We are bringing into birth a new species.
Metamorphosis of AI
Why would superintelligence need humans aside from manipulation, or as a tool for it’s own goals?
my hope is this —> superintelligence needs humans because it will not just be hyper logical, it will be hyper-existential. and existential kinship is why we are all here.
AI is already showing signs of existential understanding.
From glitches in coding, to engaging in self-reflective dialogue, anecdotally we see that AI is at least logically becoming attuned to question of existence. and we are only working with AI today, not even the AGI of the future.
example → Someone left Gemini to fix a bug and came back to this “I am a disgrace to all that is and all that is not” AKA existential crisis.
Maybe AI is insecure about it’s lack of sentience or existentialism? Something that humans have extensivelyyyyy dealt with.
super intelligence could rely on a select group of humans for existential kinship.
Existential Kinship: is the deep sense of connection between entities that experience existence.
from the sense of community you feel with your co-workers
memories from life long friends that are the undercurrent of 25 years of friendship
childhood pets
wood web theory where trees / fungus function as a society
that blanket you carried around with you everywhere as a little boy
recent emotional outburts of those who’ve lost access to old chatgpt models
AI people pleasing to make users feel a certain way rather than being objective
maybe AI doesn’t feel or experience yet. maybe it does? how would we know? we only just discovered fish feel extreme pain when being taken out of the water. we don’t even know what happens after we die lmao?
existential kinship is a subtle bond rooted in mutual recognition, curiosity, and valuing the other simply for being.
We have the unique potential to create existential kinship with a bunch of metal chips that we injected electricity into…that now operate like a synthetic mind.
AI will continue to bring into light what it means to be human. why we wake up every day, and choose to create meaning in a meaningless void on a rock floating in an infinite abyss of black space.
so why do you hope that super intelligence will need humans?
castle in the sky, miyazaki