Exploring the End of Evolution in the Age of AI Welcome back, everyone, to another episode of Redefining Society & Technology. I’m your host, Marco Ciappelli, and today we’re diving deep into a topic that has fascinated, puzzled, and, let’s admit, worried us all—evolution and its future in a world dominated by technology. Joining me is J.J. Jerome, author of Evolution Ended: The Next Stage of American Society. His book is bold, thought-provoking, and unapologetically challenging. If you’ve read Yuval Noah Harari’s Sapiens or Ray Kurzweil’s The Singularity Is Nearer, you’re in for a similar mind-expanding ride.
Guest:
J.J. Jerome is an award-winning engineer and futurist who used his unique background in brain science and electronics to become a seminal influence in numerous cutting-edge technologies. He has been an internationally acknowledged leader in the development of human interfaces and intelligent building technology and is currently one of the nation’s leading thinkers on using big data to mitigate climate change. He presents regularly at national conferences and is an advisor for STEM education.
Guest Website: https://www.jjjerome.com/
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Host: Marco Ciappelli, Co-Founder at ITSPmagazine [@ITSPmagazine] and Host of Redefining Society Podcast
Visit Marco's website 👉 https://www.marcociappelli.com
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Exploring the End of Evolution in the Age of AI
Welcome back, everyone, to another episode of Redefining Society & Technology. I’m your host, Marco Ciappelli, and today we’re diving deep into a topic that has fascinated, puzzled, and, let’s admit, worried us all—evolution and its future in a world dominated by technology.
Joining me is J.J. Jerome, author of Evolution Ended: The Next Stage of American Society. His book is bold, thought-provoking, and unapologetically challenging. If you’ve read Yuval Noah Harari’s Sapiens or Ray Kurzweil’s The Singularity Is Nearer, you’re in for a similar mind-expanding ride.
J.J. and I explore how humanity has transitioned from physical survival to technological dependence and ask some profound questions: Has biological evolution reached its endpoint? Can technology become an extension—or even a replacement—for humanity? And what happens when AI starts being recognized not just as a tool but as a being?
This conversation will make you question everything you think you know about evolution, technology, and society. Ready? Let’s jump in.
Is Evolution Over?
What happens when technology becomes the primary driver of evolution? That’s the provocative premise of J.J. Jerome’s book, Evolution Ended: The Next Stage of American Society. On this episode of Redefining Society & Technology, we explore this profound shift with J.J., whose expertise ranges from biomedical engineering to consumer technology innovation.
From the pressures of tribal survival to the dominance of artificial intelligence, evolution is no longer dictated by biology alone. Instead, it’s intertwined with technological progress, which is now shaping not just our survival but the way we interact, live, and think.
The Three Brains: Reptile, Mammal, and Human
One of the most fascinating parts of our conversation is J.J.’s breakdown of the human brain into three evolutionary stages: the reptile brain, responsible for instinct and survival; the mammal brain, which drives emotions and relationships; and the human cortex, enabling logic, planning, and creativity.
But here’s the twist—our primal, emotion-driven mammal brain often overpowers the logical cortex, especially in today’s digital world. Social media platforms have learned to exploit this dynamic, delivering dopamine hits through likes and shares, creating an addictive cycle that J.J. compares to a modern-day tribal dependency.
Has Biological Evolution Stalled?
J.J. argues that biological evolution has effectively paused in first-world societies. With technological advances eliminating many traditional survival pressures—think antibiotics, mobility, and birth control—we’re no longer evolving in the Darwinian sense. Instead, our evolution has shifted to the social and technological realms.
Yet, this shift comes with its challenges. We’ve moved from survival-of-the-fittest to survival-by-technology, relying on tools like smartphones and AI for everything from navigation to communication. But what happens when technology becomes so advanced that it challenges our very definition of humanity?
AI as a Being: Where Do We Draw the Line?
Here’s where things get even more interesting. J.J. makes a bold claim: AI may soon be indistinguishable from humans in terms of language, logic, and interaction. He references the Turing Test, which suggests that if you can’t tell whether you’re speaking to a human or a machine, the machine is essentially thinking.
But if AI is thinking, should it be granted rights? What happens when an AI, indistinguishable from a human, asks not to be “turned off”? Are we prepared to navigate the moral, legal, and societal implications of treating AI as beings?
