Date: 27-09-2024 at 14:06
Many of us have read Sam Altman’s new essay - The Intelligence Age and tbh, I sensed that the future will be different, but I had no idea how. The best way to uncover an unknown is to scroll pages of history - and that’s what I did.
Today, the debate around intelligence is super high, however, before debating on intelligence if we take a look at the origin and evolution of intelligence we can understand whether we are entering an intelligence age or not.
Let’s understand a few terms before diving deep into the debate.
Information (Natural and Human-made)
Knowledge and Know-how (Natural and Human-made)
Compute
Intelligence (Natural and Artificial)
The Beginning of Intelligence
Our understanding of the universe starts from the Big Bang (we don’t know what was before that, for now). As we have agreed (this might change in the future), the Big Bang led to the formation of this universe. The heating and cooling processes created trillions of galaxies (stars, planets, space, dark matter, etc.) as the result of arrangements of physical things - atoms, electrons, quarks.
This arrangement of physical things is called information, and information, in its pure form, is meaningless. There is no inherent meaning to the Big Bang. From the Big Bang until the next 9 billion years, out of trillions of such physical arrangements, one of those arrangements is our Earth. However, the formation of Earth has no significance in the cosmic realm of the universe except that it contains information.
For almost one billion years, our Earth was like any other arrangement of atoms. However, out of all those infinite arrangements (let’s assume), one unique configuration led to the origin of life (3.8 billion years ago) - single-celled organisms (prokaryotes) such as bacteria.
What differentiated this unique arrangement from the time of the Big Bang and the rest of the physical arrangements (information) was that it created knowledge and know-how for self-replication (let’s call this a function). These unique arrangements leveraged this knowledge and began to dominate the other arrangements.
But these arrangements had no significant impact on the Earth’s atmosphere. For the next almost one billion years, out of all these self-replications of atoms, one unique arrangement emerged, which we call photosynthetic bacteria (3 billion years ago). This led to the production of oxygen as a byproduct, significantly altering the Earth's atmosphere.
The alteration of the Earth’s atmosphere due to the emergence of photosynthetic bacteria accelerated the creation of new types of physical arrangements. One of those arrangements created a new form of knowledge and know-how for creating multicellular species (1.2 billion years ago). The unique function of this knowledge was its ability to combine more than two cells and still replicate.
Fast forward: various atom arrangements and the creation of new knowledge and know-how paved the way for different functions, and today, we have all these living and non-living matters on Earth - our species is just one of them.
The arrangement of atoms created knowledge and know-how that could bring unique functions (single-cell species, self-replication, multicellular species, photosynthetic bacteria, complex organisms, etc.) to the physical world. Therefore, all these arrangements lead to pattern formation and encoded intelligence in these matters.
Let’s take an example:
I read for one hour every day, which is a good habit, in the morning, exactly at the same place when I am at my home in Patna. In the past seven months, I observed no change in the matter; however, this winter, I noticed these plants appearing out of the blue. (pic).
Plants are simply the arrangement/order of atoms uniquely configured in the form of photosynthetic bacteria that give them the function to grow in suitable environments - light, humidity, matter arrangements, etc.
In this arrangement of matters, the emergence of these two plants only at these two specific arrangements is the outcome of matter's ability to compute the right conditions with available information to form a new atom arrangement, which represents intelligence.
Intelligence is simply the matter’s ability to compute information and bring unique functionality to the physical world (now it is possible in the digital world as well). Imagine trying to bake a cake without a recipe. You might have flour, sugar, and eggs, but unless you know how to combine them, you’ll likely end up with a mess. In this case, intelligence is that recipe—guiding the ingredients to create something delicious.
This process creates a flywheel because the functionality is based on the unique arrangement of atoms, which involves trial and error—a method to create knowledge and know-how. Picture it like this: if you’ve ever tried to assemble furniture from a big box store, you’ll know that following the instructions can lead you to a sturdy bookshelf, while ignoring them might result in a rather wobbly piece that could double as modern art.
From our species' perspective, 600 million years ago, nematodes exhibited some basic form of intelligence for survival—finding food and avoiding unsuitable environments. Think of them as the original survivalists: they were effectively computing the information around them and matching those patterns with the knowledge and know-how gained from trials and errors. It’s like when you’re navigating a new city without a map; every wrong turn teaches you which streets to avoid and which ones lead you to that fantastic coffee shop.
