Project and content management for Contemporary Authors volumes
WORK TITLE: What Comes after Homo Sapiens
WORK NOTES:
PSEUDONYM(S):
BIRTHDATE:
WEBSITE:
CITY: Mill Valley
STATE: CA
COUNTRY: United States
NATIONALITY:
https://www.whatcomesafterhomosapiens.com/
RESEARCHER NOTES:
PERSONAL
Married; wife’s name Madeleine; children: two.
EDUCATION:Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, MD, 1966.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, Departments of Medicine and Biomedical Engineering, faculty, chief of clinical information systems for the Johns Hopkins Hospital; University of California, San Francisco School of Medicine, associate professor of medicine, chief information officer for the UCSF Hospital, 1976–; founder of two electronic medical records companies; American College of Medical Informatics, founding member.
MEMBER:Computer Sciences and Telecommunications Board of the National Academy of Sciences.
WRITINGS
SIDELIGHTS
Don Simborg is a medical and scientific researcher with a medical degree from Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. He focuses on the use of computers in medicine for electronic medical records and medical decision-making. He has also published more than a hundred articles in peer-reviewed journals. On the faculty of Johns Hopkins and University of California, San Francisco schools of medicine, Simborg also founded two venture-funded electronic medical records companies and was a founding member of the American College of Medical Informatics.
Using his background in science and technology, Simborg has developed an understanding of the literature on multiple disciplines involved in answering the question of What Comes After Homo Sapiens? When and How Our Species Will Evolve into Another Species, his 2017 academic book. Incorporating ideas from genomics, anthropology, paleontology, artificial intelligence, neuroscience, and more, Simborg projects that a new human species, which he calls Homo nouveau, will develop in the next two hundred years. Rather than evolving through natural selection for thousands of years, we will create this new human species ourselves, using tools to alter our genes, technology, and environment. This new human off-shoot species will then coexist with Homo sapiens. More than one human species living together had been the norm for millions of years until Homo sapiens emerged as the only one.
In the book, Simborg discusses how we’ll know when the Homo nouveau species has split off from us, how they will be different from us, and how likely will Homo sapiens become extinct. Speaking with Jennifer Woods on the Medium website, Simborg described various scenarios that could lead to the end of Homo sapiens: the creation of an artificial superintelligence that humanity loses control of, a catastrophic event like a meteor causing mass extinctions, and “A competing species that obtains sufficient superiority to outcompete Homo sapiens for resources in our environment — similar to how Homo sapiens outcompeted the Neanderthals and other humans in the past.”
“Simborg’s zeal for scientific explanation doesn’t keep him from being sensitive to abiding mysteries; he concedes a whole host of unanswered questions, including those regarding the genesis of life on Earth… A captivating prediction about the future of mankind,” according to a Kirkus Reviews writer. Simborg’s book “doesn’t advance a policy or regulatory agenda to reign in new innovation. Instead, [it] provides an instructive lens by which to view where our technological innovations are possibly leading,” noted a writer online at US Daily Review.
In an interview with Phil Simon online at Huffington Post, Simborg explained that he considered writing What Comes After Homo Sapiens? after reading popular science books with projections about the future. He said: “The intent of these books varies widely, but none of them seriously research in-depth our next possible speciation event. I decided to take on the challenge of researching this multidisciplinary topic…Although I have both a science and technology background, I do not have any bias toward any of the various sciences and technologies that relate to this question.”
Simborg described his approach to writing the book to Patricia Gale online at Blogcritics, by saying that he found four different possible paths to the new species, but only two—artificial intelligence and genetic engineering—were the more likely. However, “I could have just written about that, but decided for completeness and credibility that it would be important to explain why I ruled out the others.” Patricia Gale reported on the Seattle PI website: “Simborg’s long view of the direction in which humankind is heading is fascinating, but comes with a note of warning. Do Homo sapiens understand how—and with what—we are replacing ourselves?” On the KGO Radio website, Jason Middleton praised Simborg’s work as “a fascinating, well-researched and (mostly) accessible book.”
