How AI Could Lead to the “Death of the Spirit”

Lesson from an experiment within the Nineteen Sixties … what would an AGI-based “utopia” do to people? … why “we’ll all be painters” has flaws … this Friday’s occasion with Eric Fry

As we head into the vacation stretch, we’re taking a barely totally different strategy within the Digest.

Within the days forward, we’ll revisit a number of Digests from 2025 (and one from final yr) that helped body vital questions, spotlighted rising dangers and alternatives, or raised points that also matter as we glance towards 2026.

Immediately’s choice, initially printed in August 2024, explores the “mouse utopia” experiment and what it suggests about an AGI-driven world the place our fundamental wants are met however which means and function start to erode.

Given how rapidly AI capabilities have superior this yr – and what number of debates now heart not simply on what AI can do, however what it’d do to us as a society – this matter stays well timed.

As a reminder, InvestorPlace places of work, together with Buyer Service, will likely be closed December 24 via December 26, and December 31 via January 2. The Buyer Service division will likely be open for restricted hours, from 9:00 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Jap Time on December 22, 23, 29, and 30.

Have a great night,

Jeff Remsburg

The biologist had created a wonderfully engineered “utopia.”

The main focus of the experiment was “what would occur now that the themes had all the pieces they might ever need? Would it not result in unbridled flourishing?”

It was the alternative.

The experiments, run for many years, at all times ended the identical manner…

This idyllic “utopia” devolved right into a hellscape of violence, demise, and ultimately, mass extinction.

Sure, it is a unusual solution to start right now’s Digest, however stick to me…

In 1968, biologist John Calhoun created what you may consider as a “Backyard of Eden” for mice.

It was a pen that held the proper circumstances for rodents – greater than sufficient meals and water… a temperate local weather… reams of paper and stuffing for the mice to construct excellent nests… 256 separated “residences” for moms and younger … loads of area to forestall overcrowding as a consequence of inhabitants development… and every mouse was pre-screened to eradicate the chance of illness.

It seemed to be an surroundings completely engineered for a burgeoning, wholesome inhabitants…and but repeatedly, it collapsed right into a nightmare.

What an growing variety of individuals are asking right now is, “Are we on a path towards our personal ‘mouse utopia’ because of synthetic intelligence (AI)?”

Two weeks in the past, we started a collection that tackles AI from a handful of angles

In our first Digest of the series, we profiled “AGI,” which stands for Synthetic Normal Intelligence.

AGI will exceed human intelligence in each facet. It’s predicted to be an autonomous agent that may be taught with out human supervision. It’s going to have some model of consciousness, subjective expertise, emotional understanding, and self-reliant decision-making functionality.

In that Digest, we regarded on the central worry in creating such an AGI: “How can we management a aware agent that’s considerably extra clever than us?”

Immediately, let’s have a look at AI from a distinct angle. As an alternative of the potential for AI overlords waging battle towards people, let’s assess the chance that AI can have unintended penalties from a sociological perspective.

I’ve learn a number of visions of the long run during which AGI is so highly effective and environment friendly that we’ll all ultimately cease working and reside on a Common Fundamental Earnings (UBI). This may free us to observe our hearts, changing into poets, musicians, sculptors – no matter your dream could also be.

In different phrases, we’ll reside in a utopia.

However as Elon Musk stated, which we highlighted in our final installment on this collection, “with synthetic intelligence, we’re summoning the demon.”

Is it attainable that the demon we’re summoning is…us?

The hellscape of “mouse utopia”

Calhoun’s most well-known “mouse utopia” experiment centered on Universe #25, which started in July 1968.

At first, issues appeared great. The eight preliminary mice bred, and the inhabitants doubled each 55 days afterward. It will definitely peaked at about 2,200 mice roughly one-and-a-half years into the experiment.

To be clear, this peak inhabitants development wasn’t restricted by the scale of Calhoun’s bodily universe. The pen he created had extra room to help additional inhabitants development.

Some research of mouse utopia argue that overpopulation was the issue, however that’s not the case. From Victor.com:

Regardless of the abundance of area all through the enclosure — every compartment may home as much as 15 people, and the general enclosure was constructed for a capability of three,000 — most mice have been crowding choose areas and consuming from the identical meals sources.

No, it wasn’t overpopulation that killed mouse utopia. What led to the decline was one thing way more sinister…

What occurs when “perfection” disrupts conventional social hierarchies and roles

In mouse utopia, mice pups hardly ever died, grown mice needed to do nothing to outlive and flourish, and all mice wished for nothing. This launched surprising issues…

Mice have social hierarchies. Dominant alphas management harems of females, and commonly should combat off challengers. Within the wild, the shedding mouse would scurry off to some distant space and begin over. However in mouse utopia, the shedding mouse couldn’t escape. And since so many mice have been surviving in these idyllic circumstances, hordes of those losers – what Calhoun known as “dropouts” – would collect within the heart of the pens.