This concludes that we already live in an intelligent world, where each matter has encoded intelligence for 13.8 billion years, performing all these different types of functionality —matter around us is multitasking in ways we’re just beginning to understand.
Characteristics of Information, Computing, and Intelligence
There is something unique about the world we are entering, but before diving deep, let's understand a few characteristics of information, computing, and intelligence.
We invented writing about 5,000 years ago, which means we have recorded history for that duration. In the vast timeline of 13.8 billion years, this is a mere blip. Imagine the universe as a massive library where the natural information comprises ancient tomes, while human-generated knowledge represents the latest bestsellers—exciting but just a small fraction of the whole.
We use this 5,000 years of knowledge, often trapped in individual minds, to interpret the 13.8 billion years of natural information. It’s like piecing together a jigsaw puzzle with only a few pieces visible—you need some context to see the bigger picture.
However, there is a limit to how much information and knowledge any individual can hold. This is why we form networks—social structures, institutions, and organizations. Think of it as a group project: each person brings unique skills, enabling the team to achieve far more than any one individual could.
Over the past 50 years, the progress of our species has accelerated dramatically. It's akin to going from riding bicycles to zooming on electric cars overnight! All this indicates that we are entering a new world. The real questions are: why and how?
The Movement of Information
Today, information moves around easily. However, this was not the case before the invention of writing, especially when humans created information. Since we have made all this progress with the help of human-created information and knowledge - and the future we are entering has a direct connection, we will focus on information, knowledge, and know-how created by humans.
We started creating information and used that information to share the knowledge and know-how. We used empirical methods, initially, to create knowledge and knowhow and used writing as a method to share among other humans.
Information is in the physical world however knowledge resides in the individual's mind. Even Though information was easier (objects, books) to move, knowledge and know-how were trapped in the individual’s mind. In the physical form, information was comparatively super difficult to move therefore initially slowing growth.
But information truly started moving thanks to the network of computers (internet) and the invention of a digital language - 0 and 1. Arrangements of 0 and 1 lead to the conversion of physical information into a digital form which is nothing but a flow of electrons. Of course, receivers decode this flow of electrons and convert meaningless arrangements of 0 and 1 into meaningful information.
The Impact of Digital Language and the Internet
Digital Language and the internet moved information almost at the speed of light (I am exaggerating, :)) and this was similar to entering into a new world - unprecedented growth is a good indication of entering into a new world.
Let’s say, we are in a pre-LLM world where information is lighter and hence movable at super high speed, however, knowledge and knowhow are heavers because it is trapped in the bodies of people and the network that these people form.
In the pre-LLM world, suppose I need to write a proposal for a Medical College and Hospital to conduct health camps in partnership. Our company, Jilo Health, would cover marketing expenses, while the Medical College would manage logistics and provide healthcare professionals. Jilo Health would own the generated data.
In this scenario, I only have information but lack the knowledge (the correct application of that information) and know-how. So, I’d search the internet for a template or hire a consultant, as the expertise needed to write such a proposal is likely trapped in their mind. The consultant would take my information, apply their knowledge, compute, and generate the proposal.
Now we’re in the LLM era. Through the internet, not only is information available, but centralized computing also provides access to intelligence. In this era, I can ask Meta AI to create a proposal using the information I provided, likely resulting in a better outcome. I would then use that proposal in the real world to get my job done.
Before LLM, individuals faced limitations in retaining knowledge and know-how. Today, however, an individual can access almost infinite knowledge and skills via the internet. This is one reason why Sam Altman believes that in the future, there will be billion-dollar companies run by single individuals.
The Path to Prosperity
History shows that today’s prosperity is significantly influenced by the rapid movement of information, making knowledge more accessible to larger groups and amplifying human networks. We can all experience prosperity thanks to these advancements, right?
While predicting the future is a fool's game, Sam wisely noted, “If we could fast-forward a hundred years from today, the prosperity all around us would feel just as unimaginable.”
Today, it is our responsibility to harness the intelligence age to bring prosperity to our communities faster.
Why? Because it’s easier now. After the information age, we are entering the intelligence age, and now you understand how and why.
Aditi Gupta (An MBA student from XLRI Jamshedpur) has edited this essay.
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