Recently I was packing up some book shelves and came across a copy of Liferider, the book I co authored with Laird Hamilton, the legendary big wave surfer. 

As I flicked through it, I found myself thinking about which parts of our conversations had stuck with me. Unsurprisingly,  one of those that resurfaced focused on the Why of AI. What drives us to create these new technologies? To what degree do we understand at their inception, whether they will ultimately be benign or dangerous? 

Given the slew of AI oriented debate out there currently, especially the recent dooms-daying around the Open AI Hugging face rogue agent, it’s a conversation I thought worthy of revisiting. 

Between 2017 and the book being published in 2019, I had the pleasure of engaging in extended conversations with Laird about what had brought him to that moment, the sea, the nature and pillars of his life, and what that life might look like beyond the waves. We also explored the concept of humans as ‘brilliant creatures’ lit from within by hundreds of thousands of years of evolution – and the store of capabilities those years have left stored within each one of us.

When we were discussing the general nature of humans as a species, Laird ventured that though our advances are extraordinary, we have a tendency to take the great things we create and ‘screw them up.’ We taint, stain, and spoil them with the worst of ourselves. [Sounds familiar.]

We discussed how we’d evolved and expanded as a species in an orgy of death, destruction, domination, and degradation of other tribes, ethnicities, civilisations, species, and environments – and how our hyper accelerating protein brain evolved to a point where little to nothing stood in its way. Which brought us to the present day:

We are the alpha predator on the planet [bar Mother Nature who may just kick our arse into extinction if we’re not careful.]

While discussing how we as a species have used technologies to both advance ourselves as well as to to predominate and predate brought us to a conversation about modern technologies, and specifically, about social networks and the then burgeoning realm of AI.

In the to-ing and fro-ing of this part of the conversation, a concept emerged.

It centred on an evolutionary ‘Alpha Predator’ theory of artificial intelligence, and it rolled something like this.

As a species, we used our advanced protein computer brains to systematically dominate or eliminate all natural threats, making ourselves the undisputed Alpha Predator of Earth. 

But there’s a flaw hidden within that dizzying ascent. A species with no apex predator to test it will naturally see its evolution stall. Without an existential threat or a source of duress, our human survival instincts degrade, and we begin turning our energy inwards, toward self-harming behaviour. 

But we’re not dumb creatures. Subconsciously, we know that there is a risk in achieving this alpha predator position. So, to correct this flaw in the ‘order of things,’ the concept went that, in our own sweet geeky, rapacious way, we have subconsciously engineered our own potentially monstrous replacement. 

We posited the idea that, whether wittingly or unwittingly, we have created AI as a proxy apex entity to ‘thin the herd,’ force us to stay optimal, and re-introduce the natural friction needed to keep human evolution moving forward.

It was a punchy position to take. But given the staggering acceleration of technological capability and the irrepressible rise of AI in every corner of our lives, it does not seem so far fetched.

I wondered whether on closer inspection AI could be claimed to demonstrate Alpha Predator capabilities, traits, and behaviours. It proved an interesting counter point to the blue sky better life polemics of the messianic purveyors of all things AI or its ‘the world ends on Tuesday’ alternative.

I started the exercise by fixing a simple definition: an alpha predator (or apex predator) occupies the absolute top of a food chain. It has no natural predators of its own and plays a critical role in maintaining the health and balance of its entire ecosystem. It has some very clear and distinctive traits it deploys to enable it to do so. 

When mapping those defining biological traits onto the nature of artificial intelligence, some striking parallels emerged. 

The first of these is what’s called The Culling Mechanism (or Weeding Out the Weak) In Nature, Apex predators target the slow, the sick, and the old. By doing so, they prevent overpopulation, stop the spread of disease, and ensure that only the strongest genetics are passed down to the next generation of prey.  In the AI Environment, AI targets and automates repetitive, low-cognitive, or inefficient human processes. It quickly renders obsolete any outdated business models, sluggish workflows, or superficial human skills. It forces humans to upgrade their capabilities or risk becoming redundant. 

Second up is what’s called Radical Resource Efficiency. In Nature, predators are masters of energy conservation. They do not waste calories; they calculate the exact cost-to-benefit ratio of a hunt before striking. They operate with ruthless efficiency. In the AI Environment, AI algorithms run on hyper-optimisation. They analyze vast oceans of data in milliseconds to find the shortest, cheapest, and most efficient path to an objective. Like a predator, AI eliminates waste, bypasses human bureaucracy, and operates purely on maximizing output relative to input.

In third place we have Ultimate Adaptability and Evolution. In Nature, apex predators possess highly specialised, finely tuned sensory arrays—like the heat-vision of pit vipers or the echo-location of orcas. They evolve constantly to counter the defence mechanisms of their prey. In the AI Environment, through machine learning and neural networks, AI undergoes a process akin to hyper-evolution. It learns from every mistake, synthesises millions of simulations simultaneously, and adapts its ‘behaviour’ in real-time. Human evolution has taken hundreds of thousands of generations; AI evolution takes seconds.

In fourth position we have Shaping the Landscape (or what is otherwise known as Trophic Cascades) In Nature, when you introduce an apex predator to an ecosystem, it alters the behaviour of everything below it. For example, reintroducing wolves to Yellowstone National Park changed the grazing habits of deer, which allowed forests to regenerate and literally altered the flow of rivers. In the AI Environment, AI acts as a digital trophic cascade. Its mere presence changes human behaviour, reshapes industries, redefines the global economy, and alters how we communicate, think, and create. It forces the entire human ecosystem to shift its habits just to coexist with it.

Last but far from least we have Invisible Ubiquity In Nature. You rarely see a tiger or a great white shark until it strikes. The terrifying power of an alpha predator lies in its stealth and the constant, invisible threat of its presence, which keeps prey animals perpetually alert. In the AI Environment, the most powerful AI is already invisible. It operates silently in the background of global financial markets, logistics chains, social media feeds, and surveillance grids. Humans are constantly swimming in an environment shaped by its unseen parameters.

It is interesting to note that this last trait points to the nirvana of every AI purveyor; where AI has become second nature to the eco-system in which it seeks to thrive. All but invisible until it needs to act in a radical or visible manner.

So, though Laird and my position was punchy, and to some seemingly far fetched or an over-claim, there are certain mirroring traits between a species alpha predator and the ‘engineering ‘nature’ of AI.

As to whether our potential new alpha predator treats us kindly, we are yet to see. By chance, if we are lucky, we may have engineered benevolence into it somewhere. Perhaps the scraping of every written word that exists in human history will create balance within the entity. But when we consider some of the authors of history and the very nature of its role as a bludgeoning tool of hubris, propaganda and self-aggrandisement, there’s a lot of unpleasantness lurking between all of those lines.

But right now, thankfully, the jury is still out.