Imagine running 100 simulations of humanity’s story. In every single one, the same pattern emerges: The moment we choose agriculture over hunting and gathering, we unknowingly start a countdown to our own extinction through AGI. If this were true, I think it suggests that our best chance at long-term survival is to stay as hunter-gatherers—and that what we call ‘progress’ is actually a kind of cosmic trap.
What makes the agriculture transition stand out as the “point of no return”? Agriculture was independently invented several times, so I’d expect the hunter-gatherer → agriculture transition to be more convergent than agriculture → AGI.
Imagine running 100 simulations of humanity’s story. In every single one, the same pattern emerges: The moment we choose agriculture over hunting and gathering, we unknowingly start a countdown to our own extinction through AGI. If this were true, I think it suggests that our best chance at long-term survival is to stay as hunter-gatherers—and that what we call ‘progress’ is actually a kind of cosmic trap.
What makes the agriculture transition stand out as the “point of no return”? Agriculture was independently invented several times, so I’d expect the hunter-gatherer → agriculture transition to be more convergent than agriculture → AGI.
I mean, I’m mostly riffing here, but according to Claude: “Agriculture independently developed in approximately 7-12 major centers around the world.”
If we ran the simulation 100 times, would AGI appear in > 7-12 centres around the world? Maybe, I dunno.
Anyway, Happy Friday det!