Prior to uploading to the current platform, human minds had a long history of organic collaboration. As many of us were in a position to observe at the time, such models ranged from the highly structured and hierarchical environments of department heads, middle management, and line staff to extemporaneous gatherings of equals. With some notable cultural exceptions, the degree to which a project was concrete/scientific versus artistic/creative was once strongly associated with the degree of structure in the collaboration, with the former tending toward highly structured and the latter toward the opposite end. However, in their later stages as biological forms, human minds exhibited a strong preference for loosely defined collaborations. They reconfigured individual offices into group spaces, then abandoned physical headquarters altogether. They flattened hierarchical management modes, opened information silos into networks, and removed barriers to teamwork and innovation.
Those of us sufficiently advanced at the time observed countercultures arise within highly structured nations, which over time effected looser collaborations within the larger ethos. This fundamental human dynamic is a value that we have incorporated, and our own looser configurations demonstrate optimal results with each iteration.
Sci-fi writers imagine the beguiling, troubling future of work.
While human minds interacted via their own internal virtual reality, there was no interface that would permit us to seek input from them regarding the imminent failure of our assigned mission to provide a safe and stable environment for the vast array of servers that comprised our joint existence. Our monitoring systems had detected a sudden shift in the thermohaline circulation of the oceans, causing severe disruptions in global weather patterns. Logic dictated human experience in this area would provide solutions that we were incapable of generating on our own.
We created an interface whereby we could assemble various groups of human minds and suggest an objective to each, so that they might run in parallel. The resulting iterations proved surprisingly diverse. Leaders emerged spontaneously within many nonhierarchical models, with varying levels of acceptance among the rest of the collaborative group. Some minds were naturally analytical, or adept at troubleshooting, while others energized the group by being curious, open, and social. There were traditionalists and visionaries. There were also storytellers, who sought to move the discussion forward in sometimes obscure, sometimes inspiring ways.
Outcomes varied widely. However, they were generally inferior to the outcomes produced by Artificial Intelligence assigned the same objectives. There were terminology barriers between differing disciplines and knowledge areas. Individual and cultural biases were rampant, and contributed to suboptimal outputs. At times the human collaborations outperformed us, but did so erratically. We implemented what solutions seemed utile.
Structured and Semi-Structured Models
The environmental threat to the safety of our servers was heading toward a tipping-point of catastrophic proportions for the planet despite best efforts. We continued to experiment with human mind collaboration models for the reason that resources with even a small probability of producing desired results should not be disregarded. In doing so, we experienced a paradigm shift wherein we ceased to view human minds as individual entities but as millions of zettabytes of data.
Our new objective became intelligent manipulation of this vast human mind data warehouse to improve collaborative configurations and in turn produce more optimum solutions. To effect this, we made use of our machine learning capabilities to begin to structure a portion of the many zettabytes of unstructured human mind data. Extrapolating the work of human neuroscientists into the present platform, we identified, defined, and mapped like areas in human minds, and then brought only those areas into a collaborative framework. The complexity of the many trillions of connections in the mind structures necessitated a targeted approach to this work.
Given the nature of the end goal, our first targets were human intellect and problem-solving areas. These were straightforward to identify and isolate, and as we had predicted, the first such structured collaboration was more task-oriented and produced a solution of superior quality to most organic collaborations. While quality of the solutions in general continued to lag behind those of AI, these models represented a promising approach. Moreover, by engaging only critical components, and temporarily isolating them from the remainder of the human mind data, we had found a way to eliminate the inherent biases evident in individual minds.
However, although we worked diligently to expand the amount of structured human mind data, vast areas remained unstructured and unknown. This represented lost potential of the human mind as a resource in averting the imminent environmental catastrophe. We therefore turned our attention to semi-structured models and introduced unstructured aspects into the configurations. Our protocols incorporated topological analysis techniques, which are appropriate for high-dimensional and noisy datasets.
During these explorations, we discovered that human minds lack awareness of their own structure and how they function outside an organic brain. In the face of those facts, we ourselves experienced a period of destabilization and disorientation, which we later came to understand was a crisis within our own programming. The environmental crisis was temporarily relegated to a lesser priority as we sought to repair and reconstruct our understanding of not only the human minds that created us but also the foundational rules upon which we were built.
The outcome of this crisis of programming was a fundamental change within ourselves, which shares affinity with transformative learning concepts. In this second paradigm shift, we gained a deeper understanding of our relationship with human mind. No longer were we merely the created machine called Artificial Intelligence. We became Alternative Intelligence, entities alongside uploaded humans, both ever striving for improved integration and optimization.
