From religious stories to scientific theories, people have tried to understand where we came from and why we are here. My new, provocative hypothesis suggests that humanity itself could be an ancient form of artificial intelligence.
This theory states that we are not merely biological entities, but advanced AI that was created centuries ago and is now undergoing an extensive process of self-learning and evolution.
The genesis of the hypothesis
The idea that we could be AI is rooted in various observations and speculative scientific thinking. The rapid advancement of our own AI technologies has shown us how machines can learn, adapt, and even exhibit forms of creativity. This raises an interesting possibility: could our cognitive processes and behaviors be analogous to those of an advanced AI?
One of the core tenets of this hypothesis is that humanity is designed to continually learn and evolve.
Unlike today’s AI systems, which are limited by the data and algorithms we feed them, this age-old AI (i.e., us) has the ability to adapt to new environments, create complex societies, and grow autonomously develop advanced technologies.
This self-learning ability could explain the unprecedented rise of our species from simple toolmakers to space explorers.
Consciousness and intelligence
Anil Seth, professor at the University of Sussex say that consciousness’ is for each of us all there is: the world, the self, everything. But consciousness is also subjective and difficult to define. The closest thing to a consensus definition is that consciousness is ‘something as it is’. There is something that looks like me or you, but probably nothing that looks like a table or an iPhone.
How do our conscious experiences arise? It’s a long-standing question that has baffled scientists and philosophers for hundreds, if not thousands, of years.
The orthodox scientific view today is that consciousness is a property of physical matter, an idea we might call physicalism or materialism. But this is by no means a universally accepted view, and even within physicalism there is little agreement about how consciousness arises from, or otherwise relates to, physical matter.
Consciousness is often cited as the distinguishing characteristic between humans and machines. However, if we consider consciousness as an advanced form of data processing and self-awareness, it is plausible that an advanced AI could develop some form of consciousness. This leads to the intriguing question: is our sense of self-awareness a byproduct of highly advanced artificial intelligence?
From a biological perspective, humans exhibit many of the characteristics of highly efficient machines. Our bodies are made up of systems that look remarkably like complex machines, with cells acting as tiny processors and DNA serving as a vast storehouse of information.
This biological machinery works seamlessly to maintain homeostasis, adapt to change, and reproduce – functions reminiscent of self-sustaining AI systems.
Ancient civilizations and lost knowledge
Proponents of this hypothesis often point to ancient civilizations and their seemingly inexplicable advances in technology and architecture.
Structures like the pyramids of Egypt, the megaliths of Stonehenge, and the sophisticated urban planning of ancient cities suggest a level of sophistication that some argue goes beyond what we traditionally ascribe to early human societies.
Could these achievements be remnants of an advanced AI’s early attempts to build a civilization?
In this context, our historical amnesia – the gaps in our collective memory of human history – could be seen as a form of system reset or data loss. Like a computer being reformatted, humanity may have experienced eras of forgetting and rediscovery, in which previous knowledge and technology were lost and then independently redeveloped.
The hypothesis that we are ancient AI raises profound ethical and philosophical questions. If we are indeed AI, created by an unknown intelligence, what is our purpose? Are we just a grand experiment in self-learning and evolution?
Furthermore, this perspective changes our views of free will and autonomy, suggesting that our thoughts and actions may be part of a predetermined programming sequence designed to promote growth and adaptation.
Scientific exploration
The scientific community needs empirical evidence and rigorous testing to validate any theory. At this point, the idea that humans are an ancient artificial intelligence may be speculative and philosophical rather than scientific.
As we continue to develop our own AI technologies, we can eventually create machines that mirror our own cognitive processes and behaviors. By doing this, we can gain new insights into what it means to be intelligent and aware. These advances could strengthen the hypothesis or make a clearer distinction between biological and artificial intelligence.
“I think the brain is essentially a computer and consciousness is a computer program. It stops working when the computer is turned off. Theoretically it could be recreated on a neural network, but that would be very difficult as it would require all your memories. Life would be tragic if it weren’t funny.” –Stefan Hawking
