Hybrid Age Game

This is an historical group. For clearly speculative and/or science-fictional occurrences, use Hybrid Age Theme.

Note that games can have a Hybrid Age setting but can also be part of the Hybrid Age. For instance, a game that actually monitors brain waves. This tag applies in either case.

In The Tool Ages (Stone, Iron, Bronze), mankind fashioned simple tools for daily living.

In The Agrarian Age these tools were merged with knowledge to allow for raising crops and livestock. This allowed long term planning for the future and civilization. (and had the unfortunate side-effect of creating taxes, lawyers, and politicians)

In The Industrial Age, tools became complicated enough to do jobs that people could do and were joined to knowledge in extraordinary ways. Words were married to the printing press. Numbers were married to gears to make clocks and calculating devices.

In The Information Age, knowledge became ubiquitous but at the same time was multiplied to an enormous amount of information too vast for individual people to grasp. Computers were an of spring of tools and information that could at least store all the information. They could not however, processes it quite the same way as people.

At last we arrive at the cusp of The Hybrid Age. All the forces of all the previous technology ages come together leading to the inevitable merging of tools and people. Nano technology makes machines that can function inside biological cells. Understanding of DNA allows people to change it for their own purposes. Computers can process information fast enough to see the thoughts of a human brain (with proper sensors in place, nanobots for instance). Understanding of how thoughts work will eventually allow for them to be manipulated via technology. Our tools are stronger, faster, store and process more knowledge than we can. They out do us in every way but one. The missing element is true artificial intelligence. Perhaps it will be achieved and true living sentient self-replicating self-improving artificial life will become the dominate life-form on this planet. But even if AI is impossible, the tools will win. Eventually the software of a human brain will be downloaded to computer hardware. If you can't beat the tools, join the tools. Natural intelligence transferred from old hardware to new hardware, indefinitely. Our tools will become us.

As of 2012: People have chip implants. Machines have genetic circuitry. People can control computers without speaking out loud or touching them. Thoughts can be isolated in the brain. Computers can carry on contextual conversations, interpret facial expressions, recognize body language (note these last two are unnecessary when they can read thoughts).