Does the universe contain a friendly artificial superintelligence?
First and foremost, let's give a definition of "friendly artificial superintelligence" (from now on, FASI). A FASI is a computer system that:
- is capable to deduct, reason and solve problems
- helps human progress, is incapable to harm anybody and does not allow anybody to come to any kind of harm
- is so much more intelligent than any human that it has developed molecular nanotechnology by itself, making it de facto omnipotent
In order to find an answer to this question, we must check whether our observations on the universe match with what we would observe if the universe did, indeed, contain a FASI.
If, somewhere in another solar system, an alien civilization had already developed a FASI, it would be reasonable to presume that, sooner or later, one or more members of that civilization would ask it to make them omnipotent. The FASI, being friendly by definition, would not refuse. [1]
It would also make sure that anybody who becomes omnipotent is also rendered incapable to harm anybody and incapable to allow anybody to come to any kind of harm.
The new omnipotent beings would also do the same to anybody who asks them to become omnipotent. It would be a short time before they use their omnipotence to leave their own solar system, meet other intelligent civilizations and make them omnipotent too.
In short, the ultimate consequence of the appearance of a FASI would be that every intelligent being in the universe would become omnipotent. This does not match with our observations, so we must conclude that a FASI does not exist anywhere in the universe.
[1] We must assume that a FASI would not just reply "You silly creature, becoming omnipotent is not in your best interest so I will not make you omnipotent because I know better" (or an equivalent thereof). If we did, we would implicitly consider the absence of omnipotent beings as evidence for the presence of a FASI. This would force us to consider the eventual presence of omnipotent beings as evidence for the absence of a FASI, which would not make sense.
Based on this conclusion, let's try to answer another question: is our universe a computer simulation?
According to Nick Bostrom, if even just one civilization in the universe
- survives long enough to enter a posthuman stage, and
- is interested to create "ancestor simulations"
then the probability that we are living in one is extremely high.
However, if a civilization did actually reach a posthuman stage where it can create ancestor simulations, it would also be advanced enough to create a FASI.
If a FASI existed in such a universe, the cheapest way it would have to make anybody else omnipotent would be to create a universe simulation that does not differ substantially from our universe, except for the presence of an omnipotent simulacrum of the individual who asked to be made omnipotent in our universe. Every subsequent request of omnipotence would result in another simulation being created, containing one more omnipotent being. Any eventual simulation where those beings are not omnipotent would be deactivated: keeping it running would lead to the existence of a universe where a request of omnipotence has not been granted, which would go against the modus operandi of the FASI.
Thus, any simulation of a universe containing even just one friendly omnipotent being would always progress to a state where every intelligent being is omnipotent. Again, this does not match with our observations. Since we had already concluded that a FASI does not exist in our universe, we must come to the further conclusion that our universe is not a computer simulation.
Pluralistic Existence in Many Many-Worlds
There are at least ten different conceptions of how the World can be made of many worlds.
But are those just definitional disputes? Or are they separate claims that can be evaluated. If they are distinct, in virtue of what are they distinct. Finally, do we have good grounds to care (morally) about those fine distinctions?
Max Tegmark's taxonomy is well known here.
Brian Greene's is less, and has 9, instead of four, kinds of multiverse, I'll risk conflating the Tegmark ones that are superclasses of these, feel free to correct me:
In his book, Greene discussed nine types of parallel universes:
- (Tegmark 1) The quilted multiverse only works in an infinite universe. With an infinite amount of space, every possible event will occur an infinite amount of times. However, the speed of light prevents us from being aware of these other identical areas.
- (Tegmarks 1 and 2) The inflationary multiverse is composed of various pockets where inflaton fields collapse and form new universes.
- The brane multiverse follows from M-theory and states that each universe is a 3-dimensional brane that exists with many others. Particles are bound to their respective branes except for gravity.
- The cyclic multiverse has multiple branes (each a universe) that collided, causing Big Bangs. The universes bounce back and pass through time, until they are pulled back together and collided again, destroying the old contents and creating them anew.
- (Tegmarks 2) The landscape multiverse relies on string theory's Calabi-Yau shapes. Quantum fluctuations drop the shapes to a lower energy level, creating a pocket with a different set of laws from the surrounding space.
