Throughout recorded history, humans have reigned unchallenged as Earth's dominant species. Turkeys, heretofore harmless creatures, have been exploding in size, swelling from an average 13.2lb (6kg) in 1929 to over 30lb today. On the rock-solid scientific assumption that present trends will persist, The Economist calculates that turkeys will be as big as humans in just 150 years. Within 6,000 years, turkeys will dwarf the entire planet. Scientists claim that the rapid growth of turkeys is the result of innovations in poultry farming, such as selective breeding and artificial insemination.

Digital technologies can do more and more things better than us, by processing increasing amounts of data and improving their performance by analysing their own output as input for the next operations. AlphaGo, the computer program developed by Google DeepMind, won the boardgame Go against the world's best player because it could use a database of around 30 million moves and play thousands of games against itself, 'learning' how to improve its performance. It is like a two-knife system that can sharpen itself. That any apocalyptic vision of AI can be disregarded. The serious risk is not the appearance of some ultraintelligence, but that we might misuse our digital technologies, to the detriment of a large percentage of humanity and the whole planet.