The Demigod Gap: Coexisting with Post-humans

"Esteemed guests, welcome! We will shortly begin our ascent. Please sit comfortably and enjoy this once-in-a-timeline opportunity to bear witness to Earth’s largest mountain. If perchance some mountain goats appear on our radar, we will call your attention to this exquisite, yet sadly dwindling breed. Monoculars are at the front. Enjoy the view!” Craig sat in the middle of the coach. They had been waiting for at least 2 minutes, but he forgave the tardiness. He was too excited to be angry. Craig had saved up for a whole year, working tirelessly in any station he could find that would take him. It was getting harder and harder for him to get work. More and more natural-humans were going into an early retirement, to live off of state provisions. He would be immensely comfortable if he would just succumb, but Craig wanted the satisfaction of working for what he consumed. Craig is all about authenticity. When the state subsidy for a basic posthuman package came out a couple decades ago, he resisted the temptation. Craig remembered what his grandfather used to say, “God didn’t intend for me to shoot lasers out of my eyes, did he, eh? Else he would have made me that way. Ha!” Craig chuckled at his stubborn old grandfather, pushing the thought out of his mind. Today was about one thing: the great Mount Everest. Up they went. It was a slow ascent, allowing the passengers to take in the beauty that nature had created. There was a quick visa check at 1000 metres as they entered Portuguese airspace. Most of the passengers simply flicked a limb at their phones, and they were through. Craig had to get up and go to the front, where a hologram held out a scanner for his paper passport. Craig didn’t notice it, but there was some chuckling from the window seats. One other woman was waiting behind Craig. She shot him a wink as she stepped up to the hologram. There was a real sense of comradery among the unenhanced. They had to stick together, lest they disappear entirely.

Craig took his seat, next to the beautiful cyborg who had just woken up from an induced nap. “Hello there, Craig isn’t it?” Craig smiled weakly. It was all too creepy how the enhanced could guess your name simply by looking at you. “My name is Jannesique.” Craig pulled his attention back to the window. Jannesique clearly wanted to chat, but Craig was disinterested. Today was all about the mountain. “It’s funny how the mountains take shape, isn’t it?” said Jannesique, more to themself than for Craig. “How's that?” he replied. They described it to him. Jannesique spoke with an undeserved eloquence . Craig couldn’t help himself. He was drawn in. Jannesique spoke on and on, about countless matters, weaving her words into a great tapestry. Every word was perfectly placed, every syllable uttered with poetry, every topic interwoven. The mountain all but disappeared. Craig was ecstatic. This siren could sing to him for a year. Then all of a sudden, his heart dropped out of his body. Jannesique was talking about him. They knew him, better than he could know himself. Revelation after revelation cascaded down his nervous system. He was shaking. They had reached the summit, unbeknownst to Craig. Jannesique revealed to him the bread and butter of his existence, served on a silver platter. Craig found himself driving home in a daze. His wife greeted him, but he didn’t care. His kids squealed in pleasure at the sight of him, but he could not react. He was absorbed byJannesique’s words. Meanwhile on some distant plane, Jannesique had forgotten the mountain entirely. Craig was a gust of wind to them. Jannesique was a perfect storm.

As the capacity to augment, improve and increase the intellect of human beings soars forward, there will inevitably be a set of people who chose to forgo these enhancements, left in the dust of their enhanced counterparts. It is only fair that nobody will be forced to carry an enhanced intellect. Because, to many, this can only be a burden. But how can the enhanced and the un-enhanced coexist? How will the enhanced and the unenhanced interact day to day, in passing, on public transport, at cafes, in a line for the cinema? This short story above attempts to illustrate as of yet unexplored collateral consequences of enhancement. What if, in passing, an enhanced being with intellectual capacity far exceeding the 21st century norm strikes up a conversation with an unenhanced human, and unwittingly, or in the more dire case, intentionally enlightens them to a truth, a question, a puzzle of the universe that would be too heavy to handle for an unenhanced mind? A myriad of questions, moral, practical, legal and even existential spring forth.

One may question if a human of enhanced intellect like Jannesique could be unaware that they are introducing someone to ideas normally well outside their grasp, that this could only happen coercively. But I could imagine how a posthuman who normally interacts with their counterparts could be so wrapped up in the brilliance of the ideas that they come in contact with on a daily basis, that it becomes their new normal, allowing them to be ignorant of the lives of unenhanced humans. It may always be hard to imagine the inner life of another intellect. The intellectual disparity between a posthuman and an unenhanced human, which I will refer to as the “demigod gap” may result in a heightened responsibility held by posthumans. If, for example, a posthuman intellect learns that an unenhanced human is living in such a way that is harmful, providing no benefit to them, and easily fixed, a kind of intellectual deficiency if you will, then shouldn’t that posthuman inform the unenhanced human of the issue?

The answer to this question lies within the nature of the choice to remain unenhanced. In one sense, we are all enhanced. Anyone who has read the works of Tolstoy, or learned to multiply numbers, or write, has absorbed knowledge that they have not themselves created. I am not saying that we are all posthumans, but rather that enhancement—in so much as it is holding knowledge that would be outside the possibility of your own, untouched mind in a state of sensory isolation—is inevitable. Does this mean that the human who chooses to remain unenhanced is living in bad faith? I don’t think so. There is a difference between the piece-by-piece accumulation of knowledge and ability from outside forces and the contrary dump of ability or information possible with enhancement. Yes, with each grain of knowledge acquired, one’s capacity to learn and perform is increased.

The difference between traditional gradual learning and a sudden and dramatic spike in information and ability are somewhat hard to distinguish in essential terms. Certainly, working for a decade towards medical training, and downloading the necessary information within a second from a posthuman information bank feels different. One requires a lot of work and dedication, the other perhaps only an hour in a waiting room. But there are things to learn through organic means which most likely produce a similar dramatic spike in ability as enhancement. The existence of philosophy, or perhaps the “Eureka!” moment of understanding tough mathematical concepts would produce a similar spike in one’s capacital horizon. Here I must rest on the fairly obvious: “It feels different for those concerned, and thus the difference should be respected.”

Does the demigod gap result in a greater authority? There are several forms this may take— for instance, there is the legitimate authority of having more information or thinking power, hence posthumans may occupy all the positions of power within society- leading businesses, owning land and resources, and holding political power through offices and parliaments. A posthuman could be a more capable leader, or simply a better advertiser for political campaigns.

This leaves the unenhanced as a disenfranchised group, holding little control over their own lives from an institutional level. I would argue that such a problem already exists, although it is not often named or given due diligence. There may be any number of politicians and businessmen who are disliked and labelled as unintelligent, although it seems to hold true that the least intellectually gifted are not generally in positions of institutional power. Most likely feel this is a good thing. Why does the question feel different in the case of enhanced humans and unenhanced ones? An element of this may be scale. The intelligence gap between our current brightest mind and our dimmest companion is most likely small compared to the demigod gap.