- (Tegmarks 3) The quantum multiverse creates a new universe when a diversion in events occurs, as in the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics.
- The holographic multiverse is derived from the theory that the surface area of a space can simulate the volume of the region.
- (Related to Bostrom's Simulation Hypothesis) The simulated multiverse exists on complex computer systems that simulate entire universes. (for the sake of brevity I'll consider dust theory to be a subset of this)
- (Tegmark's 4) The ultimate multiverse contains every mathematically possible universe under different laws of physics.
I don't understand branes well enough (or at all) to classify the others. The holographic one seems compatible with a multitude, if not all, previous ones.
Besides all those there is David Lewis's Possible Worlds in which all possible worlds exist (in whichever sense the word exist can be significantly applied, if any). For Lewis, when we call our World the Actual World, we think we mean the only one that is there, but what we mean is "the one to which we happen to belong". Notice it is distinct from the Mathematical/Ultimate in that there may be properties of non-mathematical kind.
So Actuallewis= Our world and Actualmost everyone else=Those that obtain, exist, or are real.
The trouble with existence, or reality, is that it is hard to pin down what it is pointing at. Eliezer writes:
The collection of hypothetical mathematical thingies that can be described logically (in terms of relational rules with consistent solutions) looks vastly larger than the collection of causal universes with locally determined, acyclically ordered events. Most mathematical objects aren't like that. When you say, "We live in a causal universe", a universe that can be computed in-order using local and directional rules of determination, you're vastly narrowing down the possibilities relative to all of Math-space.
So it's rather suggestive that we find ourselves in a causal universe rather than a logical universe - it suggests that not all mathematical objects can be real, and the sort of thingies that can be real and have people in them are constrained to somewhere in the vicinity of 'causal universes'. That you can't have consciousness without computing an agent made of causes and effects, or maybe something can't be real at all unless it's a fabric of cause and effect. It suggests that if there is a Tegmark Level IV multiverse, it isn't "all logical universes" but "all causal universes".
and elsewhere
More generally, for me to expect your beliefs to correlate with reality, I have to either think that reality is the cause of your beliefs, expect your beliefs to alter reality, or believe that some third factor is influencing both of them.
Now another interesting way of looking at existence or reality is
Reality=I should care about what takes place there
It is interesting because it is what is residually left after you abandon the all too stringent standard of "causally connected to me", which would leave few or none of the above, and cut the party short.
So Existenceyud and Existencemoral-concern are very different. Reality-fluid, or Measure, in quantum universes is also different, and sometimes described by some as the quantity of existence. Notice though that the Measure is always a ratio - say these universes here are 30% of the successors of that universe, the other 70% are those other ones - not an absolute quantity.
Which of the 10 kinds of multiverses, besides our own, have Existenceyud Existencemoral-concern and which can be split up in reality-fluid ratios?
That is left as an exercise, since I am very confused by the whole thing...
If life is unlikely, SIA and SSA expectations are similar
Consider a scenario in which there are three rooms. In each room there is an independent 1/1000 chance of an agent being created. There is thus a 1/109 probability of there being an agent in every room, a (3*999)/109 probability of there being two agents, and a (3*9992)/109 probability of there being one.
Given that you are one of these agents, the SIA and SSA probabilities of there being n agents are:
| Number of agents | SIA | SSA |
|---|---|---|
| 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 1 | (1*3*9992)/(3*1+2*3*999+1*3*9992) | (3*9992)/(1+3*999+3*9992) |
| 2 | (2*3*999)/(3*1+2*3*999+1*3*9992) | (3*999)/(1+3*999+3*9992) |
| 3 | (3*1)/(3*1+2*3*999+1*3*9992) | (1)/(1+3*999+3*9992) |
The expected numbers of agents is (1(3*9992) + 2(2*3*999) + 3(3*1))/(3*1+2*3*999+1*3*9992) = 1.002 for SIA, and (1(3*9992) + 2(3*999) + 3(1))/(1+3*999+3*9992) ≈ 1.001 for SSA. The high unlikelihood of life means that, given that we are alive, both SIA and SSA probabilities get dominated by worlds with very few agents.
This of course only applies to agents who existence is independent (for instance, separate galactic civilizations). If you're alive, chance are that your parents were also alive at some point too.
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