In an interview in 1964, the science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke stated:
“The most intelligent inhabitants of that future world won’t be men or monkeys. They’ll be machines—the remote descendants of today’s computers. Now, the present-day electronic brains are complete morons. But this will not be true in another generation. They will start to think, and eventually they will completely out-think their makers.”
Arthur C. Clarke, BBC Horizon 1964
In January 2025, President Donald Trump announced the Stargate Project, a $500 billion joint venture to invest in artificial intelligence infrastructure. Masayoshi Son, CEO of SoftBank, who was on hand for Trump’s announcement, said this project marked the “beginning of our golden age”. While a letter addressing Stargate from OpenAI, the creators of ChatGPT, stated that:
“All of us look forward to continuing to build and develop AI…for the benefit of all of humanity. We believe that this new step is critical on the path, and will enable creative people to figure out how to use AI to elevate humanity.”
Open AI, Announcing the Stargate Project
The Stargate Project is a clear sign of AI’s deepening influence on the modern zeitgeist. No longer is AI merely the subject of theoretical speculation, its technologies are now shaping the world in which we live.
All technology, however, carries the potential for both good and evil and in this video we explore the darker side of AI. We argue that if the dreams of AI enthusiasts are realized the outcome could be the extinction of humanity or a nightmarish technological dystopia. For riding the wave of AI’s advancement is the fanatical ideology of transhumanism, which is embraced by many in the upper echelons of corporate, political and scientific power. Transhumanism promotes integrating technology into the brains and bodies of all humans, or as Joe Allen explains in his book Dark Aeon: Transhumanism and the War against Humanity:
“Transhumanism is the great merger of humankind with the Machine. At this stage in history, it consists of billions using smartphones. Going forward, we’ll be hardwiring our brains to artificial intelligence systems. Ultimately, transhumanism is a spiritual orientation—not toward the transcendent Creator, but rather toward the created Machine.”
Joe Allen, Dark Aeon: Transhumanism and the War against Humanity
The artificial intelligence developed in recent years by companies such as OpenAI, Meta, and Google, falls under the category of narrow AI. These systems perform specific tasks within predefined domains and lack the ability to generalize their intelligence or autonomously transfer their capabilities to new domains without additional training. One of Google’s DeepMind systems, AlphaZero, for example, has become a master at playing games like chess and Go. Artificial intelligence language models, such as ChatGPT and DeepSeek, have synthesized astounding quantities of knowledge and in 2024 ChatGPT-4 tested at the 99th percentile on the GRE Verbal exam and the US Biology Olympiads.
The ultimate goal of AI developers, however, is not to create more powerful narrow AI systems but to spawn artificial general intelligence, or AGI. Unlike narrow AI, AGI would have the capacity to operate across many domains and to learn and master everything humans can, and much more. A sufficiently advanced artificial general intelligence would be a superintelligent system whose abilities would dwarf our own in the same way that our abilities dwarf those of an ant. Among its most profound abilities would be the power to improve and replicate itself by writing its own code. Or as Joe Allen writes:
“In the same way an automated calculator can out-compete any human in a Math Bowl, a sufficiently advanced AI will blow humans away at calculation, persuasion, deception, replication, machine control, resource acquisition, institutional organization, military strategy, and pretty much any task it’s trained to perform in the “digital ecosystem”…As AIs become even more complex and nondeterministic than they already are, they’ll be able to operate across the internet with greater autonomy. If allowed to improve their own computer code, these AIs could replicate and mutate like bacteria in an irradiated Petri dish. Once one learns a new skill, countless more would learn instantly.”
Joe Allen, Dark Aeon: Transhumanism and the War against Humanity
The arrival of superintelligent AI would mark the end of human supremacy. Ben Goertzel, a lead developer at OpenCog, whose software powers the world-famous robot Sophia, wrote that:
“…one thing that does seem likely, is that once machines smarter than humans are around, the era of human beings dominating the Earth will be gone.”