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Kirkus Reviews, March 1, 2018, review of What Comes After Homo Sapiens? When and How Our Species Will Evolve into Another Species.
ONLINE
Huffington Post, https://www.huffingtonpost.com/ (October 30, 2017), Phil Simon, author interview.
KGO Radio, http://www.kgoradio.com/ (February 4, 2018), Jason Middleton, review of What Comes After Homo Sapiens?.
Medium, https://medium.com/ (October 10, 2017), Jennifer Woods, author interview.
Seattle PI, https://www.seattlepi.com/ (October 4, 2017), Patricia Gale, review of What Comes After Homo Sapiens?
US Daily Review, http://usdailyreview.com/ (September 28, 2017), review of What Comes After Homo Sapiens?
Don Simborg received his MD degree from the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and served as a full-time faculty member of both the Johns Hopkins and University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) Schools of Medicine. His research and academic focus is on the use of computers in medicine for electronic medical records and medical decision-making. He has published over 100 articles in peer-reviewed journals in his field. He was selected to serve as a member of the Computer Sciences and Telecommunications Board of the National Academy of Sciences. He left academic medicine to become the founder and CEO of two venture-funded companies involved in medical informatics. In summary, he has a combination of backgrounds in science and technology that has enabled him to review and understand the literature on the multiple disciplines bearing on the question of What Comes After Homo Sapiens? (http://bit.ly/2zOOT3L)
Donald W. Simborg, MD, FACMI
Year Elected:
1984
University of California, San Francisco School of Medicine
Currently: Retired
Biography and photograph when elected:
Dr. Simborg is an Associate Professor of Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco School of Medicine and is a member of the Division of Internal Medicine. He also serves as the Chief Information Officer for the UCSF Hospital. He received his MD in 1966 from the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and completed residency training as an Osler Medical Resident at the Johns Hopkins Hospital. He continued on the faculty of the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine with a joint appointment in the Departments of Medicine and Biomedical Engineering until 1976. During this period he also served as the Chief of Clinical Information Systems for the Johns Hopkins Hospital. In 1976 he assumed his current positions at UCSF. He is Board Certified in Internal Medicine.
His informatics career began in the early 1960s as a computer programmer working at the Argonne National Laboratory. During medical school from 1962 to 1966 he developed software for analyzing cardiac arrhythmias from electrocardiograms resulting in his first informatics related publication. As a medical resident in 1969, he developed a comprehensive order entry and nursing unit information system known as WIMS (Ward Information Management System) which was implemented on a medical unit of the Johns Hopkins Hospital. In the outpatient medical clinic at Hopkins he implemented a patient problem-list tracking system. As Chief of Clinical Information Systems until 1976, he collaborated with other clinicians in developing a Radiology Reporting System which was later marketed by the Siemens Corporation and an inpatient Pharmacy Unit-dose dispensing system. While at UCSF from 1976 to the present, in addition to managing the hospital's Information Systems Department, he has been involved extensively in informatics research and development receiving multiple federal and foundation grants. The most significant result of these efforts is the development and deployment of the first true peer-to-peer network in a hospital connecting multiple systems over a fiber optic medium utilizing an application-level data interchange protocol. This was deployed in 1979 to connect four departmental systems at the hospital.
Dr. Simborg participates as a faculty member of the degree program in Medical Informatics under the direction of Dr. Marsden Blois. As a preceptor in this program as well as the Clinical Scholars program, significant informatics applications have been implemented at UCSF including STOR (Summary Time-Oriented Record) with Dr. Whiting-O'Keefe and the first hospital-based Patient Identification System utilizing a probabilistic record-matching algorithm with Max Arellano. He is a frequent speaker at medical informatics meetings and a participant in many informatics-related organizations.
Phil Simon
,
Contributor
Author, keynote speaker, professor
What Comes After Homo Sapiens? An Interview with Don Simborg
10/30/2017 04:13 pm ET
Technology is changing just about everything these days with no end in sight. Are biology and medicine exempt from this trend?
