AGI will not be one specific system, it'll be the unity of all systems
For many years, people have been wondering: What will AGI (Artificial General Intelligence) look like, and what will it mean for our lives?
When we’re discussing this, basically we’re doing what this visionary already imagined:
But what does it truly mean to be able to “do anything”?
Understanding the answer is both a radical technological vision and a profound realization.
Infernum
Why are current initiatives that do anything in regards to solving big issues (e.g. climate change) not as effective as we would want them to be? Typically, it’s bureaucracy. It’s not lack of motivation of the people, but instead slow governments, expensive and hard-to-use manual and software processes from public and private parties, often involving many steps, making administration a tedious and daunting process, leading to many initiatives being crushed under administrative burdens and the individuals being prevented from creative, imaginative activity.
Humanity has been recording facts in an administrative fashion for thousands of years, first in cuneiform on clay tablets (at least from what we know), and nowadays simply in paper, as well as digitally.
Let’s define “bureaucracy” for the purpose of this article.
Bureaucracy refers to all administration of agreed-upon facts.
For example, in a customer contract, my bank and I effectively agree on the following:
my personal data will be stored at the bank
if I pay money in, the number in the bank’s accounting system increases
if I take money out, the money in the bank’s accounting system decreases
This also means that I interpret “bureaucracy” in a very general way here: It refers to all storage of facts, where changing these facts always needs an official legal basis, which therefore often humans need to execute manually (e.g. clerks at the government, etc.). More specifically, besides banking (money, securities, etc.), it also refers to:
insurances (very complex rules)
trade of any form (maximally complex rules imaginable by humans)
the world’s governments in general (totality of all official law)
Purgatorium
Now, what does an AI need to have access to, in order to be “all powerful”? Obviously, it’s the system which is not built with “AI first” in mind, but instead as a fully deterministic layer for all national “law as code”, with all personal data being self-hostable, to radically simplify and democratize all bureaucratic processes, while maximizing personal autonomy.
The AI, in the form of an MCP server accessing an API, would be sort of the “layer on top” to translate human language into this more formal language of forms and bureaucratic processes defined by law, but if someone would want to learn this new “formal language”, then they could also avoid the AI layer and therefore any LLMs completely, and call the API directly.
More technically, it would mean (according to my current analysis):
a “Kappa architecture” (event-driven, based on durable log as single point of truth + “materialized” databases)
on this, CBOR-encoded and COSE-signed events can be sent which construct a YANG tree which then defines the entire infrastructure (IaC) of the system’s cluster
besides regular infrastructure components (compute, storage etc.), the YANG source would also define the transforms to be used on events happening in the stream (akin to what Data Transforms do in Redpanda)
This would be the first layer, which would imply having the intention to migrate the entire company to become “on stream” (has nothing to do with blockchain). The very first thing, also the first thing in the discipline of Controlling, is to put accounting onto that stream, as it’s the financial backbone. And based on the event-driven paradigm, everything else happening in your company should become an event as well.
Finally, in the end vision, multiple entities running this “streaming operating system” could then talk to each other and therefore, from that point onwards, always send and process data in real time.
Apart from that, I also strongly believe in reverse engineering. I think every single website in the world must be reverse engineered, and then that “universal API” becomes the civilization-governed “unifying layer” between the currently horribly detached communication paths.
The end goal is to speed up processes so much that labor, that’s clearly and statically rule-defined anyway, must be done by humans anymore, i.e. humans are promoted to only needing to do the actual deciding and the intelligent creative, strategic and judicial decisions. It’s therefore primarily about liberating humanity from desk work, because practically all works on standard desks would be eliminated when proceeding like this.
It would be a radical re-orientation of civilization away from desk work like inputting data, handling physical and digital mail, filling out forms, registering, booking, filing, writing etc., whatever you can imagine, towards maximum minimalism: A device which you will practically never need to use, except for when any input from you is needed in case of uncertainties (automatically identified by the respective procedure), or when you actively want to do something.
