David Deutsch @DavidDeutschOxf in his book 'The Beginning of Infinity' writes about 4 technologies with reach. Computation, DNA, Language and Humans. But what enables 'reach'?
Deutsch argues that a technology must be digital in nature to enable reach. Indeed, computation, DNA and language are all digital. But what does it mean for humans to be digital? What does it mean for general intelligence to be digital?
What does being digital imply? Peter Diamadis describes 6D's of exponential growth. Digitized, Deceptive, Disruptive, Demonetized, Dematerialized and Democratized. This describes the process of how what is digital becomes ubiquitous.
But it's still not clear how humans have reach. Perhaps if we refactor Deutsch original categorization into pairs of code and their processing elements: (binary code, universal gates), (DNA, cells), (Language, humans). Here we see that being digital is just part of the equation.
We have here the pairs of (form, action). Biology and humans differ from computers in that they find "Meaning in the difference in form that makes a difference in action".
Computers lack self-replication, autonomy, self-repair and self-learning. They are merely tools that as a consequence of their utility become ubiquitous due to human use.
We can there argue that the characteristic of reach is linked to utility (or usefulness). If something is generally useful for an ecosystem then it is adopted and becomes ubiquitous for that ecosystem. Digitization enables utility.
Species exist and thrive because they have a utility for the biosphere. But what about humans, what utility do humans have for the biosphere?
Humans once they became capable of language made themselves useful for themselves. They broke the symmetry intrinsic of the biosphere and began creating a new world based on principles different from the existing world.
Unlike biology that generates its world through gradual and sustainable processes, humans, by contrast, create technologies tend to be incompatible with the biosphere.
Technologies that are incompatible enough to destroy the biosphere. Fossil burning engines, nuclear weaponry, plastic, graphene, etc. Things that present biology cannot reuse. Things that have no utility for the biosphere.
This kind of incompatibility also extends to computers. Despite their universality, they are able to adaptively navigate the world we live in. They are stupid things in a living reality.
To make sustainable progress and to make humans again useful for its own biosphere, it must develop technologies that are organic in nature. This includes not only our physical structures and tools but our virtual tools as well.
Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) becomes possible via the principles of biology and as a consequence is a technology that can be compatible with our world (our biosphere).
Therefore the quest for AGI is the same quest that leads to humans being a beneficial caretaker of its biosphere and not a parasite and infestation.
I, unfortunately, revealed the conclusion of the movie 'Transcendence'. It's just coincidentally weird that @elonmusk had a cameo appearance in it!
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