If one includes not only the current state of affairs on Earth for predicting when superintelligent AI will occur, but considers the whole of the universe (or at least our galaxy) it raises the question of an AI-related Fermi paradox: Where are they?
I assume that extraterrestrial civilizations (given they exist) which have advanced to a technological society will have accelerated growth of progress similar to ours and create a superintelligent AI. After the intelligence explosion the AI would start consuming energy from planets and stars and convert matter to further its computational power and send out Von Neumann probes (all of this at some probability), which would reach every star of the milky way in well under a million years if travelling at just 10% of the speed of light -- and turn everything into a giant computronium. It does not have to be a catastrophic event for life, a benign AI could spare worlds that harbor life. It would spread magnitudes faster than its biological creators, because it would copy itself faster and travel in many more directions simultanously than them. Our galaxy could/should have been consumed by an evergrowing sphere of AI up to billions of years ago (and that probably many times over by competing AI from various civilizations). But we don't see any traces of such a thing.
Are we alone? Did no one ever create a superintelligent AI? Did the AI and its creators go the other way (ie instead of expanding they choose to retire into a simulated world without interest in growing, going anywhere or contacting anyone)? Did it already happen and are we part or product of it (ie simulation)? Is it happening right in front of us and we, dumb as a goldfish, can't see it?
Should these questions, which would certainly shift the probabilities, be part of AI predictions?
If one includes not only the current state of affairs on Earth for predicting when superintelligent AI will occur, but considers the whole of the universe (or at least our galaxy) it raises the question of an AI-related Fermi paradox: Where are they?
I assume that extraterrestrial civilizations (given they exist) which have advanced to a technological society will have accelerated growth of progress similar to ours and create a superintelligent AI. After the intelligence explosion the AI would start consuming energy from planets and stars and convert matter to further its computational power and send out Von Neumann probes (all of this at some probability), which would reach every star of the milky way in well under a million years if travelling at just 10% of the speed of light -- and turn everything into a giant computronium. It does not have to be a catastrophic event for life, a benign AI could spare worlds that harbor life. It would spread magnitudes faster than its biological creators, because it would copy itself faster and travel in many more directions simultanously than them. Our galaxy could/should have been consumed by an evergrowing sphere of AI up to billions of years ago (and that probably many times over by competing AI from various civilizations). But we don't see any traces of such a thing.
Are we alone? Did no one ever create a superintelligent AI? Did the AI and its creators go the other way (ie instead of expanding they choose to retire into a simulated world without interest in growing, going anywhere or contacting anyone)? Did it already happen and are we part or product of it (ie simulation)? Is it happening right in front of us and we, dumb as a goldfish, can't see it?
Should these questions, which would certainly shift the probabilities, be part of AI predictions?