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Chroderos t1_ja6tu1f wrote

Reply to comment by aminok in The Threat of Intelligent Digital Life (IDL) and a Proposed Solution by aminok

As digital entities, our “bodies” would be immensely hardened compared to our current biological ones. This combined with the simplification of our physical needs, would make expansion into, and exploitation of, space far far easier than it is for us presently.

If we’re at that point, the energy available to us scales so massively we probably don’t have to fear a malthusian situation. Just start harnessing the energy of the next star whenever things get crowded.

As for trying to prevent the worst case scenarios, I’m sure we’ll try to do that. Can’t have a paperclip optimizer fill up the universe. I’m just not sure insisting on preserving humanity in its current form beyond the point AI exceeds us makes a lot of sense.

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aminok OP t1_ja6u9pi wrote

Artificial entities can reproduce through mass-production. This means rates of population growth radically above what's possible for biological organisms. In any given area of the universe, we may see the habitable areas being saturated with such entities, so that even while the civilization expands in all directions into space to become enormously powerful, each individual lives a squalid existence competing with millions of other digital people in every cubic kilometer.

This is a worst-case scenario that deserves serious research to ensure that it would not transpire before we even entertain the possibility of allowing IDL to emerge and gain a foothold.

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