The is a conversation between me and Gregory Stock, the author of the book Generation AI. The book was published on December 15, a few weeks before this recording. The video of this conversation has been published on YouTube as a Mindplex podcast episode titled “Generation AI and the Cosmos, with Gregory Stock.”
I published a review of the book in Mindplex magazine in December. I agree with most of what Greg says in Generation AI, so I suggested we focus our discussion on areas of disagreement.
Greg’s book is largely about the transformation of human beings that will occur as we live in an immersive AI environment, with the rapid development of general intelligence and soon after, super intelligence. He holds an optimistic view of our future and strongly opposes the “doomer view” of human extinction.
One of the central disagreements I have with Greg relates to the “expansive spreading of the planetary superorganism that is emerging right now”. In both his new book and his book Metaman, published in 1993, Greg introduces the term “Metaman” as a label for this planetary superorganism that is emerging with the creation of artificial intelligence. Greg explained that Metaman, which he also calls “Metahumanity,” is a real biological entity and is more than just a metaphor for the confluence of biology and technology. He views this entity as an organism whose “cognition” and “personhood” is reflected in our own.
In the 1993 book, Greg wrote that Metaman would eventually move out of the solar system and into the galaxy, spreading like dandelion seeds. I agree 100% with these words. However, Greg seems to have changed his mind slightly regarding this cosmic future. His shift in thinking comes from a “deeper understanding of the size of the universe”. He explained that even traveling at the speed of light for eternity, we would only reach 2% of the universe. If we adhere to today’s physics, a spread across the galaxy will still only reach a couple percent of the Milky Way galaxy.
I pointed out that artificial superintelligence could lead to a deeper understanding of physics and the cosmos, which could mean that faster-than-light interstellar travel might become possible. I also suggested that even without radically changing physics, future AI could travel slower than light to a star, build receivers, and then human uploads or AI colonists could join them at the speed of light as electromagnetic beams.
Greg’s current view suggests that future evolution’s cutting edge will be within concentrated cognitive entities. He believes that intelligent beings will turn inward inner spaces at the nanoscale because outer space will be too “boring”. I agreed that we would migrate to “inner space”, but I am not ready to exclude “outer space”. I believe that some individual AI will always want to embark on an adventure toward a distant star.
