What if your toothbrush is smarter than you?

What if your toothbrush is smarter than you?

I know, this may sound ridiculous but let us look at the present trends, and you can judge for yourself.

In the 19th century, we moved from natural to artificial power. So we took a hand-pump and turned it into an electric pump. A horse carriage and turned it into an automobile. A toothbrush and made an electric one. All those things existed before, but now they were better because of artificial power.

Today we are undergoing a similar process. But this time we’re moving from natural to artificial intelligence. So we take a phone and add AI to make a smartphone. We take a watch and make a smart watch. Take a car and make a smart car. And we have smart software, smart appliances, smart buildings, etc.

My toothbrush has 5 different programs. Soon it will go online, tell my dentist how often I brush, do quick exams and take DNA samples. It will know my genome and my health, what I eat and drink, where and when I travel, whose toothbrush my toothbrush slept next to. It will learn to think and know better than me. And that’s just for starters. Because technology is getting exponentially smarter. But we aren’t.

What happened to horses when we moved from natural to artificial power? What happens to humanity when we move from natural to artificial intelligence? What happens to you, your company, and your country? Are we going to become immortal, live in a utopian abundance and spread throughout the cosmos? Or will humanity fight a dystopian AI Giga-war, become enslaved and ultimately go extinct like the dinosaurs?

P.S. This article was commissioned by Siemens AG and is currently being translated into German for their upcoming publication. Many thanks to Sven Mastbooms for the original cartoon he made specially for this article.