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, and explain that attaining this level of intelligence is essential for competitiveness in the new world. We lay out the various well-defined pathways to attaining superintelligence: biological cognitive enhancement, neural lace, whole brain emulation, and collective superintelligence—and argue that the latter is the most promising pathway. We argue that the level of enterprise intelligence needed—superintelligence—cannot be achieved by machines or humans alone. It will come from a collective intelligence of humans and machines or AI—in a synergistic way. This appreciation for the potential of collective superintelligence motivates the rest of this book. 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.
