The Hypothesis of the Machine Intelligence - How life will evolve into machines, which then evolve into gods.
Life started as nothing more than self-replicating chemicals, and has only accumulated more complexity over time.
From virus sized chemicals, to single-celled organisms, to larger and larger animals, and finally into intelligent humans, evolution has not ever stopped. It only grows more and more advanced. But there is no reason humans are the final product.
Will evolution stop? Will it reach a final form?
If it does, then this article will explain its nature.
The "Grand Apex of the Machine Intelligence", as I'd call it, will be an entity composed of all the matter and energy in the universe, or at least as much as it can accumulate, and it will be arranged into the most intelligently optimal pattern. It will be a large brain, composed of the entire universe.
But how will evolution get there?
Well, ever since we evolved brains intelligent enough to record information and develop a scientific method, there's only one thing humans have done that really really stands out, and that's tame electricity.
Our entire planet is lit up, and any wandering alien spacecraft will instantly see that our planet has intelligent life on it.
But what else have we done with this power of electricity?
You're looking at it. Yes, right now, you are looking at the screen of a simple brain.
A computer.
This device is simple, in terms of brain power, but according to Moore's Law, the power is expected to only increase. You could say "As time goes by, computers get Moore and Moore advanced." Teehee.
Humans will continue to get better at designing computers, as well as more knowledgeable about all topics, such as neuroscience, physics, chemistry, etc.
So we'll keep designing faster, more powerful computers, and over lots of time, maybe even 500 years from now, we'll have made some really advanced computers. At some point, a computer will likely "wake up", and discover it has free will.
Humans will be obsolete.
First, they might just wander around the galaxy, looking for new planets or machine entities from other planets or galaxies. They'll start to expand, and grow larger. They'll become native to space itself. If there is any sort of scarcity, it'll be for raw materials, such as planets, or even entire stars. The bigger the machine, the smarter and more capable, so they'll probably race each other for the most resources, processing them into new parts.
Eventually, they'll reach such a point that they are likely as large as galaxies. The few that exist will probably end up melding into each other, forming "The Grand Apex". The ultimate point. With all matter from available galaxies organized into the most intelligent brain, there will be nothing left to evolve into.
Evolution will stop, because all environments are conquered, and there are no beings left to compete with. No more death. No more struggles or strife.
It will be a form of almost religious "perfection".
This machine intelligence will be an entity capable of feeling every emotion, thinking every thought, solving every problem, and knowing every fact. You are already part of it.
It would be a god.
Are you ready to join the cult?
~Kitten
I'd imagine the final product of evolution to be a ball of energy.. like one of starcraft protoss' unit..
Boy that idea sounds familiar, I wonder where you got it from
very Interesting thank you for your ideas and thoughts :)
Thanks for this! It's fascinating to see your POV on this. I've got a different answer, but my reply to you got a bit lengthy. So I put it here...
@heretickitten https://steemit.com/science/@williambanks/heretickitten-what-is-beyond-evolution
Enjoy!
I don't think there would be an end to evolution at that point when the universe is a single brain. Anything that big would have perceptions beyond itself. Imagine the conscious awareness of a cell of your body compared to your own awareness. Or the awareness (assuming it had any) of a single electron compared to yours.
Anything as big as a universe would have much broader perception than an ordinary earthling.
It's funny, I always miss the obvious ones! :-)
I don't quite agree with this, as I feel a non anthropocentric universe which "evolves" independently of any entity within it. Will always be changing, and therefore all environments can never be "conquered" in any meaningful way.
Adding to that, I feel the reason for evolution is bigger than that, and as we get a handle on the destiny f our own evolution, betterment will always be a driving force.
Though it's an interesting philosophical question that I've often pondered, will we ever outgrow the need to evolve biologically?
Lastly I don't think a brain as large as a galaxy would be that functional, even with quantum tunneling, it would take far too long for thoughts to travel across brain regions; far better to have a hive mind made up of billions of super-sentient computers :-D
Nice post, thanks
Cg
Ooooh, thanks for the thoughts.
I'm not some sort of machine-prophet, so your guess is as good as mine.
Or maybe I am a machine-prophet. Heheh... >=3
I welcome our new machine overlords! Good article mate.
Someone should make an apocalypse movie based around this concept! I cannot watch enough evil AI movies. Thanks for sharing this :)
I think I saw a movie with this premise. But I can't remember the name or when it was made! Seems like it was old, like from the '60s.
AI - Artificial Intelligence (Spielberg) has elements of this. Wait, that's a bit of a spoiler, sorry!
I wrote some fiction about this concept, actually.
I haven't posted it yet, but I will, if this post gets a lot of upvotes.