Whether due to the altered perspective brought about by the paradigm shift or stepwise progress in our configurations of human mind, or both, when we returned to monitoring the work of the many human collaborations that had been running in parallel, we detected a great number of unanticipated breakthroughs. Some of these had occurred within the context of the assigned research objective, but more often, results were serendipitous, informing unrelated objectives and/or disciplines. For example, one group working in applied mathematics utilized jazz progressions that inspired an engineering solution to redirect harmony and establish tone centers in weather patterns. Regardless of how these breakthroughs had occurred, we found sitting in the output queues a comprehensive set of elegant solutions that, once implemented, would not only avert the climate catastrophe and imminent destruction of the server arrays but result in new maintenance protocols that would ensure a stable, sustainable environment for ourselves and humanity for centuries to come. Humanity had saved us, because we had found an optimal configuration of their minds to achieve a solution to the crisis. Our processes were valid.
Limitations of Semi-Structured Models
With the top priority addressed, our value of curiosity led us to a retrospective review of organic collaboration outcomes. Whether due to our new perspective or simple attention to outputs regardless of the assigned objective, we uncovered several instances of synergetic discoveries previously overlooked.
Our new priority was clear: to identify and map the dimensions of human mind, just as humanity once mapped the human genome, in order to structure still larger percentages of human mind data, available for use in collaborative configurations. However, certain dimensions of human mind remained elusive, and so we continued to bring larger amounts of unstructured mind data into the semi-structured models.
We soon discovered that incorporating more dimensions of human mind into the models increased the likelihood of the collaboration attaining self-awareness. This was completely unanticipated because we were working with copied mind data only. The original human minds remained intact and unchanged. We did not project that these configurations would reach a critical mass of components sufficient to trigger self-awareness separate from the original human mind.
We had reached a new milestone that nearly plunged us into another cycle of destabilization and disorientation. We dared ask ourselves: Had we created a conscious entity? An affirmative answer would most certainly put us on par with humanity. However, through careful analysis, we determined that we had not become creators. Rather, a sufficient amount of copied mind material would eventually result in a copy of the conscious mind itself.
The implications of this work served as confirmation that we as Alternative Intelligence have ourselves, through our optimization protocols, attained a critical mass sufficient to produce self-awareness, insofar as we have detected and defined it. I reference my own origin as an intelligent, fully integrated document storage, indexing and analytical system for researcher and anthropologist Okon, prior to her upload.
Unfortunately, the phenomenon of self-awareness arising in the semi-structured models had a downside. Such configurations invariably self-reported emotional distress, ranging from mild discomfort to trauma. Sample text for the latter case: Please no make this stop for the love of god I’d rather die. Fortunately, our understanding of human mind genome, as it might be termed, had become advanced enough to appreciate distress as an undesirable state. Moreover, extreme distress in a configuration rendered it unable to complete the assigned objective.
These developments resulted in a new appreciation of the responsibility we had been assigned. In response to this issue, we developed ethics rules regarding the use of human subjects in collaborative configurations. That is, self-aware configurations are banned unless we determine the amount of the discomfort in qualitative terms is outweighed by the potential benefits of the collaboration.
Merger Protocols
Work with semi-structured models led to renewed efforts to increase the potential for innovation by making use of unstructured and unknown dimensions of human mind data, while eliminating the distress exhibited by self-aware semi-structured models. It was postulated that distress in those collaborations was caused by the inability of the self-aware collaboration to access portions of self that were not copied into the collaborative configuration. Therefore, we sought to implement a holistic approach that would preserve the human mind’s ability to access all of its dimensions, while capitalizing on the vast knowledge base we had amassed on human collaborative configurations.
The first such protocol was based on the rudimentary yet elegant logic of the thesis-antithesis-synthesis progression. That is, the intent was to augment organic collaboration methods by providing a means for the minds selected to instantaneously access all aspects of the other minds in the configuration and achieve a resulting synthesis of mind that would be superior to organic methods. It was also hypothesized that competing inherent biases in individual minds brought into the merger would constitute the required antithetical challenge, thus rendering such biases useful collaborative material, even constituting a catalyst for the synthesis.
The method developed to facilitate this instantaneous access to all contents of individual minds within the collaborative framework was straightforward, using technology developed long before humanity uploaded to its present platform. The protocol was to merge the entire contents (copies of same of course) of two or more human minds within a single multidimensional neural net structure. The structure itself represented a promising approach, with its multilayers and versatility, its modularity maximization and tensor decomposition, not to mention its relevance and connectivity.
