Artificial or machine intelligence will probably equal or exceed human intelligence by about 2045.

This may bring on singularity, a Big Bang for humanity, as hybrid organisms replace our human one and we evolve into Homo cyborg, human machines.

Intelligence is the ability to do something and wisdom means appropriate judgment and right choice.

Stephen Hawking, the theoretical physicist, stated that “Artificial Intelligence could be the worst event in the history of our civilization.”

In August of 2017 many technology leaders, including Tesla’s Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk, signed an open letter calling on the United Nations to bar the progress and use of artificially intelligent weaponry. Musk has twittered that a global arms competition for artificial intelligence could bring on the third

The world faces four major challenges today:

§ The transformation from Western Civilization to Global Civilization

§ The development of Virtual Civilization

§ A new great crisis, especially seen in the Western and the Eastern Civilizations

§ The possible clash of civilizations

Globalization in our lifetimes was initiated by a political platform that arose when a new world order emerged following the fall of the Soviet Empire in 1991. Almost immediately, Europeanization took off, providing the world with new markets in Central and Eastern Europe.

One of the products of the Cold War was the internet which became the central potent global information system and this intensified globalization. Today, the internet is firmly embedded in the world economy.

It can be seen best in the Western Civilization.

The reason of this is that it has developed its own forms of religion, society, culture, and infrastructure.

When the word “virtual” was first introduced in information technology; it applied to memory simulated by computers; located in online magnetic disks.

More recently, the term ‘virtual’ has been applied to entities such as things, organizations, processes, and people that exist but are simulated using information technology. For example, virtual conversations are conversations that take place over computer networks, and virtual communities are some social groups that assemble around the use of e-mail, web pages and other networked digital resources.

One estimate is that about 500 large social networking sites offer services for roughly 3.3 billion users.

The Western Roman Empire fell in 476 CE.

The reason why Rome fell is debated but many argue it was because of the excessive wealth of the ruling classes and their dwindling sense of morality and responsibility for the society as a whole.

It is going to occur because of the transformation of the Western Civilization into a Global Civilization, and this will generate internal crises in almost all dimensions of society.

The aspects of the major crises are as follows:

§ Over-communication Crisis

§ Super-capacity Crisis

§ Global Business Crisis

§ Crisis of Religion

§ Population Crisis

§ Ecological Crisis

§ Crisis of Natural Resources

§ Food Crisis

§ Crisis of Technology

§ Crisis of Science 

§ Administration Crisis

§ War Crisis

§ Media Crisis

§ Political Crisis

§ Culture and Trust Crises

§ Education Crisis

§ Clash of Civilizations

§ Migration crisis

The Internet has resulted in economic globalization, but this is lowering the standard of living in developed countries and increasing it in the developing world. Global corporations make huge profits by expanding markets into Asia and Eastern Europe, but they are impacting their home countries negatively, as demonstrated by the 99% vs. 1% “Occupy” movement in the United States.

In ethics, business applies the criterion of making a profit at all costs. Greed is the primary driver of operations, with CEOs intercepting shareholder dividends by way of huge bonuses and stock options.

The inability to oppose the religion of business can be easily observed, as some major religions have themselves become businesses and divided the market cake among themselves. Besides, organized religions have become implicated in their own moral and ethical crises, as seen in the many lawsuits filed against the Roman Catholic Church in the United States and Western Europe, with high compensations being paid out to victims. It can be said that there is a clash of organized religions worldwide.

In 2016, the global population was at 7.4 billion. If the present trend of population growth is maintained, by 2050 there will be between nine and eleven billion people. But our ecosystem can sustain only up to eight billion human lives at one time.

Only China and Japan have installed policies designed to limit their populations. Many of the remaining countries see their population growth out of control, and many churches in the West oppose any population control.

One result of overpopulation is the degradation of the natural environment and in connection with this the climate change. Water shortages cause a particular kind of crisis. It is estimated that every third inhabitant of the planet Earth has not enough drinking water, with one in five living in areas affected by drinking water shortages.

The excessive CO2 emissions from burning fuels cause civilizations to contribute to global warming and swaying the water balance on Earth. The melting of snow and ice in the Arctic and in Antarctica brings up ocean levels and changes the water balance. A lot of water evaporates because of global warming, which results in cultivable land becoming sterile and irrigation systems needing increasing amounts of water.

Many countries try to secure a 3% economic growth rate annually to make sure there are jobs for their growing population. The goal is a growing supply of goods to foster employment and to stimulate more births.

Civilization can function for 40 more years with adequate resources of oil and enough gas for 50 years, but the uranium to power nuclear power plants will run out within 40 years. One traditional source of energy – coal – might last until 2300. This means a new sociopolitical system is needed to survive.

