[ExI] Mono or Poly?

[Rafal Smigrodzki]

On Thu, Feb 27, 2025 at 1:17 PM Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat <
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:

>
> Even AI-directed improvements would still evolve.
>

### As I explained before, a singleton world-spanning AI that had no
competing AIs would not evolve because it would not be subject to natural
selection. It could decide to change itself but this change would not be
evolution. The leopard species evolving leopard spots is evolution, me
getting a leopard tattoo would be self-modification (not that I would ever
get a leopard tattoo).
 ----------------------------------------

>
> The poly vs. mono choice is a choice between the status quo of competitive
>> evolution and a new, unprecedented organization of matter.
>>
>
> A choice implies that someone is choosing.  Who gets to make that
> decision?  Mono inherently implies that only one person or group (or AI)
> makes that choice based on everyone, but how would they enforce that on the
> vast majority of humanity who has never heard of them or know that there is
> this choice to be made?  Not "how do they conquer the world", but "how do
> they become relevant to most of the world".
>

### Conquering the world makes you very relevant to the whole world. We
discussed on this list many times over the years how the AI that achieves
intelligence explosion could go about enforcing its will on us, this
doesn't need to be belabored in detail again.
 ----------------------------------------------

>
>
>> Every detail of our biochemistry, physiology and psychology is built of
>> accidents of history
>>
>
> Irrelevant.
>

### No, it's quite relevant for understanding the difference between the
evolved and the designed. Evolution is near-sighted and therefore
conservative, builds layers and layers on frozen accidents of history.
Evolution cannot do a clean-sheet design to jump to a distant fitness
maximum in the configuration space, it has to iterate on previous designs
which constrains its access to distant fitness maximums.
 ---------------------------------------------

>
>
>> The next few years on Earth may be pivotal to the organization of matter
>> in this galaxy.
>>
>
> That's what was said a few years ago.  And a few years before that.  Yet
> we're still here and making significant decisions.  Why is now any
> different than those past claims?  What will preclude us from - in, say, 5
> or 10 years or whatever finite time horizon you care to consider - making
> decisions that are just as significant as the ones we make today?
>

### We are ever closer to the intelligence explosion and the signs of its
approach are ever more obvious, that's what's different. In the 1990s when
I joined the list we were guessing and hand-waving, now the guesses are
much better informed.

The AI soon in charge of this planet will decide what kind of decisions we
get to make, if any.
------------------------------------


>
>
>> The time of cosmic significance is upon us.
>>
>
> No, the time of now is upon us.  This has always been the case, and
> confusing the immediate significance of now for a significance that will
> still matter tomorrow underlies many such proclamations.  Why is today more
> relevant to us, than last year was to us while we were experiencing last
> year?  Why is today more relevant to us, than next year will be to us while
> we are experiencing next year?
>

### The day you come to a fork in the road is more significant than a
hundred days you spent just cruising, don't you think?

-- 
Rafal Smigrodzki, MD-PhD
Schuyler Biotech PLLC
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