Well yes, I do think that trees and bacteria exhibit this phenomenon of starting out small and growing in impact. The scope of their impact is limited in our universe by the spatial separation between planets, and by the presence of even more powerful world-reshapers in their vicinity, such as humans. But on this view of “which entities are reshaping the whole cosmos around here?”, I don’t think there is a fundamental difference in kind between trees, bacteria, humans, and hypothetical future AIs. I do think there is a fundamental difference in kind between those entities and rocks, armchairs, microwave ovens, the Opportunity mars rovers, and current Waymo autonomous cars, since these objects just don’t have this property of starting out small and eventually reshaping the matter and energy in large regions.
(Surely it’s not that it’s difficult to build an AI inside Life because of the randomness of the starting conditions—it’s difficult to build an AI inside Life because writing full-AGI software is a difficult design problem, right?)
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.
Well yes, I do think that trees and bacteria exhibit this phenomenon of starting out small and growing in impact. The scope of their impact is limited in our universe by the spatial separation between planets, and by the presence of even more powerful world-reshapers in their vicinity, such as humans. But on this view of “which entities are reshaping the whole cosmos around here?”, I don’t think there is a fundamental difference in kind between trees, bacteria, humans, and hypothetical future AIs. I do think there is a fundamental difference in kind between those entities and rocks, armchairs, microwave ovens, the Opportunity mars rovers, and current Waymo autonomous cars, since these objects just don’t have this property of starting out small and eventually reshaping the matter and energy in large regions.
(Surely it’s not that it’s difficult to build an AI inside Life because of the randomness of the starting conditions—it’s difficult to build an AI inside Life because writing full-AGI software is a difficult design problem, right?)
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.