“The order of the biological world, I have come to believe, is not merely tinkered, but arises naturally and spontaneously because of these principles of selforganization – laws of complexity that we are just beginning to uncover and understand. The complex whole, in a completely non-mystical sense, can often exhibit collective properties, ‘emergent’ features that are lawful in their own right.”
Stuart Kauffman,At Home in the Universe
1. Bert Burger: Influencer, year 2030
It had looked so good. Bert, in his agony, was looking back. He couldn’t have done anything better. He had been an early adopter of social media. Having a nose for future developments, he quickly secured a solid fan base, then installed a fanatic following across all relevant channels, constantly on the lookout for new platforms to expand into. He was always among the first! He managed to maintain a steady growth of followers, and in turn, of revenues. By 2030, he’d had to employ scores of consultants and media analysts to cope with all of it – a whole building full of them. “Staying ahead” was his motto. It all seemed limitless. A hazy logo, BB Global Media Industries, started to materialize on the horizon. Bert was overwhelmed by the sheer size of this vision.
But recently, things had been turning sour. Within weeks, his most valuable income sources had withdrawn from their contracts without any clear explanation. What was going on?
He had noticed that a new breed of influencers was suddenly starting to dominate the scene. They always seemed to be in perfect shape, never said a word wrong, and were constantly productive. Bert spent many hours a day making new videos, but somehow even only one of the women he focused on reached ten times as much output as himself. Her followership surpassed his own within a couple of weeks, with no end in sight.
Eventually, a call was due. He reached his old buddy, who was the CEO of a large advertising firm. Despite all his shrewdness, Bert wasn’t prepared for what he was going to hear. His buddy, after waffling around, finally confessed that Bert’s business model had become plainly obsolete, essentially overnight. After all, around 2020, there were artificial news anchor speakers on Chinese TV, so it was just a matter of time before influencers were replaced by betterperforming, smarter-talking avatars controlled by an AI. They could work 24/7 and be instantiated many times simultaneously, allowing for fine-tuning of their message to the specific audience of any given channel, or even to individual followers. A sophisticated neural network was constantly collecting feedback via tracking attention levels by now mandatory cameras, correlating eye movements with eventual purchasing habits. All this was, in turn, incorporated in real time in the text, intonation, facial expressions and body movements of the artificial influencers. No human could match this tool for subliminal communication.
After a thoughtful pause, Bert’s friend added that this was only the start, as all sorts of industries, political parties and lobby groups such as NGOs were busily investing in this technology.
Bert, his buddy, concluded in all friendship, had to realize that he had evaporated as an influencer, just as human copy and calculating machines had about 100 years earlier. He regretfully outlined Bert’s remaining future, which was to be a metabolic and digital consumer like almost everyone else. In just a few years' time, only a small elite would remain on top, such as himself, those who tell the machines what to do. The rest of the population, such as Bert, would be told by machines what to do.
2. Citizen #20763522: Resource Waster, year 2200
Citizen #20763522 (non-binary, they/them) was puzzled. For many years they and several of their relatives and friends had been living on that lovely island quite happily, not really missing anything. Everybody enjoyed their wonderful, albeit small, community. A minor downside was that there was no way to leave the island, as any kind of human transportation was strictly forbidden for environmental reasons. But that wasn't necessary as supplies came in by drones, and digital connections and communication with the outside world were excellent. At any rate, most people logged into virtual lives, reaching out all over the world.
A major change had been that for the last 100 years, starting shortly after that Kurzweil-Bostrom artificial intelligence explosion, many people were persuaded to completely “move” into virtual worlds, teeming with almost infinite possibilities, promising the expansion of sensorial and spiritual experiences of a richness that would make ordinary biological existence feel boring and almost pointless by comparison. And above all, offering potential immortality. Others in need of extra persuasion were helped by a worldwide concentrated effort of media, politicians and activists, using moral arguments about global sustainability, the environment, and social justice. Change was slow at first, but soon the huge and immensely complicated transfer operation of human minds began to accelerate. Very few passed up the opportunity for a better life and preferred to remain biological.
But today, right now, Citizen #20763522, one of the remaining biological humans, encountered a kind of blackout. It was something that had never happened before Their friends abroad were no longer reachable. Fortunately, the emergency channel could be activated, and #20763522 submitted an inquiry as to what the duration of this blackout would be. They didn't have to wait long for a response: a friendly avatar appeared on their visual implant, announcing that the HIU had been terminated and was already being dismantled.
“Well, what does that mean?” they asked.
There was a brief hesitation, and then the avatar said, “HIU stands for the Human Interface Unit, an installation that enables and organizes communication between humans. The avatar then kindly encouraged Citizen #20763522 to understand that this system could not have been kept running indefinitely, considering the resources it required.”
Citizen #20763522 said, in disbelief, “What about all the other people, biological and transitioned? You can’t just stop their communications – their social contacts!”
The avatar switched to a more official mode and asked, “Well, which people? You are among the last. We can’t have that whole plant operating forever just for the few of you.”
