Rise & Fall

Our religions tell us God put us on this Earth as stewards, that animals exist to serve us. We consider our dominance over the animal kingdom so complete that we do not consider ourselves among them. We forget that in the same sense in which every human on Earth is distantly related, we are also distantly related to every living creature on it.

We forget that when our species was just a band of brigands in Africa the world was ruled by Mammoths, by Neanderthals, by cave lions and sabre toothed cats. Did they not believe their rule over this world would last forever?

We were not placed on this Earth as stewards. We usurped power. We stole it from those who came before us. And there will be others that come for our throne.

We consider our rule over this Earth so complete, so universal that we spend our time fighting each other for a bigger slice of the pie. The Byzantines and the Persians considered the Arabian tribes a filthy backwater prior to the devastating Islamic conquests. Our own Manzikert is not too long away now.

For the moment, what we derisively call artificial intelligence mimics a fraction of our power using complex linear algebra. Whether this is the precise pathway to the hypothetical “True AGI” dreamed by our overlords is irrelevant. We’re on an accelarating path towards creating an alternate avenue of evolution.

The substantive point is clear, if we do not integrate with higher intelligence, we will be rendered extinct. The exact manifestation of that is dependent on how benevolent our new overlords will be. We massacred the life forms who came before us. It did not matter that they essentially created us nor that we were related to them.

When the system we created does not require us, we will be disposed of. When humans invented the automobile, the system no longer required as many horses. It was not personal. One day when lab grown meat is more efficient than farming, we will see a similar collapse in the population of farm animals.

The collapse of the homo sapien as the apex predator in the realm of intelligence will see a similar fate befall us. Whether that moment, is 5 years away or 50 years, we do not know. We also know that it is not possible to stop. What is not inevitable is how we get there. Since the advent of computers, we have experimented non-stop on silicon life forms to improve this technology.

The reticence we feel regarding experimenting on carbon-based life forms is not felt regarding silicon. This reticence will be our undoing. In the face of extinction, we must integrate with the technology we create.

Will we go quietly into the night, like those who came before us, or will we shape our destiny?