Are organisms really just algorithms, and is life really just data processing? 2. What’s more valuable – intelligence or consciousness? 3. What will happen to society, politics and daily life when non-conscious but highly intelligent algorithms know us better than we know ourselves?

In the UK the number rose from 92,000 in 1997 to 786,000 in 2012.38

The leadership might threaten to severely punish dissidents forthwith, while promising the meek and patient everlasting rewards in

For during these millennia Homo sapiens became the single most important agent of change in the global ecology.5

Altogether about 200,000 wild wolves still roam the earth, but there are more than 400 million domesticated dogs.1 The world contains 40,000 lions compared to 600 million house cats; 900,000 African buffalo versus 1.5 billion domesticated cows; 50 million penguins and 20 billion chickens.

In Peru, Haiti, the Philippines and Ghana – developing countries suffering from poverty and political instability – fewer than five people in 100,000 commit suicide each year. In rich and peaceful countries such as Switzerland, France, Japan and New Zealand, more than ten people per 100,000 take their own lives annually.

Would it be okay, for example, for an artificial intelligence to exploit humans and even kill them to further its own needs and desires? If it should never be allowed to do that, despite its superior intelligence and power, why is it ethical for humans to exploit and kill pigs?

We are suddenly showing unprecedented interest in the fate of so-called lower life forms, perhaps because we are about to become one.

The state hopes to regulate the biochemical pursuit of happiness, separating ‘bad’ manipulations from ‘good’ ones.