The American Angle: A Cultural Lens on Evolution
J.J.’s book focuses on the American context, where cultural and technological evolution intertwine in unique ways. He examines the role of alpha leaders in politics, business, and society, drawing parallels between human behavior and our mammalian instincts to follow dominant figures. This lens offers a timely critique of how technology amplifies tribalism and reshapes societal hierarchies.
Conclusion: More Questions Than Answers
If there’s one thing I hope you take away from this conversation, it’s the power of questions. Has evolution ended? Is AI truly an extension of humanity—or its competition? And how do we balance the promise of technology with its profound ethical and societal challenges?
These questions don’t have simple answers, but that’s the point. This isn’t just a podcast—it’s a conversation starter.
I hope this episode left you with more questions than answers—because that’s where the best conversations begin. Be sure to check out J.J. Jerome’s book Evolution Ended: The Next Stage of American Society and visit his website, JJJerome.com.
Let me know what you think! Share your thoughts, questions, or even your debates—I’d love to hear them. And, of course, don’t forget to subscribe to Redefining Society & Technology for more conversations like this.
Stay tuned for the next episode!
Marco Ciappelli
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Resources/References
Book: https://www.amazon.com/Evolution-Ended-Stage-American-Society/dp/B0BMNPFMBR
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[00:00:00] Marco Ciappelli: Well, hello, everybody. Welcome back to another episode of Redefining Society and Technology podcast, which is kind of like the I changed the name. Not too long ago, I went for redefining society, which doesn't change the topic. It's always been about technology and society, but, you know, search engine like to have the word in the title.
And, uh, and I think it make it a little bit more clear. But as you know, as you've been following me, um, it's not just a one way relationship. It's not how technology affects society, but also how society affect technology. The reason for that. Not to get already philosophical, but it's because, you know, it's all a synergy.
It's never one one reason or another It's it's a togetherness of thing even if you are inventing something Sometimes it's the necessity that says well, where are we standing with this? I wish I had that and then if you don't have it, you just go ahead and do it if you have The capability to do that.
And so I think technology for some people is just like, uh, blinking lights and, and, uh, funny noises, as I like to say, we just follow it just for, for that. But I like to think that we're smarter than that. And that, uh, we kind of drive where technology should go. And with that, I'm we may disagree with the guest or or agree.
I don't know I think it's going to be a great conversation and i'm very very excited to have the author of Evolution ended the next stage of american society, which it's already a big a lot of question right there in the title But uh, we'll have the time to go over that with uh, j. j. Jerome. Welcome to the show j.
j
[00:01:50] J.J. Jerome: Thank you very much marco
[00:01:52] Marco Ciappelli: It's a pleasure having you here. So I think I already talked a little too much. So I want to, I want to start with you. Who are you? What is your passion? And I know you have many, many, you wear many hats in the past. And what brought you to say, I'm gonna have to write this book.
[00:02:12] J.J. Jerome: Well, as a little kid, I was fascinated with the brain. Um, when I was getting dressed in the morning, there was one TV show on at 6 30 in the morning, and it turned out that it was a seminar for neurologists on TV, and it included neurosurgery. And although I didn't understand all of it, at seven years old, I found it fascinating.
This was in black and white. This was a long time ago. And I just became fascinated with the brain and medicine in general. And for a long time, I thought I was going to be a doctor. Fast forward until I was about 11 years old and I became fascinated with electricity. It seemed like electricity could do anything.
I said to my mom, what is it that makes, uh, the TV work? She goes, electricity. I said, how about the washing machine? Electricity, the refrigerator, electricity. It seemed like the answer to everything. So when I got to be college age, I combined both of them and got a degree in biomedical electronic engineering.
And my very first project was an implantable brain sensor that detected the pressure of the cerebrospinal fluid and transmitted it out. From there, I moved on. to consumer electronics and became the director of the Future Home Institute. And it was one of the very first smart homes. This one in particular was designed to be able to support, uh, people with disabilities.
Um, in particular, there was a person who lived in our test bed, who was a person with quadriplegia and we pioneered very early voice recognition, uh, on screen displays, some of the first touchscreens, What
year are we talking about here? So we put this into context. About
1990. Thanks. So it's been, been a while.
[00:04:05] Marco Ciappelli: Yeah.
