Cosmists VS Terrans

I believe that the 21st century will be dominated by the question as to whether humanity should or should not build artilects, i.e. machines of godlike intelligence, trillions of trillions of times above the human level. I see humanity splitting into two major political groups, which in time will become increasingly bitterly opposed, as the artilect issue becomes more real and less science fiction like.

The human group in favor of building artilects, I label the “Cosmists,” based on the word “cosmos” (the universe), which reflects their perspective on the question. To the Cosmists, building artilects will be like a religion; the destiny of the human species; something truly magnificent and worthy of worship; something to dedicate one’s life and energy to help achieve. To the Cosmists, not building the artilects, not creating the next higher form of evolution, thus freezing the state of evolution at the puny human level, would be a “cosmic tragedy.” The Cosmists will be bitterly opposed to any attempt to stop the rise of the 21st century artilect.

The second human group, opposed to the building of artilects, I label the “Terrans,” based on the word “terra” (the Earth) which reflects their inward looking, non-cosmic, perspective. The Terrans, I strongly suspect, will argue that allowing the Cosmists to build their artilects (in a highly advanced form) implies accepting the risk, that one day, the artilects might decide, for whatever reason, that the human species is a pest. Since the artilects would be so vastly superior to human beings in intelligence, it would be easy for the artilects to exterminate the human species if they so decided.