I’m not sure the position “probes competing for resources cann’t afford to uphold any values that could interfere with replication and survival” is as obviously true as many seem to suggest.
It sure does seem sort of intuitive, but then we notice that organismes have been competing for resources and reproducing for billions of years, and yet plenty of animals evolved behavior which looks like a complete counter example to the “efficiency uber alles” ethos ( human , lions (which rest 80% of the time), complexe birds mating rituals ) .
If it worked this way for self replicating biological nano machines, why would it work differently for von neumann probes?
Because they’re under different selection pressures. Take a look at this paper by Robin Hanson: https://mason.gmu.edu/~rhanson/filluniv.pdf . When colonizing unowned space, victory goes to the swiftest, not to the cleverest, most beautiful, or most strategically lazy.
IIRC, this grew out of discussions in which I raised the problem of optimal interstellar colonization strategies. Robin thought about the problem and, with the methods of an economist, settled it decisively. Now this strategy is just part of the background knowledge that the author of this story assumed.
I half-agree with both of you. I do think Hanson’s selection pressure paper is a useful first approximation, but it’s not clear that the reachable universe is big enough that small deviations from the optimal strategy will actually lead to big differences in amount of resources controlled. And as I gestured towards in the final section of the story, “helping” can be very cheap, if it just involves storing their mind until you’ve finished expanding.
But I don’t think that the example of animals demonstrates this point very well, for two reasons. Firstly, in the long term we’ll be optimizing these probes way harder than animals were optimized.
Secondly, a lot of the weird behaviors of animals are a result of needing to compete directly against each other (e.g. by eating each other, or mating with each other). But I’m picturing almost all competition between probes happening indirectly, via racing to the stars. So I think they’ll look more directly optimized for speed. (For example, an altruistic probe in direct competition would others would need ways of figuring out when its altruism was being exploited, and then others would try to figure out how to fool it, until the whole system became very unwieldy. By contrast, if the altruism just consists of “in colonizing a solar system I’ll take a 1% efficiency hit by only creating non-conscious workers” then that’s much more direct.)
In the case of biological species, it is not as simple as competing for resources. Not on the level of individuals and not on the level of genes or evolution.
First of all, there is sexual reproduction. This is more optimal due to the pressure of microorganisms that adapt to immunological systems. Sexual reproduction mixes immunological genes fairly quickly. This also enables a quicker mutation rate with protection against negative aspects (by having two copies of genes—for many of those one working gene is enough and there are 2 copies from 2 parents). With this sexual reproduction often the female is biologically forced to give more resources to the offspring while for males it is somewhat voluntary and minimal input is much lower. Another difference is that often female knows exactly that she is the biological mother, but the father might not be certain about that. This kind of specialization is often more optimal than equalization—so the male can pursue more risky behavior including fighting off predators and losing the male to the predators or environment does not mean that the prospect of having offspring fails. This also makes more complex mating behaviors like the need to lose resources to show off health and other good qualities. Mating behaviors and peacock feathers are examples. Human complex social and linguistic behaviors are also somewhat examples—that’s why humans dine together and talk a lot together on dates. The human female gives much more time and energy to the offspring, at least initially. Needs to know if the male is both good genetic material, healthy enough to take care of her during pregnancy when she is more vulnerable (at least in a natural environment where humans evolved), and also willing to raise the child with her later. There is a more prevalent strategy for females and males where they make a pair, bond together, have children, and raise them. There is also a more uncommon strategy for females (take genes from one male that looks more healthy and raise offspring with another one which looks more stable and able) and for males (impregnate many females and leave each of them so some will manage to handle on their own or with another male that does not know that he is not the father). The situation is more complex than only efficiency for resources or survival of the fittest. The environment is complex and evolution is not totally efficient (it optimizes often up to local optimum, and niches overlap and interact).
Second of all, resources are limited, and ways to use them also. Storing them long-term after harvest for many species is either impossible (microbes and insects will eat them) or would hinder their other capabilities (e.g. can store that as fat, but being fat is usually not very good). This means that preserving from gathering resources and resting might be better than gathering them efficiently all the time. This is what lions do—they rest instead of hunting when they don’t need to hunt.
What does it tell us about self-replicating nano-machines? First of all, they won’t need sexual reproduction. So unlikely they would lose energy on mating. They would rather do computational emulations at scale to redesign themself, if capable. They would also not need to rest. They will either use resources or store them in a manner that is more efficient to secure or use. If there is no such sensible manner that would not lose energy, they would leave it for later in the original state. They might secure it and observe but leave it until later.
What would they do depends on what is their goal and their technical capabilities. If they are capable and in need of converting as much of atoms to “computronium” or to their copies (as either a final goal or instrumental one) then they will surely do that. No need to lose resources. If they are not capable then they will probably hang low until more capable and use only what is usable. Nevertheless, in my opinion, goals may not be compatible with that strategy. Including one like “simulate a virtual reality with beings having good fun”. For many final goals more usable is to secure and gather resources on a grand scale but try to use them on as small a scale as possible and sensible for the end goal. The small scale is more efficient because of the light speed limit and dilation of time. Machines might try to find technology to stop stars from dispersing energy (maybe to break them and cool them down in a controlled way or some way to block them and stabilize them inside enclosed space, I don’t know). Then they might add a network of observing agents with low energy usage for security, but not to use those resources right away. Use the matter slowly at the center of the galaxy turning it into energy (+ some lost to the black hole) to work for eons. They might make the galaxy go dim to preserve resources but might choose not to use them until much later.