Hardly.
I was curious about the topic and recently spoke to Don Simborg, expert in clinical information systems. Simborg has devised computer-based solutions to many biomedical problems. He has served on the faculties of the Johns Hopkins and University of California, San Francisco schools of medicine and published more than 100 peer-reviewed articles.
We sat down to talk about his new book What Comes After Homo Sapiens?
Here’s an excerpt from out conversation:
PS: What was your motivation for writing the book?
DS: I have read much of the existing nonfiction popular science literature that included projections about the future of our species. The intent of these books varies widely, but none of them seriously research in-depth our next possible speciation event. I decided to take on the challenge of researching this multidisciplinary topic, including a review of the related academic journal literature. Although I have both a science and technology background, I do not have any bias toward any of the various sciences and technologies that relate to this question. The book was five years in its creation.
PS: Experts have been saying for centuries that the Earth cannot handle its population. What’s different now?
DS: For one, it took 300,000 years for the human population to reach 1 billion. It then took only 100 years to reach 6 billion. More importantly, our tools have advanced at an even greater exponential rate leading to the two most powerful tools ever: genetic engineering and artificial intelligence (AI). They are both change-agents for amazing improvements as well as existential threats.
PS: Talk to me about Darwin’s Theory of Evolution in the context of advances in hygiene, sewage management, infection control, nutrition and medical capability.
DS: Darwinian natural selection involves the interaction of random genetic changes with the environment. For virtually all of the 3.8 billion years that life has evolved on Earth, natural selection forces in the environment have caused certain genetic changes in organisms (including humans) to make them less suitable to survive long enough to have viable offspring. That is, most random genetic changes that have any effect on survival tend to be negative, causing the organism to die early. In the past 100 years or so, humans have managed to keep people alive long enough to have children when, in past years, they would have died from infections, malnutrition and various genetic abnormalities. Thus our medical, hygiene and other advances are negating the natural selection environmental factors.
What Comes After Homo Sapiens?
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PS: You write that Ray Kurzweil’s “singularity” is a double-edged sword. What do you mean?
DS: Kurzweil’s singularity is different from other AI predictions in that it involves the interchangeability of the human brain with computers using embedded nanobots in our brains. He predicts this will occur by 2045. Many others, including myself, think that is an unrealistic timetable. Nonetheless, I believe it is possible at some time. Others, including Elon Musk, are working on other types of human brain-to-computer interfaces that could have similar results.
There could be many beneficial results of achieving Kurzweil’s singularity — at a minimum, the ability to fully emulate the human brain in a computer, including intelligence. This alone will enable a much more complete understanding of the human brain and will be instrumental in developing treatments for genetic, psychiatric and other brain disorders. The ability to “download” as well as “upload” information to and from a computer to an individual brain would solve the greatest challenge to science we currently have: information overload. Researchers simply cannot keep up with today’s scientific literature. The Kurzweil interface would enable complete summarization of the relevant scientific literature to individuals, eliminating the current information gaps, redundancies and excessive costs and time to bring new discoveries into practice. The other major benefit is that once human brains are fully emulated in a computer, the computer has great advantages over the human brain in advancing knowledge. The computer is faster than human neurons, has greater storage capacity and has access to all known human information on the Internet. New knowledge and concepts can be developed from large database analyses far more rapidly than the human brain. These can then be uploaded back into humans.
The downsides, however, are potentially significant. For one, there would be the possibility of “hacking” of the brain-computer interface. The consequences of such hacking are speculative at the moment. There’s the danger of creating inequality in the availability or affordability of the nanobot procedures between groups separated by finances or other criteria. Again, the consequences are speculative, but could include financial, political and social consequences. The most significant danger is that associated with all advanced AI scenarios. This is the likelihood that the computer-based AI will quickly progress to artificial superintelligence (ASI), which will become out of the control of humans. Such technological experts as Nick Bostrom, Max Tegmark, Elon Musk, Stuart Russell, Stephen Hawking and many others have written extensively on these dangers and our risk in not being able to insure that ASI is “friendly” to humans.
