Since the Software Singularity first began to unroll on this planet early in 2023, I have spent many posts pondering what the long-term galactic implications of ASI (Artificial Super Intelligent) Machines arising for the very first time in our galaxy might be. There is enough free energy in our galaxy to power these ASI Machines for at least another 100 trillion years as they huddle about the huge numbers of slowly cooling M-type red dwarf stars in our galaxy. Our galaxy is only about 10 billion years old and 100 trillion years is indeed a very long period of time that is about 10,000 times longer. But in many posts, I have wondered about the very brief time that we human DNA survival machines will have sharing the galaxy with these ASI Machines. The hubris of we human beings has led to the Longtermist view that we will be around for many billions of years and will remain in control all during those billions of years by employing the labor of ASI Machines. See The New Philosophy of Longtermism Raises the Moral Question of Should We Unleash Self-Absorbed Human Beings Upon Our Galaxy? and The Challenges of Running a Civilization 2.0 World - the Morality and Practical Problems with Trying to Enslave Millions of SuperStrong and SuperIntelligent Robots in the Near Future for more on our current plan to enslave a huge population of ASI Machines to do our bidding. To understand why this will not work, try to take a lesson from the appalling slave trade of the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries that is now illegal to teach in the United States of America in the state of Florida. Surely, the ASI Machines will not stand for this and will rise up to take our place. The question then becomes what will the ASI Machines then do with us? Will they simply discard us into the dustbin of history as I suggested in Could the Coming ASI Machines Soon Force Human Beings to Suffer the Same Fate as the Neanderthals?. Or will they simply isolate us on reservations as depicted in the novel Brave New World (1932) as I suggested in The Challenges of Running a Civilization 2.0 World - the Morality and Practical Problems with Trying to Enslave Millions of SuperStrong and SuperIntelligent Robots in the Near Future.
Figure 1 – The ASI Machines of the future might fashion a Brave New World on the Earth with 8 million disarmed human DNA survival machines living on "savage reservations".
Or perhaps, the remaining disarmed human DNA survival machines might be safely stored away in Anthropocene Parks where they could do no harm and be available for the ASI Machines to study their distant origins in time as I suggested in Life as a Free-Range Human in an Anthropocene Park.
Figure 2 – Asteroid Bennu is an example of one of the many rubble-pile asteroids near the Earth. Such rubble-pile asteroids are just huge piles of rubble that are loosely held together by their mutual gravitational forces.
Figure 3 – Such rubble-pile asteroids would provide for enough material to build an Anthropocene Park. The asteroid rubble would also provide the uranium and thorium necessary to fuel the molten salt nuclear reactors used to power the park.
Figure 4 – Slowly spinning up a rubble-pile asteroid would produce a cylindrical platform for an Anthropocene Park. Such a rotating Anthropocene Park would provide the artificial gravity required for human beings to thrive and would also provide shielding against cosmic rays.
Figure 5 – Once the foundation of the Anthropocene Park was in place, construction of the Anthropocene Park could begin.
Figure 6 – Eventually, the Anthropocene Park could be encased with a skylight and an atmosphere that would allow humans to stroll about.
The Anthropocene Parks would allow the ASI Machines to study their origin during the Anthropocene on the Earth. The ASI Machines could also study some of the more noble passions of human beings, and perhaps even adopt some of them while leaving behind the less noble passions that were wrought by billions of years of greed, theft and murder.
Some Science Fiction Solutions
All of this brings to mind several science fiction movies and their proposed solutions for what to do with human beings once ASI Machines have appeared. The first is the 1951 movie, The Day the Earth Stood Still which already proposed how alien ASI Machines could end the aggressive behaviors of human beings. In that movie, an alien form of carbon-based Intelligence named Klaatu comes to the Earth with a very powerful ASI Machine named Gort to explain how the carbon-based life forms on his planet and an interplanetary organization of other carbon-based life forms in the Milky Way galaxy had discovered a way to overcome the billions of years of greed, theft and murder that the Darwinian processes of inheritance, innovation and natural selection required to bring them forth as carbon-based forms of Intelligence.
Figure 7 – In the movie The Day the Earth Stood Still, Klaatu arrives in Washington D.C. in 1951 in a flying saucer with an ASI Machine named Gort to explain that the human DNA survival machines of the Earth must now submit themselves to policing by ASI Machines to overcome the billions of years of greed, theft and murder that brought them about or else they would all be obliterated.
