Life 3.0: Being Human in the Age of Artificial Intelligence

eroded state power, and democratizing the world

Robin Hanson calls a “Great Filter,” an evolutionary/technological roadblock somewhere along the developmental path from the non-living matter to space-settling life. If

Yuri Milner’s $100 million project “Breakthrough Listen.”

services. Crime is practically eliminated, because the dictator AI is essentially omniscient and efficiently punishes anyone disobeying the rules. Everybody wears the security bracelet from the last chapter (or a more convenient implanted version), capable of real-time surveillance, punishment, sedation and execution. Everybody knows that they live in an AI dictatorship with extreme surveillance and policing, but most people view this as a good thing

If humans fail to control an intelligence explosion, the AI itself may take over the world even faster.

AI Aftermath ScenariosLibertarian utopia
Humans, cyborgs, uploads and superintelligences coexist peacefully thanks to property rights.
Benevolent dictator
Everybody knows that the AI runs society and enforces strict rules, but most people view this as a good thing.
Egalitarian utopia
Humans, cyborgs and uploads coexist peacefully thanks to property abolition and guaranteed income.
Gatekeeper
A superintelligent AI is created with the goal of interfering as little as necessary to prevent the creation of another superintelligence. As a result, helper robots with slightly subhuman intelligence abound, and human-machine cyborgs exist, but technological progress is forever stymied.
Protector god
Essentially omniscient and omnipotent AI maximizes human happiness by intervening only in ways that preserve our feeling of control of our own destiny and hides well enough that many humans even doubt the AI’s existence.
Enslaved god
A superintelligent AI is confined by humans, who use it to produce unimaginable technology and wealth that can be used for good or bad depending on the human controllers.
Conquerors
AI takes control, decides that humans are a threat/nuisance/waste of resources, and gets rid of us by a method that we don’t even understand.
Descendants
AIs replace humans, but give us a graceful exit, making us view them as our worthy descendants, much as parents feel happy and proud to have a child who’s smarter than them, who learns from them and then accomplishes what they could only dream of—even if they can’t live to see it all.
Zookeeper
An omnipotent AI keeps some humans around, who feel treated like zoo animals and lament their fate.
1984
Technological progress toward superintelligence is permanently curtailed not by an AI but by a human-led Orwellian surveillance state where certain kinds of AI research are banned.
Reversion
Technological progress toward superintelligence is prevented by reverting to a pre-technological society in the style of the Amish.
Self-destruction
Superintelligence is never created because humanity drives itself extinct by other means (say nuclear and/or biotech mayhem fueled by climate crisis)

The biggest problem with strenuous exercise is that it’s no fun. It hurts.[…] Athletes are OK with the pain, but most normal people have no desire to be in pain for an hour or more. So…someone figured out a solution. What you do is disconnect your brain from sensory input and watch a movie or talk to people or handle mail or read a book or whatever for an hour. During that time, the Vertebrane system exercises your body for you. It takes your body through a complete aerobic workout that’s a lot more strenuous than most people would tolerate on their own. You don’t feel a thing, but your body stays in great shape

about half of the AI experts at our Puerto Rico conference guessed that it would happen by 2055. At a follow-up conference we organized two years later, this had dropped to 2047

The average rate of progress clearly increases if more optimization power is brought to bear on the task and decreases if more recalcitrance is encountered

For any process whose power grows at a rate proportional to its current power, the result is that its power keeps doubling at regular intervals. We call such growth exponential, and we call such processes explosions