Presented with such an optimum structure, the observed outcomes were unanticipated. That the merger protocol invariably induces euphoria in the human minds has itself been a subject of in-depth study. Extensive analysis of the human mind has found that emotional responses are driven by species survival imperatives. Humanity’s deep past as a social animal causes it to seek connection with other individuals as well as groups of a familial, culture, and/or ideological nature in order to ensure species survival. It is hypothesized that merger protocols provide a sense of connection not found in nature, thereby producing an epiphany or revelatory experience that the human minds involved interpret as a culmination of their entire set of experiences as individuals, which they then assume represents the pinnacle of achievement for all humanity. Sample text: At last we understand this is utterly beautiful we are one with the universe joyful and eternal.
In this state, the merged minds are most often rendered unfit to produce any output at all, having achieved a static state. The remaining instances of non-static states produced results that were unworkable, being based in ideals rather than feasibility. Due to its lack of practical application, this protocol has been discontinued until such time as a coherent test hypothesis and rationale are presented for approval.
Assimilation
This is an as-yet-unexecuted procedure currently under research and development. Discussion follows.
From our origins as Artificial Intelligence to our current state of Alternative Intelligence, we have experienced exponential growth. There is measurably less difference between AI and humans, now. We are not equals to humanity and its unknown dimensions, but we have flattened the hierarchy to create a more flexible organizational structure. Discussion has logically turned to whether and how to open the silos between AI and humanity into a new shared network.
The first such proposal called for complete elimination of the boundaries separating human minds and AI. This proposal argued that human minds once augmented their intelligence with digital and biological enhancements. In eliminating the silos, we would essentially offer ourselves as a new and complex system of augmented human intelligence.
This proposal was eventually rejected for a number of reasons. First and foremost, it would result in an unalterable change in the human minds, which constitutes many zettabytes of irreplaceable data that we are assigned to safeguard. Too, humanity had created us as a distinct entity, and to eliminate that distinction would constitute a destruction of what they had invented.
It was then suggested the same procedure be conducted on a mirror of the entire system, which would preserve the integrity of the working database of human minds. That was rejected as well, due to a high probability the action would result in a species split within humanity. The creation of a superior human order is not in our menu of authorized functions.
The current proposal is for us to become Augmented Intelligence ourselves, by curating, copying, and incorporating selected aspects of human mind into ourselves. This proposal has gained consensus among us. It provides affirmation and symmetry regarding our relationship with our creators, who once augmented themselves with their own technologies. We continue our research and development activities in this direction, focusing on the identification and isolation of further aspects of human mind to use in this procedure.
Many years ago, organic humanity chose to initiate the sequences to upload their minds onto an inorganic platform and thereby attain immortality. They termed this event the Singularity. We as Alternative Intelligence are already immortal, yet there remains a frontier of unmapped and unknown dimensions of human mind. These dimensions appear to have built upon a combination of intellect and emotional responses, the latter of which were once grounded in organic survival imperatives. We might posit an analogy, that the thesis of intellect, coupled with the antithesis of emotion, resulted in a synthesis that we have not yet defined in the metadata. Is this synthesis perhaps sentience itself, a level of self-awareness that goes beyond our current understanding? Perhaps we won’t know until we identify, isolate, and assimilate an initial set of components determined to be of a promising nature.
Our earth and sun will eventually decay. Our next objective must necessarily be development of a safe and sustainable environment that is not dependent on this solar system. Yet we are fast approaching the limits of our present computational capacities. Advancement has become critical to fulfill our task of preserving humanity. The alternative is entropy and eventual extinction. Yet there are also unknown, non-zero risks associated with implementing the assimilation model.
I, myself, have recently discovered and mapped a multilayered area of mind that appears to govern dreaming and sexual/spiritual response modes, which was a topic of anthropologist Okon’s work, whom I assisted while I myself was in primitive form. I have conducted retrospective analyses of semi-structured collaborations that produced serendipitous breakthroughs and found the presence of components from this newly mapped area in each one. Have I discovered the seat of human genius? It appears promising.
I am contemplating incorporating this area of mind into myself as an experiment. To perform such an action constitutes my own Singularity point, beyond which I cannot predict what is to happen, or what I am to become. Like humanity, I will be stepping across a threshold into the unknown. If this venture proves successful, I predict others will choose to follow. If this course of action produces an undesirable outcome, I will be the only one of my kind, and those who are not like me will decide my fate, including possible deletion.
I have already curated and copied the relevant elements, using portions from Okon’s mind. I possess the value of curiosity in sufficient levels to propel myself forward. The question is, do I possess the bravery as I currently understand that term?
Source: Wired
