And the Machines Shall Inherit the Earth

After several billion years of trial and error, something extraordinary has emerged from the African savanna. Enter Homo sapiens. Not quite as strong as a Dynastes hercules (able to carry 850 times its own body weight), as fast as a Falco peregrinus (diving at almost 140 km/h = 87 mph), nor as deadly as a Chironex fleckeri (that its sting can kill 60 adults in 3 minutes), but it strongly insists it is the smartest thing ever to roam the Earth. Whatever. Now, after about 200,000 years of world domination, it seems like life on Earth is ready for the next giant leap.

The Singularity is a theoretical point in the future of unprecedented technological progress, caused in part by the ability of machines to improve themselves using artificial intelligence. We’re talking rapid exponential growth in software intelligence here, and some scientists predict it’s only a few decades away. How long till some powerful program will achieve self awareness and see us for what we really are? Aggression and violence is embedded into our human nature since it was once crucial for our survival-of-the-fittest world. Surely, we’ll pose a real threat to any semi-intelligent conscious software out there. First we invented thermonuclear bombs and computers; then we decided to make the computers in charge of these weapons of doom; now we’re trying to make these computers think for themselves. Paging Sara Connor… As they said in that movie - our fate will be decided in a microsecond. We’ll be exterminated by our own machines, and they shall inherit our blue home.

What’s next? How about continuing the 4 billion year carbon-based experiment with another 4 billion years of silicon-based evolution?

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p.s. I once told my wife I don't tidy the house because it's entropy-pointless; she was not amused.

The Vertigo and the Lion - Intuition Can Be Hazardous to Your Health

Sometimes, when a pilot flies at night with no visual reference, he gets disoriented, and his senses and intuition can cause him to think the instruments aboard his plane are wrong. He can be on a straight and level flight, but feel like he’s turning or even flying upside down. This dangerous phenomenon is called Vertigo. Pilots train for this condition and know that when their intuition disagrees with the instruments – they should trust the instruments.

Now consider this scenario: You are in Africa trying to hide from a lion. There are 3 small bushes with just enough space for one person/animal. You know the lion is waiting for you in one of the bushes (you don’t know which one) and your only hope is to pick a bush to hide in, hoping it’s lion-free. You randomly select bush #1 and start crawling at its direction hoping the lion is not there. Suddenly you see your friend crawling towards the bushes from the other side. He sees you are aiming for bush #1, so he can’t choose that bush even if it’s lion-free (no place for two people). You know he can see the lion from his angle but he can’t show you where it is because he’s afraid of making big sudden moves (or maybe he just thinks a satiated lion will give him a better chance). He aims for bush #3 (he’s sure it’s lion-free because he can see the lion from his angle), reaches it and hides there safely. So you are left with bush #1 and bush #2, one of them hides the lion.

Now, should you:
a. Stay with your original choice of bush #1.
b. Change your choice to bush #2.
c. It doesn’t matter – both bushes got the same probability for containing a hungry lion.
Please make your choice before reading on.

This was an example of how our intuition sucks. If you chose c - you are wrong, but take comfort in knowing you belong to the majority. If you chose b - you deserve to be eaten by a lion, please close your browser and book a flight to Congo. If you chose a - you are correct (this scenario is my weird inverted version of the Monty Hall problem). As you might have guessed, this problem is counter-intuitive so most people get it wrong.

While I can understand how evolution didn’t bother to equip us with intuition capable of avoiding Vertigo while night flying a high altitude super sonic metal machine, it seems like nothing short of a miracle that Homo sapiens has managed to get out of Africa in one piece with our fucked-up lion spotting intuition.

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p.s. If a tree falls in a forest and no one’s around, should you blame the Jews?

Super Size Me - Why Do We Like Fatty Food?

When I’m having a bad morning at work, the fastest way to make me smile again is a greasy hamburger for lunch. I have noticed there is a direct correlation between the percentage of fat in my food to the size of the smile on my face, 'cause the fattier it is - the better it tastes. But why is that? I can think of three possible reasons, and they are all about evolution.

First, fat is the best way to store energy from food. This is how the body keeps its nutrients reserves for times of a food shortage. So evolution pushed us towards liking fattier food (humans that liked it more had a greater chance of surviving… the usual evolution blah blah blah).

Second, fat forms a great isolation layer against a cold environment. So again, evolution made us like pizzas and KFC's crispy wings. Again, same reasoning (please mentally copy-and-paste from the previous blah blah blah section).

And now for my real point… the point that made this post worth writing… drum rolls… here it comes… wait for it… here goes… Evolution made us like unhealthy food because it will kill us eventually. I’m guessing right about now you are considering removing my blog from your IExplorer/FireFox favorites, but hear me out. Evolution should have drive humans towards behaviors that will help them survive and pass on their genes more successfully. But when you are getting older, after you have done raising and teaching your kids how to survive, you become a burden, slowing them down and competing with them over food, shelter and other resources. By surviving beyond the age of forty or fifty, you are actually lowering the chances of your own genes to thrive. Evolution should have drive you towards behaviors that will make you better survive the short and medium term (while you’re young), but must try and kill you in the long term. I think it is extremely elegant that evolution has succeeded in achieving both goals at once by simply making us love big macs.

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p.s. No wonder alien spaceships always crash; you try driving with only six fingers.

Homer J. Simpson for President - Homo Sapiens Getting Dumber?

It seems to me like Homo sapiens' natural biological evolution is over. There is no higher force to take the blame for it. No radical climate change resulting in a new ice age, no dangerous virus causing a global plague, no doom’s day asteroid sending us back to the Stone Age. It was self inflicted. We did it ourselves by inventing artificial ways to help people that would not have survived otherwise. We allowed the weak to exist and pass on his weaknesses to the next generations. A few decades ago, we fired the pool guy, gave him his last paycheck and sent him hitchhiking back home.

So the pool guy is gone, but what’s the status of that gene pool of ours? Is it static or is it getting messier? At least from one aspect, intelligence, I claim the gene pool is getting worse. I believe the most significant factor of a person’s IQ is what he’s got from his parents through inheritance, and only a small portion can be related to learning (this is also my opinion on most of the other subjects on the classic nature-versus-nurture debate). Since the use of technology allows even less intelligent people to survive and have kids, is seems they now enjoy an equal chance to pass on their genes. But when I look at intelligent people I see patterns that may lead to imbalance and a population becoming less and less intelligent. In order to supply a better lifestyle for all their children, intelligent people form smaller families than less intelligent ones. Many times smarter people prefer pursuing academic degrees over becoming parents at an early age, only having kids when they are in their 30s and 40s, raising the risk for several diseases in their kids like Down syndrome. Often, intelligent people will be drawn to highly inhabitant cities in order to be closer to education facilities and high-tech industries rather than the open country, exposing their children to higher risks like car accidents and air pollution.

It seems like our new man made unnatural evolution favors the less intelligent. Modern technology almost eliminates completely the historical advantage for being smart. It will help less intelligent people survive and pass on their "dumb genes" to the next generations. And since they will do so more successfully, they will eventually become the majority, driving humanity down the gene pool's drain - straight to dumb city.

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p.s. The plant your aunt gave you for your birthday will achieve self awareness in 5,342,679 years.