[memetic status: stating directly despite it being a clear consequence of core AI risk knowledge because many people have "but nature will survive us" antibodies to other classes of doom and misapply them here.]

Unfortunately, no.[1]

Technically, “Nature”, meaning the fundamental physical laws, will continue. However, people usually mean forests, oceans, fungi, bacteria, and generally biological life when they say “nature”, and those would not have much chance competing against a misaligned superintelligence for resources like sunlight and atoms, which are useful to both biological and artificial systems.

There's a thought that comforts many people when they imagine humanity going extinct due to a nuclear catastrophe or runaway global warming: Once the mushroom clouds or CO2 levels have settled, nature will reclaim the cities. Maybe mankind in our hubris will have wounded Mother Earth and paid the price ourselves, but she’ll recover in time, and she [...]

The original text contained 1 footnote which was omitted from this narration.

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First published:
May 18th, 2024

Source:
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/6C3ndLd3nkrfy4K6j/if-we-go-extinct-due-to-misaligned-ai-at-least-nature-will

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“‘If we go extinct due to misaligned AI, at least nature will continue, right? ... right?’” by plex

LessWrong (30+ Karma)