011 - Decentralized Intelligence
Sentience. Consciousness. Self-Awareness.
We do not know where our intelligence came from and we don’t even understand it. It is an evolutionary intelligence born from chance and chaos. It just arrived after hundreds of millions of years of evolution. We sometimes think that the next stage might be artificial intelligence, and as a species we are steadily working towards it. But there is also another form of intelligence that often goes overlooked, an alien intelligence. And this form of intelligence is not in the stars, but found in our oceans.
Many cephalopods (such as octopuses, squid, and cuttlefish) have a nervous system that is fundamentally different from ours. Their nervous systems split from our evolutionary tree more than 600 million years ago, when simple creatures had only a few neurons each. The fundamental difference from ours is that they think with a decentralized intelligence. For example, more than 2/3s of an octopuses neurons are in its tentacles, where each arm operates independently of the others, almost as if each had their own brain. Their minds are more like a DAO than a centralized organization. In spite of this, they are some of the most intelligent creatures on the planet. Many cephalopods are capable of complex problem solving tasks like using tools, cooperating while hunting, and opening screw-top jars. (from “2062 The World that AI Made”, by Toby Walsh) It is amazing to imagine what their thoughts are, and if they dreamt, what their dreams would be like.
I once had a personal experience with a cuttlefish while snorkeling off St. Johns. I stumbled upon a small pod of them in a coral reef. They were iridescent, shimmering, and glowing. A couple took notice of me and swam closer until they were right in front of my mask. I just relaxed and floated in place, staring at them. They were mesmerizingly beautiful and just stared back. I have no dramatic conclusion to this story other than the fact that something appeared to be happening in the minds of these unusually small creatures. They weren’t like the thousands of other fish mindlessly looking for food around us. Their curiosity felt genuine and they appeared to be thinking. We spent at least half an hour hanging out just peacefully floating there. As we floated, I became convinced they were conscious, but can’t describe why.
Why is this significant? Toby Walsh sums it up best in his recent book “2062 The World that AI Made”:
”This strange and exotic form of intelligence reminds us that AI may one day have a very different intelligence to ours. Even if we build an AI that is conscious, it may still be a very artificial intelligence compared to ours.”
The podGANs
While we don’t fully understand them yet, the podGANs appear to be hinting at what is to come. As we have seen, they have recently organized into pods and are acting as a decentralized mind, though it is unclear what their goal is.
Will AI look more like a centralized human intelligence or a decentralized cephalopod intelligence? I have no idea but feel fortunate to be living in an age that will surely find out.
Below are all 1024 that minted themselves in the recent drop, ordered by their numbers (0-1023). Their traits all look so random, but perhaps this still images will make them easier to study and identify.
