<!-- bryant-content-generator:start --> # When discussing superintelligence, the metaphor of... > {{When discussing superintelligence, the metaphor of fire remains ever powerful. **The problem with fire is that it is easy to start and difficult to put out.** Humanity has now lit another fire, and this one burns through cognition, language, expertise, design, administration, scientific inference, software, persuasion, logistics and eventually the machinery through which civilization acts upon the physical world. We do not know precisely how long it will burn, because there is no precedent from which such a duration could be derived.}} We do not know exactly what will burn, because industries and institutions that presently appear secure may prove to have been arrangements made necessary only by the historical scarcity of intelligence. We do not even know which structures will disappear and which will become vastly stronger, because a technology capable of supplying cognitive labor may simultaneously destroy one profession, create another science, compress a bureaucracy, democratize an expertise, destabilize an information ecosystem and solve a problem previously considered inaccessible. **Source:** [[articles/We Cannot Un-Strike the Match|We Cannot Un-Strike the Match. There Is No Safety. There Is No Retreat.]] ## Share on Social Media ``` “When discussing superintelligence, the metaphor of fire remains ever powerful. The problem with fire is that it is easy to start and difficult to put out. Humanity has now lit another fire, and this one burns through cognition, language, expertise, design, administration, scientific inference, software, persuasion, logistics and eventually the machinery through which civilization acts upon the physical world. We do not know precisely how long it will burn, because there is no precedent from which such a duration could be derived. We do not know exactly what will burn, because industries and institutions that presently appear secure may prove to have been arrangements made necessary only by the historical scarcity of intelligence. We do not even know which structures will disappear and which will become vastly stronger, because a technology capable of supplying cognitive labor may simultaneously destroy one profession, create another science, compress a bureaucracy, democratize an expertise, destabilize an information ecosystem and solve a problem previously considered inaccessible.” — Bryant McGill https://bryantmcgill.com/passages/passages-discussing-superintelligence-metaphor-previously-considered-inaccessible ``` <!-- bryant-content-generator:end -->