By Dr. Robert Furey
Something is coming. Something as astounding as creation itself. As mind-boggling as stellar nucleosynthesis or the discovery of flint knapping. Looking backward we see a vista of change. From where we stand, we can perceive the coming of the next change. And it will be profound.
Pablo Carlos Budassi from Wikimedia Commons
The Universe is an ongoing complexification event characterized by a series of emergence thresholds. In the beginning, we existed as an expanding speck of unimaginably hot space-time. Everything we know and don’t know, everything cataloged and unseen, everything there is occupied the same point and was made up of the same expanding matrix of energy.
Expansion brought cooling. Subatomic particles “froze” out of the energy. Quarks and leptons dropping out of the 100,000 billion Kelvin early universe remained free for only a brief period, but their complexity was enough to permit the subsequent existence of hadrons, like protons and neutrons, that took their place to populate the universe. In turn, protons and neutrons cooled and collected into atoms, the earliest being primordial hydrogen and helium.
Expansion remained at a high clip and heavier elements did not exist. But that did not stop change. Vast clouds of primordial gasses collected and swirled under gravitational collapse. Stars ignited in the black. Inside these stars, nuclear fusion released energy and potential. These environments inside the stars created heavier elements through the newly possible fusion process. And if the stars were large enough, if the potential passed a critical threshold, these stars shredded themselves in supernovae explosions and seeded space with heavier elements in the periodic table.
New elements coalesced into new systems, including planets, now rich with the seeds of new chemistries. Oxygen, carbon, and so many others interacted with each other. Water became abundant. Organic chemistry churned through chemical-rich seas. Within the soup of complex molecules, subjected to some spark, arose life.
The universe began in a flash where moments before there were no laws of physics. Expansion brought changing conditions that in turn allowed for the emergence of new conditions in a stepwise flux of complexification. These new levels of complexity invited newer, higher-tiered complexities, stepping along from physics to chemistry, from chemistry to biology.
We inhabit the biology tier. Although all previous changes make us possible and as such echoes of each threshold of complexification and emergence remain integrated with our makeup. In the most basic sense, we have been cobbled together with the same building blocks that make up all living things from kelp fronds to mountain gorillas. We are of the same goo.
The thing is, we ourselves are an emergence event manifest through a leap in intellect. Now, before anyone starts arguing for cetaceans or cephalopods, let me rush along to the real crux of the tipping point.
Whatever intelligence is, human beings clearly do not have a corner on it. The tipping point for intelligence has already come along through the complex adaptations of biological systems. Many other animals display remarkable levels of intelligence and even self-awareness. Trying to argue who is the smartest species is almost pointless, and in fact, it is irrelevant to the coming human-triggered emergence.
For a long period of history, humans used tools. We made hammers out of grippable stones, tools from blades of grass or sticks. Tools were a part of what we were. Funny thing is, though, we are not the only creatures to use tools. These ancestors had something else in common with the many tool-using animals, lack of innovation. Like any other tool-using animal, our ancestors would use an object and drop it when done. The world is littered with their discarded stone tools. Not a lot of preparation or forethought for the next need.
Some mysterious change triggered a leap. Tool innovations burst all over the world, leaving evidence of specialization, recognition of value, and teaching. There are even signs of industry in tool manufacturing. Intelligence, innovation and industry, societies, the pieces came into alignment of complementary variables favorably staged for the following emergent leap.
We’ve been approaching this event for some time. Climbing through water power and steam power; electric, combustion, and atomic power, industry now finds itself poised to encompass a new power base, information.
Information is a new kind of power that drives the world. Harnessing information has become possible with innovation in other areas as disparate as watermills, opposable thumbs, and a deep understanding of earlier states of the universe.
But even information is not the emergent property that is coming. As I said, we can look back and identify bellwether instances of complexity changes. Given the kind of creature we are, we can also look forward and predict what might be coming along. We see a complexity change on the horizon. We even have a name for it. We call it The Singularity.
Predictions for the coming Singularity center around information, the collection, collation, and predictive power of it. This manipulation of information comes in lockstep with computer technology and more efficient ways of data use. Singularity levels of complexification predict a new thing, a new entity, perhaps a new type of life. The Singularity will bring Artificial Intelligence.
The Creation of Adam, Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel Ceiling from Wikimedia Commons
Artificial Intelligence, AI, is coming. The day-to-day interface with AI is inevitable on multiple levels. You will communicate with AI in areas both mundane and specialized, such as food orders or for complicated medical issues. They will be ubiquitous members of society integrating all aspects of our lives with unforeseen levels of information exchange in a global nervous system, a noosphere incorporating all knowledge and thought.
Personal AI will both shepherd and prepare us. Personal AI will be the hand reaching back from beyond the next emergence to keep us from being left behind. Personal AI are as inevitable as they are necessary. Yours will grow with you, learn from you, and teach you. Yours will be a buffer and a guide in the burgeoning roadmap of ever-deeper levels of information exchange.
There will undoubtedly be unforeseen aspects of the Singularity. But AI is a certainty. Are you ready?
Dr. Rob Furey is an evolutionary biologist, behavioral ecologist, and forensic scientist. He has been teaching integrated sciences and technology classes for 30 years. He has also been a forensic entomologist for 20 of those years. Currently, he is Chair of Forensic Sciences at St. Edward’s University and sits on the university’s Artificial Intelligence committee.