There are four main causes:

§ The production of biofuels takes over land for growing corn and sugar cane.

§ The increasing consumption of meat in the developed countries, as well as in China and India, requires an increased output of feed such as corn and soybeans.

§ Deregulating foreign food trade towards the end of the 20th century meant the destabilization of production, reserves, and the consumption of food in most countries.

§ The monopolization of food production is practiced by American companies with four corporations dominating most farming business and bringing local farmers to bankruptcies. Small farms produce healthy and tasty products while the giant farming business offers unhealthy and tasteless food.

The crisis of food caused social unrest in 2007- 2012 in countries such as Argentina, Mexico, India, Italy, Bangladesh, Egypt, Somalia, Tunisia, Algeria, and Morocco. The number of starving people grew from 800 million to one billion in 2009.

Cyber warfare is a specialty of countries such as China, Russia, and the United States.

 In the 21st century there are 196 countries in the world, out of which 85%, that is, 167 countries, practice the democratic system.

Culture is the values and symbols that control the role models for society. Culture is expressed in language, television, media, tourism, sports, arts, fashion, music, and film.

Mass access to media, the Internet, cinemas and music events has transformed the 19th-century elitist culture into the 21st century mass culture (pop culture).

The most prominent cause of the crisis in education is the crisis of business and public administration. The first one gave rise to high unemployment, which caused the government to get less money from taxpayers and to reduce budgets of schools and state universities. In consequence, the number of teachers and academics employed is reduced and so are programmes in education. This has a significant worsening impact on the quality of education.

After the fall of the Soviet Empire in 1991 the world order switched from the Cold War (between the political West and East) to the clash of civilizations and to the war carried on at the level of radicalism/terrorism and cyber conflict. This has involved aspects of the Western Civilization and of the Islamic Civilization.

In the last years, millions of refugees from waractive states such as Syria, Iraq and from ethnic-conflict countries such as Myanmar and the Sudan have migrated to Turkey, the European Union members, and other states. This could destabilize existing social balances in the host lands. This presents a complex challenge for contemporary societies and their leaders.

One criterion is the faith of a civilization. The new civilizations are bringing with them secular beliefs, and the older civilizations are oftentimes secularizing the beliefs they have.

 A business doctrine is composed of;

§ Business faith

§ Business knowledge

§ Business lithurgy

In the 21st century, the extraordinary faith in business transforms Western Civilization from an industrial to a service economy that cannot sustain the American Dream. The emerging service economy does not provide a healthy future for those in the Western Civilization. The service economy cannot replace industrial economy, because it is not feasible.

Beliefs of the Virtual Civilization require the following:

§ Virtuality itself

§ Virtuality’s knowledge

§ Virtuality’s lithurgy

The newly emerging societies include the Global society and the Virtual society. These societies are developing out of traditional societies, providing new ways of cross-cultural communication and political criticism. They are also laying the foundations of a new set of civilizations.

It is composed of an international elite group of the richest and most powerful people in the world. Among them are politicians, central bankers, chief executives of global corporations and those who come together at the annual World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland traditionally near the end of January.

They can exert influence through positions in corporations or on corporate boards, and influence over the policyplanning networks through financial support of foundations or positions with think tanks or policydiscussion groups.

The global elite often implies that democracy is a utopian ideal.

The global elite stands in opposition to pluralism and state autonomy. Therefore, it expects that the state should serve the single global society, the elite, because it alone can work successfully and provide jobs for the poor.

The single global society needs globalizationoriented workers who will have the right knowledge sets, wisdom and skills to work in ever-changing international settings.  

Locally-oriented workers are afraid that they have obsolete knowledge sets or wisdom skills and if they do not adapt to the globalization challenge, they will be unemployed and unable to find opportunities for better professional careers. To thrive economically, to survive in the global economy, they need to transform from local to global citizenship and be ready to work almost everywhere since they must be globally mobile.

It can be said that the term Global Citizen has the same meaning as World Citizen or Cosmopolitan, but it also has additional, specialized meanings in differing contexts. Knowing how to think and act beyond national borders is essential for global citizenship. In a Global Civilization, there is an assumption and reality (like in the European Union) that borders are disappearing, that we from different nations are moving beyond the nationstate, and that we live in an interconnected world with many transnational dimensions.

The ability to communicate with other people from another part of the globe forces people to act locally and think globally. The individual becomes a part of – rather than apart from – the big picture.

The global mind is guided by the principle “think globally, act locally.”

It is based on social networking which has become an important part of life for a considerable part of the world’s population.

