Coevolution: the entwined futures of humans and machines

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Richard Dawkins famously said that a chicken is an egg's way of making another egg. Is a human a computer's way of making another computer? Quite possibly, the software systems that have taken over so many aspects of our lives should themselves be viewed as living beings, part of the natural evolutionary process of life. They are creatures defined by bits, not DNA, and made of silicon and metal, not organic molecules. They are born and they die. Some are simple, with a genetic code of a few thousand bits, and some are extremely complex. Most live short lives, sometimes less than a second, while others live for months or years. Some even have prospects for immortality, prospects better than any organic being. Does it really make sense to view this technology as an emerging new life form on our planet? If so, will this new life form become sentient? Annihilate us? Merge with us, either physically or symbiotically? These systems extend our minds and shape our culture. Are we designing them, or are they designing us? Are we fundamentally different from them, or are we all computer programs, albeit running on different hardware? Lee argues that the assumption made by many that we humans, as cognitive beings, are actually computations ourselves, and therefore destined to be eclipsed by these digital systems, is a "dataist" faith, a scientifically indefensible belief. I also argue that humanity is rapidly coevolving with technology and that we will change as much we change it.