By Dr. Vivek Gupta, Founder & CEO · August 2023
Human legs allow us to stand on our feet, move around and run, but overall they play an insignificant role in transportation of humans. Our ability to drive a car, a bus, a train, an airplane and space ship has significantly changed the role of legs in transportation of humans. The average speed of human legs is about 4-6 miles per hour which is significantly less than other modes of transportation.
"A distance of Newark to SFO will take 959 hours of walking while a plane ride can take us there in ~6 hours.
This decline of the role of human legs in our overall transportation needs is significant to understand how should we see our future. As humans progressed from legs to horses and subsequently to more modern transportation, we forgot that our earlier ancestors walked the earth. Today it seems like an unimaginable concept when the requirements of transportations have become significantly important.
Human brain is about to face a similar challenge. As we grow intelligence in our systems and AI, human brain's role in overall innovation, the world changing aspects and our daily life is going to face a similar decline as we saw in the case of legs. As we try to scale inter-galactical travel or live beyond 100s of years, or create biological creatures which does not exist today, we cannot accomplish them with our brains. They will become like the legs, they are important to accomplish day to day living, but has no real role in our goals, our key routines and our lives.
The societal implications of such a change will be humongous. How will society make use of this advanced forms of intelligence and live with the declining role of human brain? It is not that this obsolescence has not happened before. It is just that it will now for our most important organ, the brain.