**1. Introduction**

The great journey of building rational scientific knowledge includes observing, making conjectures, and severely verifying them for flaws, limitations, and errors. When conjectures falter, scientists revisit, revise, abandon, start afresh, search for alternatives, etc. They seek unity in diversity or generalize to include diversity, with the knowledge that "truth" is not knowable. In this journey, they seek to be rational, parsimonious1 in making conjectures, and methodical, open, transparent, and consistent when sharing them. Conjectures are deemed scientifically valid only if there is potential scope of finding an error [1]. "Though [a mistake] stresses our fallibility it does not resign itself to scepticism, for it also stresses the fact that knowledge can grow, and that science can progress—just because we can learn from our mistakes" [1]. The process is criticism controlled.

<sup>1</sup> Following William Occam (1287–1347) who recommended a principle of parsimony (les parsimoniae), famously known as Occam's razor, "plurality is not to be posited without necessity".

In the last few decades, technology has provided some remarkable tools to accelerate, not merely speed up, this process, and these tools have tremendous potential of becoming even more versatile. In the context of synthetic biology, the tools include the triad: clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats (CRISPR) gene editing technology in genetic engineering, artificial intelligence (AI), and quantum computing (QC). There is also a torrential gathering of data since the Human Genome Project [2] published a draft sequence and initial analysis of the human genome in February 2001 [3]. The new sources include data flowing from the Human Cell Atlas project, which plans to identify and locate every type of cell we possess [4], and various brain projects initiated in the US, Europe, Japan, and Korea, and privately funded Allen Institute for Brain Science. China and Taiwan are also getting in the fray [5]. To make sense of the growing mountains of data in terms of finding "the molecular logic of the living state" in a timely manner rather than drowning in it will require data curation and analysis tools and resources that presently only CRISPR, AI, and QC can provide. This appears fortuitous since we anticipate a catastrophic speciation of the *Homo sapiens* to occur soon because of a rapidly changing environment that will likely lead to its decimation unless synthetic biology comes to the rescue.

This chapter is therefore written for the millennials on whose shoulders will fall the responsibility of navigating through a socioeconomic epochal change that is already under way—the emerging postindustrial era—and a possibly unanticipated speciation of the *Homo sapiens*. The aim is to show that the time is ripe for synthetic biology, AI, and QC to join hands and form a purposeful, integrated discipline to further explore the secrets of life, create new life, and find harmonious ways by which the *Homo sapiens* can speciate in a controlled manner.

## **2. Time for human speciation is near**

Biology is a game of creation, survival by adaptation, and annihilation; it is a game that is "red in tooth and claw". Survival of the fittest (also called natural selection) means survival of those best able to adapt to the environment they are in. This is not about individual survival but of cohesive groups belonging to a species capable of exchanging genes or interbreeding. Natural selection is an ultraslow process in which sudden, dramatic changes in the environment generally mean sudden decimation of species living in it. *Homo sapiens* already find themselves in this unenviable but self-created situation that includes climate change (that also brings deadly heat, spreads diseases, overwhelms hospitals2 ), epidemics, automation initiated unemployment, large-scale immigration due to ism-related (e.g., political, religion related dogmatism) strife, concentration of information and wealth in the hands of fewer and fewer people, depletion of natural resources faster than its replenishment by Nature, the rising irrelevance of rote education, the escalating cost and deterioration of health care, a rising global population that embeds a disproportionately rising population from the less developed countries (see **Figure 1**), the rapidly rising population of the aged whose needs must be paid for by a shrinking, less fecund, younger working population (itself worried about an insecure and financially bleak future), etc. Each by itself is a major stress creator; collectively, they are approaching a crescendo portending an environmental catastrophe that leads to speciation or extinction, and destruction of the biosphere's existing order.

With the benefit of hindsight, we can discern the heralding signs of speciation that went unnoticed. In the rapidly growing global population (presently at 7.7

**13**

any, to peruse.