And, the best thing: It can be done by everyone! Reverse-engineer your local grocery shop site! And then find other grocery shop API developers and create a shared standard with them. And for any other imaginable page, no matter whether it has interactivity or just displays content, make that content available via an easy API, and try to abstract to unify considering similar projects that already exist. API with most functionality wins, and that amount of functionality will increase exponentially, once people get it, because by definition, everyone’s effort will merge. It’s radical civil action by programmers in its rawest form.
We want to develop the Super API. Who is “we”? Just we, the people, who make a rational decision that all digital UI development that has ever been done will, sooner or later, become merely nostalgic, because we, as civilization, will not want to have even a browser with tabs. For most normal people, just “the one tab” would be completely enough, as they don’t appreciate looking at screens much. Also radical accessibility (i.e. this would also be best-case scenario for vision- or hearing-impaired, because they would never have to worry about inaccessible pages anymore). And then, depending on how close you want tech in your life, you can get additional voluntary equipment (like smartphones), but those would be fully optional. Community members could also raise up self-made “system accessibility stands”, therefore allowing everyone to participate in the digital world, no matter whether you have enough money for a smartphone or not.
It is for those of you who get me: We want less phone use. Less AI. Less emails. Immediate feedback on compliance with the governing systems. Etcetera. It is for those who are currently bound to a screen, but who recognize their unhealthy co-dependence on that screen, and who want to get out into the “real world“. The office workers liberating themselves from their desks.
This will not be easy.
There is a gigantic complexity of systems, which will need to be united by translating it into “events”, which will then be exchanged on this stream. Every user would have their own “root” stream, which would be the record of all events which define the user’s current state, i.e. all “official” memories (i.e. everything but personal memories like family photos or your diary). It therefore logs all personal data, all address changes, all ownership changes (related to oneself) etc. Every legal entity would also have its own “root stream”.
The legal entities would then interconnect with each other to slowly build a more and more resilient internet-like structure between them, but not for general data exchange, but instead only data exchange related to secure communication, analytics and governance in any shape or form (either message-based for commands or as if a durable “pipe” is installed between them for real-time updates of values).
To “do anything” means to be able to legitimately update civilization’s state machine.
Paradisus
It’s the year 2030.
The FASTER initiative has truly not promised too much, but went into a totally unexpected direction.
What has gotten “faster” is of course the data exchange, but also the speed of innovation and human flourishing. Turns out: When the junior from the bottom floor can immediately use their time to work on more productive things than just “realizing rules I need to realize anyway” like filling out your name and postal address for the 1000th time and other boring office work (”bullshit jobs”), then they actually stay motivated and bring big ideas and a lot of enthusiasm and curiosity. And good vibes are simply a positive feedback loop.
AI has found its rightful place in society: To replace programmers. The AI bubble had already burst in the end of 2026, and as LLMs became small and good enough for everyone to have on their phone anyway, and LLMs weren’t really useful for anything substantial other than search, humanity was happy to have this tool, but the big AI companies from the mid-2020s quickly faded into obscurity.
No one has to write code anymore, because programmers have become completely unnecessary: Whereas before, most programmers were employed either to maintain old systems, or to build the next “B2B SaaS”, which effectively solves the same problem of “storing facts in a durable, maintainable, easily administerable way” for the 1000th time again, humanity has finally come to the conclusion: Writing software manually is unnecessary, except for when it’s a normal hobby like any other. Of course, there are still awesome coding artists, but in general, creativity is not limited anymore by how quickly you can download a Google Presentation as a PDF to send it via email, or by the vacation time of the clerk, or by how much money you have to pay a tax advisor.
FASTER was initially planned to solve “withholding taxes”, a weird edge case in international tax law where you pay too much taxes in a country different from your own, which you can therefore reclaim. Doing these reclaims has been very tedious so far.
