Potentially more exciting, but also more frightening, are the prospects for greatly extending lifespans by medical advances and cyber-engineering of new heart, lung and other vital systems. If we can radically extend the human lifespan, people will no doubt embrace it. But what if only the rich can afford it? Will democracy survive a future where the rich live for centuries and the poor only for decades? And if lifespans are extended, will people choose to have lengthier retirements—if so, who will pay for them? Or if people remain at work, will that block opportunities for younger workers? More radically—will we need workers at all? Or will we move to a society where production and services function under automated systems, serving people who cultivate their own interests?
Let me posit two over-arching questions that will guide the use of the products of the Cybernetic Revolution and their interaction with an aging human population: (1) Is the purpose of cybernetic innovations to make the lives of human beings more interesting, healthier, productive and enjoyable while remaining essentially human, or is it to replace humanity as we know it with something post-human, enhanced or partially or fully replaced by robotic and cybernetic/cyborg entities? And (2) Is the purpose of cybernetic innovations to make businesses more profitable to innovators and owners, or to create such widespread prosperity that ALL people can increasingly be released from necessary income-producing work to instead take up work that is socially valuable and quality-of-life enhancing?
It is interesting to me that in most futuristic science fiction, such as Star Trek and Star Wars, the human protagonists hundreds of years in the future do not differ noticeably from present-day humans. Aliens aside, the main actors are no stronger, have no better vision or hearing, no better or differently wired brains than humans today. This is extremely odd for societies that have mastered interstellar travel, anti-matter-based propulsion and energy weapons. It seems that at some point in their development, these societies decided that it would be a grave error to change what it means to be human, and instead to preserve humanity in its current genetic form, although equipping humans with more and more advanced external computing and mechanical power. Indeed, there are often references to the explicit prohibition of genetic modification after past failed and dangerous periods of genetic enhancement, while cyborgs and robots are often presented as evil and dangerous villains. Given the opportunities described in this book, it seems that our societies will have to make that choice at some point, and likely soon: do we use technological advances to enhance the lives we lead as humans, or do we choose to leave humanity behind and become something else? (And who do we trust to make that choice?)
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