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The Coevolution: The Entwined Futures of Humans and Machines
Should digital technology be viewed as a new life form, sharing our ecosystem and coevolving with us?
Are humans defining technology, or is technology defining humans? In this book, Edward Ashford Lee considers the case that we are less in control of the trajectory of technology than we think. It shapes us as much as we shape it, and it may be more defensible to think of technology as the result of a Darwinian coevolution than the result of top-down intelligent design. Richard Dawkins famously said that a chicken is an egg's way of making another egg. Is a human a computer's way of making another computer? To understand this question requires a deep dive into how evolution works, how humans are different from computers, and how the way technology develops resembles the emergence of a new life form on our planet.
Lee presents the case for considering digital beings to be living, then offers counterarguments. What we humans do with our minds is more than computation, and what digital systems do--be teleported at the speed of light, backed up, and restored--may never be possible for humans. To believe that we are simply computations, he argues, is a "dataist" faith and scientifically indefensible. Digital beings depend on humans--and humans depend on digital beings. More likely than a planetary wipe-out of humanity is an ongoing, symbiotic coevolution of culture and technology.
Are humans defining technology, or is technology defining humans? In this book, Edward Ashford Lee considers the case that we are less in control of the trajectory of technology than we think. It shapes us as much as we shape it, and it may be more defensible to think of technology as the result of a Darwinian coevolution than the result of top-down intelligent design. Richard Dawkins famously said that a chicken is an egg's way of making another egg. Is a human a computer's way of making another computer? To understand this question requires a deep dive into how evolution works, how humans are different from computers, and how the way technology develops resembles the emergence of a new life form on our planet.
Lee presents the case for considering digital beings to be living, then offers counterarguments. What we humans do with our minds is more than computation, and what digital systems do--be teleported at the speed of light, backed up, and restored--may never be possible for humans. To believe that we are simply computations, he argues, is a "dataist" faith and scientifically indefensible. Digital beings depend on humans--and humans depend on digital beings. More likely than a planetary wipe-out of humanity is an ongoing, symbiotic coevolution of culture and technology.
384 pages, Hardcover
Published April 21, 2020
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
November 29, 2021
No es una lectura fácil, por la profundidad que hay que ir digiriendo y la amplitud de disciplinas a las que hecha mano para armar el argumento de la coevolución, pero, sin duda, muy interesante y bien logrado.
May 26, 2025
Read for a seminar with Professor Lee was super interesting!!!
July 19, 2021
An important and powerful examination of the relationship between humans and their creation--machines. Lee makes a strong case for the idea that we need to extend our concept of life to include non-biological entities. It's a brilliant argument that has the potential to change how we look at artificial intelligence and machines in general. I was fortunate to do an interview with the author for the New Books Network, which I would recommend to anyone interested in this topic or this book.
https://newbooksnetwork.com/the-coevo...
https://newbooksnetwork.com/the-coevo...
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews