Humanity must begin preparations to no longer be in charge of Earth because of artificial intelligence, according to a new book from the late statesman Henry Kissinger and a pair of the country’s leading technologists.
The rise of AI creating “superhuman” people is a major topic of concern in “Genesis,” published Tuesday by Little, Brown and Company. It’s the “last book” from Kissinger, according to the publisher’s parent company Hachette. Kissinger was a longtime U.S. diplomat and strategist who died last year at age 100.
Kissinger’s co-authors, former Google CEO Eric Schmidt and longtime Microsoft senior executive Craig Mundie, finished the combined work after Kissinger’s death, and The Washington Times has obtained an advance copy. Mr. Schmidt and Mr. Mundie wrote they were among the last people to speak with Kissinger and sought to honor his dying request to finish the manuscript. The authors offer a bracing message, warning that AI tools have already started outpacing human capabilities so people might need to consider biologically engineering themselves to ensure they are not rendered inferior or wiped out by advanced machines.
In a section titled “Coevolution: Artificial Humans,” the three authors encourage people to think now about “trying to navigate our role when we will no longer be the only or even the principal actors on our planet.”
“Biological engineering efforts designed for tighter human fusion with machines are already underway,” they add.
Current efforts to integrate humans with machine include brain-computer interfaces, a technology that the U.S. military identified last year as of the utmost importance. Such interfaces allow for a direct link between the brain’s electrical signals and a device that processes them to accomplish a given task, such as controlling a battleship.




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