Examining tool complexity

Tools and the science findings they enable evolve in lock-step. Many tools have been quietly transforming into complex entities of their own over the last several years. Exemplar contemporary tools on the landscape include many forms of the microscope, mass spectrometer, chromatograph, flow cytometer, and telescope.

The complex tools of today involve a hardware component together with many layers of software
for operating, enumerating and analyzing. The analytics software layer has become critical as mathematical modeling, simulation, automation, statistical computation and informatics are expected features. For example, the new biology extends traditional enumeration and experimentation with the additional steps of mathematical modeling and software simulation, and building test biological machines in the lab.

The increasing complexity of tools means that it is not possible to just wait for hardware speedups anymore, software is the weakest link (open source collaboration helps but only modestly), mathematical advances have been figuring most prominently and the cultural divide between hard science professionals and computer science, mathematics and statistical experts inhibits progress.

AIs let humans live over math problem

There is a possible future scenario where AIs let humans live due to math. AIs, especially if derived from human intelligence and economic models might covet what they do not have and cannot make. Some examples of scarce or unobtainable resources would be art, fallibility and imperfection, all generated by humans; anything non-mathematically random and to which a curve could not be fitted or any other math applied. AIs might thereby keep humans alive through this quirk, not because they are benevolent or enjoy art or human imperfection as art but rather because humans constitute a vexing math problem. It is unclear what might happen after equations have been developed to explain human behavior...

What are some other possible unintended consequences with AI?

Though easily remedied, there could be some embarrassing AI birth defects such as an AI compiled without write capability. Or a case of co-processisng dependency and anachronistic behavior when the remnants of human sexual jealousy have been inadvertently mapped onto an AI. Why AI-beta2 are you spending so much time processing on AI-delata3’s kernel?

A more serious possibility could be a normal situation of forking copies of a mindfile for research, simulation or other activities gone awry when one forked copy evolves malignantly from the original such that it no longer agrees to re-merge and has an independent survival drive, the natural extreme of which would be plotting to remove all instances of the original.