I believe the path of technology and lust for power will eventually lead us to cybernetics and or AI systems.
I think Kurzweil has a very reasonable take on how humans and technology will interact for the next 100ish years.
Kurzweil
My understanding is that Kurzweil’s predictions rely on some technology arising which will continue the rate of computer CPU and computer memory for a good part of the first half of this century. Specifically, since it is believed that we will reach the limits of silicon miniaturization in the near future some technology would have to arise to take it place. Seems he has several outs, nanotech, optical, quantum, and true parallel-processing.
If you buy into the above, then it would seem that in a few decades we will be able to make computers with the equivalent processing power of a human brain.
Now, before someone points out that a fast powerful computer does not mean it can hold a brain, I agree. Still, a first step is having a container large enough to hold the data of a human brain.
Since I don’t want to write a few dozen paragraphs, let’s also accept for now that the brain’s storage and processing methods are discovered and understood.
The proposed technology is considerably faster then the chemical processing of the brain (intuitive leaps may even be faster should quantum processing bear out). In the sense that this speed would allow them more relativistic time to solve a problem, we can concede that these new brains would be smarter. Presumably, they would be able to access the internet faster and likely would have better means to filter the data.
Seems to me that by the end of the century we have a new dominate species on the planet.
I simply don’t think that any societal pressures are going to sufficiently outweigh the potential gains (immortality for the rich, incredible power for government and business).