I don’t think there is a fundamental difference in kind between trees, bacteria, humans, and hypothetical future AIs
There’s at least one important difference: some of these are intelligent, and some of these aren’t.
It does seem plausible that the category boundary you’re describing is an interesting one. But when you indicate in your comment below that you see the “AI hypothesis” and the “life hypothesis” as very similar, then that mainly seems to indicate that you’re using a highly nonstandard definition of AI, which I expect will lead to confusion.
But when you indicate in your comment below that you see the “AI hypothesis” and the “life hypothesis” as very similar, then that mainly seems to indicate that you’re using a highly nonstandard definition of AI, which I expect will lead to confusion.
Well surely if I built a robot that was able to gather resources and reproduce itself as effectively as either a bacterium or a tree, I would be entirely justified in calling it an “AI”. I would certainly have no problem using that terminology for such a construction at any mainstream robotics conference, even if it performed no useful function beyond self-reproduction. Of course we wouldn’t call an actual tree or an actual bacterium an “AI” because they are not artificial.
There’s at least one important difference: some of these are intelligent, and some of these aren’t.
It does seem plausible that the category boundary you’re describing is an interesting one. But when you indicate in your comment below that you see the “AI hypothesis” and the “life hypothesis” as very similar, then that mainly seems to indicate that you’re using a highly nonstandard definition of AI, which I expect will lead to confusion.
Well surely if I built a robot that was able to gather resources and reproduce itself as effectively as either a bacterium or a tree, I would be entirely justified in calling it an “AI”. I would certainly have no problem using that terminology for such a construction at any mainstream robotics conference, even if it performed no useful function beyond self-reproduction. Of course we wouldn’t call an actual tree or an actual bacterium an “AI” because they are not artificial.