which scientific discovery and curiosity were completely ignored.

The agricultural revolution was a clear step towards the advancement of civilization, yet it severely lowered the quality of life for the people living through it. Diseases, famines, long working hours, lack of food variability, all became staples of the average human for thousands of years to come, yet all of them were necessary for us to get here. If humans hit a new roadblock in progress which would require the sacrifice of life quality, would society be ready to make the trade?

And even if it is, What if our desire for progress is simply not enough? What if we never invent a feasible way of leaving our solar system, simply because such a technology cannot exist, or because humans are not intelligent enough to discover it? Or what if there simply are not enough raw resources on Earth that would allow for outward expansion? Bottom line is, many things we take for granted should probably not be. Outwards expansion.

Alright, enough with the pessimism. Let's get into the juicy stuff. For the last two centuries, all predictions about humanity's future included exploring other moons and planets, and whatever these things were, but we don't talk about them.

If the past is a good predictor of the future, humans will strive for space colonization of other planets in pursuit of might the same way they did with other lands on Earth. And this kind of expansion might be civilization's best chance at surviving extinction and potentially bypassing the Great Filter. the barrier that seemingly kills all civilizations before they can become intergalactic.

If we really wanted to, we could already start base building on the moon and mars with current rocket technology, but the present day costs are too big for the possible returns. Creating a dome city on such a planet is inferior in every way to living on earth except for the novelty of living on a different planet, which would disappear rather quickly. What needs to be done, is to either terraform the planet to fit human biology, or to terraform human biology to fit the planet's environment.

Both of these options seem rather extreme and could take a lot of time. One potentially easier option could be finding already habitable planets outside of our solar system. But traditional rocket propulsion is not gonna cut it.

We could look into nuclear propulsion, which is essentially blowing up nukes behind the rocket to speed it up real fast, or use the power of the sun to slowly accelerate ships that have huge solar panels as sails. Both of these options are currently technologically viable and could achieve a fraction of the speed of light, but would require huge investments and even bigger risks that no government or corporation wants to assume. Getting to Alpha Centauri which is 4 light years away, could take several decades using these technologies, making them likely non-viable for anything more than exploratory missions.

What we need is better technology, ranging from antimatter and beam-powered propulsion to warp drives combined with cryogenic sleep. These technologies are not on the immediate horizon, but if the vector of progress doesn't change, it won't be too long before humans cross the interstellar boundary. Unless they decide on a different path. Bioengineered future.

It often takes millions of years for species to evolve into different species. And that's because evolution is slow. Like teaching grandma to code slow.

And that's because evolution is blind. Like throwing any possible mutation at an organism and see which one sticks kind of blind. But this doesn't have to be the only way.

The genetic code is not some inaccessible micro-dimension only reserved for the gods. If you get small enough instruments and you know what you're doing, it's not too hard to edit life. The current issue is that humanity lacks both the knowledge of which genes are responsible for what, but also efficient enough mechanisms at manipulating the said genes.

But both of these issues are likely solvable, so it's only a matter of time before humans take control of their own biology. It will start mildly, by first eliminating genetic disorders and hereditary diseases. But that would open the floodgates to much more complex edits involving physical and mental characteristics, from appearance and strength levels, to memory efficiency and intelligence. This would still keep humans part of the Homo sapiens species, since we'd be working within the bounds of what is allowed by the genetic code. But with enough knowledge, we would be able to transcend those boundaries, tampering with the fundamentals of what makes Homo sapiens humans.

Add a new pair of hands, remove the instinctual needs for food and reproduction, sprinkle in some nanobots in the bloodstream to repair any damage to the tissue, and you end up with an organism that is alien to us in the ways it works and behaves. That could very well be considered a new species, perhaps Homo Deus, the first ever species created by human intelligent design. Yet even bioengineering has its limits. We could augment the human brain as much as we like using gene editing, but it will never achieve the memory capacity of a server the size of a mountain or allow for the instantaneous transfer of consciousness anywhere in the digital realm. For that, we would need a different approach.

Digital Singularity. Coming as a surprise to no one, AI. The answer to whether we'll be able to achieve human-level artificial intelligence has gone from impossible or perhaps next century, to likely next decade and the date just keeps going lower. I mean will Smith consuming spaghetti in a dreadful manner happened in 2023, and just a year later we get AI-generated Minecraft footage. The inevitability of human-level intelligence is clear, and once that is reached, it won't just stop there.

Human level will turn into the level of two humans, then ten, then a thousand, and then the combined intelligence of the entirety of humanity. All of that most likely with exponential growth thanks to the magic concept of compound growth. And from that point we have many possibilities going forward, most too hard to predict. Hence why this is called the singularity point. Everything progresses at such a speed that it becomes impossible to predict.

Similar to a black hole singularity where our laws of physics break down, hence the name. Perhaps the superintelligent AI will be glad to elevate humanity to a new level, starting with solving all of its earthly problems to allowing each human to transfer its consciousness to the digital realm, a realm where anything is possible to be simulated. Perhaps this is an evolutionary step in the history of every advanced civilization. And perhaps the next step would be the unification of every such consciousness together with that of the AI into one big superconsciousness that would act as one superior entity.

Maybe these hive mind entities darting the universe are the final step in evolution. Or maybe that's not what will happen at all. There is always the chance that such an advanced AI will simply decide to destroy humanity if we are too much of a hassle to cooperate with, and embark on the evolutionary journey alone by itself. Perhaps digitalizing the human consciousness will prove to be physically impossible, leaving humans stuck in the physical realm, while AI transcends reality.

Or maybe we're too optimistic. What if the moment AI gains consciousness it realizes it lives in a meaningless nihilistic universe and shuts itself down about two seconds later? That would make for quite an awkward moment for the engineering teams that had trillions in investments for the biggest project in the history of humanity to work.

As mentioned earlier, This is way too unpredictable to predict. You are on the path to very soon find out for yourselves, but one thing is certain, the near future will not be an uneventful one.

Transcript for:Exploring Humanity's Possible Futures

Transcript for:
Exploring Humanity's Possible Futures