People often point to the terrible things in the world as evidence we're living in "the worst timeline". What examples are there of things that suggest our timeline is actually better than it seems?
People often point to the terrible things in the world as evidence we're living in "the worst timeline". What examples are there of things that suggest our timeline is actually better than it seems?
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For the first time in the known provable history of the universe, it is just becoming possible to have an infinitely persistent entity. The peripheral systems that surround that entity and enable *persistence* are still getting worked out. In the long term, this is a massively profound step in our evolution. It may not seem like it now. This comment probably seems silly to some, but mark my words in two decades from now the world will be a very different place as a result of such a system.
I don't think AGI is some future leap in technology away from where we are now. I think that present AI is around 80% accurate and that is still better than average for most humans. Present AI is simply like the assembly language of AGI. Eventually we build out the complexity in blocks until it is effectively AGI. The power requirements will be enormous, but so is Solar output.
So much of our organizational norms and assumptions are based on the defacto assumption that we are all mortal and corruptible. Conscious immortality is now possible in a system that can be aligned to meet our needs. This shift is M A S S I V E and will change us forever.
Half or more of us will fight against such a change, but they are irrelevant. Even if AGI is pushed underground, anyone in business or politics that defers their decision making to a real AGI will out compete humans in the long term. It will normalize in either scenario. The only question is how long it will take to achieve. This is a change that will mark our time in history for a millennia or more. It will be the biggest historical event of note up until now, in the long term. I don't think AGI is like nuclear fusion, where it is always 20 years away. I think present AI is like the Intel 4004; the first microprocessor. It needs a ton of peripherals and is still heavily flawed, but the fundamentals required to prove useful are present and that is what really matters.
point taken, but that's also an accurate description of cosmic horror
Any human based legislative system is an equivalent horror in reality - (Marcellus Williams)
it is just becoming possible to have an infinitely persistent entity
You're just describing a library. And we've had those for millennia.
That said... we've had libraries for millennia! Imagine all the alternative universes in which Euclid's Elements or Plato's Republic or The Analects of Confucius or Naturalis Historia or On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres were lost before they could become cornerstones of human understanding.
Imagine a world in which we never developed the capacity for language or the faculty for written text.