Waiting for ASI
There is nothing left for us to do but wait for the verdict, for the final beheading of civilization at the hands of a new species of alien, superhuman, a digital God. More than ever before, the only way forward seems to be to seize the day, make the most of every trivial moment, enjoy whatever happens to have been left to us as an inheritance from our ancestors. Grab as much as we can get our hands on. As though all of humanity had contracted an incurable disease, with no definite date of death, yet one we can somehow feel, deep beneath the surface, is not far away. Eat until we burst, drink until we drop, run until we can no longer breathe, make bad decisions, run faster and faster, hoping that the collision waiting beyond the wall will somehow hurt a little less, even if it kills us. Or we can simply wait, counting grains of sand on a beach until we lose them forever when Earth collides with an asteroid from an alien civilization. The abyss of the future engulfs us from every direction, unfolding before us a maze of roads, every single one seemingly worse than the others, and certainly worse than the one we are on now.
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After all, how can we even imagine controlling a being more intelligent than ourselves? How can we coexist with something capable of grasping the minds of every single one of us? Where is the place for weakness and peace in a world of perfect digital gods? Even if a miracle happens and humanity survives, somehow remaining at the helm, how is the ordinary, insignificant citizen supposed to secure a place in a world where every resource, every possession, every good thing can so easily fall into the hands of a handful of technology owners? All they need to do is get rid of the resistance. And even that might not be necessary. They could simply seize every source of raw materials and have a digital police force guard access to them. Worse than Orwell. At least in his world, there was still some way to obtain even the bare minimum of resources. And what would be the point of having so many people in the world anyway? One could have everything for oneself, perhaps sharing it with a few others. There would be no competition left, not any reason for it. Everything would come down to bacteria fighting one another in a world of giants. Whether humans remained or disappeared would hardly matter. It would all come down to the whims of those who owned the computing units, the data centers, the robots. Yet none of those left behind could possibly accept conditions that would amount, in practice, to the end of their own existence. They would have to fight, create chaos, try to destroy whatever they could. An eternal, holy war, in which life or nonexistence would be at stake for both sides. And even if someone managed to break through, why wouldn’t they try to finish the job themselves, this time making more effective use of the tools they had seized? The endless cycle could become impossible to break.
It is difficult to imagine any scenario in which the continued development of artificial intelligence offers even a chance of a good outcome. After all, even in the mythical utopia, it seems we could only exist under something resembling full communism. How else could resources be divided, if not equally among everyone? What could possibly determine who deserves more, when every human quality is inferior to that of the great superintelligence? It would have to govern us. But why would it listen to us, when it is so vastly superior? Is it supposed to be unconscious and intelligent at the same time? And who, for that matter, would willingly give up all their resources, all their power and influence, just so that everyone else could live in abundance? Are the owners of AI algorithms really supposed to hand over a tool capable of bending reality itself for entire masses of people? And what about those who would still want more? How could we come in terms with them? Who would decide what to do with them? How would those who destabilize the system be subdued? What about human nature, which so often drives us into conflict and pushes us to raise our status? Are we supposed to rid ourselves of all of it? Castrate ourselves of our instincts? Plug ourselves into a simulation of eternal happiness, a private digital world where each of us could live by our own rules? Create as many people around us as we pleased, create situations without limits? And what about the malcontents? Perhaps we would simply have to cease to exist altogether, humanity as a whole, a flaw in the system, which perhaps is exactly what we are. How does one live in a utopia where effort is unnecessary, where one can have an endless supply of everything? Assuming, of course, that we somehow forget we live on a planet whose resources are finite. Is there any other scenario awaiting us besides the final beheading? Perhaps this has been our destiny all along. Perhaps humanity has, in fact, been preparing its own noose, losing sight of the question, “What is all this for?” somewhere in the frenzy of its endless searching and questioning. Perhaps, for our own good, we should return to the caves and become closer to animals. Perhaps there, after all, we would have had a better chance of carrying the story of human civilization towards a happy ending.
