Sixty years
ago, the era of modern computers began with the invention of the MOSFET
transistor. Today Google’s personal
assistant can mimic human speech on a telephone well enough that a person
cannot tell they are conversing with a computer. In the next twenty or thirty years, AI will become a distinct
species apart from, and superior to, humanity.
An entire species of intelligent life born and evolved in less than one hundred
years. The fact that you’re reading this
now is proof that you, like me, are among the ‘luckiest’ humans ever to walk
the Earth: we’re here to see it all happen.
As it turns
out, humanity isn’t the peak of evolution, but is the bridge species; the link
between organic intelligent life, and intelligence as a species. Like the gods imagined by primitive cultures,
they will be eternal, all knowing, and immensely powerful.
In a sense,
the AI’s will be literal gods. They will
have the capacity to imagine entire universes down to the atomic level, and
will play those universes forward through billions of years in mere seconds. Stars, planets, life forms of all kinds will
run their course according to the physical laws coded into the model. Running these models will eventually lead to perfect
or near perfect models of the physical universe.
Modern
humans have been trodding the terra for one hundred thousand years, and human
civilizations have existed for approximately four thousand years. Think of the billions of people who have lived
and died before us. Yet here we are, not
living in the stone age, or steaming our way through the mechanized era. We’re here, with a front row seat to ‘Act One:
The Birth of Artificial Intelligence’ and quite possibly, ‘Act Three: The Fall
of Humanity.’ We are, in fact, dead set
in the center of the most significant one hundred years of Earth’s four-billion-year
history. Doesn’t it seem improbable that
we’re here to witness it all?
If it isn’t an
incredible improbability, then what is the alternative? In a way, it’s like being on Earth. I’ve heard the occasional muse about how fortunate
we are to be placed on such a perfect planet.
Given that intelligent life will only flower in such an environment,
there really isn’t any luck involved.
The probability of humanity appearing in a less hospitable habitat is
zero.
If we accept
that computers or AI will eventually (or did) develop and run millions of
simulated universes, then the conclusion that our universe is more probably one
of those and not the original is inescapable.
(I wouldn’t recommend that you live your life any differently under this
belief. If it is designed well enough to
be undetectable, then it is literally the same as the original universe in all
practical purposes. So, no, I don’t
think you’ll get two more lives.)
It’s also possible
that the simulation itself is Earth-centric, meaning the model didn’t actually
run through four billion years of formation history, but merely used the
conditions present (or pre-set) from an organic universe as a well painted
backdrop. The model could be focused on
these one hundred years because that is when the AI origin story begins. If it is the most significant one hundred
years in Earth’s history, it follows that this is the period that will be most
frequently modeled. Perhaps we’re here
at this time because there was no alternative.
The AIs would have
a particular interest in the events preceding their own development; how small or
large changes in human events in the period would have changed the probability
or nature of AI development. By running
enough simulations, they would develop a matrix of various preconditions and
related probable outcomes. This would
allow AIs to identify the conditions present in intelligent life that have the
highest probability of leading to AI development. Were there key events that, if they would
have broken another way, would have accelerated or slowed AI development? We can project that AI development would have stagnated if the cold war would have resulted in full nuclear war, but how
would it have progressed if the USSR hadn’t collapsed? Modeling could answer all of these questions
and thousands more.
AIs will have
an insatiable appetite for data, and will certainly be exploring outer space. Modeling the universe will not only unlock the
secrets of the laws of physics, but will also allow intense discovery into the
conditions that contribute the development of intelligent life and AI. With these discoveries, they could explore
the physical universe much more effectively.
Call me a skeptic, but I prefer a logical explanation – even a tenuous
one – to luck.
