Synthetic Biology, Artificial Intelligence, and Quantum Computing

Abstract

We envisage a world where genetic engineering, artificial intelligence (AI), and quantum computing (QC) will coalesce to bring about a forced speciation of the Homo sapiens . A forced speciation will drastically reduce the emergence time for a new species to a few years compared to Nature’s hundreds of millennia. In this chapter, we explain the basic concepts that would allow a forced speciation of the Homo sapiens to occur and its consequences on life on Earth thereafter. Accelerating speciation mediated by Homo sapiens via domestication, gene splicing, and gene drive mechanisms is now scientifically well understood. Synthetic biology can advance speciation far more rapidly using a combination of clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats (CRISPR) technology, advanced computing technologies, and knowledge creation using AI. The day is perhaps not far off when Homo sapiens itself will initiate its own speciation once it advances synthetic biology to a level where it can safely modify the brain to temper emotion and enhance rational thinking as a means of competing against AI-embedded machines guided by quantum algorithms. Quantum mechanics is an immensely successful theory. Not only have all its predictions been experimentally confirmed to an unprecedented level of accuracy, allowing for a detailed understanding of the atomic and subatomic aspects of matter; the theory also lies at the heart of many of the technological advances shaping