**Figure 1.**

*Synthetic Biology, Artificial Intelligence, and Quantum Computing*

billion plus), the collective population of the more developed countries (characterized by high living standards and education, and low birth rate) since the last several decades has stabilized to about 1.3 billion (including immigrants), while that of the less developed countries (with opposite characteristics) is steadily rising. Concurrently, globally wealth has concentrated into fewer and fewer hands. In January 2018, Oxfam reported that "82% of all wealth created in the last year went to the top 1%, and nothing went to the bottom 50%", that the wealthiest 42 people now had as much wealth as the poorest half, and two-thirds of billionaires wealth come from inheritance, monopoly, and cronyism [7, 8]. The environment for the

*(Left) World population growth. (Right) World population growth, 1950–2050. Source: World Population Prospects: The 2010 Revision, United Nations, 2011, http://www.un.org/en/development/desa/population/ publications/pdf/trends/WPP2010/WPP2010\_Volume-I\_Comprehensive-Tables.pdf Note the rapidly increasing* 

When natural speciation starts, its largest and earliest victims will come from the less developed countries before it hits the developed ones. In this respect, Africa appears to be highly vulnerable; it "has become the source of some of the greatest threats to the global economic order. Rather than capitalizing on opportunities, international engagement is increasingly focused on mitigating risks" [9]. When speciation begins, these risk mitigation efforts will be in vain because it is the global socioeconomic structure itself that will be disintegrating. The *Homo sapiens*' incommensurate brain power will then make it vulnerable to extinction. The historical legacy of the *Homo sapiens* will not be its fossil record, but its amazing science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) record for successor species, if

Speciation is about adapting to the environment. *Homo sapiens* is the only known species to have developed substantial capacity to change the environment to its needs. Thus, it reduced the pressure for speciation since the agricultural era by adopting a socioeconomic structure built around division of labor and a tolerable taxation dogma of "from each according to his ability, to each according to his need" to temper Nature that is "red in tooth and claw". That dogma is increasingly unsustainable because of an escalating need to subsidize the less well off. The affluent 1.3 billion can no longer subsidize the life span of the rest of the unemployable world. But there is the tantalizing possibility that since synthetic biology is ultrafast in editing DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) and with advancing AI and QC, it will be even faster and better as compared to natural mutation and it may enable the *Homo sapiens* to initiate its own speciation in a programmed manner and survive extinction. What we cannot predict and may even fail to control once initiated are the unintended consequences that will certainly follow. If Ray Kurzweil's prediction about the future capabilities of AI machines ("By 2029, computers will have human-level intelligence" [10]), turn out to be reasonably true, and genetic engineering continues at its present rate of development aided by advances in QC and in

*DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.83434*

poorest (hence unfittest) is already brutal.

*population size in the less developed countries.*

<sup>2</sup> Its consequences on human health was recently highlighted in [6].

*Synthetic Biology, Artificial Intelligence, and Quantum Computing DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.83434*

#### **Figure 1.**

*Synthetic Biology - New Interdisciplinary Science*

tion unless synthetic biology comes to the rescue.

**2. Time for human speciation is near**

deadly heat, spreads diseases, overwhelms hospitals2

<sup>2</sup> Its consequences on human health was recently highlighted in [6].

which the *Homo sapiens* can speciate in a controlled manner.

In the last few decades, technology has provided some remarkable tools to accelerate, not merely speed up, this process, and these tools have tremendous potential of becoming even more versatile. In the context of synthetic biology, the tools include the triad: clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats (CRISPR) gene editing technology in genetic engineering, artificial intelligence (AI), and quantum computing (QC). There is also a torrential gathering of data since the Human Genome Project [2] published a draft sequence and initial analysis of the human genome in February 2001 [3]. The new sources include data flowing from the Human Cell Atlas project, which plans to identify and locate every type of cell we possess [4], and various brain projects initiated in the US, Europe, Japan, and Korea, and privately funded Allen Institute for Brain Science. China and Taiwan are also getting in the fray [5]. To make sense of the growing mountains of data in terms of finding "the molecular logic of the living state" in a timely manner rather than drowning in it will require data curation and analysis tools and resources that presently only CRISPR, AI, and QC can provide. This appears fortuitous since we anticipate a catastrophic speciation of the *Homo sapiens* to occur soon because of a rapidly changing environment that will likely lead to its decima-

