it’s an observation that spans from hurricanes to automobiles to life itself. these structures look organized, like they defy the second law of thermodynamics, but in fact they organize order locally in ways that increase overall disorder faster than if they did not exist. 1/

the conjecture is that this isn’t a thing that coincidentally happens, but that the universe in some sense selects for these things. 2/

traditional human intelligence fits the bill. we burn a lot more stuff, very literally, than say comparable apes. we contribute more and faster to overall entropy! 3/

we are, in that sense, literally burning the universe down faster than it would otherwise burn its way down to heat death. 4/

now suppose AI performs inventing similarly to how we invented matches and internal combustion engines. /fin