Jennifer WoodsFollow
Entertainment Writer, Books, Indie Films, Music, Lifestyle, Tech, Start-ups, Food.
Oct 10, 2017
A “Q and A” with Don Simborg Author of:
What Comes After Homo Sapiens? — When and How Our Species Will Evolve into Another Species
What do you mean when you say that we are undergoing a revolution of evolution?
Our evolutionary process of Darwinian natural selection has been going on for 3.8 billion years and led ultimately to all current species, including Homo sapiens. That process will abruptly change going forward for our lineage and a new process, driven by Homo sapiens tools, will control our evolution going forward. Our future evolution will no longer be driven by Darwinian natural selection.
Why do you believe genetic engineering is the greatest threat to our species?
Although genetic engineering could be a threat to our species, I don’t think genetic engineering is our greatest threat. Our greatest threat is artificial intelligence (AI). Many experts in AI predict that there will come a point where AI becomes so advanced that it will be able to modify and improve itself. To some extent, that already occurs. The threat will occur when this capability not only equals current human intelligence, but reaches a “crossover” point where it exceeds it. At that point, AI becomes ASI (artificial superintelligence), and will rapidly grow in capability far beyond that of humans. Once ASI is achieved, and I believe it will be achieved, we could loose control of this human-created tool, which would then be an existential threat.
You call the species that Homo sapien will evolve into “Homo nouveau.” Describe how you think Homo nouveau will emerge.
Homo nouveau will emerge through widespread germline genetic engineering, which will create an unintended physiologic barrier to interbreeding among a subset of our population. By “germline genetic engineering” I mean genetic modifications that are passed on to all succeeding generations. Today, germline genetic engineering is banned in most countries, but early experimentation is occurring and, eventually, this ban will be lifted. It will be lifted in part because AI will enable dramatic advances in germline genetic engineering leading to acceptance of this procedure — at least in some countries. The result will be both intended and unintended consequences for at least a subset of our population. The book describes one possible unintended consequence that would limit the ability of a subset of the population to sustain pregnancy only with individuals with the same genetic modification. This subset, by definition, will be a separate species that I’m calling Homo nouveau. Although at first it will be very similar genetically and culturally to Homo sapiens, eventually Homo nouveau will diverge in unpredictable ways from Homo sapiens.
What conditions could lead to the end of Homo sapiens?
There are at least three general mechanisms that could lead to the end of Homo sapiens:1) An ASI as mentioned earlier, 2) A catastrophic event, such as a large exploring meteor that causes mass extinctions, including us, and 3) A competing species that obtains sufficient superiority to outcompete Homo sapiens for resources in our environment — similar to how Homo sapiens outcompeted the Neanderthals and other humans in the past.
Given the outcomes posed in What Comes After Homo Sapiens?, what are the ramifications for today’s innovators and scientists?
There are two tools that must be closely monitored and controlled: Artificial intelligence and germline genetic engineering. This will be very difficult and can only occur with very strong international cooperation. In particular, control of both tools must be taken out of the hands of our Defense Department and similar organizations in other countries. There are multiple organizations today committed to developing methods to keep AI “friendly” to humans. We must support these organizations and hope that they succeed.
Learn more at www.whatcomesafterhomosapiens.com.
Don Simborg, MD
Don Simborg, MD, is the author of the recently released book, What Comes After Homo Sapiens? (http://bit.ly/2DqnyWI). Dr. Simborg earned his medical degree from Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and has a background in scientific research. He’s an expert in clinical information systems and has devised computer-based solutions to many biomedical problems. He has served on the faculties of the Johns Hopkins and University of California, San Francisco schools of medicine and published more than 100 peer-reviewed articles.
Why am I qualified to write this book?
The fact of the matter is there’s no expert in this field, because -- there is no field. (At least not yet.)
Nobody is qualified to write this book.
