Synchronicity came knocking so we got writing. We
had been contemplating an editorial on the
evolution between preindustrial and postindustrial
humanity when that exact question came up in this
series finale of Galactica. Not having seen it
before, the timing seems suspicious as here was
our entire editorial playing out at the climax of
the final episode. Survivors of the war with the
Cylons found a new earth on which to establish a
home where they could ensure their survival. With
all they had gone through and the lessons learned
from technology run amok, they could rebuild their
society with or without the advanced computers and
the science that provided a comfortable existence.
Stop here if you don't want to know how it ends.
In the end they opted to rough it out with the
indigenous natives who were genetically compatible
and would leave the ability to travel between
worlds behind. They gave up their government, they
give up their military, they gave up indoor
plumbing. All their tech was destroyed on purpose
so as to get a fresh start and uphold the greater
good. One can layout the timeline that would occur
with the intermixing of the two distinct genetic
codes. What had been a primitive race vulnerable
to extinction now became an advanced version that
would move on from hunting to cultivation and from
there a means to continue as unimproved species.
The show takes things full-circle when it looks in
again at that same civilization 150,000 years in
the future.
Cities had grown up from the small enclaves
established and mankind was up to the point of
evolution we are now. Robotics had become the rage
and AI was soon to take a dominant role in those
developments. Whether humanity could break the
cycle and not enlist independent death machines
onto the world to fight their battles was the
never-ending question. It still is and we face
that question if not now, we will in the very near
future. Already the race is on to make autonomous
vehicles of war to send against enemies needing no
human control to decide what to target. Extend
that timeline out even further and we get the
destruction of Caprica and the twelve colonies. In
a quote from where the decision was being made on
whether to keep or ditch technology, someone said,
"science charges ahead while the souls involved
are left behind".
The future will determine which decision we make
as a race is the right one or the wrong one. The
optimist in us would like to see an international
governance panel to regulate the development of AI
and the autonomous weapons of tomorrow so that a
set of norms are established which would control
the development. The realist we are understands
that won't happen and they did, any
recommendations made would be ignored. Just as
artificial intelligence is replacing costly
workers in industries around the world, AI is seen
as a way to replace costly soldiers on the
battlefield. As Hollywood has shown us, there is
no limit to where the technology could evolve.
We've seen in movies how the technology to become
self-aware. Now we've see in real life how the
same could happen then it would no longer be
fiction. Let's hope that wiser heads prevail.
