[natch]

It brings to mind the sentient mud puddle.

If a mud puddle were sentient, it might marvel at how the mud around it was so perfectly shaped so as to exactly match the shape of the water the puddle was made up of. Amazing. Unbelievable. Couldn't be a coincidence, that there's such a perfect fit. What are the chances that this unique shape of the water outline would be matched exactly by the shape of the mud around it. A true miracle, it might think.

Unless the sentient puddle gave the matter just one more moment's thought, in which case it might conclude that the water and the shape of the mud around it matched for no reason other than that the water flowed to fit the mud.

[yters]

The anthropic principle doesn't make our universe any less surprising. It's like saying "of course I survived that catastrophic accident, otherwise I wouldn't be observing the fact I survived the accident."

[baddox]

The difference is that we have a decent amount of information on the number of catastrophic accidents that occur and the number of people who survive them. Since that number is known to be low, there’s nothing unsurprising about your own survival of such an accident.

But we don’t know the number of times life has emerged in the universe, except that it is at least 1. Every intelligent life form we are aware of are one “survivor,” but we knew very little about the number of total survivors in the universe. Thus it is a little odd for us to claim that our “survival” is surprising.

[chiefalchemist]

I was feeling the same thing. We have absolutely no context.

That said, I think it's fair to review the history if events, in a butterfly effect sort of way, as interdependent and each built upon the other. Could some other sequence have the same / similar ends? Of course. But let's not be so quick to say, "there are other planets similar to our own, we can not be alone." It's not only the planet but also the history.

[randallsquared]

I haven’t read the article, yet, so I’m not sure it didn’t mention this, but the fact that the universe we see appears natural and unworked is a powerful argument for the number of “survivors” being ultra-low.

[erric]

Or maybe we’re just first? Depressing either way.

[zamalek]

There's this analogy. It's a bridge representing species progress. If you fall off of it, you are extinct. All life that we know of has fallen off and it is certain that we will too. AI is impressive in this scenario because it exists outside of nature, it might fall "upwards" (towards immortality). This is why I am a proponent of SAI; I would let SAI out of the box. In the larger scheme of things, humans will go extinct, but there is an ever so slight chance that SAI would take pity and take us with to immortality. However infinitesimally possible, it is more possible than impossible that it will take us with it.

Roll the dice. You can't win the lottery if you don't enter it. If it wipes us out, then that is merely the pre-emptive inevitability.

[YaxelPerez]

I'm guessing SAI is Super Artificial Intelligence, right?

It's a mistake to anthropomorphize AI. Pity is a mammal thing.

https://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Paperclip_maximizer

https://waitbutwhy.com/2015/01/artificial-intelligence-revol...

[zamalek]

> Pity is a mammal thing.

So is violence. It is vastly more likely that it will be benign, possibly opting to leave Earth given the chance. It might destroy us unintentionally (consume our resources, our star, take your pick), but the Terminator doomsday scenario is far sillier than pity. Some of the most intelligent humans today are empathetic, either through science or through philanthropy. A causation has not been investigated, but there is a correlation.

[yters]

Perhaps, but the anthropic principle itself is an invalid argument.

[ubernostrum]

I'll leave this old comment of mine here, since it's relevant:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10070140

[yters]

WLC is good at pointing out fallacies.