The security of code-based digital records is a major concern of the 21st century. AI and artificial general intelligence (AGI) can be hacked to pieces by digital adversaries, and some AI objectives can lead to existential threats. The former arises from sitting duck problems that all software systems are vulnerable to, and the latter include control and misalignment problems. Blockchain technology, circa 2009, can address these problems: hashing algorithms rely on a consensus mechanism in manmade software systems to keep early blocks of software immutable and tamper-proof from digital malware, while new blocks can be added only if consistently aligned with original blocks. There is evidence that the ancient precedent of the genomic blockchain, underpinning the unbroken chain of life, uses a self-referential rather than a consensus-based hashing algorithm. Knowledge of self-codes permits biotic elements to achieve a hack-free agenda by self-reporting that they have been “negated,” or hacked, exactly implementing the Gödel sentence from foundational mathematics of Gödel, Turing, and Post (G–T–P). This results in an arms race in open-ended novelty to secure the primacy of original self-codes. Selfhood and autonomy are staples of neuroscience on complex self–other social cognition and increasingly of autonomous AGI agents capable of end-to-end programmed self-assembly. My perspective is that self-referential G–T–P information processing, first found in the adaptive immune system of jawed fish 500 mya and more recently in mirror neuron systems of humans, has enabled code-based self-organized intelligent systems like life to survive over 3.7 billion years. Some lessons for AGI can be gleaned from this discussion.
Sheri M. Markose (Mon,) studied this question.