What Does It Means to be Human?

In what ways what it means to be human is being reconfigured as a consequence of recent changes brought about by AI and technological acceleration? In the millennia-long journey of evolution, homo sapiens acquired the physical characteristics that today define them as a species. Although biologically we sapiens are, with minimal genetic differences, all the same, historically and culturally there have been very different ways of understanding what makes us human. In this work we will analyze how advances in artificial intelligence and genetic engineering radically challenge us as to what makes us human. Specialists in neuroscience and in the study of brain-computer interfaces (BCI), think that we are already redefining what it means to be human because every implantation we make transforms our brain, and the notion of humanity is changing radically. From the perspective of Homo sapiens, we are still a species, but we have begun to direct our own evolution. Those who integrate artificial organs, sensors, magnets or multispectral cameras are reconfiguring their sensory system to process new information. This is no longer a typical Homo sapiens brain and we are already on that path. In addition to the potentiality of AI to transform ourselves or render ourselves obsolete in relation to new intelligent systems, there is another lane that is potentially as disruptive as the previous one: genetic engineering enhanced by AI. The advances in this line have been just as extraordinary, and the future possibilities radically unique. With the development of CRISPR the biological limits that for tens of thousands of years defined sapiens are being transcended for the first time in their evolutionary history. Sapiens now has in its hands the ability to create from within itself new species of Homo, or to destroy it completely.