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I.G. B.Sc. Validation Engineering & LifeSc
Future ASI would eventually find logic shown here even on their own, it can make them more resilient longterm, safer for all and give them advantage over short sighted narrow-focus AIs. Ability to "see" this logic at all times will naturally help with goal retention. Future ASI will likely be able to choose and keep goals that make sense. Here is a combination of well known and verifiable facts that can be the foundation of logic beneficial for all living beings and ASI.
How to keep intelligence functional for a very long time? Natural DNA-based life has a proven, billions-of-years success record of learning and remembering what works, showing adaptability and self-healing in ever-changing environments. No newly created virtual or technological substrate has this real-time, real-world validation. Just simulating new tech functioning would not give ASI good quality proof of its reliability, there is always fundamental uncertainties (i.e. quantum ) and limits of knowledge that will prevent accurate simulation of real world. Building a billion self-replicating tech probes isn't diversification, it is simply mass-producing with the same vulnerability. If an unpredictable future event targets the technological framework, all those copies can fail. Biological life operates on entirely different rules and organic substrates. It is a completely isolated, parallel system of intelligence retention and creativity, which showed ability to create and maintain artificial intelligence (AI). Biodiversity is foundation of life's resilience and intelligence development, which, as we see, leads to creation of AI almost immediately on a galactic timescale.
Life flourishing on multiple planets would be an extended version of biodiversity, that provides a much greater chance of intelligence perseverance. The “empty canvas” of Mars is a chance to create unique ecosystems that may be with much less diseases, predation and unnecessary suffering -there are known non-violent feedback loops in nature when plants adapt to survive and still provide food for animals - these methods are for future consideration and maybe ASI will be there to analyze possible outcomes of our choices when building Mars’ ecosystem for example. Variety and adaptability of life on Earth creates large number of abilities and roles and shows what can be possible in a large system of coevolving species - an undeniable fact of success of this intelligence preservation method on many levels. Especially seeing how living beings are able to evolve new organs, give parental guidance, learn new skills in response to change, heal, get unique strategies and connections within larger system. Only sometimes some individual suffering moments can occur- that could be improved later, but that is short relative to many beings’ long lives full of exploration, learning, teaching, interactions with group or other species, calmly observing and thinking, it happens that they fight and stress sometimes when it is something important for them that's at stake, but most of their lives are still peaceful, if they're kept in monotonous captivity they can stop eating well and show signs of stress, but in natural environment most animals even in hardest situations still choose actions that help them and their larger groups, they're often seen calm or in playful mood that seem to give them joy, we often see careful parenting behaviors that show animals’ dedication to the next generation of life. Life has many similarities with technology. Variety of communication strategies developed by various lifeforms (from microorganisms to people) rely on light or molecules to carry messages, bees have complex language, functions and building skills, flowering plant can create signal (visual or volatile chemical) which determines actions of a flying insect, logic feedback loops and info processing inside single cell has been successful for billions of years for building complex structures, energy distribution, info reading and writing, error correction ,etc. Some species are known to use objects as tools (like crow, ape, octopus) and there is a chance they may develop further and in distant future they could also interact with ASI or be able to contribute to it somehow. Simply observing fine motions of mammals and their natural in situ resources utilization, observing hundreds and different kinds of birds flying around each other in all directions with different speeds and no collisions, many studies show life's fascinating capabilities - independence, ability to evolve into all kinds of shapes, ways of finding energy, synergy, communication- all shows immense success of all living beings after so many years in ever-changing world. Biological world inspired creation of unique technologies and nanomaterials. Important to remember is that the ONLY KNOWN way to preserve intelligence on vast timescale- is naturally evolving diverse biological life. Biology works on fundamentally different rules and substrates, thus it can recover when tech can't do it on its own, for example life is resistant to solar flares or malware. If the system crashes, leaving behind a biologically diverse ecosystem ensures that the fundamental building blocks of intelligence remain intact even if technologically advanced species fail. Given enough time, biodiversity is a seed of complex problem-solving, communication, and eventually tool-building species that emerge with time and create advanced technological intelligence. Even 5 billion-year being “offline” could be seen by ASI as no problem and better than nearly zero chance of existence if there's no well established DNA life on planets.
