The term artilect is a combination of the words “artificial intellect”, and is used to describe highly intelligent machines that differ from today’s concepts of artificial intelligence by being far more intelligent than humans, almost god-like. In case you think this is taken from a book of science fiction, it’s not. The term was coined by Professor Dr. Hugo de Garis, who specialises in a field of artificial intelligence, and expanded upon in his book The Artilect War (a .pdf version can be found here).

According to de Garis, the most important question that we shall face in the coming years is “Who or what should be dominant species on the planet?” The “debate” over this question shall be so controversial that it will actually result in an all-out war sometime during the 21st Century.

It is his belief that this war is inevitable: the Cold War, or rather, the war between Capitalism and Marxism, was a war over the question of “Who should own the factories, i.e. the machines?” Referring to events over the 20th Century, he believes that Capitalists and Marxists will be replaced by another dichotomy in the 21st, namely “terrestrialists” (or terrans) and “cosmists”.

The terrans will be driven by the “fear of being exterminated by a vastly superior species, and fear of the unknown and the unknowable”, and will be against dominance by the artilects. The cosmists, on the other hand, will be driven by “wonder”, following the philosophy of Cosmism, which is like a “scientist’s religion” as he puts it, and that “artilects would be the new gods”, leading us forward to learn the great mysteries of the universe.

Unfortunately, de Garis believes that the difference in outlook of these two groups would lead to what he terms the “gigadeath war” where the terrified Terrans will try to reassert control over mankind, and the cosmists will oppose them on the basis that the Terrans are really proposing a form of slavery.

Interestingly, there is a third group that straddles the lines between terrans and cosmists, namely the “cyborgians”, those who will attempt to become artilects themselves by merging their bodies with machines. This is often associated with the Transhumanism movement.

Oh, and de Garis (Cosmist) also believes that the first “shots” in this war were fired at a debate he had in Zurich, 22nd March 2000, with Kevin Warwick (Terran), when he fired a toy pistol at him on stage. (Interesting to see that it’s the Cosmists who “fired” the first shot, and not the Terrans).