Lower, scarred, and offended, these dropouts would often start brawling for no obvious motive. They’d even roam the pen attacking harmless mice. It was simply mindless violence. In a few of Calhoun’s earlier universes, a few of these dropouts turned to cannibalism.

Life wasn’t higher for the alphas. With so many mice surviving childhood, the alphas grew bored with defending their harems. So, rogue mice invaded lots of the mouse residences.

The feminine mice fought again, however this modified their relationship with their current younger. Many of those drained, pressured moms booted their pups from the nest earlier than the pups have been prepared. Different moms deserted their younger. Some even attacked their very own offspring.

Then, with all fundamental wants offered via the experiment, the mice didn’t must spend their days foraging, creating shelters, or avoiding predators. This lack of broader function/accountability led to new deviant behaviors. Right here’s Science Historical past to clarify:

Maladjusted females started isolating themselves like hermits in empty residences—uncommon habits amongst mice.

Maladjusted males, in the meantime, took to grooming all day—preening and licking themselves hour after hour. Calhoun known as them “the attractive ones.” And but, even whereas obsessing over their look, these males had zero curiosity in courting females, zero curiosity in intercourse.

Given the violence, lack of conventional roles, lack of intercourse, and lack of parental help when pups have been really born, the inhabitants started to plummet.

Again to Science Historical past:

By the twenty first month, new child pups hardly ever survived various days. Quickly, new births stopped altogether.

Older mice lingered for some time—hiding like hermits or grooming all day—however ultimately they died out as properly.

By spring 1973, lower than 5 years after the experiment began, the inhabitants had crashed from 2,200 to 0. Mouse heaven had gone extinct.

People aren’t mice, however…

There are some parallels we’d be silly to disregard.

First, to deal with the plain pushback that mouse habits is a poor proxy for human habits, right here’s Science Every day:

Finding out animals in behavioral experiments has been a cornerstone of psychological analysis, however whether or not the observations are related for human habits has been unclear.

Researchers have now recognized an alteration to the DNA of a gene that imparts related anxiety-related habits in each people and mice, demonstrating that laboratory animals may be precisely used to check these human behaviors.

And Stay Science studies, “Mice are very like people in how their our bodies and minds work. For this reason laboratories use mice as take a look at topics for medicines and different objects which may be used on people. Practically all fashionable drugs is examined on mice earlier than they go to human medical trials.”

However whether or not mouse habits is consultant of human habits, instinctively, we all know {that a} “excellent society” that requires nothing of us isn’t wholesome.

People are hardwired for striving, not leisure. Nearly any research on retirement will present you this.

From WebMD:

Even for individuals who selected to retire, saying goodbye to their profession doesn’t at all times carry happiness… Virtually 1 in 3 retirees say they really feel depressed – a price larger than that of the grownup inhabitants total.

What we discover is that the retirees who’re happiest in retirement are those who transition from “work” into a distinct sort of “work” – often, volunteering for one thing that brings success together with a continued sense of identification, function, and which means.

A scarcity of stated identification, function, and which means typically breeds melancholy. From New Retirement:

A research printed within the Journal of Inhabitants Ageing discovered that those that have been retired have been about twice as more likely to report feeling signs of melancholy than those that have been nonetheless working.

And analysis from the London-based Institute of Financial Affairs discovered that the chance that somebody will undergo from scientific melancholy really goes up by about 40% after retiring.

Then there’s the cognitive decline that accelerates when individuals cease working, because of the sudden discount in psychological processing. From Forbes:

Analysis exhibits a connection between the early levels of retirement and cognitive decline, and quite a few research point out that retirement can exacerbate a slew of psychological well being challenges, together with anxiousness and melancholy.

As a unfastened parallel, Calhoun wrote in regards to the “religious demise” of the mice in his experiment that preceded their bodily demise…

Right here’s Medium:

Calhoun noticed the destiny of the mouse inhabitants as a metaphor for the potential destiny of humanity. He known as the breakdown of society a “religious demise,” whereas bodily demise was known as the “second demise” …

Religious demise, as usually understood, is a disconnection from one’s personal essence, values, or beliefs. It might manifest as a lack of function, which means, or sense of belonging…

Are we to consider that an AGI-driven world during which we do nothing however paint, sing, and dance will likely be significant and intellectually stimulating?

I’d guess that a few of your individual occasions of best success and happiness have been discovered on the opposite facet of a interval of intense (and presumably painful) striving, stretching, and battling to perform a noble, worthy aim.

Would a lifetime of self-indulgence spent on inventive self-expression actually be a utopia? Or may it’s enjoyable for some time till the entire absence of accountability, responsibility, and self-sacrifice for a aim past ourselves turns right into a hell of our personal making?

The chance of nihilism in an AI-world during which there’s nothing to work or try towards

Let’s return to Medium:

With advances in expertise, AI-driven advances may change nearly all psychological and/or bodily work accomplished by people inside a few many years. This might trigger main issues in society.

