Enabled by our ever-increasing scientific knowledge and technological capacity, we have transformed the land, water, and air of our planet, and we seem poised for bigger transformations to come. With all that activity we have also conjured unprecedented problems for our species, including climate change, widespread extinctions, nuclear weapons, and the threat of runaway artificial intelligence. It is difficult for us to comprehend our power for creation and destruction because that power operates on scales of space and time far beyond those of our individual experiences. To make sense of our impact—and to guide ourselves toward a future we want, not one we merely succumb to—we need an entirely new conceptual framework. Along with my colleagues Adam Frank and David Grinspoon, I describe that framework as planetary intelligence. In our view, intelligent individuals like you and me may be a passing evolutionary phase on the path to a more advanced, collective intelligence, one that can operate intentionally at a global scale… (READ MORE)

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