As long as the calculations remain valid, what does it matter whether the algorithms are manifested in carbon or silicon? Hence, there is no reason to think that organic algorithms can do things that non-organic algorithms will never be able to replicate or surpass. Whether an abacus is made of wood, iron or plastic, two beads plus two beads equals four beads.ģ. Algorithmic calculations are not affected by the materials from which the calculator is built. Every animal - including Homo sapiens - is an assemblage of organic algorithms shaped by natural selection over millions of years of evolution.Ģ. The current scientific answer to this pipe dream can be summarized in three simple principles:ġ. The idea that humans will always have a unique ability beyond the reach of non-conscious algorithms is just wishful thinking. Yet this is not a law of nature, and nothing guarantees it will continue to be like that in the future.

This never happened, because as old professions became obsolete, new professions evolved, and there was always something humans could do better than machines. People have long feared that mechanization might cause mass unemployment. The most important question in 21st-century economics may well be: What should we do with all the superfluous people, once we have highly intelligent non-conscious algorithms that can do almost everything better than humans? Doug Chayka Historian Yuval Noah Harari offers a bracing prediction: just as mass industrialization created the working class, the AI revolution will create a new unworking class.

人類大命運：從智人到神人 by Yuval Noah Harari