The current scientific method that reflects the evolutionary process will be continuously refined, providing forward guidance and risk management relating to the introduction of each new technological and social innovation, through the simulation of future scenarios. A greater capacity will rapidly develop to assess future outcomes from present states based on this process, feeding these projections back to the present in a constant interplay of time-based scenarios; eventually resulting in a collapse of time with the merging of past, present and future states.
The major initial advantage will be a significant reduction in the massive risks associated with the outcomes of new technologies, which have produced such catastrophic environmental and human degradation in the past. Also implicit in meta-evolution will be the capability to achieve ultra-rapid convergence, resulting in almost instantaneous problem solving and realisation of goals.
Knowledge in this future scenario will be generated, gathered, focused, processed and applied as required in ultra-fast timeframes. Research and development times for new products and processes will collapse dramatically. The time to bring new information services and computer products to market has already been reduced from three years to three months over the past ten years. This trend is continuing, with technology companies currently introducing major product and service enhancements at the rate of one a month.
Utilising technologies such as nanotechnology, bioengineering and advanced robotics, concepts will be seamlessly transformed to designs, designs to prototypes, and prototypes to production models almost simultaneously. Engineering and scientific projects will become more gargantuan and complex, laying the foundations to extend life on earth to other star systems and galaxies; eventually utilising the limitless energy and resources of the entire universe. Although ethically and economically dubious, plans to mine the Moon and Mars are already well advanced.
Meta-evolution will also provide the energy and insight to fast-track the evolution of Meta-life. The symbiotic merging of artificial intelligence with biological life, together with human cooperation on a global basis, will, within a comparatively short timeframe, result in the emergence of meta-life as a universal form of intelligence. The logical stepping stone to this state, artificial life, is already a reality.
The essence of life, that is its basic behavioural, replicative and cognitive patterns, have been modelled as computer programs for over fifteen years. Combined with artificial intelligence and cybernetic theory, such models are now being applied in the form of computer programs, which act as extensions of human decision-making as previously described. Such agents are today relatively limited in their problem-solving capacity, but in the near future they will mirror human capabilities more closely, linking with other agents specialising in other domains and utilising complementary AI techniques.
At the same time, humans are cooperating in larger and more diverse groups via the Internet to solve more complex scientific, engineering and ethical problems. These require multi-disciplinary and real-time interaction across diverse fields of knowledge to solve the critical challenges facing life today; global warming, environmental pollution, population control, conflict mediation, disease management and the new frontiers of space exploration.
As a result, virtual communities of researchers and social advocates are already establishing a presence on the Web through social networking, virtual worlds; interacting with the aid of intelligent software to generate solutions and create alternate realities. These are the prototypes of future symbiotic communities with alternate operational and intellectual modus operandi; the early prototypes of universal meta-life.
These developments clearly demonstrate that life is now at the threshold of its most significant transformation, the symbiosis of biological and artificial life. Already few scientists or businesses operate without access to sophisticated Internet services and tools, with computer power able to be vastly augmented by Internet grids, on demand. In the near future, the links between AL and BL will be virtually seamless. Powerful AI techniques in the form of neural nets, swarm systems, fuzzy logic and evolutionary algorithms, will merge with the massive pattern analysis capacities of human intelligence; complementing human decision making at a fundamental level and creating a permanent nexus.
The major initial advantage will be a significant reduction in the massive risks associated with the outcomes of new technologies, which have produced such catastrophic environmental and human degradation in the past. Also implicit in meta-evolution will be the capability to achieve ultra-rapid convergence, resulting in almost instantaneous problem solving and realisation of goals.
Knowledge in this future scenario will be generated, gathered, focused, processed and applied as required in ultra-fast timeframes. Research and development times for new products and processes will collapse dramatically. The time to bring new information services and computer products to market has already been reduced from three years to three months over the past ten years. This trend is continuing, with technology companies currently introducing major product and service enhancements at the rate of one a month.
Utilising technologies such as nanotechnology, bioengineering and advanced robotics, concepts will be seamlessly transformed to designs, designs to prototypes, and prototypes to production models almost simultaneously. Engineering and scientific projects will become more gargantuan and complex, laying the foundations to extend life on earth to other star systems and galaxies; eventually utilising the limitless energy and resources of the entire universe. Although ethically and economically dubious, plans to mine the Moon and Mars are already well advanced.
Meta-evolution will also provide the energy and insight to fast-track the evolution of Meta-life. The symbiotic merging of artificial intelligence with biological life, together with human cooperation on a global basis, will, within a comparatively short timeframe, result in the emergence of meta-life as a universal form of intelligence. The logical stepping stone to this state, artificial life, is already a reality.
The essence of life, that is its basic behavioural, replicative and cognitive patterns, have been modelled as computer programs for over fifteen years. Combined with artificial intelligence and cybernetic theory, such models are now being applied in the form of computer programs, which act as extensions of human decision-making as previously described. Such agents are today relatively limited in their problem-solving capacity, but in the near future they will mirror human capabilities more closely, linking with other agents specialising in other domains and utilising complementary AI techniques.
At the same time, humans are cooperating in larger and more diverse groups via the Internet to solve more complex scientific, engineering and ethical problems. These require multi-disciplinary and real-time interaction across diverse fields of knowledge to solve the critical challenges facing life today; global warming, environmental pollution, population control, conflict mediation, disease management and the new frontiers of space exploration.
As a result, virtual communities of researchers and social advocates are already establishing a presence on the Web through social networking, virtual worlds; interacting with the aid of intelligent software to generate solutions and create alternate realities. These are the prototypes of future symbiotic communities with alternate operational and intellectual modus operandi; the early prototypes of universal meta-life.
These developments clearly demonstrate that life is now at the threshold of its most significant transformation, the symbiosis of biological and artificial life. Already few scientists or businesses operate without access to sophisticated Internet services and tools, with computer power able to be vastly augmented by Internet grids, on demand. In the near future, the links between AL and BL will be virtually seamless. Powerful AI techniques in the form of neural nets, swarm systems, fuzzy logic and evolutionary algorithms, will merge with the massive pattern analysis capacities of human intelligence; complementing human decision making at a fundamental level and creating a permanent nexus.
