Technium: the 7th kingdom of life?
	Posted 21 Jul 2007 at 19:28 UTC by steve

The Edge has published an speculative essay by Kevin Kelly of Wired magazine. In it, he explains his use of the word technium to describe the whole system of technology as it exists in our world. Technium, he says, "has its own inherent agenda and urges, as does any large complex system, indeed, as does life itself." He explains his idea further by saying that technium is the child of humanity but that with each new technology like AI, robotics, and genetic engineering, it challenges our notions of what it means to be human. And the bit about the 7th kingdom? "There are roughly six kingdoms of life according to Lynn Margulis and others. As an extropic system that originated from animals, one of the six kingdoms, we can think of the technium as a 7th." An essay full of interesting, if unusual, ideas.