Will Google Determine The Future of Humanity?
These are very interesting times to be alive if you are a human. We are at a point in our journey as a species where moving forward, we are building a world for ourselves, that is much akin to a science fiction one that we often read about or see in movies.
Seriously, if you pay attention to the latest developments that are happening in various fields of human endeavour and all the research that is going on, you wouldn’t be able to contain your excitement about the future and what it entails.
Throughout the world, there are teams of brilliant people that are working on technologies that will not only define the next 100 years to come but will also redefine what it means to be a human.
Google (or Alphabet) is single handedly leading the charge on much of those technologies and if even half of its efforts see the light of the day, it just might end up determining the fate of humanity. Let me talk about three such ventures today.
Verily
Verily was formerly known as Google Life Sciences before Google went through a major re-organising and is now a subsidiary of Alphabet focused on the study of life sciences.
Technological advancements in this field will change how we maintain and monitor our health and fight off diseases. Verily, it seems, will have a major stake in that future.
From contact lenses that will work in conjunction with miniaturised glucose monitors (inside or outside the body), to allow for continuous glucose monitoring to a project that is collecting genetic and molecular information about the human body to determine its ideal healthy form, Verily will help us augment human health like never before.
They are even developing an entire nanoparticle platform that could one day mean swarm of nano-robots swimming inside our bodies performing continuous diagnosis and repair work.
Calico
This is another subsidiary of Alphabet and was founded in 2013 as a biotech company to research human longevity and to combat ageing related diseases.
Many experts assert that in the not so distant future, we will have a lot more control over how long we live. Firstly, the average human life span would increase to a great degree thanks to all the medical advances and second, in the more distant future, we will have several other sci-fi like options like downloading our consciousness into machines.
Calico is quite secretive about its plans to elongate human life span but what it has announced, are some partnerships that it has undertaken to fight age related diseases like neurodegeneration, cancer and others.
The cures to these diseases will alone be a major achievement as millions upon millions of people suffer a great deal every year due to diseases like these and it is high time that cures were found for them.
DeepMind
DeepMind is an artificial intelligence company founded in 2010 that Google acquired in 2014. This subsidiary alone has been the subject of so many breakthroughs in the recent years that it is safe to say that it will play a major role in a future world where AI is as ubiquitous as we humans ourselves.
In 2016, DeepMind’s AlphaGo program beat the world champion at Go, a board game which has more moves than the atoms in the universe and a game where intuition is as necessary as logic to win.
The company’s AI is so advanced that their system is not pre-programmed like the AIs of other companies and learns from experience thanks to a highly advanced neural network.
In fact, Ray Kurzweil, a highly reputed author and futurist believes that AI will reach human level intelligence by 2029 and will surpass it by 2045 and I think that DeepMind could very well be the very first company to achieve that feat.
These are just some glimpses into what Alphabet is working on. There are a lot of areas that are being explored by many other subsidiaries of theirs that will be the next frontiers of human development. A single company undertaking so much of cutting edge development truly makes me believe that it might single handedly define the fate of humanity. Stay tuned for a part II of this post where I talk about more of its subsidiaries.
Between Google and Elon Musk, I think we haveca bright future if we dont blow eachother up.
But don't you think that one corporation (in Google's case) who has that much power, could get dangerous?
This was a very interesting post and i loved reading it. Now if only we could get some people in political positions around the globe who are not hindered by nonsensical religious beliefs, we as a species could really flourish.
Yeah, a lot of our potential is still not being used because of various nonsense reasons and I can only hope we can rise above that someday.
Interesting times indeed!
For sure!
I remember when Google was still in its infancy in the 90's. Back then, it became quickly the best search engine that eclipsed everyone, like Yahoo, Altavista, Webcrawler, etc... I loved Google as a search engine, but I don't like Google's direction 20 years later. It has become too intrusive, like a giant octopus with thousands of tentacles. People always despised government 1984-big-brother-ish behavior, but when it's a corporation like Google doing the same thing, the future might not look as bright as it seems. Google holds and tracks all its users information, throwing that into an AI entity makes me want to go live in some remote Amazon jungle (no pun intended).
P.S. I don't like Kurzweil's ideas, he pumps himself with 100's of daily meds to extend his lifespan. I don't think he will ever be immortal.
The thing is that people don't even realize that all information is tracked and saved. Data is gold for them.
I think pirates should start hunting octopuses. If you need a crew I'll be there captain, arrrr :)
What disturbs me even more, I had chatted with some people who actually don't care if they're tracked. They remind me of the Matrix, they sleep comfortably and don't want to wake up. I guess they prefer the red pill.
Illusion is often sweeter... before reality hits. I wonder what will be the thing that will make them realize.
Perhaps when they grow up and realize how stupid they were, giving away their privacy willingly and for free, that they might value the true meaning of liberty. People who give away their liberty are nothing but a slaves.
they give it away because taking responsibility is too much of a stretch
Yes, and that is my major concern despite the fact that the research they are doing is actually very important for the future of humanity because they are trying to solve some of our biggest problems. The problem lies in the fact that one single corporation would have that much power.
When ever we make imagination about google the imagination goes real because google believe that very invention is once an imagination .
humans do not invent but discover... knowledge exists even without it being discovered.
invention = copyright and patent scams
No there is a difference between these two words don't mix it
example: the law of thermodynamics have always existed... we just discovered them
one cannot patent/copyright something we cannot create. As a result there are countless of discoveries that are patented and that will NEVER be used because they are threats to the monopolies and academia, which decide when a so called new invention can be released.
i Absolutely agree now , i pick your point .Thanks @earthcustodians
Yeah, they sure are innovative.
if we didnt have monopolies ruling society and deciding which discoveries can be used to profit from them, society would not be enslaved. Right now, we seem to get along with innovations that are going to enable a massive cyber prison
Nice post.. It's very true..google has made everything come closer to us..now the world is in our hand.. thanks for sharing.
Upvoted.
yes and now all our smart appliances spying on us ... this is a cyber prison that is coming
I blog about AI quite much
Yes, google sure has done a lot of innovation. Let's just hope they are continued to be used for the good.
Interesting post shared....
I will also read 2nd part of this post.
Google as a company will grow to a point where states think about breaking it apart like the USA did it with Rockefellers oil company
haha, who knows!
Upvoted and also resteemed :)
Thanks!
Google is gaining more and more influence on everyone's lives, for better or worse. It is a scary, but true, idea that what Google wants people to see is what people will see (all that people will see). I am scared for the future, but we have to be hopeful that these companies with such great influences will make good choices for humanity.
Fantastic post! It really gets you thinking!
well drop by my blog first if you really think so... good choices? Would you on top of that give away your consent? Have you seen minority report... watch it again if you did....
Yeah, I too think that one single company with arms and legs everywhere could become a concern in the future.