WHAT ABOUT THE ZERG?

More from Forbes:

The Coming Artilect War

Considering all this, I predict that humanity will split into three major philosophical, ideological, political groups, which I label as follows.

–The Cosmists (based on the word “cosmos”) will be in favor of building these godlike machines (the artilects), who would be immortal, think a million times faster than humans, have unlimited memory, go anywhere, do anything and take any shape. The Cosmists would take a quasi-religious view that they are god builders. Privately, I am a Cosmist, but publicly, I have mixed feelings about the rise of the artilect.

–The Terrans (based on the word “terra,” meaning the earth) will be opposed to the construction of artilects, fearing that in a highly advanced form, the artilects may decide to wipe us out. To ensure that the probability that this might happen is zero, the Terrans will insist that the artilects are never built in the first place. But this strategy runs utterly contrary to what the Cosmists want. The Terrans will be prepared to go to war against the Cosmists to ensure the survival of the human species.

–The Cyborgists (based on the word “cyborg,” meaning cybernetic organism that is part machine, part human) will want to become artilect gods themselves by adding artilectual components to their own brains, thus avoiding the bitter conflict between the Cosmists and the Terrans.

Yes, Forbes published this. The line after this quote starts as follows:

I differ sharply with well-known futurist Ray Kurzweil on his over-optimistic prediction that the rise of the artilect this century will be a positive development for humanity. I think it will be a catastrophe.

Whenever you find yourself in agreement OR disagreement with a futurist, you know you’ve done something horribly, terribly wrong.