Eternal Hominid Kingdom

ByDan September 7, 2024September 7, 2024 September 7, 2024

This post is not intended as an article, but as an opportunity to define a term I often refer to in talks and essays. For more context on these essays, see the reference links below.

We might define the eternal hominid kingdom as:

Any desired future where humans or hominid-like entities continue to be the most powerful species in existence.

There are some people who wish to either prevent the emergence of AGI, or the ensure that all permutations of AI are merely tools of humanity. Some of these people believe that, even a million or billion years into the future, the best possible future is one where humans “run the show,” where no species of entities with greater potentia exist (or if they do exist, they completely serve man).

I argue that this eternal hominid kingdom goal is potentially bad for humanity (a single torch), and is almost certainly bad for life itself (the flame, of which humanity is but part). I explore why I believe these things in the essays below:

• The 5 Stages of Posthuman Grief – “Acceptance” Makes Progress Possible: I argue that accepting the attenuation of humanity is a starting point for selecting viable, and “good” futures (for humanity and posthuman life).
• Handing Up the Baton – The Best of the Four Human Futures: An explanation of why the eternal hominid kingdom is not even possible, and why the creation of AGI almost certainly implies the end of humanity (or at every least, of the relative power of humans).
• The Flame, Not the Torch – Against Anthropocentrism: An argument for the moral value of life and potentia itself (the flame), not for life and potentia in any particular mammalian / anthropomorphic / biological form (torch).
• Council of the Apes: A story about apes preventing the evolution of humans, as an analogy and jest about humans preventing the evolution of higher potentia beings (posthumans, AGI).

Header image credit: Charlene Costanzo