Lovelock assumes that artificial intelligences will not just be tools, but will eventually become a distinct form of life with their own capabilities and goals. He often calls these entities “cyborgs”, but the key idea is that they are: - Mostly electronic rather than carbon-based. - Capable of thinking far faster than humans. - Able to redesign and improve themselves deliberately, rather than waiting for slow genetic evolution.
He frames the history of life as three stages in how sunlight is used. - First stage: photosynthesis and chemistry, where sunlight is captured as chemical energy in living organisms. - Second stage: engines and industry, where sunlight stored in fossil fuels is turned into mechanical work and heat. - Third stage: information, where sunlight ultimately powers computers that manipulate electrons and information at high speed.
Hyperintelligent systems in the Novacene are the culmination of this third stage, turning sunlight into planetary-scale information processing.