Cambridge University’s Professor Stephen Hawking postulates in his ‘Life in the Universe’ lecture ( http://hawking.org.uk/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=65) that human beings have entered a new stage of evolution. He also believes that life on earth is at the ever increasing risk of being wiped out by a disaster such as global warming, nuclear war, a genetically engineered virus or some other danger. He reiterates his position that we need to get off the planet relatively soon: “I do not think the human race will survive the next 1000 years unless we spread into space.”
Of course it is difficult to comprehend how we are going to accomplish this due to the vast distances that might need to be covered to reach a planet capable of sustaining life as we know it. The fact that such a planet has not even been discovered yet is another complication. Things get interesting though when the Professor elaborates how Homo sapiens may just be a passing phase in the evolution of life – much like the dinosaurs.
He argues that with the human race evolution reached a critical stage, comparable in importance with DNA. The development of language, particularly written language, has created a way for information to be passed from generation to generation, other than genetically. There has been no detectable change in human DNA, brought about by biological evolution, in the ten or so thousand years of recorded history. But the amount of knowledge handed on has grown enormously. Even more important is the fact that this information can be changed and updated very rapidly.
Hawking estimates that during the several million years it took for humans to evolve from the apes the useful information in our DNA changed by a few million bits ie, the rate of biological evolution in humans is about a bit per year. By contrast there are about 50 000 new books published in the English language each year containing billions of bits of information. This means the rate at which information can be added is millions higher than with DNA, even after one has weeded out the garbage.
One of the implications, he says, is that we are now on the brink of a phase of what might be called self designing evolution. Once the human genome has been fully mapped we will have the knowledge to start engineering modifications. There will of course be much protest against this, as once such super humans begin to appear the unimproved will not be able to compete and will presumably die out.
The Professor suggests that it might be possible to use genetic engineering to make DNA-based life survive for hundreds of thousands of years, but that long distance space travel will still be difficult for chemically-based life forms. So, while this master race might be the next evolutionary step, he says that an easier way to spread into space would be to send machines. These could be designed to last long enough for interstellar travel. When they arrived at a new star, they could land on a suitable planet, and mine material to produce more machines, which could be sent on to yet more stars. These machines would be a new form of life, based on mechanical and electronic components rather than macromolecules. They could eventually replace DNA-based life, just as DNA may have replaced an earlier form of life.
Hawking concludes that this mechanical life could also be self designing. On an evolutionary scale this would mean an extremely rapid transition between the Darwinian phase and a biological or mechanical self design phase.
If this does turn out to be true there will almost certainly be a buck to be made in robotics before the final demise of us uncompetitive human beings. Since we at Instrumentation and Control SA believe it is important to keep our readers informed of new opportunities in the market, Andrew has written an article for you this month ‘Trends in robotics’ in anticipation.
Robots in the home, swarm robots, robotic integration – couple these with molecular reproducing nano-technologies and then put them in the context of the Hawking lecture?
Who knows, maybe these next generation life forms will base their anthem on lyrics by Arno Carstens – ‘From the galaxy of blues to a universe we choose.’ Imagine.
Steven Meyer, editor: SA Instrumentation & Control
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