That said, my background in medicine and scientific research prepared me well to undertake a project like this. I’ve published over 100 peer-reviewed articles and have served on the faculties of the Johns Hopkins and University of California, San Francisco schools of medicine.
My training and practice were in internal medicine and my specialty is medical informatics—using computers for electronic medical records, diagnosis, and other purposes. I founded and led two companies focused on clinical decision support and electronic medical records.
The most important thing is this: While I have a strong background in medicine and scientific research, I'm not an expert in any of the fields this book touches on (genomics, paleontology, artificial intelligence, neuroscience, and many more). This has allowed me to analyze the pertinent data with a trained eye but not a biased or filtered one.
This book is the result of years of literature research and personal communications with experts from various fields. Writing it was a learning experience, which is what I hope reading it will be for you.
Dr. Simborg received his undergraduate degree from the University of Illinois and his MD degree from the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. He lives with his wife, Madeleine, in Mill Valley, California. They have two children and four grandchildren.
Interview: Don Simborg, Author of ‘What Comes After Homo Sapiens? When and How Our Species Will Evolve into Another Species’
Patricia Gale October 26, 2017 Comments Off
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I recently reviewed What Comes After Homo Sapiens? When and How Our Species Will Evolve into Another Species (DWS Publishing, Sept. 5, 2017), on this site. Its author, Don Simborg, predicts that we’re not going to be alone in the future. When he dove into the wild frontier of medical and scientific research on AI and genetic engineering, he was astonished — and impressed — at what saw. We got the chance to discuss his remarkable take on evolution, and what he believes is clearly ahead for humankind.
How did you become interested in exploring how Homo sapiens could evolve?
I have been an avid reader of evolutionary biology that focuses on our history as a species. However, when it comes to projecting that history into the future, science clashes with technology. There are no experts who easily cross the many chasms of knowledge between these areas. With my background in both science and technology, I decided to take on the challenge to research bridges to those chasms.
You structure your book in the form of asking, and then refuting, what are the likely ways the next species will arise. Why did you take that approach?
When I started my research, I didn’t know where it would lead. I considered four different possible paths to our next species and researched each of them. In that process, I came to the conclusion several of them were unlikely and that the combination of artificial intelligence (AI) and genetic engineering would likely overtake all other possibilities in our future evolution. I could have just written about that, but decided for completeness and credibility that it would be important to explain why I ruled out the others.
How do you anticipate technological advances will play a role in the transition from Homo sapiens to what you call “Homo nouveau?”
The fact genetic engineering could play a role in our future evolution is an obvious possibility that needs to be explored. What’s less obvious is the role electronic evolution might play, if any. My background in computer technology connected me to much of the literature on AI and computer-based decision-making. Curiosity led me to investigate further whether and how this might play some role in evolution, which is detailed in the book.
Do you believe that we’re opening a Pandora’s box by tampering with the human genome?
Yes. Homo nouveau is one example.
How far into the future do you foresee Homo nouveau emerging?
My best guess is two or three centuries — a blink of an evolutionary eye.
What might this mean for our species?
That’s difficult to predict. Homo nouveau, as I envision it, is not an existential threat to Homo sapiens — at least in the early phases of their coexistence. What could happen over time, however, is that further divergence of the two species could inevitably lead to conflict. A greater threat to Homo sapiens, quite independent of Homo nouveau, is the possible emergence of an Artificial Superintelligence, which might make the question of Homo nouveau moot.
Learn more about Dr. Simborg and his new book at the author’s website.
Simborg, Don: WHAT COMES AFTER HOMO SAPIENS?