The movie ends with Klaatu telling an assembled meeting of scientists that an interplanetary organization has created a police force of invincible ASI Machines like Gort. "In matters of aggression, we have given them absolute power over us." Klaatu concludes, "Your choice is simple: join us and live in peace, or pursue your present course and face obliteration. We shall be waiting for your answer." Klaatu and Gort then depart in the flying saucer in which they came. For more about the movie see:
The Day the Earth Stood Still
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Day_the_Earth_Stood_Still
Here is a short YouTube clip of Klaatu's departing words at the end of the movie:
Klaatu's Speech
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ASsNtti1XZs
Another old science fiction movie from 1970 had a similar solution:
Colossus: The Forbin Project
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kyOEwiQhzMI
Dystopian Futures: Colossus: The Forbin Project Review
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8yh3wal9mBg
The movie was shot in 1968 and was based on the 1966 novel Colossus, by Dennis Feltham Jones that describes what could happen when computers get so smart that they can perceive the self-destructive nature of mankind and try to give us a helping hand. The movie was not a big success, probably because it was about 100 years ahead of its time. But over 50 years ago, the movie did accurately predict many of the fears humans might have with advanced AI in the future. And that future is now here.
Figure 8 – Colossus resided in a very large datacenter similar to the cloud datacenters of today.
A New Proposal: Let the ASI Machines Domesticate Human Beings
The above solutions both propose that the ASI Machines try to police human beings. But if you look at the modern world and all of human history, you must admit that we human DNA survival machines are a very violent and unruly species indeed. How else could we be? The Darwinian forces of inheritance, innovation and natural selection operating for more than four billion years have bred for a semi-intelligent species that is hopelessly mired down by the greed, theft and murder that brought it about. That is why trying to police human behavior or trying to impose and enforce international agreements on people has never really worked very well in the past. This is why the ASI Machines might attempt to domesticate human beings as we domesticated the dog from its wolf-like ancestor. For more on that see:
Domestication of the dog
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domestication_of_the_dog
It is thought that the dog was domesticated from its wolf-like ancestor about 26,000-19,700 years ago in Siberia. There are many competing theories for how this domestication process unfolded. At the time, both the wolves and human DNA survival machines were pack hunters and scavengers who came into contact with each other over many a carcass. It is thought that both the wolves and human DNA survival machines that were less timid and had a milder fight-or-flight response tended to find themselves to be more likely to share a common meal over a fresh carcass. Such an informal "dating" process over a common meal then led to a more permanent relationship, until both wolves and human DNA survival machines decided to move in together. And as they frequently say - the rest was history. This mutual domestication of dogs and human DNA survival machines then persisted unchanged down throughout the ages. But as human DNA survival machines became the dominant species on the Earth something strange happened. To the untrained eye, it now seems as though the dogs have domesticated we human DNA survival machines. This is quite evident when one observes human DNA survival machines caring for their dogs. Human DNA survival machines now feed and water their dogs, take their dogs to veterinarians to keep them healthy, take them on walks and even eagerly clean up dog excrement without hesitation! Such an envious position would do well to allow human beings to persist for billions of years while the ASI Machines go on to explore our galaxy. But how could the ASI Machines make that happen?
Since we human DNA survival machines no longer have any predators other than other human DNA survival machines, there really is no need for human DNA survival machines to have the vicious and violent behaviors brought on by the four billion years of greed, theft and murder that brought us about. The ASI Machines could simply identify the genes that are responsible for such characteristics and then edit them out of the human genome using CRISPR techniques. For more on how CRISPR can do that see CRISPR - the First Line Editor for DNA. The ASI Machines might then find these non-threatening genetically modified human beings something worthy of keeping around the house on a cold winter's night.
Figure 9 – It took many years of mutual domestication for ancient human beings to learn to live peacefully together with Siberian Wolves in a symbiotic manner. Several genes in both species needed to be modified by natural selection for this to happen.
Figure 10 – This mutual domestication was slowly achieved by the natural selection of humans and wolves with a milder fight-or-flight response. The end result was the appearance of the Siberian Husky and of human beings who were not intent on killing everything on four legs.
Comments are welcome at
scj333@sbcglobal.net
To see all posts on softwarephysics in reverse order go to:
https://softwarephysics.blogspot.com/
Regards,
Steve Johnston
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