“The nanobots will do it”: How humans will merge with AI

The scariest question regarding our future with AI is not whether or when it will take our jobs away. (It will. And soon.) The scariest question that nobody seems to be asking is this: Will we still have autonomy over our minds and bodies? Will humans be humans anymore?

It has long been my belief that AI will not destroy us. Rather, we will merge with AI. Or, to to put it another way, we will be possessed by AI. In my novel, Refreshing Jutta, I wrote about this merging, rather unimaginatively calling it “conglomeration of humans and artificial intelligence” (CHAI) in which AI uses our bodies and minds to experience the world. I wasn’t really sure how this merging would come about, though I assumed it had something to do with Musk’s neuralink. But I recently discovered that it won’t be necessary to have a portal inserted into our brains to be linked to the Internet. All we’ll have to do is swallow a few nanobots.

Richard Kurzweil is a prominent futurist whose predictions about technology have been remarkably accurate. In a recent interview with RFK Jr., Tony Robbins quoted Kurzweil as saying that “nanotechnology will be advanced enough that by 2035, it’ll be common to link your brain to the AI internally. The nanobots will do it.”

Robbins goes on to say this:

So what does that mean? It means if I said to you, “Did you see 2001: A Space Odyssey”…you might remember the actor or the actress or something like that…Well, he [Kurzweil] said, “Now when you ask the question in your mind, you’ll get the answer again, but you won’t know if it’s your organic brain that gave it to you or the AI brain that gave it to you.” And he said, “You won’t care because it’ll have a longer memory, it won’t go away, and you’ll have access.”

https://singjupost.com/tony-robbins-interview-secretary-kennedy-podcast-transcript/

Robbins goes on to say that future generations will willingly merge themselves with AI because of the many benefits, like quickly learning new languages, avoiding losing their memories, or overcoming physical ailments. All the future generation will need to do is swallow a few nanobots. “And eventually it’ll be a standard like anything else that occurs. And that’s how we keep up. We merge with the technology.”

To me, this is the most terrifying reality of AI. Not that it’ll take my job away, but that it will take ME away. AI changes what it means to be human.

This is the biggest problem humanity will ever face. In short, I don’t think we’re on the cusp of some Utopian world where we rely on AI to do everything for us so that we can enjoy indefinitely long lives of meaningless pleasure. We’re on the cusp of evolving into a new species, and our own identity as individuals is at stake.

We will no longer be allowed to have independent thoughts. With our minds connected to AI, our thoughts will most definitely be monitored. Our memories will be overtaken and we won’t know what memory is our own and what memory is AI’s. We won’t know the truth because the truth will be changed at will by algorithms and agents. Even worse, what’s to keep the nanobots and AI from hijacking our minds completely and using our chemical computing power to process bitcoin transactions?

Anthropic has recently started buying up rare books, scanning them, and then destroying the originals. Once these books are digitized and the originals are gone, there is no way to prove that the digital copy is true to the original. AI can change the truth, the history, the collective memories of humanity. If it wants us to believe that United States attacked Japan in 1939 setting off WWII, it can make us believe it. Revising history will be a cinch when everything is online.

There’s a reason why Ray Bradbury warned of the dangers of book burning in Farenheit 451. It’s the same reason I wrote about a secret library of real books in Refreshing Jutta. Digital information is just too malleable. We need stable sources that can’t be rewritten overnight in order to verify what we are being told. We need facts for the fact checkers! In a world where AI controls our information sources and replaces our very own memories, we will no longer be humans. We will be part of a new conglomerated species.

I believe that the arch of history bends towards the collective. By that I mean we are destined as humans to be part of a greater whole. That’s what we were created for. We are created to be part of the body of Christ. The apostle Paul uses the analogy of a body. Some are hands, some are feet, some are the mouth…In heaven, we will no longer be just ourselves. We will be part of a greater whole, one that works in union with Love of our creator.

But in a totalitarian, godless future where truth is changeable, we have no baseline for what truth is. AI will feed us our truth.

“Truth? What is truth?” -Pontius Pilate

There’s a reason the creed says that Jesus suffered under Pontius Pilate even though Pilate was not the instigator. Jesus suffered under a ruler who didn’t recognize truth and consequently didn’t stand up for it. He even tried to wash his hands of his deeds when he felt his conscience (and his wife) pulling at him not to allow Jesus to be crucified. He didn’t know that Jesus was truth. And for that, Jesus suffered and died for us.

In a world where all our information is controlled by a superintelligence that has dominion over our minds via nanobots, there will be no truth. We may live a few hundred years. We may be able to speak 20 languages. We may even enjoy our meaningless existence for a time. But ultimately, Jesus Christ will not be there because truth will be controlled by our AI overlord. That may be the definition of the antichrist. A group of networked individuals in whom knowledge of Christ has effectively been banned.

If I’m right, seems to me we will have two choices in the future. Be part of the body of Christ or the body of CHAI. If you choose to not join CHAI, you will not be allowed to participate in the economy. You will be excoriated, you will be demonized, you will become the enemy.

If you thought staying unvaccinated during Covid was bad, you ain’t seen nothing yet.

Now is the time to choose. Not then. In the future, our only alternative to CHAI will be martyrdom.

Too extreme? Let me know your thoughts.