The most intelligent inhabitants of that future world won’t be men or monkeys. They’ll be machines-the remote descendants of today’s computers. Now, the present-day electronic brains are complete morons. But this will not be true in another generation. They will start to think, and eventually they will completely out-think their makers. — Arthur C. Clarke, BBC Horizon, 1964
In the same way an automated calculator can outcompete any human in a Math Bowl, a sufficiently advanced Al will blow humans away at calculation, persuasion, deception, replication, machine control, resource acquisition, institutional organization, military strategy, and pretty much any task it’s trained to perform in the “digital ecosystem”. — Joe Allen, Dark Aeon: Transhumanism and the War Against Humanity
If allowed to improve their own computer code, these Als could replicate and mutate like bacteria in an irradiated Petri dish. Once one learns a new skill, countless more would learn instantly. — Joe Allen, Dark Aeon: Transhumanism and the War Against Humanity
To put this in perspective, your intelligence, in comparison to that machine, will be comparable to the intelligence of a fly in comparison to Einstein. Now the question becomes: how do you convince this superbeing that there is actually no point squashing a fly? — Mo Gawdat, Scary Smart
Mitigating the risk of extinction from Al should be a global priority alongside other societal-scale risks, such as pandemics and nuclear war. — Statement on Al Risk, 2023
I talked to Elon Musk the other day, and he thinks we’ll get things more intelligent than us. And what he’s hoping is, they’ll keep us around because we will make life more interesting. That seems like a pretty flimsy thing to rest humanity on to me. But he thinks it’s quite possible these things get much smarter-and they’ll gain control. — Geoffrey Hinton
If we have digital superintelligence that’s just much smarter than any human… at a species level, how do we mitigate that risk?… And then even in a benign scenario, where the Al is very benevolent, then how do we even go along for the ride? — Elon Musk, Neuralink Show and Tell, 2022
The long-term aspiration with Neuralink would be to achieve a symbiosis with artificial intelligence…l believe this can be done…It’s probably on the order of a decade. — Elon Musk, Axios on HBO, 2018
Human beings will be forced—as a matter of survival-to merge with the superintelligent machines they’ve created. (Or rather…the masses will be forced to merge with machines created by a handful of inventors and controlled by elites who are themselves possessed by digital intelligences.) — Joe Allen, Dark Aeon: Transhumanism and the War Against Humanity
The human species can, if it wishes, transcend itself-not just sporadically, an individual here in one way, an individual there in another way, but in its entirety, as humanity… We need a name for this new belief. Perhaps transhumanism will serve: man remaining man, but transcending himself, by realizing the new possibilities of and for his human nature… “I believe in transhumanism”: once there are enough people who can truly say that, the human species will be on the threshold of a new kind of existence. — Julian Huxley, Transhumanism, 1957
…the convergence of the physical, digital, and biological worlds….the fusion of our physical, digital, and biological identities. — Klaus Schwab, The Fourth Industrial Revolution
Techno-humanism agrees that Homo sapiens as we know it has run its historical course and will no longer be relevant in the future, but concludes that we should therefore use technology in order to create Homo deus [Man-God]—a much superior model. Homo deus will retain some essential human features but will also enjoy upgraded physical and mental abilities that will enable it to hold its own even against the most sophisticated non-conscious algorithms. — Yuval Noah Harari, Homo Deus
The Singularity will represent the culmination of our biological thinking and existence with our technology, resulting in a world that is still human but that transcends our biological roots. There will be no distinction, post-Singularity, between human and machine or between actual and virtual reality. — Ray Kurzweil, The Singularity is Near
The reality is…we’re creating God. — Mo Gawdat, The London Times, September 29, 2021
Who masters those technologies, in some way will be the master of the world. — Klaus Schwab, World Government Summit, 2023
In the near future, similar monitoring systems will also be applied to the movement and tracking of humans. — Klaus Schwab, The Fourth Industrial Revolution
If we are not careful the result might be an Orwellian police state that constantly monitors and controls not only all our actions, but even what happens inside our bodies and our brains. — Yuval Noah Harari, Homo Deus
I do suspect that even if we think the merge [with machines] is good..there will be many people who don’t want to… an exclusion zone, where it you want to live [without integrating with machines], you do that. — Sam Altman, Fireside Chat
…true symbiosis between Homo sapiens and the emerging Machina sapiens. — Brian Pierce, Symbiosis Homo et Machina, April 6, 2018
…the core of future military advantage will be effective integration of humans, artificial intelligence, and robotics into warfighting systems—human-machine teams-that exploit the capabilities of people and technologies to outperform our opponents. — UK Ministry of Defense, 2021
My purpose is not to inspire you to smash up machines like a lunatic and then run off to eat crickets in a cave. Although, some machines should be scrapped completely, and if that’s the route you’re destined for, start with your own smartphone. At bottom, this is spiritual warfare. Physical attacks don’t target the real enemy, which lurks in the soul…the most insidious element is not the machinery itself. It’s the techno-religious belief system that infuses each device. The enemies of humanity are waging a covert war on our very nature. Yet most people are content to keep scrolling to the next dopamine burst. — Joe Allen, Dark Aeon: Transhumanism and the War Against Humanity