In the future, when nanotechnologies, biotechnologies, information technologies and the cognitive sciences converge, we shall not only have biological computers, but “humanity could well achieve something like a single brain”, capable of both the best and the worst.
No, this is not an exercise in science fiction. Jean-Pierre Dupuy argues convincingly here that already nanotechnologies in the areas of information and communication are being developed, with the prospect of a new “molecular electronics” whose power and consequences could be “phenomenal”.
He goes on to explain how, thanks to nanobiotechnologies, the dream is coming to pass of rivalling Nature, and making what Eric Drexler has called “engines of creation”. He then shows how, thanks to the cognitive sciences, everything (the universe, nature, life, the spirit) could be reduced to (or transcended by) a “network of formal neurones”.
Those promoting this technoscience are “many, powerful and influential” and potentially highly dangerous, according to Jean-Pierre Dupuy. Driven by “a demiurgic plan to manufacture life by technical means”, they constitute a grave threat which must be dealt with urgently.
Quand les technologies convergeront
This article is published in Futuribles journal no.300, septembre 2004
