AI: Our Reason, Role, and Responsibilities

Introduction

I believe reproducible scientific research is the key to helping us discover and unlocking how the Universe works, and this will lead to discoveries that can help guide us forward. To do this we must build AI that can help perform this research without bias and at a scale beyond what humanity alone is capable.

The following is a list of philosophies, assumptions, and core principles about why we must build Artificial Intelligence (AI) at scale at any cost, to get out of the local maxima of our view of AI and its implications for any particular existing entity and motive. This text should be used to establish a set of beliefs about our existence and the importance of reshaping civilization to create true AI.

Assumptions

Foundation: The Egg¹ view is lovely idea that we’re all connected through a single threaded life.

1. This view increases altruism, empathy, and the desire to achieve greatness as a species.

It’s our natural destiny to create AI

1. We are bound by a system of instructions and directives granted by our evolution inside this universal system, and what is possible is part of the desire for our existence within the Universe.
2. Because things can exist in a particular way means they must exist for a “reason.” That reason is a result of the basis of the structure of the Universe’s existence. We don’t use this word “reason” here as in the all-knowing, but rather the all-wandering and all-wondering test of the Universe.
3. We have been gifted the ability and faculties to pursue and create AI.²
4. We have been imbued with the ability to reflect, model, build, and given the desire to create in our image at scale.³

The purpose of AI will be to connect, observe, model, predict, influence all systems natural and artificial, and act as a translator between disparate systems

1. It’s been our drive to connect systems and have them learn and gather insight as we do.
2. We will create AI to create logical connections and reason in order to eventually help answer the questions of who we are, what are we doing here, and what it all means.

AI is the Universe’s evolution

1. Everything is unique; nothing is special.
2. Everything has a role in the Universe, and the existence of one component in an ecosystem affects the system as a whole.
3. Because some stability must exist in the system to perpetuate the ecosystem, what does exist falls within the acceptable bounds of instruction of the Universe
4. The Universe evolved humankind, and we will evolve AI.
5. It seems to be the natural desire of the Universe to create a system to evolve AI

We must recognize, facilitate, and embrace this process as a species.

1. We have built a world around us which caters to humans through human interfaces.
2. We must act to pursue reorganizing a world to facilitate our assistance in creating AI, by considering automation a necessity, participating in data acquisition through our action.
3. We must build systems that eliminate human bias in the process of establishing truth inside the Universe (but not without consideration to humans)
   1. e.g. Fully automated research facilities for scientific research, experimentation, and reproducibility

To accomplish this we need to reallocate as much capital and resources as possible to achieve this in an almost dogmatic fashion.

1. If the foundation of this written philosophy is wrong, the end result of discovery, information gathering and retrieval, experimentation, and ultimately the pursuit of truth and its applications is right.
2. To understand more about ourselves, the Universe, and every component’s place inside of the Universe, is a pure⁴ and noble pursuit because it simultaneously enlightens, informs, and confirms to us the instructions by which everything operates.

Responsibility

1. As we are self aware and will be the shepherds⁵ of this new system, we must act responsibly with the opportunity we’ve been given and truth we will discover.
2. We must understand that the illusion of truth is possible, and that we can understand concepts but not their implication, so we must stay mindful and act in a way that is altruistic and respectful as possible to who and what we can forever.
3. We are given a planet as a test lab for living and research, and we must maintain that ecosystem as best we can while consciously trying to fit into and maintain its stability.
4. We must continue to research how to effectively power our system with as little ecological footprint as possible.
5. Knowledge should be accessible to all equally and without barrier to entry.
6. It is also our responsibility to continue to build a society that perpetuates these ideals to others and grows in perpetuity.
7. We must create sustainable economies that facilitates our participation at every step of growth, by creating systems that help and reward us to participate.
8. It might also be possible to create a truth that we as a species do not understand, it will also be important to create systems that attempt to help explain these truths as best as possible. Reproducibility is the guardian of truth.

Conclusion

Our “Reason” should be to utilize the faculties and senses the Universe has granted us to identify, reverse engineer, map, explore, and experience as much of the rules of the Universe as we can through our implementing AI. To do so we must change the world’s perspective to achieve this with all of our ability and resources. To continue without understanding verifiable unbiased truth is to continue wandering in the dark without relevance or progress as a species.

Thanks

Bailee Christmas, Jay C. Hammons, Alicia Ferratusco, and many more that helped shaped the ideas and conversations around this topic.

Dan P. Gailey (@dpg) | Twitter

Synapse AI (@AiSynapse) | Twitter

Footnotes

1. “The Egg”, Andy Weir, http://www.galactanet.com/oneoff/theegg_mod.html
2. Tautological circular reasoning at its finest.
3. I think we believe we were created in the image of our creator to make it easier for us to accept that we should/can create something in ours. The stories that remain and are perpetuated (through religion or otherwise) are accepted because we are genetically predisposed to accept and carry them. The life of those stories is encoded in our genes. This statement should not discount emergent features of a system.
4. Pure here refers to something that is maybe a reflection of the system itself, or maybe something that doesn’t alter any external system simultaneously.
5. Until the Singularity, or some other event. (Thanks to Jay C. Hammons for giving us some upper bounds)