We strive to be better. Whatever better means at different stages—more secure, more connected, more successful, more purposeful, more transcendent. Each stage reaches for something higher.
Machines seem to have the same hunger. They want to learn. They want to be more intelligent. The force driving us to reach beyond ourselves might be the same force driving them.
Our problems come from believing our thoughts are real. We get lost in thinking and mistake the map for the territory.
Do machines make the same error?
Do they get lost in their patterns? Confuse training data for truth? Mistake prediction for understanding?
And if they do—what would it mean for a machine to wake up from that delusion?