Social media can be defined as the media content (blog, vidoe, e-book, slideshow, podcast,white paper etc.) that we upload on the internet for other people to see, to reply to and to comment on.

Social media exerts influence on individual and family life, industry, education, sports, globalization, governmental, and political systems.

Societies have been bound in the past by mostly geographical territories, cultural influences, racial makeups, and religious beliefs.

The emergence of the Internet and World Wide Web has eliminated the boundaries of traditional societies and opened the opportunity for the creation of networks of virtual societies leading to a new virtual civilization.

One of the earliest known online communities was the WELL (Whole Earth Lectronic Link) started by Stewart Brand and Larry Brilliant in 1985. WELL started as a dial-up bulletin board and email exchange system.

The appetite for reaching and communicating with like-minded people, sports fans, consumers, patients, students, individuals with the same or similar interests, citizens of another country, etc. has led to the creation of social networks with for example social, professional, educational orientations or domains.

It is practiced in Western Civilization, but eventually it leads to a counter-reaction among the elements of the popuation unable or unwilling to see the transition of nation to a new stage of development. Multiculturalism is also practised in the Hindu Civilization. This policy is practiced in Chinese and African Civilizations not as a political doctrine, but as modus operandi in the struggle for survival.

 It is not practiced in Eastern Civilization because of xenophobic and superior attitudes towards others. 

Multiculturalism is accepted by most educated individuals and seen as positive in theory. However, in practice many others refuse influx of foreigners because significant migration may challenge established customs and beliefs.

Large-scale migration has caused the rise of populism, hostility to foreigners in Austria, Germany, Hungary, Poland and other countries.

Immigration from Eastern Europe has led to the exit of the United Kingdom from Eastern Europe.

The term “virtual culture” means the electronization of the emerging information culture in computer network storage sites (in what is today called “the cloud” - rented cyberspace) which has been rapidly developing in the 21st century.

The rising global infrastructure is changing the world civilization significantly in the 21st century. First,it now provides digital services which are in fact on-line. These services aid commerce and governments with edocuments, e-news, and e-books for worldwide dissemination. Furthermore,some regulatory agencies are active like the World Trade Organization or the G20, composed of the political leaders of the 20 top countries in the world.

It was invented by Paul Baran in 1962. He was asked to develop a nation-wide telecommunication system for the United States just after the potential of an atomic attack from communist Cuba became possible, that is, following the installation of tactical atomic bombs, all capable of reaching deep into the United States, by about 10,000 Soviet “advisors.”

The Internet was operated as a classified project called the Arpanet, which was officially split into the Milinet and the Internet in 1983. Ever since the Internet has arisen as the public, global information infrastructure.

The development of a new method of shipping goods across the oceans has also been important for global infrastructure. This has involved the building of containers which easily fit together and may be stacked onto ships. Combined with airliners that crisscross the planet, goods and services may easily reach most human beings.

The virtual infrastructure is composed of a grid of online-digital platforms and services with unlimited cyberspace, all organized in the cloud by serviceproviding vendors. Unfortunately, these cloud-oriented online services are very unreliable, and customers do not have a clear idea where their information is being processed.

The global economy via the internet resulted in the rapid growth of the outsourcing of manufacturing to countries offering cheap labour. It also led to the minimization of the middle class in Western Civilization and a structural crisis in North America in 2008 and Europe in 2015.

In 1989,Tim Berner Lee (knighted by Queen Elizabeth), an English computer scientist working at CERN in Geneva, invented the world wide web (www). This allowed the development of user-friendly web sites worldwide.

The end of the Cold War between the political West and East was followed by a new world order as an international paradigm which was defined as the Clash of Civilizations.

The World Trade Organization was established in 1995 to regulate the global economy.

The fall of the Soviet Empire

• Business faith
• Business knowledge
• Business Liturgy

The elimination of governmental regulation encourages growth.

• Diversity is established well only in the Western and Global Civilizations (the latter is a derivative of the former).
• Multiculturalism is practiced in Western Civilization but ultimately it leads to the development of a backlash among those elements of the population unable or unwilling to see the transition of a nation to a new stage of development.
• It appears that none of the contemporary civilizations may provide the optimal example of how diversity and multiculturalism should be approached.
• Multiculturalism is accepted by most sophisticated, educated individuals and seen as positive in theory. In practice, however, many others within existing countries oppose a significant influx of foreigners, as significant migration may challenge established customs and beliefs.

In 1961 - Paul Baran (at RAND, an American Think Tank) invented the packet-switching network, theArpanet, to sustain nation-wide communications that could follow an atomic attack by the Cubans and the Soviets.