Deschutes Public Library

Novacene, the coming age of hyperintelligence, James Lovelock with Bryan Appleyard

eng

index present

non fiction

Novacene

1104066697

James Lovelock with Bryan Appleyard

the coming age of hyperintelligence

"The originator of the Gaia theory offers the vision of a future epoch in which humans and artificial intelligence together will help the Earth survive. James Lovelock, creator of the Gaia hypothesis and the greatest environmental thinker of our time, has produced an astounding new theory about future of life on Earth. He argues that the Anthropocene--the age in which humans acquired planetary-scale technologies--is, after 300 years, coming to an end. A new age--the Novacene--has already begun. In the Novacene, new beings will emerge from existing artificial intelligence systems. They will think 10,000 times faster than we do and they will regard us as we now regard plants. But this will not be the cruel, violent machine takeover of the planet imagined by science fiction. These hyperintelligent beings will be as dependent on the health of the planet as we are. They will need the planetary cooling system of Gaia to defend them from the increasing heat of the sun as much as we do. And Gaia depends on organic life. We will be partners in this project. It is crucial, Lovelock argues, that the intelligence of Earth survives and prospers. He does not think there are intelligent aliens, so we are the only beings capable of understanding the cosmos. Perhaps, he speculates, the Novacene could even be the beginning of a process that will finally lead to intelligence suffusing the entire cosmos. At the age of 100, James Lovelock has produced the most important and compelling work of his life."--Publisher's website

Part One. The knowing cosmos. We are alone ; The edge of extinction ; Learning to think ; Why we are here ; The new knowers -- Part Two. The age of fire. Thomas Newcomen ; A new age ; Acceleration ; War ; Cities ; The world is too much with us... ; The heat threat ; Good or bad? ; A shout of joy -- Part Three. Into the Novacene. AlphaGo ; Engineering the new age ; The bit ; Beyond human ; Talking to the spheres ; All watched over by machines of loving grace ; Thinking weapons ; Our place in their world ; The conscious cosmos -- Envoi