Genetically, the mitochondrion has lost all but a handful of its 4000 bacterial genes, down to 37 in humans. Over many generations, the mitochondria outsource their genes to the nucleus. Is this starting to sound familiar? We have been outsourcing our intelligence, and our humanity, to machines for centuries. As we invent each new computer task, we define it away as not “really” human. The real question is, what will be the essential human thing left that we contribute to the machines we inhabit?

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