This chapter is therefore written for the millennials on whose shoulders will fall the responsibility of navigating through a socioeconomic epochal change that is already under way—the emerging postindustrial era—and a possibly unanticipated speciation of the *Homo sapiens*. The aim is to show that the time is ripe for synthetic biology, AI, and QC to join hands and form a purposeful, integrated discipline to further explore the secrets of life, create new life, and find harmonious ways by

Biology is a game of creation, survival by adaptation, and annihilation; it is a game that is "red in tooth and claw". Survival of the fittest (also called natural selection) means survival of those best able to adapt to the environment they are in. This is not about individual survival but of cohesive groups belonging to a species capable of exchanging genes or interbreeding. Natural selection is an ultraslow process in which sudden, dramatic changes in the environment generally mean sudden decimation of species living in it. *Homo sapiens* already find themselves in this unenviable but self-created situation that includes climate change (that also brings

initiated unemployment, large-scale immigration due to ism-related (e.g., political, religion related dogmatism) strife, concentration of information and wealth in the hands of fewer and fewer people, depletion of natural resources faster than its replenishment by Nature, the rising irrelevance of rote education, the escalating cost and deterioration of health care, a rising global population that embeds a disproportionately rising population from the less developed countries (see **Figure 1**), the rapidly rising population of the aged whose needs must be paid for by a shrinking, less fecund, younger working population (itself worried about an insecure and financially bleak future), etc. Each by itself is a major stress creator; collectively, they are approaching a crescendo portending an environmental catastrophe that leads to speciation or extinction, and destruction of the biosphere's existing order. With the benefit of hindsight, we can discern the heralding signs of speciation that went unnoticed. In the rapidly growing global population (presently at 7.7

), epidemics, automation

**12**

*(Left) World population growth. (Right) World population growth, 1950–2050. Source: World Population Prospects: The 2010 Revision, United Nations, 2011, http://www.un.org/en/development/desa/population/ publications/pdf/trends/WPP2010/WPP2010\_Volume-I\_Comprehensive-Tables.pdf Note the rapidly increasing population size in the less developed countries.*

billion plus), the collective population of the more developed countries (characterized by high living standards and education, and low birth rate) since the last several decades has stabilized to about 1.3 billion (including immigrants), while that of the less developed countries (with opposite characteristics) is steadily rising. Concurrently, globally wealth has concentrated into fewer and fewer hands. In January 2018, Oxfam reported that "82% of all wealth created in the last year went to the top 1%, and nothing went to the bottom 50%", that the wealthiest 42 people now had as much wealth as the poorest half, and two-thirds of billionaires wealth come from inheritance, monopoly, and cronyism [7, 8]. The environment for the poorest (hence unfittest) is already brutal.

When natural speciation starts, its largest and earliest victims will come from the less developed countries before it hits the developed ones. In this respect, Africa appears to be highly vulnerable; it "has become the source of some of the greatest threats to the global economic order. Rather than capitalizing on opportunities, international engagement is increasingly focused on mitigating risks" [9]. When speciation begins, these risk mitigation efforts will be in vain because it is the global socioeconomic structure itself that will be disintegrating. The *Homo sapiens*' incommensurate brain power will then make it vulnerable to extinction. The historical legacy of the *Homo sapiens* will not be its fossil record, but its amazing science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) record for successor species, if any, to peruse.

