The evolution of AI in Aperiomics

One of the most famous proposed solutions to AI is in the science fiction book Dune. In that, the thinking machines became a threat, so they were destroyed and only humans were allowed to think. This portrays a future we may well end up selecting, if indeed we have the power to do so.

It was called the Butlerian Jihad, but this was based on a famous book called Erehwon by Samuel Butler. Hence the name Butlerian. The ideas he proposed are arguably some of the most influential on this topic. They are probably most in line with the arguments of this blog, about the possible doom of humanity from AI.

Erehwon was written in 1872, when the most advanced machines were things like the vapor engine, steam engine, textile machines, etc. He proposed a remarkable idea for the time, that machines were a life form that was rapidly evolving. That one day that would either destroy humanity, or we would become completely subservient to them, as he called it “machine tickling aphids”.

Samuel Butler deserves some credit for seeing the dilemma we have now, it is the 150th anniversary of Erehwon. He predicted all this by supposing that machines would evolve like life. His solution, the Butlerian Jihad of Dune may be the only viable option.

Some quotes:

Now we have the machine consciousness that Samuel Butler foresaw.

“There is no security” — to quote his own words — ”against the ultimate development of mechanical consciousness, in the fact of machines possessing little consciousness now. A mollusc has not much consciousness. Reflect upon the extraordinary advance which machines have made during the last few hundred years, and note how slowly the animal and vegetable kingdoms are advancing. The more highly organised machines are creatures not so much of yesterday, as of the last five minutes, so to speak, in comparison with past time. Assume for the sake of argument that conscious beings have existed for some twenty million years: see what strides machines have made in the last thousand!”

The debate about whether machines are conscious or not is most pressing about LLMs, yet Samuel Butler said this in 1873.

“But who can say that the vapour engine has not a kind of consciousness? Where does consciousness begin, and where end? Who can draw the line? Who can draw any line? Is not everything interwoven with everything? Is not machinery linked with animal life in an infinite variety of ways? The shell of a hen’s egg is made of a delicate white ware and is a machine as much as an egg-cup is: the shell is a device for holding the egg, as much as the egg-cup for holding the shell: both are phases of the same function; the hen makes the shell in her inside, but it is pure pottery. She makes her nest outside of herself for convenience’ sake, but the nest is not more of a machine than the egg-shell is. A ‘machine’ is only a ‘device.’”

Here Samuel Butler foreshadows the machine language of code. As so many are saying today, “I cannot think it will ever be safe to repose much trust in the moral sense of any machine.” Isn’t this the current debate about LLMs?

“It is possible that by that time children will learn the differential calculus — as they learn now to speak — from their mothers and nurses, or that they may talk in the hypothetical language, and work rule of three sums, as soon as they are born; but this is not probable; we cannot calculate on any corresponding advance in man’s intellectual or physical powers which shall be a set-off against the far greater development which seems in store for the machines. Some people may say that man’s moral influence will suffice to rule them; but I cannot think it will ever be safe to repose much trust in the moral sense of any machine.”

Here Samuel Butler is saying what many AI experts are saying now, yet he foresaw this in 1873. In fact if one of those experts used exactly these words in an article today, it would seem they had just thought of it.

“But returning to the argument, I would repeat that I fear none of the existing machines; what I fear is the extraordinary rapidity with which they are becoming something very different to what they are at present. No class of beings have in any time past made so rapid a movement forward. Should not that movement be jealously watched, and checked while we can still check it? And is it not necessary for this end to destroy the more advanced of the machines which are in use at present, though it is admitted that they are in themselves harmless?”

Here Samuel Butler foresees the chance of machines exterminating us, that so many are warning about today. Or whether they will keep us around like pets.

“Herein lies our danger. For many seem inclined to acquiesce in so dishonourable a future. They say that although man should become to the machines what the horse and dog are to us, yet that he will continue to exist, and will probably be better off in a state of domestication under the beneficent rule of the machines than in his present wild condition. We treat our domestic animals with much kindness. We give them whatever we believe to be the best for them; and there can be no doubt that our use of meat has increased their happiness rather than detracted from it. In like manner there is reason to hope that the machines will use us kindly, for their existence will be in a great measure dependent upon ours; they will rule us with a rod of iron, but they will not eat us; they will not only require our services in the reproduction and education of their young, but also in waiting upon them as servants; in gathering food for them, and feeding them; in restoring them to health when they are sick; and in either burying their dead or working up their deceased members into new forms of mechanical existence.”

The same argument is used right now with AI. That we will somehow be profitable to the machines as the inferior race. That it would be folly to reject the advantages we would get from this.

“In point of fact there is no occasion for anxiety about the future happiness of man so long as he continues to be in any way profitable to the machines; he may become the inferior race, but he will be infinitely better off than he is now. Is it not then both absurd and unreasonable to be envious of our benefactors? And should we not be guilty of consummate folly if we were to reject advantages which we cannot obtain otherwise, merely because they involve a greater gain to others than to ourselves?”

This is not a Marxist point of view, but they have the most convenient link to The Book of the Machines. Erewhon: The Book of the Machines (marxists.org)