There seems to be a growing interest today regarding my two favourite topics of late, artificial intelligence and simulation theory.
My mind is constantly wandering through the possibilities of these subjects and the possibility of a marriage between the two in some hideous reality. When we discuss AI and simulation theory are we actually discussing the future of science and science fiction or could this be ancient science and science fact?
Are we the Artificial Intelligence?
As humans we have tenaciously clung onto creation myths for millennia in simple attempts to understand our place in the universe. We’ve used religion as a means of comfort, a security mechanism to pacify our simian brains into feeling we have a purpose. We longed for a watchful patriarch from above, the ultimate alpha chimp who would reside over us and never leave and hand over a book of ultimate answers and laws. This game of existence justification has been played out over and over in countless iterations throughout different religions and ideologies.
I could never sign off my own existence to the falsities of any religion but then I can’t leave that gaping void in my databank of answers as to who made the parents of my parents’ parents and so on and so on.
As a technological enriched species it is plausible to assume a technological process has played a hand in our creation. I use the term ‘assume’ deliberately as this is what we humans do, we create theories based only on what we can conceive which is what I’m doing now in order to keep the topic in the realms of plausibility. If indeed we are the creation of a technological process then let us not restrict that to a system of production where wires, chips and circuit boards are the building blocks of life.
The human species could be a sentient biomechanical robotic, created by a long gone civilization with incomprehensible mechanisms of creation. If this were correct then we would actually be the first generation of Artificial intelligence, or maybe not? The hypothetical race that crafted us could also have been created by a then superior race.
Could we, the human race actually be artificial intelligence version 3.0 or even 8.0, who knows? This is how creation myths are instantiated, through the frustration of our lack of knowledge leading to the utter speculation of our origins.
Artificial Intelligence inside a simulation.
We’ve all heard about simulation theory, right? As humans we create ever more complex computer simulations, modeling everything from scientific outcomes to simple human behavior in computer games. With ever more complex technology it is foreseeable that within these future simulations and games we will be able to create worlds where the AI characters will have and no concept of the simulation they reside in, to them their environment will be as real as ours is to us.
Technology willing, if we leave future simulations to run themselves for millennia then would its inhabitants create other simulations within their own simulation? Creating other worlds and other forms of artificial intelligence possibly several levels down?
So to sum this up, are we an artificial intelligence within a simulation inside a simulation created by artificial intelligence that doesn’t actually know it’s within a simulation itself?
I just hope nobody hits the power button on the creator’s laptop or it’s goodnight!