Humans are nothing more than a drop of water in the cosmic ocean. Everything we know and have learned, from the earliest hominids until the moment you read this, is the result of thoughts of thousands and millions of people, knowledge inherited, acquired and transmitted from generation to generation, as well as a great achievement product of hundreds of thousands of years of evolution, and yet, every feeling and human event has no transcendence for the immensity of time and the vastness of space.
Before the revelation of this thought, endless questions invade the mind of any average human. Far from carrying an existential crisis, it is an ideal moment to question the future of each of us, no longer as individuals, but as a species, the only intelligent we know so far. Under this premise, what will be the future that awaits us in the coming years, decades, centuries? How much can we carry the message of life on Earth beyond what we know, transcend in time and space? Here are some questions that represent real challenges for human intelligence in the future, on which our species may one day depend:
Can we be a multiplanetary species?
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It is very exciting to believe that in the course of our lives, we will be able to see - and perhaps be involved - a milestone unprecedented in the history of humanity: the colonization of a planet other than Earth. It is an idea that, by the hand of men like Elon Musk, recently left science fiction grounds to settle in the collective imagination. The own Stephen Hawking affirms that to inhabit another planet is a necessary company for the human subsistence. However, it is very likely that humans will not be able to become a multiplanetary species, at least in the next 50 years.
Run away from Earth or save it?
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Faced with the bleak scenario we have before our eyes, the damage that industries and mass consumption have caused to the Earth is more than worrisome. Pollution, global warming and the depredation of natural resources that were once believed to be infinite today are a reality that requires urgent responses. While some Musk and Hawking pose an apocalyptic scenario where the destruction of the planet is imminent and only remains to flee to another planet, the more than 7 billion inhabitants of the world expect a more scientific, ethical, responsible and above all, occupied by revert the ravages that human activity has created in this world, instead of letting it die and fleeing to another.
Will we ever make contact with another intelligent form of life in the Universe?
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This question was positioned throughout history as the favorite of many scientists, thinkers and writers who anticipated that the Earth and life in it is not as unique or special as it was believed in the past, dreaming of the existence of other worlds and other forms of intelligent life with which we could make contact. Despite the fact that science increasingly gathers more evidence of the existence of extraterrestrial life, the reality is that the study of Mars and Europe and Titan, moons of the Solar System, could yield a conclusive microscopic test in less than two decades, very far of science fiction aliens.
Will machines dominate man?
Despite the frantic development of Artificial Intelligence in the last decade, we are still far from developing something that resembles the minimum functioning of such a surprising structure as the human brain. However, the vanguard of this technology, deep learning, generates uncertainty to a sector of specialists in the field, because its algorithm is designed to make decisions and solve problems by themselves, often without getting an explanation that accounts of your actions. It is necessary to regulate the creation of intelligent supercomputers and their processes, not for fear of a robotic rebellion, but to optimize the processes of Artificial Intelligence and apply it for the benefit of humans.
What will the end of the Earth be like?
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The best of the possible endings for the warm planet that saw us grow as humanity and reach the stars should occur within about 5 billion years. It is the time in which it is calculated, it will consume all the hydrogen that serves as fuel to our Sun. Then it will increase in more than two hundred times its size and it will become a white dwarf, wiping out the worlds closest to its jurisdiction. However, in the last century we have experienced more than ever the destructive power of our species. It depends on us that the Earth ends its days in the natural cycle of its star or in a much more catastrophic and decadent way.
Will we see the first cloned human being?
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More than two decades ago, science took a leap by successfully cloning the first mammal from an adult cell. Dolly represented a watershed in genetics and brought with it a debate that sooner or later, humanity will have to face: human cloning. Although advances in genetic engineering are not far from successfully reproducing a simile of a person, there is no reason to justify it. In addition, bioethics, legislation on the subject and respect for human rights are an imperative that must be maintained before any scientific justification.