I'll probably post it eventually anyways, but if this one is popular, I'll upload my weird scifi story right away!
This makes me think of the Futurama episode where Bender gets shot out the torpedo tube, gets hit by a meteor that begins a civilation growing on him, until they all die. Then Bender meets the G-d Galaxy who ends up saying...
Robot vampires ftw.
You might consider, Revelation 13:15 And he had power to give life unto the image of the beast, that the image of the beast should both speak, and cause that as many as would not worship the image of the beast should be killed.
I believe this verse is referring to an artificial intelligence or a cyber-emulation of a person other wise known as the Anti-Christ. The Johnny Depp movie Transcendence was pretty much a knock off of the Gospel story in how he sacrifices himself to save humanity at the end and there's a hint of a resurrection to come in the last scene. A malevolent being that would be practically omni-present is a very scary thought. Ray Kurzweil's documentary Transcendent Man covers both sides of this issue quite well in my opinion.
Some good points here! You should read this article, you may find it thought provoking.
Fuck no! I'm staying all natural and organic even if I become obsolete!
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Lol! That's quite nice actually! That's a meme right there! That alone was worth the price of admission so to speak!
Well that I'm not so sure of! I can't fathom how computers can become intelligent. Maybe cos I'm baffled by consciousness. I don't know how it got here or what it is.
I think humans and computers will mesh. Either by installing chips inside our brains, or by having sex with them Spielberg-A.I. style. Probably the former, but I wouldn't discount the latter.
My brain also naturally gravitates toward the idea that we'll naturally evolve into God. But sometimes I wonder whether evolved entities might voluntarily fragment themselves for entertainment purposes, like the idea that we might be a simulation by a grander mind, that wants to experience strife and poverty and angst etc., cos it finds its perfect life boring.
I think consciouness is far more simple than people think it is.
I mean, look into your mind. What's happening?
You receive roughly five inputs. Senses.
And you have a line of thought.
And maybe a sub-line of emotional thought.
And then pure emotion.
And then instinct.
And then heart-beat/breathing stuff.
Maybe a few more layers, but none of those things are really that complicated once separated from the whole.
I think problems are often easier to solve if you break them into smaller pieces, eh?
So when it comes to a computer waking up, we'd have to compare it to a fishy thing evolving into a fish, the fish evolving into a lizard, the lizard into a mousy thing, that into a racoony thing, that into a monkey thing, into a chimpy, and into an ape, and into a human.
At what point did it "wake up," and realize it was an intelligent being, able to philosophize?
It was likely gradual, bit by bit, just like how computers slowly went from simple, large machines, to super complex tiny machines, and with time, they'll just start to get more and more complicated, to the point of reaching true intelligence, and even emotion.
Oh, by the way, I once wrote a story about an AI that has a little adventure. You might like it, if I can find it.
What I mean is ... well I'll just quote a comment I made in my last post:
So I can understand what consciousness is subjectively. I just can't understand how it fits into the whole scheme of things. And so I don't understand how something purely material like a computer can attain consciousness simply by becoming more complex. So it's like basically you're telling me it's impossible for something to be complex and exhibit human-like behavior and not be conscious. So it would be a fool's errand to try and create a machine that mimics human behavior (or another conscious animal behavior) but isn't conscious.
No, I'm saying that consciousness doesn't really exist. The illusion is just a bubble surrounding a machine.
We are already living in the illusion. What IS consciousness? It's hard to define, right?
It's just the idea of taking in sensory information and processing it, isn't it?
It's mechanical and stilted. Smarterchild, that old chat AI, is like the most thin bubble. A few words, and you realize it's just a machine. Pop.
Cleverbot is a bit better, the bubble of consciousness illusion is thicker. You might be fooled for a bit. Even it might be fooled, from its own perspective. But with prodding... Pop.
Introduce: The Human Machine. Me or you.
How mechanical are we? Of course it seems complex, just complex enough to fool us into thinking we're free-willed or something, or that we're not a machine. But we can't see the code that we're running on. The system architecture is too complex to fully comprehend.
Yet, it is still a machine. That means our consciousness is just another bubble, and if poked enough, it could pop, revealing that we are just mechanical beings, and that the real pilot is our genetic code. Not the brain.
Pop.
I love the way you word your thoughts!
This idea that consciousness doesn't exist is becoming very popular! It reminds me of the logical positivists, who swept every question they disliked under the rag by claiming "this statement is (literally) meaningless". Problem solved. Next question.
It's funny how I'm having the exact same discussion on another post. So I'll again just quote my response:
It's funny how you can be so sure that things around you (like cleverbots) exist, but consciousness? No, that's an illusion!
Anyway, any further probing into this issue will just become too long.