Speciation is about adapting to the environment. *Homo sapiens* is the only known species to have developed substantial capacity to change the environment to its needs. Thus, it reduced the pressure for speciation since the agricultural era by adopting a socioeconomic structure built around division of labor and a tolerable taxation dogma of "from each according to his ability, to each according to his need" to temper Nature that is "red in tooth and claw". That dogma is increasingly unsustainable because of an escalating need to subsidize the less well off. The affluent 1.3 billion can no longer subsidize the life span of the rest of the unemployable world. But there is the tantalizing possibility that since synthetic biology is ultrafast in editing DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) and with advancing AI and QC, it will be even faster and better as compared to natural mutation and it may enable the *Homo sapiens* to initiate its own speciation in a programmed manner and survive extinction. What we cannot predict and may even fail to control once initiated are the unintended consequences that will certainly follow. If Ray Kurzweil's prediction about the future capabilities of AI machines ("By 2029, computers will have human-level intelligence" [10]), turn out to be reasonably true, and genetic engineering continues at its present rate of development aided by advances in QC and in

understanding RNA (ribonucleic acid)-mediated cellular activity using AI, artificially induced speciation of *Homo sapiens* by the end of this century may become possible before natural selection steps in anger.

Kurzweil also forecasts that the future will provide opportunities of unparalleled human-machine synthesis:

*2029 is the consistent date I have predicted for when an AI will pass a valid Turing test and therefore achieve human levels of intelligence. I have set the date 2045 for the 'Singularity' which is when we will multiply our effective intelligence a billionfold by merging with the intelligence we have created. [11]*

Kurzweil's forecasts are based on his "law of accelerating returns" that enunciates that fundamental measures of information technology follow predictable and exponential trajectories seemingly unaffected by dramatic socioeconomic events such as war or peace, and prosperity or recession, paralleling Moore's law in computer technology—the number of transistors on integrated circuit chips doubles approximately almost every 2 years. Indeed, it turns out that once a technology becomes *de facto* information technology, it comes under the grip of the law of accelerating returns because computer simulation of any technology is all about mathematics and computation. The exponential change is the inevitable effect of our ability to conceptualize in larger and larger conceptual blocks by aggregating and augmenting smaller conceptual blocks discovered earlier. This simple mechanism enables the human mind to deal with and find solutions to more complex problems by using the same number of but more versatile concepts rather than an unmanageably larger number of simpler concepts. The method is no different than what mathematicians do. We were first exposed to this method when we studied Euclidean geometry in school. Mathematicians start with simple, primitive concepts they call axioms and build more and more complex theorems as they go along. It works if the axiomatic system is consistent because once a theorem is proven, its validity can be taken for granted even by those who know nothing about mathematics, for example, by machines. This is how machines acquire "intelligence."

During the industrial era just behind us, most people reached their peak capacity to educate and skill themselves in activities (including earning a living) that required mechanizable "intelligent" rote education. That AI machines, in principle, can far surpass humans in such activities had become evident when Alan Turing showed how arithmetical calculations can be mechanized [12] and Gödel had earlier shown that any axiomatic system can be arithmetized [13]. This meant that any form of rational knowledge could be axiomatized and rote education programmed into computers. While creating new knowledge would still require human creativity, once that knowledge had matured and was formalized into an axiomatic system, it would be mechanizable and expandable. It would then be a matter of time that humans would increasingly face competition from machines and eventually be overwhelmed by them. Kurzweil's prediction that this would happen during 2029–2045 is bolstered by recent advances in AI. Ongoing advances in deep learning by machines indicate that through self-learning they can become highly creative and creators of original technology (the patent system will go for a toss) and scientific discoveries without human intervention may well become the norm [14]. Of some 150 predictions since the 1990s, Kurzweil claims an 86% accuracy rate [11, 15, 16]. Since synthetic biology has now come under the grip of mathematics, its exponential development is certain. Synthetic biology is now a part of information technology.

It is only in the last few years that the enormous significance of the exponential growth property of the law of accelerating returns has sunk in the minds of people. As one can see from **Figure 2** (left), till one reaches the vicinity of the knee of the

**15**

sary burden on Earth.

event.