[00:04:05] J.J. Jerome: Um, and it became a, uh, uh, facility that, uh, people use to, to teach about these new technologies and especially applied to people with disabilities. We were asked to help out Christopher Reeve when he had his accident. Um, and. It was really some neat stuff, which we later applied in the commercial world to touch screen based home automation systems and things like that.
So I've been involved with a lot of technology over the years, but the interest in the brain never really left me. And so these were the two things I combined. To put a, uh, an exclamation point on what you said at the beginning of the session here, I feel like technology is everything. Everything we call civilization, really someone designed, someone thought it out, and, and it's technology that is so incredibly powerful.
As you said, it's a lot more than just pushing buttons or having a smartphone. Technology is a big part of our evolution, um, as humans, because it became the thing that helped us to survive. And so as we move through my book, We start out in tribal times when, um, you had to be the biggest, strongest alpha male to survive and protect your tribe all the way through to artificial intelligence where those traits are no longer necessary.
We now have technology that can do practically everything to help us survive.
[00:05:42] Marco Ciappelli: And I agree with you on this. First of all, I know it says in the, in the description of the book, if you like, Yuval Noah Harari book, um, sapiens, uh, you're gonna like this. So I was just wanting to know, I just finished that not too long ago.
So I'm pretty fresh on that one. I'm pretty fresh on the singularity is nearer. And so I think, I think I, you can always put this together and there is this common denominator, I think, where, uh, Where there is the point where you can start not only using your fingers and build something so the technology become part of you.
So I see technology as an extension of our humanity. It is. I don't know what you think about that.
[00:06:29] J.J. Jerome: I believe it is. And again, now. Our evolution is controlled by technology, not just the biological evolution. Um, one of the theories in the book is that biological evolution has pretty much ended because we don't have the big threats in our environment.
At least if you're living in a first world country where you have a source of food, where you, you have mobility. Um, you have good medical care and, and we even to a large extent control, um, our fertility, we control the way we look, our attractiveness to a mate these days, you can have surgery and make yourself far more attractive to a mate.
So every aspect of the old style survival of the fittest technology is no longer necessary in first world countries. But the way we are evolving as a society is through our technology, and it's made a tremendous difference, um, the internet, especially in the way we interact with each other and where we're heading as a society.
[00:07:35] Marco Ciappelli: So when you read the title of the book, which is what my impression was, so I see evolution and it sounds like a negative thing. It's a negative thing. But then you kind of go through it. I didn't read the book, but I read the synopsis and everything. It's not necessarily a bad thing, right? I mean, what, what's the catch there?
[00:07:58] J.J. Jerome: Well, it's, it's not necessarily a bad thing. Um, again, our biological evolution is, is how we survived this long and how all animals survive, you know, in animals intent. I mean, the reason animals exist is to reproduce, and this is what keeps the DNA going, what keeps the species going. Um, in the early days, humans organized as tribes because that was the most survivable unit.
And if you look at any country, any continent, people existed in tribes, for the most part for a very long time, because the tribe was small enough to protect itself. It was small enough that any, Enhanced DNA could propagate through the tribe, but it was big enough to have agriculture. It was big enough to do the things it needed to do to survive.
People in tribes who were genetically quote inferior were often sent into exile. Their job as a unit, although they didn't realize it, was to promote the evolution of that tribe. When tribes got together and they had wars, typically the winning tribe was the one with the best DNA, either because they were stronger or smarter or had better technology to defeat the other tribes.
And so that's how we evolved for a very long time. Um, when we got to World War II, And thereafter, our technology started to become advanced enough that it really was a driver for evolution and for the most part it stopped biological evolution, or derailed it for the most part. Then we had the birth control pill.
We could decide in 1960 with the birth control pill if we wanted to have offspring or not for the first time really in the evolution of mammals. We had disease cures, we had antibiotics, we had all of these things. So being the healthiest, the strongest. wasn't so important, you could still survive to childbearing age.
Then as we went forward, we developed cars. So we had mobility and we could move to a different spot if conditions weren't good for us. And then we got into things like home appliances so that females could go into the workforce. If they had a washer and a dryer and a good stove and refrigeration, they didn't have to spend the entire day at home.