The AGI Revolution
Or as the English novelist Samuel Butler predicted with remarkable prescience in 1863:
“Man will have become to the machine what the horse and the dog are to man.”
Samuel Butler, Darwin Among the Machines, 1863
If the world is populated by superintelligent and self-reproducing AI, there is the possibility that these systems would see us as threat, a resource to exploit, or else treat us with a dangerous indifference. Or as Mo Gawdat explains:
“To put this in perspective, your intelligence, in comparison to that machine, will be comparable to the intelligence of a fly in comparison to Einstein. Now the question becomes: how do you convince this superbeing that there is actually no point squashing a fly?”
Mo Gawdat Scary Smart : The Future of Artificial Intelligence and How You Can Save Our World
That AI could bring about the end of humanity is not a fringe concern voiced only by Luddites. Rather, it is shared by a significant portion of individuals working at the cutting edge of AI. According to the Stanford AI Index, 36% percent of AI experts agreed that “AI decisions could cause nuclear-level catastrophe.” In 2014 Elon Musk stated that: “With artificial intelligence, we are summoning the demon.” In 2023, hundreds of artificial intelligence experts signed a letter stating: “Mitigating the risk of extinction from AI should be a global priority alongside other societal-scale risks, such as pandemics and nuclear war.” While the Nobel Prize Winner and “Godfather of AI”, Geoffrey Hinton, has publicly expressed regret over his pioneering work on neural networks due to the potential threats AI may pose to humanity in the future. Or as Hinton remarked in an interview:
“I talked to Elon Musk the other day, and he thinks we’ll get things more intelligent than us. And what he’s hoping is, they’ll keep us around because we will make life more interesting. That seems like a pretty flimsy thing to rest humanity on to me. But he thinks it’s quite possible these things get much smarter—and they’ll gain control.”
Geoffrey Hinton
Currently, there are at least 45 programs working to create artificial general intelligence. That being said, it is still unknown to what degree it is possible to create artificial general intelligence, let alone artificial superintelligence. Scientists have little understanding of consciousness and its relationship to matter, and it is unclear whether high-level intelligence requires consciousness, and whether it is possible to create a conscious machine. Yet many on the frontlines of AI development are acting as if the emergence of superintelligent machines is inevitable, and they have formulated a plan to address this existential threat – a threat which they themselves are working to create. This plan is transhumanism, which involves merging ourselves with machines so that we become powerful enough to co-exist alongside superintelligent AI.
Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI, claims that to avoid an “us versus them” situation with AI, there would need to be “some version of a merge, at least for some of us.” While Elon Musk stated that: “If we have digital superintelligence that’s just much smarter than any human … at a species level, how do we mitigate that risk?…And then even in a benign scenario, where the AI is very benevolent, then how do we even go along for the ride?” Musk’s solution, which he is currently working on with his company Neuralink, is to augment human capacities with what he calls an “electrode-to-neuron interface at a micro level” — “a chip and a bunch of tiny wires” that will be “implanted in your skull.” Or as Musk stated in 2018:
“The long-term aspiration with Neuralink would be to achieve a symbiosis with artificial intelligence…I believe this can be done… It’s probably on the order of a decade.”
Elon Musk
Regarding this transhumanist plan, Joe Allen writes:
“Human beings will be forced—as a matter of survival—to merge with the superintelligent machines they’ve created. (Or rather…the masses will be forced to merge with machines created by a handful of inventors and controlled by elites who are themselves possessed by digital intelligences.)”
