A fascinating new study from the originator of the Gaia Theory, "who
conceived the first wholly new way of looking at life on earth since
Charles Darwin" (Independent)
One of the world's leading scientific thinkers offers a vision of a
future epoch in which humans and artificial intelligence unite to save
the Earth.
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.
