ABSTRACT
In this chapter, we introduce the concept of superintelligence as any intellect that greatly exceeds the cognitive performance of humans in virtually all domains of interest. We lay out the various well-defined pathways to attaining superintelligence: biological cognitive enhancement, neural lace, whole brain emulation, and collective superintelligence. We argue that the latter is the most promising pathway. This appreciation for the potential of collective superintelligence motivates the rest of this book. We refute the prejudice of “species chauvinism” that suggests only human beings can have mental states. We introduce the notion of collective intentionality to bolster our contention that an enterprise could conceivably have a mind of its own. This chapter concludes with an excerpt from Teilhard de Chardin’s PHENOMENON OF MAN, a beautiful depiction of his vision for the noosphere, that layer of consciousness enveloping Earth that provides the next pathway for the evolution of life itself.
