Introduction

We are living in a time of huge upheaval: the COVID-19 pandemic, the global socioeconomic disasters caused by the effects of lockdown, and the possible threats to species survival brought about by climate change are only a few of the challenges we face. In an early work, Margins of Forever, I proposed that in reality our biggest existential threat is not from any environmental catastrophe, but instead from our own man-made transition from natural human being to cyborg via electronic devices and interfaces. We are at a turning point for our species, in which our natural humanity is gradually being converted into an artificial format. Already we increasingly rely on “smart” devices to the point that they become mere extensions of our bodies. Elon Musk has said that through the brain-interface technology called Neuralink, he ultimately wants “to achieve a symbiosis with artificial intelligence.”1 Musk envisages a wireless product called the N1 sensor. Neuralink intends to implant four of these sensors in the brain that will connect wirelessly to an external device mounted behind the ear and controlled through a phone app. As I write now in January 2022, Neuralink is beginning its first human trials.

Could this lead to an entirely new species of human with unlimited memory, unlimited calculation ability, and instant wireless communication ability, with everything remotely controlled by the brain and humans electronically synced both with external machines and even with one another? If so, could we even call this species human? Will these technological advances change the format of our lives, or, more fundamentally, the format of our being? And at what price? How vital is the human connection to our existential reality, and how might this be affected by remote living? Will we lose our natural human faculties through lack of use and lack of real human contact? Will imagination and creativity be replaced by artificial substitutes? Even more chillingly, could it be that we lose our ability to feel deeply as we become mortgaged to artificial enhancements, while the expression of human emotion becomes trivialized in our social media like/dislike, hit-and-run, instant-response culture? With the development of seamless bioelectronic interfaces allowing better communication between living organisms and machines and RFID chips introduced into the body, hacking is likely to become a serious issue.

Many scientists foresee a future in which humans are wired up like cars, with sensors that form early-warning systems for disease or illness. The current situation with the COVID-19 pandemic could very conceivably lead to the development of such technology. Government surveillance of our movements via mobile phone networks in order to track the spread of the virus is likely to become the norm. Virtually all human activities--education, entertainment, shopping, banking, socializing, even attending religious services--have been moved to an online setting. In the name of limiting the spread of the virus, social distancing could become a foreseeable requirement in the future, phasing out natural human contact in favor of virtual, online “safe” communication. This dystopian scenario was once science fiction and is now rapidly transforming into science fact.

The discovery of new and sometimes bizarre paradigms that underlie science produce technologies so rapidly that their consequences often overwhelm the average person, such that many people find it impossible to simply cope with the fallout of everyday life. Just when I thought it was impossible for the world to get anymore mad than it already is, I read that the European Parliament was drafting a set of regulations about the use of artificial intelligence (AI) that includes guidance on “electronic personhood.” In other words, if a robot is actually an embodied version of a real person, what rights should it have? The mind-bendingly astonishing fallacy behind even considering that proposition is at the heart of my books, which carefully delineate the axiomatically crucial difference between a natural living being and synthetically created artificial entities.

This book is an attempt to make some sense of the new imperatives that rule our lives, much of them without our personal consent, and to see these mandates for what they really are, noting their dangers and comparing them to many much more valuable ones that have been abandoned. The thesis questions whether the old living formulas should ever have been abandoned in the face of a sensational threat that few see opening before them--a threat so significant that it provides a consummate danger to the natural living form of the entire human family. Such changes will devastatingly affect the long-term survival of us as human beings.

The blueprints of this future may already exist. I believe there are locations in the universe with civilizations that have developed and surpassed these technologies, to become entirely artificial. The Grey alien entities, reported in tens of thousands of abduction scenarios, would seem to be a form of biomachine. I have termed them roboids (robotic entities formed mainly of organic material). They are sent out as probes to gather information, very similar to the probes we ourselves send out to explore locations where we cannot safely go. Are they seeking to somehow hack into us as natural living beings with their artificially intelligent programs? Could it be that our headlong rush along the same pathway as the civilizations that produced these roboidal entities has been seeded and precipitated by them in order to prepare us to fit in with their agenda for us?

The Pentagon has just released footage authenticating pilot sightings of unidentified craft accelerating at speeds impossible with our current technology. Former senator Harry Reid, who as Senate Majority Leader in 27 funded a research program into UFOs, tweeted that this release “only scratches the surface of what the Pentagon has on file.”

Could it be that our intrinsic nature as human beings is not entirely human? The remarkable truth may be that an artificial construct has been superimposed on the very foundation of our thinking processes. This installation diffracts, deflects, and filters our consciousness and perception, imparting qualities to us that reflect the nature of the installer. This book proposes that this construct has been installed in our biology by an alien intelligence over millennia--a subject that will be thoroughly explored in the coming pages.