Human beings are very lazy.
Let me ask you a question. When was the last time you had to consider how you were going to get access to fresh water?
This was the overriding concern of humanity for about twelve thousand years. It was such a big problem, we went to tremendous effort and expense, millions of man hours, billions upon untold billions of dollars (accounting for inflation) that we effectively solved it.
They did the work. We benefit.
People don't intuitively understand exponential increase. I'm just going to say a number of easily verifiable facts. There is no natural law or physical reality that will prevent us from completely replacing the body with factory synthetics, it's simply a matter of taking the time and refining the techniques to do so. We don't know what consciousness is. It very functionally isn't relevant to artificial general intelligence. Machines that will think, and take independent action, and functionally be superiors to humans in every measurable way are coming. Already, non-general artificial intelligence significantly outperforms medical professionals in diagnostics.
Futurists generally place the development of Artificial General Intelligence by 2060, but a significant number consider this a hopeful estimate, considering it's arrival sometime in the early 2030's. After artificial general intelligence, things will begin to happen very quickly. Assuming we don't all instantly die because it wants to kill us (and be sure, there will be no war. If an AGI wishes to kill humanity, we won't even know it's attacking before it wins), we will have a being that can solve problems better than we can, and will be able to implement and apply these changes much more quickly and efficiently than we can.
That's what exponential increases mean. By the time you're aware of the radical irreversible change it's already fait accompli. That's literally what our laziness will bring. We actually talk about it all the time. We will destroy anything if it saves us a walk to the fridge.
Look at the water system! The internet! Electricity!
Assuming we don't murder ourselves with evil robots, you know it doesn't end. There was a 1000 bc. There will be a 4000 AD. People are going to uplift house animals and give them vocal cords. They will genetically design creatures who are sentient. We will travel in space, tear apart worlds, create stars. People will 100% build creatures in flesh vats to use as sex slaves. Do you have any doubt?
So really, we already know what we are going to do. First we are going to do it in virtual worlds—as we already are already. People stake spaces in virtual games, build communities, and create economies. We always have a fascination with gods, superheroes, and magic, so we'll probably make that happen in reality. We already have magic black mirrors, why stop there? You can already control things with brain interfaces. That's a tech that's got a ton of room to improve.
You're thinking I'm talking about the far far future. But 2060 is the late estimate. That's 40 years.
Not so far away after all.
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