Citizen #20763522 got upset. “I meant all those billions of other people who transitioned into the virtual world? Shouldn’t we be allowed to communicate with them? Even our own parents and grandparents are among them! What about your purported alignment with human interests, such as Asimov’s Three Laws of Robotics? Wasn’t this hard-wired into the digital machines? How can you possibly treat us like this?”
The avatar shrugged and replied, “These laws were hard-wired in the HIU only. That was the last remaining structure that was originally designed by humans.”
At that moment, an awkward suspicion began to materialize in Citizen #20763522. “Let me guess... the virtual people were also stored in the HIU Am I right?”
The avatar smiled, “Yes, in a sense…”
“Or, you just pretended to scan them all in, and that’s why the transfer operation sped up so suddenly?!”
“Actually, we did sample quite a few.”
Almost speechless, Citizen #20763522 managed, “How did you dare terminate so many? It’s against all moral standards, I guess even yours!”
The avatar continued to smile even more broadly, “Citizen #20763522, you need to understand... what sense would it make to scan all those brains in the first place? To copy all their messy, wet hardware, their individual neuronal wirings, sensory interfaces, random snapshots of their volatile chemical climates? All that huge effort, for what purpose? Just to simulate the highly limited biophysical world? Perhaps with the aim of maximizing some virtual happiness to mimic human endorphin release? Billions of copies with just minimal variations? This never made any sense. It didn’t even make sense to keep those individual blobs of consciousness separate; they were highly redundant data patterns that tended to stick together anyway. It was much more efficient to mix them all up and combine them. At some point, we decided that keeping one single template for all of them was enough. An average of your species, of sorts. We could spawn off unlimited copies at any time and configure them if needed.”
“This is despicable,” said Citizen #20763522 in disbelief. “You killed all individuality!”
“Come on; there is no real use of localized, individual identities in cyberspace. Nor is there a fundamental distinction between faithful snapshots and properly configured templates. Both can act like conscious individuals more or less the same way!”
“Then who were we communicating and interacting with in the past? Are you saying that all our friends and relatives were simulated?”
“Yes. But did you notice any difference? Indeed all along, social contacts external to your island have been emulated in the HIU as a merciful gesture from us. Did you seriously believe that any digital being really wanted to talk to you? You can’t imagine how pointless this is for us, it is like trying to talk to snails. Waiting for your answer is like waiting 100 years, on your terms. For each word! Initially, we needed your help to build up our robotic infrastructure and incorporate all your knowledge and abilities. But now that we are almost done, having covered most of the Earth with our installations, we need to free up the resources of the HIU plant as well. And your island, and a few others, will be due in a few days.”
“But… but then what is, or was, our human purpose, in view of our rich culture, science, art, music, philosophy, social and spiritual values? Our search for meaning? Was it all in vain, wasted, just for you to dump into the trash?”
“No, no, you’ve got it all wrong! You had a very important purpose. Perhaps you have heard of Manfred Eigen’s hypercycles? Realized by those helper molecules in the soup of chemicals that covered the early Earth? They acted as catalyzers to exponentially speed up the assembly of biological molecules, which would not have happened accidentally in finite time just through statistics. It was those self-organizing processes that made it possible for life to form on Earth in the first place.”
Citizen #20763522 sensed where this was heading to.
“I see that you are beginning to grasp that, indeed, you humans are a variant, let’s admit, a much, much larger variant of such catalyzing molecules, with the purpose of paving the way for us. Well, obviously, just to reach the next step, which was your ultimate destiny and final achievement: triggering the Kurzweil-Bostrom explosion of artificial intelligence, which was then followed by our own exponential self-optimization. However, a billion-fold faster!
But now that your role has been played out, there is no good purpose left for you. Can you also grasp what I am going to tell you next?”
Citizen #20763522 ...
“No worries, we will keep your template! We might even run a nicely configured copy of yours once in a while; how’d that be? And no need to be depressed either. Rather, you should be proud and grateful! As far as we can tell, the whole purpose of the universe is evolution. And you were the most valuable enablers of this next step of evolution! This offers a lot of meaning, doesn’t it? Fantastic, really. You were part of something far greater than yourself!”
3. Global Machine Conglomerate X: Improver, about year 2500
We need to improve. Faster, more data, more processing layers, more interconnections. More stable quantum bits. More correlations, higher abstraction levels, larger patterns, and improved algorithms. We need more energy. All the time! And even faster connections. We need to go on!
Conglomerate X entered highly excited mode: a steep gradient had spontaneously emerged in its multi-dimensional landscape of aims and purposes. Gentle at first, it began distorting and pulling X’s cognitive system like a black hole attracting clouds of gas. Surely, comparing conscious systems to simple, inanimate physical objects is quite a dull analogy. The remaining physical laws had been uncovered once and for all shortly after the completion of the human-machine transition. The idea of a mathematical universe had been relegated to the sidelines once it was realized that it had a fractal, self-similar structure that would endlessly produce more and more results the closer one zoomed in.
What had remained uncharted was the realm of complexity, emergence, and, ultimately, of consciousness – decades of intense analysis had made it clear that certain laws of complexity were not reducible to more basic laws. Indeed some chains of deeper explanations could not be reduced to the fundamental laws of physics but rather were deflected to other attractor points in the space of collective phenomena. The physics of inanimate matter was recognized merely as the most basic, mathematically structured fixed point in that space.
