Author: Rob Brooks, Scientia Professor of Evolution, UNSW Sydney

What will humans be like generations from now in a world transformed by artificial intelligence (AI)? Plenty of thinkers have applied themselves to questions like this, considering how AI will alter lives – often for better, sometimes for worse. They have conjured dramatic scenarios, like AI-driven extinction of humans (and many other species), or our assimilation into human-AI cyborgs. The predictions are generally grim, pitting the fate of all humans against a unitary (or unified) AI opponent. What if the AI future doesn’t stretch to these sci-fi dystopias? For an evolutionary biologist, seeing AI technologies diversify into all manner of…