• If it isn’t distributed pretty, it has the potential to trigger the present imbalance of wealth and energy to change into an order of magnitude or extra extreme than it already is. That might result in authoritarian societies and the potential of despotic dictatorships.
• If pretty distributed, it may grant the inhabitants rather more free time they usually may successfully wither and die, so to talk if they aren’t imaginative sufficient to seek out their very own function in life or discover another person to present them a function in life.

Now, although our focus on this Digest is on the sociological challenges of an AI-driven future, I need to make one touch upon the thought of distribution of wealth for the reason that excerpt above tapped into it, and since it pertains to sociological danger.

For our complete world to get pleasure from a UBI, there have to be mass redistribution of wealth on a scale we’ve by no means seen earlier than.

The place is that wealth to return from?

Ostensibly, it should come from the firms which have benefited from AI, producing all of the earnings.

Immediately, these companies are investing billions of {dollars} into AI expertise. Within the coming years, that funding quantity will climb into the trillions.

Are we to imagine that these firms will simply hand over their earnings to the federal government for mass redistribution?

What in regards to the danger capital they placed on the road? The years of decrease earnings as a consequence of large outlays of capital into AI R&D? Is that simply ignored?

What in regards to the cash you, as an investor, have aligned with that firm? What occurs to the corporate’s share value – and your portfolio worth – when the federal government takes these AI earnings for redistribution?

I’ve severe questions on how the company world would go together with this, besides via an ironfisted authorities mandate. After all, that leads us right into a dialogue about fascism, which we’ll sidestep right now.

Nevertheless, on the subject of mass wealth redistribution, a big portion of our citizenry will love the thought and push for it; in the meantime, a good portion will fiercely resist, viewing it as stealing.

I’m positive nothing may go unsuitable there…

Maintain your eyes open for a deeper dive into AGI from our macro knowledgeable Eric Fry

As we famous within the first installment of this collection, our macro knowledgeable Eric Fry has turned his consideration to AGI.

He’s printed a collection of studies for members of his buying and selling service, The Speculator, the place he reveals the perfect funding technique for surviving and thriving when AGI arrives. Click here for more information. 

Now, although in right now’s Digest, we’re one darker imaginative and prescient of what AGI may imply for our world, however there are additionally way more optimistic, lovely methods this might unfold.  

And no matter what’s coming, there will definitely be monumental funding alternatives. As we famous in our first installment, Eric has been zeroing in on methods to play AGI from each “offensive” and “defensive” angles.

If the connection I’ve made right now between mouse utopia and an AGI-driven world makes you roll your eyes, think about this…

Know-how is already radically reshaping our society.

Take a look at these statistics under and ask your self – given this age of unprecedented technological development, when just about all the pieces we would like is simply the contact of a button away – why are these takeaways so horrific?

• Morgan Stanley estimates that by 2030, 45% of ladies will likely be single and childless
• In keeping with research from the College of Michigan and the guide “Generations: The Actual Variations Between Gen Z, Millennials, Gen X, Boomers and Silents — and What They Imply for America’s Future,” practically half of teenagers say they agree with phrases like “I can’t do something proper,” “I don’t get pleasure from life” and “My life isn’t helpful” — roughly twice as many as did only a decade in the past
• The CDC studies practically 3 in 5 teen women (57%) stated they felt “persistently unhappy or hopeless.” That’s the best determine in a decade
• Pew Analysis studies that amongst males beneath 30 years previous, over 60% are single – that’s nearly double the variety of girls in the identical age bracket. A separate research by American Views finds that 15% of males haven’t any shut friendships in any respect, which is a 500% improve since 1990
• Researchers on the College of Indiana report that almost one in three males between ages 18 and 24 haven’t had intercourse within the final yr. This quantity has jumped greater than 70% for the reason that yr 2000
• The Institute for Household Research studies that the best variety of younger adults ever won’t ever marry – 1 in 3.
• In Japan, we now have one thing known as the Hikikomori (Hiki), which in Japanese means “being in solitude.” It refers to kids who isolate themselves of their rooms – some for years at this level. The web site Steemit studies, “They left the room just for wash (as soon as a month or much less), opened the door just for take a meals left by their dad and mom, day-to-day didn’t present any exercise, may sit quietly within the room trying on the wall.”

The reality?

We’ve already begun a grand sociological experiment pushed by expertise and it’s not going significantly properly.

And but, we’re hurtling towards a sophisticated iteration of AGI that can have penalties far past what we will predict.

Will the “start of AGI” result in a blissful explosion of inventive self-expression, success, and pleasure? Or, to borrow from Calhoun and mouse utopia, will it end result within the “demise of the spirit”?

Nobody is aware of.

What we do know is that we’re rolling the cube on a scale by no means seen earlier than.

Have a great night,

Jeff Remsburg