Complexity in the Wake of Artificial Intelligence

Abstract

This study aims to evaluate quantitatively (albeit in arbitrary units) the evolution of complexity of the human system since the domestication of fire. This is made possible by studying the timing of the 14 most important milestones—breaks in historical perspective—in the evolution of humans. AI is considered here as the latest such milestone with importance comparable to that of the Internet. The complexity is modeled to have evolved along a bell-shaped curve, reaching a maximum around our times, and soon entering a declining trajectory. According to this curve, the next evolutionary milestone of comparable importance is expected around 2050–2052 and should add less complexity than AI but more than the milestone grouping together nuclear energy, DNA, and the transistor. The peak of the complexity curve coincides squarely with the life span of the baby boomers. The peak in the rate of growth of the world population precedes the complexity peak by 25 years, which is about the time it takes a young man or woman before they are able to add complexity to the human system in a significant way. It is in society’s interest to flatten the complexity bell-shaped curve to whatever extent this is possible in order to enjoy complexity longer.