machines and humanity

Very brief philosophical post.

Thanks to the first and second industrial revolution, population has exploded while the average amount of manual labor done by each human has dwindled. We now have giant tractors and automated assembly lines which can vastly outperform a thousand humans in much less time.  In the blink of an eye, technology has made the need for a fit and strong body almost completely obsolete.

I suspect there will be a 3rd industrial revolution. There's nothing about our brains that is intrinsically capable of doing what a machine cant. I know I'll sound like a batshit crazy sci fi nutter, but it's only a matter of time until AI will outperform another part of humanity: intelligence. Yep, soon some Google assistant equivalent will be able to consult businesses, be capable of generating scientific hypotheses, and even run governments.

Just like the first and second industrial revolutions, I don't think this is a necessarily a bad thing. Having machines as our benevolent babysitters could be an amazing and perhaps necessary empowerment of humanity. Being out-competed by technology in the physical domain hasn't devalued human accomplishment; Usain Bolt still draws in a huge crowed even though a porsche could easily outrun him. I suspect the same will be for intelligence, and perhaps even creativity. Maybe in the future, super geniuses practicing mathematics might only have aesthetic value in the same way bodybuilders only have aesthetic value now.

With the first and second industrial revolution came a huge diversification of labor. We started inventing and perfecting skills we never thought existed before hand. Maybe this next move will liberate humans to explore the mysteries of consciousness and morality (purely as a subjective experience) in just as many ways.