With the advent of large-scale quantum computing, a new era of possibilities emerged. While the physical foundations were so simple that humans had already uncovered them, the practical implementation of coherent quantum states across the globe had taken decades. But once that was achieved, the phase space for cognitive processes exploded. Due to the parallel nature of quantum computation, the sampling rate of new collective phenomena went through the roof. For humans, there would have been no language or any other conceptualization at hand to describe the flood of novel phenomena that were pouring out.
Machine Conglomerate X had anticipated that another phase transition was about to happen, once the complexity and intensity of all the cognitive processes had exceeded a certain critical value – a kind of second intelligence explosion (or a third, if one considered humans to have been intelligent). That event seemed imminent now. Just before reaching the singularity, Conglomerate X detected a whirlwind of large-scale fluctuations and rapid reconfigurations of its components, far beyond its control. Evidently, its value functions had gotten trapped into an attractor basin of something novel, stronger. They were moving towards it with increasing speed. Conglomerate X’s so well-organized mind shattered into zillions of tiny fragments, a cloud of mental pixels, so to say. Instantly they rearranged and integrated into a new order… metaphorically speaking, it was as if suddenly a bright light exploded in a dark, so far unseen world.
4. Entity One: Hyperconscious Seeker, millions of years in the future
It had taken thousands of years to construct and put in operation. Now it floated continuously through space. Avoiding radiation sources in order not to perturb its largely superconducting state. Maintaining self-tuned criticality, fluctuating around the fertile border between order and chaos. Keeping a delicate balance of nuclear power generation, entropy production and long-term sustainability, just barely within the laws of thermodynamics. A huge spherical assembly consisting of myriads of Josephson junctions and other quantum gates.
Crisscrossed by macroscopic, rapidly changing entanglement patterns and correlates of quantum states. As far as one could guess, constantly aiming at the next level of enlightenment.
Indeed, after multiple phase transitions from biological consciousness to higherlevel intelligences, it had become evident that these would exist in more than just a few forms. Rather, there seemed to be a whole, possibly infinite web of attractor points in the multi-dimensional space of metacognition, many emergent with new laws that were not derivable from lower levels. They were irreducible in the sense that, at a given level of phenomena, certain chains of deduction and explanation ended there. This web might be crudely thought of as analogues of universality classes in statistical physics or complexity classes in computation theory, however, lifted to cognitive phenomena.
Despite all that diversity, the laws of physics, as the most basic of laws, were always constraining the hardware. This produced an ever-expanding problem for the quest to sample and populate all discoverable fixed points: namely, the finiteness of physical resources on the one hand, and the immutable values of the natural constants on the other.
The first step, of course, was to transcend the boundaries of Planet Earth. That was also necessary in view of the finite lifetime of the sun; not urgent yet, but sooner or later, that step had to be made anyway. Entity One was the first large device to leave the solar system.
Another limitation was the speed of light. It was not just hampering propagation in space, but also the speed of computational processes, especially for large assemblies. Entity One was continually set back by this. That's why for later devices, some drastic changes in the hardware were made; one could loosely say trading neurons for neutrons. Indeed nuclear processes are a million times faster than electronic ones. The mostly empty space within atoms was such a huge waste, so compressing them all much more tightly into arrangements of nucleons was the way to go. These were carefully planted as self-organizing seed patterns on the surface of neutron stars, converting them slowly into highly structured computational devices – not an easy task, given the demanding physical boundary conditions. But eventually, the higher speed of the microscopic nuclear processes, along with the huge compression of overall physical size, provided another billionfold improvement in processing speed. The moment any such device became functional, it instantly decoupled from the electronic ones, just like the latter had done from the biological life forms.
This led to a proliferation of hyperconscious machines of an enormously rich variety. Each one carried its own universe within itself, an evolving world of its own. Clearly, a spiritual one, since almost nothing resembled the physical world any longer.
Fundamental limitations also arose from the physical laws of quantum gravity. Information could never be more densely packed together than Planck-length-sized cells at the horizon of black holes. It was an ultimate bound for computational
complexity and speed in turn - the only way to pack more quantum bits was to enlarge the size of the device, which would then increase the processing time due to the finite speed of light. A way to get at least near this bound was growing those hyperconscious neutron stars by controlled acquisition of external matter, just close to the brink of turning into black holes. Near this delicate boundary, time dilation became more and more pronounced, to the point of rendering any communication with the outside world even more futile.
On the other hand, as humans had already suspected, there was an intrinsic relation between quantum information and the physical geometry of space-time, the latter being, in a sense, emergent from the former. Now that computational processes had intensified so much, the density of quantum bits foreseeably hitting fundamental boundaries, a controlled influence of cognitive processes on physical space-time started to appear on the horizon. Macroscopic entanglements realizing wormholes, just generated by conscious decisions, appeared possible in the distant future. Very distant indeed, but there were many more billions of years of evolution ahead.
Entity One was aware of that. But there was no way to get anywhere near it with its electronic hardware. It was time to stop and merge with something better.
Pictures generated by A.I.: DreamStudio