But humanity has identified its true purpose: Nothing in this is about withholding tax reclaims. This is the opportunity to build the network which can securely exchange data between parties. Beyond secure digital government identities (like the swiyu DIDs in Switzerland), which are already coming all over the world, we can now also interconnect all other institutions which otherwise just create burdens. All the hardcore programmers weren’t even shy to reverse engineer the most obscure or outdated interfaces, all for the common good. Oh and how much did they party while doing all this reverse engineering, it’s insane.
Politics now concentrates on what’s truly important: Discourse. Conflict and resolution, everything from projects to gentle guidance to clear rules is decided together. Lawmaking is not limited to a few hundred politicians in a posh building anymore, but instead warm, cheerful, colorful gatherings up to thousands of people, celebrated like a public holiday, where we all work on our politics together. As bureaucracy has been solved, administrative burden after having agreed on a rule change is reduced to basically zero, so once society has agreed upon a change, it goes into effect within milliseconds, once enough individuals have voted for it.
Computer usage has dropped to basically nothing. Already in mid-2026, the WHO had identified excessive use of digital devices as a global health crisis, and with a globally adopted health program in place, children and adults with any kinds of digital addictions (like social media) can now be clearly identified, in order to receive gently guided help, out of the hellscape of ads, posts, reels and content.
The “ReSchooling” initiative of 2028/29 has been a gigantic success. Millions of office workers bonded together and, on the 1st of January, 2028, started collectively funding the first truly inclusive global education institution, where children and adults of all ages, craftsmen, artists and other creatives all learn and live together. The education system does not consist of primarily knowledge-based tasks anymore, but enjoyed an upgrade: After the importance of emotional and sexual literacy was realized, and scientifically based courses in these areas were rolled out globally, the societal climate in pretty much any place around the world has been noticeably improving. Whereas before, people have often been severely stressed and unhappy with their lives, now the gates have been opened for everyone to feel truly heard in their feelings. Invalidating emotions is more and more becoming frowned upon, and as people learn (often for the first time) how to listen in a truly loving way, millions of decade-old conflicts all over the world are resolved during a coffee.
All this is wealth exchange at its finest, but wealth in so many more interpretations than just “money”. Every major city has a hub for this. Turns out, re-education, away from tedious office work, towards value-generating creative and human-to-human work, is actually also a lot of fun. Learning has become fun again, and people enjoy it. As the system had already been pretty much perfectly in place by 2027, with average daily phone usage, excluding addictions, dropping to mere minutes per week at maximum, society experienced a fundamental brain shift no one could have ever predicted.
Already during 2026, the realization that all office workers, especially the most miserable ones, could work together to eliminate office work once and for all, was spreading like wildfire. AI coding and computer automation had become so accessible that more and more efficient reverse engineering techniques were discovered every day. From virtualized computer use to API directly, to finally absorbing the other system entirely; right before its eyes, humanity sees the rapid harmonization of manual and digital processes, because suddenly, everyone is empowered to contribute to this system, as it’s the one which truly respects data autonomy and it built by all of humanity, without hierarchies. It’s the human computer system. It became more and more known that all office buildings will need to be repurposed, but instead of just tearing all the buildings down, humanity decided to overgrow entire office districts with massive plants and trees, therefore forming enormous solarpunk post-commercial districts within just a few years. So many cozy cafés and epic raves. Ever heard of DJ Lawrence?
Oh, and the meaning of life? At some point, someone finally thought about: What if we just investigate all our ancestral storytelling with the LLMs? All the mythology, and sacred texts and descriptions of humans and nature. Turns out: Words, the foundation of LLMs, are all just distorted stories of the land. It has only really gone seriously enstranged from nature since the thought expressed in the bible in Genesis 1,28 became more and more widespread. The Earth tells us, we just need to listen and observe. It’s a lot to re-discover, but it’s worth it. The solution to all our problems has been right below our feet the entire time.