Joe Allen, Dark Aeon: Transhumanism and the War against Humanity
While AI is being used as a pretext to push transhumanism on the masses, the idea of using science and technology to augment human capacities has lurked in the shadows of Western civilization for centuries. However, it was not until the 20th century that it became apparent that transhumanism would soon become a tangible possibility. Julian Huxley, brother of Aldous Huxley, put the popularized the term transhumanism in the mid-20th century and he predicted that in the near future humans would merge their biology with technology to enhance their capacities, increase longevity, take control of their evolution, and therein become gods. Or as Huxley wrote in 1957:
“The human species can, if it wishes, transcend itself—not just sporadically, an individual here in one way, an individual there in another way, but in its entirety, as humanity. We need a name for this new belief. Perhaps transhumanism will serve: man remaining man, but transcending himself, by realizing the new possibilities of and for his human nature. “I believe in transhumanism”: once there are enough people who can truly say that, the human species will be on the threshold of a new kind of existence…”
Julian Huxley, Transhumanism
Klaus Schwab, founder and chairman of the World Economic Forum, is one of many global elites who believes in transhumanism. In his book the Fourth Industrial Revolution, Schwab explained that we are in the initial stages of the next major civilizational revolution – a transhumanist revolution – which in his words involves “the convergence of the physical, digital, and biological worlds”, and the “the fusion of our physical, digital, and biological identities.” While Yuval Noah Harari, the best-selling author and frequent speaker at global summits attended by the world’s most powerful politicians, businessmen, and scientists, wrote that:
“Techno-humanism agrees that Homo sapiens as we know it has run its historical course and will no longer be relevant in the future, but concludes that we should therefore use technology in order to create Homo deus [Man-God]—a much superior model. Homo deus will retain some essential human features but will also enjoy upgraded physical and mental abilities that will enable it to hold its own even against the most sophisticated non-conscious algorithms.”
Yuval Noah Harari, Homo Deus
One of the more outspoken advocates of transhumanism is Ray Kurzweil, the director of research and development at Google. Kurzweil predicted that by 2045 humanity will reach what he called the Singularity – an inflection point where technology is so advanced, and humans so integrated with it, that a “post-human” era will emerge that will mark the end of biological humanity as we know it. Although Kurzweil’s timeline may be wrong, as Joe Allen notes:
“What’s most important is his overall vision of technological evolution. By projecting current trends forward in time, Kurzweil lays out a mythos for our future.”
Joe Allen, Dark Aeon: Transhumanism and the War against Humanity
Or as Kurzweil wrote in his book The Singularity is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology:
“The Singularity will represent the culmination of our biological thinking and existence with our technology, resulting in a world that is still human but that transcends our biological roots. There will be no distinction, post-Singularity, between human and machine or between actual and virtual reality…”
Ray Kurzweil, The Singularity is Near
In his book Dark Aeon, Joe Allen notes that former employees of Google have said “the entire company is eaten up with dreams of the Singularity.” The former Google employee Adrian Tola, calls the transhumanist dream of the Singularity a “cyborg theocracy.” According to Elon Musk, Google’s co-founder Larry Page told him that his ultimate goal is to create “a sort of digital god”. While in 2021 the ex-Google executive Mo Gawdat stated unequivocally that “The reality is … we’re creating God.”
This religious fanaticism is not confined to those who work at Google. For a significant portion of those in the upper echelons of scientific, corporate, and political power – as well as many in the general public – have become true believers in transhumanism, which now amounts to a full-blown religion.
“…an orthodoxy is coming into focus. Its mythos is science. Its ethos is calculation. Its salvific principle is technology…While this is still a heterodox religion, roiled by internal disputes, there are hints of an emerging credo. Above all, transhumanists exalt technology as the highest power…For the starry-eyed inventor, those machines will be the realization of God.”
Joe Allen, Dark Aeon: Transhumanism and the War against Humanity
One of the ways true believers of transhumanism are trying to proselytize the masses is by appealing to compassion. According to some transhumanists, by merging man with machine the blind will be able to see and the lame walk. Companies such as Elon Musk’s Neuralink and Synchron, which is heavily funded by Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates, have developed brain-computer interfaces which are being implanted into the heads of paralyzed individuals so they can type text or operate a robotic arm using only their thoughts. And as Joe Allen writes:
“Clearly, there is the obvious benefit of inserting a BCI [Brain-Computer Interface] into a fully conscious, but uncommunicative human vegetable, allowing him to speak to his loved ones once again. The catch is that the brain-computer interface won’t stop with healing…in keeping with a core transhumanist principle—“from healing to enhancement”—both Elon Musk (Neuralink) and Tom Oxley (Synchron) have made it clear their ultimate goal is to enhance normal human beings…For many techno-optimists, “inevitable” progress culminates in a digital implant in every brain—or at least, in every brain that counts.”
