Humans have beat the odds over 400,000 years surviving climate change, super volcanoes and the worst that Mother Nature could throw at us. Technology has always helped us along the way.

But what happens when we can build machines that are smarter than us?

After a night of light shows and electronic music headlined by the Pet Shop Boys and others, Moogfesters had a chance to get their minds blown first thing in the morning with the Thursday opening keynote address.

Nick Bostrom, an Oxford University philosopher and futurist, tackled the big questions about the likelihood of Human Level Machine Intelligence (not so far off as you might think) and Super Intelligence (computers that are smarter than humans).

Don’t worry. While Johnny Depp uploads his consciousness into a supercomputer in the new movie “Transcendence,” we’re still a ways away from that prospect, Bostrom said.

We understand in theory how the feat could be accomplished, which would involve imaging every electron and running a super fast computer model to reverse engineer all the brain connections. We’re not there yet, Bostrom said.

“We’re having trouble imaging the 302 neurons of a nematode worm right now.”

But a human level machine intelligence is still likely in this century, Bostrom said. Some experets believe there’s a 50 percent chance we’ll see machines as smart as ourselves by the year 2040. Super Intelligence, machines that are smarter than us, would follow a few years later.

​

Whether those machines would be beneficent or care much about us is another question. It’s easier to program a machine that would figure the number pi to the last digit rather than program in love or justice or democracy

Mind-blowing stuff indeed for Ron Harris and Nathan Eubanks, local musicians and Moog aficionados attending the festival on a one day pass. While the keynote was titled “The Future of Creativity,” the topic really didn’t come up with Bostrom’s talk, Eubanks noted.

It might be best to look to Moog Music for that intersection, he suggested.

“The Moog synthesizer acts as a computer, but it makes really beautiful sounds.”