My grandmother explained to me... that the earth was a living, breathing entity and everything was interrelated.... I had to learn all, and I mean all, the names–local names that is–for every single plant, tree, type of stone, animal, bird, insect, fish and so on. I had to know where they could all be found, what they looked like at any given time of year and what, if any, their uses were—practical, medical or whatever.
I was also eased into the fundamental belief of our tradition–that the land is sacred. And to that end we thought of ourselves as stewards, guardians.
Farmers, stockmen, gamekeepers and many ordinary countryfolk all knew of our knowledge of plants and animals, and certain members of the family would help them with natural and herbal remedies for both animal and human problems alike....The powers that we held in awe were locked inside the landscape, inherent in the power of the weather and manifest in the cycle of the changing of the seasons, and in the end they in turn ran through us?
Our magical practices arose from people who were deeply connected to the natural world, and our rituals were designed to give back to that world, to help maintain its balance along with our human balance. If we leave the natural world out of our practice and rituals in any real sense, if we invoke an abstract earth but never have any real dirt under our fingernails, our spiritual, psychic, land physical health becomes devitalized and deeply unbalanced.
In one sense, this understanding of the Goddess is not new for me. More than two decades ago, I wrote about the Goddess in The Spiral Dance: “In the Craft, we do not believe in the Goddess, we connect with Her, through the moon, the stars, the ocean, the earth, through trees, animals, through other human beings, through ourselves. She is here. She is the full circle: earth, air, fire, water and essence—body, mind, spirit, emotions, change.”
But I understand more deeply now that what we call Goddess or God was the face and voice that people gave to the way the land spoke to them. The rituals and ceremonies and myths of the ancestors all arose from their actual relationship to a specific place on earth. And the tools of magic, that discipline of identifying and shifting consciousness, were the skills of listening to what ethnobotanist Kat Harrison calls “the great conversation,” the ongoing constant communication that surrounds us.
Most of us who live in cities, who are educated to read, write, do arithmetic, and use computers, live our lives surrounded by that conversation yet are unaware of it. We may love nature, we may even profess to worship her, but most of us have barely a clue as to what she is murmuring in the night.
To be a Witch (a practitioner of the Old Religion of the Goddess) or a Pagan (someone who practices an earth-based spiritual tradition) is more than adopting a new set of terms and customs and a wardrobe of flowing gowns. It is to enter a different universe, a world that is alive and dynamic, where everything is part of an interconnected whole, where everything is always speaking to us, if only we have ears to listen. A Witch must not only be familiar with the mystic planes of existence beyond the physical realm; she should also be familiar with the trees and plants and birds and animals of her own backyard, be able to name them, know their uses and habits and what part each plays in the whole. She should understand not just the symbolic aspects of the moon’s cycle, but the real functioning of the earth’s water and mineral and energy cycles. She should know the importance of ritual in building human community, but also understand the function of mycorrhizal fungi and soil microorganisms in the natural community in which human community is embedded.
In fact, everybody should. Our culture is afflicted with a vast disconnection, an abyss of ignorance that becomes apparent whenever an issue involving the natural world arises. As a society, we are daily making decisions and setting policies that have enormous repercussions on the natural world. And those policies are being set by officials and approved by a public who are functionally eco-illiterate.
1 was once giving a talk at a university about the need for earth-based spirituality, when I was stopped by a student with a question that stunned me.
“Tell me,” the young man asked, “why is the earth important?”
I almost didn’t know what to say. I bit back a snide retort — “What planet do you live on?” – and realized with horror that he was quite serious, that somehow all his years of higher education and graduate school had not taught him that e are utterly dependent on the earth for our lives.
– Starhawk - The Earth Path (pp. 6-7)
Happy New Year again! Transformation is coming :)
First published here: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/N4wEM9oRSycvGkS6g/agi-will-not-be-one-specific-system-it-ll-be-the-unity-of (yes, I couldn’t resist to tell all the rationalists where it’s at again lol)