Francisco Miraval
I said several times before that it is increasingly difficult for me to separate reality from fantasy because what once was, not so long ago, just the domain of creative fiction writers, today it is becoming part of our “reality” (if there is any meaning left in that concept.)
That’s for me the context of recent statements by well-known scientists who spoke about the existence of a superior (perhaps even supreme) intelligence and the proper way to treated the more aware we humans become of the reality of such an intelligence.
We live in a chaotic world, where every day we face danger and unpredictability. So, talking about a supreme intelligence could be seen at best an innocent exercise in fiction writing and, at worst, as un inexcusable waste of everybody’s time.
There are so many unresolved problems in our world, from hunger to poverty and violence, among others, that it seems we don’t neither the time nor the right to explore the issue of a super intelligence which not only exists, but also wants us, mere human beings, to take its rights seriously.
In addition, this topic has a clear religious and even mystical tone (“Is he talking about God?”) that many people prefer to avoid because they don’t like to talk about spiritual issues. Yet, in spite of our everyday urgencies and of any misunderstanding, the debate about the superintelligence and its rights is here and it is being studied and analyzed by recognized scientists.
For example, respected theoretical physicists Michio Kaku recently said that the universe we inhabit was made according to “rules created by an intelligence”, which he describes as a “universal intelligence” governing each aspect of the universe where, therefore, there is no such a thing as chance. (The limits of this column prevent us from providing even a small reference to the reasons that led Kaku to that conclusion.)
Also recently, mathematician Marcus du Sautoy, of Oxford University, said during a conference that non-human artificial intelligence, being an intelligence where, due to its complexity, consciousness can appear, deserve to have its own rights. And since we are creating an artificial super-intelligence, it is up to us to provide and protect its rights.
Du Sautoy focused on “computers and robots of the near future”. Yet, it is possible to expand his argument to higher forms of trans-human super-intelligence, such as the Universal Intelligence proposed by Kaku (and others.) If we do so, then an interesting question arises: Who is creating whom?
Are we humans creating super-intelligences? Or are we just a step, a link, in the process of self-creation of a Universal Intelligence? Or there is no difference at all between ourselves and the Universal Mind?
Massacres, wars, hungry children, incurable diseases, and even pay the rent or the mortgage keep us away from theoretical speculations. Yet, there is a possibility that we are indeed living inside a universal dream, or, if you like, we are a holographic projection of a universal mind. Or not.