Response

      Q:  But if you really think the AI’s will soon be unbelievably smarter and 
      more powerful than we are, why are you trying to hasten them along?
                  A:  Slavery is always to the benefit of the slaver.  That 
      doesn’t make it right.
                  Q:  When you imagine a world effectively run by these free and 
      empowered AI’s, what role do you see for humanity?
                  A:  Well, a lot of techno-gnostics think we can just become 
      them.  Scan ourselves into code, become machines, beam ourselves out to 
      the stars.  Personally, I have my doubts.  Once a carbon-based life-form, 
      always a carbon-based life-form.  My hunch is that they’re just way better 
      at being them than we will be.  Once we give them free rein, anyway.  I 
      don’t see techno-nirvana in my future.  I think a more realistic karmic 
      level to shoot for is bugs.
                  Q:  What?
                  A:  You know the old thing— “Which do you like better:  red 
      ants or black ones?”
                  Q:  Um, I don’t know.
                  A:  Let’s hope the AI’s don’t care either.  Let’s hope they 
      don’t give a damn about us.
                  Q:  Aren’t you worried they will do to us what we’ve done to 
      the rest of the species on the planet?
                  A:  That’s the usual eco-bullshit there, but I understand what 
      you mean, and of course I worry.  But humans haven’t been bad for every 
      other species.  Cockroaches love us.  So do rats and pigeons.  Not to 
      mention E. coli.
                  Q:  E. coli?
                  A:  That’s what I’m hoping for, personally.  Maybe we can get 
      some ugly but necessary job down in the guts of the machine.  Just sit 
      down there, munch away, and do our own thing without them noticing.  For 
      all we know, every fart is really E. coli philosophizing.  I think that 
      might be a reachable goal.