Elon Musk: With the Internet, Humanity Is Becoming a Superorganism

Elon Musk: Humanity is becoming a superorganism.

“The Internet is like a nervous system for humanity, whereas previously, communication was more like osmosis.

In order for information to travel, somebody would have to call someone with a phone or write them a letter, and then that letter would be carried by another person, by a series of people to the destination.

Now, communication can happen instantly from any place in the world to anyone else, and does not need a human to carry it.

This is like, at a cellular level, a small, primitive multicellular creature will just communicate via osmosis from one cell to the next, or diffusion, essentially.

But once you have a more sophisticated organism, you have a nervous system. The speed at which information can travel is much faster, and the accessibility of information is fundamentally different.

Now, with the Internet, you could be in the middle of the Amazon jungle with a satellite connection, and you have access to all the world's information.

Whereas previously, even if you lived in the Library of Congress in the US, where the most books are, you still would only have access to a fraction of the world's information.

This is basically humanity becoming a superorganism to the degree that's not possible unless you have essentially instant, light-speed communication from anywhere to anywhere, as opposed to osmosis or diffusion.”

Axel Springer Award, December 1, 2020