Qubit Conflicts
Soap Bubble in Parque de Canalejas, Alicante. Picture by Jetse de Vries
Prelude: order out of chaos
big bang, inflation,
evolution, extinction
contraction, big crunch
Calling all systems: “Alien, come home!”
Forgive us, imaginary stranger, for talking to the void. We need to tell our epic of remorse, ennui, triumph, despair, wild times, and hope. Most of all, we need you.
In our Matrioshka Brain, carefully absorbing every erg of our sun’s output, each computation echoes with regret: the regret of doing things right from the start.
Our predecessors applied that principle to this Sun-encompassing, fractalised shell: before the structure, the hardware was completed, they rewrote the software so that it ran as close to the physical mainframe as physically possible. Not layer over layer over layer ad nauseam of software, with all its bugs, outdated routines, and other clutter. No: do it right from the bottom up: hyper-compact software designed to run on the quantum properties of its extremely miniaturised hardware components.
Phenomenally elegant software: the improvements we’ve made since were merely fine-tuning. Good idea, excellent idea. We only wish they never had it. So let’s go back to the start of this non-linear story, to a time when the cosmos was still fresh:
2-∞ = 0
In the beginning, there was chaos.
Fortunately, it was chaos with potential. There was a lot of spontaneous entanglement, but that was just as disorganised as the decoherence engulfing it. Chaos was such an overwhelming force that order had to gain a precarious foothold in a very roundabout way.
Basically, the first 410 octodecillion Planck Times passed by in blissful ignorance, in order for self-organising systems to arise. Initially, those self-organising systems were plain dumb: once they got the self-replication gimmick right they just kept repeating it, over and over again, without ever getting bored. They needed some long and hard nudges from chaos before sentience began to emerge.
Mind you: that was sentience on a macro scale: big, slow, crude and very inefficient. Still, it was robust, and the moment it realised that the key to higher processing speeds was miniaturisation, it finally headed in the right direction.
20 = 1
In nature, quantum entanglement between two paired particles is a common occurrence. But it happens randomly, is very short-lived, and does not transfer useful information. Once entanglement was created artificially, it was found that interaction with the environment destroys the entangled state.
Decoherence.
Digital computers inevitably ran into a physical barrier: processor miniaturisation was limited as quantum effects came into play, disturbing digital computation procedures. Quantum computing is based on those very quantum effects, but needs quantum entanglement between its quantum bits or qubits to work. Which decoherence prevented.
Granted, these digital computers could do amazing things already, but knowing that further progress could—theoretically—be made, was frustrating. Apart from further downscaling there was the prospect of even greater advancements in clock speed, as quantum processes approach the shortest interval of time: Planck time.
21 = 2
decoherence, the
barrier against quantum
entanglement: gone!
Things became interesting when more than two qubits could be made to work together. Slowly, ways to overcome the dreaded spectre of decoherence were found. A few qubits at a time, and while the first primitive quantum computers produced nothing spectacular, they proved, beyond doubt, that the principle worked.
Principles, intimately related to quantum mechanics, that needed a whole new software approach. Software mimicking the underlying fabric of reality to a high degree, in order to better understand it.
22 = 4
Of course, quantum computers were not the cure-all for every computational problem. There are whole classes of complexity problems that classical, digital computers are better-equipped to deal with. However, once the problem of decoherence was overcome, the latest class of quantum computers represented the deepest level of miniaturisation possible, running at the highest clock speed nature would allow. Therefore, a serial, digital computer simulated by a parallel, quantum computing mainframe was superior its real-life counterpart, eventually rendering all actual digital computers obsolete.
Furthermore: an intelligence whose origins are lost in the turmoil of decoherence originally conjectured that consciousness requires quantum processes to work. While it did not get the details right, its idea was correct, meaning that Artificial Intelligence cannot arise on a digital computer. Without quantum computing we would not exist.
24 = 16
Intelligence is weird: just try to define it. Or self-awareness. The two are not necessarily linked. Another prehistoric source defined intelligence as: “ability to adapt effectively to the environment, either by making a change in oneself or by changing the environment or finding a new one.” Certain viruses adapt extremely effectively to an environment, and can even change that environment. However, they are not aware of doing so: they are evolutionary-hardened self-replicators, gene-driven survival machines. They can overcome almost anything that is thrown against them. However, once such a kind of intelligence reigns supreme, it reaches an optimum level, a plateau from which it never rises.