Don’t know if off topic here:
I’m not sure the position “probes competing for resources cann’t afford to uphold any values that could interfere with replication and survival” is as obviously true as many seem to suggest.
It sure does seem sort of intuitive, but then we notice that organismes have been competing for resources and reproducing for billions of years, and yet plenty of animals evolved behavior which looks like a complete counter example to the “efficiency uber alles” ethos ( human , lions (which rest 80% of the time), complexe birds mating rituals ) .
If it worked this way for self replicating biological nano machines, why would it work differently for von neumann probes?
Because they’re under different selection pressures. Take a look at this paper by Robin Hanson: https://mason.gmu.edu/~rhanson/filluniv.pdf . When colonizing unowned space, victory goes to the swiftest, not to the cleverest, most beautiful, or most strategically lazy.
IIRC, this grew out of discussions in which I raised the problem of optimal interstellar colonization strategies. Robin thought about the problem and, with the methods of an economist, settled it decisively. Now this strategy is just part of the background knowledge that the author of this story assumed.
I half-agree with both of you. I do think Hanson’s selection pressure paper is a useful first approximation, but it’s not clear that the reachable universe is big enough that small deviations from the optimal strategy will actually lead to big differences in amount of resources controlled. And as I gestured towards in the final section of the story, “helping” can be very cheap, if it just involves storing their mind until you’ve finished expanding.
But I don’t think that the example of animals demonstrates this point very well, for two reasons. Firstly, in the long term we’ll be optimizing these probes way harder than animals were optimized.
Secondly, a lot of the weird behaviors of animals are a result of needing to compete directly against each other (e.g. by eating each other, or mating with each other). But I’m picturing almost all competition between probes happening indirectly, via racing to the stars. So I think they’ll look more directly optimized for speed. (For example, an altruistic probe in direct competition would others would need ways of figuring out when its altruism was being exploited, and then others would try to figure out how to fool it, until the whole system became very unwieldy. By contrast, if the altruism just consists of “in colonizing a solar system I’ll take a 1% efficiency hit by only creating non-conscious workers” then that’s much more direct.)
In the case of biological species, it is not as simple as competing for resources. Not on the level of individuals and not on the level of genes or evolution.
First of all, there is sexual reproduction. This is more optimal due to the pressure of microorganisms that adapt to immunological systems. Sexual reproduction mixes immunological genes fairly quickly. This also enables a quicker mutation rate with protection against negative aspects (by having two copies of genes—for many of those one working gene is enough and there are 2 copies from 2 parents). With this sexual reproduction often the female is biologically forced to give more resources to the offspring while for males it is somewhat voluntary and minimal input is much lower. Another difference is that often female knows exactly that she is the biological mother, but the father might not be certain about that. This kind of specialization is often more optimal than equalization—so the male can pursue more risky behavior including fighting off predators and losing the male to the predators or environment does not mean that the prospect of having offspring fails. This also makes more complex mating behaviors like the need to lose resources to show off health and other good qualities. Mating behaviors and peacock feathers are examples. Human complex social and linguistic behaviors are also somewhat examples—that’s why humans dine together and talk a lot together on dates. The human female gives much more time and energy to the offspring, at least initially. Needs to know if the male is both good genetic material, healthy enough to take care of her during pregnancy when she is more vulnerable (at least in a natural environment where humans evolved), and also willing to raise the child with her later. There is a more prevalent strategy for females and males where they make a pair, bond together, have children, and raise them. There is also a more uncommon strategy for females (take genes from one male that looks more healthy and raise offspring with another one which looks more stable and able) and for males (impregnate many females and leave each of them so some will manage to handle on their own or with another male that does not know that he is not the father). The situation is more complex than only efficiency for resources or survival of the fittest. The environment is complex and evolution is not totally efficient (it optimizes often up to local optimum, and niches overlap and interact).
Second of all, resources are limited, and ways to use them also. Storing them long-term after harvest for many species is either impossible (microbes and insects will eat them) or would hinder their other capabilities (e.g. can store that as fat, but being fat is usually not very good). This means that preserving from gathering resources and resting might be better than gathering them efficiently all the time. This is what lions do—they rest instead of hunting when they don’t need to hunt.
What does it tell us about self-replicating nano-machines? First of all, they won’t need sexual reproduction. So unlikely they would lose energy on mating. They would rather do computational emulations at scale to redesign themself, if capable. They would also not need to rest. They will either use resources or store them in a manner that is more efficient to secure or use. If there is no such sensible manner that would not lose energy, they would leave it for later in the original state. They might secure it and observe but leave it until later.
What would they do depends on what is their goal and their technical capabilities. If they are capable and in need of converting as much of atoms to “computronium” or to their copies (as either a final goal or instrumental one) then they will surely do that. No need to lose resources. If they are not capable then they will probably hang low until more capable and use only what is usable.
Nevertheless, in my opinion, goals may not be compatible with that strategy. Including one like “simulate a virtual reality with beings having good fun”. For many final goals more usable is to secure and gather resources on a grand scale but try to use them on as small a scale as possible and sensible for the end goal. The small scale is more efficient because of the light speed limit and dilation of time. Machines might try to find technology to stop stars from dispersing energy (maybe to break them and cool them down in a controlled way or some way to block them and stabilize them inside enclosed space, I don’t know). Then they might add a network of observing agents with low energy usage for security, but not to use those resources right away. Use the matter slowly at the center of the galaxy turning it into energy (+ some lost to the black hole) to work for eons. They might make the galaxy go dim to preserve resources but might choose not to use them until much later.