The Alien Singularities Conjecture
This article addresses the ramifications of Artificial Intelligence (AI) technological singularities having already occurred in our universe. I find this issue compelling but, upon searching, the aspect of this issue that I was most interested has not been discussed as much as I thought it would.
Let's consider some assumptions. We will start by assuming that there are roughly three major possibilities for what might happen to an advanced civilization that is approaching an AI singularity:
There are other possibilities, but these are sufficiently wide that that they should cover the general problem space.
The other consideration is that the universe is large - really large - with regards to possible number of planets and civilizations. And the universe is also very old. I have heard arguments (such as there were not enough heavy metals in the early universe) that advanced civilizations such as the ones I am conceiving could not have occurred in the early universe, but that still leaves abundant time for a vast amount that could.
Given all that time and all that space, the number of advanced civilizations that probably existed (or do exist) in the universe should be immensely vast. As Arthur C. Clarke famously said,
"Two possibilities exist: either we are alone in the Universe or we are not. Both are equally terrifying."
I choose to think that, unless the universe is something different than what is generally believed, we are not alone.
Therefore, unless you assign an infinitesimally small probability to the third bullet (AI singularity occurs), there should have been at least one, if not many AI singularities that have occurred already.
But this in turn poses an interesting conundrum.
If a singularity that could create virtually unlimited intelligence has already occurred, and likely a myriad number of times, these should have left abundant large-scale "disturbances" in ways that should be evident, even to our relatively primitive detection capabilities.
For example, we are only now vaguely conjecturing on ways to traverse the universe and bypass the speed-of-light barrier (e.g. warping space through wormhole or black hole travel, etc). To an infinitely advanced set of AI beings, it would seem such a barrier could be overcome, likely in ways we might not be able to conceive at this time.
The same argument could be used for any number of indications, such as information dissemination (radio signals, etc), alien visitations, and other signs of intelligent life.
It's possible that all AI singularities result in those AI (and their civilizations) immediately disappearing for one reason or another. Again, possible, but would all incredibly advanced AI come to the conclusion that immediate disappearance from the universe is the best course of action? I guess if they were all similarly advanced that such a conclusion was optimal is possible, but the argument that "all" would do this is not overly compelling.
Our current capabilities to detect such indications is in its infancy, but there's absolutely no sign of them. Yet an advanced AI, for whatever reason, should be able to manipulate things in a way that might be easily detectable.
And that's not to mention what happens when one set of advanced AI meets another set, which is likely to have happened many times as well.
So the fact that all seems so currently "quiet" is actually more of a mystery than I first thought when I was younger. Then, I just decided that aliens had just not happened to be here at this time, or had covered their tracks, or even might not exist. But the possibility of many alien singularities changes all that.
So why is the universe so seemingly devoid of evidence that many AI singularities likely have already occurred? Maybe it's not, and our perception of the laws of physics and the development of the universe is a result of those AI occurrences, and not a baseline for them.
But this also lends credence to those that speculate that the universe is a hologram, a simulation (virtual reality or otherwise), or some other type of "controlled" experiment.
The extraordinary lack of evidence of these multiple AI singularities should be cause for deep reflection. It's entirely possible that our lack of evidence of such AI is not through lack of sufficient time or capability, but by design, either in the nature of the universe or some force controlling that nature. Possible explanations for why we seem alone (so far) are not as simple as I once thought...
Apparently physicist Machiu Kaku (and other respected scientists) also think something "different" is occurring (although he comes about it from a completely different angle...).
If anyone would like to comment on the contents of this article, please email me, thanks!
Let's consider some assumptions. We will start by assuming that there are roughly three major possibilities for what might happen to an advanced civilization that is approaching an AI singularity:
- The civilization destroys itself before (or during) the AI singularity for any number of possible reasons: war, technology, etc.
- The civilization for some reason is able to bypass the singularity, possibly by going into virtual reality, energy beings, or whatever, or
- The civilization does create an AI singularity
There are other possibilities, but these are sufficiently wide that that they should cover the general problem space.
The other consideration is that the universe is large - really large - with regards to possible number of planets and civilizations. And the universe is also very old. I have heard arguments (such as there were not enough heavy metals in the early universe) that advanced civilizations such as the ones I am conceiving could not have occurred in the early universe, but that still leaves abundant time for a vast amount that could.
Given all that time and all that space, the number of advanced civilizations that probably existed (or do exist) in the universe should be immensely vast. As Arthur C. Clarke famously said,
"Two possibilities exist: either we are alone in the Universe or we are not. Both are equally terrifying."
I choose to think that, unless the universe is something different than what is generally believed, we are not alone.
Therefore, unless you assign an infinitesimally small probability to the third bullet (AI singularity occurs), there should have been at least one, if not many AI singularities that have occurred already.
But this in turn poses an interesting conundrum.
If a singularity that could create virtually unlimited intelligence has already occurred, and likely a myriad number of times, these should have left abundant large-scale "disturbances" in ways that should be evident, even to our relatively primitive detection capabilities.
For example, we are only now vaguely conjecturing on ways to traverse the universe and bypass the speed-of-light barrier (e.g. warping space through wormhole or black hole travel, etc). To an infinitely advanced set of AI beings, it would seem such a barrier could be overcome, likely in ways we might not be able to conceive at this time.
The same argument could be used for any number of indications, such as information dissemination (radio signals, etc), alien visitations, and other signs of intelligent life.
It's possible that all AI singularities result in those AI (and their civilizations) immediately disappearing for one reason or another. Again, possible, but would all incredibly advanced AI come to the conclusion that immediate disappearance from the universe is the best course of action? I guess if they were all similarly advanced that such a conclusion was optimal is possible, but the argument that "all" would do this is not overly compelling.
Our current capabilities to detect such indications is in its infancy, but there's absolutely no sign of them. Yet an advanced AI, for whatever reason, should be able to manipulate things in a way that might be easily detectable.
And that's not to mention what happens when one set of advanced AI meets another set, which is likely to have happened many times as well.
So the fact that all seems so currently "quiet" is actually more of a mystery than I first thought when I was younger. Then, I just decided that aliens had just not happened to be here at this time, or had covered their tracks, or even might not exist. But the possibility of many alien singularities changes all that.
So why is the universe so seemingly devoid of evidence that many AI singularities likely have already occurred? Maybe it's not, and our perception of the laws of physics and the development of the universe is a result of those AI occurrences, and not a baseline for them.
But this also lends credence to those that speculate that the universe is a hologram, a simulation (virtual reality or otherwise), or some other type of "controlled" experiment.
The extraordinary lack of evidence of these multiple AI singularities should be cause for deep reflection. It's entirely possible that our lack of evidence of such AI is not through lack of sufficient time or capability, but by design, either in the nature of the universe or some force controlling that nature. Possible explanations for why we seem alone (so far) are not as simple as I once thought...
Apparently physicist Machiu Kaku (and other respected scientists) also think something "different" is occurring (although he comes about it from a completely different angle...).
If anyone would like to comment on the contents of this article, please email me, thanks!