Business and Economics

The human population has levelled off in size at around 12 billion real persons. The basic necessities of food, shelter, and security are available for the vast majority of the human population.

Human and nonhuman intelligence s are primarily focused on the creation of knowledge in its myriad forms, and there is significant struggle over intellectual property rights, including ever increasing levels of litigation.

There is almost no human employment in production, agriculture, and transportation. The largest profession is education. There are many more lawyers than doctors.

Politics and Society

Computers appear to be passing forms of the Turing Test deemed valid by both human and nonhuman authorities, although controversy on this point persists. It is difficult to cite human capabilities of which machines are incapable. Unlike human competence, which varies greatly from person to person, computers consistently perform at optimum levels and are able to readily share their skills and knowledge with one another.

A sharp division no longer exists between the human world and the machine world. Human cognition is being ported to machines, and many machines have personalities, skills, and knowledge bases derived from the reverse engineering of human intelligence. Conversely, neural implants based on machine intelligence are providing enhanced perceptual and cognitive functioning to humans. Defining what constitutes a human  being is emerging as a significant legal and political issue.

The rapidly growing capability of machines is controversial, but there is no effective resistance to it. Since machine intelligence was initially designed to be subservient to human control, it has not presented a threatening “face” to the human population. Humans realize that disengaging the now human-machine civilization from its dependence on machine intelligence is not possible.

Discussion of the legal rights of machines is growing, particularly those of machines that are independent of humans (those not embedded in a human brain). Although not yet fully recognized by law, the pervasive influence of machines in all levels of decision making is providing significant protection to machines.

The Arts

Cybernetic artists in all of the arts – musical, visual, literary, virtual experience, and all others – no longer need to associate themselves with humans or organizations that include humans. Many of the leading artists are machines.