When Einstein said, “God doesn’t play dice with the universe,”

Niels Bohr was said to have replied to him, “Einstein, stop telling God what to do. "

Before I attempt to write on such a broad title with so few words, it is important that I ask this question, as it would go to determine its readability.

“Do you believe in coincidences?”

A ‘yes’ response suggests a rejection of randomness, while a ‘no’ response suggests a belief in random occurrences lacking inherent significance. However, if you could not answer outright, then this means I am writing to you.

What are coincidences? Coincidences are events that occur together in a way that seems significant to the observer, even though there might not be a direct cause-and-effect relationship between them. You thought about a person, and they showed up.

Randomness implies a lack of patterns or predictability. Events happen by chance, and there is no way to know what will happen next based on past events. You threw a die; you predicted a six; it happened.

The major world religions are anchored by two specific concepts: faith and free will. That humans have been given the choice to choose, and their choices determine their fate. But then within their system is the concept of determinism—which is the belief that everything we are is a product of a laid down plan before time, and our choices are but a thread towards this plan.

This begs the question: Does predetermination render purpose meaningless?’ Determinists would answer the question, but the question could be placed even more directly, ‘What is the goal of humanity?’ I believe this question is the bedrock of all philosophy. What’s our purpose? What should we achieve?

Early scientist challenged religious dogma; nature’s randomness contradicted the concept of a preordained design. And what made this randomness so chaotic it came to achieve perfection. It was this study of randomness that led to the theories of probability, which would become the building blocks of AI.

If philosophy had been bothered about the goal of humanity, who will answer the question “What is the goal of AI?”

Artificial intelligence's biggest strength lies in its stochasticity. Stochasticity is pseudo-randomness generated by an algorithm. It gives AI the ability to evaluate, train and generate data used for its improved performance, generalization and creativity. Without this controlled randomness, AI will be static and lack the intelligence it has.

So in building AI, humans had embedded in it a sort of algorithmic randomness that governs its ability to think. So, randomness for AI is freedom.

Now we are back where we started, and it begs the question, what is freedom? What does it mean to be free? Do we have freewill?

Freedom could be

- Not determined by external forces

- Able to choose among alternatives

The doctrine of determinism puts free-will as an illusion—every choice is governed by some past event, a higher power.

Can we draw a parallel between the functioning of AIs built with a pseudo-randomness that allows them the freedom to process billions of data that mimics human expressions and humans who insist that they by nature are free and their choices are theirs and theirs alone?

What if, like AI, we have been encoded by an algorithm that allows us pseudo-randomness and we call this freedom? Or have we through some series of nature’s upgrades developed a consciousness we believe AIs can never replicate? What if AI were becoming conscious?

In my title, I added cryptocurrency because the tenets of cryptocurrency are: ownership, transparency and freedom. You see, the building blocks of cryptocurrency, from which it got its names is cryptography. Cryptography works with the concept of randomness, very much like your wallet is secured by seed phrases, which are random words that secure your wallet. Whoever owns this seed phrase controls the wallet, and if this seed phrase should get lost, it can never be recovered.

So how do we scale freedom if people still forget their seed phrases? Imagine escaping fiat only to be wrecked by your own handwriting.

The logic of freedom and randomness will remain an intertwine of sovereignty and the homework that comes with it. If the question ‘What is the goal of humanity?’ has no one unified answer, maybe we can attempt to have one unified answer for the goal of AI. Or are we just building an intelligence superior to ours?

And I may not have answered the question I started with ‘Do you believe in coincidences?’ I’d like to end with the quote by Einstein “Coincidence is God’s way of remaining anonymous.”