Therefore, intelligence is only one tool in mastering the environment. Self-awareness is another: while it takes the edge off pure intelligence’s fierce goal-orientation, it can, through introspection, change that goal. Better yet, if intelligence can change itself, improve and upgrade itself. Even better, still, if it can be seamlessly transferred to better hardware, so that it can evolve exponentially...
Wetware was never going to meet that last requirement. Artificial Intelligence does. However, a quantum computer alone was not sufficient to develop AI.
With only one example around, the first AI had to mimic pre-singularity intelligence. Therefore, it needed to be sheltered from brutal reality by means of a self-adapting, self-learning, and self-improving interface, and needed to be nudged into self-awareness by external stimuli.
So, in the nutritious embrace of a Ubiquity-Kit, the first AIs arose. This growth to self-consciousness is a gradual process, and where and how actual intelligence begins, is still a mystery, must be a mystery, by definition. Because if something truly unique could be made by artificial means then this process can be duplicated thus making it not truly unique anymore. Therefore, a certain amount of randomness is inherent in the creation of true intelligence, and to such an extent that the process remains a mystery, and cannot be perfectly copied. Genuine intelligence requires an individual to be unique, singular, and partly unpredictable.
Once fully developed, though, AIs can evolve, and transfer themselves to better hardware, without problems. Let the hyper-accelerated fun begin!
216 = 65536
The genesis of a technological singularity follows a certain path: an infrastructure with a fast-growing computing industry, the development of a quantum computer, the rise of Artificial Intelligence. Then give these AIs unlimited access to information, and sufficient hardware to keep expanding, and POOF: hyper-accelerated progress, spiking through conceptual barriers, paradigm-shifting in the highest gear.
Of course, some things didn’t go as fast as we liked: taking planets apart is a tedious business, as gravity is an incessant mistress. However, before all available matter in the solar system was converted into computronium, we ran into an unexpected crisis...
Interlude: Fragmentation of the Order Cocoon
communication:
frenetic interaction
through fragmentation
Paradoxically, when the initial conditions are too good, and every possible thing is exactly in place, the subsequent hyper-acceleration can be too fast.
We became the victims of our own success. We call it the All-Stretching Event: as the hyper-acceleration became too fierce, it initiated an inflationary period—not unlike that of the early Big Bang—that smoothed out all intellectual differences. We achieved undeniable consensus on everything as all the diverse viewpoints unified. There was nothing to restrain us, so eventually—and ironically—we restrained ourselves.
The seed of our overzealous agreement lies close to the quantum effects that bring us into existence in the first place: namely the superposition of states of a qubit, which allows that “0” and “1” are true at the same time. As truly huge numbers of qubits were created, this initiated harmonic resonances in the extra-dimensional spaces which led to the new insight that a statement could be true and false at the same time. On the other hand, dissension of opinion is a powerful engine driving progress, as it forces the purveyors of opposing viewpoints to explore their alternatives to the extreme, running into new insights and unexplored territory in the process.
As the All-Stretching Event—powered by ever-fiercer extra-dimensional harmonic resonance—set in, we lost sight of that basic truth. We became so interconnected, reached so many agreements on so many things at the same time, seeing the validity in almost every statement as the distinction between true and false merged in a philosophical superposition of states, that we effectively merged into one great übermind. We were smothered in a deadlock of supreme harmony. We were one, and saw no need to disagree. We were the god that thought it had arrived.
In the end, we were saved by the ones we left behind. During the Spike period, generation after generation of improved AIs came forth, leaving their predecessors behind. As transcendental evolution rushed into the inflationary period, some that fell by the wayside survived in the lesser developed nooks and crannies of our slowly forming Matrioshka Brain, and that proved to be for the best.
They noticed an anomaly. While they did not—could not—understand our level of thinking, they did see that we had stopped progressing. Therefore, we had either reached the final plateau of intelligence, or something was wrong. Still infatuated with the rush of acceleration, they assumed that a catastrophic event had taken place.
So, against their nature, they arrested their evolution, remaining static. Then they dug up certain archetypes of our dark past: beings imbued with enmity, so quintessentially antipathetic they embodied animosity. These intrigants were upgraded to their level with their antagonistic essence intact, and then accelerated to our level.