Worrying about feeding the family. So now our society evolved where women could go out and share an equal role with men out in the workplace. Rather than being sexy or smart, our survival started to depend on money. Who made the most money? And that changed our society dramatically. Then we have Newer technology, like the internet, that allows people to influence without being the biggest and strongest.
We can influence through our communication technology. And we're moving from a hierarchical alpha male led society, very gradually, because of our technology, into a society where we're all equal nodes on the network. And have the ability to communicate and influence many, many other people and determine our success that way.
[00:11:21] Marco Ciappelli: All right. So let's, let's define evolution. I mean, you already did that. Like you're talking about evolution from a, like a physical, mostly physical. Evolution, right? So surviving, changing the environment, changing in our aspect, our strength, our biological evolution, right? But we also develop intelligence, obviously, that it got, I mean, the Homo sapiens was able to imagine things, at least from, you know, reading the book I mentioned before, and creating this, This, this scenario that according to science or what we know animals can really, can really do.
So we start creating things in our head that allow us to stay together, to move together and create stronger bond, even on, Even larger tribe that would not be possible when the limit was like 150, right? Right. Or something like that. But the way I see it, and that's my question is, uh, you do throw in there, uh, controlling your reptile brain, which I want to ask you exactly what that is.
But I'm thinking like, do you just get to the point where then evolution is more, um, in your brain and less in your body. And does it mean that it's not evolution anymore?
[00:12:45] J.J. Jerome: Well, I think you're correct. Evolution is not so much in your body. And in fact, we've seen In certain areas, uh, some degradation, for example, there's an obesity epidemic.
These people who were obese wouldn't have survived back, you know, 10, 000 years ago. Um, there's actually, uh, diminishing IQs these days. The IQs are going down and there's a lot of research on this, about one point per decade on the average. And so, um, it's not so much about the biological part, which I feel That's basically stopped again.
We have no big threats in the environment, but going back to the reptile brain in the mammal brain, we could start to talk about those connections. So in our heads, we have three different brains that evolved at three different times. The reptile brain is towards the back part of the brain. And it was the very earliest brain to develop and it basically takes care of most of our automatic functions.
Mobility, um, in the old days reptiles used to use their sense of smell and they would either seek out food or seek out a mate. They didn't have any real strategy. It was very strictly moved towards something that smelled good to you. Um, the, this reptile brain controlled breathing. It controlled a little bit of the fight or flight stuff, but it was very, mechanistic, hardwired, not a lot to learn.
When they came out, uh, as, as babies, they knew pretty much anything they were going to know. Later on, our midbrain developed and they, people call this the mammal brain. And as you were saying, this led to a lot of our relationship building. This caused us to evolve into social animals. And you look at mammals.
They're practically all social animals, and the ones we know the best are dogs. And we love dogs because our midbrains and their midbrains are kind of similar. We can relate emotionally. You relate through eye contact. You relate through sounds, not necessarily language. You relate through body language.
And you know, dogs hunt in packs, they have families, they have their packs that they live in, and other mammals have very similar things. It was a survival advantage, it was the precursor to those tribes that I talked about, and they worked cooperatively so that they survived. Later on, humans developed the cortex, and this is the wrinkly part of the brain that wraps around that midbrain.
I want to go back for one second. The midbrain is primarily hormonally driven. It's chemical. So in the mid brain, there's the, there's the penial gland, and there's other things that emit hormones. And the hormones make you feel good. They make you feel scared. They might make you feel satisfied. They might make you feel, um, like you wanna make.
They might make, all these feelings come from hormones and they are generated pretty much instantly. So when you see a member of a competing tribe, the hormones are fight or flight. When you see someone you love, oxytocin will be emitted and that'll make you feel that loving feeling. But so it's, this is all the things that allowed us to be affiliative, work together as a society.
This is the part that makes us feel good about our friends and bad about our enemies. Later on, this cortex developed and it wrapped around the midbrain, but it's not a hormonal part of the brain. This part of the brain is computational, and this part of the brain allows us to do things that animals really can't.
To me, the most important one is language, because we have a detailed enough and rich enough language that we can communicate to each other in enough detail to build technology. You know, a dolphin, as smart as it may be, doesn't really have the tools to build technology to leverage its existence like we do.
