This blog post will discuss whether technological progress will bring progress to humanity or cause the extinction of Homo sapiens.
The last part of the book “Sapiens” contains the content that Homo sapiens, that is, modern humans, will eventually meet their end. Most people who have not read this book will think of a catastrophe such as a meteorite impact or an ice age that caused the extinction of dinosaurs, or a large-scale war such as World War III as the cause of the extinction of mankind. However, Yuval Noah Harari’s “Sapiens” explains the extinction of mankind in a different way. Why and how will humanity, the top predator, go extinct? It is said that it is due to the rapid technological development. Most people would laugh at this if technological development did not advance humanity but rather led to its decline and extinction. However, this book warns that technology will evolve humanity into a new being, becoming a completely different life form from the current human race, and eventually the species Homo sapiens will disappear.
So, what technological advancements are triggering this rapid evolution? It is the amazing development of biotechnology. What we are talking about here is not a story from a science fiction novel, but the era of the Fourth Industrial Revolution that we are facing. Now, everyone can feel that the Fourth Industrial Revolution is right around the corner. As this era approaches, the technologies that are being developed are IT (information technology), BT (biotechnology), and NT (nanotechnology). What is unique about these technologies is that they are not being developed independently, but rather in an organic way. For example, IT, BT, and NT technologies are being combined to create a small therapeutic drug that can move freely through the capillaries, or a healthcare system that allows people to get health checkups without going to the hospital. In addition, a number of next-generation convergence technologies are being developed, such as artificial organs that do not cause immune rejection, dense bodies, and brains with the processing speed of a computer. What would happen if humanity perfected these technologies? People would try to change and improve their bodies. But would beings with such modified bodies really be able to remain sapiens, that is, human?
This is the end of humanity as described in Sapiens. The book predicts that humanity will go extinct in three major ways: biotechnology, cyborg engineering, and non-organic engineering. These three can be collectively referred to as biotechnology. As mentioned earlier, it is the result of the convergence of various disciplines, so there is no need to subdivide it.
First of all, biotechnology is, simply put, the pursuit of a better life by changing our characteristics through genes. For example, just as we wear green surgical clothes to prevent eye strain from the blood splatter during surgery, it is the same concept as when a person who is not good at swimming is injected with a gene that creates webbed feet so that they can swim well. In other words, it makes it possible to do things that are impossible for humans by manipulating genes. It’s similar to the way the protagonist in the movie Captain America: The First Avenger gets an injection and transforms into Captain America. Can such a changed person really be considered a real human being?
Second, cyborg engineering is the mechanization of the body. This is also a concept similar to biotechnology, but it means replacing the body with a machine to achieve various synergies. For example, if you replace your limbs with machines, you can jump from 300 meters in the air without getting hurt or easily lift a few tons of objects. It can also provide new bodies to people who have lost part of their bodies in an accident. Can such a cyborg, a human with a mechanical body, really be called a human?
Finally, there is non-organic engineering. This concept is the easiest to understand, and it can be described as the process of transferring the human mind to a computer. In other words, the mind is transferred from the human body, which is an organic body, to a non-organic body, such as a computer or a computing device. This may completely deny human consciousness, but on the other hand, it raises the possibility of accurately replicating a person’s brain and putting it in a computer to have a conversation with it. In that case, is the person I’m talking to a human or a computer? How would you answer such a question?
Sapien warns that such technological advancements will eventually transform humans into something other than humans. The book then begins to deal with dystopian prospects. Ironically, however, his follow-up work, Homo Deus, discusses the possibility of humans becoming divine like Zeus, the supreme god of Greek mythology. These books present various possibilities rather than concluding on our future. Which of these many possibilities will we choose? This is a question we must continue to keep in mind.
