Open Questions | ‘Rational optimist’: sci-fi writer Liu Cixin on why he’ll be happy if AI surpasses humans
Acclaimed author of the Three-Body trilogy also discusses his ‘dark forest’ theory, and the struggle to come up with original ideas
Born in 1963 and raised in Shanxi, Liu started his working life as a computer engineer at a power plant in the central province. Inspired by British sci-fi author Arthur C. Clarke, Liu began writing in the late 1980s, eventually giving up his day job in the late 2000s to write full time.
The dark forest is one of those possibilities. If there truly exists a galactic civilisation made up of different intelligent species, there could be all kinds of outcomes, with some good, some neutral, some bad. The dark forest is simply the darkest one I could imagine.
But there are other possibilities too. Some scholars believe that as a civilisation’s technology advances, its moral standards also rise and such civilisations would respect all forms of life – even help others grow and evolve. That is also a possibility, though we have no proof.