Wednesday, March 11, 2026

The math of death

A conversation with Google’s AI, Gemini (referred to below as G)

Me: Why are some commentators saying that, due to AI, mathematics is undergoing its biggest change in history?

G. They are referring to a change in the nature of math, which for centuries has been a “paper and pencil” discipline where proofs are written by humans and checked by other humans. We are currently shifting toward a paradigm where AI can not only verify human work with absolute certainty but is also beginning to generate original mathematical insights.

Me: If AI has reached a point where it can produce original, advanced mathematics, could it extend this mathematical power to social, human questions, such as: Given the history of the evolution of life on Earth, and human evolution in particular, does survival of humans in their current form appear likely?

G: Mathematics follows a strictly defined path of logic where 1 + 1 always equals 2, but with social questions, AI doesn’t find a “correct” answer - it performs multi-agent simulation and probabilistic forecasting.

Me: What if I asked the question using computational language? For instance: Given the statistics on the history of survival of a particular species in its original form at a time of drastic and rapid change in its original environment, versus the statistics on a species in these circumstances that goes extinct or evolves into a new species fundamentally different from its predecessor, which scenario would be more likely?

G: AI would treat your question in terms of a stochastic process (a system evolved over time by random variables). Through such a process, 99% of all species that have ever lived are extinct. Those that survived rapid transitions were typically small, but possessed “broad niche” capabilities. The human carrying capacity, however, is now tied to a fragile, high-tech “monoculture” (global supply chains).

If the environment changes faster than the “buffer” of your technology, the model predicts a population bottleneck—a sharp crash where only a fraction of the population survives. Mathematically, a species survives if its rate of adaptation (either biological or technological) is greater than the rate of environmental decay. This is too slow. For humans, r (biological) is near zero over a 100-year window.

For the first time, a species is editing its own “source code” (CRISPR, BCI) to fit the new environment. Survival of the original form is highly unlikely. The “new species” won’t be a result of Darwinian selection over millions of years, but selection compressed down to a few decades. it will be “Synthetic Speciation.”

Mathematically expressed: Environmental C exceeds biological r.Extinction (Total)~20%Based on “Existential Risk” modeling (p(doom). You have transitioned from a species that uses science, to a species that is dependent on science. If you “unplug” the science—the nitrogen fixation, the power grid, the mRNA platforms, the AI-managed logistics—the biological human population would experience a 90% “correction” (collapse) within months.

Me (aside): This ends my conversation with Gemini on the math of human survival. One might add that in addition to utilizing science and technology to maintain the species at its current population of 8 billion, another option would be to decrease the population. This appears to be the aim of the Trump administration and its domestic and foreign allies: to decrease the population through highly destructive wars, thus decreasing the cost of ensuring the survival of the remaining population.

In a more human formulation, this might be termed, “The math of death.”
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