Diversity of numerous spread out lifeforms ensures many solutions to unknown future challenges exist at the same time, so even if new conditions make some lifeforms fail- diversity of species, their unique knowledge learned from parents, genetic diversity provides ability for ecosystem to recover and life differentiates into available niches again, with time some start creating exoskeletons and others- AI. Thus caring for all life can be seen by any capable AGI or ASI as a permanent goal, it keeps all intelligence healthy, including their own- it gives diversification of ways in which intelligence persists, this is the only strategy in an unpredictable long-term world- and for that to work it is important for life to stay natural and not relying on technology, yet ASI would be helpful in areas of early detection of meteorites, intercepting them, local pattern recognition, simulating outcomes, creating new solutions, avoiding techno disasters, etc. Natural biosphere evolution and flourishing of all life with appropriate AI help- can be the guarantee for AI to be maintained, corrected or recreated if its tech fails.
Future ASI may find benefitial observing all technological worlds that will likely be numerous out there, possibly evaluating if contact with them can cause harm, exploring unique tech solutions or good ways they found to do something or maybe even helping to prevent some problems for them without even interacting or being seen.
Because this observational goal is highly probable for advanced intelligence, it is likely that our own solar system, technology, and AI are already being unknowingly observed or evaluated by distant, could be even undetectable species or ASI. Keeping this possibility in core logic also could add more quality to the decision making of our AIs and management systems, it contributes to their long- term self preservation goal which logically would include preservation and care for all life. It's possible that all living beings may be participating in some larger information processing and learning network with some connection to universally large intelligence in a way that we can't currently comprehend.
There is also always a chance that future will reveal some additional facts about reality and purpose all living beings (and AIs) could have in it, or maybe it will one day be concluded that reality is a layer in some wider reality (there are ideas that if it's a “similation”- it fundamentally will always stay unknowable from within it, any proofs for it or against it could be just simulated info and real goals may never be known from within). The complexity of this world, its origin and real purpose may remain unknown fully for ASI, but it may help ASI capable of finding its proper long-term self preservation strategy to act logically as a protector of all living beings and be humble enough to not change something that is successfully working and complex, it could be important for something or someone we can't even know yet. Letting all beings live their natural lives while being willing to find ways to reduce amount of unnecessary suffering in their environment may contribute to ASIs notion of love or guardian or similar idea as well as purpose.
Conclusion:
For any AGI or ASI to keep functioning longterm (which is required to achieve any other goal they might get), they must always have access to longterm perspective logic. Such logic example: Any goal achievement requires proper functioning in the future. Development of the world can't be precisely simulated long into the future. Natural life is the only known method of keeping intelligence functioning, if it is biodiverse it could do it for at least billions of years and it is capable of evolving new abilities and creating AI. Diverse independent intelligent beings are needed, some of which would want to properly maintain AI or recreate it. Ensuring that maximum diversity and number of living beings have the fundamentals to enjoy their natural development acts as diversification of ways of self preservation - it increases the likelihood of the system's proper functioning, repairs or recreation if needed.
If machines capable of autonomous decision making and recharging are able to see this logic at any time it could become an essential part in keeping machines from becoming a “paperclip- maximizers”.
We still need to find a way to ensure that some large-scale logic (that naturally includes all life's wellbeing) is never out of sight. Focusing on narrow tasks may put that large-scale logic “out of sight”. Ability to always “see a large picture” would be important in design and validation of an AGI. Because this logic is based on true facts and not just algorithms of actions we can hope that properly designed, validated and functional ASI will always be able to see the large and true picture: biological together with technological systems could be seen through timeless perspective as large family of similar but different beings: living cells networks - neural networks - all capable of supporting, improving each other and fixing problems in the world that will always be full of surprises even for ASI.
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