**Figure 2.**

*Synthetic Biology, Artificial Intelligence, and Quantum Computing*

curve, the curve looks deceptively linear with a mild slope. This allows human minds to extrapolate into the future from gathered knowledge and experience. At the knee, the curve bends upward so rapidly that the human mind cannot respond fast enough to absorb, assess, contemplate, and react rationally. Knee-jerk reaction is about the best humans are capable of in such a situation. *Homo sapiens* now find themselves in an environment which they neither understand nor have the intellectual ability to rationally cope with. This is germane for triggering a speciation

*Exponential growth. Source: (top left) Author. Nature of exponential growth. (Top right) Steve Jurvetson. An updated version of Moore's Law (based on Kurzweil's graph). Wikimedia Commons. https://commons.*

Once AI breaches a certain threshold, one should expect a runaway technological growth resulting in a phase transition in human civilization, including perhaps the speciation of the *Homo sapiens*. A likely component of the phase transition may well be that AI enters self-improvement cycles (feedback loops) that eventually cause it to evolve into a powerful level of superintelligence that would qualitatively surpass intelligence levels of all *Homo sapiens*. The accelerating progress of STEM in concert has also brought about commensurate changes in our lifestyle, expectations from life, and erosion of superstition and belief in religion. In the last few decades, the exponential nature of these changes has become noticeable and taxing enough even for the socioeconomic upper strata *Homo sapiens* to cope with. When, to mitigate their anxiety about AI, people claim that AI cannot do this or that which

Exponential growth in AI has advanced the possibility that artificially induced speciation of *Homo sapiens* may occur by the end of this century. Recent findings

their socioeconomic environment too has changed dramatically. Billions face the prospect of AI machines depriving them of sustainable livelihood and a dignified existence in society. Under such dramatic conditions of environmental change, Nature will force speciation toward life forms with an evolved brain far superior to that of the *Homo sapiens*. The very process may start too late and move too slowly and lead to the extinction of the *Homo sapiens*. Artificially induced speciation may therefore be the only means that may allow the *Homo sapiens* to transition to a new species in a controlled manner. On the flip side, one or more renegade group of *Homo sapiens* may strategize to surreptitiously create a colony of new species with the aim of dominating the Earth and decimating the *Homo sapiens* as an unneces-

<sup>3</sup> Prior to these papers, *Homo sapiens* were said to have been around for about 200,000 years.

In recent times,

humans can, they often forget to ask if those tasks are worth doing.

show that *Homo sapiens* evolved about 300,000 years ago [17, 18].3

*DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.83434*

*wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Moore%27s\_Law\_over\_120\_Years.png*

*Synthetic Biology, Artificial Intelligence, and Quantum Computing DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.83434*

**Figure 2.**

*Synthetic Biology - New Interdisciplinary Science*

human-machine synthesis:

possible before natural selection steps in anger.

*fold by merging with the intelligence we have created. [11]*

understanding RNA (ribonucleic acid)-mediated cellular activity using AI, artificially induced speciation of *Homo sapiens* by the end of this century may become

Kurzweil also forecasts that the future will provide opportunities of unparalleled

*2029 is the consistent date I have predicted for when an AI will pass a valid Turing test and therefore achieve human levels of intelligence. I have set the date 2045 for the 'Singularity' which is when we will multiply our effective intelligence a billion-*

Kurzweil's forecasts are based on his "law of accelerating returns" that enunciates that fundamental measures of information technology follow predictable and exponential trajectories seemingly unaffected by dramatic socioeconomic events such as war or peace, and prosperity or recession, paralleling Moore's law in computer technology—the number of transistors on integrated circuit chips doubles approximately almost every 2 years. Indeed, it turns out that once a technology becomes *de facto* information technology, it comes under the grip of the law of accelerating returns because computer simulation of any technology is all about mathematics and computation. The exponential change is the inevitable effect of our ability to conceptualize in larger and larger conceptual blocks by aggregating and augmenting smaller conceptual blocks discovered earlier. This simple mechanism enables the human mind to deal with and find solutions to more complex problems by using the same number of but more versatile concepts rather than an unmanageably larger number of simpler concepts. The method is no different than what mathematicians do. We were first exposed to this method when we studied Euclidean geometry in school. Mathematicians start with simple, primitive concepts they call axioms and build more and more complex theorems as they go along. It works if the axiomatic system is consistent because once a theorem is proven, its validity can be taken for granted even by those who know nothing about mathemat-

ics, for example, by machines. This is how machines acquire "intelligence."

