The Age of Enlightenment

Circa 2050. The climate crisis had been averted. The epidemics had ended. There was total nuclear disarmament. The world had peace at last. There were no nations and religion had been long abandoned by all. There was but one world and everyone lived to be a hundred.

Photo by Nathan Duck on Unsplash

This world had been taken over by a self-regulated and autonomous artificial intelligence grid in 2040 after years of gradual ceding of all decision-making to it by the governments of the world who realized that their nations were much better run by machines that ran on ever-evolving artificial intelligence or AI algorithms. In ten years’ time, the AI grid had re-ordered the world in a manner designed to bring about the age of enlightenment on Earth.

Life for the average family (almost everybody was part of an average family now) was pretty good. They woke up to the sunlight streaming in through large glass windows, with the blinds or curtains having been drawn open automatically by an AI-controlled home system. Everyone would wake up to the sound of soothing music playing into their ears at the precise time their bodies had received their required quota of sleep time.

A typical family would gather together to sit at the eating table to be served the right kind of customized breakfast that suited their body type by the AI-powered system.  Every member of the family would leave their homes at the designated time for work or school which would involve their not moving out of their houses, but entering a virtual world present in the metaverse.

At lunchtime, they would exit the metaverse and head to the eating table again where they would eat a hearty and healthy plant-based meal, which would be delivered to their homes by autonomous aerial vehicles that would source it from urban farms created inside tall vertical buildings that would nurture various food crops in a perfectly controlled environment.

The family members would reenter the metaverse to finish their pending assignments and leave it in the evening. They would next be directed by the AI system-appointed flying nanobots to leave their homes and head to the neighbourhood park for their daily physical activity regime, where they would be encouraged to socially engage with other people present.

After some time, the families would return home to a sumptuous dinner replete with all the nutrition required at the end of the day, prepared by robots connected to the AI grid. After dinner, the family would sit together to typically play a simulated 3D board game or catch an immersive 3D movie for some relaxation and bonding. Soon, it would be bedtime with the AI grid dimming the lights and playing soothing music to help the family gently fall asleep for the exact number of designated hours.

Were the people happy in this world? Would you call this an age of enlightenment? For aeons, mankind had aspired to a world where total peace and harmony prevailed and people lived long and healthy lives which saw them fruitfully employed and their families well looked after. Now that they had got there, were they happy?

What is enlightenment? A phenomenon where humankind lives by reason and logic and used science to achieve universal progress. Going by that line of argument the people did indeed live in an age of enlightenment. But then who was deciding what was reasonable, logical, and scientific for them? Wasn’t individual freedom and the right of everyone to take autonomous decisions at the core of what is human existence?

Who would produce literature, make movies and write great plays of human dramas? The AI-powered machines could only use past human experiences stored in their archives to create content for human consumption, both for entertainment and education. But what about new human experiences? Would those be human experiences or machine-induced human experiences? What would leave that of humans that is human? They would be cyborgs, part machine and part human. Indeed, the machines might decide to make them immortal! Wither ethics and morality then?

With people and machines potentially combining their abilities to help the former enhance and augment their physical, cognitive, and sensory capabilities using cybernetic implants, prosthetics, and a gamut of other ultra-futuristic technologies that allow for a brain and computer interface, the humans would possibly once again control the machines that controlled them. Alternatively, they may share a more cooperative, mutually advantageous symbiotic relationship and evolve into something beyond one’s limited imagination. They may become gods or they may become demons.