How technology might be able to kill us

Have you ever wondered how vast the universe is and how man hasn't been able to discover all of it yet? I've spent pretty much the last year reflecting on how technology might lead us in the future. Through the evolution of smartphones, there is certainly a possibility of the future either being terrifying or incredible.

Technology is evolving really fast. In the last 50 years alone, computers have become a trillion times as powerful, and humans are not exactly as good when it comes to visualizing how much difference this could make in the long run. While technology is skyrocketing, humans are relatively fixed. Since the last 50,000 years, human intelligence, speed, and strength have only budged a little and definitely not as much as to keep up with the evolution of computers. As a race, we've learned to generate electricity, build space rockets, and so on. But, as technology gets more developed, humans would get less intelligent. We can already see this happen as our reliance on Google Maps, Google Translate, Calculators in our pockets, etc are beginning to reduce our level of raw skills. We're using less of our brains and more of the gadgets around us. You might remember a man named Usain Bolt, he ran the fastest 100-meter race the world had ever seen at 9.58 seconds in 2009, but it's surprising that with how much humans have developed, no one has been able to beat that record. The reason is that humans have become more dependent on technology and therefore more limited in their abilities. I see a future where robots take our place in extreme sports because they aren't constrained by the limitations that we have as humans. With virtual reality, humans would be able to experience more thrilling entertainment from the comfort of their homes.

Technology would not only dominate entertainment but also replace a lot of humans in their jobs. People are already losing jobs to technology and whilst it is true that with technology comes better jobs, I don't think there is anything humans can do that robots can't. Robots could be comedians, actors, company CEOs, and even do more complex jobs like radiography. There are even robots that are social media influencers, like Lil Miquela, that you can follow right now and they in fact have real-life fans. She has 2.1 million Instagram followers and has had brand collaborations with companies like Prada, but she's AI and doesn't actually exist. Even the movies that we watch. Although they are fake, the core ideas behind them are real. If you look at human lifespans, levels of diseases, and other important aspects of life, it's really not humans that are improving but the technology that we use. Humans can only communicate at the fraction of the speed that we think in. So like the founder of Tesla, Elon Musk, said, humans might be left behind, which means that if we don't decide to upgrade, AI (Artificial Intelligence) might make us irrelevant.

Neuralink was a company founded by Elon Musk that essentially plants electrodes into people's brains to send and receive data to and from a smart device. If you think this is a very invasive procedure, then I guess we think alike. They carried out an experiment where they plugged a cable into people's brains and were able to download the activity of their brains into a system that compiled data, just like the way you'd transfer a movie or download pictures. Their goal is to enable "human enhancement" and help paralyzed people be able to think again. If things go on this way, humans will become artificially intelligent and our brains will contain unlimited memory storage since all the information it processes would be uploaded to cloud storage. The AI devices would be able to diagnose brain diseases years before you start feeling any symptoms and talking through phone would be a relic because all you'd have to do is think about talking to someone and you'd be able to. Language barriers would be nonexistent because your AI would auto-translate, and rather than sitting in class trying to learn something, your brain would just download all the information.

Now that we know all these things are bound to happen, the next question is whether it would bring us ultimate joy or a grisly end. My personal take is that we have to be really careful because even though some people say that a machine can never be smarter than the developer, the truth is that no one person developed the computer. It was the combined effort of the entire human race. Every invention from the discovery of fire to the production of the light bulb led to the invention of the computer. The biggest problem is that companies are out there competing for who can build the AI that can think fastest and learn quickest. AI has been given the ability to learn and that is far more than any other kind of programming because as soon as you teach something to learn for itself, it can start to behave in ways you didn't previously anticipate. Also, in terms of reproduction, it takes humans almost a year to have a baby and 20 or more years to fully develop it but a machine can completely replicate itself overnight. It's tough to think about things like that now, but it's safe to say that with a new technological era comes new potential threats.

You might be wondering that since we know about the potential damage, why in the world are we still walking down that path? The answer is that we humans are never satisfied. We've always had the desire to push forward and this has cost us several things in the past like how our rush towards industrialization led to the massive destruction of the planet and our use of nuclear technology has led to threats of nuclear war.

The final note I want to add is that predicting the future is almost impossible and no one knows what's going to really happen, but we can only hope for the best. If you read this post this far, thank you so much for reading and let me know if you enjoyed it. This writing has been long in the works and I hope it pays off. Let me also end by saying that I want to be a robotics engineer when I get older... haha!

With all of that being said, don't forget to like, comment, and subscribe if you haven't already. Follow us on Instagram for exclusive content (@qween_demis_blog) and I'll catch y'all next Saturday... Bye!

#Technology #Harmful #Facts #GeneralKnowledge