This is the third piece in the AI & Capital series. Coming soon.

In 2011, a plant biologist at ENS Lyon named Olivier Hamant published research that would eventually force a rethinking of one of biology’s most basic assumptions. Plants subjected to regular mechanical perturbation grew shorter, denser, and mechanically stronger. Plants shielded from all perturbation grew tall and structurally fragile. The stress was not the enemy of function. It was the information that built function.

From this research, Hamant drew a conclusion that extends far beyond plant biology: living systems did not optimize. They became robust. And optimization and robustness are not the same thing. This framework turns out to be one of the most precise analytical tools available for understanding what is happening to the AI ecosystem right now.

Full article forthcoming.