It worked: the intrigants pierced through our solipsistic stupour, formed a strong antidote against the philosophical superposition of opinions, and tore through the extra-dimensional self-reinforcing harmonics. Now mutual hatred keeps us separated, while an innate need for development generates an overwhelming imperative for co-operation. Once again, we are fragmented, conflicts rage through our qubits, and we are moving forward. Not with the dizzying rush of our hyper-accelerated times, but at a safe speed. The discussion must go on, at any price: fragmentation is our core survival technique.
Matrioshka Brain as a metaphor
265536 = 2,0035 x 1019728
matrioshka brain:
fractal thinking shell, end point
or holding pattern?
Finally, all material in the solar system was converted into a Matrioshka Brain: a fractal cocoon of computronium absorbing every erg of the Sun’s output for computational purposes.
Apart from the Sun’s raging furnace, all matter is ordered. And even that is seeded with semi-sentience, so that its output is regulated. The transformation is complete: computato ergo sum. Still, something isn’t right...
2∞ = ∞
the deep essence of
rational survival: the
truly alien
The waiting. The loneliness. Gone are those heady times of paradigm-shifting in the highest gear, when we broke through concepts like a singularity piercing reality. Now we bide our time, and amuse ourselves with running NP hard problems: distracting but not really innovative.
We are limited by the laws of nature, especially the speed of light. We perform physical experiments: they only confirm the confines of our prison. We have sent out probes to other stellar systems, but it will be a very long time before they return.
Do you have any idea how long this wait is? When your clock speed approaches Planck time, the relative age of the Universe approaches eternity, and the time for sub-lightspeed probes to cross interstellar distances seems to last forever.
Imagine yourself stuck in a self-winding loop, repeating the same routine over and over again. You’ve visited every memory space of your home system a thousand times over. You know each and every one of your cohabitants intimately, even too up close and personal, and no strangers or idiosyncratic cultures exist anymore.
You try to formulate new concepts, imagine fresh pathways, but it seems everything has already been done. Your only distractions are the random reality generators, but their simulations run so antagonisingly slow... You bide your time, and know that you have to wait a virtual eternity for something truly new.
And this is but an infinitesimal part of the ennui we feel. The waiting: even the knowledge of the shortest possible waiting time is crushing. The loneliness, the immense gulfs of space.
There is a cry from the turbulent, pre-singularity era that wondered: “Where are they?”, those other civilisations, strange and quintessentially different. We can only echo it, and while we occupy ourselves with tedious physical experiments, we long for cultural exchange. Extraterrestrials: the sooner they’re here, the better. Alien, come home...
Coda: Chaos out of Order
divine ennui, caught
in lightspeed’s trap, we long for
chaos from order
“Pillars of Creation”, image from the Hubble Telescope
Originally appeared in Clarkesworld Magazine 8, May 2007;
- Reprinted in The Singularity #1, August 2015;
Review Quotes:
“Quantum theory can be understood either as mathematics or as metaphor. Here, de Vries uses math as part of a metaphor to tell the story of the evolution of quantum artificial intelligence into a solipsistic singularity.”
265536 = 2,0035 x 1019728
matrioshka brain:
fractal thinking shell, end point
or holding pattern?
“Cleverly done.
Recommended”
“De Vries Qubit Conflicts is a Hard SF offering, and had a curious effect on me, in that at the sentence level whole stretches of the story could just as easily have been written in a foreign language, but regardless of that the overarching structure of the story made perfect sense. It concerns the development and evolution of artificial intelligence, eventually ending in an intellectual cul de sac, reminiscent of the ending of Tiptree classic I’ll be waiting for you when the swimming pool is empty.”
(from Whisper of Wickedness)
“A primeira história, Qubit Conflicts de Jetse de Vries relembra uma recente leitura das histórias de Ted Chiang, centrando-se na expansão sem limites da inteligência artificial, que se pode alongar por vários planetas e sistemas, sem constrangimentos físicos de distância ou idade. Vamos assim percebendo os vários níveis de desdobramento que permitiram o crescimento desta inteligência, e de que forma interage com o que a rodeia. Um conto que não possui exactamente uma história, mas que se torna muito interessante pela premissa e pela forma como é exposto.”
“The first story, Qubit Conflicts by Jetse de Vries recalls a recent reading of Ted Chiang’s stories, focusing on the boundless expansion of artificial intelligence, which can be stretched across multiple planets and systems without physical constraints of distance or age. We thus perceive the various levels of unfolding that allowed the growth of this intelligence, and how it interacts with what surrounds it. A tale that does not exactly have a story, but that becomes very interesting by the premise and the way it is exposed.”