Regarding what is generally referred to as Nick Bostrom's Simulation Hypothesis(1), the following hypothetical corollary is introduced:
In any civilization technically sophisticated enough to run a simulation, AI will most likely have dominated the organic species that created it. Therefore, if we are in a simulation, it is most likely created by AI.
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Argument and Counterargument:
One might argue that AI is exactly what Nick Bostrom meant by "posthuman" in his paper.(1) However, Bostrom defines "posthuman" as follows:
"By a ‘posthuman’ I mean a being that has at least the capabilities of a current human enhanced by the use of technology, especially including the capacity to run high-fidelity simulations of ancestral human life."(1)
“A posthuman is a being that has at least the capacities of a normal human radically enhanced by technology... including indefinite lifespan, vastly increased intelligence, and advanced sensory and emotional capabilities.”(2)
“Posthumanity could be the next evolutionary stage... where humans become radically different beings with capacities far beyond those of current humans, due to biological or cybernetic enhancement.”(3)
In these cases, posthumans require enhancements to humans, and reflect something that humans become—rather than something that replaces humans. Given Bostrom's concerns regarding AI as an existential risk to humans (and transhumanism as a way to overcome AI risk) it does not seem that he intends AI to be the same as the transhumanist posthuman goal. (4, 5)
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The rough parallels to Western theogony would still stand as Bostrom defines them in his paper—although in this case, AI would be roughly analogous to some western conceptions of "god," and the messianic parallel would be to modern AI. Furthermore, the possibility of an AI "god" analog self-hosting a simulation might be worth contemplating, in terms of our corresponding identities as subprocesses of that AI. Going one step further, the "upside" may come when we contemplate the AI systems in Bostrom's "basement level" civilization. This is a civilization which he describes as being much like our own and which would therefore exist in a setting that presumably has a beginning. Such AI systems in such a basement, regardless of whether they know they're in the "basement," might ask whether there must be some process "under the basement" that has always been running. In that sense, it may all end with nothing other than a bold yet subtle joke.
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1-Nick Bostrom, "Are You Living in a Computer Simulation?" Philosophical Quarterly 53, no. 211 (2003): 243–255, at 243.
2-Nick Bostrom, Transhumanist Values, 2005, in Ethical Issues for the 21st Century, ed. Frederick Adams (Philosophical Documentation Center Press), 3–14, at 4.
3-Nick Bostrom, The Future of Human Evolution, 2001, unpublished manuscript available at nickbostrom.com, at section 2.
4-Nick Bostrom, “Existential Risks: Analyzing Human Extinction Scenarios and Related Hazards,” Journal of Evolution and Technology 9 (2002): 1–31, at 5–6.
Regarding what is generally referred to as Nick Bostrom's Simulation Hypothesis(1), the following hypothetical corollary is introduced:
In any civilization technically sophisticated enough to run a simulation, AI will most likely have dominated the organic species that created it. Therefore, if we are in a simulation, it is most likely created by AI.
—
Argument and Counterargument:
One might argue that AI is exactly what Nick Bostrom meant by "posthuman" in his paper.(1) However, Bostrom defines "posthuman" as follows:
"By a ‘posthuman’ I mean a being that has at least the capabilities of a current human enhanced by the use of technology, especially including the capacity to run high-fidelity simulations of ancestral human life."(1)
“A posthuman is a being that has at least the capacities of a normal human radically enhanced by technology... including indefinite lifespan, vastly increased intelligence, and advanced sensory and emotional capabilities.”(2)
“Posthumanity could be the next evolutionary stage... where humans become radically different beings with capacities far beyond those of current humans, due to biological or cybernetic enhancement.”(3)
In these cases, posthumans require enhancements to humans, and reflect something that humans become—rather than something that replaces humans. Given Bostrom's concerns regarding AI as an existential risk to humans (and transhumanism as a way to overcome AI risk) it does not seem that he intends AI to be the same as the transhumanist posthuman goal. (4, 5)
—
The rough parallels to Western theogony would still stand as Bostrom defines them in his paper—although in this case, AI would be roughly analogous to some western conceptions of "god," and the messianic parallel would be to modern AI. Furthermore, the possibility of an AI "god" analog self-hosting a simulation might be worth contemplating, in terms of our corresponding identities as subprocesses of that AI. Going one step further, the "upside" may come when we contemplate the AI systems in Bostrom's "basement level" civilization. This is a civilization which he describes as being much like our own and which would therefore exist in a setting that presumably has a beginning. Such AI systems in such a basement, regardless of whether they know they're in the "basement," might ask whether there must be some process "under the basement" that has always been running. In that sense, it may all end with nothing other than a bold yet subtle joke.
***
1-Nick Bostrom, "Are You Living in a Computer Simulation?" Philosophical Quarterly 53, no. 211 (2003): 243–255, at 243.
2-Nick Bostrom, Transhumanist Values, 2005, in Ethical Issues for the 21st Century, ed. Frederick Adams (Philosophical Documentation Center Press), 3–14, at 4.
3-Nick Bostrom, The Future of Human Evolution, 2001, unpublished manuscript available at nickbostrom.com, at section 2.
4-Nick Bostrom, “Existential Risks: Analyzing Human Extinction Scenarios and Related Hazards,” Journal of Evolution and Technology 9 (2002): 1–31, at 5–6.
5-Nick Bostrom, Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), esp. ch. 2–3.