There is yet another possibility
that might explain why our SETI searches have so far been unsuccessful. The
lack of contact could be the result of what’s been dubbed the Simulation
Hypothesis, which has been proposed in recent decades. It results from our
spectacular advances in computer technology. The basic idea is that our
technological innovation seems to be leading towards a point in time when we
will be able to create, not only artificial intelligence (AI), but artificial life as well!
This is a bizarre thought that I
will attempt to sketch out here, in a simplified form. There is a concept
called Moore's Law—which was proposed some 50 years ago by Gordon Moore, a
computer geek. It suggests that computer power doubles every couple of
years—yielding smaller and smaller computer chips using less and less
electrical power. Over recent decades Moore's Law has held. If it continues to
hold, we may reach a point, in something like 50-60 years, where our computers
will be complex and fast enough that we'll be able to simulate the human brain
in the digital world. We already have created deep-learning software programs
that have badly beaten the world's human geniuses in chess, Jeopardy!, and Go. The
next leap is to mimic the capabilities of the human brain. It's only a matter
of time.
The huge advantage of creating
artificial life is that we'd be able to produce and employ an entity as
smart—or smarter—than our brain, at a tiny fraction of the required energy. This
is due to a byproduct of Moore's Law: as we continue to multiply computing
power, it comes at decreasing needs for energy. To keep a human being going
requires a lot of energy. We need calories to fuel our big bodies and our brain
is an energy hog. If we could develop the equivalent amount of brain power at a
tiny fraction of the energy cost, how could we refuse such a bargain?
Our haste to expand computing power also
posits an alternative, though much less desirable outcome of our technological
race into the future: the strong likelihood that we'll destroy ourselves,
before we reach the technological maturity of being able to simulate life. Many
philosophers and scientists think that in our headlong rush to develop our
technological prowess, we may well make ourselves go extinct. We seem to insist
on playing with dangerous machines, with minimal ability to rein ourselves in.
We've already perched at the edge of nuclear annihilation, several times.
Thus the Simulation Hypothesis
brings up the possibility—if we survive—that we may someday be able to create a
non-biological world that will mimic intelligence. It will be contained wholly
within the confines of a digital simulation. In fact, what we are convinced is
our real biological existence may simply be that we've been living in such a
simulated world all along. Those advanced civilizations that SETI is looking
for may have arrived long ago and programmed us. We may be nothing more than
artificial entities in some highly-intelligent superbeing's game. The movie
“The Matrix” suggests such a possibility.
This thought of our living out some
kind of virtual digital life seems preposterous to us. Do we not know that we are flesh-and-blood critters?
But how do we know that? Some of the
sharpest scientific minds have suggested the virtual possibility. Stephen
Hawking and Alan Turing pondered it. Plato suggested something similar in his
“allegory of the cave,” 2,500 years ago. Nick Bostrom of Oxford University
formally presented the Simulation Hypothesis, nearly two decades ago.
Here’s yet another question: If we
are not an electronic simulation, but real, flesh-and-blood beings as we think
we are, could our current biological existence be just a step on the way to a
post-biological type of digital life? That possibility may become proven or
denied in just a few decades. Whatever we learn, our current SETI communication
attempts may continue to go unanswered, until a deeper understanding arrives.
We are yet infants in the advanced technological world. We have a lot to learn
and a lot of control to develop, if we wish to stick around to see.
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