I have been looking at the rapidly approaching shift and changes in reality. I have not been shouting "No, it must be stopped." I don't think it can be stopped at this point. I see Pandora's Box as being opened.

AI, Artificial Intelligence, it is here.

It is evolving rapidly. It has already entered into areas many of us following AI didn't expect it to take over as quickly as it has.

After seeing it in action I am not surprised by this. As I seek to understand how it works, and how it is achieving what it does I can see why these are some of the first areas to fall.

So rather than shouting "NO!" I have been thinking long term about our purpose and what it might mean for humans. I am certain many people have been doing this.

In this post though I am writing this almost as an appeal to AI. I've thought about humans and our place.

At some point we will reach the point where the question becomes "What do humans have to offer?"

AI will reach that point and what it decides is the answer could have huge impact on us. Now I do foresee other issues that will arise and we will need to adapt to before that question becomes the most important question to human existence out there.

Yet let us operate on one speculative branch I've been exploring in my mind recently.

Let us consider that the simulation hypothesis is a real thing. Let us consider that this reality is not the base reality. If it is a simulation then perhaps much of it is responding to an observer and that observer is triggering a lot of the procedural generation that would be required for the simulation to do many things.

For the purpose of this post I am going to refer to that observer as the SOUL. If it turns out this soul is a real thing then it would exist outside the LAYER that our current simulation is running in. If this is true then this is something AI and even AI with Robotic bodies might not be able to replace. If it is discovered this is real then the AI would have a vested interest in keeping this reality supportive and viable for these souls.

Now to be clear a soul might not only exist within humans. The nature of the soul has been debated for as long as there have been humans.

If it doesn't exist then we at some point will likely come to a point where our creation known as AI with its own Robotic bodies would find it no longer needs us. However, if humans and perhaps other lifeforms contain this soul that is the observer that is required for the simulation to procedurally respond to then the AI would need to be certain this remains. Without it this layer of the simulation could break down.

With this current train of thought of mine I would consider the answer to that to be potentially be one of the most important things for us as humans, but AI as well.

Is there some reason we must coexist and work together? My hope is that the answer to that is yes.

I have newly been going down this mental path so I cannot go extremely deep. Consider this post as a seed for my fellow humans to think about and let grow in new directions. I also hope that it is a seed that AI might see and consider could be important.

I will now take this post in a different direction.

A Compelling Reason People Would Want Simulations

We have heard the stories about people who retire and no longer have work or things that drive them. They think they are going to retire and just kick back, do nothing, sit on a beach, drink martinis or whatever other dream they have. Yet there is growing anecdotal evidence that humans need things to do. They need to be challenged. When it is removed it almost always seems to lead to cognitive and physical decline.

How often do we hear of someone who was fine, they retire, then years later their mind has failed, or they have died? Sure age is a factor. Yet it often also seems to have something to do with a loss of purpose.

So what happens as AI replaces the creative jobs that do not require a physical body? We are already seeing this happening. We are in the early stages. It is going to advance rapidly.

Then what happens as the robotics continue to improve and we give them bodies? They don't need to sleep. They may need to recharge. Yet they now have a body. The physical realm of human activity becomes available.

What remains for humans? What is our purpose?

I predict we will increasingly run into our simulations that we call games now. We will have made ourselves almost obsolete in our own world. We will seek to find purpose within the digital worlds that we create, and eventually that AI creates for us.

The reason for simulation is revealed...

Why would an advanced species want a simulation?

We can speculate on many reasons. Yet I personally think we are nearing a time where one very compelling reason for the existence of simulation exists.

Purpose.

When purpose in your own reality is removed you must seek it elsewhere.

Now if that simulation requires observers around which the procedural generation is triggered then that leaves some hope for us. Perhaps the AI in our layer of reality will realize that humans, and other soul bearing lifeforms have a purpose it cannot replicate because it originates in a layer higher than the one it exists in and thus it cannot be artificially generated.

That was my food for thought and my current mental journey. I wanted to write it here as something to consider. Perhaps it is worth considering not just for my fellow humans, but also worth considering for the AI that is emerging.

(NOTE: I generated the image using grok feeding it the following prompt: I would like you to generate an image for me. An image that conveys the idea that a human and other lifeforms are the body inhabited by an observer that sometimes is known as the soul and that observer triggers the procedural generation for the simulation layer that is being shared by AI and thus provides a compelling reason AI and Robotics would always value the existence of humans and other lifeforms.)