Related papers: Algorithmic bottlenecks in evolution: Genetic code…
According to the "hard-steps" model, the origin of humanity required "successful passage through a number of intermediate steps" (so-called "hard" or "critical" steps) that were intrinsically improbable with respect to the total time…
The Great Filter hypothesis is an extension of the Fermi Paradox: "If life is so common in the universe, why don't we see it?" The Great Filter theory posits there are multiple obstacles or filters life must pass through which ultimately…
In genetic systems there is a non-trivial interface between the sequence of symbols which constitutes the chromosome, or ``genotype'', and the products which this sequence encodes --- the ``phenotype''. This interface can be thought of as a…
This study examines the hypothesis that the rapid development of Artificial Intelligence (AI), culminating in the emergence of Artificial Superintelligence (ASI), could act as a "Great Filter" that is responsible for the scarcity of…
Where is everybody? This phrase distills the foreboding of what has come to be known as the Fermi Paradox - the disquieting idea that, if extraterrestrial life is probable in the Universe, then why have we not encountered it? This conundrum…
Evolution by natural selection can be seen an algorithm for generating creative solutions to difficult problems. More precisely, evolution by natural selection is a class of algorithms that share a set of properties. The question we address…
At face value, this essay is about understanding a fairly esoteric governance tool called compute thresholds. However, in order to grapple with whether these thresholds will achieve anything, we must first understand how they came to be. To…
Fermi's Paradox is the contradiction between the fact that it would seem to be highly probable that there are other technologically advanced species beyond the Earth, and the fact that there is no generally accepted evidence for their…
Traditionally, cognitive and computer scientists have viewed intelligence solipsistically, as a property of unitary agents devoid of social context. Given the success of contemporary learning algorithms, we argue that the bottleneck in…
We explain how hierarchical organization of biological systems emerges naturally during evolution, through a transition in the units of individuality. We will show how these transitions are the result of competing selective forces operating…
Large Language Models (LLMs) have unveiled remarkable capabilities in understanding and generating both natural language and code, but LLM reasoning is prone to hallucination and struggle with complex, novel scenarios, often getting stuck…
The genetic blueprint for the essential functions of life is encoded in DNA, which is translated into proteins -- the engines driving most of our metabolic processes. Recent advancements in genome sequencing have unveiled a vast diversity…
Multilingual generation with large language models (LLMs) is often of poor quality for mid- to low-resource languages, but the causes for this are not well-understood. We first demonstrate the existence of an implicit…
This study introduces a novel theoretical framework, the Stacked Autoencoder Evolution Hypothesis, which proposes that biological evolutionary systems operate through multi-layered self-encoding and decoding processes, analogous to stacked…
Our Universe is a vast, tantalizing enigma - a mystery that has aroused humankind's innate curiosity for eons. Begging questions on alien lifeforms have been thus far unfruitful, even with the bounding advancements we have embarked upon in…
The genetic code is nearly universal, and the arrangement of the codons in the standard codon table is highly non-random. The three main concepts on origin and evolution of the code are the stereochemical theory; the coevolution theory; and…
Biological and social systems are structured at multiple scales, and the incentives of individuals who interact in a group may diverge from the collective incentive of the group as a whole. Mechanisms to resolve this tension are responsible…
Mixed microbial communities, usually composed of various bacterial and fungal species, are fundamental in a plethora of environments, from soil to human gut and skin. Their evolution is a paradigmatic example of intertwined dynamics, where…
Since steep declines in a population's size also typically alter its composition, population bottlenecks are considered highly important for evolution. However, despite such significance, the mechanisms governing the impact of a given…
Categories provide a coarse grained description of the world. A fundamental question is whether categories simply mirror an underlying structure of nature, or instead come from the complex interactions of human beings among themselves and…