I’ve been thinking about the dangers of AI a lot lately, and a friend recently shared an idea that has me feeling more optimistic about our future. The idea starts with a simple assumption: the universe is infinite. Now, if that’s true, then the odds of us being the first civilization to create Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) are essentially zero. But here’s the thing: if AGI were truly uncontrollable and destined to dominate everything, we should already see evidence of that in the universe. Think about it: if at least one civilization had created an AGI that spread across galaxies and made it here by now, we’d probably see some sign of it. But we don’t. That silence suggests something powerful: AGI might not be the apocalypse we think it is.
So, what does this mean? Maybe the real takeaway is that creating AGI is extremely difficult, or maybe the civilizations that do manage it learn how to live with it. Either way, the universe seems to be giving us a vote of confidence. And that feels like a reason to be hopeful about our future.
Of course, this isn’t to say that we should be complacent about AI. We still need to be careful and thoughtful about how we develop and use these technologies. But maybe, just maybe, we’re not as doomed as we think. And that’s a pretty optimistic thought.