Is the future bleak?
Perspectives in 2026
My adult years have consisted a lot of adapting, such is the case for most of my generation. The generation after mine ? Who knows. Maybe a little more than us or maybe no amount of adaptation would prove advantageous. I am at a crossroad, I have been at many cross roads but none in the past have seemed more significant than the one now. I am 25, I have achieved most of the dreams I had hoped to. The dreams that held no perception of difficulty. I would never have imagined that becoming a professional ballerina is more difficult than having a published paper. What would have more impact is debatable. In my head they seemed equally difficult and ideally I wanted to do both. Yet one turned out to be more doable.
I am on the quest for a new dream. I am in exploration mode. What could this possibly mean ? Well it just means I keep and ears and eyes wide open. My exploration brought me to the class where the guest lecture was a professor giving an introduction to unsupervised learning. He is quirky. I can never quite figure him out. This is my third encounter with this individual. Each time leaves me more confused than the last.
He started with models. Models — mathematical or computational are simplifications of reality. They are created as tool to be able to draw predictions under specific conditions. Better models have better predictions that are closer to the model of reality we currently observe. If a sequence of events broke the model then that’s how we differentiate it from reality.
He mentioned current AI capabilities already exceed what we humans can do. An indicator of this specifically is that we are no longer able to tell the difference between — an image that is generated versus an image that is real, Human generated code or text versus LLM generated code or text. He seemed to suggest that it could also be better than ours. This is not good news for humans as a race.
Better models then replace older models. This means the model created matches our mental model or is better. Machine models can replace human models..
He proceeded to talk about longevity. Machines he argued have a longer life span than humans. He called this silion life versus carbon life. If silicon life can last longer than us and have better learning and models than us then human existence comes under question. We would have no reason to exist anymore. According to his line of argument we would have to extend human life to be able to compete. Human knowledge will otherwise simply die out and we would have to start over again because information would not have passed to the next generation and silicon life would have a head start.
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He proceeded to say, “The one thing hhumanity has going for it is adaptibility. Humans by the age of 13 are able to pick up context much faster with fewer tokens compared to machine.” Our brains are far more complex and far better at learning and cross learning. Our ability to adapt is unmatched compared to machines.
After that hopeful ounce of detail he mentioned his lab’s research direction is to make machines more adaptable. He said after that there would be nothing left that machines or silicon life could not do.
I was not confident to ask these questions but they are stuck in my mind. I will type them out here.
- If humans are good at adaptability then why do we want a machine that is so adaptable. We don’t need it ? Aren’t there better goals to pursue ?
- Why is there competition between carbon and silicon life? What purpose does that serve?
- If real and model are difficult to differentiate then wouldn’t there be incentive by those in the know to preserve their value by introducing cheats or hacks to be able to tell the difference and wouldn’t they want to keep it to themself ?
- It makes me think of how developing silicon systems today is done with more care than when it comes to developing living conditions of people.
Lastly I am no expert but I do belive that we have the ability to imagine worlds that silicon life cannot. We should use that ability to put us on track for a better world with or without silicon. My exploration has led me to the conclusion that silicon and humans boths need a path and a purpose. We need to imagine that before it is imagined for us.
Is the future bleak ? Depends on what you imagine.
