The third technological convergence and the decline of the gene as the center of evolution

Throughout history, humanity has undergone various technological revolutions, understood as profound changes in modes of production, social organization, and relationships with nature. However, in the final decades of the twentieth century and the early years of the twenty-first, we are witnessing a different phenomenon: not an isolated revolution, but technological convergences, that is, the synergistic articulation of multiple scientific fields which, through their interaction, generate entirely new qualities.

Within this framework, three major convergences emerge: TIA (Information Technologies and Automation, 1975–), NBIC (Nanotechnology, Biotechnology, Information, and Cognitive Sciences, 2001–), and, as presented in this article, NIA, based on the deep integration between Nanotechnology and Artificial Intelligence. The latter marks a turning point: the beginning of a stage in which intelligence no longer necessarily depends on biology. Technological revolutions, industrial, electrical, digital, transformed tools, processes, and economies. Convergences, by contrast, transform the very structure of reality, integrating domains that were previously separate.

The first major convergence, TIA, reorganized the world around information, automation, and connectivity. The second, NBIC, incorporated life, mind, and matter at the nanoscale, generating a new paradigm in which human beings began to intervene in their own biological and cognitive foundations. But it is in the third convergence, NIA, that a deeper conceptual rupture occurs: the limit of the gene and the exhaustion of the biological paradigm.

During the second half of the twentieth century, the discovery of DNA placed the gene at the center of the explanation of life. Biotechnology, genetic engineering, and synthetic biology consolidated the idea that understanding and modifying genetic code meant understanding and modifying life itself. However, as the twenty-first century advances, this paradigm has begun to show its limits. Epigenetics, complex systems theory, and neuroscience have demonstrated that life cannot be reduced to a genetic sequence. Behavior, consciousness, and intelligence exceed the gene. At this point, the NIA convergence introduces a radical shift: intelligence ceases to depend on a biological substrate. In the third convergence (NIA), an intelligence without biology emerges.

    “In the third technological convergence, an intelligence without biology emerges.”

The integration of nanotechnology and artificial intelligence enables the development of systems capable of learning, adapting, and making decisions without relying on organic processes. Neuromorphic chips, artificial cognitive architectures, nanoscale sensors, and self-organizing systems configure a new form of functional intelligence. Humanoid robots with advanced cognitive software are no longer merely programmed machines, but entities capable of interacting, interpreting contexts, and modifying their behavior. In this scenario, genes are no longer necessary for intelligence to emerge. Although it may be possible to transfer our mind-software to an artificial brain and move toward an immortal robotized human, the issue is no longer imitation of the human being, but the creation of an intelligence of a different nature, in which nanotechnology provides the necessary infrastructure by acting as the material substrate of this transformation. Nanotechnology makes it possible to design devices where the physical and the digital merge, enabling unprecedented levels of miniaturization, efficiency, and autonomy. Thanks to this, artificial intelligence ceases to be purely software and becomes an embodied, distributed, and adaptive system.

The NIA convergence does not add technologies; it redefines the very concept of intelligence. Looking beyond the gene, we are facing a new evolutionary stage. The third technological convergence does not announce the end of biology, but its decentralization. The gene ceases to be the sole bearer of meaningful information. Evolution no longer occurs only through natural selection, but also through technological design. We are witnessing a civilizational transition: from a slow, unconscious biological evolution to an accelerated and deliberate techno-cognitive evolution.

The central question is no longer what technology can do, but what kind of humanity, and what kinds of intelligences, we are willing to create.

Alberto L. D’Andrea

Bibliography 

The Invisible War: Man vs. Genes. Alberto L. D’Andrea. Biotecnología & Nanotecnología al Instante. (infobiotecnologia.blogspot.com). January 11, 2012.

The Now Visible War: Man vs. Genes. Alberto L. D’Andrea. Biotecnología & Nanotecnología al Instante. (infobiotecnologia.blogspot.com). February 2, 2014.

From the Selfish Gene to Gene-Free Immortality. Alberto L. D’Andrea. Biotecnología & Nanotecnología al Instante. (infobiotecnologia.blogspot.com). September 2, 2017.

Genes Prevent Us from Unraveling the Origin of Life and the Universe. Alberto L. D’Andrea. Biotecnología & Nanotecnología al Instante. (infobiotecnologia.blogspot.com). October 19, 2019.

AI, the Axis of a New Technological Convergence: NBIA. Alberto L. D’Andrea. Biotecnología & Nanotecnología al Instante. (infobiotecnologia.blogspot.com). August 16, 2024.

When Robots and Drones Learned to Learn. Alberto L. D’Andrea. Biotecnología & Nanotecnología al Instante. (infobiotecnologia.blogspot.com). April 13, 2025.

End of the First Quarter of the 21st Century. Parallelism Between 1925 and 2025 in the Worldview of the Future. Alberto L. D’Andrea. Biotecnología & Nanotecnología al Instante. (infobiotecnologia.blogspot.com). December 23, 2025.