Convergent evolution: edge detector neurons
AI independently invented edge detector neurons to recognise visual objects — the same solution evolution built into biological brains.
Snapshot · Modern Wisdom
Why The AI Doomers Might Be Right - Robert Wright - #1122
Explore episode
Jul 11, 2026
Where this was said
AI as Compressed Evolution: How Machines Reverse-Engineer the Human Mind
At 11:00 · chapter starts 6:20
Wright builds his most original argument in this chapter: the training process behind modern AI is not merely a form of machine learning in the conventional sense — it is a form of accelerated evolution. Just as biological natural selection, through trial and error over millions of years, built cognitive machinery into human brains, AI training accomplishes the same feat in compressed form using human-generated data. Nobody told the machines what words mean; they figured it out. Nobody architected the semantic structure; the training process reverse-engineered it. Wright uses this to correct a fundamental error he himself made when he first wrote about Hinton's neural network work in 1983 — he had assumed that meaning would need to be manually programmed in, dictionary entry by dictionary entry. He was wrong. The key revelation: all you need is data, and the machines do the rest. Wright then grounds this in the present tense with the Zuckerberg anecdote — Meta announced 8,000 layoffs and keystroke tracking of remaining workers in the same week, illustrating the exact mechanism: capture what goes in and what comes out, and AI will replicate whatever cognitive process happened in between. The implication for employment is stark and near-term.
AI reverse-engineers millions of years of evolution
AI training processes reverse-engineer cognitive functionality that took millions of years of biological evolution to develop, doing so purely through data.
The Zuckerberg Test: Keystroke Data = Your Job Is Gone
When Meta announced 8,000 layoffs and keystroke tracking in the same week, it revealed the core mechanism of AI job displacement. Capture the inputs an employee receives and the outputs they produce, and the machine will figure out everything in between — and replace them.
Zuckerberg laid off 8,000 workers same week as keystroke tracking
Mark Zuckerberg announced 8,000 layoffs and keystroke tracking of workers in the same week — illustrating how AI input/output data enables automated replication of cognitive labour.
Convergent Evolution: Silicon and Carbon Arrive at the Same Answers
AI systems have independently invented edge detector neurons — the same solution biological evolution arrived at for visual object recognition. This is convergent evolution happening between silicon and carbon, the same phenomenon that gave crabs their form and flight to birds and bats.
Similar snapshots
50 free tools built total
Bhanu and his team built approximately 50 free tools to attract search traffic, each linked back to SiteGPT.
New tool built in under 5 minutes
With AI coding tools like Cursor, Bhanu can now create a new free marketing tool in less than 5 minutes by referencing existing tools.
KD filter < 10 for rankable keywords
Bhanu filters Ahrefs keyword results to show only those with a keyword difficulty below 10, making them realistic ranking targets for any decent website.
Minimum 1,000 monthly search volume
Bhanu sets a minimum search volume of 1,000 monthly searches when selecting keywords to target with free tools.
20 downloads/day at launch
PropGPT averaged 20 downloads per day right after launching on the App Store through influencer marketing.
4 months of rebuilding with no marketing
Eyal and Yali shut down all marketing and spent 4 months completely rebuilding PropGPT from scratch.
Over 40,000 downloads total
PropGPT has accumulated over 40,000 total downloads since launch.
LLM costs only $20/month
PropGPT's large language model (AI) operating costs are just $20 per month, and the cost is continually falling.
Ad monetization for games
Ad-based monetization works well for game apps where users spend extended time in-session, as seen with Grid and Wordle.