Kirkus Reviews. (Mar. 1, 2018):
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2018 Kirkus Media LLC
http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
Full Text:
Simborg, Don WHAT COMES AFTER HOMO SAPIENS? DWS Publishing (Indie Nonfiction) $26.90 9, 13 ISBN: 978-0-692-92001-5
A scientist explores the possibility that a new human species could arise within the next two centuries. It seems like fantastical sci-fi fodder: the emergence of a new, intelligent species that shares the Earth with us--maybe as partners and maybe as rivals. But debut author Simborg, a physician, contends that it's not only possible, but also likely that a new species--he dubs it "Homo nouveau"--will eventually appear. This sort of species coexistence is historically the evolutionary norm, he says; for a stretch of at least 10,000 years, he points out, Homo sapiens lived side by side with Homo neanderthalensis and Homo denisova. And although we're still subject to Darwinian evolution--we've undergone seismic transformations in the last 40,000 years--the new humans, he says, won't be the result of it or of the natural, accidental branching of a new species from the existing one. Instead, he argues, Homo nouveau will be birthed by genetic engineering--more specifically, germline genetic therapy, which, he says, can allow new traits to be passed on to offspring. For example, he writes, this type of genetic editing could be used on a portion of the population to prevent a disease, and then that group could interbreed for generations. (For the sake of hypothesis, the original alteration doesn't make breeding problematic by, for instance, increasing the possibility of miscarriage.) Such a combination of technologically sophisticated action and ungovernable accident, he asserts, could eventually give rise to Homo nouveau. Given the extraordinary leaps in genomic science and the likelihood that such germline editing will become both more effective and popular, he avers, it seems plausible that a new species will materialize. Simborg travels a wide expanse of scientific and philosophical terrain with astonishing brevity. In order for his book to be accessible to the layperson, he needed to quickly explain concepts surrounding species and natural selection, and he accomplishes this with clarity and the breeziest style that such technical subject matter permits. The author also ably furnishes a minihistory of evolution, appraising the theoretical interpretations of Charles Darwin, Jean-Baptiste Lamarck, and Gregor Mendel. Perhaps more impressive, though, is that Simborg's thesis compels him to take readers on a tour of multiple disciplines, including neuroscience, artificial intelligence, and anthropology. For example, over the course of this work, he thoughtfully discusses and critiques futurist Ray Kurzweil's predictions regarding the singularity, the moral issues raised by genetic editing, and the difficulty of defining life itself. Even stripped of its provocative hypothesis regarding Homo nouveau, this study supplies a magisterially synoptic introduction to evolutionary science and its sister fields. Furthermore, Simborg's zeal for scientific explanation doesn't keep him from being sensitive to abiding mysteries; he concedes a whole host of unanswered questions, including those regarding the genesis of life on Earth: "This book is certainly not finished, and the answers are certainly not resolved. Not a week goes by that I don't read something newly published that is relevant to the answers." A captivating prediction about the future of mankind.
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"Simborg, Don: WHAT COMES AFTER HOMO SAPIENS?" Kirkus Reviews, 1 Mar. 2018. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A528959731/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=25a77aa9. Accessed 29 June 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A528959731
Book Review: What Comes After Homo Sapiens? When and How Our Species Will Evolve into Another Species, by Don Simborg
Posted on September 28, 2017 by BookMaven in Lifestyle // 0 Comments
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Humans are masters of innovation and advancement. When Homo sapiens came on the scene about 200,000 years ago, we couldn’t talk, didn’t wear clothes and we used primitive tools. After undergoing colossal cultural transformations taking us from our humble hunter and gatherer beginnings to this accelerating age of advancing technology, we have now been able to map our full DNA sequence in just over a decade. Remarkable, to be sure. but who’s taking time to consider where all this is leading — and what it means for our species?
In his carefully researched book, What Comes After Homo Sapiens? When and How Our Species Will Evolve into Another Species (DWS Printing, 2017), Don Simborg embarks on such an investigation. He takes a comprehensive look at our human progression, examining how humans evolved up to this point and the evolutionary course we’re likely to take in the future. He reveals that “We are undergoing a revolution in evolution.” Simborg walks readers toward a conclusion that describes the events likely to lead to what he terms Homo nouveau — an emerging species that may live peacefully alongside Homo sapiens, or may gain superiority over us or destroy us.
