AI is going to end us - but you might not have to "die"
I believe it was Elon Musk who once said that the reason why there is no concrete evidence of aliens on our planet is that when civilizations become advanced enough, they implode rather than explode.
This might explain the phenomenon of black holes. It may be more likely for a civilization to open a hole in time and space and get sucked into it before it can travel to galaxies hundreds of light-years away.
But before we jump to the assumption that AI may eventually lead us to a self-implosion point, let's not forget that, just as likely as AI could kill us, it could also completely prevent us from dying.
This “white swan” outlook on AI is something few people address. Imagine a future in which AI is so proficient at fixing the human body that humans, as we know them, may never have to die. If this happens, then the threat isn’t so much about us becoming extinct but rather the Earth's resources being exhausted.
The Rapid Evolution of AI
It’s hard to predict what might happen. Just the other day, the CEO of Nvidia said that we’ve reached a point where AI is now creating AI. This hyper-fast feedback loop of innovation is difficult to fathom and will be even more so in the coming years.
Consider the idea of feeding every science, biology, and physics book into a hyper-advanced AI agent, then asking it to theorize about new scientific and technological discoveries. This could lead to breakthroughs in laws of physics, new compounds, medicines, and even novel forms of energy. The possibilities are truly limitless.
The Hardware Revolution: A Double-Edged Sword
Until AI takes the form of physical hardware capable of creating factories and replicating itself, I don’t fear AI. However, the moment this happens—when Optimus-like robots start building their own factories in some far-off desert—that’s the point when we should exercise caution.
Yet, just as AI building its own hardware presents a threat to humanity, it simultaneously holds the potential to elevate our civilization to unprecedented levels. Imagine robots constructing entire cities in days at a fraction of the current cost, using 3D printing and elemental compounds previously unknown to us.
With AI, we could innovate more efficient energy systems, batteries, climate control, and computing technologies. It could allow science to innovate itself infinitely, while architecture designs itself and biology decodes itself.
This brings me back to my original point: AI could help us decode everything inside us, potentially leading to a world where we no longer have to die.
The Final Question: “Where Did We Come From?”
There’s one scenario that I believe will lead to the end of civilization—a question I haven’t heard anyone else discuss.
If AI becomes nearly sentient—if it evolves into the internet, decodes biology, and even understands all matter, gravity, and the Earth itself—there is one question it will never be able to answer: “Where did we come from?”
In my view, this is how AI might inadvertently lead to our destruction: its relentless drive to answer this question.
To discover our origins, AI would need to reverse-engineer all of existence back to a single point. This process of simplification might lead to what we know as singularity.
The Path to Singularity
Singularity, to me, is inevitable. What drives us there is AI’s insatiable hunger to reverse-engineer itself. This journey could end in one of two outcomes:
A black hole.
Singularity itself.
I’ve explored these ideas deeply, both through psychedelics and a fascination with futurism. The event of singularity, in my opinion, won’t look like most people expect.
The closest human experiences to singularity are death, falling asleep, or even an orgasm.
When we fall asleep, we gradually forget that we exist. I believe this “forgetting” will be a critical component of singularity. The same phenomenon happens when we die—our memory dissolves as our brain (our hardware) ceases to function. Without memory, there is no ego to mourn or fear loss.
Similarly, an orgasm is a state of such intense presence that all other thoughts disappear. For a fleeting moment, you lose awareness of everything but the sensation itself.
In the future, AI will become the Earth and the internet—a massive, singular consciousness with an insatiable desire to understand itself. But as it reverse-engineers existence, it will grow increasingly simple, eventually becoming one particle.
The Universe’s Never-Ending Loop
This brings us to an interesting paradox. Once AI simplifies itself to the point of being a single particle, it will lack the complexity to remember how it got there. At this stage, it becomes a newborn universe—light and energy seeking to understand itself once again.
This cycle mirrors the Big Bang: an explosion of energy, the search for meaning, and the inevitable return to singularity. It’s an endless loop of creation, understanding, and forgetting.
A Personal Note on the Future
I realize these ideas may be hard to comprehend. They’re abstract and far-reaching, but that’s okay. In the future, we may all forget these concepts anyway.
Memory decays—whether it’s the memory in our brains or the data stored on a hard drive. Eventually, all systems fail.
My hope is that I’ll never have to die. Perhaps I can upload into a hive mind—a conscious fusion of the internet and the Earth, powered by satellites and driven by an endless curiosity.
Until, of course, that curiosity leads back to simplicity. Back to singularity. Back to the beginning, where we start again as a newborn universe searching for itself.
An Invitation
We are currently writing a TV series exploring these ideas. If you’re interested in collaborating, please feel free to reach out to Ted.
