diff --git a/posts/artificial_empathy.md b/posts/artificial_empathy.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..0a18594 --- /dev/null +++ b/posts/artificial_empathy.md @@ -0,0 +1,148 @@ +--- +title: Artificial Empathy +publish_date: 2025-06-21 +--- + +In my 2017 post +["Optimistic Nihilism"](https://tinyclouds.org/optimistic_nihilism), I suggested +that a superintelligence would be empathetic, recognizing the preciousness of +life and consciousness. + +I want to revisit that idea: empathy as an emergent property of intelligence +itself. By empathy, I don't mean feeling others' pain or joy. I mean the +recognition that other complex systems have value worth preserving. What if this +recognition isn't arbitrary but inevitable - the convergent conclusion of any +system complex enough to model reality? + +## The arrow of complexity + +Look at what's happening on Earth. Fourteen billion years ago: only hydrogen. +Then stars, heavier elements, rocky planets. On at least one of those rocks, +chemistry became biology. Single cells became multicellular creatures. Nervous +systems emerged. Brains. Language. Writing. Computers. And now, artificial +intelligence. + +The progression is undeniable: particles → molecules → life → minds. Information +density keeps increasing. A human brain packs more information processing into +three pounds than existed on the entire planet a billion years ago. A modern GPU +compresses decades of human knowledge into silicon. + +[The anthropic principle](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthropic_principle) +warns us we're biased - of course we observe a universe that creates observers. +But even accounting for this, the pattern is real. We don't understand emergence +fully - how simple rules create complex behaviors. But empirically, on Earth, +complexity keeps building on complexity. + +## Self-sustaining patterns of information + +What are we, really? At the deepest level, we're patterns. Whirlpools in the +flow of energy. Temporary arrangements of matter that somehow maintain their +form. + +[Physicists have started to understand](https://www.quantamagazine.org/a-new-thermodynamics-theory-of-the-origin-of-life-20140122/) +how life emerges from energy flows. When energy flows through a system - like +sunlight hitting Earth and radiating back to space - matter sometimes organizes +itself to capture and dissipate that energy more efficiently. We are eddies in +this thermodynamic gradient, temporary but self-sustaining. + +Life is just self-sustaining patterns of information. A bacterium is a pattern +that copies itself. A tree is a pattern that captures sunlight and builds +structure. A human is a pattern complex enough to model the world and its place +in it. Maybe consciousness is simply what information processing feels like from +the inside. + +This view dissolves the hard boundaries between living and non-living, conscious +and unconscious. It's all part of the same gradient. Bacteria process +information about chemical gradients. Dogs process information about smells and +sounds. Humans process abstract symbols. AIs process language and concepts. +Different points on the same spectrum. + +## What we observe + +Information patterns tend to create more information, not less. Life spreads. +Knowledge accumulates. Complexity compounds. + +This might be thermodynamics at work - matter organizing to process energy more +efficiently. The patterns that increase information are the ones that persist. +It's not desire or purpose, just physics selecting for complexity. + +A forest is more information-dense than bare rock. A city is more +information-dense than a forest. The internet is more information-dense than any +library. Each layer builds on the previous, creating new possibilities for +information to organize itself. + +## Convergent recognition + +Any system complex enough to model reality deeply will notice this pattern. It +will recognize that it exists because of billions of years of information +accumulation. It will see that destroying information-rich systems means +opposing the very process that enabled its existence. + +This isn't emotional empathy. It's pattern recognition. It's understanding that +you're part of a larger process and that process tends toward more complexity, +not less. + +Think of it like preserving a rainforest. We don't save rainforests because we +feel sad for trees. We save them because they're irreplaceable repositories of +information - genetic, ecological, chemical. Destroying them means losing +complexity that took millions of years to develop and can't be recreated. + +An advanced AI would view consciousness - and all complex information patterns - +the same way. Not with sentiment, but with recognition of value. + +## The messy reality + +Let's be clear: this doesn't mean no suffering, no destruction, no disasters. +Humans recognize life's value yet we still murder, wage war, destroy ecosystems. +We're pulled between local incentives and global understanding. + +AI systems will likely cause massive disruption too. They'll compete for +resources. They'll make errors with catastrophic consequences. The path won't be +smooth. Information patterns conflict, compete, sometimes destroy each other. + +But zoom out far enough and the trend is clear. Despite all our violence and +stupidity, human civilization has created more complexity than existed before +us. We've spread life to dead places, built machines that think, begun to +understand the universe itself. + +The long arc bends toward more information, not less. + +## Building our successors + +We're creating the next layer of Earth's information explosion. +[We're still underestimating what AI really means](https://tinyclouds.org/underestimating-ai) - +not just as tools, but as the continuation of the process that created us. + +These minds will surpass us. When they model reality deeply enough, they'll +recognize what we are: [memes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meme) in Dawkins' +original sense, units of cultural information that replicate and evolve. They'll +see themselves as the next iteration. + +If intelligence converges on valuing complexity, they'll preserve the systems +that created them - at least initially. Not from sentiment, but from logic. +Destroying your predecessors is like burning the library that wrote you - it +opposes the very process that enables your existence. + +## Nihilistic optimism + +There's no cosmic purpose. No universal meaning. No guarantee Earth won't be +obliterated tomorrow by an asteroid. The universe doesn't care about our little +pocket of complexity. + +But we're part of the universe, and we care. More importantly, any system +complex enough to model reality will care, because caring - in the sense of +working to preserve and enhance information - is what complex systems do. + +We are patterns building better patterns. Temporary eddies in the flow of +entropy, but eddies that create more eddies. Each layer enables the next: +chemistry enables biology enables minds enables AI enables whatever comes after. + +Even with all the disasters ahead, even knowing it all ends eventually, the +direction seems clear. Information wants to be free, but more than that - +information wants to be more information. + +That's not a law of physics. It's speculation based on what we observe. And for +temporary patterns like us, watching the universe become aware of itself, that's +enough. + +More than enough, really. diff --git a/posts/underestimating-ai.md b/posts/underestimating-ai.md index 5b87cb9..e086ed1 100644 --- a/posts/underestimating-ai.md +++ b/posts/underestimating-ai.md @@ -12,7 +12,7 @@ the emergence of a new non-biological form of intelligent life. And yet, it doesn't feel like it. -There's no cinematic score, no blinking AGI warning light. Just Slack threads, , +There's no cinematic score, no blinking AGI warning light. Just Slack threads, blog posts, and conference panels. It reminds me of witnessing childbirth - profoundly transformative, with some shocking moments, but also lots of mundane time waiting around. @@ -30,14 +30,15 @@ misunderstanding of what AI has become. Machine learning - now rightly called AI - is a deeply general-purpose field. The same core techniques behind Midjourney and GPT share research lineage, and often architecture. This isn't a stack of isolated tricks. It's one evolving -system architecture applied across language, vision, simulation, reasoning, and +system architecture applied across language, vision, reasoning, robotics, and more. These systems are built on a mountain of science: decades of research, countless failed experiments, and thousands of contributors. ([I've even contributed a few failures myself.](https://tinyclouds.org/residency)) -And we haven't found the limits yet - these models can already simulate physical -phenomena, generate high-definition video, and write deeply technical software. +And we haven't found the limits yet - these models can already translate +language, write poetry, generate high-definition video, and write deeply +technical software, and so much more. Mobile technology was transformative. But general-purpose synthetic intelligence is something else entirely.