The world has become too complex. The economies of several European countries are on the verge of collapse. The best minds of mankind are daily looking for ways out of the rapidly unfolding financial crisis, but in fact, no one can even confidently predict the hypothetical effect of the default of modest-sized Greece
The connections between the individual elements of the system have become so intricate, and their number is so great that an event small at first glance in scale can have unpredictable global consequences in various areas of our life. Albert Einstein wisely joked that the problems in the world cannot be solved by the intellect that created them. If we cannot independently comprehend the difficulties around us, perhaps it is worth asking someone else about it? How about a giant supercomputer?
The main hit of the Reddit site last week was the text of the user Lycerius, who partially devoted the last ten years of his life to the video game Civilization II - the cult simulator of the history of the Earth, where the player takes on the role of the leader of one of the ancient civilizations and leads it through time into the future.
In the virtual world of Lycerius, the fourth millennium of our era is now ending. There are only three superpowers left on the planet - the Celts, the Vikings and the Americans - engaged in an endless exhausting war with each other. Nuclear weapons have turned the Earth into hell - radiation and global warming have made most of the territories unsuitable for life and farming. The world's population has declined by 90% over the past 2000 years, and large metropolises have sunk into oblivion. The publication caused an incredible excitement: hundreds of people began to experiment with possible ways out of the nightmare situation.
The apocalyptic tones of the described world are very simple to explain. For all its thoughtfulness, Civilization II is still an extremely primitive model of real reality, only the ersatz laws that govern our planet. But what if you try to create a simulator that will take into account thousands of different factors and analyze hundreds of different systems in all the variety of their connections.
A simulator of our whole life. Such a program, running on a super-powerful computer, could become a magic crystal ball for all mankind, looking into which one could receive detailed forecasts of the near future and the possible consequences of specific actions. “Computer, let's test the scenario of Greece's exit from the eurozone,” Angela Merkel could say and find out that with a high degree of probability this will lead to a further aggravation of the crisis, a decline in the birth rate, a cholera epidemic in China and, for example, a rapid growth of revolutionary sentiments in Russia …
These are not empty fantasies. The European Union, within the framework of the FuturICT initiative, is ready to invest almost $ 1.5 billion in the creation of such a global simulator. One of the favorites is the company of Dirk Helbing, professor of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology. His main project is the creation of a full-scale world simulator called Living Earth Simulator.
With the advent of personal computers and the Internet, the amount of information about the world around us and its inhabitants is growing exponentially. Smartphones and social networks record the actions and thoughts of millions of people in real time. Add to this economic and other statistical data, describe the algorithms for the functioning of social and political systems, and a working model of the reality around us looms on the horizon. A world in a world on which, if you want, you can safely test the craziest ideas.
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Despite the fact that Helbing's initiative enjoys fairly wide support in the scientific community, a number of scientists are skeptical about it. First, even despite the development of evolutionary and cognitive psychology, behavioral economics, neuroscience and other disciplines, it is not that there is currently a universal theory that elegantly and completely explains human behavior. Is it possible, in this case, to program a model of the world that will reliably predict its future? Second, as you know, history is ruled by "black swans" - extremely rare, almost impossible to predict events that completely change the vector of human development. Was it possible to predict the emergence of the Internet and its revolutionary effect? How to predict the arrival of a UFO?
There is also a philosophical aspect. Is the most rational decision from the point of view of a machine the most rational for a person? The most popular way for Reddit users to win the thousand-year war of the Celts with the Vikings and Americans was to change the political regime to fundamentalism and turn their population into religious fanatics.
This was the most effective option inherent in the limitations of the Civilization II program. In the same way, the Landru computer from the Star Trek universe, solely for the benefit of the population of the planet entrusted to it, turned all people into emotionless slaves. A computer capable of simulating reality and predicting the future can be incredibly useful, but you need to be careful. Otherwise, the scale of the problems we have created will again be beyond the control of our mental abilities for a long time.