Boltzmann Brain

NOTE: This is an archival backup, original is on medium.com, please read it there . It’s hard to look at  H.P. Lovecraft  (1890–1937) as a  pioneer in warning people of the dangers of AI . And even more bizarre to see him  in the same boat as someone like  Elon Musk . I mean, yeah, “cosmic horrors” can easily painted in modern sci-fi as originating from “perverted” superhuman artificial intelligence. But Lovecraft had neither interest in modern information technology (that  wasn’t yet invented , btw), nor much interest in science and technology based fiction in general. He was no Jules Verne. Nevertheless, by means one cannot even begin to fathom, a strange  meme  has landed in his darkly creative (and xenophobic, and in other ways disturbed too…) mind. A  strange intuition of things yet to come: S hoggoths —  described as “a shapeless congeries of protoplasmic bubbles” with “myriads of temporary eyes forming and un-forming”. Their image seemingly evocative of a giant a