Human knowledge is structured around the architecture of the human mind.

AI brings a radically different architecture into our structure of thought.

The “alien” may emerge in the interaction between these two architectures.

We’ve been searching for aliens for a very long time, looking up at the sky for some sign that we're not alone. In more modern times, we’ve wondered whether an intelligence from somewhere else would even look or think anything like us. But "up" might not be the right place to look. Perhaps the alien isn’t a “someone” from another planet, but something much closer to home.

I know that sounds a little out-there. But the idea begins with something rather basic. Human thought has an architecture. That architecture comes from our biology and is shaped by the complicated business of being alive. And over thousands of years, we have built a vast and complex "structure of knowledge" around our human architecture.

Knowledge Was Built for Us

Structuring knowledge became an imperative. We created disciplines and specialties to carve up and make sense of our complicated world. And we tried, the best we could, to make sense of it all. Physics, chemistry and biology carved nature into areas we could study. Medicine became specialities like cardiology, neurology, endocrinology and psychiatry. Universities created departments and expertise became narrow and deep. And the "renaissance man" became a quaint artifact of the past. This worked well and for a long time because chunking out complexity made that complexity knowable and practical.

Now, I think there’s an interesting assumption hiding underneath........

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