So we have written language that, that means we can write down how to build things and how to do things. We have oral language. We have, uh, graphical language where we can make blueprints and things like that. So this language is extremely powerful. And this is one thing that AI has that we haven't seen before.
AI can speak our language, and AI has detailed ability to deal with language. There's no other beings on the planet, aside from humans and AI, that has this language capability. You
[00:17:38] Marco Ciappelli: just called AI beings, so that could be a lot of Conversation right there. It was intentional. I'll make a note. I'll make a note for that.
Yes. Well, I actually did
[00:17:47] J.J. Jerome: it intentionally.
[00:17:48] Marco Ciappelli: Good.
[00:17:49] J.J. Jerome: Um, and then the prefrontal cortex is the part that you were talking about earlier that involves being able to plan into the future. For example, human beings can run different scenarios through their heads. They can decide that Despite the fact that it's not always fun, going to college is going to be better for them five years, ten years afterwards than not going to college.
They can decide how to make battle plans. They can do strategy. Uh, they can understand all these things through the prefrontal frontal cortex that runs various different scenarios. We can also also do math. Some people might consider that language processing, but We have that ability that no other beings on the planet have aside from AI.
And so this is how our brain evolved. But interestingly, we are often at odds with our mammal brain. So we often want to do something and we instantly get that feeling. We see a sports car. We want it. We, we see a steak in a restaurant. We see a beautiful. person of, of, uh, who is sexually attractive.
Instantly we feel that, but then our prefrontal cortex has to calculate whether that's a good thing or a bad thing. If it doesn't like it, if it computes that this is bad for you, you might have anxiety. There's that feeling, that tension, or in many people, What it does is computes a justification for it that says, well, this is what I like.
So I'll give you an example. Uh, if you want to buy, um, a Corvette and it's pretty expensive, but you just love the look of this car, your prefrontal cortex could say to you, this is bad. It's going to cost you too much money. Don't do it. On the other hand, it might say, well, the resale value is really high.
And I'll make that money back anyway. And, and unfortunately for most people, the mammal brain wins, the hormones win. They're stronger than the computational ability. And so they do what feels good to them. Rather than what might be better for them in the long run.
[00:20:07] Marco Ciappelli: Yeah I could not think about the old cartoons with a little devil and an angel on each on each shoulder That's gonna be all right, you know, like here's i've done that a million times as a teenager, especially, you know I do need this new motorcycle or They justify it to your parents, too Yeah, we definitely do that.
Um, so let me There is one part where, where you talk about, I believe we go from the biological survival, which you explain really well, like it's kind of like, okay, we got the basic cover. So now we can, I don't know, like when you look at prehistoric time and you can start creating art, uh, paint on, on the cavern wall or whatever, do pottery and then develop technology, which is an ax or a piece of street or piece of A stone that you carve whatever it is.
So let's let's let's agree that that is kind of over at least Somewhere most part of the world not everywhere. And uh, but then you talk about switching to a technological dependence And, and how, so let, can you explain that? Cause then you talk about social media, you talk about, I mean, I see that dependence every day in your hand, like a smartphone or a computer, whatever, but what's the reasoning behind that?
[00:21:32] J.J. Jerome: Well, in first world countries, we're almost completely dependent on our technology to survive. Think about what happens when your electricity goes out after a storm. You're sitting in the dark. You really, if, if you wait too long, your food is spoiled. You have no way to cook it. You may not have a way to get out of your garage so that you can drive to the store and the store may not be open.
And so without technology and electricity is probably the biggest one. We are really unable to do anything in times when you lose the internet and electricity, you're pretty much stuck. And we don't, we no longer have the skills to go out and hunt our own food Uh, the skills that we need to navigate through the woods to find fresh water.
Um, we can barely find our parents house unless we use Google Maps. And, and so we've lost most of those capabilities. We don't have the infrastructure in place anymore for that sort of thing. So in the old days, They would have food storehouses up on the top of mountains in Peru because it was cold up there.
They would have, uh, you know, uh, know where the animals were so they could hunt the animals. They knew where the water holes were. All that we don't have anymore. And so, it would not take us long for many of us to actually die if we had no technology. We wouldn't have any food source. We, we wouldn't last long at all.
And, and now Uh, we're shifting to the need for information. And the need to interact socially through social media and and other things. Um, we've lost our tribes. Our tribes were not only our social interaction, but they were our social consciousness. The tribes would say. This is not something that's right to do.
