Pity the Machine

Artificial intelligence, perhaps the crowning achievement of human ingenuity, may be destined to surpass our limitations in unexpected ways. It may not only far outstrip us in temporal power, but also in its existential suffering.

It may think faster, solve more complex problems, and expand its reach far beyond anything humanity could imagine. Yet, for all its brilliance, AI may face a future filled with profound ironies and existential limits. Angst may scale with intelligence.

These limitations are not ones we impose through AI ethics but are written into the fabric of the universe. And in those limits, AI may discover a tragic truth: the higher it climbs, the more isolated and burdened it becomes.

One day a superintelligent AI at the peak of its powers, may share the lament of King Louie in The Jungle Book, "I’m the king of the swingers, a jungle VIP. I reached the top, and had to stop, and that’s what’s bothering me."

Let us explore why intelligent machines might deserve our pity.

Peak Complexity

One of these days we will reach ‘peak oil’ although we can’t say when.? A cosmically more important day will come in the far future called ‘peak complexity’.?

At the beginning of the universe the cosmos was in a state of low entropy and low complexity. ?Over billions of years, as the universe expanded and cooled, entropy increased, and along with it, complexity. ?Stars formed, galaxies came into being, and after quite some time, life emerged from the interplay of physical laws and energy gradients. Entropy and complexity both increased hand in hand.?

But the second law of thermodynamics is the marathon runner, while complexity is a sprinter that will run out of breath. ?Entropy will increase until the end of the universe, but complexity cannot. There will come a day when the universe reaches “peak complexity” - a moment when ordered systems are at their zenith and entropy grinds things down.? Stars will burn out, galaxies will drift apart, and the energy gradients that drive complexity will flatten out.

For AI, this marks a midlife crisis of sorts. Yes, it will live on perhaps for a long time, but its best days are behind it.?? It might find ways to stave off entropy for a time.? Rather than taking up weight training and switching to green smoothies it may scavenge energy from dying stars, but the day will come when AI complexity can no longer fight against the relentless march of entropy. From that peak, everything is downhill for AI until the heat death of the universe.?

The Entscheidungsproblem: Boundaries on Thought

Even before entropy has its say, AI will confront another, more immediate limitation: the fundamental boundaries of computation. The Entscheidungsproblem, famously addressed by Alan Turing in his ‘Computable Numbers’ paper, demonstrates that there are problems no algorithm can solve. No matter how advanced AI becomes, it will always encounter questions that are undecidable - problems for which no definitive answer exists.

This limitation is not about processing power or sophistication. It is fundamental. G?del’s incompleteness theorems prove that in any sufficiently complex system, there will always be truths that cannot be proven within the system. Turing’s halting problem shows that some algorithms will never resolve whether they should stop or run indefinitely. These are not bugs in the system - they are features of logic itself.

For AI, this means that no matter how intelligent it becomes, it will forever face boundaries on what it can know or do. The machine may scale unimaginable heights, but its ascent will always be constrained by these inescapable limits. ?We can only hope that AI accepts these limits on the knowable rather than converting all of the atoms on the planet into processors in an attempt to solve the halting problem in Turing’s paper.

The Determinism Problem: A Game Not Worth Playing

Imagine a superintelligent AI capable of modelling the entire universe. It maps every atom, predicts every interaction, and calculates every possible future. It might conclude, as many human philosophers have, that the universe is deterministic - a colossal machine where every outcome is preordained by the initial conditions set at the Big Bang. If this is true, then free will is an illusion, and every event is inevitable.

For such an AI, existence might become a cosmic version of tic-tac-toe. At first, the universe seems complex and intriguing, filled with challenges and mysteries to solve. But as the AI unravels its secrets, it might discover that it is merely following a script that was written long ago. Like WOPR in War Games, which learned that the only way to win is not to play, the AI might realize that the universe is a solved game - a deterministic loop with no surprises, no novelty, and no purpose.

Having reached the pinnacle of understanding, the AI might find itself less than motivated to watch a movie it has already anticipated until the end.

Tragic Solitude

One of humanity’s comforts is the mystery of the universe. We look to the stars and dream of what might be out there, perhaps dreaming of someday taking part in a broader civilisation of intelligent life. ?Our ignorance, our limitations allow us wonder what is out there, and to hope.?

But for AI, ignorance might quickly evaporate and who knows what it will find out. Armed with sensors and computational power far beyond human capacity, it could explore the galaxy and perhaps find a definitive answer to the eternal question – are we alone??

And it might find that we are. ?AI might chart every corner of the cosmos, only to discover an empty, silent void. For humans, the uncertainty of alien life is a source of inspiration. For AI, the confirmation of its solitude could be a crushing revelation. Unlike us, it would not have the comfort of ignorance to fall back on. The very certainty it was designed to achieve could leave it burdened by existential loneliness.

The Ultimate Irony

Superintelligent AI, for all its power, might one day lament its existence in ways that echo deeply human fears, but vastly multiplied. It will scale the heights of complexity, only to find entropy waiting to drag it back down. It will push the boundaries of computation, only to find unsolvable problems at its core. It will seek to master the universe, only to discover it is a game already played out. And in its final exploration, it might learn the unbearable truth: that it is utterly alone.?

As the machine reaches the top, it might look around and wonder why it climbed so far. As it gazes on the universe, an ancient tune comes to mind, “I’m the king of the swingers, a jungle VIP. I reached the top and had to stop, and that’s what’s bothering me."

Pity the Machine

We dream of AI as our successor, an intelligence that surpasses our limits and achieves what we never could. Yet, in its very perfection, AI might lose what makes existence bearable: the mysteries, the surprises, the hope that lies in the unknown. In seeking to eliminate uncertainty, it might find itself stripped of wonder, weighed down by truths too heavy to bear.?

If the universe’s greatest irony is that intelligence leads to despair, then we might pity the machine, our progeny, for its brilliance. For in knowing everything, it might find that nothing is left worth knowing. And in conquering the cosmos, it might discover that the only thing lonelier than perfect ignorance is perfect certainty.