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“This leap in quality is akin to the three-thousand-year evolution from cave drawings to Michelangelo’s masterpieces. As a futurist, I am fascinated by any skill that makes rapid advances,” Edmond continued. “The technique that makes this leap possible, I learned, is called ‘tweening.’ It’s a computer animation shortcut in which an artist asks a computer to generate the intermediate frames between two key images, morphing the first image smoothly into the second image, essentially filling in the gaps. Rather than having to draw every single frame by hand—which can be likened here to modeling every tiny step in the evolutionary process—artists nowadays can draw a few of the key frames … and then ask the computer to take its best guess at the intermediary steps and fill in the rest of the evolution.
“That’s tweening,” Edmond declared. “It’s an obvious application of computing power, but when I heard about it, I had a revelation and I realized it was the key to unlocking our future.”
Ambra turned to Langdon with a questioning look. “Where is this going?”
Before Langdon could consider it, a new image had appeared on-screen.
“Human evolution,” Edmond said. “This image is a ‘flip movie’ of sorts. Thanks to science, we have constructed several key frames—chimpanzees, Australopithecus, Homo habilis, Homo erectus, Neanderthal man—and yet the transitions between these species remain murky.”
Precisely as Langdon had anticipated, Edmond outlined an idea to use computer “tweening” to fill in the gaps in human evolution. He described how various international genome projects—human, Paleo-Eskimo, Neanderthal, chimpanzee—had used bone fragments to map the complete genetic structure of nearly a dozen intermediary steps between chimpanzee and Homo sapiens.
“I knew if I used these existing primitive genomes as key frames,” Edmond said, “I could program E-Wave to build an evolutionary model that linked all of them together—a kind of evolutionary connect-the-dots. And so I began with a simple trait—brain size—a very accurate general indicator of intellectual evolution.”
A graphic materialized on-screen.
“In addition to mapping general structural parameters like brain size, E-Wave mapped thousands of subtler genetic markers that influence cognitive abilities—markers like spatial recognition, range of vocabulary, long-term memory, and processing speed.”
The display now flashed a rapid succession of similar graphs, all showing the same exponential increase.
“Then E-Wave assembled an unprecedented simulation of intellectual evolution over time.” Edmond’s face reappeared. “‘So what?’ you ask. ‘Why do we care about identifying the process by which humans became intellectually dominant?’ We care because if we can establish a pattern, a computer can tell us where that pattern will lead in the future.” He smiled. “If I say two, four, six, eight … you reply ten. I have essentially asked E-Wave to predict what ‘ten’ will look like. Once E-Wave has simulated intellectual evolution, I can ask the obvious question: What comes next? What will human intellect look like five hundred years from now? In other words: Where are we going?”
Langdon found himself spellbound by the prospect, and while he didn’t know enough about genetics or computer modeling to assess the accuracy of Edmond’s predictions, the concept was ingenious.
“The evolution of a species,” Edmond said, “is always linked to that organism’s environment, and so I asked E-Wave to overlay a second model—an environmental simulation of today’s world—easy to do when all of our news about culture, politics, science, weather, and technology is broadcast online. I asked the computer to pay special attention to those factors that would most affect the future development of the human brain—emergent drugs, new health technologies, pollution, cultural factors, and so on.” Edmond paused. “And then,” he declared, “I ran the program.”
The futurist’s entire face now filled the screen. He stared directly into the camera. “When I ran the model … something very unexpected happened.” He glanced away, almost perceptibly, and then back to the camera. “Something deeply upsetting.”
Langdon heard Ambra draw a startled breath.
“So I ran it again,” Edmond said, frowning. “Unfortunately, the same thing happened.”
Langdon sensed true fear in Edmond’s eyes.
“So I reworked the parameters,” he said. “I retooled the program, altering every variable, and I ran it again and again. But I kept getting the same result.”
Langdon wondered if maybe Edmond had discovered that human intellect, after aeons of progress, was now on the decline. There were certainly alarming indicators to suggest this might be true.
“I was distressed by the data,” Edmond said, “and couldn’t make sense of it. So I asked the computer for an analysis. E-Wave conveyed its evaluation in the clearest way it knew how. It drew me a picture.”
The screen refreshed to show a graphic timeline of animal evolution beginning some one hundred million years ago. It was a complex and colorful tapestry of horizontal bubbles that expanded and contracted over time, depicting how species appeared and disappeared. The left side of the graph was dominated by the dinosaurs—already at the height of their development at that point in history—who were represented by the thickest of all the bubbles, which grew thicker through time before abruptly collapsing some sixty-five million years ago with the mass dinosaur extinction.