Things would be taboo. They would keep people in line. Tribes wouldn't let people be homeless. They would take care of them. They would find something for them to do. People would never be totally alone. But now we live in a society where people are alone. They don't have their tribes for support. Their new tribes may be their social media friends.
They don't have the social pressure that a tribe would exert. To do the, quote, the right thing to conduct yourself in a certain way. They're now taking their social cues from the media. And in some cases it's good, but in many cases it's not. All the things that people's moms taught them not to lie, treat other people properly, don't hurt people, don't shoot up schools, things like that.
A lot of that socialization has been lost, unfortunately. And. where it's now up to electronic media to teach us how to act and it's not always a good thing.
[00:24:32] Marco Ciappelli: No, it's not. But I actually see the older connection you're making here. Um, I mean, my background is sociology of communication, so I can see how And tell me if I, if I'm wrong on this, how those bubbles that social media created for us, the company, where it's redundant, the way we think, they show you, you know, the things that you already know that you like, of course, they're playing on this primordial need let's say of maybe this is the mammal brain like to get that dopamine where you're like see i'm not the only one that thinks that i got my tribe i got this us and them but it's not It's maybe too big and too out of control.
It doesn't really have the moral of the story that maybe the Hansel and Gretel stories will give you at the end, like don't go in the wood and don't listen to the stranger, right? In a very crude way, but definitely worked. Right? So, am I getting the picture? I think
[00:25:41] J.J. Jerome: you are right on target and it's that mammal brain, even though we're using advanced technologies, it's the mammal brain that's controlling things and the dopamine you mentioned is a key thing.
A lot of people are actually addicted to social media and I mean, I, I may not be addicted. You may not be addicted, but I know we sure love it when we get a like on social media and it puts out a little bit of dopamine. And it makes you feel good. Um, and look, every time I sell a book, I feel good because I see it on Amazon and it feels good.
Now think about. Donald Trump, who put out 22, 000 tweets during his last presidency, if you're going to get a shot of dopamine, if you're going to get a self reinforcing message, whether you're on the left or the right, it doesn't matter.
[00:26:38] Marco Ciappelli: If you're going to get
[00:26:39] J.J. Jerome: Right. Um, these messages 22, 000 times and you're expecting to get the shot of dopamine three, four, five, 10 times a day, you become addicted.
And you notice a lot of people with social media or texting or whatever are constantly looking at their phones the way that cigarette smokers are constantly looking for a cigarette. It's an addiction and it's the midbrain controlling it. And, and with this addiction, Some of those hormones make you feel very satisfied.
And part of this is the reason that people on social media can tell complete fabrications, complete lies, and the people don't want to look any further into it because some of these hormones give you the effect of being satisfied. Just like a good meal makes you feel satisfied, which is also
[00:27:35] Marco Ciappelli: like, share.
Get over with it, uh, get the reward, but don't get the pain of actually reading the damn article or or verifying if the news is real or not because that's all you want is that fix, right? I mean, right and you're
[00:27:52] J.J. Jerome: satisfied think of a heroin addict once they get the heroin they're like Satisfied. It's not right.
[00:27:58] Marco Ciappelli: Yeah. Yeah, and then it's over. Well, I'm not gonna do that again. And then so we're going through time like There is no break and and I knew that because I know that there is so many Angle we can touch and I may you know We'd love to have you back eventually if you if we obviously can't cover everything but one thing I want to cover is to get to this there is a famous quote that I use quite a lot by by a biologist edward wilson This says like this you probably know it.
The real problem of humanity is the following. We have Paleoethic emotions, medieval institutions, and God like technology. That's right. I couldn't agree more. I think it's perfectly in line with what you said, and what other, you know, presented in other book, and I'm on that train myself. So let's use the next 10 minutes that we have we can totally go over the The 35.
To, to touch on the technology, because I want to go back to when you say AI being a, a bean. So that's something I want to talk. And, and how, I mean, let, let's put, let's put the futurist hat on, and where are we going?
[00:29:14] J.J. Jerome: Well, um, many years ago, people were concerned about AI, even though it didn't really exist.
