this post was submitted on 16 Aug 2026
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Have you never wondered how some animal would completely take over if it was just a bit smarter? Example: A single fox can kill dozens of chicken. Imagine the chicken working together and attacking it, picking out the eyes etc. instead of literally not defending at all.
Or a herd of cow or whatever herd animal that could easily team up and trample/stomp/crush/... a predator but instead they all just run away and the slowest is dead.
Smarter is expensive! The brain will use more calories and cost more. LLMs are drastically less energy-efficient than natural brains. We're one of the few cases where spending more on compute was worth it.
You're describing eusociality, not intelligence. One might argue that ants have completely taken over, but they aren't necessarily smarter than solitary wasps. LLMs only exist because of a huge economy behind them, and it remains to be seen how widespread they'll be once they're expected to generate a profit.
So it is only a matter of time before compute is cheap/small enough and AI optimized enough before I would be right? Or we just use larger animals like elephants?
I suppose, sure. But I'm not convinced that goal is possible to achieve; the biological organisms have billions of years of head start. Elephants aren't wasting their huge brains either.