Family Matters
I was feeling nostalgic the other day, and I began perusing through the hominid family album. The current scientific consensus is that humans evolved from earlier species of hominins, as found in the fossil record. I studied some of this stuff long ago, and I really wasn’t up to the date on the current paradigm in regards to our human evolutionary path. I asked the oracle, err I mean, an AI, to give me the goods and provide me with a chronological list of hominin evolution that led to humanity. The story is a messy one, as AI-1 rightly pointed out, and there’s no neat path between earlier hominid species and humans. A few of them were just evolutionary branches that came to an end.
The response to my query was a long one. AI-1 gave me a thorough answer with the specific hominin species and pertinent stats along with descriptive tidbits of interest like behaviours and key anatomical features. I prefer to see complex information in diagrammatic form, however, so I went to another AI model (AI-2) with this information and asked it to create an infographic. I only used the general headings as per AI-1's output, so I could test if the second model knew what’s up by filling in the species details. This is the prompt:
Beautiful anthropological scientific illustration of the chronology of hominin species and evolutionary paths. Label as follows:
Earliest Hominins (~7–4 million years ago, Miocene-Pliocene)
Australopithecines (~4.2–2 million years ago, Pliocene-Pleistocene)
Early Homo Genus (~2.8 million years ago onward, Pleistocene)
Later Archaic Humans (~800,000–200,000 years ago)
Use a radial diagram with humans at the center representing modern times. Use background with close-up of cave drawings to add aesthetic touch.
AI-2 used the general headings and added the specific hominin group along with the general chronology. To ensure alignment, I crosschecked the results between the two models. The alignment was fantastic, to use a descriptive term, with timeliness and labels correctly added. AI-2 even added a few more species.
There are probably better ways to represent the flow of hominid evolution diagrammatically. I thought I would give the radial style a try.
Then I had another idea that made me chuckle. If our human species can be understood in this manner, then the evolution of an alien species could also be diagrammed this way. I asked AI-2 to leave everything the same in the diagram but change the hominins to an alien species. Beyond a few stylistics changes, I did not add anything else to the editing prompt.
I got a little thrill when I saw the image pop up. Generally speaking, the look of each figure corresponds to the epoch in which they appear with modern aliens looking sleek and sci-fi. I also liked the names for the different species. I wished it had changed the name of the epochs to correspond with their alien origins. A whole set of possibilities opened up. I could alter any parameter to create a new species. Which I did by prompting the AI-2 to create a species that evolved in an aquatic environment.
Art considerations aside, this would be an excellent tool for any science fiction story teller. It allows the visualization of developed species and may even spark new ideas. I could ask it to alter the planet’s gravity or oxygen content. I could go on generating species, but I ran out of credits, so I will leave you with a diagram depicting the evolution of our icy overlords.
For some reason, it misspelled intelligence 🤔
 |  |  |  |
|---|---|---|---|
| X | InLeo | NFT Showroom |
This dinosaur (me) has no interest in having AI, or anything/one else generating ideas for me. I will use this tool for facts:ex: what does proximal tibia replacement mean? AI is an efficient research tool. Saves me time--although I still double check the information.
When it comes to ideas, they have to be my own or I don't feel I am the author of a piece. I would never use AI to help me write a science fiction story, unless I needed some facts. In that way, yes.
Am I not antediluvian? 😇
Personally, I don't have a problem with AI at all when it comes to developing ideas on any field of human endeavor. I know some people are not going to use it (or only use it sparingly for specific interests), while others will be wholly dependent on it.
I do believe you misunderstood what I meant to say, which is that you can develop ideas from the images themselves, not that the AI would write it out for you. But if someone feels that the AI should write the story, then more power to them. I'm the opposite of a luddite. I'm ready for what's next in human evolution.
We are so far apart on this issue that there is no point in discussing it. I'm not a Luddite. I love my washing machine and my car. Love to have other things do work for me. Where I draw the line is creativity. That I reserve for humans. The only reason I'm interested in any work of art is to learn what it tells me about the person who created it. That's all. Art is a way for humans to communicate with each other. That's my view. Its value is not measured by its technical perfection.
You see how far apart we are? I wouldn't have this discussion with a machine (no, I don't chat with any AI program). I'm interested in what @litguru thinks. That's it. :)
Yea, I get the arguments. I just disagree. As I mentioned, I personally don't concern myself with what tool my fellow man or woman is using. Crayons, pens, sticks, or AI. Have fun!
You’ve explored a tool that produces some extraordinary results – as you say, it’s like something out of a science fiction story; the faces and the details are brilliant!
Thank you! It was great to read about this topic of human evolution and fun to play with aliens. 👽
Although they have been with us since the planet’s inception...
😆
The X-files was very popular here in the 90s.
I should have changed the age of the aliens to billions to reflect their more ancient origins, but I didn't think of it until it was too late. :)
I was a huge fan of that series!! But it’s true – they’ve been inhabiting the planet since the very beginning… and they’re always watching; there’s even a theory that says we were created by a species like them.
I've always thought that human evolution wasn't so much a tree as a shrubby, scrubby tangled bush 😁
These graphics are a great way to visualise it !
Thank you!
Human evolution is weird and messy. There were even hobbit-like creatures at some point. One thing I realized after making the human chart is that you can see the changes in facial features as time moves forward. I believe the AI is using the actual likeness of each species, which would be absolutely incredible.
It's weird to think that until very recently indeed the Earth was inhabited by several human species at once. Perhaps still is, if the Yeti and Bigfoot are the last remnants of the australopithecines.
Certainly having other human species around would be within the timescale that stories and oral history could cover; the last archaeological evidence of Neanderthals crosses with the Aurignacean Culture, and I've always wondered if the little dark people of Irish myth were an earlier human species. I reckon The people of Flores are still convinced that Homo Floresiensis is lurking out there in the jungles of their island.
This is a fascinating part of human history. It makes me wonder what would've happened if other species had not gone extinct. I imagine that conflicts were inevitable between humans and the other groups that existed at that time. It's not surprising, given that we hardly get along with each other let alone a totally different species. Yet there was also interbreeding between humans and those groups, as DNA analysis shows. This raises more questions about their influence on modern people. Our evolutionary development is a really convoluted story with a few loose threads like the Sasquatch. It does make me wonder if they were the last of their kind.
I have a sneaking feeling that the reason humans don't get along with each other is simple; over-crowding. There are always going to be individual squabbles, but until the Neolithic agricultural revolution, there were few enough humans that if two groups looked like coming into conflict, they'd just move away from each other. Much as the few remaining hunter-gatherer populations do today.
In terms of inter-breeding, well humans are one of the few species that are permanently in heat (leading to the aforementioned over-crowding). DNA evidence suggests it's almost certain that both Neanderthals and Denisovans interbred with Homo Sapiens Sapiens.
I've seen a convincing theory that many of the traits on the autistic spectrum we see today are actually inherited through Neanderthal DNA. They preferred close family groups rather than the extended family tribes of modern humans, and faced some tough environmental challenges. So being able to hyper-focus on a task, and the ability to store huge amounts of detail on specific subjects would be advantageous survival traits, while there was no need to be able to read social cues from anyone outside the immediate family.
There is an interesting case of a large group of chimps in Uganda who have a very human-like social structure. Once their group reached a certain size, they formed two factions that became hostile to each other and permanently split. It's a curious case because of their similarity in social structure to humans.
https://www.livescience.com/animals/primates/chimpanzees-in-uganda-are-locked-in-a-deadly-civil-war-after-their-group-split-apart-and-scientists-dont-know-why