[ExI] Top AI Researchers Meet to Discuss What Comes After Humanity

[Stuart LaForge]

On 2025-06-16 15:48, BillK via extropy-chat wrote:

> <https://www.wired.com/story/ai-risk-party-san-francisco/>
> Quote:
> At a mansion overlooking the Golden Gate Bridge, a group of AI
> insiders met to debate one unsettling question: If humanity ends, what
> comes next?
> -----------------------
> 
> (I don't think they reached any conclusions, but I expect the
> cocktails and nibbles were nice!)  ;)

Well, we could do the same, minus the nibbles. I will start with the 
definition of humanity. Dictionary says there are two: 1. the human 
race; human beings collectively. 2. humaneness; benevolence. Starting 
with the first definition of humanity, one would have to ask what 
constitutes the end of the human race? Is it the complete extinction of 
the species homo sapiens? Is it the end of our modern civilization? 
Generally speaking conservation biologists follow what is called the 
50/500 rule for the minimum breeding population of a species. The 
meaning is that for short-term survival, 50 breeding individuals is all 
you need, while for long-term species survival and undiminished 
evolutionary potential you need at least 500 breeding individuals. There 
are approximately 8.2 billion humans on Earth currently and despite 
being but a single species, we comprise 2.5% of all the animal life on 
earth by biomass. The only two animal species that outweigh our biomass 
are our domestic cattle and Antarctic krill.

The reason I bring this up is that, short of truly global or cosmic 
catastrophes such as world-killing asteroids, super-volcanoes, and such, 
it would be difficult to imagine something that could reduce our 
population of 8.2 billion to less than 500. Even the worst plagues 
imaginable would likely not kill more than a third of humanity. The 
closest we have ever come to extinction so far was when our human 
ancestors went through a severe population bottleneck going from over 
100,000 extant individuals to 1280 breeding individuals between around 
930,000 and 813,000 years ago. The bottleneck lasted was for about 
117,000 years and was associated with severe climatic change. It is 
considered by some to be a speciation event where a small proportion of 
humanity became a better stronger species able to survive and overcome 
the never ending winter of the Ice Age.

If 1280 primitive humans out of 100,000 could survive a bottleneck 
caused by climate change, then I think it is quite likely that at least 
500 modern humans would survive any conceivable bottleneck caused by AI, 
although it too could lead to speciation event. I think that an 
AI-related bottleneck could give rise to full-fledged transhumans such 
as transgenic humans and cyborgs. If the technology can ever be 
demonstrated in principle, then uploads could also happen which could be 
called post-humanity proper. But a situation like this would not be the 
end of humanity, only a transformation or metamorphosis of it. 
Furthermore, it would likely be a gradual thing, with transhuman 
subspecies diversifying and adapting to peculiar specialized niches in a 
largely automated economic infrastructure. Some of us might be pets kept 
alive for our ascetic virtues while others of us might like racoons 
digging through AI's trash. Still others might maneuver themselves into 
having some kind of political leverage over AI for unfathomable reasons.

I don't doubt that humanity will go through the crucible, but I have 
faith that it will emerge on the other side better for it.

Stuart LaForge