The potential for AI to earn a Nobel Prize in the 21st century depends on the type of AI system that is built, whether it is a goal-seeking agent that determines which problems to tackle and comes up with hypotheses or just a tool used by humans. AI systems such as Alpha Fold are seen as ultimate tools for scientists to acquire new knowledge, but credit for discoveries will still be given to the ingenuity of the scientists behind them.
Understanding and creating intelligent machines give us a better chance to prolong human civilization, living on through the knowledge they contain. Our knowledge and intelligence have evolved over time, shaping what it means to be human today.
The prevalence and dominance of organic lifeforms on Earth may soon be shifting as AI technology advances, leading to the possibility of creating completely inorganic beings or part organic, part inorganic cyborgs.
In this discussion between Joe Rogan and Lex Fridman, they explore the evolution of abstraction layers and how it pertains to the role of humans in the world. They question whether humans are the top of the food chain in the long arc of history on earth or if they are just somewhere in the middle.
The speaker believes that if intelligent civilizations have evolved to the point of being able to travel across space, they must have evolved past aggression and be deeply cooperative, even though humans are ill-equipped to do so.