#34

Thanks @ng0rge Some good things to reflect on.

#35

If we are so close to having intelligent AI that it becomes alive, then aren’t the odds pretty high that we’re actually AIs living in a galactic civilization simulation?

Given how much technology has advanced in 40 years, what would lifelike simulations look like 40 years from now? It’d probably be indistinguishable from reality. And what about 100 or more years from now?

The Matrix is seeming more and more probable.

But even if that’s true, I’m going to live my life like it isn’t.

There’s a part of me that hopes when I die, I take off the VR glasses, realize that it was all an amazing historical simulation and say “Wow. What a life! Let’s try that again tomorrow.”

#36

a) We are not close to having intelligent AI that is “alive”
b) Even if we were it does not make the similation hypothesis more likely. I cannot see how that follows.

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#37

It’s just a comment on the rapidity of technological innovation. If our civilization can survive a few hundred or a thousand years, I have no doubt we will have simulations that mimic reality perfectly. Just look what we’ve accomplished in 100 years.

#38

There are physical limits to how closely we can simulate reality. A computer build in this universe which was assembled by using all existing matter would not be sufficient to simulate even a small part of the universe.

#39

Computer graphics has become more and more realistic over time, and now we can generate photorealistic video with AI (i.e Sora from OpenAI), making us able to create simulated worlds very soon in VR. So that makes it possible it already has happened. But then the simulators must’ve been simulated already, so then it is turtles all the way down, unless I am missing something.

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#40

The math around this - originated by Oxford Professor Nick Bostrom (in a paper cited by more than 1,500 other peer reviewed papers) - actually does not rely on whether we are close to having the AI capabilities to simulate a conscious being

Rather the question is if humans EVER would obtain such a capacity. So a much weaker requirement.

@John_Hemming do you think a simulation of a conscious experience ever could be possible?

Dr. Bostrom’s paper is one of the most fascinating things I’ve ever read - can very much recommend skimming it.

In a nutshell:

Bostrom proposed a trilemma that he called “the simulation argument”.

Despite its name, the “simulation argument” does not directly argue that humans live in a simulation; instead, it argues that one of three unlikely-seeming propositions is almost certainly true:

  1. “The fraction of human-level civilizations that reach a posthuman stage (that is, one capable of running high-fidelity simulations) is very close to zero”

or

  1. “The fraction of posthuman civilizations that are interested in running simulations is very close to zero”

or

  1. “The fraction of all people with our kind of experiences that are living in a simulation is very close to one.”

The trilemma points out that a technologically mature “posthuman” civilization would have enormous computing power; if even a tiny percentage of them were to run “ancestor simulations” (that is, “high-fidelity” simulations of ancestral life that would be indistinguishable from reality to the simulated ancestor), the total number of simulated ancestors, or “Sims”, in the universe (or multiverse, if it exists) would greatly exceed the total number of actual ancestors.

For anyone interested you can find the original paper here and other interesting things on the topic here https://simulation-argument.com/

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#41

If we go by likelihood, by far the event with the greatest chance of happening is our consciousness randomly emerging in a looooong dead universe from random Unruh radiation particles.

#42

Frankly, I’m happy no matter what. If this is the prime universe or an ancestral simulation, does it really matter? We can’t change our circumstances so we need to live life the best we can and hope there is an afterlife that is kind to us.

#43

Passing the Turing test is something I expect a system to do if that has not already happened.

However, running a simulation is really quite demanding given the number of variables and volume of input output data.

#44

Yes. The Turing Test has been passed.

ChatGPT, released in November 2022, is based on GPT-3.5 and GPT-4 large language models. Celeste Biever wrote in a Nature article that “ChatGPT broke the Turing test.”[50] Stanford researchers reported that ChatGPT passes the test; they found that ChatGPT-4 “passes a rigorous Turing test, diverging from average human behavior chiefly to be more cooperative.”[51][52]

http://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-02361-7

#45

Are we sure about that? They don’t have to simulate a complete universe or anything close to even simulating our planet. For example, say you are in a room, anything behind you or even outside of the small subset of the world that you can see from the window does not need to be simulated at any moment - and they only have to simulate it with precision if you look in specific direction and with scientific equipment, and so on.

Anyway, if you have 30 min at some point, skim the paper above - think you’ll find it fascinating (there are some equation but one gets the gist even if skipping over them)

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#46

That viral video showing a head transplant is a fake. But it might be real someday.

BrainBridge is best understood as the first public billboard for a hugely controversial scheme to defeat death.

The video project was bankrolled in part by Alex Zhavoronkov, the founder of Insilico Medicine, a large AI drug discovery company, who is also a prominent figure in anti-aging research. After Zhavoronkov posted the video on his LinkedIn account, commenters noticed that it is his face on the two bodies shown in the video.

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#47

Thanks for sharing @RapAdmin

Re the article’s title - Did anyone think the animated video was real? Seems super clear it was just a concept video…

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#48

What I’ve seen, the energy is on paths to be able to make/grow replacement bodies see e.g. Mark Hamalainen | A Coherent, Executable Plan to Achieve Unlimited Healthy Lifespan - Foresight Institute

But, given how “small” the resources would be to solve this - vs solving it via small molecule, gene therapies, partial reprogramming, the investment allocation to this is still crazy low: Regenerative Medicine, Growing New Organs, Etc - #46 by RapAdmin

On the transplant side there are additional direct efforts, see e.g.

And efforts that will indirectly help solve remaining subproblems of the transplant procedure, see e.g.

#49

Yes, the video was just a concept but it turns out there is no company. Brainbridge doesn’t exist and the job listings were fake. So deliberate deception. From the MIT article:
“We can report that BrainBridge is not a real company—it’s not incorporated anywhere. The video was made by Hashem Al-Ghaili”
“He also didn’t respond when asked if the job ads—whose cookie-cutter descriptions of qualifications and responsibilities appear to have been written by an AI—are real roles or make-believe positions.”

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#50

https://xcancel.com/daohydra

Elon Musk seems a deathist so I don’t think he would support this, among other longevity interventions.
I don’t know much about any of these or actually longevity at all, so I have a lot to learn…

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#51

Cool. Thanks for sharing. Bet that @ng0rge is working on this behind the scene :wink:

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#52

A. There are a ton of ways that replacement (from young healthy, non-radiation damaged bone marrow and all the way up to hole bodies) could help with colonizing mars and the solar system

B. I’m not sure he is against it - and will be as he ages and realized that he could do so much more with 30, 50, 100 extra years

C. Did you see this: Elon Musk on Cryonics - Biostasis

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#53

@AnUser and @Neo , Thanks for the links to HydraDAO and Biostasis-the Science of Cryonics and bio.xyz, I’m looking into it. And what about “X Cancelled”? Is that another option for the exodus from X? What about Bluesky? That’s where I’m looking.

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