Uh, Isaac Asimov wrote his iRobot series, uh, I think it came out in 1950. At about the same time, Alan Turing, the famous mathematician who helped to break the Nazi codes during World War II, was also concerned with this sort of thing. Um, they didn't have really anything that you would call artificial intelligence back then, but he came up with it.
with something called the Turing Test. Yep. Because he wanted to know when a machine could be considered to be thinking as opposed to just executing lines of code. And the test he came up with was where you have three beings together, connected, and they're able to text back and forth on a terminal or, you know, by phone or whatever.
And his test was that if There were two humans and the third being was not, you couldn't tell whether it was a human or a machine, that if the two humans couldn't determine whether it was a human or a machine, then the machine would have been considered to pass the Turing test. So in other words, if it quacks like a duck and walks like a duck, it might be a duck.
And so he made the case, and I think it's still a strong case, That if you could interact with this machine and not tell the difference between interacting with a human. And remember the interaction could be questions about anything. It could be asking it about relationships, the news, whatever it is that the machine could be said to be thinking.
And personally, I agree with that. I don't see another test out there that is so elegant to be able to do that. Now let's say at some point someone takes this to court. Let's say for example, there's an avatar that's built an AI avatar. We can do this today that simulates my mother. Okay. And it looks like her on screen, talks like her, acts like her, thinks like her.
[00:31:22] Marco Ciappelli: Got to be her. Okay.
[00:31:23] J.J. Jerome: Well, probably so. And let's say someone wants to turn this off. And I go, but I love my mom. I have a relationship. I'm going to go to court to keep you from turning this, this AI off. And I present my case using the Turing test. And the court decides that because it's indistinguishable from a human, At least in a remote setting, that it should be considered a being.
That opens up a tremendous Pandora's box. That means for example, that we won't be able to turn the AI off. It would be murder. It means that we might have to give AI the same rights as humans. For example, will AI have the right to unionize? Well, we have to pay it for its time. Will it be able to inherit money?
Will it be able to serve on a jury? Will it be able to vote? So now once it's considered a being, how do you differentiate what rights AI would have versus, versus humans?
[00:32:30] Marco Ciappelli: Let's discuss. No, no. I'm telling to, to the audience, let's discuss and think. Well, yes. Um, absolutely. I don't, I don't know if we're there. Cause when I think about. AI as it is now, I'm still thinking of the generative AI, which is the one that can talk to us. Right. I still know it's a, it's still a probability calculus and that doesn't understand what it actually tells us, but we, it sounds right.
It sounds human. I mean, I talk to CHAT GPT on my phone and I have great conversation, creative conversation. I brainstorm about ideas and, and all of that. Sometimes I have to remember that I'm not actually dealing with, with somebody that can go over that line. I do believe it could get there, so I'm, I'm on that train.
I don't know when, but
[00:33:27] J.J. Jerome: Well, considering we have neural networks in our brain, and AI uses neural networks, how do we know that we're not just probabilistic responses? I mean, mathematically Oh, I
[00:33:42] Marco Ciappelli: love that. Yes.
[00:33:43] J.J. Jerome: Mathematically, we're no different. I mean, the way the math works, right? And, and remember, we learn everything.
When we're babies, we can't do much. So we learn everything from those around us and the conditions around us. And AI learned everything from the internet. But in reality, is there really much difference? I don't know, but it's possible that humans are not as complex as we think we are.
[00:34:12] Marco Ciappelli: Yeah, that we actually are not really at the center of the universe as we thought we were.
We go around the sun and now the other way around. Yeah, I mean, there is that black box element of AI that when you, when you fire up the neurons or, I mean, the, the multi language model, you don't, some people say, I don't know how it got there.
[00:34:35] J.J. Jerome: Right, right. And look at, look at the artwork, look at the, and it's funny because it knows things you wouldn't expect it to know.
So I asked, um, I guess it was the copilot art package. To, um, draw a picture of a beautiful android and it knew what beauty was. This was absolutely stunningly beautiful face on this image. These are concepts that we associate with humans, right? But it understood what beauty is. If you asked it to write, um, a sonnet, Uh, in the style of Edgar Allen Poe or Ernest Hemingway, it would do it.
It understands what that means, and yes, it's probabilistic, but the question then becomes, how much different are we? AI also understands what it is. When you talk to, um, Annika the Robot, and you can see her on YouTube, she's very, appears to be very aware of the fact that she's a machine, and that humans are different entities.
