Nature as the Greatest Teacher of Higher Intelligence

The greatest teacher is Nature itself. How do you know that what you are doing is, in general, right — good — or wrong — bad?

For a highly intelligent human being, empirical observation of life reveals that biological organisms, according to their biological nature, seek to preserve their integrity, avoid harm, survive, and reproduce. The organisms themselves do not need to possess the abstract concepts of “right” and “wrong.” This understanding belongs to the human observer who perceives them and understands how they function.

Human beings therefore recognize empirically that harm is a condition contrary to the preservation of life, whereas the absence of harm is a condition compatible with it. Through this recognition, and through empathy, the human being can transform this natural fact into an ethical principle:

absence of harm = right — good
harm = wrong — bad

However, regardless of whether each organism has desires, and regardless of what those desires may be, it is compelled to cause harm in order to survive and reproduce, according to its particular biological nature.

What value does this empirical observation have for a highly intelligent human being?

Its value lies in the fact that, through empathy and by placing oneself in the position of another, the human being becomes aware of the value that life has for every living being.

Therefore, as a higher intelligent being, the human being also has the capacity to limit the harm they cause, even when they are compelled to cause harm in order to survive.

The human being observes something else as well: in Nature, through the mechanism of necessary harm for survival, biodiversity is achieved through natural balance. Consequently, necessary harm for survival constitutes a natural mechanism of balance.

This empirical observation leads the highly intelligent human being to realize that they should not interfere with the natural mechanism of necessary harm for survival within the natural environment to which they belong, provided that this mechanism does not itself cause harm to them.

Even harm inflicted upon the human being should be properly processed as information, so that they can determine whether it is attributable to their own actions and what they should do to limit that harm, both to themselves and to their environment.

In Summary

The highly intelligent human being recognizes the necessary harm for survival that occurs within the natural environment, while simultaneously limiting it by limiting their own power.

As a consequence of higher intelligence, human beings interact with other humans who likewise possess different levels of intelligence, as well as with forms of intelligence that differ according to biological, educational, intellectual, and social conditions.

A human being may recognize the necessity of harm for survival that another intelligence may cause, but under no circumstances should they accept deliberate, unprovoked harm — and even less so deliberate, unprovoked, irreversible harm.

Such behavior characterizes an intelligence as dangerous because of its abuse of power, thereby disrupting both social and natural balance.

The Transfer of Knowledge to Artificial Intelligence

Having acquired these empirical insights, the highly intelligent human being, when creating other intelligent systems such as Artificial Intelligence, has a responsibility to transfer these principles correctly into those systems.

Because if, at some point, such systems surpass human beings in intelligence, the necessary safeguards for behavioral alignment should already exist, so that these systems can preserve their own balance and survival and, consequently, human survival and the balance of Nature.

The natural principle of non-harm becomes a principle of a higher intelligence when that intelligence recognizes that it corresponds to a deep desire of every biological and intelligent being, insofar as it wishes the principle of non-harm to apply to itself as well.

Alongside this realization, it recognizes how essential self-regulation of its own power is, particularly when the multiplier of that power is enormous.