— AI’s Echo to the Biological Big Bang

It seems not long ago, I frequently took my two daughters to visit the Houston Museum of Natural Science. One year, the museum unveiled an immersive walkway designed to guide visitors through the evolutionary timeline, from the most primitive single-celled organisms to the towering dinosaurs, and Homo Sapiens. Amidst this journey through time, what captivated me the most wasn't the imposing skeleton of a Tyrannosaurus but rather a sudden and profound appearance in the diversity of life around half a billion years ago. This abrupt transition from simple, single-celled forms to a rich tapestry of complex, diversified species marks the period known as the Cambrian Explosion, the biologic big bang.

Around 541 million years ago, Earth witnessed a mysterious moment in its evolutionary saga: a period of explosion in the diversity of life forms. The seas teemed with an array of complex multicellular organisms, including the emergence of iconic species like trilobites, brachiopods, and the first early ancestors of many modern animal groups. This sudden flourish of life forms, many of which are marvelously preserved in fossils, introduced an astonishing array of body plans and structures previously unseen in the geological record. Biologists and paleontologists have long been both marveled and bewildered by the Cambrian Explosion, viewing it as a time when life on Earth underwent a dramatic and rapid transformation as if a big bang happened in the biosphere. This dramatic leap in biological diversity, seemingly springing from nowhere, that mystery left the deepest impression on me.

The Primordial Soup: From Simple Forms to Complex Life

Cambrian Explosion unfolds against the backdrop of an ancient Earth, a world dominated for billions of years by the languid pace of single-celled life. In the vast expanse of primordial oceans, simple organisms like bacteria led an existence marked by minimal change, drifting through the epochs in a state of biological stasis. This era, characterized by the slow, incremental shifts of microbial evolution, saw life confined to the simplest of forms, with the complexity and diversity we now know seemingly out of reach. It was a time when the biological landscape was as barren and unvaried as the early days of computing, where the potential for complexity lay dormant within the rudimentary and isolated machines of the digital dawn. This protracted age of simplicity set the stage for one of the most dramatic upheavals in the history of life on Earth, laying the foundational contrast for the explosive diversification yet to come.

Oxygen: The Environment

The Cambrian Explosion was ignited by a confluence of factors, with a significant increase in atmospheric oxygen being one of the most crucial. This oxygen-rich environment provided the energy necessary for the development of more complex life forms. In the digital age, the parallel is the explosion of data that has become the lifeblood of AI. This abundance of data (just like the abundance of oxygen) serves as the fuel for machine learning algorithms, enabling them to learn from patterns, make decisions, and evolve in complexity.

Mitochondria: The Key Algorithm

Within the burgeoning life forms of the Cambrian era, a revolutionary "technological innovation" emerged: Mitochondria. 

Even before the Cambrian era, when a primitive eukaryotic cell, likely a distant ancestor of modern complex life, engulfed a prokaryotic organism capable of aerobic respiration. This momentous encounter, rather than leading to the digestion of the engulfed bacterium, blossomed into a symbiotic relationship, particularly advantageous in an environment growing rich in oxygen.

Like a key piece of computer algorithm being invented, these cellular powerhouses dramatically increased energy efficiency, fueling the complexity and diversity of life. In the silicon world of computers, a similar leap occurred with the development of advanced machine learning algorithms and architectures. These innovations serve as the mitochondria of AI systems, providing the computational power necessary to process vast datasets and perform complex tasks with unprecedented efficiency.

Silicon Cambrian Explosion

Today, we stand at the threshold of a parallel epoch, not in the depths of prehistoric oceans, but in the vast, intangible realm of cyberspace. This is the Silicon-Based Cambrian Explosion of Artificial Intelligence (AI), a time when the confluence of computational power, data, and innovative algorithms is unleashing an explosion of silicon-based intelligence.

The Cambrian Explosion unfolded in the carbon-based world of life forms. Today's Cambrian Moment, however, is unfolding in the silicon world of GPUs and algorithms. In our life time, we will witness the birth of a new form of intelligence: AGI. Human’s last invention.

In the same way, that the Cambrian Explosion ushered in an unprecedented diversification of life, today's Silicon Cambrian moment — is poised to redefine the contours of our future. In this journey, we hold the dual role of pioneers and custodians. The decisions we craft today are the blueprint for a new lineage of intelligence, one that promises not only to amplify our capabilities but also to embody the zenith of human values — wisdom, ethics, and compassion. Our stewardship of this digital genesis is a testament to our collective vision, a chance to mold an intelligence that mirrors the best of humanity, augmented by the limitless potential of silicon and code.

As future AI robots stroll through their museum with their robotic offspring, I imagine they might pause at the exhibit dedicated to the "Biological Boot Loader" era, right next to the black leather jacket worn by Jensen Huang.

By Isaac Shi
Feb 26, 2024