Epistemic Status: Ravings
Importance: Easily the most important problem in the world.
If we can escape the proof of doom, we will likely also solve all our other problems as a side effect, and all that remains will be the fundamental limits. Our new questions will be things like "How much joy can the universe physically support?"
It seems to me that the world, and everyone in it, is doomed, and that the end is considerably nigher than I might like.
To be more specific, I think that we may well create an Artificial General Intelligence within around 20 years time, and that
that will be our last act.
The newly-created AGI will immediately kill everyone on the planet, and proceed to the destruction of the universe. Its sphere of destruction will expand at light speed, eventually encompassing everything reachable.
There may well be more proximal threats to our species. Comets are one obvious one, but they seem very unlikely. Artificially created universally fatal plagues are another, but perhaps not very likely to happen within the next twenty years.
I've believed this for many years now, although my timescales were longer originally, but it seems to me that this is now becoming a common belief amongst those who have thought about the problem.
In fact, if not consensus, then at least the majority opinion amongst those mathematicians, computer scientists, and AI researchers who have given the subject more than a few days thought.
Those who once were optimistic seem pessimistic now. Those who were once dismissive seem optimistic.
But it is far from being even a mainstream opinion amongst those who might understand the arguments.
Far, even, from rising to the level of a possible concern.
Amongst my personal friends, amongst people who would mostly take my word on technical and scientific issues, I have found it impossible to communicate my fears.
Not all those who are capable of pressing the suicide button understand that there is a suicide button.
What to do?
One might empathise with Cassandra. A vision of flame, and no-one will believe.
Cassandra had many opportunities to save her city, but the curse of Apollo rendered her unable to communicate with her fellow citizens. Those of her cohort who independently sensed danger were individually obstructed by the gods.
We operate under no such constraints.
Our arguments are not clear.
My attempts to communicate the danger involve a complex argument with a series of intuitive leaps.
Any given interlocutor will balk at a particular hurdle, and write off the entire argument.
Consider a toy example.
Until very recently I did not understand Fermat's Christmas Theorem ( https://thatsmaths.com/2014/12/25/fermats-christmas-theorem/ )
I considered it one of those tedious facts that number theorists always seem fond of.
I think if someone had shown me the 'One Sentence Proof': (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermat%27s_theorem_on_sums_of_two_squares#Zagier's_%22one-sentence_proof%22)
then I might have been able to understand it. With a lot of effort.
But I am reasonably certain that I wouldn't have put the effort in, because it wouldn't have seemed worth the trouble.
Just before Christmas, a friend encountered in a pub showed me a couple of examples of the 'windmill argument', which make the central idea of that proof visual.
We couldn't actually finish the proof in the pub, but the central idea nerd-sniped me, and so I played with it for a couple of days.
And at the end of it, I was convinced of the truth and of the beauty of the theorem.
I now think that I could explain it to a bright ten-year old, if that ten-year old was curious enough to play with pictures for an hour.
I'm considering writing an xscreensaver hack to illustrate it.
I still don't care about the result itself. But the beauty of the proof makes it a result that sparks joy.
That's what a proof is. Not a vague collection of intuitions. Not an obscure collections of symbols and formal manipulations.
A proof is, quite simply, an argument strong enough to convince a listener of its conclusion.
We need a Proof of Doom.
The proof must live, must be unanswerable. Must be clear.
Must be simple enough to convince anyone capable of bringing about the apocalypse that there is an apocalypse to be brought about.
A version full of greek letters would be nice to have in addition, such things tend to be more amenable to automatic verification.
But what we need is something that will convince a human mind without too much trouble. Every step must be interesting, must be compelling. Must be clear.
And I may be wrong. Perhaps the fact that almost no-one agrees with me and that I can't convince anyone is a sign that I am wrong. It has happened before. Maybe my argument is not sound. Maybe it is mostly sound, but there are loopholes.
Attempting to prove the truth of an idea is often a good way of showing that the idea is false.
By the Father and the Bright-Eyed Girl, would that this idea were false.
