on the scale of cosmic history, the declining price of intelligence might be one of the most profound things happening
both ends of the universe’s timeline are empty of knowledge:
- the big bang: low entropy, no complex structure
- heat death: maximum entropy, no usable energy gradients
everything we build happens on the slope between them
but the universe is generally a poor converter of its free energy into anything constructive. most of its free energy just radiates away as heat or collapses into black holes
life, brains and now AI models are structures that sit in the entropy flow and divert a portion of it through constructive paths, building and maintaining low-entropy structures (machines, cells, crystals, memories)
increasingly cheaper intelligence diverts increasingly more of that gradient flow through knowledge-building structures, complex, self-maintaining, predictive structures, filling the window in which understanding exists