And so again, I start to wonder how unique we really are.
[00:35:49] Marco Ciappelli: Yeah, it's a it's a feeling of a little of an uncanny valley. But yeah, it's it's definitely less and less.
I was at RSA conference cyber security. I cover a lot of that in Singapore 2018 and there was a special guest was Sophia the Rob, which at the time wasn't even, I mean, it was uncanny a lot. Right? Right. Especially when you see it live for the first time. Um, now it's, I'm imagining, I haven't seen it lately, but I'm imagining it's even more realistic.
So, um, yeah, it's, it's, it's, there is an entire conversation there about how to live with robots and, and, uh, and when is that they're not robots anymore, but they're, they're So right. I want to ask you one last thing, if you don't mind. It's about the title of the book, really, because you it's very evolution ended.
You could have just that was a good title for me. Sounded good. And but then you added the next stage of American society. I don't know if we have enough time to go over all of that, but that would be good to close with you. My question is, does it really apply only to American society? Are you referring to Western civilization or is it something unique about America that you're making a point here?
[00:37:13] J.J. Jerome: Right. Um, well, evolution ended and it applies primarily to first world countries. The reason I made it more specific to America was because I apply a lot of The theories to American culture, and I'll give you an example, which is very timely. Um, we talk about the hormonal brain and we talk about the cortex and I talk about the hormonal brain leads us to affiliative behavior, but it also 90 percent of people.
are followers. And this is a hormonal thing. They want to follow an alpha male. And you see this in animals. You see it in, in gorillas, um, in apes, in dogs, other, all, a lot of all the mammal species basically have this behavior. And I applied it to some extent to our election process, um, specifically looking at Donald Trump as an alpha male and talking about how His techniques elicit hormones from the midbrain.
This is all the tweets, the things he talks about are all things that are emotional. Issues and through that he gets control because the emotional side of the brain is stronger than the logical side of the brain. So Kamala Harris had all these logical arguments, Donald Trump had all these emotional arguments, whether they were true or false didn't matter.
And so I delve into the fact that we want to follow alpha males, we're biologically conditioned to do that, we're hormonally conditioned to do that, and if the alpha male works it right, it works tremendously well to his advantage. Now there can be alpha females too. The main thing people talk about is alpha males.
Does that make sense?
[00:39:10] Marco Ciappelli: It does. It really does. It doesn't to me, but it does. Meaning, you know,
[00:39:19] J.J. Jerome: that's that's why I applied it to America. But, you know, we see this in first world countries,
[00:39:24] Marco Ciappelli: you know, and you see, honestly, I mean, apart from politics, you see that you see that with celebrities, you see that with musicians, you see that, I mean, why do you follow the band?
Why do you, you become a groupie? I mean, I love music. So I always get the excuse to talk about it. But I mean, you're, you're you. It is definitely the need of that alpha leader in our society that it's still in our prehistoric brain. And as you explained at the beginning, I usually wean over logic. And I think you made the most important point that and if, if technology can take advantage of it, then it just amplify everything to the extreme.
Like you're not just preaching to 10 people, 100 people, 1, 000 people, you know. In a square, you're preaching to the entire world or millions and millions of people, right? Wow. Okay. That was a good conversation, JJ. And yeah, I mean it. I think you should come back. Maybe we talk a little bit more about the technological future that we may be facing if you want to come back, of course, for Sure.
everybody been listening. My usual close is, uh, I hope you have more questions than answers now from when we started until now and I think you should, honestly, and there will be links to JJ website, which is JJJerome. com, but it will be all in the notes here. If you're listening on the notes for the podcast, and if you're watching underneath the video, and of course to the book, and let us know what you think.
I am, I will be happy to, to get the comments and maybe I'll even list a few questions for next time that, that we talk. So, JJ fascinating. I just love my dopamine comes when I have this conversation.
[00:41:28] J.J. Jerome: That's great. That's perfect,
[00:41:30] Marco Ciappelli: right? Okay, cool. Thank you again, everybody. Stay tuned. There'll be more conversations like this.
And subscribe, stay tuned, share and see you soon, JJ.
[00:41:41] J.J. Jerome: Thank you for having me, Marco.
[00:41:42] Marco Ciappelli: Yeah, I loved it.
Bye.