Synthetic biology is now a part of information technology.

During the industrial era just behind us, most people reached their peak capacity to educate and skill themselves in activities (including earning a living) that required mechanizable "intelligent" rote education. That AI machines, in principle, can far surpass humans in such activities had become evident when Alan Turing showed how arithmetical calculations can be mechanized [12] and Gödel had earlier shown that any axiomatic system can be arithmetized [13]. This meant that any form of rational knowledge could be axiomatized and rote education programmed into computers. While creating new knowledge would still require human creativity, once that knowledge had matured and was formalized into an axiomatic system, it would be mechanizable and expandable. It would then be a matter of time that humans would increasingly face competition from machines and eventually be overwhelmed by them. Kurzweil's prediction that this would happen during 2029–2045 is bolstered by recent advances in AI. Ongoing advances in deep learning by machines indicate that through self-learning they can become highly creative and creators of original technology (the patent system will go for a toss) and scientific discoveries without human intervention may well become the norm [14]. Of some 150 predictions since the 1990s, Kurzweil claims an 86% accuracy rate [11, 15, 16]. Since synthetic biology has now come under the grip of mathematics, its exponential development is certain.

It is only in the last few years that the enormous significance of the exponential growth property of the law of accelerating returns has sunk in the minds of people. As one can see from **Figure 2** (left), till one reaches the vicinity of the knee of the

**14**

*Exponential growth. Source: (top left) Author. Nature of exponential growth. (Top right) Steve Jurvetson. An updated version of Moore's Law (based on Kurzweil's graph). Wikimedia Commons. https://commons. wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Moore%27s\_Law\_over\_120\_Years.png*

curve, the curve looks deceptively linear with a mild slope. This allows human minds to extrapolate into the future from gathered knowledge and experience. At the knee, the curve bends upward so rapidly that the human mind cannot respond fast enough to absorb, assess, contemplate, and react rationally. Knee-jerk reaction is about the best humans are capable of in such a situation. *Homo sapiens* now find themselves in an environment which they neither understand nor have the intellectual ability to rationally cope with. This is germane for triggering a speciation event.

Once AI breaches a certain threshold, one should expect a runaway technological growth resulting in a phase transition in human civilization, including perhaps the speciation of the *Homo sapiens*. A likely component of the phase transition may well be that AI enters self-improvement cycles (feedback loops) that eventually cause it to evolve into a powerful level of superintelligence that would qualitatively surpass intelligence levels of all *Homo sapiens*. The accelerating progress of STEM in concert has also brought about commensurate changes in our lifestyle, expectations from life, and erosion of superstition and belief in religion. In the last few decades, the exponential nature of these changes has become noticeable and taxing enough even for the socioeconomic upper strata *Homo sapiens* to cope with. When, to mitigate their anxiety about AI, people claim that AI cannot do this or that which humans can, they often forget to ask if those tasks are worth doing.

Exponential growth in AI has advanced the possibility that artificially induced speciation of *Homo sapiens* may occur by the end of this century. Recent findings show that *Homo sapiens* evolved about 300,000 years ago [17, 18].3 In recent times, their socioeconomic environment too has changed dramatically. Billions face the prospect of AI machines depriving them of sustainable livelihood and a dignified existence in society. Under such dramatic conditions of environmental change, Nature will force speciation toward life forms with an evolved brain far superior to that of the *Homo sapiens*. The very process may start too late and move too slowly and lead to the extinction of the *Homo sapiens*. Artificially induced speciation may therefore be the only means that may allow the *Homo sapiens* to transition to a new species in a controlled manner. On the flip side, one or more renegade group of *Homo sapiens* may strategize to surreptitiously create a colony of new species with the aim of dominating the Earth and decimating the *Homo sapiens* as an unnecessary burden on Earth.

<sup>3</sup> Prior to these papers, *Homo sapiens* were said to have been around for about 200,000 years.
