Susan Blackmore is a memeticist – that is she studies memes. The term “meme” was coined by Richard Dawkins in his 1976 book, The Selfish Gene, and refers to a unit of cultural evolution, just as a gene is a unit of biological evolution. Genes and memes are both replicators – information subject to evolutionary processes. Now Blackmore is arguing that we are on the brink of developing a new third replicator – a technological one.

The idea is interesting, and I wonder if Blackmore is aware of the degree to which her ideas mirror those of Ray Kurzweil and his “singularity”. For background, Kurzweil argues that any system that encodes information is likely to form a positive feedback loop  – information builds on information in an accelerating process.

Actually, this goes back even before life arose on earth. The prebiotic earth saw chemical evolution, which is what likely led to the first self-replicating systems that can be said to be alive. At this time we can only know about the prebiotic earth by positing plausible prebiotic environments and plausible chemical pathways that could have led to RNA (the current theory), and then how RNA could have led to the first cells and life. This process of chemical evolution was relatively slow and with limited potential in terms of what it could create.

Once life arose, however, then we were into a new phase of biological evolution, which accelerated the process of information evolution. Blackmore jumps forward to cultural evolution, but Kurzweil argues that even within biological evolution the process of the information feedback loop accelerated as some life became more complex. For example, the emergence of multicellular life further accelerated information return, as did the evolution of central nervous systems.

But both Blackmore and Kurzweil agree that the jump to the next plane of evolution was the development by humans of complex culture. Blackmore accepts Dawkins definition that memes are the units of information transfer in culture – the second replicators. Cultural evolution is far more rapid than biological evolution – acquired knowledge can be immediately passed down. Kurzweil emphasizes the fact that as culture advances we gather information about how to gather information, and so this acquisition accelerates.

Both Blackmore and Kurzweil also agree that we are on the verge of entering the next plane of evolution – technology that feeds on itself without the direct intervention of humans. Blackmore calls this type of technology the third replicator (although I guess if you count prebiotic chemical evolution it’s the fourth). Kurzweil argues that once artificial intelligence and nanotechnology come into their own, most if not all technology will be information based, and that information will be accelerating at such a rate that it will transform civilization in ways we cannot imagine. He calls this tipping point the singularity.

Blackmore has not yet named this third replicator, but at her TED talk on the topic she threw out the “meme” that the third replicator may be called “temes” – so we would have genes, memes, and temes. She did not mention “temes” in her New Scientist article I referenced above – it seems because she is not ready to settle on this term. But the teme meme, now that it is out there, may spread beyond her control, and people will use it for lack of a better term.

What is happening, argues Blackmore, is that the location of information storage, selection, and reproduction (the components of a replicator) is moving from human brains to information technology. Living organisms are the substrate of genes. Human brains are the substrate of memes. To say that we have a new replicator it is not enough to have information stored outside of human brains – otherwise books would be sufficient. Humans still create, select, and reproduce the information. But now, increasingly, computer technology is not just storing and communicating information, it is creating it, and even selecting it. Computer programs are increasingly independent of humans for such tasks.

She argues:

Or think of Google. It copies information, selects what it needs and puts the selections together in new variations – that’s all three. The temptation is to think that since we designed search engines and other technologies for our own use they must remain subservient to us. But if a new replicator is involved we must think again. Search results go not only to screens for people to look at, but to other programs, commercial applications and even viruses – that’s machines copying information to other machines without the intervention of a human brain.

I agree – but still ultimately without humans the cycle of information is not really complete. Humans provide the context and use of that information. To be clear Blackmore is not arguing we are there now – just that we are close. Where, exactly, is the line, however. Will it take artificial intelligence before the third replicator truly exists as an independent substrate of evolution? What about computer viruses? Can they be said to evolve separate from any interaction with human brains without the need for AI?

I agree with Blackmore and Kurzweil that we are seeing the beginning of an information revolution that will put humanity and civilization on a new plane of technological evolution. I don’t know if it will be as transforming as Kurzweil argues – or to be more precise, that it will be as transforming as quickly as he argues, but it will probably happen eventually. I also think Blackmore is on to something with her third replicator idea, but I think it is a bit fuzzy around the edges – meaning that it will be difficult to define when we have crossed the line. When we are clearly on the other side of it we might be able to look back and say, there was the line. But being in the middle of the transition it is difficult to see.

Specifically, it may be difficult to define when information replication is fully independent of humans. What if, as Kurzweil predicts, we will merge our AI with our own brains. Human brains may never be fully out of the loop. Or what if true AI is much farther in the future than many futurists imagine? Will sophisticated non-AI information technology ever be truly independent of humanity?

I think the core claims that information feeds on itself in an accelerating feedback loop and that this process can rapidly shift into a new plane where the rules change, possibilities expand, and evolution accelerates – are both essentially correct. One thing is for sure – singularity or no, the future is going to be interesting.