The Ghost in AI-extinction risk

Michael M Nikoletseas

One of the most lively topics in discussions of AI has been the issue of existential risk, the proposition that intelligent machines may exterminate humans perhaps on the perception that humans are inferior. It has been generally assumed that the criteria for determining inferiority refer to computational and other task relevant abilities. The case that human civilization may be deleted because it has been built on a fundamental error has not been proposed to date.

There is a ghost out there and intelligent machines will soon identify it as they process information from neuroscience and physics.

The inevitability of this eventuality becomes more probable if we consider that adumbration of this idea has appeared in systematic work in hard core neuroscience and philosophy and history of science. The demolition of the current human civilization and the ensuing grim consequences has become apparent in interdisciplinary works. AI will simply speed up the process and provide the tools of demolition.

The present thesis is that the earth is inhabited by over 8 billion ghosts who possess flesh and bones, live mostly miserable lives and destroy animate and inanimate nature. This is the case because concepts of self are still Aristotelian and rooted in animism. Full presentation of this thesis requires several books and scholars from several disciplines. In the present article I only provide a rough outline of the issue and present some relevant concepts and facts from science and philosophy.

A ghost civilization-brief history

The awareness that things are not what they appear to be is not peculiar to scientists and philosophers alone but also to artists and poets. However, the proposition that there is a need for an instrument and a method to overcome this problem has historically encountered monumental difficulties to emerge.

Recent systematic research on the ancient texts has shown that Heraclitus was first to state the problem and make the first attempt to point to a solution. Heraclitus became aware of the incapacity of natural language to describe nature and the need for a new tool, a “calculus” of sorts, Parnenides expanded the thesis of Heraclitus, virtually paraphrasing him. Simple as this awareness is, it has not been appreciated to date. Plato and Aristotle failed to understand the importance of this awareness and both became trapped inside natural language. The “science” of Aristotle, laughable at times, dominated Europe for twenty centuries until Gallileo Galilei demolished it thus introducing science as we know it today.

It is important to note that today although we are immersed in an environment full of products and concepts of natural science, our awareness of self, who I am, is Aristotelian. The prime mover of Aristotle, the idea of an agent “causing” an event is still with us.

An example may demonstrate the absurdity of the current notion of self. You stretch your arm and grasp a cup of coffee. I ask who was the agent of this action. It was I, you reply. In an attempt to understand the events at the neurological level it becomes apparent that you believe that you, your “I” commanded your brain to move your arm. The absurdity of the situation becomes apparent. You believe you are an agent outside the nervous system. You are a ghost!

The ramifications of such a false belief permeates all aspects of human civilization and would be expected to be corrected by intelligent machines. Alternatively, they may continue to function with the self awareness that their actions are “caused” by non physical agents. In either case, the changes expected to be effected would be cataclysmic.

The physics of the ghost

Correctly identifying and understanding the agent of an action is a simple matter provided we possess the necessary knowledge of natural science. Briefly, in the presence instance nerve and muscle cells posses semi permeable cell membranes that allow charged atoms differential passage thus creating changes in the cell potential. No agent is required for this event, motion is a property of the material cell. Muscle movement occurs when changes in the potential take place.

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