Joe Allen, Dark Aeon: Transhumanism and the War against Humanity
For those who think that only a tiny minority of fanatical tech enthusiasts would accept a device implanted in their brain, according to a 2022 Pew Study on “AI and Human Enhancement”, 20% of people said they would consider “computer chip implants in [their baby’s] brain for far quicker/accurate processing.”
But brain-computer interfaces are only the tip of the iceberg of transhumanist technologies in development. According to Moderna’s chief medical officer Tal Zaks, mRNA technology is helping scientists “hack the software of life”. According to an article in MIT Technology Review, “gene editing for the masses” via “genetic vaccinations”, which “would alter a person’s DNA to confer lifelong immunity to a wide array of illnesses”, are coming down the pipeline. The company Daré Bioscience developed a contraceptive microchip that is implanted under the skin to release hormones into the bloodstream. They are currently completing clinical trials to receive FDA approval. Another transhumanist technology in development is implantable biosensors that are being marketed as ways to monitor brain activity and personal health markers. In 2020, for example, Microsoft filed a patent for biosensors that “would monitor a subject’s behavior, including eye movements, brain waves, bodily fluids, and attention.” Ray Kurzweil believes that in the future nanobot swarms will swim through the bloodstream to monitor health as well as “deliver drugs, repair damaged tissues, or gnaw tumors down to nothing. The nanobots will…connect to the digital cloud, read and write your thoughts, and merge your mind with superhuman artificial intelligence.” (Joe Allen, Dark Aeon: Transhumanism and the War against Humanity) And as Joe Allen observes:
“The transhuman shift is accelerating, yet it hovers on the edge of public awareness. The first waves of transhuman products are already being integrated into our institutions and personal lives at warp speed. Most are moderate concerns and oftentimes glitchy, but they’re here nonetheless. A few will prove to be revolutionary.”
Joe Allen, Dark Aeon: Transhumanism and the War against Humanity
As governments and corporations improve their capacity to play god by tinkering with human biology and merging man with technology, their power will reach levels that tyrants of the past could not even have dreamed of. “Who masters those technologies, in some way will be the master of the world.”, Klaus Schwab stated at the 2023 World Government Summit in Dubai. Or as the great 20th century British writer C.S. Lewis astutely observed his book The Abolition of Man:
“Man’s conquest of Nature, if the dreams of some scientific planners are realized, means the rule of a few hundreds of men over billions upon billions of men. There neither is nor can be any simple increase of power on Man’s side. Each new power won by man is a power over man as well. Each advance leaves him weaker as well as stronger. In every victory, besides being the general who triumphs, he is also the prisoner who follows the triumphal car…For the power of Man to make himself what he pleases means…the power of some men to make other men what they please.”
C.S. Lewis, The Abolition of Man
To demonstrate the power which transhumanist technologies would place in the hands of governments and corporations, let’s envision a couple possible ways in which transhumanism could lead to dystopia.
Today mass surveillance is bad enough. Almost everybody carries a smartphone everywhere they go, and their location and online activity is transmitted to data centers for storage. In the future, however, if the masses integrate technologies into their minds and bodies an advanced surveillance grid amounting to an invisible technological prison would exist. Narrow AI systems could track and flag in real-time the movements, behaviors, purchases, and online activity of billions of people, while brain-computer interfaces could monitor the thoughts of individuals and transmit them to AI systems trained to detect thought crimes. Some of the more fanatical transhumanists are openly calling for the creation of an open-air technological prison. Today containers are frequently equipped with RFID tags that allow companies to track their location as they move through the supply chain, and according to Klaus Schwab: “In the near future, similar monitoring systems will also be applied to the movement and tracking of humans.” And as Yuval Noah Harari writes:
“If we are not careful the result might be an Orwellian police state that constantly monitors and controls not only all our actions, but even what happens inside our bodies and our brains.”