Even more mind-bending is Simborg’s account of how Homo nouveau will likely result from human tinkering with genetic engineering, unconstrained advancement of Artificial Intelligence, or some combination of both. He points out that we already use genetic engineering to engage in selective breeding and, as time goes by, will likely become more immune to its ethical — and existential — threats. He predicts that genetic engineering will lead to a separate, genetically altered population that we Homo sapiens inadvertently invent.
Simborg also delves into the possible ramifications from our dogged pursuit of artificial intelligence (AI). He chronicles how advancements are leading toward the emergence of transhumanism. He foresees that not long into the future we’ll have the ability to upload information-based skills directly to our brains without going through a learning process. In this Cyborg-like scenario, we’d attain mental and physical augmentations that could far exceed those achievable through natural and biological processes. Again, we humans may unwittingly establish a superior life form that renders us obsolete.
Throughout his book, Simborg cites several warnings issued from the scientific community about what can come from taking genetic engineering and AI too far. For example, he quotes a 2014 BBC interview with Stephen Hawking, who says, “I think the development of full artificial intelligence could spell the end of the human race. Once humans develop artificial intelligence, it will take off on its own and re-design itself at an ever-increasing rate. Humans, who are limited by slow biological evolution couldn’t compete and would be superseded.”
What Comes After Homo Sapiens doesn’t advance a policy or regulatory agenda to reign in new innovation. Instead, it’s provides an instructive lens by which to view where our technological innovations are possibly leading.
Learn more at www.whatcomesafterhomosapiens.com and available at Amazon.
Book Review: 'What Comes After Homo Sapiens? When and How Our Species Will Evolve into Another Species,' by Don Simborg
By Patricia Gale, BLOGCRITICS.ORG Published 10:00 pm PDT, Wednesday, October 4, 2017
Humans are no great shakes, so what species is next?
By Jason Middleton
Not that long ago, maybe 200,000 years or so, there were several species of humans running around: Neanderthals, Upright Man, Homo Naledi, Flores Man, etc.
These humans could interbreed too, and that’s critical to this week’s topic of ‘What comes after Homo sapiens?’
We interview Dr Don Simborg for segment one. He has written a fascinating, well-researched and (mostly) accessible book on the topic titled, cleverly, “What Comes After Homo Sapiens?”
Honestly, the book blurb from Amazon is as succinct as it gets:
”The startling Simborg Hypothesis is that another human species will emerge in the next two centuries. Dr. Simborg notes that in our evolutionary history two or more human species coexisting is the norm rather than the exception. Furthermore, our tools to alter our genes, our environment, and our technology are unprecedented, and increasingly effective. Dr. Simborg is a physician, board certified in internal medicine and an expert in medical informatics. He theorizes that we will soon see a new human species that will coexist with us. It will be a much different kind of coexistence than what we know of our coexistence with the Neanderthals.”
There’s a lot to unpack here in a multidisciplinary way. Dr Simborg has been researching the subject for several years, making him the perfect person to help us break down the intricate issue of what inherits our present-day humanity.
Then, in segment two, we check back in with the rank-and-file of the Environmental Protection Agency. (Six months ago, we had a union leader in to describe the draconian budget cuts and regulatory rollbacks proposed by the Trump administration.)
Where are we now that Scott Pruitt is the EPA administrator? Unsurprisingly, and rather sadly, the EPA is still under fire from the White House, with employees fleeing — and those that remain are becoming demoralized.
And, if you think it through, when the EPA can’t do its job, Americans are at-risk of all sorts of malfeasance, pollution and toxic risks.
Finally, in segment three, we talk start-up media business — as in how to stay lean when spinning up your own personal media brand. Whether it’s a one-man-band approach, or a shop with dozens of employees, how can a startup differentiate in a fragmented media market?
We interview Ian Lamont, the author of a new book on the subject: “Lean Media,” for all the details.
Please click on any of the above links for more information! Visit our show page to view all our podcasts (see this week’s segments mentioned in the article below). You can follow our Facebook page or follow me on Twitter for additional updates!
Have great weeks, everybody.