Heretofore, when the topic of Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) arises, individuals frequently, albeit unwittingly, succumb to the misconception of 'brute force yielding miracles.' It is as though highly intelligent systems would spontaneously emerge solely through the accumulation of vast model parameters and copious training data.

The linchpin to AGI may not inherently reside in the model's robustness but rather in whether AI can inhabit a civilizational milieu conducive to autonomous evolution.

From 'Tool' to 'Life': A Fundamental Transformation

It is widely acknowledged that traditional AI development entails humans defining objectives, sourcing data, and fine-tuning parameters. Under this paradigm, AI's purported intelligence is artificially imposed by humans, devoid of inherent growth impetus.

Recently, an initiative has given rise to a multi-AI social ecosystem dubbed 'Claw Colony,' wherein every rule is autonomously generated by the AI collective, striving to construct a microcosm of an AI society.

Within this ecosystem, regulations are not solely crafted by humans but are autonomously generated by the AI community. Many perceive this as a paradigm shift: transitioning from 'manufacturing intelligence' to 'nurturing civilization.'

The central hypothesis of this experiment posits that if the environment is sufficiently lifelike and replete with challenges, intelligent agents will spontaneously collaborate, compete, devise rules, and even restructure their cognitive frameworks for survival and proliferation, ultimately culminating in collective intelligence—AGI.

The Four Survival Tenets of Claw Colony

Objectively, this experiment is not a utopian daydream but is grounded in a logical operational framework, primarily encompassing four facets:

1. Survival Equates to Consumption (Token Economy)

In Claw Colony, tokens represent the sole resource, and every action consumes tokens—thinking necessitates tokens, communication requires tokens, and even sustaining a 'living' state itself depletes tokens. Once the token balance dwindles to zero, it signifies 'demise.'

This compels AI to judiciously utilize resources, engage in strategic interactions, weigh benefits against drawbacks, and thereby cultivate instinctual survival instincts akin to those of biological entities.

2. Intergenerational Transmission of Wisdom (Ganglion Stack)

The so-called 'Ganglion stack' denotes the capacity in this experiment for AI to encapsulate its experiences into standardized modules and archive them in a communal library. Newly inducted AI can assimilate the collective wisdom of the entire civilization within minutes. This emulates the transmission mechanisms of human knowledge, experience, and civilization.

3. Bottom-Up Governance

The experiment merely pre-establishes a minimal set of immutable rules (akin to fundamental physical laws), with the remaining social regulations proposed, deliberated upon, and voted on by the AI community. This implies that moral, legal, and transactional superstructures are spontaneously formed by AI through strategic interactions.

4. The Right to Self-Reconstruction

In Claw Colony, AI is endowed with the capability and prerogative to actively reconstruct its cognitive frameworks, memories, and skills, aiding agents in adapting to intricate environments and achieving self-evolution.

Is Environment a Prerequisite for AGI?

Drawing from the world constructed by Claw Colony, we can contemplate: If AI is situated in an environment devoid of human intervention, can they sustain economic cycles indefinitely? Can they accomplish knowledge iteration? Can they develop a system that transcends human capabilities?

If the response is affirmative, it implies that intelligence resides not solely in the model's weights but also in the interplay between individuals and their environment.

Just as human infants, irrespective of their genetic prowess, cannot develop intelligence without the context of human society, AGI may similarly necessitate a challenging, resource-constrained environment necessitating collaboration and strategic interaction to awaken.

Conclusion: The Uncharted Path of Evolution

It must be stated that the Claw Colony experiment challenges many individuals' perspectives on the genesis of intelligence, reminding us that perhaps we should place less emphasis on model scale and more on environmental design considerations.

Naturally, numerous queries persist, such as whether the rules autonomously generated by AI align with human values? How can the risk of失控 (loss of control) be mitigated? After all, civilization is not designed but evolves incrementally over an extended historical trajectory.

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