Yuval Noah Harari, Homo Deus
Another dystopian possibility is that governments and corporations will use a mix of coercion and incentives to make technological integration a prerequisite for full participation in society. We caught a glimpse of this potential future during the pandemic when access to certain public spaces was restricted to those who received an injection of mRNA technology. If recent history is any indication, in a transhumanist world “post-humans” who merge with technology would enjoy greater social freedoms and privileges, while “legacy humans”—those who choose to remain unaltered—would be marginalized and oppressed. OpenAI’s CEO Sam Altman, for example, stated that “I do suspect that even if we think the merge [with machines] is good…there will be many people who don’t want to.” Altman suggests that such people should be relegated to “an exclusion zone, where if you want to live [without integrating with machines], you do that.” And as Joe Allen comments:
“What we’re not being prepared for is how to control these technologies, as regular citizens, or to reject them. Any sense of control over the tech deployed by predatory corporations or oppressive governments is a carefully crafted illusion. And once a technology is necessary for participation in society, rejection is no longer an option. We’re being herded into a digital cage…The real conflict isn’t between machines and humans. Not really. It’s between those who say yes to a man-machine merger and those who say no…Legacy humans…may enjoy their own “exclusion zone” outside the thrust of history.”
Joe Allen, Dark Aeon: Transhumanism and the War against Humanity
To make the situation even more dystopian, any attempts by legacy humans to liberate themselves from oppression could easily be stamped out with advanced AI weapons and a technologically augmented police and military. Brian Pierce, the director of the Information Innovation Office at DARPA, or The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, said that the agency is extremely enthusiastic about a “true symbiosis between Homo sapiens and the emerging Machina sapiens.” While a 2021 white paper from the UK Ministry of Defense, stated:
“…the core of future military advantage will be effective integration of humans, artificial intelligence, and robotics into warfighting systems—human-machine teams—that exploit the capabilities of people and technologies to outperform our opponents.”
UK Ministry of Defense, 2021
And as Joe Allen comments:
“This is not science fiction, nor is it a conspiracy theory. Not anymore. The only conspiracy I see, spread out across hundreds of competing and occasionally colluding organizations, is the insistence on making science fiction a reality.”
Joe Allen, Dark Aeon: Transhumanism and the War against Humanity
Although the transhumanist religion is alive and well, and its agenda funded to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars, we do not know to what degree experiments merging man with technology will backfire or fail. Technology has limits, human biology has uncharted complexities, and many of the grandest transhumanist ambitions may prove to be delusional. Or as Joe Allen states:
“As for the full actualization of any transhuman dream…I’m more agnostic than true believer. Techies make all sorts of empty promises. They thrive on projecting mystical powers. Even so, we ignore their techno-cultural revolution at our own peril. If a thousand shots miss, the one direct hit will be all that mattered.”
Joe Allen, Dark Aeon: Transhumanism and the War against Humanity
The analogy of shots fired is fitting, as the techno-cultural revolution that transhumanists are seeking to bring to fruition is, at essence, a covert spiritual war. If there is any hope of winning this spiritual war, more of us need to be aware of the transhumanist agenda that individuals on both sides of the political spectrum are pushing and grasp the immense stakes at play. For it is not hyperbole to claim that we are standing at a civilizational inflection point, a crossroad, or as Allen concludes:
“My purpose is not to inspire you to smash up machines like a lunatic and then run off to eat crickets in a cave. Although, some machines should be scrapped completely, and if that’s the route you’re destined for, start with your own smartphone…At bottom, this is spiritual warfare. Physical attacks don’t target the real enemy, which lurks in the soul…the most insidious element is not the machinery itself. It’s the techno-religious belief system that infuses each device…The enemies of humanity are waging a covert war on our very nature. Yet most people are content to keep scrolling to the next dopamine burst.”
Joe Allen, Dark Aeon: Transhumanism and the War against Humanity
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