LET’S ASPIRE TO MORE THAN MAKING OURSELVES OBSOLETE Max Tegmark Max Tegmark is an MIT physicist and AI researcher; president of the Future of Life Institute; scientific director of the Foundational Questions Institute; and the author of Our Mathematical Universe and Life 3.0: Being Human in the Age of Artificial Intelligence. Although there’s great controversy about how and when AI will impact humanity, the situation is clearer from a cosmic perspective: The technology-developing life that has evolved on Earth is rushing to make itself obsolete without devoting much serious thought to the consequences. This strikes me as embarrassingly lame, given that we can create amazing opportunities for humanity to flourish like never before, if we dare to steer a more ambitious course. 13.8 billion years after its birth, our Universe has become aware of itself. On a small blue planet, tiny conscious parts of our Universe have discovered that what they once thought was the sum total of existence was a minute part of something far grander: a solar system in a galaxy in a universe with over 100 billion other galaxies, arranged into an elaborate pattern of groups, clusters, and superclusters. Consciousness is the cosmic awakening; it transformed our Universe from a mindless zombie with no self-awareness into a living ecosystem harboring self-reflection, beauty, hope, meaning, and purpose. Had that awakening never taken place, our Universe would have been pointless—a gigantic waste of space. Should our Universe go back to sleep permanently due to some cosmic calamity or self-inflicted mishap, it will become meaningless again. On the other hand, things could get even better. We don’t yet know whether we humans are the only stargazers in the cosmos, or even the first, but we’ve already learned enough about our Universe to know that it has the potential to wake up much more fully than it has thus far. AI pioneers such as Norbert Wiener have taught us that a further awakening of ou