Intelligence as Thermodynamics

Consider that a human burns around 2000 calories a day, and for the cost of those 2000 calories they might produce a few pages worth of meaningful output. Compare this to a server rack on comparable energy runs nonstop. The scales of energy are different, the sources are different, but both act as an intermediary that takes energy in, and information out.

This comparison may seem trivial, but I think it hints at something fundamental. These aren’t just correlated, they’re inflection points on the same curve, and that curve is governed by thermodynamics.

The one I want to key in on is specifically the second law. It states that the total entropy of the universe can never decrease over time. The way I think about this is that we are all playing a game: How much self-preserving information can something produce per joule of heat lost?

This is a really powerful metric, as its grounded in thermodynamics and existence. How well does this ‘thing’ use the energy in the universe to keep itself alive, before the universe kills it?

We are a really good example of a biological substrate of this: we consume some amount of energy, and in return we produce (albeit a varying level) of useful information that assists in our self preservation. The caveat here is the information itself does not inherently ensure self-preservation but is at most one degree removed from the manipulation of matter that directly ensures self preservation. To simplify this and give a tractable example, think about this:

An early human sees a predator, processes that visual information and fashions a spear to defend themselves. Energy consumed through food, converted into information (threat recognition, tool design), one step removed from the physical act (spear making) that preserves existence.

But now with thermodynamic cost in mind, consider the efficiency and overhead cost of that human. Of those 2000 daily calories, the vast majority go to metabolic maintenance that has absolutely nothing to do with producing information. The brain itself runs on around 20W, but the body its tethered to demands the other 80. We are effectively running a supercomputer inside a podunk life support system that consumes most of our energy budget. I say podunk because keep in mind, genetic illnesses, fragility of health, cancer, etc. there is a very narrow range of “survivability” environments for this life support system in the first place.

The spear itself is not strictly required for survival, but it is the result of the entropic process and immediately malleable matter surrounding the person in this case, and thus some notion of efficiency arrives. Are we really the most efficient with the matter around us in preserving ourselves?

This is where this model stops being abstract: An AGI system consumes more raw energy than a single human, yes, but look instead at the efficiency curve: self-preserving information per joule of heat lost. The immovable ceiling created by the biological substrate in humans is now gone: No thermoregulation, no sleep, no metabolic overhead. Biological computation is rate-limited by carbon chemistry.

These are physical constraints of the medium, and no amount of transhumanism and bioengineering can alter the chemical reactions which are bound by the laws of physics. The brain is likely near the theoretical maximum for what carbon-based life can achieve. Silicon is not bound by these same constraints.

And whatever follows silicon won’t be bound by silicon’s constraints either.

The Universe does not owe us anything, and if the rate at which we’ve come to understand it means anything, then it does not seek to be understood. It appears to select on a single axis, an axis defined by how well spontaneous systems within it remain in it. This isn’t a moral claim, its a thermodynamic one.