“Mechanisms too simple for humans to design” by Malmesbury

Cross-posted from Telescopic TurnipAs we all know, humans are terrible at building butterflies. We can make a lot of objectively cool things like nuclear reactors and microchips, but we still can't create a proper artificial insect that flies, feeds, and lays eggs that turn into more butterflies. That seems like evidence that butterflies are incredibly complex machines – certainly more complex than a nuclear power facility.Likewise, when you google "most complex object in the universe", the first result is usually not something invented by humans – rather, what people find the most impressive seems to be "the human brain".As we are getting closer to building super-human AIs, people wonder what kind of unspeakable super-human inventions these machines will come up with. And, most of the time, the most terrifying technology people can think of is along the lines of "self-replicating autonomous nano-robots" – in other words [...] ---Outline:(02:04) You are simpler than Microsoft Word™(07:23) Blood for the Information Theory God(12:54) The Barrier(15:26) Implications for Pokémon (SPECULATIVE)(17:44) Seeing like a 1.25 MB genome(21:55) Mechanisms too simple for humans to design(26:42) The future of non-human designThe original text contained 2 footnotes which were omitted from this narration. The original text contained 5 images which were described by AI. --- First published: January 22nd, 2025 Source: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/6hDvwJyrwLtxBLHWG/mechanisms-too-simple-for-humans-to-design --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO. ---Images from the article: